CHAPTER 18
RAMPAGE
Dozer called back in thirty-six hours, not forty-eight.
Rampage stepped outside to take it, standing on the back porch in the cold morning air while the compound ran its breakfast routine behind him.
"Kansas City was a dead end," Dozer said, which was not what Rampage wanted to hear. "By the time the field office moved on the location, Delling was gone. Twelve hours ahead of them."
"He was tipped off."
"That's the working theory." Dozer paused. "The network has insulation at the federal level. Not deep, but enough to get a phone call to the right person at the right time."
Rampage looked at the tree line.
"Where is he now?"
"That's the thing." Dozer's voice shifted to the particular register of someone delivering information they found professionally interesting. "We picked up the trail ourselves. He's not heading further east. He turned around."
"He's coming back."
"Not to Colorado. To Kansas. We have an address to a property outside Wichita that connects to the network. Ghostis already moving on it." He sighed.. "And Rampage, Emily's statement, the detail about the hooks and the scuff marks. The property search it corroborated turned up evidence connected to all four victims. Her observation is the thread that ties the whole thing together. The hooks had DNA on them. We were able to confirm identities. We think he was using them as anchor points. "
Rampage stood with that for a moment.
"She's going to want to know that," he said.
"Tell her. She earned it." He paused before switching gear. "Hunter is back. He and Ruby are coordinating with Diaz on the federal end. This is moving now. Forty-eight hours, likely less."
"And Delling specifically?"
"Ghost will have him." The certainty in Dozer's voice was the specific kind that came from having seen Ghost work. "He won't see it coming."
Rampage hung up and stood in the cold for a moment longer.
Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.
He thought about what came after that. Emily's apartment, three hours away, her real life waiting with its yoga classes, invoices and its book club and its normalcy. He thought about the compound without her in it, the kitchen table at night with just his laptop and his cold coffee and none of the particular quality of attention she brought to a room.
He went inside.
She was at the kitchen island with Makenzie, both of them leaning over Makenzie's phone, some kind of heated debate about a book cover. She looked up when he came in. Read his face the way she'd been getting increasingly good at reading it over the last two weeks.
"News?" she said.
"After breakfast."
She held his gaze for a moment. Nodded.
"Cover looks cheap," she told Makenzie, like she hadn't just clocked the weight of what was coming and filed it away to deal with later.
"The cover isfine," Makenzie said.
"The font is doing too much."
"The font is doing exactly the right amount."
"Ladies." Irish appeared with Clover and a bowl of eggs. "Perhaps the cover debate can?—"
