Page 30 of Hawkeye

I wanted to argue, but the instinct was tempered by the butterflies swirling in my belly because he was looking out for my mom and me. “Okay.”

He followed me down the hall and leaned in my doorway while I pulled a bag from under the bed and filled it with everything I’d need.

I eyed him over a stack of shirts. “You had the apartment arranged before you came upstairs.”

“I saw the tool marks.” He shrugged. “The rest was logistics.”

I shook my head with a soft laugh. “You really do make taking over sound boring.”

“Takes skill.”

Mom’s suitcase rolled past the door, and she called out, “Hurry up, kids. Now isn’t the time for funny stuff.”

I zipped my bag and let him take it all the way down to the SUV. The ride was short enough that Mom didn’t have the chance to grill Calder over what was going on.

The building he took us to had a keyed garage, a man at the inner door, and no names on the directory.

Two men were stationed outside the door, and Calder dipped his chin. “Halo. Specter.”

“Hawkeye,” they greeted in unison before nodding at us.

Calder went through the apartment himself before he let us set a bag down. Then he showed us the emergency exits. “If anything doesn’t feel right, Halo and Specter will get you out of here.”

“You’re leaving?” I was surprised since I’d expected him to want to stick close after what happened today.

He nodded. “For a few hours. My team has the building, and I need to see where those trucks went.”

“That’s disappointingly responsible.”

He caught the back of my neck and kissed me deeply enough that Mom gave us space. “Don’t sound so disappointed. I plan to make it up to you.”

I was too breathless to reply when he tapped the pocket where I kept my cell. “You call, I answer. No matter what.”

The door shut behind him, and I heard the low murmur of deep voices for a moment. Then Mom came over and bumped her shoulder against mine. “You found a good one, sweetie.”

She was right. I just hoped I could keep him once all this was over.

12

HAWKEYE

Cipher had the life of an estate-company employee spread across three monitors by the time I walked into Black Castle’s operations room. Jeppson Kurt had a burglary arrest from six years earlier, appeared beside the owner in Wynnock’s intake footage, and drove one of the vehicles connected to the break-in at Josie’s conservation room. He was also the man who tested the rear lock at the boutique, which moved his name from useful lead to bastard I intended to handle personally.

“Phone went dark twenty minutes after he lost Nomad near the freeway,” Cipher reported, enlarging a traffic-camera image of Kurt’s sedan. “Vehicle’s registered through the estate company. No home address connected to anything he’s used recently.”

“He knows we made him,” Stryker muttered from beside the central table. “Question is whether we hit the yard before they clear it.”

Live camera feeds showed activity on the estate company property despite the late hour. Cases and packing material were moved from the dispatch building into smaller vans and personal trucks. Employees left through separate gates, and the owner’s reserved parking space remained empty. The company was being dismantled in pieces while the men behind it tried to keep any one vehicle from carrying enough stolen property to matter.

“They’re moving.” I watched two men transfer cases beneath the yard lights. “We hit the place tonight, we only get whatever shit they forgot. If we wait, they show us where the rest went.”

Stryker studied the screens for another moment before giving one short nod. “Build the rotations.”

I turned toward the men already gathered around the map. “Nomad, you and Wraith take the vans leaving through the east gate. Stay far enough back that they don’t smell leather, and switch vehicles before they start checking mirrors. Put Bishop and Skyfall on the other exits. Smoke, Trigger, cover the response team. If anyone moves a weapon, a person, or something that looks remotely fucking unstable, you step in before surveillance becomes an excuse for cleaning up bodies.”

Cipher leaned back in his chair. “I’ll keep working the cyber shit.”

“Pull every vehicle that entered the yard during the past month and flag any property they visited more than once,” I instructed, pointing toward the commercial district west of the company. “They’re not improvising all of this tonight. Those routes were built before Josie found the shadow box.”