Page 49 of Hunted in the Silence

“Clear,” the agent behind him called, emerging from the bathroom.

Cole lowered his weapon and stood in the center of the room, studying it. The careful, deliberate order of everything in its place, nothing left behind that mattered. The open window wasn’t an escape route. It was a message. He knew they were coming and he walked out the front door.

“He’s gone,” Cole announced, a deflated sense of disappointment and frustrating digging deep into his gut.

Carson appeared in the doorway, read the room in two seconds, and said nothing. Though the darkness in his eyes echoed everything Cole felt.

They’d done everything right, and they’d still missed their mark.

Cole moved to the small table with a single drawer standing against the wall. He opened it.

Empty, except for one thing. A folded piece of paper, placed deliberately in the center of the drawer. He knew instantly it was a message meant for them.

He unfolded it with gloved hands.

Four words, in a neat and unhurried hand.

Tell her I’m coming.

Cole stared at the words for a long moment, letting them sink in. Then he looked at the jacket folded over the back of the chair. The way it had been placed just so, the same way the note had been.

He crossed to it and checked the left inside pocket.

The ledger was there.

He stood stock still, holding it in his gloved hand, understanding washing over him. Devlin wasn’t a man who’d fled in a hurry and forgotten the one thing he never went anywhere without. He’d had left it behind on purpose, just like the note. Right down to the open window.

Every piece of it was a message.

I don’t need it anymore. I have what I came for.

Cole thought about what Silas had said. He’ll come at the thing that represents the greatest threat to his sense of control. The ledger had been the record of his power for twenty years. He’d walked away from it because he’d decided the only thing that mattered now was Brynn.

Leaving the ledger behind wasn’t a mistake. It was a declaration.

Cole bagged both the note and the ledger as evidence and walked out of the building with a renewed focus. He couldn’t afford to keep being one step behind. From now on, he had to be thinking three steps ahead. He handed the bags to Olivia, who read the note through the plastic with a blank expression, which was telling. Olivia’s composure only stayed steady like that when she understood completely what was at stake.

“He’s not running,” she stated.

“No.” Cole held her even stare, seeing the concern reflected back at him.

“He’s hunting.”

“Yes.”

She sucked in a breath and handed the bag back and pulled out her phone. “I’ll coordinate with Carson on perimeter and surveillance. If he’s in Blackridge, we find him before he finds her.” She was already dialing. “Go to Brynn.”

He nodded once, sharply, and jumped in his unmarked and drove back across Blackridge. When he pulled up to BPD, Brynn was standing on the sidewalk outside Finn’s unmarked car, hands in her jacket pockets, dark hair loose around her face. Her eyes found him when he got out, and he crossed the sidewalk to her and stopped close—too close.

She looked up at him. Her brown eyes were steady and dark, and it was clear to him that she already knew. That she’d been bracing for this.

“He left the note for me,” she concluded. “Not for you.”

A muscle in his jaw popped. He wanted nothing more than to shield her from this darkness, and he’d failed. “Yes.”

“He wants me to be afraid.” She held his gaze, emotion thick in her voice. “He wants me to run, or to freeze, or to do something that gives him the advantage. That’s why he left it.”

“Yes,” he confirmed. Cole admired her steadiness, the courage it took to stand on a sidewalk in the cold and say those things out loud. “Which means we don’t give him either one.”