Page 91 of Fighting Conviction
Devil turned to elaborate, but Hawk already had the phone up to his ear. His dark brows raised in question and Devil answered, waving his screen with Ellie’s location. “It’s Ellie. GPS is saying she’s here, but she should’ve left by now. I need Snake to do whatever magic he can and try to find her. Whether by her phone or the hotel cameras.”
Hawk relayed the message verbatim. Sweat made Devil’s palms sweaty and he dried his hands on his dress pants. He was trying to listen to what Hawk was saying on the phone, but Devil’s pulse raced inside his chest, like it was trying its best to flee and run after hers.
After a minute, Devil waved his phone at Hawk and pointed down. “I’m gonna keep calling her and try to trace my steps. It’s still ringing so I’m going to see if I can find it.”
When Devil got downstairs, there was no one to be found. Before the feds had cleared the hotel, every single party attendee and hotel guest had been required to stay and be accounted for before they could leave. They’d gotten quite a few Russian bodyguards and were still detaining some of the high-powered officials. Whether as suspects or witnesses, Devil didn’t know. And at that moment he didn’t care.
“Pick up, goddamnit, pick up,” he whispered into the phone, making sure he wasn’t louder than any ring or vibration.
“Any luck?” Hawk and Phoenix emerged from the stairwell. “Snake said she’s gotta be at the hotel. She’s not at BlackStone and Naomi and Nora said she’s not at Sasha Saves. This hotel is as close as he can ping her. He’s sifting through video now.”
“Is this where you last saw her?” Phoenix asked after a moment of Devil walking in circles.
“Yeah… I was coming through the service hallway.” He pointed to the entryway and acted out the encounter before indicating the exit door. “She’d come from that door, I think, and was trying to crash the party.” He walked back to the alcove, searching for her phone and not hearing any sounds. “We hid in this alcove and that’s when she heard Strickland and ID’d him as Sasha’s murderer. I told her she had to leave…”
“So she’d have gone out the door she came in right? If she listened to you, at least,” Phoenix offered.
She had to have listened to him, right? He’d said hurtful things, but surely she understood the gravity of the situation and how important it was for her to help in the ways she truly could. He wished he’d explained it better, but the pressure to stop Strickland and the men upstairs was too great and he’d snapped.
He nodded to Hawk’s suggestion and pushed the door open. It was the same back alley they’d used last year when they’d tried to save Ellie the first time. He glanced around the spartan area, searching until he noticed something shiny on the ground.
“Is that—”
Devil ran the few steps to what had caught his eye. He bent to retrieve the phone lying on the ground, its screen shattered. There was a stain in the cracked glass, and he could barely make out his name as the caller. He brought the phone closer and shined his phone on it to see what was covering her phone and swallowed bile when he recognized the substance.
Blood.
He turned to face his teammates’ grim faces before he spoke aloud his worst nightmare come to life.
“She’s gone.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“This is wrong, Cici. It’s too much. The Russian ain’t even here. What if Rusnak was lyin’.”
The rip of tape around Ellie’s bare legs punctuated each sentence the investigator was rambling. He’d apparently given up mumbling and muttering to whatever apparition was following him around and had gone into full conversation with… Cici?
“Can’t really judge him, can ya, girl?”
Guess I can’t, can I?
As soon as they entered Sasha’s old neighborhood, Ellie’s best friend was back to her talkative self. It honestly couldn’t have come at a better time. Sasha’s voice was like a calming, meditative breath, keeping Ellie’s mind on track and out of the worst possible scenarios threatening to drive her to helplessness.
“This house looks just like mine did, doesn’t it? Same layout and everything.”
Ellie huffed a laugh and the investigator paused to look at her and give her a bug-eyed glare before going back to wrapping the tape.
He’d parked behind some old house that reminded Ellie of the one she’d practically lived in growing up, except the inside was a time capsule from decades ago. There was shag carpet, wood-paneled walls, brown, green, and yellow hues.
Looks exactly like yours. Except for how outdated it is.
“True. The kitchen seems smaller. Probably ‘cuz of that pantry over there.”
At Sasha’s words, Ellie looked to the small double doors, but cringed when she saw Virginia breathing heavy as she leaned against the wood.“And at least mine wasn’t fuckin’ gross. What is that smell? Can’t be bleach…”
Sasha was right. It was why Ellie thought they were in the investigator’s house. It reeked of the same tobacco and alcohol scent seeping from the sweat dripping down his forehead. The underlying cleaning odor was hard to believe since the place was a total pigsty.
Newspaper and trash were everywhere, like whatever he hadn’t wanted to hold anymore, he’d just dropped straight to the ground. The two biggest concentrations of debris were around a corkboard she couldn’t see the front of, and his chair centered in the living room. It was disgusting. At one point she could’ve sworn she’d seen something move out the corner of her eye.
