by Lauren Esker
Come for us, Jack. Please.
Chapter Eighteen
In the three months they'd been together, Jack and Casey had had a bare handful of what could reasonably called "dates". As opposed to, say, hanging out together on the shooting range, or jogging together, or working out together. Or just staying in and watching a movie together, which tended to lead to other, even more pleasant things.
They were together almost 24/7, especially now that she'd been approved for SCB field work, as long as she remained under the supervision of a fully trained agent. Going through the actual, formal moves of dating, as opposed to just grabbing takeout or ordering pizza, seemed almost irrelevant at this stage.
But sometimes a girl wanted to get dressed up and have a guy take her to a nice restaurant, pull out her chair for her, and buy her wine. Or, at least, that was the principle Jack was operating on. His previous relationships tended to be more of the "hi, thanks, goodbye" variety, but he was determined to do this one right, and that included pampering Casey every now and then.
From the warm, intense looks she was giving him across the candlelit table, it seemed that Operation: Make Casey Happy was working out well. She looked amazing in a red, off-the-shoulder dress, and she'd toed off the little red kitten-heeled shoe from one foot and worked her foot slowly up his leg while they progressed through the salad course. Now that bare foot was resting between his legs on the seat of his chair, wiggling enticingly every once in awhile.
Tonight was going to be a very good night.
Just as the waiter placed their perfectly medium-rare steaks in front of them, his phone rang.
"Work?" she asked, at his grimace.
"Agent Cho," he confirmed. "Maybe she just wants to find out if we're still holding the interagency softball game next weekend."
"Maybe."
He turned off the ringer and put his phone back into his pocket.
"You can take that, Jack, if you need to."
"The SCB will survive if they can't get in touch with me for one evening."
The phone vibrated to indicate an incoming text. He managed not to flinch the first time. The third time, he clenched his teeth and took it out. The texts were increasingly escalating versions of Jack, call me, now.
"Cho again?"
"Cho again," he confirmed. "And she doesn't say what she wants."
"Jack," Casey said. "Call her back. Something serious might be going down."
"If it was SCB business, I'd have Stiers on the line, and she'd probably be calling you too." He shook his head. "It's just Cho being Cho. I'm not sure if you know her well enough to have noticed this yet, but when she really wants something, Jen Cho has all the patient forbearance of a cricket hopped up on meth. She's probably decided she absolutely has to tell me all about whatever she's getting Avery for Christmas, or something like that."
"If you don't call her, I will," Casey threatened, and stabbed a piece of his steak with her fork, stealing it off the edge of his plate.
"Hey! You have your own!" He protectively pulled the plate closer. The waiter had looked a little startled when Jack had ordered two twenty-four-ounce steaks for himself, but he had a bear's appetite, even in human form.
"Don't make me come over there."
He snorted and called Cho back. "Seriously, Jen, you realize some people have social lives, right? You have any idea what you're interrupting?"
"If you're having sex right now," she answered cheerfully, "you can call me back when you're done."
"I was hoping to later, no thanks to you," he grumbled. Across the table, Casey covered her mouth with her hand to stifle a giggle.
"Well, just answer my question and then you can get back to it. Do you know where Hollen is?"
"Avery? I haven't seen him all day." A quiet, alert ripple ran through the back of his mind: his protective bear instincts, coming online. "Do you have any reason to think things aren't okay?"
"I don't know. We met up this afternoon. Took a look around a place called EGL, some kind of biotech firm, which he thinks is involved in last night's action somehow. I did a quick in-and-out, you know, the usual, but didn't find anything suspicious."
"Okay," Jack said slowly. "So what'd Avery do next?"
"I don't know, because we went our separate ways, and that's the last I saw of him. Figured I'd go in to work and get caught up on paperwork while I was having my Saturday ruined anyway, so I was there this evening when—you've met Avery's new girlfriend, right? The Yates woman?"
"Nicole," Jack confirmed. "She seems nice."
"She's great, yeah. She was there with us at EGL. Anyway, it seems she and Avery never came home, and left those kids they've been babysitting with Nicole's sister. Nicole's sister called the SCB after trying all evening to raise Nicole's phone, thinking we might know where Avery is."
