I shake my head. “He talked to everyone. Most of these pictures were a coincidence that he got them at all. One was from a survey crew a quarter mile away.”

  “Jeez,” she replies. “I guess even an assassin can’t escape all the cameras these days. It’s a good thing we live when we do.”

  “That word,” I say. “Assassin. Is that what you think she is?” I’d briefly considered the possibility, but I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself. Because a trained killer going after my husband and Gerald Wright opens a host of questions I don’t want to face. It means someone had a grudge or was hired for a job. I don’t like the implications of either scenario.

  Zara shrugs. “What else would you call someone who killed at least two people and covered it up to look like an accident both times?”

  “Dangerous,” I reply.

  “I second that.” We sit in silence for a moment. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “Do about it? What do you mean?”

  “If she’s not in FACE, what’s your next step?”

  I shake my head. “Honestly, I’m out of ideas. She could be anyone, and she could be anywhere by now. All I know is I need to find her. Face her and get the truth about what she did.” I ball my hand into a fist. “I don’t care what it takes.”

  “It’s not going to be like you can just haul her in. This is obviously a very smart and cautious person you’re dealing with here. What happens if she figures out you’re trying to come after her?”

  That’s another factor of this equation I don’t like. A woman like this can obviously kill with impunity. Which means if she knows I’m looking for her, I’ll be looking over my shoulder until we either have her in custody or she’s dead.

  I rub my temples. Despite the sleep I clocked in last night, I’m still tired. I think the week is beginning to wear on me. The longer we go without finding a solid clue to Hannah, the more exhausted I become. No wonder the agents who make it to retirement all look like they’ve lived at least two lifetimes. “I guess I’ll have to deal with that when it happens. The truth is, I don’t know.”

  She reaches over and pats my forearm. “Just know you’re not alone. You’ve got me. And I’m willing to bet you still have Liam too.”

  I chuckle. “I don’t think I ever had Liam.”

  “You said he heard what Wright said that night, right? Have you talked to him since coming back to D.C.?”

  I shake my head. I hadn’t wanted to make an already sticky situation worse. Liam and I might have worked on Victoria Wright’s case together, but there was something brewing under the surface between us. Something that I can’t act on, not while Matt’s death is so fresh in my mind. I don’t know if I can even have another romantic relationship after what he and I had, but I know that right now is not the time. I figured contacting Liam would only making things harder. “As far as I know, he’s still in training.”

  “But he heard it, right?”

  I shake my head. “I’m sure he thought Wright was just saying anything he could to keep from going to prison. People have said crazier.”

  “You guys didn’t talk about it after it happened?” she asks.

  I shake my head. “Not really. I kind of…lost a lot of blood right after. And then we had the whole deal with apprehending Chief Burke…it never really came up again. And honestly, I didn’t want to bring it up. Not until I had a chance to speak to Wright in earnest.”

  She pulls out her cell. “Let’s call him.”

  I grab her hand. “Don’t you dare.”

  She tugs on it, both of us grappling for the phone like fools in the front seats of the car. Before long we’re both laughing our asses off before she finally relents. “Okay, okay!” she says. “You win. We won’t call him…today.”

  I toss the phone back at her, but there’s a wide grin on my face. “Or ever. I will literally kill you.”

  She waves me off. “Whatever. I’ll just wait until I see him in person. When he gets done with training you know they’re gonna assign him to the head office. At least for the first six months.”

  My smile falters. I hadn’t really considered that. It means we could run into each other in the building. Which wouldn’t be the worst thing. I like Liam, and he really had my back in Stillwater. He’s a good person. It’s just…there are a lot of complicated feelings that come along with him.

  “Anyway, my point is, if you need extra backup, I bet he’d be there. Especially if you told him what happened with Wright.”

  “I think I’m already putting enough people in jeopardy, don’t you?” I ask.

  She gives me one of her signature noncommittal shrugs. “I guess it depends on how lethal this assassin is. If she’s like a ninja, then yeah, you’re definitely on your own. I cannot deal with katanas and throwing stars. But if she’s just really good with a gun, then I think I can show up for that fight.”

  I shake my head. “We better get back on it. We’ve still got another suspect to run down.”

  As I reach for the steering wheel, Zara snatches my hand, holding on to it tight. “I’m serious, Em. I’m not going anywhere. Okay?”

  I nod, thankful that I have her. But I know in my heart of hearts that no one can really promise that. We don’t know what will happen today or tomorrow. And Zara may think she’s all in, but there’s a difference between saying and doing. When the time comes, I won’t blame her if she decides to abandon me.

  “Okay.” I say. “Let’s go find Krauss.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Is this the place?” Zara asks. I look up through the windshield of the car at the twenty-story building looming above us.

  “I guess. Integrated Technology Solutions. Krauss’s business enterprise.” I pull up the picture of him on my phone. He’s not what I’d call conventional-looking, but he’s not ugly. I can see how he might be appealing to young women. Why someone like this would go out of his way to abduct people is beyond me. He has everything he needs in the world, money, looks, power. What do these women provide for him that he can’t buy or coerce out of someone?

