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Toth paced Dare’sliving room, the blue-and-taupe carpet turning into a dizzying pattern. Adrenaline kicked his nerves into overdrive as his mind spun like tires stuck in mud.
“How long’s this going to take?” he finally blurted, pausing to shoot an impatient look at Dare.
Tess stopped what she was doing on the laptop and sent a sympathetic glance his way, but Dare looked a little less compassionate and a lot more annoyed. “Look, we’re trying to help. If you’ve got a better fucking lead, take it.”
“Babe,” Tess admonished.
Standing next to Dare’s chair, Lach opened and closed his fists. “He’s right. We appreciate your help, but this is taking too much fucking time. Who knows what they could have done—”
Ring,ring!
Dare’s phone screen lit up. He snatched the device off the table and swiped. “Yeah.”
“Hey, it’s me.” Sophia’s voice came over the speaker. “I’m still waiting on the names you gave me, but I found out some interesting things.”
Toth inhaled, and the ticking of his impatience rapped against his temple. He couldn’t stay idle anymore. He glanced at Lach. The guy looked ready to jump out of his skin. An agreement passed between them. They couldn’t wait here any longer.
“What do you got?” Dare asked, leaning back in his seat nonchalantly, as if Sav’s life weren’t teetering in the balance.
Slim fingers squeezed his forearm. “It’ll be okay,” Tess whispered. “This is what they do.”
Questions billowed in Toth’s mind, but he didn’t give enough of a shit to ask them right now.
“Like I said, I’m still waiting on intel from my contact at the department. But one thing came up regarding Danny.” Sophia’s voice trailed off, as if she was reading something. “The file we have on him is sparce, which is shocking considering the stuff we know he’s involved with.”
“What came up?” Dare asked.
She tsked. “He was working with Detective Clyde Burrows. I know him, but not well. Looks like these two had an understanding—”
“You mean Burrows was bought by Danny.”
A beat passed. “That’s possible, of course. But what I’m seeing is Danny made some kind of trade. Three years ago, he made a deal with Burrows. Now that’s where things become a little murky. I can’t find out what the terms are exactly, but information was traded. I’m going to need time to track it down—”
Toth threw his arms in the air. Dare sent him an annoyed glare. He pinched the bridge of his nose, using all his willpower not to snap at the only help he had.
“I’m sorry, I know that’s not what you need right now,” Sophia said. “But I have something else.”
Toth dropped his hand. Hope flourished inside him.
“Wendell Lamburg, the guy who was shot in Danny’s office, he was in jail until last year. I’m waiting to find out who his cellmate was, and for a list of people incarcerated at the same time.”
“How long will that take?” Toth asked, keeping his tone flat even though he wanted to yell.
“Twenty minutes. I asked my friend to call me as soon as any details are found, as every minute counts.”
Toth nodded. “Thank you.”
Dare exchanged a few more words with Sophia then hung up. “Sorry, bro,” he said, his face pinched with regret. “I don’t know how to move things along faster.”
Despair washed over him. He’d failed Sav when she was taken from the warehouse and now he was fucking failing her again.
“Hold on,” Tess cried. She waved them over, her gaze glued to the screen in front of her. “I’ve been tracing the plate we got from Danny’s parking lot.”
Toth’s gut revolted at the mention of the moment he’d watched on camera—Sav being forced into a trunk. He gripped the back of Tess’s chair for support. “What am I looking at?” He peered at the grainy photo of a car.
“The last photo of the plate was taken...” She hovered the cursor over the time stamp at the bottom of the image. “Twenty minutes ago, on Coal Creek Parkway SE.”
Toth’s mind clicked the information together in rapid succession. “Lots of forest out that way,” he said.