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Then Angie did something else that Sophia couldn't see and the man stopped talking. He stopped moving, then stopped being a problem.

Angie got zip-ties out, and made quick work of tying him up, then she stood up, smoothed her jacket and keyed her mic.

“He's down. He said there are two men inside. Three rooms. Bree’s locked in one of them. Apparently he’s the cleaner.”

Cleaner. They were going to kill Bree.

“Is he going to wake up?” Lydia asked.

“Not for a while,” Angie answered. “I have more questions for him.”

She and Rylie had watched everything from the gap between two support pillars of the parking garage.

The warehouse district at this hour was not empty but it was close. A truck had rumbled past ten or twenty minutes ago. Before that, nothing. The building Lydia had identified was a single-story commercial unit at the end of a short access road, its loading bay doors closed and padlocked on the outside, windows blacked out, signage stripped down to bare metal brackets. A nothing building. The kind of building you drove past without seeing.

Sophia heard sea lions.

“Now,” Rylie commanded.

Sophia and Rylie ran flat out, no tactical elegance to it, just two women in vests crossing an empty street at speed.

They reached the side of the building. Angie was at the door, the lock already handled. She had her hand on the door.

Rylie stacked behind her, Sophia behind Rylie.

Rylie keyed her mic. “Lydia. Last check.”

“Two mobile, center and right. The third signature hasn't moved.” A pause. “Go.”

Angie counted down with her fingers. Three. Two. One.

She went through the door.

What happened in the next two minutes seemed to happen in fragments.

The space was larger than it looked from outside. It was a long open room with a concrete floor and harsh work lights. Someone shot out the lights, probably Angie. Before that happened, for just a second, Sophia had seen a man.

There was another shot of gunfire. It was so loud, louder than she would have ever expected. She stayed where Rylie had put her, near the door, covering the angle she had been assigned. She wasn’t supposed to move. She was supposed to make sure nobody left, but where was Bree? She needed to find Bree.

She heard Angie on her right.

She heard Rylie ahead of her.

Then she heard a man shout something in a language she didn't know, and then he stopped shouting.

Then there was one shot. Very close to her left. She turned.

When her eyes were acclimated, she saw a man lying on the ground. He looked dead.

Rylie was near a wall, standing over another man. He was rolling around and groaning, holding his leg.

“Found the door,” Angie said.

Sophia ran.

The far left corner of the warehouse was separated from the main floor by an office door. There was a padlock on it. It was flimsy, but effective. Angie kicked at it with her combat boot. Kicked at it again. It gave. She shoved the door open.

The room beyond was small and dark and smelled of concrete and bleach and fast food containers stacked in the corner. A cot with a blanket. A bucket.