"You try calling him?"
"Voicemail," Cho said. "And then I tried to trace his phone, but it's not on, or at least it's not on the grid. I figured I'd call you before I run all the way up to Lake City to see if he's home."
Jack pointed at Casey. "Call Avery," he said in a loud whisper.
"I already tried," Cho said, disgruntled.
"I know. Trust but verify."
"Voicemail," Casey reported with her phone pressed to her ear. "Do you want me to leave a message?"
Jack shook his head. "All right, verification achieved. Unfortunately. I have no idea where he is. The last time I saw him was last night at the Hodgson place."
"I guess that's a place to start," Cho said.
Casey spoke up. "See if he has OnStar."
"Sorry?" Jack said.
"OnStar." Casey smiled slightly. "Skip tracing background, remember? If he has OnStar or something similar, you can find his car. Just tell 'em you're a fed. Actual skip tracers have to get a little more creative about it."
"Cho, you catch that?"
"I did," Cho said. "Tell her that's good thinking. I'll look into it, and then probably run out to the Hodgson place."
"We'll head up and check Avery's apartment, see if he's around."
"Sounds like a plan," Cho said. "Stay in touch."
Jack hung up and gave Casey an apologetic look. "I'm sorry. I should have asked—"
"Don't apologize. I'd have said the same." She stabbed a large piece of her steak and stuffed it into her mouth. "To-go box," she mumbled around the mouthful. "It's what they were invented for."
Jack sighed, gave his two steaks a deeply regretful look, and waved at the waiter.
***
Avery's apartment was dark, his car missing from the parking lot. Jack let himself in anyway; he'd had Avery's spare key for years, but had never thought he'd need to use it in a circumstance like this.
At first glance, it looked like Avery's apartment had been ransacked. A second look made it clearer that the damage was simply the effects of four puppies running amok. Jack idly picked up a couch cushion and put it back in place.
"Nothing amiss in the bedroom," Casey reported. "I mean, besides the fact that it looks like a hurricane hit the place. He's not usually this messy, is he?"
"No, but I don't think it means anything except that he's been busy lately." Avery had no landline, so there was no answering machine to check for telltale clues. Jack took a quick look around for Avery's phone, keys, or other signs that he'd been back, but there was nothing. The werewolf collar and leash were missing from their usual place in the closet. Jack couldn't remember off the top of his head if Avery had been wearing the collar last night, but it seemed likely.
"On a scale of one to ten, how worried are you?" Casey asked, poking around in the kitchen.
"Er, right now, about a four? Possibly that number will go up soon. Avery might've just shut off his phone for the same reason I probably should've shut mine off tonight."
"But aren't you glad you didn't," Casey said with a sideways smile.
"Okay, fine, maybe a little." He gave her a quick squeeze and kissed the top of her tousled dar
k head.
"Besides," Casey said, leaning into him, "would he and Nicole have run off for some nookie without calling her sister to mention they'd be out late? I don't know him all that well yet, but it doesn't seem like him."
"It's not. Avery is conscientious to a fault. I can't remember a time he's been late for a shift without calling, and he absolutely hates missing a check-in when he's undercover. He's always nagging me about not doing the same. So, maybe upgrade the worry level to a six, with an option on a possible seven."
"That's pretty high."
"Someone tried to trank my best friend last night, and now he's missing. It's gonna be a ten if he doesn't turn up soon."
He locked up the apartment, and called Cho on his way down the stairs. "Nothing at Avery's place. How are things on your end?"
"I just finished up with the Hodgsons. Nada. I'm headed over to EGL now. Meet me there?"
She gave him directions. While Jack drove, Casey used his pocketknife to cut up the steaks—the restaurant's carry-out box open on her knees—and fed pieces to him.
"Not exactly the date you were hoping for, I'm sure," he said between bites.
"No, but considering we were both running for our lives when we met, I suppose it's the date I should have expected." She winked at him and nibbled a piece of steak.
