Page 108 of Falcon’s Forever

Vulture:

Good call. Lock stays until clear sweep.

Zip nudges my shoulder. "You're disappointed."

"Yeah." Of course I am.

"That's healthy," he says.

"Explain that."

"You wanted to chase and you didn't. So, you're disappointed because doing the right thing is boring."

"That might be the dumbest thing you've ever said."

"It’s still true," he says, and Rook laughs quietly.

We stay another fifteen minutes and they don't come back. Ice Pick reports the east side is clear. Sterling confirms the women's house is secure. Vulture orders a full sweep inside the perimeter, and nobody argues. I spend the next hour walking the inside fence with Zip and Rook, but there's no tire marks, no cut wire, and no second team, which bothers me more than finding something would have. Either they only wanted to test us, or they were checking whether we'd abandon the compound again to chase.

This time we didn't.

By the time Vulture calls the all-clear it's after midnight. I should head for the clubhouse. I'm halfway there when I see Cara standing outside the temporary rooms, a jacket pulled over her pajamas, and her hair loose. She has the security phone in one hand when she sees me. She walks toward me without running or showing any fear. She just comes.

I stop a few feet from her. “Everything clear?”

“Yes,” she says.

“You heard about the two men?”

“Yeah.” She looks toward the tree line. “Did they come onto the property?”

“No.”

Her gaze returns to me. “Did you see them?”

“Enough of them.”

“What happened?”

“We held the fence,” I explain. “They backed off.”

Her expression shifts, something warm and confused at the same time. “You didn’t follow them?”

“No,” I say.

“Why?” she asks.

I could tell her Vulture ordered it, and that's part of it, not the whole thing. "Because they wanted us to."

She waits for the rest.

"They were close enough to know we'd see them. They weren't trying to get through the fence. They were trying to make us leave it."

"And old Falcon," she says.

I know exactly what she means. "Would probably be halfway through the woods by now."

"Alone?"