Page 12 of Cipher

“There.” I slowed the sequence and marked the beginning of the loop. “Somebody must have replaced the live feed while she was inside.”

Raines leaned toward the monitor, anger deepening the lines around his mouth. “The garage requires a damn department badge.”

“Or a cloned credential.” I checked the access log and found three entries during the loop, all belonging to deputies whose locations elsewhere in the building were independently confirmed. “None of these people opened that door. Whoever went in used an identifier the system expected and counted on the footage protecting him.”

We entered the garage through the internal stairwell, where Bex’s compact SUV sat beneath fluorescent lights near the far wall. I circled it once before opening the forensic case I’d brought from Black Castle and sweeping the exterior for active radio signals. A magnetic-field scan beneath the rear quarter revealed a hardwired unit tucked above the chassis where an ordinary mechanic might never notice it.

I rolled beneath the vehicle, cut enough tape to expose the casing, and found a commercial tracking module wired directly into the rear-light circuit. It wasn’t a cheap unit. It could wake with the ignition, sleep when the vehicle stopped, and store movement history until it reached a network capable of receiving the upload.

“Son of a bitch,” Raines muttered above me.

I cloned the device memory through an isolated reader, but I left the tracker physically in place until one of my people could come collect the vehicle.

We headed back to Raines’s office and went over the stored history. It began Tuesday night, several hours after Nina’s rescue. It contained Bex’s route from the department to her father’s house, the drive back for Wednesday’s shift, her usual coffee stop, and the return home afterward. Nothing predated the silent call, which confirmed the person behind it hadn’t been watching her at random or harboring some older fixation.

“They started tracking her because she saved Nina.” The sheriff’s voice was quiet enough to sound worse than anger.

“Yeah.” I stared at the route map and imagined someone sitting behind a screen while Bex drove alone, learning when she left her father’s house and where she stopped every morning. “And whoever installed this had physical access to the garage or enough knowledge to copy a badge.”

I called Black Castle’s secure-transport division, and Wrangler answered before the second ring, the low mechanical noise behind him suggesting he was already inside one of his garages. “Need an enclosed transporter at the sheriff’s department, no external markings. Vehicle needs a complete sweep.”

“How soon?”

“Now.”

“I’ll have both moving in five.”

“Don’t power up the SUV until our team finishes a sweep,” I added.

“Understood.”

After hanging up, Raines and I returned to the secured room. Bex stood with her back pressed to the wall while she held her phone in one shaking hand. The blood had drained from her face, her eyes were wide with fear. I grabbed her hand and saw the open message on the screen. It showed a photograph taken outside her father’s house yesterday morning. Bex was walking toward her car with a travel mug in one hand, unaware that someone was watching her closely enough to capture the exact moment she looked down to adjust her bag.

The words beneath the image were short and all in caps for emphasis.

STOP INTERFERING WITH CALLS THAT DON’T CONCERN YOU. NEXT TIME, HELP WON’T ARRIVE FOR YOU EITHER.

“Give me the phone.”

Bex looked up, and some of the fear faded as her gaze met mine. Then she exhaled slowly and placed it in my palm.

I switched the device to Airplane Mode, disabled every wireless radio using the hardware controls, and sealed it in a shielded evidence pouch before the sender could wipe the message or activate another access point.

Then I sent Wrangler a text with a priority notification.

Me

Send a hardened emergency phone from sealed inventory with the driver.

Bex was trying to hold herself together straight through sheer will, her arms wrapped around her middle as though containing the fear might keep it from becoming visible. Clearly unaware that she wasn’t hiding a damn thing from her dad or me.

I put one hand around her nape and pulled her against my chest. She came without hesitation, both palms settling flat against my shirt while her forehead found the center of my sternum. The instant her body softened naturally into mine, possession struck hard. Rage at the bastard who had frightened her made my blood boil.

“Someone was outside my house,” she whispered. “Watching me.”

“I know, baby.” I stroked my thumb beneath her ear, feeling her pulse hammer before it gradually began slowing under my rhythmic touch. “They won’t get another chance.”

Bex lifted her face, and the vulnerability in her eyes mixed with enough confidence in me to make restraint feel increasingly pointless. I wanted to put her on the table behind us and kiss every trace of fear out of that full pink mouth. But our first kiss wasn’t gonna happen in a secured county interview room while her father stood three feet away.