I don’t look up, but I nod. My heart is racing like a tribal beat, my ears are still ringing, and all I want is for him to leave.
A few moments pass, and then I hear the click of the locks sliding into place again.
I sink back against the wall and allow myself to breathe.
Chapter Ten
Rafferty
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MY PHONE RINGS, ANDI snatch it up.
“Rafferty, it’s Carter,” the person on the end of the line says.
“What have you found?” I ask.
“I’m still working on it, but the person I suspected of being Wren left already.”
“Fuck!” I curse. “Does anyone know where he’s gone? Has he left permanently, or is he coming back?”
“Unsure about that, currently.”
Frustration and anger boil inside me. “Unsure? I don’t pay you to be unsure. I pay you to find out facts.”
Every minute that goes by is another minute Honor is taken farther from us, and it’ll be harder to find her. I can’t even allow myself to think about what her stepfather might be doing to her. If I allow my thoughts to linger on it, the rage grows within me, and I think I could lose my mind.
“Like I said, I’m still working on it. I did manage to get a picture, however. I’m sending it to your phone right now.”
My phone buzzes, and I take it away from my ear to check the message I’ve just been sent. I open it, and the sight is like a punch to my solar plexus.
It’s him. Wren. He’s older now—in his sixties instead of his thirties, as he had been when I’d known him—but his face is unmistakable. It’s all in the eyes and the curl of those cruel lips.
I hate that my hand is shaking when I lift the phone back to my ear. “That’s him.”
“You sure?” Carter asks.