Page 37 of Hunted in the Silence

“Thank you,” she said.

“Don’t thank me.” He pushed the door to the lobby open. “Just be right about the south room.”

“I’m right about the south room,” she said firmly.

He nodded once and went back to his office.

***

Brynn spent the afternoon at the center, working through the procedures on her end. The plan for receiving girls post-rescue—the hospital coordination, the intake process, the way she’d need to manage multiple survivors simultaneously if the count inside the Harlan building ran higher than they estimated.

She called the county hospital’s SANE coordinator and gave her a heads-up without specifics, using the language they’d developed over three years of working these cases together. Possible multi-victim situation, Thursday, details to follow. The coordinator, a woman named Peggy who had been doing this work longer than Brynn and had dedicated her life to it, said she’d have a team on standby.

The afternoon was ordinary on the surface. Two appointments. A call with a social worker about a housing situation. Staff coming and going.

Underneath it, she was aware of the clock.

She was reviewing her intake notes at four-thirty when her phone rang. Cole’s number.

“Finn called me twenty minutes ago,” he said without preamble. “He was running an errand on the west side and spotted Garrett Webb two blocks from the advocacy center.”

Brynn went still.

“Walking or in a vehicle?” she asked.

“Walking. East on Clement, toward the center. Finn circled the block and by the time he came back around, Webb was gone.” He took an audible breath. “He may have been scoping the building. He may have been in the neighborhood for an unrelated reason. But given the timing and the location—”

“It’s not unrelated,” she said, her voice flat and certain. “Webb is Devlin’s eyes in this area. If he’s two blocks from here, Devlin sent him.” She pressed her palm flat against the desk, needing the physical contact with something solid. “He knows I’m connected to this investigation. He’s confirming my location.”

“That’s what I’m worried about.” Cole’s voice was careful. “I’m coming to the center.”

“You don’t need to—”

“Brynn.”

She stopped.

“I’m coming to the center,” he said again, leaving no room for argument. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t go outside.”

She didn’t argue. She set the phone down and looked at the window behind her desk. The parking lot was visible through it. Two cars, both belonging to staff, both familiar. The street beyond the lot was ordinary. A delivery truck. A woman walking a dog. Nothing that looked suspicious.

She stood up and went to tell her staff to use the back exit for the rest of the afternoon. She framed it as a precaution, and they trusted her enough not to ask questions, which was one of the things she’d built here over six years—trust.

Cole arrived in record time. She heard the front door and met him in the hallway, and she couldn’t help noticing the tightness around his eyes, the worry in the firm line of his mouth.

He stopped when he saw her. Did a brief onceover that sent tingles of awareness down her spine that was so quick, she might have missed it if she hadn’t been paying attention.

“You’re all right,” he said.

“I told you I was.”

“I know what you told me.” He released a heavy breath and shifted back into the professional mode she recognized. Squaring his shoulders, he indicated her office with a tip of his head.

Once they were alone, he set up at the corner of her desk with his phone and a notepad while she pulled up the building’s exterior camera feed, the basic system the center had installed three years ago that covered the front parking lot and the east side entrance. They found a whole lot of nothing.

“He knew where the cameras were,” she said.

“Yes.” Cole studied the screen. “Or he approached from the west and never got into their range.” He was quiet for a moment. “Has anyone been near this building in the past week that felt off to you? Before today?”