Page 72 of Hidden

We all look at the door when it opens. Hayden is walking over to us, before I can stop myself, I say. “Is there like a gene in the Crawford family, that you can only be sexy?”

I drink my coffee when Miles smiles and leans in closer. “Nice to know you think I’m sexy.”

My eyes move to Hayden before I start blushing. He pulls a chair from a neighboring table, drops into it between Miles and Mason, accepts Lileah's coffee without asking, and looks around the merged table with mild approval.

"Lileah's doing her normal thing," Mason says.

"Obviously." Hayden looks at Lileah. "Mom said we’re having family dinner tomorrow night. Cain's coming."

"I know," Lileah says. "She texted me."

"Dad confirmed it this morning." He looks at Declan. "Cain called and said your prints are back, and you need to go down tonight.”

Declan nods once, and whatever that was about, is finished without another word.

Hayden turns to Miles last. He leans in slightly, not far, and says something just low enough that it drops below the table's general noise level. Whatever he says takes four seconds. Maybe five.

Miles goes still. His jaw does something almost imperceptible. His hand on the coffee cup doesn't move.

Then he nods once and sits back. He picks up his coffee, and acts completely normal, like nothing just happened.

I watch him for a second from the corner of my eye. I should make a move on him, shouldn’t I? I’m single, I think he's single. We would look good together. I go to move closer to him, but his phone beeps, and he pulls it out of his jeans pocket.

Without a word, he gets up and looks at his brothers, and before he goes Mason shouts his name.

“Fucking sleep asshole, you’re starting to look like shit, and that’s a bad name on me because we look the same.” Miles tells him to fuck off and sticks his middle finger at him, making the brothers all laugh.

“Has he shared anything else about it?” Hayden asks Mason.

“He won’t let me or D in, he said he needs to focus.” Mason grabs his coffee, drinking the last of it. Clearly, he’s done talking. I turn back to the girls.

Sixteen

Miles

Hayden's words follow me up the stairs to my room. When he came to Grounds he told me. One of the girls is connected to Lincoln. That's why Cain took it.

Lincoln, Cain's right hand man since he came back, he’s the man who sat in that office through everything, who knows where everybody is buried because he helped put most of them there. He’s loyal which only comes from shared history and mutual necessity.

One of the girls in all of these files has something to do with Lincoln. The question is why didn’t Cain just tell me, because she would be the first one I would be looking at?

I close my bedroom door, sit on the edge of the bed and open the partition on my laptop and pull up the files. All of the ones I’ve recorded are on there. I still have more to read through. Their photographs, names, ages, and last known locations are arranged across the screen in the order I built them.

Which one is it?

Amber Reyes. Phoenix. I run her against Lincoln's known associates, his family contacts, and the names in his file that Cain gave me access to years ago when I was first brought in properly.

Nothing.

Jade Coleman. Colorado.

Nothing.

Renee Park. Nashville.

I stop and run it again.

Renee Park's mother's maiden name. A sister who moved to Nashville eight years ago. The sister's married name is different, easy to miss, but the maiden name sitting in Lincoln's family record as a cousin on his mother's side.