“How? Without me?” she asked.
“Miles messaged,” Jared said. “He said this guy is a ghost. He doesn’t know who he is.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out. “Will you think about letting me be bait? You could all be there. You’d keep me safe. Zander and his guys would.”
“No,” Jared told her. “It is absolutely not happening. And I do not want to hear another word about it.”
“We may needto use Angie as bait,” Zander said as they spoke with him via video call.
A third body had been found. And the police had identified the other two bodies as two of the missing women.
She felt extremely guilty. So Zander’s words were a welcome relief.
“Yes! See, Zander agrees that I need to be bait,” she said.
Both Jared and North were scowling.
“Not happening,” North said.
“We are not putting Angie at risk,” Jared added.
“Of course not!” Zander said. “Who said we were going to?”
“Um, you kind of did,” Keira pointed out.
“What? No. I didn’t mean that. Angie has no experience with this sort of thing. We’re going to have to use someone as bait who looks a bit like Angie. To trick him.”
“I get to go undercover!” Honey said, pumping her fist into the air. “Yes! I am going to kick ass. Literally!”
She noticed that Webb was frowning and glaring at Honey. He didn’t seem pleased.
Neither was she.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said hastily. “Honey could get hurt. And she doesn’t really look like me.”
“She will if we do a bit of work on her,” Zander said. “And we’ll make sure that he can only see small glimpses of her. She’ll arrive at the house in the dark and wear a large hat and sunglasses when she goes out. If we have someone visit her and call her Angie it might make it more believable.”
“Wait, you’re going to have me move back to the house in Stugley?” she asked. “Well, fake-me?”
“Yeah,” Zander said. “We can control the narrative more here. But it does mean you need to stage leaving Chicago in case he’s there watching you. That part is risky.”
“I don’t like it,” North said.
“Maybe you can hire an actress to leave the house. And you can escort her to a plane?” Zander offered.
“That’s a better idea,” Jared said slowly. “Then North can fly there and help you.”
“I want to go too,” she said. “Instead of using a decoy, you can fly me there. You’ll all be with me. I’ll be safe. I want to be close by. And I want to see Keira.”
Jared and North shared a look.
“I could pretend to be escorting her home. Make it look like we’re throwing her out. But we’ll need to have guards hidden everywhere. And you’d have to fly out separately,” North told Jared.
“I don’t know,” Jared said with a scowl.
“Somewhere we’d need to swap out Angie with Honey. Are they a similar height?” North asked.
“Honey is shorter,” Zander said. “But we’ve figured that out and we’ve managed to find a wig for her. We’ll have to do identical hair styles. And clothes. But I think this is our best bet.”
