“Just over an hour.”
“Viktor, take us back to the house. We need a base of operations.” I glance at the team. “Are you all able to get back?” At their nods, which makes Fedor wince, I say, “Do it then. Oneof you call Dr. Zarlova to meet us at the estate so she can look you over. Especially Fedor.” She’s the doctor I keep on retainer, who doesn’t ask questions or file official reports.
The drive back is reckless and silent. Viktor drives at a speed that would terrify me under normal circumstances, but I barely register the road because I’m considering variables, including Karpov’s operational territory, Eric’s knowledge of Aurora’s psychology, and the letter that used her mother as a trigger because Eric knew exactly which button would override her judgment. He studied her for two years, and he weaponized every vulnerability he noted during that time.
I did this. I left her this morning with a kiss on the forehead and a security detail that she overruled because I need to let her to make her own decisions. I wanted her to have agency and feel like she controlled her own schedule, and the first major decision she made without me got her taken.
I catch the thought and redirect. Blaming myself or even Aurora doesn’t get to the heart of how this happened. Eric and Karpov did this. Aurora walked into a trap designed by Eric, who spent years mapping her pressure points, and she did it with five armed men at her back because she is stubborn and protective of the people she loves. Those are the qualities I fell in love with. I don’t get to resent them because they worked against me this one time.
I’ll find her before Eric finishes whatever he started, and when I do, Eric Hayes will learn what I do to people who take from me.
At the house, I clear the study desk with one sweep of my arm, sending restructuring documents and coffee cups to the floor. Viktor sets up the encrypted laptop and two secure phones. Grigor patches in remotely through a speaker I mount on thebookshelf. Within ten minutes, the room holds more operational hardware than my legitimate office ever has.
I order every available man into motion, lock down all ports and private roads connected to Karpov’s known operations, and have Viktor compile everything we have on Eric Hayes. “Grigor, I need traffic cameras along every route from the marina heading north, west, and south. The van is dark, unmarked, and cargo-sized. Pull everything from the last ninety minutes.”
“Already running.” Grigor’s keyboard clicks come through the speaker. “I have three possible matches on the A1A corridor heading south, and one on US-1 heading north.”
“Narrow it.”
“I’m running them now.”
Viktor pulls up Eric’s file on the dining table, now covered with tablets, phones, and printed maps. “Hayes’s phone pinged near the marina seventeen minutes before Aurora arrived. He was there, or his phone was.”
“He baited her and positioned his team before she showed up.” I lean over the map. “This was planned. Eric knew his suspension was coming, made his deal with Karpov, and used Denise as the trigger. The letter was the lure. The café meeting was never real.”
“The surveillance man from the college and the restaurant had to have been advance reconnaissance,” says Viktor. “He was mapping Aurora’s response patterns, security detail positioning, and reaction time.”
I nod tersely, agreeing with his assessment. “Grigor, I need everything on Eric’s address. I want the apartment number, building layout, and access points.”
“Give me five minutes.” It only takes three before he says, “Sending now.”
“Get the helicopter ready. Viktor, you’re flying.”
We land on the roof of Eric’s building twenty-two minutes later. The apartment is on the sixth floor, and we enter through the fire escape without resistance. The door is partially open, and I know what I’ll find before I step inside.
The apartment is cleared out. The closets are emptied, drawers open and vacant, and the bathroom is stripped of personal items. The refrigerator is empty and unplugged. I walk through each room and look for anything he left behind or any indication of where he’s operating from now.
The bedroom closet still has wire hangers on the rod, and the shower mat is still damp from a final shower. He packed methodically, left nothing useful, and walked out of his life as a police officer with ruthless precision, just as he used to walk into Aurora’s.
A coffee mug sits in the kitchen sink, and an opened utility bill lies on the counter. I tear it open, because breaking federal postal laws is the least of the crimes I’ll commit today. The bill is seventeen days old, so he stopped caring about this address before the suspension was even announced, which means he was already committed to this plan while he was still wearing the badge.
He prepared and disappeared methodically. He expected the suspension and engineered the timeline so that his departure coincided with Aurora’s vulnerability, coordinated with Karpov’s resources, and walked away from his career on his own terms, with his next position already arranged.
I stand in his empty apartment and let the rage settle into something colder and more useful. Rage makes mistakes, but cold distance makes calculations. I need calculations right now, so I have to shut down the emotional side as much as I can. It’s never been a problem before, but I’ve never faced anything like losing the woman I love, and the mother of my unborn children, before.
“Viktor. Back to base.”
The flight back takes nine minutes. At the house, Grigor has narrowed the van matches to one. “It’s a cargo van, dark blue, registered to a shell company called Meridian Coastal Logistics. The company owns a fleet of moving vans operating out of the port district.”
“Who owns Meridian Coastal?”
Grigor shares his screen with the monitor in front of me, allowing me to see the documents. “Two layers of beneficial ownership trace back to an entity called Blackshore Holdings, which is a known Karpov shell. It’s the same company that registered the sedan from the restaurant surveillance.”
The connection locks into place. The sedan, the surveillance operative, the cargo van, and the shell company form a single operational line that runs straight to Karpov’s infrastructure.
“Meridian Coastal.” The name is unfamiliar to me. “What properties do they hold?”
Grigor works for three minutes while I stand over the map and mark every Karpov-connected location within a hundred-mile radius. Viktor joins me, and we eliminate sites that are too public, too far, or too difficult to secure for holding a prisoner.
