Page 49 of Strike Fast

She’s gone. She’s gone and it’s my fault.

His hand shot out and grabbed the tumbler.

****

Tess hitched the strap of her hastily-packed overnight bag higher up on her shoulder and jogged through the half-empty terminal at Dulles. After Reid basically hung up on her and wouldn’t answer her calls, she’d pulled some strings at headquarters and hopped a transport from Fort Worth within the hour.

Maybe coming to D.C. was a giant mistake, but right now she didn’t care. This thing between her and Reid might be new and fragile—and she didn’t even know what “it” was—but there was no way she could have stayed in Texas while he was going through hell alone here. If she’d overstepped her bounds by flying here to be with him, well… She’d deal with the repercussions later.

She pulled her phone out to try Reid again and saw there were no messages. The phone rang in her ear, then Reid’s voicemail picked up.

Frustrated and sick at heart for what he must be going through, she dodged around the slower-moving passengers on their way to baggage claim and exited onto the sidewalk.

She jumped in a cab and went straight to Reid’s place. The sidewalk outside his building was deserted, not surprising since it was one in the morning. At the front door, she buzzed his unit and waited.

No answer.

She buzzed again, and waited another minute.

Nothing.

Was he at the police station? At headquarters? Maybe at Sarah’s place?

She walked back to the sidewalk and around the side of the building to stare up at his unit. The blinds were pulled over the sliding glass doors that led out onto his patio, but she could see lines of light around the edges. Was he in there? With him refusing to answer her calls, she had no way of knowing where he was.

Discouraged, she strode back around front, ready to buzz his unit one last time and then find a hotel nearby.

“Tess?”

Surprised, she spun around to find two of Reid’s teammates walking up the front walkway from the street. The big one, Agent Maka, and the one Reid was closest to, Agent Khan, the team medic. “Hi.”

“You just fly in?” Khan asked.

She nodded. “Hopped a transport right after Reid called to tell me Autumn had been taken, then hung up on me. You guys know where he is?”

Khan frowned. “He’s not home?”

“If he is, he’s not answering the buzzer. And he won’t pick up when I call.”

“Sonofabitch,” Maka muttered, striding toward her alongside his teammate. “You got the code?” he asked Khan.

“Yeah.” Khan dug out his phone and fixed his gaze on Tess when he got close. “I’m Zaid, by the way. And this is Kai.”

“Hi.” She quickly shook their hands and followed them up to the front door, anxiety eating at her. Reid wouldn’t do anything crazy, would he? “Have you guys heard from him?”

“No,” Khan answered. “We’ve been getting sporadic updates from Commander Taggart. But after the last one, we told our team leader we would come check on Reid in person.”

She zeroed in on the first part of that sentence. “Why, what was the last update?”

Zaid met her gaze, the overhead lights illuminating his hazel eyes, startling against his bronze skin. “They found out who took her.”

Tess’s heart started to pound. “Who?”

“One of Carlos Ruiz’s enforcers.”

She gasped and blanched, put both hands to her mouth. “Oh, sweet Jesus.”

“In retaliation for a raid we conducted against some of his guys last week. Apparently, Reid got a text from the asshole around nine,” Kai said as Zaid punched in the code to open the front door. “We didn’t find out until about forty-five minutes ago. Taggart went to meet him at the police station and stayed there until Reid left. That’s when we got the update from Hamilton.”

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