A minute later, the five of them were weaving through downtown traffic, leaving Evan, Slade, and Baz somewhere in the distance.
***
It had required some unnecessary ass kissing, but Evan talked Baz into letting him drive. He’d known there wasn’t a chance in hell they’d be able to keep up with the crotch rockets, but he was making every effort not to let them get too far ahead.
“JJ just texted,” Baz informed him from his spot in the passenger seat. “She’s got the coordinates of the last place the burner phone pinged from.”
Slade’s head appeared between the two front seats like a golden retriever seeking attention. “She get a location for Cindy’s phone?”
Evan kept his attention on the road. Dallas traffic wasn’t the easiest to navigate on a good day.
“Yeah.” Baz sighed. “It’s at the restaurant. He probably made her leave it behind.”
“Why does she think this Toby guy is … whatever she said the name was?” Slade questioned.
Evan listened with half an ear as Baz laid out the facts as they knew them. He was having a hard time making the connection, but he’d worked with JJ long enough not to question her judgment. The woman didn’t jump to conclusions, so he figured there was something that connected the dots. Something they weren’t seeing right now.
“How the fuck would Reese’s mom not know she was hookin’ up with a mobster?” Slade mused. “I thought he was from Coyote Ridge.”
“Do you know everyone from there?” Evan asked, glancing in the rearview to make eye contact with Slade.
“Most of ’em, yeah.”
“But not everyone.”
“Probably not, no. I also don’t know anyone who’s pretended to be from there, either.”
Evan didn’t know about all that, wasn’t sure why it even mattered. He doubted anyone had looked too close since it had been part of the details provided to explain how Reese’s mother knew the man with the bounty on his head.
“What do we know about Patrick O’Brien?” Evan asked Baz.
“Not enough.” Baz’s fingers were moving over the keyboard. “And when I say that, I mean there’s not much to find. Like I said earlier, not even a picture.”
“So we don’t know for sure they’re one and the same?”
“No, but if JJ thinks they are, I’m tempted to believe her,” Baz explained.
Again, Evan agreed. JJ had a way about her. She could piece things together that the rest of them overlooked.
“What I don’t understand is why kidnap Cindy?” Baz muttered, his attention glued to the computer. “How’s this gonna help him?”
Another good question. It would have to go in the pile with the rest since they had no real answers. And they wouldn’t until they found the guy and asked him.
***
JJ parked her butt in the conferenceroom after the others left. With Holly’s help, they were trying to nail down a specific location for where Toby might be taking Cindy. She hated that they didn’t have an exact spot.
“Charlie might have somethin’,” Holly noted from her spot across the table.
JJ looked up. “What?”
“She’s been doin’ research on the area. She found some cabins on the outskirts of a state park near Joe Pool Lake?”
JJ wasn’t sure why Holly phrased it as a question because she knew nothing of the area. “Why does she think that’s it?”
“She’s been lookin’ into the phone history for that burner. Evidently, it pinged from there at some point since he got it.”
Figuring it was a better place to start than a twenty-mile radius, she pulled up her text messaging app and shot a note to everyone, giving them the locations Holly read off.
