“For now, stay hidden,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
The call ended, and she marched back into the conference room. No way would she do nothing. She would find King A, and she would bring justice for Naomi. Doing nothing was not in her DNA. She was a woman of action, so she’d keep a low profile while hunting for the head of an international sex trafficking organization who had kept his own identity well-hidden for years.
Two can play at this game.
TEDDY
Teddy spentthe morning heads down on his laptop. His neck muscles burned, his eyes were killing him. He’d spoken to Rebel’s CI, who wasn’t sure which day he’d seen Haqazzii, so Teddy had to comb through a week of footage at Jericho’s upscale Tysons restaurant, Carole Jean’s.
At first, Teddy skimmed through the videos, but the faces blurred together. After wasting an hour doing that, he started from Sunday and combed through the week. When he came up short, he reached back out to Rebel’s CI who thought maybe it had been a different week.
To further frustrate Teddy, he was confident Haqazzii had changed up his looks again. The terrorists were masters of disguise, doing whatever necessary to blend in. If Muhammad Haqazzii had been at Carole Jean’s, he didn’t look like himself.
Even after running IDware, the system came up with zero hits.
Aggravation morphed into anger. Each day that passed was a day marked by failure. Teddy held himself to a high standard. Nothing less than success would do.
Greystone and Caroline had returned, the rat baits had been set up, and Caroline was working with him and Sydney in the conference room.
“Any luck?” Caroline asked him.
“Nothing. You?”
“I’ve got a back door to view all Airbnb’s in the area that offer long-term rentals,” Caroline said. “I collected the data, sorted it by what houses are large enough to accommodate nine and who pays cash.”
“Anything?” Teddy asked.
“Stats show over fifteen hundred in the DMV.”
He grunted.
“I was able to get that down to nine hundred,” Caroline said, “but it’s too many to sift through. I’ll narrow it down more tomorrow.”
Sinclair Develin walked in, scanned the room, stopped on Teddy. “I got a hit on Haqazzii.”
“Be my hero, Sin,” Teddy said.
“A guy named Rocco sells high-powered rifles on the black market,” Sin said. “He owes me, so I cashed in on the favor. He’s meeting us tonight at your restaurant. Drinks at ten.”
“Finally, someone’s doingsomethingto help me.” Teddy’s sarcasm tinging his tone.
Everyone in the room started laughing, Sydney included. Seeing her light up helped assuage his anger, but it also lit a fire under him. He liked making her laugh. Liked seeing her happy. In that second, he made himself a promise to do that whenever he could.
For Sydney.
In a short amount of time, she’d become a priority. Even in the midst of chaos, she mattered to him.
I gotta tell her how I feel.
“Sydney’s coming with me tonight,” Teddy said.
Sin glanced around the room, stopping on Sydney. “Sydney, I’m Sinclair Develin.”
“Sydney Austin.”
Sin flicked his gaze from her to Caroline, then back to her. “Sisters?”
Sydney smiled. “That’s my girl.”
