Alex.
She was already bound to help her government whenever they pleased. For free. She was always at the beck and call of either the FBI or CIA, and she didn’t deserve that. No one did. She’d obviously hidden a lot of what she could do, knowing they’d exploit her. And they would, they’d already proven that.
The thought infuriated Rowan. He wanted her set free.
Minutes went by. Long minutes, while Rowan leaned against the desk off to the side of Alex, crossing his arms. Ryder stayed calm and studied his phone. Jeff’s leg was bouncing while he continued to work on his computer. Alex tapped her fingers against the desk, slow steady beats…until suddenly she went very still.
Rowan asked quickly, “Did he take the bait?”
“He did.” Her fingers began flying over the keyboard, and she bounced in her chair a little. “I’m in.”
Jeff stayed in his seat but leaned over a little to watch her work. His eyes were bright and alert, obviously impressed by her. So was Rowan.
Hours went by. One hour. Then two. Rowan tried to stay still, not disrupt her. Ryder stayed the same level of calm, looking at his phone, responding to texts or whatever the hell he was doing. But soon, Rowan got them all more coffees and food and then just became lost in her. At this beautiful, smart, sexy-as-hell woman who was on her way to catching a serial killer. Rowan realized everyone took from her. Her shitty mother. Her own government. She’d found a home in Ryder, a safety net where he believed in her.
Rowan wanted to be that for her now. More so, he wanted to be her home.
“Oh, shit,” Alex gasped. “You are not going to believe this.” She hit a bunch of keys, then the monitors all flashed black before a video feed popped up. Rowan moved closer, feeling Ryder do the same. He stared at the video for a good few seconds before processing what he was looking at. Five rooms. Four of them bedrooms. The other room was a dungeon with wooden crosses, benches, whips, chains—there was not a blank space on the wall that was not full of items that Lewis used for his twisted sadistic games.
Rowan turned around to Alex, his blood cold. “How did you find this?”
Her face had drained of all color. “It’s the feed that must have been also at the storage unit,” she explained. “I’ll give it to Lewis, he hid the feed well, deep in top secret files, but it was the only incoming feed on his computer that wasn’t directly linked to the FBI.”
Amazed by her, he managed, “And you got into that?”
She shrugged.
Rowan couldn’t help himself. He moved to her, kissed the top of her head, hearing the silence get even thicker around him. Her spring-like scent infused the air when he inhaled, slightly torn with being so damn proud of her and also wanting no one to ever know what she could do, in fear she’d always be under the government’s hold.
When he broke away, their gazes held. “You did it,” he said to her.
She gave a soft, sweet smile he’d never seen before. “We did it.”
His chest tightened to the point he had to force air into his lungs as he moved in front of the monitors again. In two of the beds, he saw women sleeping. His sister had been in one of those beds. His fingers tightened into fists.
“What’s that?” Jeff asked, suddenly rising from his seat, hastily moving toward the monitor.
“Record this,” Ryder barked the order.
Alex’s fingers rushed across the keyboard, and then suddenly, Rowan understood why. Carl Lewis strode into the underground tunnels, his face clear as day while he walked in the hallway.
“Recording, but he’s going—” An alarm blasted through the speakers of Alex’s computer. Lewis looked up and right at the camera, now aware that his security had been breached. “And yup, now he knows we’ve got him.”
Alex quickly cut the alarm, and coldness bit into Rowan’s bones as he stared into the eyes of a captured, cold-hearted, ruthless killer. Lewis had two choices. Kill the women. Or run. Rowan exhaled a relieved breath when Lewis turned to go back the direction he came.
Until he stopped and looked back, and with an icy smile, he said, “You’ll never find them.”
“Another sick fucking game,” Rowan growled, images of what his sister went through in that place flashing through his mind.
A beat passed. Then Alex asked, “What do we do now?”
Rowan didn’t even have to think about it. “Stream it live.”
“You sure you want to do that?” Ryder asked behind him. “You realize what that might cost you?”
