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I immediately did as I was told, thinking it prudent to follow his directions. I took a deep breath and hoped my explanations would be enough to get out of the office unharmed. But I was almost certain that if he planned on hurting me, he wouldn’t leave Sofie in the room.
I placed the hard drive and phone on the desk and pushed them his way. “Not much to tell. Lucius gave these to me when I left Guyana, asking me to find you.”
Gunner took the drive and examined it. “What did he look like, and what did he say to you when he gave them to you?”
I faltered, not sure why he’d want me to describe Lucius. They had a little mini-Lucius in their office. They obviously knew him. “A little taller than Carter, dark, almost black hair, same eyes as Sofie.”
He stilled, his sharp gaze burning into me. I doubted many people would get away with lying to him. If anyone was stupid enough to lie to him in the first place, he’d probably know right away. “Where in Guyana did you see him, and what names can you remember?”
After listing as many names as I could recall and the town I was taken from, Gunner nodded at Carter.
“It’s Blake.” He gave the hard drive and phone to Carter. “Get this processed. It has priority over anything else.”
Carter rushed out of the room, calling out over his shoulder, “I’m on it.”
The door clicked shut behind him, and I rested my hands on my lap. They felt empty after clutching the hard drive and phone for so long.
“We’ll put you up in a safe house,” Gunner stated.
My head dropped, and I rubbed my burning eyes. “I don’t think that’s necessary. Lucius made sure I was safe.”
“Until I know what in the h-e-double-l is going on, you’re not leaving our sight,” he said, spelling out the word with a glance at Sofie.
I bristled at the implication that Lucius didn’t know what he was doing. “I’m safe. He wouldn’t have let me go if that wasn’t the case.”
“Blake—the man you know as Lucius—erased his tracks so well, not even my background checks found any connection to Guyana. He made himself a ghost. And while that’s an advantage in our line of work, it’s not helping him over there. Reputation is king. The bloodier your history, the better. And Lucius has none. If he’s smart, he’ll get out of there.”
I nodded, appreciating that he took the time to explain. But my confidence in Lucius was unwavering. He’d saved me. And he definitely had a history since he grew up there. But if Gunner didn’t know about it, I wouldn’t be the one to tell him.
But I also saw the logic in his offer. “I’ll stay in a safe house for a week. If you’re as good as you seem to be, that should be enough time for you to figure things out. And Lucius asked me to come here. He must trust you. And I’m willing to do the same.”
Gunner nodded and picked up his phone. “Dalton, get the closest safe house ready. We have a guest.”
“You want to play Uno with us while you wait?” Freya asked, shuffling cards at the small table off to the side. Sofie was sitting next to her, cuddling Killer on her lap.
I smiled at the beautiful little girl, whose attention had shifted from Freya to me. “I’d love to.”
I took a seat on a comfortable chair opposite them and watched Freya hand out the cards. Once done, she turned her attention to me. “So how did you end up in Guyana, of all places? It’s not exactly the number-one tourist destination.”
“My brother disappeared.” My voice wavered at the thought of Archer still out there. I’d been his last chance. “And I was looking for him.”
Freya’s hand froze halfway to the table, where she was about to place a card. “What do you mean, he disappeared?”
I cleared my throat. “He went on a trip to South America. Guyana was his first stop. A few days in, he disappeared. And since it’s been a few months, they closed the investigation. I went out there to try and find him.”
“By yourself?”
I nodded, knowing even before I’d left the States that it was a stupid idea. But I’d been stubborn enough to still do it. Not that it did him any good. He was still gone.
“That was reckless,” Gunner unhelpfully jumped in. “You should have hired someone.”
I rolled my eyes at him, thinking he might get that reaction a lot. “Don’t you think I would have tried that? But first, who’d be crazy enough to go to South America to find a missing person? Actually, don’t answer that one. And second, that would have cost more money than I have.”
I had a nice little nest egg saved up. I’d been planning on buying the apartment I lived in. But most of that money was now gone, thanks to my wild-goose chase. And now I was back to where I started, only more jaded and wearier.
Gunner sighed, then mumbled something that sounded like “I’m going to regret this” under his breath before directing his attention my way again. “I’ll get one of my guys to look into it. More times than not, there’ll be an electronic trace. Nobody just disappears. You probably didn’t look in the right place.”
I wanted to snap something back at him, but his offer was generous. So instead of telling him I did the best I could, I thanked him and accepted his help.
