Cannon scraped a hand down his face. “Dear god. Now we have two of them.”
Stina saw the screen with the Charlie team and her gaze darted around the room to land on Rome.
Stina’s eyes widened in defiance, but he saw the depths flash with that same fear he’d seen right before he pulled the hood over her head.
Her delicate throat worked as she swallowed hard.
Rome took a step toward her, instinct drawing him closer the instant uncertainty stole across her face.
“You need to listen to this.”
* * * * *
The audio played a second time, and Stina wished somebody would shut it off.
She gripped Jolie’s hand as the voice filled the room, low and distorted, the words scraped clean of anything human. It sounded as if the person had been dragged through a machine and spit out wrong.
Jolie turned her head and met Stina’s gaze. The horror in her friend’s eyes punched the breath from Stina’s lungs because she felt it too.
“You remember him,” Jolie whispered.
She nodded, the motion jerky and disconnected from the rest of her body. Her mouth opened once and closed again before anything came out. “That’s him. That’s the guy. He was one of my first tables after you started training me.”
Around her, the room carried the same tightly wound tension she used to feel before one of her ex-boyfriends snapped.
Archer caught Jolie’s hand and moved in close enough to shield her with his body. At the same time, Stina felt more than saw Rome doing the same.
The voice looped again, and Stina’s stomach rolled. Words began to spill out. “He came in alone. Jolie, was it a booth?”
“Yes. Corner booth near the back.”
“Yes. Right. Corner booth. He ordered pizza.” Stina pressed shaky fingers to her forehead, as if she could force the memory into a better order. “I dropped it on him.”
Heads snapped her direction, but she felt Rome’s stare most of all. “You dropped pizza on him?”
Despite the sick feeling in her gut, she shot him a dark look because she didn’t appreciate being judged for waitress crimes. “I heardthat voice—and I jumped.”
Neither Blackout team said a word. After a long beat, the man at the head of the table glanced between her and Jolie.
“Enough,” Cannon said. “I need clean stories from each of you. I’m splitting you up. I don’t want either account shaped by the other. Rivers, you take Jolie. Question her.”
“Question?” Stina all but cried.
“Rome, you question Stina.”
Panic crashed over her. She looked to Jolie for reassurance, only to find her friend looked just as alarmed.
Rivers appeared beside Jolie and touched her elbow. She let him guide her away, but she kept looking back at Archer in a way that made Stina’s chest tighten.
When someone touched Stina’s arm, she jerked around to find Rome standing beside her. His fingers closed gently around her arm, nothing like the firm grip he’d used to guide her out of the helicopter.
Without a word, he led her into the adjoining room and quietly closed the door behind them.
She looked at her surroundings—concrete walls, a table and two hard, stiff chairs.
He watched her for a moment, probably assessing whether she was about to bolt or scream.
She lifted her chin. “I’m not going to break.”
