Page 51 of Shadows Relived
Blaze.
He swiped his phone to answer, putting it on speaker.This was about Meaghan after all, so she deserved to hear it all as it came in. “Talk to me. What have you found out?”
“I’ve been tracking the men from the school shooting,” Blaze said, his voice tight with static. “Picked up three of them on highway cams heading west from the cabin. Same black SUV that hit your trail before dawn.”
Callen straightened in his seat. “You still got eyes on them.”
“Had,” Blaze corrected. “They found the hotel shortly after you left. How, I’m not sure. I caught them just outside Tallahassee getting back on the interstate. And Callen, I got a tag.”
“I’m assuming you traced it.”
“You know I did, but I enjoy drawing things out, making you wait.”
“Spit it out, pup!” Elvis yelled over his shoulder. “Who’s chasing us?”
Blaze chuckled. “New Horizons Acquisition Group.” Blaze let that hang for a moment. “The same outfit tied to the senator’s land deals. Whoever’s behind this, they’re not just cleaning up loose ends, they’re coming for you both. Seems the chatter I heard was accurate.”
Callen’s stomach knotted. “You sure it’s them?”
“Positive. And once I had their plate, I could ping their vehicle’s location device. It’s been bouncing tower pings every fifty miles along I-10, always just a few hours behind you. I lost them around Pensacola, but odds are they’re gunning it to close the gap. You need to assume they’ll find you before Biloxi.”
Callen’s hand tightened around the phone. “We’llbe ready.”
“I don’t think that’ll be good enough,” Blaze shot back. “These aren’t hired muscle from D.C. I dug into the people New Horizons uses for security. They’re field-grade mercs with ex-mil backgrounds and contracts through offshore accounts. They don’t take prisoners, and they sure as hell don’t negotiate.”
Callen glanced at Meaghan in the seat beside him, her eyes searching his face for answers. “Then they’ll find out what happens when they corner the wrong people. Any idea how they’re tracking us?”
“My guess would be they have someone doing what I’m doing, tracking cams, monitoring facial rec.”
“Great. I hate when bad guys know what the hell they’re doing.”
“Just stay moving,” Blaze said. “I’ll reroute satellite tracking to your sector and keep digging into who signed the contract. But one thing’s for sure—New Horizons isn’t done playing.”
“Keep me posted.” And then the line went dead.
Callen swore under his breath, then glanced at Meaghan, dropping the phone into the cupholder. Her brow furrowed, sensing the shift in him, and he could feel his jaw tighten, his pulse a steady hammer in his ears.
“Stick to the back roads,” he said, glancing toward Gage in the driver’s seat. “We’re being tailed and need to do better at hiding our trail.”
Gage gave a curt nod, not questioning the decision, as he veered off the interstate at the next exit, merging onto a narrower tree-flanked highway.
“So, does it feel like there’s something we’re missing?” Callen asked as he stared straight ahead. “Real estate shellgames. EPA waivers, fast-tracked land deals. And now someone working for them wants you either dragged back to use you to force your father’s hand or dead. It makes little sense.”
She said nothing for a long time, just stared out the window, the sun drifting even higher in the sky, blurring pine trees into ghostly shapes.
Callen looked at Gage, brow furrowed. “If they’re chasing us that hard, they won’t stop until someone puts them down.”
Elvis nodded as he turned in his seat to face Callen and Meaghan in the backseat. “Then we need to take the fight to them.”
“Agreed,” Gage said without hesitation. “But we’ll need more than guesses. We need the full story, and we both know the senator isn’t giving it to us.”
‘That’s the problem,” Callen said. “Her father’s not talking, and we need him to.” He turned to Meaghan. “He asked me to bring you in, made it sound like you’d be safe in D.C., but he didn’t say safe from whom. Now we know. And we’re not walking into another setup.”
“So what’s the move?” Gage asked, staring at Callen in the rearview mirror.
Callen leaned back against the headrest, exhaling slowly through his nose. “We get to the Biloxi safe house, set up shop, and force Harrington to give us what we need. No more half-truths. He either comes clean about what he’s involved in, or we expose it piece by piece.
“And if he doesn’t scare easily?” Gage asked.
