Page 47 of Hunted in the Silence

“She should be.” Cole looked through the glass at Patricia Voss sitting very still at the table. “Get her the lawyer. Make sure it’s someone who understands what cooperation is worth in a federal case.” He pushed off from the wall. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

He drove to the safe house to pick up the last of Brynn’s things, which was the reason he’d given himself for needing to leave the building for an hour. Brynn had gone to the hospital with the girls from the Harlan building and was still there, which was where she needed to be. He understood that. He also knew that the safe house was no longer necessary now that the Harlan location was down and the network was largely in custody, and that Brynn would want her things.

He was also aware that he’d been thinking about what Harper had said since the moment he’d handed Brynn’s phone back to her after the bust, and that he hadn’t stopped thinking about it during the interview with Patricia Voss or the conversation with Carson or the drive across town, and that he was running out of ways to avoid it.

Stop being so careful.

Harper had said it with her usual cheerful directness, because she’d spent the better part of two years watching Cole be careful about everything that mattered and patient about everything she’d eventually stopped having patience for on his behalf. She’d also said that he sounded different when he talked about this case than he had about any case she could remember, which was the part he hadn’t told Brynn.

He let himself into the safe house and gathered the few things Brynn had left behind—a book on the nightstand, the charger on the kitchen counter, a spare jacket on the back of the bathroom door. He stood in the small bedroom for a moment with the jacket over his arm.

The book from the nightstand was one of Quinn’s. The same worn copy from her desk at the center, two Post-it flags still in place. She’d brought it with her to the safe house, which meant it traveled with her, which told him just how much it mattered to her.

He set it carefully on top of the jacket.

He thought about the arrangement he’d made with Quinn, the text he’d sent. Don’t make other plans for that evening. Quinn had responded right away, and happily, because she was perceptive just like any good journalist was, only asking a couple of pertinent questions before agreeing.

Ever since, he’d been waiting for the right moment to tell Brynn. He understood now, standing in the safe house bedroom with her book in his hand, that the right moment had been building for two weeks and was nearly here.

He drove back to BPD.

***

Brynn came in just before noon, still wearing the bulletproof vest, her hair loose around her shoulders, looking drained. She came through the door of Carson’s conference room where Cole had set up while waiting for Patricia Voss’s lawyer, set her bag down, and looked at the board he’d been updating.

“How are the girls?” he asked, trying not to stare. Even clearly exhausted, she was beautiful.

“Caitlin saw her grandmother an hour ago.” Her voice was flat, but Cole sensed the emotion just beneath the surface. “The other three are with hospital advocates. Two have families we’ve been able to reach. The youngest—” She paused and looked at the floor. “We’re working on it.”

His heart ached at the look on her face, making him want to reach out and pull her into his arms. Instead, he said, “You’ll find someone for her.”

“Yes.” She said it like a vow, and he had no doubt she would make it happen. She pulled out a chair and sat down and looked at him. “So. Patricia Voss.”

“Lawyer arrived twenty minutes ago. They’ve been in there for half an hour.” Cole looked at the clock. “She’s going to cooperate. She’s too careful not to. She’ll calculate the cost of Devlin’s loyalty against the cost of a federal conviction, and she’ll choose herself.” People like that always did what was in their own best interest.

Brynn raised one dark eyebrow. “Unless she believes he can reach her even from custody.”

“She might believe that. Our job is to make her believe we’re the safer bet.” Even if that was hardly true. Even in lockup, criminals had connections. If they wanted something bad enough, they’d find away. They always did.

He looked at Brynn across the table. She was watching him steadily, as if she saw right through him, which he didn’t doubt for a second she did. “Silas called this morning. He said the profile he built is consistent with Devlin making his move on you within the next forty-eight hours, possibly sooner now that we shut down his operation here.”

Brynn took in his words without a visible reaction, which was its own kind of reaction. “He’ll be desperate now,” she said softly.

“And desperate men make mistakes.” Cole held her gaze, his jaw clenching. He would never let anything happen to her. “But they also move fast and not as carefully as they normally would. So until we have him, you’re not alone. Finn is outside this building right now, and he goes where you go until this is finished.”

She looked at him for a moment. He expected an argument. He didn’t get one.

“All right,” she conceded.

He lifted an eyebrow in disbelief.

“I told you I was working on it,” she said with a crooked smile. “Not handling things by myself all the time.” She pursed her lips, looking away. “I’m working on it.”

Something settled in him that had been bracing against an invisible force all morning. He inhaled deeply, gave a single sharp nod, and looked back at the board. Brynn pulled her legal pad toward her and they fell into their usual easy rhythm.

An hour in, Carson knocked on the conference room door and poked his head inside. “Voss wants to talk.”

Cole shared a look with Brynn, and then he joined Carson in the interview room. Patricia Voss’s lawyer was a compact woman in her fifties with the brisk, no-nonsense manner of someone who’d spent her career working federal cases and had long since stopped being surprised by anything. She looked at Cole and Olivia and said briskly, “My client is prepared to provide information in exchange for a formal cooperation agreement, terms to be negotiated, and she’d like to begin with a show of good faith.”