“How the hell did you lose track of them?” Maddie questioned, her voice shrill in her desperation.
“These men are professionals,” Adam supplied. “They would know how to avoid being traced.”
“I talked to Kozlov,” Maddie told them. “He had Jack’s phone. Could you put a trace on it?”
Finn shook his head on a sigh. “Jack turned off his GPS locator when he left Chicago. He didn’t want us tracking him.”
Maddie’s stomach sank. “Kozlov has Jack, Finn,” she stressed. “And hewillkill him. We’re running out of time.”
Finn took Maddie gently by the shoulders. “I’ve got people here in Detroit working on it too, honey. I’d already told my tech team to trace the signal from Jack’s phone if any calls went out, so they’re going to be trying to triangulate his location as we speak. Without the GPS turned on I can’t find his exact location, but that’ll give us an area that we can work with. We’re going to find him.”
“Alive?” Maddie asked. When Finn’s gaze became guarded, she added, “I know how that kind of tech works. It takes time—and it’s not precise. We could be talking about several square miles.”
“I’m going to do everything I can,” Finn assured her.
She pulled her hands down her face, her fear increasing with every second they stood there talking. She needed someone to pull rank and get everyone’s asses moving quicker. Or she needed someone who wasn’t afraid to break a few rules. “Where’s Will? Does he know?”
Finn nodded. “He’s on his way back from Boston now. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”
“Then I need you to do me a favor, Finn,” she said, sending a meaningful glance toward Adam and Eva.
Adam took the hint and extended a hand to Eva. “Please come with me,” he said gently. “We will take you somewhere safe.”
Eva nodded and glanced toward Maddie before allowing Adam to hand her into the H2.
As soon as they were out of hearing, Maddie said in a rush, “I need Jacob Stone’s phone number.”
Finn gave her a sympathetic look. “Honey, I don’t have it. Do you think if I did we’d still be trying to hunt him down? The only numbers we had for him have been disconnected. He’s most likely using a burner now.”
“I have to talk to Jacob, Finn,” Maddie pressed. Finn was a freaking genius, for crying out loud—he had to be able to give hersomethingto go on. “Please. There has to be some way to reach Jacob. He’ll know how to get in touch with the Russians and get Jack back.”
“And you think you can just call him up and say please and he’ll hand over Kozlov?” Finn asked.
“It’s worth a shot,” Maddie insisted. “That asshole owes me.”
Finn squeezed his eyes shut and riffled his shaggy blond hair in the way she’d seen him do before when he was thinking something through. “Lemme see if I can get a look at Antonovich’s phone records. If he was working with Jacob, as we suspect, he might’ve called him from his cell and—”
Of course!
She pivoted and sprinted to the H2, not hearing whatever else Finn was calling to her. When she pulled open the door she asked in a rush, “Do you have your grandfather’s cell phone?”
Eva sat in the backseat with Adam, her hand held gently in both of his, her eyes closed, lips slightly parted. At the sound of Maddie’s voice, Eva slowly opened her eyes, her gaze catching and holding Adam’s briefly before turning her attention to Maddie.
“Yes,” she stammered, her cheeks flushing. “Yes, I have it.”
What the hell had she interrupted between the two of them?
Maddie lifted a questioning eyebrow at Adam when Eva slipped her hand from his grasp. But he merely dipped his head slightly. “Shiatsu,” he explained tersely to her unasked question. “To assist with Ms. Antonovich’s emotional trauma.”
“Uh-huh.” Maddie turned her attention back to Eva and extended her hand to take the cell phone Eva had pulled from her pocket. She tried to bring up the dead man’s contacts, but the lock screen popped up, blocking entry. “Damn it! Do you know your grandfather’s code?”
Eva nodded. “My birthday.” She rattled off the numbers.
Maddie tapped them in and brought up the contacts, but her momentary elation dissipated in an instant when she saw the names listed there. “Shit. They’re all in Russian.”
“Here, let me.” Eva retrieved the phone from Maddie’s grasp. “Dedushka—Grandfather—always changed the names to something Russian in case his phone was compromised.” Her brows came together in a frown as she scrolled through the numerous contacts. Suddenly she grinned and tapped the screen, turning the phone to Maddie. “Here. This one. Yakov Kamen—Jacob Stone.”
Maddie’s heart began to thunder so hard against her ribs that she could barely hear the phone ringing when she dialed the number. And she had to swallow the bile that rose in her throat when a male voice answered with, “I thought you were dead.”
