“Where would she have gone?”Malik asks, turning to me.
I scrub a hand over my face in frustration.“Fuck if I know.But give me two minutes.”
I quickly make my way back to my apartment, which feels all kinds of wrong when I push through the front door.Her absence now carries a heavier weight than it did a mere fifteen minutes ago when I thought she was just in another room.
My eyes scan the apartment, taking in everything.Her mug on the counter.Cold.Her tennis shoes by the couch.Her novel face down on the coffee table.Her laptop open on the dining table, screen still on.
I cross the room and look at it, surprised she left the screen open.It had to have been deliberate.
I scan an email that she has pulled up, my heart leaping into my throat when I see it’s from Adrian Schwartz.I scroll the entire exchange, my blood pressure skyrocketing.
She went to fucking meet Adrian Schwartz.
I pull out my phone and open the tracker app with hands that are steadier than they have any right to be, because if I let them shake, I won’t be able to do what comes next, and what comes next is all that matters.
The signal populates on the map.It’s stationary on SR 522, which leads up to Monroe.What the fuck does that mean?
I stand at the dining table with Tessa’s laptop open in front of me and the tracker showing me a bracelet on the side of a road and I give myself exactly five seconds to feel what I’m feeling.
Absolute, utter terror.
I grab the computer and head back down to the sub-basement where I find everyone standing over Josie’s shoulders as her fingers fly across the keyboard, watching the footage of Tessa’s exit on repeat.John Sullivan, also known as “Sully” to all of us, is now here dressed in tactical gear, which tells me Malik made calls while I was upstairs.Sully has been with Jameson for over ten years, coming up from the Vegas office.He’s quiet, methodical, former marine recon with two combat deployments and the specific economy of movement that comes from spending years operating in tight spaces where efficiency isn’t optional.He nods at me as I enter.I nod back.
“She ordered a rideshare,” Josie says, glancing over her shoulder at me.“I pulled the app activity from her account.She was picked up in the alley behind the building at one fifty-seven.Driver named Omar Khalil and he took her to Capitol Hill.I’ve sent location tags to your phones.”
“She went to meet someone,” Reid says.
“She went to meet Adrian Schwartz,” I grit out angrily, pissed I didn’t see this coming.
Six days of confinement and an article almost ready to print.Someone offered her something she couldn’t refuse.Tessa made a calculation, she walked out that door, and she was wrong.I set the laptop down beside Josie.“She left this open for me to find.”
“The COO of RainVest,” Malik murmurs with incredulity.
“Schwartz clearly lured her out.Posed as a whistleblower, offered information she couldn’t get any other way.”I look at Josie, then back to Malik.“Her tracker bracelet signal is stationary on 522 toward Monroe.”
“They dumped it,” Sully says knowingly.“I’m betting that’s where her phone signal ends as well.”
“They’re headed into the mountains,” Reid surmises and I know he’s right about that.They will want somewhere private and out of the way.
Josie’s already working, her fingers moving across the keyboard with focused intensity.“I’m pulling SAPG property records now.Shell company land holdings in Snohomish, Chelan and King counties.”She glances at BOB’s interface on the secondary screen.“BOB is cross-referencing against known SAPG operational history in the Pacific Northwest, rural properties registered to entities with SAPG financial connections, and utility accounts that show intermittent usage consistent with a safe house rather than a primary residence.”
“How long?”I ask.
“Thirty minutes,” she says.“Maybe twenty if BOB gets clean matches.”
“What else?”Malik asks, looking at me.
“The rideshare driver,” I say.“We need to know if he saw anything—a vehicle, a plate, anyone waiting outside.”
Reid is already on his phone.“I’ll find him.”
“Maybe check the restaurant cameras,” Josie says without looking up.“I’m pulling the Capitol Hill traffic network now.I’ll be able to track them that way for a while, but if they’re out of the city, that won’t do much good.”
“And we call Hara,” Malik says.“You were just sitting across from him an hour ago.He gets a call, he starts his process, he pulls whatever federal surveillance assets he has access to.”Malik holds my gaze.“We give him everything and we let him run his track.”
“That’s fine, but we don’t wait for him,” I say.“He won’t be able to mobilize as fast as we can.”
“Agreed,” Malik confirms.“But we give him the information because when this is finished, we’re going to need him to be the one with jurisdiction over whatever we find at the end of this road.”A pause.“Understood?”