His job. “You’re right, we can’t play by the rules here. The Feds will bury this to protect their image.” The fury in his gut burned into him as he turned around, facing the group. “For Mia, this can’t be buried. This needs to be exposed. Any other corruption because of Lewis needs to be ousted. Stream it.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.” Alex grinned, flexed her fingers, and turned back to her monitor. “I do love watching the bad guys burn.”
CHAPTER 11
With one click of a button, the video was sent to Ryder’s contact at the news station. Within an hour, the video of the women and of Carl Lewis was splashed across every news station in the country, and Lewis’s arrest warrant was issued. Both the FBI and CIA were in chaos, and Alex still watched the women sleeping on the monitor from her desk. Lewis had left the women there unharmed, but finding them, along with finding out where Lewis went, was the CIA and FBI’s primary focus.
“I never dreamed I’d see the day they came here,” Jeff drawled, his attention sharp on Mike Taylor, the director of the CIA, who talked with Rowan near the monitors where the women slept soundly.
In his late fifties, Taylor was a whole head shorter than Lewis, and a little softer around the middle too. But where Lewis’s eyes were dark pits of misery, Taylor’s were wise and warm, and when he first looked upon Alex after he, along with his team, arrived at headquarters, he stared at her with honest curiosity and no animosity.
“No one could have expected this,” Alex commented, glancing around the room full of CIA agents. She turned to Jeff and shrugged. “I imagine even Taylor didn’t expect to ever step foot into the place they want to pretend doesn’t exist.” Blackwood Security broke laws. Most times, law enforcement agencies overlooked that if it suited their needs too, but they also preferred staring in the dark on most matters. But Taylor had been smart enough to know that Rowan was likely behind the leak, working in conjunction with Alex and Ryder. And Rowan had not seemed surprised when the CIA landed on Ryder’s doorstep.
“Team,” Ryder said, sidling up to Alex, but he wasn’t alone. Next to him stood a man in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair that didn’t age him but made him look more distinguished. He had warm blue eyes and a pleasant smile. “This is Gerald Hampton. He’s a profiler with the CIA.”
Hampton offered his hand to Alex. “You’ve done fine work here, Ms. McCoy.”
Alex nearly choked on her own spit. She couldn’t remember a time that anyone had ever told her she’d done a good job. They usually just told her that her job was done, and they sent her on her way. “Thank you, but it was a team effort.”
Hampton smiled warmly, his regard turning intrusive.
Alex nearly flicked him in the nose. She’d seen enough therapists throughout her years to know when one was trying to look too deep. “Is there anything more you need from me?” The CIA always needed more. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be here.
Hampton nodded and slid onto the desk across from her, crossing his arms. “I’d like to talk to you about anything else you might have found on Lewis’s hard drive.”
That was the story Ryder had told the CIA. He’d said they had broken into his aunt’s house after following Lewis there and found the computer. Alex simply placed the video feed onto the hard drive, so when the CIA looked, they’d find it all locked up tight. “What exactly are you looking for?” she asked.
Hampton gave a slight shrug. “Anything that stood out to you as odd?”
Alex pondered all the data she’d combed through, a slow pulse thumping in her temple. She rubbed at the ache. “Do you think that will help us find the victims?”
Hampton nodded. “I have no doubt the location of the women means something to Lewis. He is a methodical killer. He leaves his victims on display, like art. He’d think through every decision he makes, and those decisions would make sense to him. Finding the victims will only happen if we can unravel his mind and see what drives him as a killer. What his plan was.”
“Good luck with that,” Alex said with a snort. “He’s a fucking psycho.”
Hampton nodded in full agreement. “And yet, we need to find those women, so this is what we’re left to do. You’ve seen the files, Ms. McCoy, you just need to look through the cracks to see if you’ve missed anything. Time is against us here.”
“She is well aware of the dangers here,” Rowan said, approaching. He placed his hand behind her chair, his gaze sharp on Hampton. “She’s done more for those women than anyone in the room. Let’s not forget that.”
