Page 42 of Consume Me

“He, uh, signaled our guy,” Brex said uneasily.

“Signaled?” I frowned. “How?”

“You know.” Brex made a lewd gesture at me.

“Oh.” So he knew we had someone following him, and he wasn’t hiding that he knew. In truth, I hadn’t suspected him. Norris had run thorough checks when we’d discovered his existence. They’d been clean. I’d met his mother. If his life was a cover, even he didn’t know it. But the ghosts had spooked me. I no longer felt like I could trust my gut. Because I’d never looked twice at Sarah and she’d been in the middle of this the whole time.

“What do we have on MI-18?” I asked.

“That’s the bad news,” Georgia said gently. “We were hoping we could scare up some interest from them.”

“But they aren’t taking the bait,” Brex told me.

Wherever they were, they were simply burrowing deeper into their hole. They had no interest in communicating with us, which meant they had nothing we wanted or they weren’t interested in sharing. Neither possibility sat well.

“What do you want us to do?” Georgia asked.

“Keep up the surveillance. Keep looking into MI-18, and…” I dropped my head in my hands, biting my tongue.

“And?” she prompted.

“If you can’t find my wife, find Norris.” I knew what I was asking was impossible, but with each day that passed my hope dwindled more.

I had no idea what had happened to Norris, and even though I knew that he would never leave my wife without protection, I couldn’t accept that he was dead. No body. No proof.

It wasn’t quite hope, but it was as close as any of us were going to get.

“We’ve been checking in with hospitals.” Brex cleared his throat before adding, “And morgues. Nothing so far.”

No body. No proof.

It wasn’t quite hope, but it was as close as any of us were going to get.

“Keep looking,” I ordered him. “Where’s Smith?”

Georgia hesitated. “Checking on Belle. She’s not feeling very good.”

And she was busy taking care of my daughter. I stood, swaying a little on my feet. Brex clapped a hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Poor Boy, but you need a shower and a nap.”

“What I need—”

Georgia cut me off. “What you need is to take a moment to take care of yourself. You aren’t going to be able to take care of Clara like this.”

“What about you?” I accused, blatantly ignoring that, while Brex needed a good shave, he was in fresh clothes—as was Georgia. I was the one who’d adopted a patina of homelessness ill-suited to my life. But how could I care about things like soap and hot water and pillows when Clara might have none of those things?

“We’ve been taking shifts,” Georgia said. “Churchill style. A few hours of sleep while the others keep working.”

“And it’s your turn,” Brex informed me.

“Is that an order?” I said in a low voice.

“If it needs to be,” Georgia said, crossing her arms.

This was what came of choosing rebels and renegades for friends. They didn’t give a shit who I was. They didn’t listen to my orders. It was why I liked them. Usually.

I was halfway to my private quarters when my phone rang. It was a welcome distraction from the dread building inside me. I’d been avoiding our rooms since the morning I’d faced her disappearance. There was nothing for me there but a life I might have already lost.