"I'll finish the rolls. If Clarence complains, I'll tell him you were kidnapped by professionalism."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It will after I threaten him." Her hand touches my sleeve once, brief and grounding. "Go, Em."
Aaron already has his phone to his ear while he guides me through the back hall. "I'm bringing him in. We have photographs. Yes. Clear enough."
I hold my phone in both hands during the ride to Rourke Securities. The photos are still open. I keep looking at the clearest one until my stomach starts to turn, then I lock the screen, then unlock it again because looking away feels worse. Aaron drives without asking questions. Every time we stop at a light, he checks the mirrors, and that should make me feel better. Mostly it makes the world feel full of places someone can stand and wait.
Kade's at the elevator when the doors open, stepping forward with both arms already open. I go into him hard enough that the breath leaves my lungs. His cedar folds around me, and his hand settles at the back of my neck while the other presses steady between my shoulder blades.
"I saw him," I say into his shirt. "I got his face."
Kade goes still around me, but his voice stays low. "Good. You did good, sweetheart."
The words almost break me because they're not said like I survived. They're said like I acted. I hold onto that while he walks me into the operations room with his arm around me.
Everyone’s there, folded around the room, the conversations dying as they take in the shock and panic on my face. Skylar reaches me first after Kade. His hand touches my wrist, light enough to ask. I turn my hand and let him take it.
"You saw him?" he asks.
"I caught his face." I lift my phone before I can lose the nerve. "Aaron got some too, but mine has the best angle."
Dana's chair rolls back. "Send it to me."
My fingers shake when I unlock the phone, so Skylar steadies my hand without taking over. I send the clearest photo to Dana, then hand the phone to Sloane when he steps closer. He looks at the image, and whatever softness he had for me vanishes into focus.
The photo appears on the main screen a few seconds later and there he is, half-turned at the mouth of the alley, hood throwing a shadow over one side of his face. It's not perfect. It's not a clean front-facing photo with a name stamped underneath. But the jaw is clear, the mouth, one eye, enough of the nose and cheek to make him real in a way the shadows never did.
Caldwell steps closer to the screen. At first, he only looks. Then his expression shifts, not recognition all at once, but the first pull of it. His brow draws in. He leans toward the monitor, eyes narrowing. "Zoom in on the left side," he says.
Dana does it.
Caldwell's mouth tightens. "Wait."
Skylar looks at him. "What?"
"I've seen him." Caldwell doesn't take his eyes off the screen. "Not often. At the station. Back offices, once by the rear entrance when I was there for a task-force meeting. I didn't clock him because he looked like he belonged."
Skylar's hand tightens around mine as Caldwell pulls out his phone, already searching for something. "He wasn't listed with the task-force contacts. He’s not staff assigned to us, at least not under the name I remember seeing." He mutters something under his breath and keeps scrolling, then stops. "There."
He turns the phone toward Skylar first. Skylar looks down, and the blood seems to leave his face.
"What’s his name?" Kade asks.
Caldwell's voice is careful now. "Declan Smisson."
Sloane's already moving. "Spell it."
Caldwell does, and Sloane types it into the system first, then a broader search, then one of the social sites that makes people think family information is harmless because it sits under birthday photos and vacation posts. A profile comes up and Dana pulls it to the side screen, as Sloane clicks through the connections.
"I bet we’re thinking similar things," Dana says.
"Maybe," Skylar says, voice low. "But we won’t know until we actually find the connection."
Sloane opens a family section, then freezes for half a beat before enlarging it onto the main screen.
The names sit there in neat black text.
