He found the contact he needed on his phone, thumb hovering for a fraction of a second before he hit Call.
Focus. Precision over panic. Detachment over everything else. It was difficult, but Tess’s life was on the line.
After two rings, the call connected.
“SBI dispatch. How can I help you?” The voice was familiar.
“Susan? This is Special Agent Brian Malone,” he said, moving toward the window, his eyes scanning the darkening yard out of habit more than need. He rattled off his badge number to verify his identity. “I need you to run a North Carolina plate. It just came up in an investigation.”
“Sure. What’s the number?”
“Echo. Romeo. November. Five, nine, seven, two.”
A pause, and then the faint sound of keys clicking on the other end.
Behind him, Andy sat frozen at the table, hands clenched tightly in his lap as he stared at the laptop like it might change if he looked hard enough.
“Plate comes back to a stolen white Ford Transit,” the dispatcher said. “Camden PD reported it two days ago.”
Brian closed his eyes briefly. Of course it was stolen. “Any recent hits?”
“Negative.” Another pause. “Do you have eyes on the vehicle now, Agent Malone?”
He wished like hell he did. “No.”
“Do you want a BOLO put out?”
For a split second, he pictured the ripple effect—alerts going out, radios lighting up, and the news traveling faster than it should. He couldn’t risk it.
“No. Not yet. Just let me know immediately if you get any hits on it. Thanks.”
He ended the call and stood there for a moment, grounding himself. Andy looked up at him. Pale. Shaken. But holding it together. The kid had delivered when it mattered.
“Good work,” Brian said. “You did exactly what I needed.”
“At least we know what he took her in.”
He nodded. The stolen plate wasn’t necessarily a dead end—it was a direction. A narrowing of the field. Something solid to work with.
“Yeah.” He was already shifting gears, mapping the next steps he needed to take to rescue Tess. “And now we start closing the distance.”
Chapter Thirty
Twenty-five tense minutes later, someone knocked at the back door. It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t frantic. It was sharp, controlled—the kind of knock that meant someone already knew what they were walking into.
The unlocked door swung open as Rafe didn’t bother waiting for an invite. He stepped inside, took one look at Andy’s face, and swore under his breath. “Ah, hell.”
“Hey, bro. And hey—kid I haven’t met yet,” Sean said as he strode in right behind Rafe, dropping a duffel beside the door and kicking it shut. The two of them must have broken speed records to get there so fast. “I’m Sean. You must be Andy.”
The teenager nodded once but remained silent, watching the newcomers like trust was something he couldn’t afford to give them yet. He already knew Rafe from when he’d been brought in for questioning after being caught up with the gang members a few weeks ago, and that familiarity didn’t seem to help.
Not bothered by the low-key response, Sean crossed to the dining table and set down his laptop bag before quickly shrugging out of his black hoodie, his sidearm secure on his hip, ready as ever. He pulled the laptop out, and within a minute, he was set up, online, and working. The screen glowed as his fingers moved across the keyboard, mirroring the speed and confidence Andy had shown earlier. Brian watched his brother log in to the FBI database, then open a separate blank text document—nothing official, just a place to dump information as it came in.
Sean looked up. “Okay. Let’s go. Sit-rep.”
Brian filled them in, detailed but stripped down to the facts. Diego. Crypto. Coercion. Andy’s earlier IP job. Tess taken as leverage. Stolen van. Everything. Occasionally, he glanced at Andy to make sure he had it right. The teen responded with either a nod or a brief answer, using the bare minimum of words.
As he continued, Brian kept his focus on the intelligence, careful not to linger on Tess’s name. Thinking about her—about what she was facing—was something he couldn’t afford right now.
