Page 111 of The Twilight Theft

Through the glass door, she was visible, entering the elevator. Still in her green dress, with a dark shawl around her shoulders. Had she gone back into the party or interrogated more visitors after I told her to leave me alone?

Was she helping Craig dig into Wyatt’s past?

Had she learned something important?

I pulled into a parking spot at the side of the road, farther down the block, to watch the office building in my rearview mirror.

Five minutes.

Ten.

She didn’t come out. What was she doing in there?

Chapter 42

Jayce

Istareddownatthe antiques shop from five floors up. From the same building Emmett and I had sat on Thursday night after my disaster with Drew. “You didn’t say it was just going to be the two of us.”

Very few cars moved along the street, and some late-night revelers sang an unfamiliar song. The city wasn’t silent, but it was quieter than the last time I’d sat on this rooftop.

“Does that matter?” Emmett crouched next to me at the roof’s edge, binoculars in his hands.

“You could have at least brought me a backup earpiece.”

“Rav has all the spares, and he’s off chasing Brie’s latest lead on Noah.”

I pulled a mint out of my pocket—from my body-hugging black spandex outfit, which was way more comfortable than the pretty dress—and unwrapped it. “How is it we’re trusting he hasn’t double-crossed us here, but we’re still hunting him?”

Emmett shrugged.

He acted as Scarlett’s second-in-command since Noah left the team—since Noah died, theoretically, but not really—which sometimes meant questioning his sister and sometimes accepting her decisions. It was a fuzzy line, but he danced along its edge well.

“She’s still angry, isn’t she?” I popped the mint in my mouth.

“Wouldn’t you be?”

If my fiancé had faked his death, kidnapped my brother, and had my brother beaten, I’d probably be a lot more than angry. I’d never had that serious a relationship and I didn’t talk to my sister, but I could imagine. “Any updates on Brie’s search for the data storage facility?”

Emmett glanced at me from the corner of his eye.

First, Brie’s Trojan had failed. Second, Will shot down the idea of cloning Gideon or Liana’s phones, then no one managed to lift one of those phones at the gala. “If Gideon’s still at the hospital, I can head there after we retrieve the bird.”

“I think Mum’s working a different angle. She’s looking for something on Gideon.”

“Leverage? Dirt?”

“Fenix got away with this bird while you were, what, twenty feet away? After blackmailing Scarlett and nearly burying Dec and Leigh in the Catacombs, let alone what they did to me and Mal…” Emmett let out a slow breath. “Mum wants a back door into the Tremaine servers so she can keep tabs on Fenix.”

“Assuming they genuinely store everything there?”

“Brie’s pretty sure that part’s true.”

“If she’s sure about something like that, it’s enough for me.” I let down the binoculars so I could focus with my eyes and peripheral vision. “I’m going to check out the back door. If both access points look good, I’ll pop in, grab the bird, and you keep watch.”

“Be careful.”

I stood and flexed my leg in the brace. It felt a million times better.

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