Page 57 of Hunted in the Silence

Silence. Yet she could sense the depth in the line that told her someone was there, listening.

“Brynn Holt,” she said, keeping her voice level. Professional.

More silence. Then, soft and unhurried and exactly as she remembered it, a voice she had not heard in eleven years said, “You look well.”

Her hand tightened on the phone. She breathed. “Andre.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d answer.”

“I answer every call to this number,” she said. “It’s a crisis line.”

He made a sound that might have been appreciation. “Still working,” he said. “I expected nothing less.” There was a pause, and then, “I’ve been watching you for some time, Brynn. What you’ve built here. It’s impressive. Genuinely.”

She remained quiet, refusing to thank him for something he’d caused to be necessary. As if he were someone normal and he’d complimented her on a normal thing. As if her hands weren’t gripping the phone hard enough to crack the plastic.

“I’d like to talk,” he said in a conversational tone that made her clench her teeth. “In person. Just the two of us, the way we used to. Do you remember how we used to talk?”

“I remember everything,” she deadpanned.

“I know you do.” His voice was soft and obscene in its warmth. “Tonight. Come alone. I’ll send you the location.” He paused again, and there was something dangerous in his silence. “Come alone, Brynn. If I see anyone with you, I’ll be gone before you reach the door and this conversation will have a different ending than the one I’m offering.”

The line went dead.

She set the phone on the desk and looked at it, taking controlled breaths. In through the nose, slow count of four, out through the mouth. Once. Twice.

Then she picked up her phone and called Cole.

He was through the front door of the center in ninety seconds flat.

***

They worked through the afternoon, the plan assembling itself around Devlin’s offer and what it was going to take and what it was going to cost. Silas was on the phone from three o’clock. Carson and Finn and Olivia were in the conference room with the map. Cole was working intensely at the board, building it piece by piece like he had something personal against it, which he did.

A text to her phone from another unknown number came through at four-thirty with an address on the south edge of Blackridge, an old commercial property that had been vacant for two years. Silas had it pulled up and profiled within twenty minutes. Single story, multiple exits, exactly what she’d expect from someone who wanted options for escape.

“He’ll have an exit planned that we can’t see from the street,” Cole said. “He chose this location because he knows it and we don’t.”

“Then we learn it before tonight,” Carson said.

“We have five and a half hours,” Finn chimed in.

“Enough,” Carson decided.

Brynn sat at the table and listened and added her two cents where she could and felt the afternoon move through her with certainty. She had felt it before, on smaller scales, in situations that had ended without what she’d feared…and also situations that had not.

Tonight contained both possibilities, and she had chosen to walk toward it anyway, and once she’d made a choice, she didn’t unmake it.

She was going to do everything in her power to make sure things went right.

At six o’clock, Carson took Finn and his people to run the property, and Olivia stayed on the phones coordinating with the Bureau. Cole and Brynn were alone in the conference room with the map between them and four hours on the clock.

She looked at the map. At the address on the south edge of the city, the building she was going to walk into in four hours.

“I need you to hear something,” she told Cole, and he looked at her. “If tonight goes wrong, if something happens that none of us planned for… I need you to know that I understand what I’m doing and why and that I don’t have any regrets about any of it.” She held his gaze. “About the case. About last night.” She paused. “I spent a long time not letting myself want things. Not letting myself believe that I could have what everyone else has.” Like someone to love who might love her back. “Last night was the first time in a long time that I went toward something instead of away from it.” She stopped and looked away. “Anyway, I wanted you to know that.”

She felt Cole’s eyes on her for a long moment.

He crossed around the table to her side, and she stood to meet him. When he reached her, he took her face in both hands and kissed her so passionately, with such certainty, she knew he was done running away too.