“Pretty much,” she said. “But that just means medium-sized, probably a guy, wearing dark clothes.”
“Did they move the same?” I asked.
She closed her eyes, drew in a breath. Slowly, she let it out before she looked at me. “Yeah, yeah, I think… Fuck, I think that was him. We were so close.” She sounded like she regretted not chasing him down when she had the chance.
So did I. And I was trained. “We almost got fucking blown up, Sylvie. That’s a little too close.”
She threw her hands up in clear irritation. “I’m done with almost getting blown up. Twice in two days is more than enough,” she said, a little too loudly. She lowered her hands and grasped them in her lap, the knuckles turning white. “But it was worth it.”
“How so?” I asked, keeping my tone as even as I could. Yelling at her now wouldn’t help, I was sure. “You like almost getting killed?”
“Nope. But we got this.” She held up her hand, and I saw what I hadn’t before—a bright pink phone case.
Son of a bitch.
“Is that?—?”
“I couldn’t get the rest of the box,” she said. “But I think we have Emily Shaw’s phone.”
Chapter Nine
ELI
“Don’t,” I said, as out of the corner of my eye I caught Sylvie’s finger moving toward the power button on the phone. I plucked it from her hands and slid it into the pocket of my shirt.
She glared at me, her eyes just shadowed in the dark car, but her annoyance clear. “Hey, I’m the one who almost died to get that.”
I expected a flippant response to roll off my tongue, but instead I felt my jaw tighten, my gaze narrowing on the road ahead. She wasn’t exaggerating. She had almost died for that phone.
“Don’t remind me,” I finally managed to say. “You should have left it.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, “but if I had, we would have lost everything. Now at least we have the phone. People live their whole lives on their phones. It’s probably more valuable than the laptop or the tablet. If we’re trying to figure out what she was doing before she died and who she was talking to, this could be our best bet.”
I gave a sharp nod of my head, my throat still tight. Ibarely knew Sylvie Calloway. I’d started out annoyed with the idea of a civilian tagging along, or, God forbid, getting out her microphone and trying to turn my investigation into an episode of her podcast.
But I’d already learned that wasn’t Sylvie. She cared. Too much. The idea that she’d almost gotten herself killed dug at me. And that itself was out of the norm.
I worked in a dangerous business. These days, more of it was spent sitting in front of a computer than people might think. Tracking, gathering evidence—so much of it was digital. But generally, when a case came to a point, things got hazardous. It had never bothered me. It was part of why I liked the job—the adrenaline, the rush, the life-or-death stakes, narrowing things down until they were simple. I enjoyed the challenge.
But this was different. I’d been in tight spots, plenty of them. And it wasn’t that Sylvie was a woman, because I’d seen Wren, Shade, and Miranda almost bite it more than once. But yeah, it shook me up, as much as any of my team members, who were as good as my family, would leave me shaken if they almost got killed. It was part of the business. We knew what we were doing; we knew the risks we were taking.
Sylvie didn’t know. She wasn’t trained, which made all of this fucking reckless and irresponsible. But it was more than that. Something about seeing her perched on the edge of those shelves, doggedly trying to get to the contents of the evidence box while that timer ticked down… I hated everything about how close we’d come.
“Don’t fucking do that again,” I said, flicking my gaze over to her.
“It’s okay, Eli.” Her tone was soft, almost like she was placating me. Trying to make me feel better.
She didn’t get it. “It’s not. It was a big fucking bomb. The building is gone.”
“I know it is,” she said.
“There’s no point going to all this trouble to try to get your life back if you’re just going to get yourself blown up,” I said.
Sylvie sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just?—”
I needed her to understand. “If I tell you to run,” I said, “you run. Got it?” In my peripheral vision, she gave a sharp nod. “Otherwise, I’ll talk to Cooper about making different arrangements.”
“You can’t do that,” Sylvie said, and this time her tone had an edge.
