Page 89 of Darkness of Mine

She goes all serious again though the second we get back to the Lair.

The five of us set up at the table in the middle of the open office area and pour over the records we’ve collected, analyzing all the purchases Zach has made over the past two months. They’ve died down of late, most of the spending having taken place in late September and early November, just after Freya left us.

“He was careful to never get anything delivered so we don’t have an address,” Oz says.

Freya braces her hands against the edge of the round conference table as she scans the papers spread across it. “Paintings, bedding, a microwave. It’s like he’s furnishing an entire house. Can we look up real estate purchases in the last few months?”

Oz drags over his laptop. “We can but there’ll be a lot.” He taps away for a minute or so before closing the lid. “I need my office set up. I’ll see if I can narrow the search down with some more parameters.”

Freya goes with him and two hours later both of them are still sequestered away in Oz’s office.

It’s eight o’clock and we’ve been up since six this morning. I spin in my chair and catch River’s attention. “I’m calling it.”

He checks his watch and nods. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go.”

“You owe me a tenner,” I say to Eli as I stroll past his desk on my way to Oz’s office.

“She could still tell us,” he calls back, grabbing his hat.

I spin so I’m walking backwards and shoot him a look of disbelief.

He sighs and hands me a crisp ten-dollar bill when he catches up with me.

I push open the door to Oz’s office and walk in. “Time to go home my babies.”

Oz throws an empty M&M packet at me, but Freya doesn’t even look up from the papers she’s studying.

“Freya, come on.”

“We haven’t got anything from his bank records yet,” she murmurs, lost in her work.

“So, we’ll try again tomorrow.”

Locks of hair that have fallen loose from her ponytail hang around her face as she shakes her head. “There are too many house purchases and that’s assuming he bought it in the last few months and not before then or that he even bought it at all.”

“You think Jeremiah might have given it to him?”

She chews her lip. “If he did, he won’t tell us. He’s already spoken to Carmen, we don’t have any leverage anymore.”

“Did Carmen ever say what Jeremiah wanted with her?” I ask.

Freya shakes her head. “No, she’s refusing to talk to me about it.”

I hate seeing her like this, all stressed and lost in her mind. I rest my hands on her shoulders and brush my thumbs up the curve of her neck. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“But—”

“It’s okay, Freya,” Oz cuts her off. “It’s not a total loss. We’ve still got access to his bank and as soon as he uses his card, I’ll get an alert. We can track him in seconds.”

Freya sighs and tips back her head against the leather chair.

I dip down and press a kiss to her forehead. “We’ll get him, Angel, but there’s nothing more we can do right now. Let us take you home.”

She relents but she spends the whole ride back to the house lost in her head.

It’s not till River opens the front door and I usher her inside that she stops thinking about Zach.

I know that, because the second she sees what we’ve done with the place, she gasps.