Thick silence passed between the two men before Hampton rose. “Think on it, Ms. McCoy,” he finally said to Alex. “Something is there, we”—he exaggerated the word as if to prove he wasn’t putting the weight of the women’s lives only on Alex—“just need to find the place that means something to him. A house. An old factory.” He tapped his fingers against the desk. “Think about it.”
Alex nodded at Hampton. She waited for him to be out of hearing distance before she looked at Rowan, finding him already staring at her. She smiled. “He raises your hackles just a bit, huh?”
Rowan glared at Hampton’s back then looked at Alex with only warmth. “I’m reminding them what you’ve done for this case. We wouldn’t be here without your help.” He grabbed Jeff’s chair and flipped it around before straddling it, moving close to her. “Hampton’s also not wrong—I feel it too, we’re missing something.”
Behind her, Ryder asked quietly, “Have your scripts gotten anything from the location of the video?”
She shook her head and kept her voice quiet too. “There’s nothing online that matches the location, but I doubt Lewis had this built. I mean, look at these rooms, they’re made of stone. It’s old.”
Ryder studied the monitor with a frown. “It looks to have been chiseled out, not cut with machinery. He could not have done this himself, which means that this mine had to have been there before.”
Rowan gave a nod of agreement and gestured at Taylor. “They’re already on all the closed-down mines around New York state, having come up with the same conclusion.”
“He’s not going to be that stupid,” Jeff said. Rowan moved to give him his seat, but Jeff waved him off and took the spot next to Ryder. “He’s in a mine. That’s without a doubt, but this isn’t a well-known mine. He would never be that reckless, not with something like this. Even closed-down mines have tons of visitors daily. He’d go somewhere remote, somewhere deep underground.”
Alex tapped her fingers against her desk, feeling like there was a clue right there, ready for her to grab it. “While that makes sense, how would he have known about it? What did he do, go exploring—” The moment the words left her mouth, a veil on her mind dropped, revealing a memory that pointed her to the answer. Hampton had even said it himself. She did find something odd.
The photograph of Lewis in the forest.
Rowan’s brows rose. “You’ve got something?”
“Don’t let anyone bug me.” She turned back to her monitor and got to work, shutting out the people around her. Her instincts were flaring, telling her she was moving in the right direction.
That picture. It had to mean something. Lewis protected it. Why?
Alex was aware of Rowan keeping inquisitive CIA agents off her back, and she heard Ryder snap once that if they didn’t back off, he’d kick them out. Everything went quiet after that, and Alex felt every set of eyes in the room staring down on her as she wrote a script that searched the internet until she matched the location with photographs that others had taken. And then came her second script that went deep into the dark web, pulling at files and reports that were buried or thought to be destroyed. Her heart pounded when the news article popped up onto her screen, followed by police reports. She shot up from her chair. “I know where they are.”
Taylor turned away from his spot by the monitors and stormed toward her. “Show me.”
Alex went to take her seat again when Rowan interjected, “Not quite yet.” She jerked her head to Rowan, surprised by the ferocity in his voice. “This is the last case Ms. McCoy works for the CIA, FBI, or any law enforcement agency for free,” he stated. “She has done more than enough to appease what she did as a teenager. After tonight, if her expertise is required, she’s given a paid contract, like any specialized contract worker you’ve got in your pocket.”
Taylor’s eyes widened a moment before he frowned. “You know that’s not as easy as it sounds, Hawke.”
“It is as easy as it sounds,” Rowan retorted firmly. “You want the location; you’ll get her a new contract in writing. Tonight.”
Alex reached for his hand, silently telling him to stop pushing. Not that she didn’t appreciate his support and looking out for her, but he wasn’t talking to a schmuck. His job was already hanging in the balance from working with Alex on his sister’s case when he was told to stay away. This, what he was asking now, would end his career. “Rowan,” she warned.
