He swallows hard. “Yeah. Look—I didn’t think—she lookedharmless.”
The waitress beside him has gone pale. Linkin moves closer, his easy grin gone; his voice is low and dangerous. “So she ordered it, touched it, then handed it back and sent it to Celeste? You didn’t think for one second she might’ve slipped something in the drink when you turned away?”
“Yeah,” the bartender says, jaw tightening. “Sorry, man. If I’d known—”
I turn away before he can finish. Excuses are noise I don’t have time for. Every second he talks is another second she’s missing.
Her friends follow as I push through the crowd and out to the SUV. We pile in. I fumble my phone, hit Orion on speaker, and the line clicks after one ring.
“Hey, Fucker.” Orion’s voice is smug through the phone. “Did she love it?”
I close my eyes for a beat. “She did, but—listen,” I clear my throat. “She’s gone.”
The cheer drains out of him in an instant. “What the fuck do you mean, gone?”
“She went to the bathroom, and after ten minutes, I sent Shiloh after her. She’s not there. There is a service exit by the restrooms with a brick next to it, someone might’ve used to propit open. A woman bought Celeste a drink earlier, and paid cash, and the bartender gave it to the woman who ordered it and walked away. He didn’t remake it after she called him back and told him the drink wasn’t for her. He said it was because the woman looked ‘harmless,’” I say, and my hands tighten on the wheel until it aches. “I think the woman drugged Celeste. She had to’ve taken her.”
“She’s got the pendant—” Orion starts.
“She hasn’t triggered it; if she’s drugged, she might be unconscious.” I cut in.
A pause on the line. “Can you override it?” he asks finally.
“I don’t know how; we can’t even track her phone. She left it with me since her skirt doesn’t have pockets.” The word tastes like metal.
From the back seat, Linkin leans forward. “Uh… what kind of pendant are we talking about?”
“It looks like a circular disc,” I say, knuckles whitening on the wheel. “It’s got a built-in panic device, if you press it twice, and it alerts Rowan, Orion, and me. That’s how we know she’s in trouble.”
Linkin whistles under his breath. “Cute. Since we have her phone, I can force its location.”
I glance at him in the mirror. “Force it how?”
“If I can get to a computer with a stable connection, give me ten minutes.” His grin is thin, all calculation. “If the chip’s simple, I can piggyback from her phone and hit the firmware to make it talk whether it wants to or not.”
Orion exhales. “Hold on.”
The line goes dead.
Shiloh’s head snaps toward my phone like she wants to wrench it from my hands. “Did he just hang up? His sister is missing and he just—”
“Shiloh.” My voice comes out low and warning. “Breathe, he’s not bailing. If Orion cuts the line like that, it means he’s had an idea and needs to get moving parts in place. We don’t have time for niceties.”
She blinks, her shoulders trembling with fury and fear. “He could at least tell us—”
“He’s probably calling someone local,” I say, forcing my breath even when every muscle wants to punch something. “It could even be the friend who tipped him off about this bar. He’s ex-SWAT and retired out here. Orion’s network is wide; he has plenty of strings he can pull.”
Linkin’s hand lands on Shiloh’s shoulder. She glares at him, but doesn’t shrug him off.
The phone rings through the SUV speakers, and I hit accept before it finishes ringing. “Speak.”
“Your contact’s name is Sam Torres,” he says instead of greeting. “He’s retired SWAT, but runs private security these days. You’re headed to County Road 13. Dropping a pin to your phone now.”
The address appears on my screen a second later. I hit it, and the GPS lights up, saying it will take us thirty minutes to get to him.
“We’re on our way,” I tell him, shifting the SUV into gear.
“Torres can get you access to local cams, dispatch chatter, everything. You’ll have boots on the ground faster than official channels will allow.”
