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Before his boot crossed the threshold, Jasper grunted. “Hold up. She hasn’t been gone long, right? Twenty minutes or so since we last saw her?” When Thane nodded, Jasper stared at Saul. “Give me five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
“One. One minute, and I’m going after her on my own.”
“Five,” Jasper repeated bluntly. “If you’re worried about her killing herself, don’t be. That girl is strong whether she believes it or not, she’s still got some reserve left in the tank. Someone with a spark doesn’t go off and end it all on a whim. They sit and they think until the spark flares into something more or it dies. We have time, trust me.”
Saul bared his teeth in frustration. “Two. That’s all you’re getting.”
“Fine. Kitten, would you mind calling Mason? He and Ky are on tech duty tonight. Tell him I want all the CCTV footage from this area starting from…” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty-two fifteen. I want to know if they find her, and which direction she was going.”
Archie straightened her shoulders, reaching up to gather her hair back into a ponytail. “I’m on it. Would you like me to put the A-team on alert?”
“Not yet. We’ll see what we can find on CCTV first. Unless she hitched a ride, she’s within a half-mile of here, and that girl’s too timid to get in a car with a stranger.”
Saul made a quiet strangled sound in his throat. That girl hadn’t only been brave enough to stay in a cabin with a stranger who walked in on her naked, she’d found the guts to hang around with him for over a week.
But, she had gotten the okay from Connie, he told himself. She’d done the responsible thing and made sure she had some inkling of who she was trusting her life with.
“You disagree?” Jasper asked.
“No. No, she wouldn’t voluntarily go with someone she didn’t know. But that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t take her if they were of a mind to.”
“This is a good neighborhood, Saul. Low crime, nice people.” Connie reached over and rubbed his arm, the warmth of her hand seeping through his shirt sleeve.
“Make the call, get the ball rolling, kitten.” Jasper kept Saul’s attention on him as the feisty blonde went back into the living room. “You know who I work for. Atticus doesn’t hire duds, and this kind of thing is what we excel at. There’s no point charging off in one direction if it’s the wrong way.”
“I don’t like feeling useless.”
“Helpless,” Thane corrected, shielding his stomach as Connie tried to elbow him again. “Try that again, Constance, and your ass is going to get more than a goddamn poking with an elbow. Helpless,” he repeated. “I’m familiar with the feeling, believe me, and it fucking sucks.”
“Whatever it is, I should be out there.”
“Give Mason and Ky a chance. They’re relentless when they have a job to do, and they’re two of Att’s fastest hackers. As soon as we get a picture of where she’s going, we’ll be on her heels.” Jasper’s head tilted, his eyes unfocused as he listened to whatever Archie was saying behind him. “There, they’ve already got a jump on her. Get your boots on, boys and girls, we’re heading out.”
Saul blinked. “How the hell do you—”
Anarchy popped into the hallway, ducking under Jasper’s arm. She waggled her phone triumphantly. “Mason says she’s three streets away. He picked her up using a security camera in a freaking tree. Ky got her cell number and he’s tracking her, seeing as she veered out of camera range. He’ll text us updates, but she’s not moving fast.”
“Which way?”
Anarchy moved closer to Saul, showing him the screen of her phone. She pointed at a black dot on the street map. “We’re here.” Her finger dragged over to a red dot. “This is where Caera is last seen on camera. So…”
Her words buzzed in his head as he scanned the map, working out the fastest route to Caera. With the damn thing burning in his brain, that red dot pulsing like a heartbeat, he didn’t wait for anyone else. His body acted on instinct, a robot programmed to follow the imaginary footprints on the map.
“Saul! Goddamn—”
He ran, the soles of his boots barely hitting asphalt before they were airborne again. Legs pumping steadily, arms swinging in a rhythm designed to encourage the pace, his breathing measured for maximum stamina.
He ran, taking shortcuts across random lawns and drives, cutting through backyards and vaulting decorative hedges and fences. Dogs barked, disturbed by the idiotic man running heedlessly over private property, and a fucking tricycle came close to taking him down.
Shaking off the near miss, he kept running, ignoring the insanity skipping through his blood in tandem with the adrenaline, only to pop out between two houses to find Jasper’s truck idling beside the sidewalk.
The man himself leaned against the hood, backlit by the headlights with his arms folded over his chest and his ankles crossed as though he had all the time in the world.
“Made good time, boy,” he called out. “Would’ve been faster to get in the damn truck.”
Saul slowed to a jog, then down to a walk as he went to meet his friend. He saw faces peering at him through the windshield—Thane in the front, Archie and Connie from the rear seats. “Taking the asylum out for a night drive?”
“Providing backup in case you need it while rescuing my sister.” Jasper gave him a stony look. “I like saying that, Saul. I like saying my sister in a nice, happy tone. If I ever have to say it in a negative tone in conjunction with you…well, my sadism isn’t exclusive to Anarchy under those circumstances, if you catch my drift?”
