Page 103 of The Devoted Game

“Worth’s ID card,” McBride finished for him. “One swipe and he was in.”

“Shit.” Pierce rubbed a hand over his face. “He’ll kill her.”

Ryan threw the cigarette butt on the ground and pulverized it with his heel. “No. He’ll make me do it.”

Pierce’s gaze collided with his. “You’re right. He’ll make this another of those damned challenges. Only this time there won’t be any way to win.”

“That’s the way I figure it’ll play out.”

Pierce went toe to toe with Ryan. “This is your fault,” he snarled. “If something happens to her—”

“You’ll what?” Ryan growled back. “Kick yourself for making sure she got assigned to this field office?”

Pierce blinked, backed off. “Yes.” The word was barely a hiss of breath ... a regret of monumental magnitude uttered in three innocuous letters.

Ryan left him standing there and headed for the door. He had to start narrowing down places where this bastard may have taken her. Without any parameters to go on, it would be pretty damned pointless. But he had to do something.

The front entrance flew open; Pratt stuck his head out. “You gotta get in here. Fincher’s sending us something. We think it’s a streaming video feed.”

“Pierce!” Ryan looked back to make sure he was coming, then followed Pratt.

The run up the stairs took two lifetimes. In the conference room, the whole team was gathered around the computer screen. ASAC Talley manned the keyboard.

“It’s loading,” Davis told Ryan as he moved in next to him. “Been doing that for about three minutes now.”

Pierce claimed a spot next to Ryan. “This came in an email?”

“Yeah,” Davis said. “When Talley opened it, something started downloading.”

A box appeared with an option to open the file.

“Open it,” Pierce ordered.

Talley selected the open-file option. The screen flickered and went black. As if coming into focus, vague images faded in and out. Then the screen cleared.

Ryan’s heart stumbled.

Grace.

A thud in his chest sent fear and adrenaline roaring through his veins. He leaned forward, studied what he could see. The lighting was too dim—no, not dim, a low-light recording made in a room with no light. The room appeared to be small and square. Empty except for Grace. The white blouse she wore contrasted sharply with her surroundings. No audio. She kept moving, didn’t appear to be injured.When she looked long enough in the direction of the camera, the number13was visible on her forehead.

The need to do something detonated inside Ryan.

“Where’s that coming from?” Pierce wanted to know. “Can you track that feed?”

“Systems is working on it,” Talley said. “If it’s encoded, they’ll have to break down the code.” Talley shrugged. “Could be jumping around from data center to data center to avoid being pinpointed. It’ll take time to locate the source.”

“Do whatever you have to,” Pierce ordered. “Get Atlanta in on it. I want to know where this is coming from.”

“Yes, sir,” Talley acknowledged.

The screen flickered, went black again.

“What the hell happened?” Ryan demanded. “Did we lose the feed?”

The screen brightened, then focused into a split view. The same one with Grace now standing in the middle of that tiny room looking helpless. Then the second view went from static to clear. A man paced another small room. He was tall, thin, with a bald head.

“Who is that?” Pierce tapped the blurred image next to Grace.