Page 77 of Blood Money

“I’ll start driving uptown.” Gray took the keys Dom handed him. “If Alex’s locator is still active, maybe I’ll get lucky.” But if it was still active, chances were the Pyramid had already scanned her for transmissions and found it. He choked down the ramifications of what that could mean.

Alex might already be dead.

To Dom, he added, “Get all the other locator receivers you can get your hands on and sync them to the one I put on Alex.” He scribbled down the frequency on a small pad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Dom. “Make sure you give at least three units to the choppers and have them fly as low as possible to max out coverage. They can cover more territory than we can on the ground.”

“Will do.”

To the other officers, Gray ordered, “If anyone finds or hears anything else, hit me on the radio.”

Without waiting for assents, he got into the police sedan Dom had somehow managed to drive through the crowd, and rechecked the locator receiver. Nothing. No red dot. No Alex. He twisted the unit’s audio dial to max out. If Alex was anywhere within range, the unit would ping like active sonar.

After angling the case so he could see it while driving, Gray headed uptown, stopping at red lights just enough not to plow into pedestrians. The range on the locator was short, so the chances of finding her were slim to none. On the one hand, he wanted to get a blip. But if he did, that meant the locator was active and the Pyramid would find it, too. That locator device could be Alex’s lifeline.

Or her death sentence.

I should have told her. I should have told Alex I believe her, that she wasn’t using my ass to get information on the Pyramid investigation. Gray gripped the steering wheel tighter.

Now it might be too late.

He drove slowly, glancing from time to time at the monitor, straining his ears for the telltale ping.

Emotion and regret pounded his brain from all sides. He’d only just begun to explore his feelings for Alex, and now he might never get the chance to see where things could have taken them. The only thing he knew for certain was that he was crazy about her. If only he’d believed her, trusted her from the beginning instead of being such an almighty rigid asshole. He should have trusted his own instinct, but his black-and-white brain refused to trust his gut.

This time, I should have, dammit.

He didn’t know how long he drove, hours he assumed. North up Manhattan, well into the Bronx. Then he turned south, back into Manhattan, alternately looping east and west between the Hudson and East rivers. Still nothing. Time was running out. If they didn’t get a hit soon…

Gray’s cell phone rang. Dom. He cued up the call. “Anything?”

“We got the van on one of the city cameras. Plates are a dead end. They were reported stolen this morning.”

“Damn.” He figured that, but he’d been hoping for a break anyway. “Where were the tags stolen?”

“A house in Brooklyn. I’ve got a team searching that location. Still nothing.”

“Keep me posted.” Gray hung a U-turn at Riverside Drive and headed east again.

“Ten-four. And Gray?”

“Yeah?”

“This wasn’t your fault.”

“The hell it wasn’t,” he shouted. “I should have trusted her sooner.”

“You had your reasons.” They both knew what it was. Marina. Dead for more than fifteen years and that double-crossing bitch was still screwing with his head. “Stop kicking yourself. Shit happens.”

Yeah, it did.

“None of it matters if I can’t find her.” Or if she’s dead. “Check in with me in an hour.”

“Will do,” Dom said.

“Gotta go.” Gray ended the call and braked at an intersection jammed with pedestrians. He hit the car’s air horn and people scattered. He blew past the Empire State Building and kept heading east. Time was running out, and something bugged the hell out of him. He still didn’t understand why the Pyramid grabbed Alex. She would do anything to protect Nicky, and the Pyramid knew that. Kidnapping Nicky to force Alex to work for them made sense, but what value was she to them if she couldn’t access police information? Did they plan to kill her all along after she handed over the bogus documents?

No. There had to be another reason. The Pyramid hadn’t tried to kill the janitor who planted the bugs in his and Dom’s office phones. Ironically, the Pyramid seemed to possess a sense of honor. If you paid your debt to them, they left you alone. Even though the bugs had been discovered, the janitor had fulfilled his debt.

Alex, likewise, had fulfilled her debt the minute she handed over the documents. While the documents didn’t reveal anything critical, the Pyramid wouldn’t know that until they reviewed the papers. Based on witness statements, it didn’t seem like they stopped to read them before grabbing Alex.