  “So what do we do?” Zara asks.

  “Wait,” I reply. “I want to get a good look at him. And see where he goes when he leaves.” Unlike Daryl Thorpe, Krauss does strike me as the kind of man who is up at five a.m. every day. I see him as one of those people who thinks sleep is for the dead and time is money. Given what we know about him, he’s been working all of his adult life on his ventures, though he stays out of the public eye as best he can. No interviews with magazines, despite numerous requests by WIRED and FORBES, no in-person interviews with even local TV, not to mention national stations. There were a few early videos online, but those are mostly of just him coding. Apparently people like to watch that kind of thing. To me, it seems about as exciting as watching paint dry. But even in those videos he’s very withdrawn.

  “It says here, he’s not even the CEO of his own company,” Zara says, reading off her phone. “He handed over management of the company when they grew to over a million dollars in business back in 2018.”

  “So then…what? Does he still work here at all?” I ask.

  She nods. “Looks like he’s in charge of special projects, but as far as I can tell that’s a dead area. The company hasn’t produced anything out of that division, or if they have, they’ve kept it quiet.”

  “How many employees?” I ask.

  “Sixty total.”

  I look up at the building again. “I wonder how many of them interact with him on a daily basis?”

  “Are you thinking you want to try and get to know him through his coworkers?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. If he’s who we think he is, he may have crafted a carefully-curated persona that he only displays when he’s around other people. Something that obscures the real man underneath.”

  “Yeah, but how long can he keep something like that up?” she asks.

  “Oh, trust me. People can do it for decades. It becomes second nature. They just change who they are based on who they’re around. It’s a trick sociopaths use to blend in better. The more they mirror the people around them, the more likely they are to be accepted into the group dynamics and the more those people like them. People like it when their own behavior is mimicked, even if they don’t realize it.”

  “Seems like a lot of extra work,” she says.

  “Maybe. But for someone who doesn’t naturally fit into society, it can be like a coping mechanism. Or even a coat of armor that gives their true ‘inner-self’ protection from the world. In the case of men like Krauss, it can obscure who they really are to those that feel like they’re close to them. Think about it: anytime anyone goes on a killing spree they always interview the neighbors. And what do the neighbors always say?”

  She grins. “He was the nicest, quietest boy. I never would have thought he was capable of something like this.”

  “Exactly,” I say. “It’s how they blend into our world and walk among us.”

  “You make them sound like alien reptiles or something,” she laughs.

  “That’s not far off. They are alien, in a sense. Especially some of the people we hunt. Some of these crime scenes…I don’t know how another human can do something like that.”

  “So we’re just going to wait,” Zara says.

  “I don’t see that we have much choice,” I reply. “We need to get a sense of him, figure out a way into his world. Because if he’s done kidnapping women, that means we can’t bust him for it again. And who knows how much time those women have left, if they’re still alive at all. But given none of the bodies have been found yet, I’m cautiously optimistic.”

  “Okay,” Zara says, settling in. “Let’s watch.”

  Almost four hours later, I’m barely keeping my eyes open when I see a Passat pull out of the parking deck for Krauss’s building. I nudge Zara, who is lost in her phone on something. “Doesn’t Krauss drive a Volkswagen Passat?”

  “A gray one, I think.” She perks up, looking out the windshield. “Like that.”

  “Thought so,” I reply, turning over the engine and putting the car in gear. I’m careful to stay at least three cars back from Krauss; I have no idea how paranoid he might be. He could be looking over his shoulder every second, waiting for someone to pounce on him.

  “Where is he going?” Zara asks. “It’s two-thirty.”

  “Late lunch?” I suggest, keeping the tail long. We stop at a light while he continues on, but I’ve still got him in my sights.

  “I dunno,” she replies. “There are plenty of places to eat around his office that he could walk to. Why drive somewhere?”

  I don’t have a good answer for her. All we can do is wait and find out. The light turns green, and we’re back on him, still keeping our distance. We end up weaving through D.C. traffic for a while until he starts heading out on New York Avenue. He stays on it until it turns into Hanson Highway and before I know it, we’re leaving the confines of the city. “He’s headed home,” I say.

  “Kind of odd to leave at this time of day,” Zara says.

  “But it also means we can’t follow him.” Krauss’s house is out near the shore, right off the South River. There are some huge homes out there, but not a lot of traffic, and his has a private gate anyway. He’ll definitely pick up on our tail long before we reach his home, and then he’ll know someone is looking at him. “I’m going to have to turn back,” I say.

  “That’s it? What are we supposed to do, just let him go?” Zara asks.

  “We don’t have any evidence it was him,” I say. “Other than the circumstantial fact that he quit the ride-share we suspect Hannah Stewart took the night of her disappearance. We’ve got nothing linking her to him.”

  “But…” Zara says as I pull away and leave Krauss to head home on his own. I know exactly what she’s feeling. The frustration of not being able to pursue the suspect, the anger that he could have those women doing God-knows-what and there’s nothing we can do about it. The helplessness of it all. I’ve been there.

