“Ah, yeah, so that’s your and Ryder’s job,” she said, taking a step back.
Rowan caught her hand. “We don’t know what we’re walking into.” He placed the gun in her hand. “Don’t hesitate.”
She wrapped her fingers around the cool metal.
Rowan gave a firm nod of approval.
By the time he got himself armed to the teeth, Ryder arrived, pulling in behind Rowan in his rented truck. Ryder strode toward them and offered them both bulletproof vests. “Safety first.”
“Thanks.” Alex quickly got into hers.
“You clear upstairs,” Rowan said to Ryder, fastening his vest. To Alex, he added, “We’ll clear the basement and work our way up.”
Alex restrained her smile at Ryder’s small frown. He’d want her with him, she didn’t doubt that, but he must have trusted Rowan slightly since he finally nodded. “Be aware of odd placements of rugs, cracks in walls. Lewis may have a room that’s not visible.”
“Can you do a thermal scan on the property?” Alex asked.
Ryder’s mouth twitched. “The team’s already on it.”
“Thank you,” Rowan said, then looked at Alex, his lips thinning. “Stay close.”
She gave a quick nod, holding her gun how Ryder had taught her, down and out, ready to act if needed. It surprised her that Rowan let Ryder lead the way, but then she realized by Rowan’s closeness right in front of her, there was a very good reason for that.
Her.
He kept his body like a shield in front of her, seemingly aware of her behind him, as he trudged into the forest and she followed, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dark night. The moon was bright, both illuminating their path but also letting their whereabouts be known. When the looming house appeared, there wasn’t a light on or any sign indicating Lewis was still in the house. The mansion stood like a dark shadow, and a sliver of hope ran up her spine. This place provided the exact location Lewis needed.
Ryder reached the house first and quickly picked the lock of the basement’s door. In seconds, they were inside. The basement was an open space full of boxes. Rowan clicked a flashlight on, and Alex followed as quietly as she could. Barely breathing, walking lightly on her feet, she stayed behind Rowan as he moved through the basement with lethal precision. When Rowan went right, Alex went left, glancing over the floor as she went, looking for any sign of a trap door. She then studied the walls, but only found concrete.
When she reached the stairs to the upper floor, Rowan met her there. “It’s clear that way,” she told him.
He nodded. “Let’s go up.”
They quietly traveled up the stairs that Ryder must have gone up too. The door was left ajar, and they made it onto the main level. Rowan cleared the kitchen, and Alex searched the living room and sitting room, finding nothing out of the ordinary, except clean furniture. And that in itself still rubbed her wrong. Why put such care into a property he didn’t use?
Alex ended up in the l
ibrary, where she spotted the computer on the grand desk. She moved there immediately and grabbed a portable hard drive from her backpack. She plugged it in and powered up the computer, and it booted up to the cloning utility. In the minutes it took her to clone Lewis’s computer, Rowan had strode into the room, looking frustrated but at ease, with Ryder following.
“Nothing?” Alex asked softly.
Rowan shook his head. “Lewis isn’t here, and neither is my sister.” He gestured at the computer. “Got anything there?”
“Just cloning the files.” When the application stopped running, she took out the portable hard drive. “I don’t know if this actually belongs to Lewis, but if it does, I’ll have work to do to get into his secured files. He’d be smart about his security.” She rose. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Right as she took a step, Rowan held up a hand, then reached for his phone that had obviously vibrated as it rang. He had it to his ear in the next second. “Hawke.” A long pause followed as Rowan’s expression went totally closed. “I’m coming now.” He shut his eyes, and the phone was still pressed to his ear, even though Alex suspected the call had ended.
The space between them suddenly felt cold. She needed to get closer, and hurried to his side, reaching for his hand, clutching his trembling fingers. “What’s happened?”
“That was Wes”—his buddy that worked for the FBI and had been working the Casanova Sadist case—“they found Mia.”
Ryder took a step closer.
“God, Rowan, I’m so sorry,” Alex barely managed. She understood all too well how it felt to lose a sister. She lost hers when she was seventeen. Her chest hollowed at the darkness around him. She recognized that pain, and she wanted to drain it from him, squeezing his hand tighter, hoping he knew she was in this with him. They’d fought through all this together, and his pain now felt like hers too. “I’m just so damn sorry we didn’t get there in time.”
He finally opened his eyes, and she sucked in a harsh breath at the raw emotion flaring there as he said, “They found her alive.”
CHAPTER 2