In This Together. Kara Lennox

secret.”

      He closed the tailgate and cargo cover. The last she saw of him, right before it went dark, he had the strangest, most perplexed look on his face, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her.

      She could have kept the phone. She could have turned it on again once she was out of his sight. His provider would track the pings and follow them right to whatever new location he drove to. But she hadn’t.

      Some part of her really didn’t want Travis to get caught.

      * * *

      DANIEL HAD ASKED Randolph, his chauffeur, to drive him directly to the Project Justice offices downtown, where everyone had been put on notice. Elena had been kidnapped. And when it came to his people, no effort was too great.

      Celeste was in her usual place at the front desk. A former Houston cop, she was the building’s first line of defense—and a formidable one at that. Her wild-colored clothes and big dangly earrings were a deceiving affectation. No one got past her if she didn’t want them to.

      She got to her feet. “Daniel. Any word since she called?”

      “No.” It didn’t surprise him that news of Elena’s call had reached Celeste. She always seemed to know everything that was going on. “Celeste, thank you for your quick and decisive actions when the kidnapper called.”

      “I knew he was serious. I tangled with him once before, when he tried to get in here without an appointment.”

      “You’ve met him, then? What’s he like. Tell me every detail you remember.”

      “He’s over six feet, muscular build, working man’s hands. Dark hair, kinda shaggy. Blue eyes. Nice looking, can’t deny that. Any other time—”

      “Irrelevant, Celeste.”

      “Right. He was very polite but insistent. And stubborn. He didn’t want to take no for an answer, no matter how many times I explained that his first step was to fill out the online form. Once he realized I wasn’t going to budge, he left. Not in a happy mood.”

      “Did he seem unbalanced?”

      “No, not at all. He stated his case in very clear terms. I remember the case he was talking about, the Tammy Riggs murder.”

      Daniel remembered it, too, though not in great detail. He followed a lot of crimes, sensational or not.

      “He had a sort of noble bearing. Looked me right in the eye. Never used any coarse language, didn’t lose his temper.”

      “Thank you, Celeste. If any more calls come through from him, put them—”

      “Directly through to the conference room. Yes, sir.”

      God, he loved Celeste. He suspected he was the only person in the world she addressed as “sir.”

      From the lobby, he went directly to the main conference room. He could hear the buzz of conversation behind the door before he opened it; his team was on the case.

      Conversation stopped as he entered.

      “Daniel.” The speaker was Ford Hyatt, his most experienced investigator. “Any new developments?”

      “Not on my end. Bring me up to speed.” He pulled out a chair at the head of the long mahogany table. Usually he ran Project Justice meetings from home, via video conferencing. But for this matter, it was important to be there in person—if only to make sure his people knew this was no ordinary operation.

      “We have copies of the security video from the front gate,” said Mitch Delacroix, who was in charge of anything involving computers, video or audio.

      “You caught the abduction on video?”

      “Unfortunately no. Elena walked down the driveway and went outside the gate to talk to him.”

      Why had she done that? Elena was quite proficient at discouraging nuisance visitors. Then, she had seemed unusually troubled by the man’s plight—not her usual ruthlessly efficient manner.

      “What about his vehicle?”

      “Also not caught on video.”

      Daniel made a mental note to add some extra surveillance cameras outside the gate to include more of the street in front of his house.

      “We do have a vehicle description,” Hyatt said. “Riggs owns a black 2001 Ford F-150 pickup.”

      “What else do we know about him?”

      “Travis Brandon Riggs. Thirty-three years old. He and his brother, Eric, were raised by a single mother, now deceased. Father unknown. He did a short stint in foster care when he was ten. Dropped out of high school when he was sixteen. Since then he’s worked in construction on and off. Three years in the army. Honorable discharge. Married to a Judith Evans, divorced a year later. Did a stint at the Harris County Jail for assault. Haven’t found out the particulars yet, but I’m working on it.”

      So, he did have violent tendencies. That was bad news.

      “No trouble since he got out—that was almost ten years ago. Currently he owns a small construction company doing home repairs, remodeling and renovation.”

      “Home address?”

      “It’s a one-bedroom apartment in Westridge, nothing special.” Mitch brought up a picture of a blocky, 1970s-era building on the video screen. It was small but tidy—neatly trimmed lawn, freshly painted, freshly raked. “We’ve already got it under surveillance,” Mitch continued. “He hasn’t been there.”

      And he probably wouldn’t be dumb enough to show his face there, either. He’d made no attempt to hide his identity, and he had to know there was a good chance the authorities or Project Justice people would come looking for him.

      “Mitch. What’s the word from Reynolds?” David Reynolds was Daniel’s contact at Riggs’s cell phone provider. For a hefty fee, he would check the GPS data and report back.

      Daniel had already sent another investigator to check out the first location, the place from which Riggs had made his first call, but it hadn’t looked promising and had probably been only a temporary stopping point. Daniel was counting on Elena’s call yielding more fruitful information.

      “Reynolds is still working on it.”

      “Griffin,” Daniel said, addressing another of his best, a former investigative reporter who had become one of his most skilled operatives, especially when it came to working undercover. “As soon as you have a location nailed down, I want you and Jillian to go there. Take the fake utility truck—uniforms should be inside it. Once you confirm it’s the right place, we’ll figure out our next move.

      “Raleigh,” he asked another senior investigator, who was also his top-dog lawyer, “are you ready to brief me on the Eric Riggs case? You know what I’m looking for—a piece of jewelry missing from the victim, a detail never released to the public.” He needed something to appease Travis Riggs, to lull him into believing Daniel was knuckling under the pressure.

      “It was a necklace,” Raleigh said. “A gold locket.”

      Obviously Travis hadn’t done his homework, or he’d know that Daniel did not knuckle under to anyone. He would do whatever it took to keep Elena safe, of course. But she said she didn’t think she was in any danger. Daniel was banking on that being true. He just had to keep stringing Travis along until he made a mistake. And he would. When he did, his ass was Daniel’s.

      Mitch murmured something into his headset and then turned to Daniel. “We have the location nailed down to three houses in a subdivision in Timbergrove.”

      “Let’s roll.”

      * * *

      FORD HYATT, DRESSED in full SWAT-like gear, showed Daniel a satellite map on his phone. “It’s these three houses, at the end of the cul-de-sac.”