Leaving the building, I catch up to Kol across the street. “Anything?” I ask before he can.
“A few managers and owners are putting calls in to their security companies and sending videos over to the station now, but nobody has recalled anything out of the ordinary. Nobody suspicious.” He appears perplexed. “It’s like this guy doesn’t exist outside of the robberies.”
“I’ve got a theory about how he picks his victims.” Kol’s head pops up then, and he listens with interest as I explain my findings.
By the time I’ve shown him how the encounters happen, Kol is getting a call that some of the surveillance videos are on his desk, so we head back to the precinct. On the cusp of breaking the case, our adrenaline runs high as we arrive at the station.
Diving right into the videos, analyzing every minute, neither of us realizes the time until our captain has pizza delivered for us.
“Thea’s going to kill me,” Kol grumbles as he pulls out his phone to text her.
Gazing at the clock on the wall and seeing it’s after ten, I know I should have texted Ember too. As I’m about to start typing on my phone, her name flashes across the screen, and a smile spreads across my face.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I answer.
“Noah.” The fright in the single whispered word has me sitting up straighter.
“What’s going on, Em?” I ask her just as an officer comes into the conference room and hands Kol a piece of paper. When he turns to face me, the look of absolute terror has every instinct in my body screaming that something is horribly wrong.
“Someone’s in the house, Noah.” Ember’s words refocus my attention as Kol slides the paper to me and whispers something to the officer. “What do I do?”
“Where are you?” I don’t need to gaze down to see that Ember has filed a report that her wallet went missing. We asked earlier in the day to have any such ins
tances forwarded to us, hoping to prevent another home invasion.
“In my room. I can hear a person downstairs. I just got out of the shower.” I’ll kill this son of a bitch if he touches her.
“Can you leave your room quietly?” Mentally drawing a map of her upstairs in my mind, I recall a closet at the end of the hall they don’t use.
“Yes.”
“Go to the closet in the hall, be as quiet as possible. Kol and I will be there soon,” I say as we’re rushing from the building. “Officers are on their way now. There are no sirens, so you won’t hear them.”
“Noah,” her voice cracks. “I’m so scared.” I might just take him out for scaring her alone.
“I’m coming, baby. I won’t let anything happen to you.” Keeping the phone to my ear until we’re in the car and driving, I place it on speaker so Kol can hear too.
“You okay, Em?” he asks his sister, and she whimpers.
“He’s coming.” We can hear the creaking of the floorboards on the stairs in the background.
“Lock your phone, so he doesn’t see the light,” I tell her. Kol’s grip on the steering wheel tightens, and the leather groans.
We sit in tense silence, waiting for whatever happens next, and I’ve never felt so fucking helpless. I should be there protecting her, not here. I should have fucking checked in with her sooner.
“Noah.” The way she sob’s my name, begging me to rescue her, has my heart pounding so hard against my sternum it rattles my entire frame.
“Sshh, baby. We’re coming.”
When she inhales a trembling breath, I know the bastard's standing outside the closet door. Kol tenses further, and we’re both helpless against what’s about to happen.
“No, no, no, please don’t,” Ember whimpers as the door clicks open, and the son of a bitch chuckles at her fear.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” Kol hisses as we hear Ember being dragged from the closet.
“Please don’t do this,” she begs as Kol flies through another red light amidst honking and screeching from cars trying to stop. “Please, my brother and boyfriend are cops. They won’t stop until they find you.” I can hear the tears in her voice, and my fury continues to climb.
“They haven’t found me yet,” the man taunts.