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“Hi, Betsy. Do you know where Pierce is?” A beat. “No, he said he was driving out to talk to Maxine Baker.” Another pause. “You don’t have that address? Or he wasn’t given it yet? Okay, thank you.”
Kilkenny looked at her. “She says the address for Max still hadn’t come in last time she checked with him.”
“Maybe he got it while he was here?” Raisa suggested.
“His secretary has access to his inbox,” Kilkenny pointed out.
“Shit.”
“Yeah,” Kilkenny said on an exhale. “I don’t get it.”
Raisa shook her head. “I don’t know. If we’re right about Tori Greene, there’s no reason for him to lie to us about anything. It’s not as if he’s the impostor and he’s trying to cover his ass right now.”
“Except maybe heistrying to cover his ass,” Kilkenny said, and then strode to the door and left the room. Raisa stared at his retreating back for a moment before scrambling to follow.
With his long strides, he made it to the guards’ room so far ahead of her that she missed his request. But in the next minute, security footage played on one of the screens.
Pierce.
They must have backed up to the morning, when Pierce had arrived. The guard managed to track him through the parking lot, into the building, through the check-in process. He then paused at a hallway intersection. Then he glanced up at the camera for a moment before turning toward the visitors’ lounge area.
“He’s looking for Kate,” Raisa murmured.
“Maybe,” Kilkenny said, his eyes locked on the screen.
There were a few people in the room, only one of whom looked up when Pierce walked in. He went straight to the coffee vending machine, and Raisa wondered if that was what he’d been searching for all along. But he shifted so that his body was angled toward the woman tucked in the back corner of the room.
He watched her for what felt like a significant amount of time but was probably only a minute and a half or so.
It was enough for her to feel his gaze.
She glanced up. Even from the terrible quality of the security footage, it was easy to tell she was gorgeous, with thick hair styled in a way to reveal a hip undercut. She had arresting features and a stubborn tilt to her jaw that made her seem intimidating despite her small frame.
Kilkenny had the guard freeze the picture, and she could tell from his expression.
“You know her?” Raisa asked anyway.
“Yes,” Kilkenny breathed out, eyes locked on the woman, knuckles white where he gripped his elbows. “That’s Max.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Shay
January 2014
Two months before the kidnapping
The wine bar was dark and comforting, the low buzz of tipsy chatter and the clink of glasses familiar now. After Shay’s freak-out with the serial-killer box, she and Tori had made it a point to meet up every month or so for drinks there. They were both hurting for friends in the area, and the gossip—even though neither knew the people involved—was always juicy and fun.
They’d lost touch when Shay had moved to Seattle, which happened more often than not when two women got busy and put a dozen states between them. Shay was used to relationships like that falling apart, but she’d mourned the loss.
She had been so happy when Tori suggested they hit up the wine bar that she’d mostly forgotten how strange it was that she’d run into her in the FBI parking lot.
Mostly, but not quite completely.
Tori beat her there, waving to get Shay’s attention from a high-top in the back.
“I can’t believe I ran into you,” Shay said, kissing her cheek again in greeting before taking one of the stools. “What on earth were you doing at the FBI building?”