“Anastasia,” he tells me.
I take the phone, so relieved he called her. Water drips from my clothes as I take a few steps away from my team. “Hey, baby.”
“Did you seriously get blown up again?” she screeches.
“I mean, technically, the building got blown up. I’m fine.”
“Zane said—Sawyer.”
“Breathe, baby. I’m fine.”
She sighs into the phone.
“Jack wasn’t in there.”
She sniffles. “I’m both angry and relieved.”
“He must have moved him before I got there.”
“Because it was a trap.” Her tone shifts from relief to anger. “I sent you into a trap.”
“I told you, I sent myself into it. But I’m fine. We’re going to finish up here, and I’ll be back, okay? We’ll figure this out and find Jack.”
She hesitates a moment, drawing in a sharp breath. “Okay.”
Sirens scream as an ambulance and a police car barrel down the road toward us, a fire truck right behind. “The first responders are here. I need to talk to them. I love you, Anastasia.”
“I love you, too.”
“Tell Leopold we’re all good and I’ll be there soon so he can come tear this scene apart.”
“I will,” she says softly. “Sawyer?—”
“I know, baby. But I’m fine. We’ll be watching TV and eating popcorn before you know it.”
“See you soon,” she whispers.
“Not soon enough,” I reply with a smile I know she can’t see, but I hope she can hear.
The line ends, so I hand the phone back to Zane. “Thanks for calling her.”
“Yeah, well, as soon as we knew it was a trap?—”
Garrison crosses over toward us, his tablet in hand. “The signal didn’t go live until you were in that back room. We had the whole perimeter covered. How could he have known you were in there? If he’d been watching from a distance, I would have known.”
“I must have tripped a sensor of some kind.” I glance back at the building. “Not that I’ll be able to prove it now. Any evidence is long gone.”
“This guy is a step ahead of us constantly. He manages to evade all cameras—how?” Weston snaps. His gaze is furious, his body stiff.
“I have no idea,” I reply as the paramedics rush toward us. “But I intend to find out.”
Chapter 26
Anastasia
“Here you go.” I set a fresh cup of coffee and a still-warm muffin down on the table in front of Captain Leopold.
He grins up at me. “You didn’t need to do this.”
