Page 49

For some reason it feels really important that I be the one to tell everyone. I don’t know why.

“Thanks, man. How long have we got left until the meeting at the docks?” I ask after a moment. “Everything has gotten a bit mixed up.”

“Erm, a week or so,” Cash replies with a slight frown that makes me think that he’s not even sure of the timeline anymore. “Alaric said twelve days. Elijah is coming back in a couple of days before he and the others are headed back out. Pete wants to be home to get everything ready and to spend time with him before we head off to the meeting with Hunt.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know how they do it. I couldn’t be away from Ever for an indeterminable amount of time like they are. Especially knowing that they’re each in danger.”

“I think they deal with it because they have to. I know it takes a big toll on both of them though,” Cash replies.

We both fall silent, lost in our thoughts as we continue to watch the house.

Chapter Sixteen

Jensen

I am so glad that we’re going to be done with this whole stakeout thing soon.

This is not for me.

A few hours after darkness has fallen, Trick comes over the comms to say that we’re heading in. We’ve already learned that the place has automatic lights that come on outside and inside the house. We thought that someone had been home the whole time, but we couldn’t see any movement anywhere, and when Pete finally got into the cameras, he checked all of the ones inside and realized that there was no one in the house.

I share a look with Cash as we both come to the same realization.

“We’re fucking idiots,” Cash mutters. “We could have just used the comms.” He frowns. “Why the hell didn’t we?”

“Because when we use the comms, we usually have them on constantly. There’s constant chatter from the others in this sort of situation, and without them on, there’s none,” I suggest. “Plus, I was and still am in shock that Knox called me, and the fucking number disappeared. It’s probably not a conversation that we should have over the comms anyway. Pete warned us not to use them in case someone was listening in.”

“Good point,” Cash concedes.

It’s not something that we should be sharing with the others if there’s any chance of someone outside of us being able to hear. There’s a very strong chance that Knox called because he’s in trouble. That means that it needs to be handled with care.

“Let’s go before they wonder where we are,” I say.

Cash nods, and we draw our weapons as we approach the house.

At this point, it is purely a precaution.

We know that the house is empty. We’ve been watching it for long enough.

“Has Pete dealt with the alarm?” I ask. Which just shows how distracted I am by the Knox situation, because I definitely should have asked that before we started to approach the house and tried to get in.

“Yeah, he’s disabled it,” Cash replies. “We’re good.”

I nod.

We’re in the middle of nowhere, so the chances of any neighbors calling the cops on us are pretty slim, but we still need to approach with caution.

It does mean that when we’re inside and we’ve cleared the place, we have a bit more freedom to move around and search without being worried about being seen through the windows.

It doesn’t take us long to scope out the outside of the place, and then we head through the back door. Trick has the comms on permanently now that we’re clearing the house so that we don’t accidentally shoot each other.

Every room we clear, we call out through the comms, quietly.

It takes a while to clear the whole house because the place is so fucking big.

I mean, as far as we’re aware, she lives here alone, and this is a massive place. Even for two or three people, it would be too big. It doesn’t help that like their home in Serendipity, this place is sterile.

Blank.