"I know," Rampage said. "She does."
He hung up and sat in the dark for a moment.
Four families. One that wouldn't get its person back. The particular weight of that sat on him the way these things always sat, the way they sat in combat, and when he worked favors for Rider and the team. It wasn’t crushing or consuming, but still a present heaviness. The kind of weight that didn't go away but that you learned to carry without letting it change you.
He got up and went next door.
He didn't knock this time, just opened the door quietly. She was asleep, on her side, the blanket from her apartment pulled up to her chin and her stuffed animal tucked under her arm. She'd been sleeping better the last few nights.
He stood in the doorway and watched her. She’s damn adorable. He thought. And his. His adorable little girl. She looked peaceful and innocent. He was tempted to crawl into bed with her, cuddle her against his back and try to sleep, too.
He thought about waking her. Thought about telling her tonight, right now, because she'd asked him to tell her when he knew.
She was asleep. She was safe. She washere.
It would keep until morning.
He was almost back to his room when he heard her.
"Daddy?”
He turned. She was in the doorway, she'd heard him, some part of her still running alert even in sleep. Hair loose, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, eyes half-open and soft with sleep.
"Everything okay?" she said.
He looked at her for a moment. Standing there at two in the morning wrapped in her blanket and all he wanted to do was pick her up and take her back to bed.
"It's done," he said.
She went still. Woke up fully in the space of a second. "He's caught?"
"Yes. Ghost and Dozer's team. Tonight."
She stood there processing it. He watched the information move through her. Relief, then the complicated layering of everything that came after relief when the thing you'd been braced against was suddenly not there anymore.
"The other women?" she asked.
"Three families are getting calls tonight. They’ll be getting their loved ones home." He paused. Let her hear what he didn't say.
Her face changed. "The fourth."
"Yes."
She pressed her lips together. Nodded once, slow.
"Come here," he said.
She crossed the space between them and walked straight into him. One arm went around her back and one hand at the back of her head, and he pulled her, the blanket and all, against his chest.
She didn't cry. She pressed her face against his chest and breathed and he held her.
"I'm glad she was found," Emily said, muffled against him. "Even — I'm glad she was found. Her family needed that closure."
"I agree. It’s better knowing."
"And the other three families?—"
"Yes, because of your evidence," he said quietly, "it’s in the official record. Diaz made sure. What you saw in that garage connected everything."
