Page 55 of Hunted in the Silence

“She’s right,” Silas said. To Cole, not to her. “He’ll see through a proxy inside of an hour. If we want this to work, it has to be her.”

Cole’s jaw was tight. She could see it from across the table. “We’ll discuss it,” he said, his tone flat.

“Of course,” Silas said. “There’s something else. Finn’s overnight surveillance picked up a vehicle on the north side, two blocks from the residential building. Registered to a company that doesn’t exist. Carson ran the plates this morning.” There was a heavy pause. “The vehicle was also caught on a traffic camera two blocks from the advocacy center at six forty-five yesterday morning.”

Brynn went still, a sick feeling settling in her stomach.

“He was watching the center yesterday morning,” Cole said quietly, dangerously.

“Before he cleared out of the residential building,” Silas confirmed. “Which means he’d already decided to leave before we got there. The room, the note, the ledger—all of it was staged before we got there. He’s been several steps ahead of us this entire time.” Another pause, then, “Which also means he’s had eyes on the center for at least a day, and he knows Brynn hasn’t been there.”

Cole looked at Brynn across the table.

“He already knows I’m not there,” she said, feeling the sickness deepen and knew she probably looked pale as a ghost.

“He knows you’ve been absent,” Silas clarified. “He doesn’t know why or for how long. That ambiguity is still useful if we move today.” He paused again, and Brynn was beginning to hate when he did that because nothing good ever followed. “I’d recommend getting her into the center within the next two hours. Let him see the pattern re-establish. It gives us the best chance of controlling when and how he makes contact.”

“Understood,” Cole said with a grim look in his eyes. “I’ll call you back within the hour.”

He ended the call and looked at her, and she looked back at him, and the warm quiet of the morning they’d enjoyed early had completely vanished, leaving behind something with harder edges.

“No,” he said, reading her thoughts.

“Cole—”

“I hear the argument, and I don’t care how much sense it makes and that Silas is probably right. I’m still saying no.” He set the second cup of coffee down—the one he’d started when they took the call—and looked at her with that direct, immovable expression she’d come to recognize. Not stubbornness. Certainty. The kind that belonged to a man who knew his line and stood on it without wavering. “You sitting in that center waiting for Devlin to make contact is not a controlled situation. It’s a position where every variable is in his favor and none of them are in ours.”

“I’ve been in that center for six years,” she reminded him. “I know every exit, every room, every person on staff. If there’s anywhere I have the advantage over him it’s inside that building.”

“He’s had eyes on it for at least twenty-four hours. He may have already found vulnerabilities you don’t know about.”

“Then we find them first. We sweep the building, we position Finn inside and out of sight, and we coordinate with Carson on the surrounding block.” She kept her voice level, not matching the tension in his but not backing away from it either. “Cole. This is what I do. Walking into spaces that other people are afraid of and being the steady one in the middle of them is literally what I have been trained to do.”

“You’re not an agent,” he argued, but she could sense some of the fight leaving him.

“No. I’m better than an agent for this specific situation, and you know it.” She held his gaze, imploring him to hear her. “An agent sitting in my office stands out to anyone who knows that building. Me being there makes sense. I belong there, and Devlin knows it, and you do too.”

Cole was quiet for a moment. She could see him working through it, the part of him that understood the logic fighting with the part of him that had put his hand against her face last night and kissed her and meant every second of it.

“If he makes direct contact,” Cole said with a dangerous edge, “if he walks into that building—”

“Then we have him exactly where we want him,” Brynn finished. “On my ground. In a space I control. With your team ready and waiting.” She paused, spreading her hands on the table. “Silas said he’ll want to see me afraid before he makes his move. If he walks through that door and sees me at my desk working, it won’t be fear he sees. And a man like Devlin, when he doesn’t get the response he came for, makes mistakes.”

Cole looked at her for a long moment.

“I don’t like it,” he said.

She reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I know you don’t.”

“I’m not talking about the case.”

She held his gaze, seeing the honest, undisguised fear in his eyes in place of professional concern. They’d left that behind last night. She understood it. She felt the weight of it. And most importantly, she respected it.

“I know what you’re talking about,” she said quietly. “And I need you to trust that I understand what I’m walking into and that I’m choosing it with open eyes.” She squeezed his hand. “You said you’d be between him and me every single time. This is how you do that. You’re outside that building with your team and I’m inside it, and when he makes his move, there is nowhere for him to go.”

The kitchen was quiet, the ticking of the living room clock absurdly loud. Outside the window, the sparrows were gone, the fence line empty, the backyard still. As if time itself were holding its breath for his answer.

Finally, Cole picked up his phone. “I’m calling Carson,” he said. “We sweep the building before you go in. Finn is inside, not outside. And you wear the vest.”