  “Look, we’ll head back to the office and go over all of it again. Deep dive. School records, childhood friends, teachers. Distant relatives, anything. If anyone has so much breathed on Douglas Krauss, I want to know about it.” I’m thinking about calling in that favor from Janice. I could use a few more people on this. My only concern is what if I’m wrong? What if we’re still chasing the wrong man?

  “So we just did all of that for nothing?” she asks.

  “It’s like that sometimes. This job is a lot of feeling around in the dark, working a problem from the inside out.”

  She slumps back down in her seat. “I guess I never realized how many roadblocks you run into out here. I’m used to having someone hand me a problem and I hand them back the solution.”

  “It’s a completely different animal out here,” I say, turning back for headquarters. “We don’t always get the answer we want.”

  “Should we keep surveillance on Krauss?” she asks.

  “Not until we can connect him to Hannah or one of the other missing women,” I say. “But we should look into their cases as well.” I huff. Which means coordinating with the Metropolitan Police Department. I’m sure they’re going to be super helpful when we call and ask about the disappearances.

  “You’ve got that look in your eye,” Zara says.

  “What look?”

  “The one that says you’re gearing up for a fight.” She’s not wrong. Most of the time I’m able to work with local P.D. without a problem. Sometimes I’ll run into a few assholes that make my job harder, but not impossible. But coming off the case in Stillwater, and after going up against Chief Burke, I think he’s changed my threshold for patience in this regard. The man was an absolute wretch, and he deserves everything that’s coming to him, including the corruption and obstruction of justice charges brought against him not only by the State of Virginia, but the federal government as well. I’ll be happy once he’s sentenced and behind bars, but I realize now that he’s really tainted how I view local P.D. I take a breath, allowing the stress of the moment to leave my body.

  “There, that’s better,” she says, patting my hand. “Let all the stressies out. Everything is fine. You can go back home and have a nice drink and collapse into your bed.”

  I glance at the clock on my car. “That sounds nice, but it’s barely three p.m.”

  When I glance over, she’s got that gleam in her eye. “I’ll cover for you.”

  She’s right. I need to take a minute to breathe. I’ve been holding on to this case with an iron grip. I’m never going to get anywhere because I’m wound so tight. Once I take a minute to relax and reset myself, I’ll be clear-headed and ready to pounce on Krauss. Maybe I’ll even figure out a way to connect him to Hannah. “You know, you’re not such a bad friend after all,” I say.

  She gives me a wink. “Told ‘ya so.”

  We’re just about to pull onto Pennsylvania Avenue when my phone rings. “Slate,” I say.

  “Agent,” a smooth voice says on the other end. “I’ve got something for you.”

  “Santino?” I’d nearly forgotten about the Toscani’s given everything else going on with the case. “What’s going on?”

  “Why don’t you come on over to the warehouse. I’ve found your kidnapper.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I don’t like it,” Zara says as we pull up to Toscani’s warehouse in Brentwood.

  “What’s to like?” I ask. “We just got a call from a mob boss to meet him in his den. And this time, he knows we’re coming.”

  As soon as Santino hung up, I dialed Janice to let her know what was going on. She’s authorized backup on the Toscani warehouse in the event we run into trouble. I don’t want to go in there guns blazing, but at the same time, we need to be cautious. This could all be a trap, especially considering what he told me.

  Though from what I could hear in his voice, he was being sincere. Either that, or Santino is one hell of a liar.

  I pull up to one of the parking spaces and turn off the engine. This time there’s no one outside, waiting for us. The place is quiet. No trucks rumbling by today.

  “I’ve just confirmed with Phillips,” Zara says. “They have a tac team set up on the other side of the tracks, ready to go in if we get in trouble.”

  That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. If Santino has decided to double-cross me, I’ll be long dead before the tac team can breach. I guess my only consolation would be that Santino and the rest of the organization would go down for good if they murdered two federal agents. I flip the clasp on my service weapon before I even open the door.

  “You ready?” I ask.

  “No. How do you get ready for something like this?” she asks.

  “I guess you don’t.” Just as I grab the handle to open the door, my phone trills again. It makes my heart jump and I fumble for it, angry with myself for being so on edge. “Slate.”

  “Have you found her?” My heart drops when I hear the voice. I turn to Zara and mouth Judge Stewart. Her expression matches my own. We don’t have time for this, not right now.

  “Judge,” I say. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk right now. I’m in the middle of something.”

  “You promised me you’d keep me apprised, Agent Slate,” he chides. “I understand you’ve had a development regarding the Toscani’s.”

  What the hell? How could he know that already? We just found out less than an hour ago. “There are some things in motion. But I can’t talk about them, not right now over an open line.”

  “Very well,” he says. “But I expect to hear from you this evening. It’s been four days and I haven’t heard a word.”

  “Trust me, Judge. This case is all I’ve been thinking about.” I shoot a guilty glance at the files on my backseat. “We think we’re closing in on finding Hannah. But please, I have to go. This is delicate.”

  “Understood,” he says. “I look forward to hearing from you later.” Finally he hangs up.