Page 15 of Hunted in the Silence

And he’d thought, briefly and against his better judgment, about Brynn standing beside a corkboard she’d built from memory, saying it’s the least they’re owed with the quiet certainty of someone who had dedicated her life to this.

Giving up on sleep, he’d gotten up and made coffee at four forty-five and started working.

Olivia arrived at seven-fifteen, which was late for her and meant she’d been on the phone since before dawn. She came through the door already talking, coat still on, reading from her phone screen with laser focus, delivering a briefing they’d been mentally composing for hours.

“Jeremy Vance,” she said without greeting. “Last known address Chicago, South Side. He’s been on the radar of the Chicago field office for eighteen months as a person of interest in a separate trafficking investigation. They haven’t moved on him because they don’t have enough and their case agent doesn’t want to spook him.” She dropped her bag on the desk and he could feel her eyes pinned on his back. “I called their case agent at six this morning.”

Cole spoke over his shoulder. “How’d that go?”

“About as well as you’d expect when you call someone at six in the morning and tell them their asset is connected to your case and you need to share information.” She finally took her coat off, slung it over the back of her chair, and sat down with a huff of annoyance. “He came around. We’re sharing. His surveillance on Vance puts him in Blackridge twice in the last three months.”

Cole turned from the whiteboard. “Twice.”

Olivia was rigid in her chair, a vision of pent-up frustration. “Third Thursday of September and first Thursday of October. Both times he drove down, spent approximately four hours, drove back.” She leaned forward and opened her laptop. “We don’t have him at the Meridian property specifically, but the dates align with the rotation schedule.”

“So Vance is the Chicago end of the pipeline. He comes down to confirm the receiving arrangements and goes back to set them up.” Cole looked at the map. “Which means last night’s van was headed to him.”

“That’s my read.” Olivia glanced up. “I’ve got a BOLO out on the van’s plates, but I don’t expect much. They’ll have switched them by now if they have any sense, and they clearly have some sense.” She typed something. “I also pulled the financials on Meridian Logistics. The holding company that owns the property traces back through two intermediate entities to a third company that lists a registered agent in Delaware. The agent is a law firm that serves as agent for approximately four thousand companies and has no idea who any of them actually are.”

Cole stuffed his hands in his pockets and scowled at the situation. “Dead end.”

“For now. The financial forensics team is on it, but I want you to have realistic expectations about the timeline.” She looked at him over the screen, and he felt the shift in her thinking before she voiced it. “How was last night?”

The question was professionally framed and personally aimed, which was a thing Olivia did with surgical consistency. Cole returned his attention to the whiteboard.

“Productive,” he said. “We documented the full rotation. Teller’s on camera. Three victims confirmed outbound. We have the van and we have the timestamp.”

“Mm.” She typed another line. “And Holt?”

“Handled herself exactly the way I expected her to. Sharp, accurate, no hesitation.” He picked up a marker and added Teller’s name to the board, connecting it to Meridian with a line. “She identified Teller from across a parking lot in the dark from memory. That’s not nothing.”

“No,” Olivia agreed. “It’s not.”

The silence that followed had weight to it. Cole kept writing on the board and let it sit.

“I’m going to need her with us on the next phase,” he said finally. “If we’re moving toward the Chicago connection, we’re going to need her take on how Devlin operates when things get big. She has three years of experience on the inside. That’s not replaceable.”

“I’m not arguing with you.”

“You’re not agreeing with me either.”

Olivia closed her laptop and looked him dead in the eyes, choosing her words. “I think she’s invaluable to this case. She’s been carrying something heavy for a long time, and now she’s about to have to carry it in a way that demands more of her. And I think you are aware of that.” She paused. “I think you’re more aware of it than is strictly professional.”

Cole set the marker down. “Olivia.”

He held her hands up. “I’m not making it a thing. I’m calling it out because these things tend to become complications at the worst possible moments, and I’d like to avoid that.” Her voice was even, calm, which was difficult to get angry with. “She’s a protected witness, she’s a civilian resource, and she’s been through something that would have destroyed most people. Whatever you’re feeling, you need to keep it where it belongs until this case is closed.”

He looked at the whiteboard for a moment, feeling his teeth clench at hearing the truth he wasn’t quite ready to face. “I know that.”

“I know you know it.” She opened her laptop again. “I also know you’ve been awake since four-thirty thinking about this case, and I want to make sure we’re clear on which parts of it are keeping you up.”

He didn’t answer that, and she didn’t push it, and they both turned back to their work.

Cole called Brynn at nine.

She picked up on the second ring—awake already. Her voice was low and calm, unhurried. He’d noticed before that she never put on a performance—no bright or cheery voice. Just herself—honest, simple, present. And something in that steadiness wove through him before he relized what it had happened.

He cleared his throat and pushed past it. “We have a name on the recruiter,” he said. “Mario Teller. Two prior arrests in Indiana, both dismissed. I need you to look at a photograph and confirm.”