Chapter 7: She's Not Where You Left Her
Mason was already moving before Maya had fully processed the words on the screen.
"Stay here," he said.
"Absolutely not."
He stopped in her hallway, turned, and looked at her with an expression that was not a request.
"Maya—"
"Someone just told you Diane is missing.
You came to my apartment this morning, which means Carver's people know where I live.
You are not leaving me here alone." She grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door.
"I'm coming."
He looked at her for one long second.
Then he turned and walked out.
She took that as agreement.
The convoy was already running.
They were in the SUV and moving within ninety seconds, Mason on the phone, speaking in a low voice to someone she couldn't identify.
"When?" he said.
"How long ago." A pause.
"Who checked last." Another pause, longer.
His jaw was tight.
"Find out which of the two it was and call me back."
He ended the call.
"Talk to me," Maya said.
"Diane was in a safe house in Tacoma.
One of two people knew the address — both of them mine, both of them vetted." He stared straight ahead.
"One of them is the leak."
"The same leak that told Victor Hale about the wedding."
"Yes."
"Do you know which one?"
"Not yet."
Maya thought.
"The text came from an unsaved number.
That means whoever sent it wanted you to know she'd been moved, but didn't want to identify themselves."
Mason looked at her.
"If it was Carver's people who moved her," Maya continued, "they wouldn't warn you.
They'd want the head start.
So either it's someone inside your organization who feels guilty — the leak, having second thoughts — or it's someone else entirely.
Someone who knows about Diane and wants you to find her before Carver does."
Mason was quiet for a moment.
"You think quickly."
"I've been awake since four a.m.
processing the fact that my name is in a crjminal's letter." She looked at him.
"Can you reach Diane directly?"
"She has a number.
For emergencies only."
"This qualifies."
He dialed.
It rang six times.
No answer.
He dialed again.
Same result.
Maya watched his face.
He was controlled — she was learning that about him, that his face did very little — but his thumb pressed the edge of the phone just slightly harder than necessary.
"She's not answering," he said.
"Or she can't."
The SUV crossed the bridge toward Tacoma, the water grey and flat below them.
One of the men in the front spoke quietly — a street name, a confirmation.
Mason nodded.
They pulled up outside a low residential building twenty minutes later.
Ordinary street, ordinary building, the kind of place designed to be forgotten.
Mason's man — the one who had been at the wedding, the one who had first sent the message about Victor Hale — was waiting outside.
His name, Maya had learned, was Rourke.
He was built like a door and had the expression of a man who had delivered bad news before and didn't enjoy it.
"Tell me," Mason said.
"She left on her own," Rourke said.
"Her bag is gone.
Her phone is on the kitchen table — she left it deliberately.
The back door was unlocked from the inside."
Mason was still.
"She left voluntarily."
"Looks that way."
"Why would she run?" Maya asked.
Rourke glanced at her, then at Mason.
Mason nodded slightly.
"There was a visitor two days ago," Rourke said.
"I didn't know about it until this morning.
Someone came to the building — not to her unit, to the building — and left a note with the super.
The super slipped it under her door."
"What did the note say?" Mason asked.
Rourke reached into his jacket and produced a folded piece of paper in a clear sleeve.
"We found it in her wastebasket.
She tore it up.
We pieced it back together."
Mason took it.
Maya leaned in to read.
The note had been torn into six pieces and reassembled with tape.
The handwriting was neat, deliberate.
*Diane — they know the Tacoma address.
The man protecting you has been compromised.
If you stay, you won't make it to November.
There is another way.
Come alone.
Tell no one.
— A friend.*
Maya straightened up.
"Someone scared her out of the safe house," she said.
"Someone who knew the address — which means either Carver's people or your leak — sent her a note telling her your organization had been compromised and she needed to run."
"To push her out into the open," Mason said.
His voice was flat.
"Where she has no protection."
"Where Carver can find her," Maya said.
Rourke's phone buzzed.
He looked at it.
Something in his face changed.
"What?" Mason said.
Rourke turned the phone around.
It was a photograph.
A woman Maya didn't recognize — mid-fifties, dark coat, a rolling suitcase — standing at what appeared to be a bus terminal.
The timestamp was forty minutes ago.
Below the photograph, one line of text from an unknown number.
May you like
*She took the 9:15 to Portland.
You have two hours.*
