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Not a good thing when he was speeding along I-84 at roughly ninety miles an hour.
"I've got a bad feeling, Gideon. I have to get ahold of Dylan right now."
"Sure. Be right here when you're done."
Rio clicked off the call and dialed Dylan. It rang into voice mail. Repeatedly.
That bad feeling was getting worse by the second. She was in real danger - he knew it by the sudden frantic drum of his pulse, his blood bond with her telling him that something terrible was happening to her.
Right now, while she was easily three hours away from him.
"Goddamn it," he growled, stomping on the gas.
He speed-dialed Gideon again.
"Any luck reaching her?"
"No." A deeper chill went through him. "She's in trouble, Gid. She's in pain somewhere. Goddamn it! I should never have let her out of my sight!"
"Okay," Gideon, the calm one, said. "I'm going to run a track on the Volvo's GPS, and I'll run one on her cell phone too. We'll locate her, Rio."
He heard the keyboard clacking on the other end of the line, but the dread in his gut told him that neither device was going to bring him any closer to Dylan. And sure enough, Gideon came back a second later with bad news.
"The car's sitting on Jewel Avenue in Queens, and the cell phone tracks to a location one block away from that. There's no movement coming out of either one."
As Rio cursed, he heard Nikolai's voice in the background, barely audible over the speaker. Something about Director Starkn and one of the photographs Dylan took.
"What did he just say?" Rio demanded. "Get Niko on the line. I want to know what he just said."
Gideon's voice was hesitant...and the vivid oath he swore an instant later did nothing to reassure Rio either.
"Damn it, what did he say?"
"Niko just asked me what Starkn was doing in the background of one of Dylan's pictures..."
"Which one?" Rio asked.
"The one from that charity cruise her mother was on. The one Dylan ID'd as being the runaway shelter's founder, Gordon Fasso."
"That can't be," Rio said, even while a voice inside of him was telling him the exact opposite. "Put Niko on."
"Hey, man," Nikolai said a second later. "I'm telling you. I saw Starkn with my own eyes. I'd know him anywhere. And the dude standing in the background of this picture is Enforcement Agency Regional Director Gerard fucking Starkn."
The name sank into his brain like acid as Rio weaved around a sluggish semi-trailer and floored the gas pedal through an empty stretch of pavement.
Gerard Starkn.
What the hell kind of name was that?
Gordon Fasso.
Another odd spelling.
And then there was Dragos, and his treacherous son. Couldn't forget that bastard. He was mixed up in this somehow too, Rio was certain of it.
Could Gordon Fasso and Gerard Starkn be in collusion with Dragos's son?
Oh, Holy Mother...
