Page 35 of Assassin's Game
Maris nodded. “Right.”
Mikaela pulled a tablet toward her, eyes narrowed. “What if…”
I glanced at Remi next to me, noticed how he watched Mikaela. Like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. I knew the feeling.
Quick typing filled the silence at the table. “Maris, check these dates.”
Mikaela rattled off several dates, which Maris scrambled to look up on her phone. A smug grin tugged at her mouth. “They’re all Tuesdays.”
Mikaela turned her tablet around. “I guess we know what Sullivan is hiding, then.”
The images the CEO had saved to the cloud stared back at us. It looked like Mikaela had pulled the metadata to get dates. “He’s having a fetish party?” I asked.
“Or meeting a lover, possibly a professional,” Remi mused. “Any evidence of another party in those photos?”
“Nothing conclusive,” Maris volunteered. “Hands, usually. The occasional side, leg, or something, but nothing identifiable except as female. No birthmarks, tattoos, clothing we can identify…”
Monty shook his head. “Maris and I combed through the albums. There are no leads there.”
“So we don’t know who he’s going to see, but we know he’s going somewhere,” Titus pointed out. “If he was staying in or having someone brought to him, it wouldn’t be in his calendar.”
I considered that. The calendar was for syncing staff to the boss’s schedule. If Sullivan was using a driver for his rendezvous, that was a weak point—we could replace the car service, though getting everything in place by tomorrow might be a bit tight. The other option was taking him at his destination. Or—
“We have till when exactly?” I asked.
“About five a.m. Thursday morning,” Mikaela said. Energy vibrated through her body, the need to act, to protect her team. They might not be family like my brothers and I were, at least not all of them, but their bond was tight; I could see that. I could respect that.
“So we make it seem like you’ve done your job, and you stay safe.”
“For now,” Mikaela agreed, “but I don’t see how we can make it look like Sullivan is dead.”
“Car accident?” Remi asked, seeming to follow my train of thought.
“I’m thinking so,” I said. “X wants natural causes. What’s more natural than an accident? We grab Sullivan first, of course…”
“And then we have direct access with less pressure.”
“X will want the body,” Rhys pointed out. “He’s not sloppy, and he won’t leave anything to chance.”
“And that’s where we get him.” I stood up to pace beside the conference table, my brain starting to work through scenarios. “Use what we know about him against him. He wants to see the body? He’ll need to come to where the body is. And we’ll be waiting.”
Remi scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Makes sense—assuming he comes himself.”
“We could also make sure finding a body would be difficult.”
“Waiting for forensics to verify an identity could give us time to question Sullivan, figure out his connection to X,” Mikaela said. “Every piece of the puzzle we gather could give us a hint as to where to find him.”
“You’re assuming a lot,” Remi said, “including that we are willing to house prisoners in order for you to question them, then find X.”
Mikaela shook her head, frowning. “I wouldn’t ask that of you, not here at the mansion. Not with women and children here.” My estimation of her team rose at the concession. “But let’s not forget, you have as much at stake as we do. A secondary base of operations could give us time with Sullivan or anyone else we need time with.”
Remi considered that a moment before nodding.
“Are we assuming X is here in Atlanta?” Maris asked.
“If he’s military, there are certainly plenty of bases in Georgia to accommodate him if he needs access.” I considered the options as I paced. “But even if he’s not officially hooked up locally, it makes sense that he’d be close, able to act quickly.”
“And he’s targeted two teams in this area,” Remi said. “There may be more, but considering this seems to be some kind of trial or race, I would think he’d be close to the action.”
