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I swallowed over the need to tell her not to focus away from Annie. Why the fuck didn't we have a dozen drones in the air? But I knew that one. Because more were more chances to get caught. Even if the police didn't figure out the drones were part of the Annie story, they might freak out at all if they knew that they were being watched. Maybe they'd just shoot them down.
Maybe they'd shoot her, instead.
My stomach turned. Bile filled my mouth.
One of the techs near April, Charles, said, "Those rocks they've stopped her by? Those are cover. The formations lead into the mountains. It's not a great cover but considering where she drove to, they may have chased her and stopped her there because she could have run into the rocks. It's a plausible story to go with the body cams."
"If they have to use that footage," offered Henry. Henry didn't usually speak, mostly because even in this room other people didn't speak and think in code. He did. "If they can scramble their cams enough, they'll move the car and where they said they were on the second stop."
"Because she rabbited," I said, looking at the screen again. April had returned the angle to the cars but of course I couldn't see Annie.
"And they stopped her farther along," said Henry. "That'll be the footage. The stop of the car. The girl already gone from it."
I shook my head. "And the reason why two two-man units couldn't keep her stopped the first time?"
"They'll think of something," April said grimly and adjusted the camera on the drone. It blew up with the window of the cruiser where Annie was. Her head rested against the window, and she was looking up. She, at least, knew the drone was there.
I couldn't tell what she was thinking. Her face was shadowy and the image unclear. I just hoped it wasn't me she was thinking about. All of her attention needed to be on what she was doing and the people she was doing it around.
She had to be awake and aware and on her A game. Nothing else was acceptable. Anything else would win her time in the playroom that would be no game and time over my lap that would leave her unable to sit for a week.
When she came back.
Because she had to come back. The idea of them chasing her, of them actually letting her run and then jumbling the cameras was revolting. Too many opportunities for someone to lose his temper and hurt her. Or for Annie to lose her nerve or lose her temper and lash out at them. The desert was too vast, too unforgiving, too full of things that could go wrong.
"She's valuable, Boss," April said.
I looked at her, one brow raised.
She nodded at the screen, as if I could possibly think she meant anyone but Annie. "They're not stupid enough to hurt her. She's worth a lot of money."
"Not to them," I said quietly, meaning the men who had stopped her. I knew better. I just wanted to hear it.
April complied. "No. But to the people who pay them. Those guys, on the street, they're probably getting regular money to look, and a bonus to deliver."
The muscle in my jaw popped.
"But the people who ordered all of it? She's worth a lot of money to them, Boss." There was a pause and then she said, "They're not going to fuck that up. The guys on the ground there, they're more than just interested in their paychecks and bonuses."
I bit back a grim smile and looked at her.
"They don't want to disappear either," April said. "She's probably safer where she is than ever before."
Which stung a little since before had been with me. But she was right.
I hoped.
Unexpectedly, Henry added, "Especially the way she was having fun with that 'Vette," and there was a ripple of subdued laughter.
Before we all went back to watching the screen.