His hard stare was set on Taylor. “As Hampton reminded us, time is counting down.”
Ryder grinned from ear to ear, and even chuckled his enjoyment at seeing Taylor squeezed in a vise.
Taylor’s frown only deepened as he stared Rowan down. He eventually cursed and turned, grabbing his phone from his pocket, striding away.
“You should not have done that,” Alex whispered.
Rowan leaned into her and stroked her cheek with his knuckles, his warmth pooling into her. “Yes, I should have. It’s time this ends. No more exploiting you for their gain. You have done enough.”
“Your job—”
Rowan’s smile was full of cocky arrogance. “You’re not the only one who excels at their job, McCoy.”
She shut her mouth, not really knowing what to say. Thank you seemed hardly enough.
Taylor’s back was ramrod straight as he ended his call then strode back to them. “Give me a piece of paper,” he called to no one in particular.
Jeff handed him one and a pen, and Taylor scribbled the note: I hereby relieve Alex McCoy of her commitment to the CIA and FBI. She is now a free contractor, and any and all work will be renegotiated in a paid contract from this day forward.” His hard expression met hers again. “Will this suffice?”
Alex blinked at the note, her chest rising and falling. To be free? She’d never thought it was a possibility. Even Ryder stared at the note with a smile. They’d tried many years to get her free and had always been shot down. It never even occurred to her minutes ago to think of herself, she’d only been thinking about the women. Her attention shifted to Rowan, her heart nearly exploding out of her chest. Maybe it wasn’t so bad to have someone else looking out for her. “Yes, that will work,” she finally said to Taylor.
Frown in place, Taylor signed and dated the note then offered it to her. “Now, will you tell us the location?”
She smiled down at the note. Free. Not anyone’s toy anymore. A weight came off her chest that she didn’t know was there. She returned to her seat and then brought up the photograph of Lewis. “You asked me if I found something odd,” she said to Hampton. “I did. This photograph was on Lewis’s hard drive, and he’d kept this picture locked up tight.” She hit more keys on her keyboard until a newspaper article showed up. The headline read: Boy Saved from Mine. “I’ve got the police report here. His mother was terribly abusive. She left him in the mine for three days with only a small amount of food and water as a punishment. While she awaited her court date in jail, she killed he
rself.” Alex typed again, pulling up a mine in Woodbury, New York. “This is where he was found, and this is where the girls are,” she said, hoping to hell they believed her.
Taylor stared at map. “How sure are you?”
“Never a hundred percent,” she said.
“Her instincts are never wrong,” Ryder offered.
Taylor glanced at Rowan. “Thoughts?”
Rowan didn’t even hesitate. “If she says they are there, then they’re there.”
A second later, the place erupted into chaos as everyone was on their cell phones and Taylor was barking out orders, heading for the door. Within minutes, every CIA agent had left the command center, leaving only thick silence and the hope that they found the missing women.
Alex stayed at her desk, her mind somersaulting with all that had happened, when Rowan moved closer to the monitor displaying the photograph of the mine.
“Something wrong?” Ryder asked.
Still staring at the monitor, Rowan asked, “Can you pull up a topo map of the area?” A second later, after Jeff’s fingers hit the keyboard, the topographic map popped up on the screen. Rowan leaned in closer, studying the map intently.
Alex squinted her eyes, trying to see what he saw. “What are we missing here?”
Rowan finally pointed to an area on the map. “Here,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “I bet they’re here, not at the entrance of the mine.”
Ryder cocked his head. “What makes you believe that?”
“Because Jeff’s right,” Rowan said, finally turning around to face them. “Lewis would never use the main entrance of the mine. He wouldn’t be that reckless, nor would he use an entrance that just anybody could walk into.” Rowan turned and studied the map again. “Here”—he pointed at the spot on the map—“This spot makes sense. He’s got access from the road, but there’s thick enough bush to keep out wandering hikers. This looks like a cavern, too, where possibly another small area of the mine had once been used.”
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