EGL was not difficult to find, although the place appeared to be completely deserted. Jack started to turn into the parking lot before spotting Cho parked across the street, in the empty lot of what appeared to be some kind of industrial welding business, waving to him. Jack pulled in beside her.
Cho whistled when she saw Casey's red dress. "I did interrupt something, didn't I?"
"Nothing you won't be paying for until next summer," Jack said with a lightness he didn't feel. "Why are we over here, instead of there?"
"I sincerely hope you have more understanding of strategy than 'grizzly bear smash'." Cho folded her arms, leaning a hip on the hood of her car. She was the only one of them dressed casually; Jack had dressed up for the date as far as he was comfortable, in a dark jacket with a midnight-blue shirt underneath, although without a tie. "They have security cameras over there. We saw them when we did recon before. It didn't matter so much then—"
"But if they have Avery and Nicole, tipping EGL off could mean their deaths," Jack said grimly. He looked across the street at the dark, mostly windowless complex of buildings. Both parking lots, front and back, were empty, lit by lampposts standing like silent sentinels.
Casey slipped a hand into his, and squeezed lightly.
"I suppose it was too much to ask that we might find Avery's car with a note reading 'KIDNAPPERS THIS WAY'," Cho remarked. "No luck with OnStar, by the way. We know Nicole and Avery have his car, though. The sister said Nicole's car is still in their driveway."
"When did Avery and Nicole leave her sister's place?"
"About two in the afternoon. They met me and Mayhew here around two-thirty."
"Intern Mayhew?"
"Yes, why does everyone seem so shocked? Kid actually did all right, for his first outing in the field. I mostly had him guard my escape route while I gecko'd in through the vents. I'd say it was maybe three-fifteen when Mayhew and I left, which was also the last time I saw Hollen."
"Is that also the last time you saw Mayhew?" Jack asked.
"Oh, Jack, you can't possibly think one of the interns had anything to do with this," Casey protested.
"I don't know what to think. All I know is, we have an agent and a civilian missing." An agent who happens to be my closest friend.
"I dropped Mayhew off at home afterwards," Cho said. "Come to think of it, I oughta text and see if he's heard from Avery." She pulled out her phone.
"We'll probably need to talk to him later too," Jack said. "Okay, let's think this through. Avery and Nicole left her sister's place around two, in his car. They met you here. You last saw them about three this afternoon—that's, what, five or six hours ago."
"They could've gone pretty far in that time," Casey pointed out.
"Yes, but where? What were they working on? Cho, do you know if Avery had any leads other than this one?"
Cho shrugged, thumb-typing rapidly. "No clue. As far as I know, EGL was the main thing he was focused on."
Jack huffed out a sigh. He could see his breath, he noticed. The night was not starkly cold, nor actively raining for a change, but it was very chilly. Autumn dampness hung in the air. Casey had only a light red cardigan over her dress. He took off his jacket and put it around her shoulders, still warm from his body. She rolled her eyes but shrugged gratefully into the warmth.
"Think you can get in there without being seen?" he asked Cho.
"You know who you're talking to, right?" She stuck the phone into the pocket of her jacket and tucked her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans. "The question is, where should I start? That place is big, and so far as I could see when I was there before, totally on the up-and-up. Not that I'd know how to tell the difference between an evil lab and an ordinary one unless I run into a handy tortured prisoner or a folder labeled Evil Plans."
"As you're fond of telling us, this is your specialty," Jack pointed out. "And, alone among the three of us, you were in there before."
"Fair points," she conceded. "All right, I'll go run some recon."
"Meanwhile, Casey and I can start looking into the company. See what we can find."
Cho nodded. She emptied her pockets into the glove compartment of her car, keeping only the car keys, and locked the door. "Meet you back here in two hours. Hopefully I'll have found our wayward wolf by then."
"Need help getting in?"
"Nah," she said, and offered the two of them a quick wave as she strolled across the street, turned, and walked up the sidewalk, away from the building's entrance. She stepped beneath the inky shadow of a tree. No one emerged on the other side—no one visible, at least. Down in the grass, limned silver by the parking lot floodlights, a tiny gecko would be scuttling for all it was worth, heading for the building.
Jack sent a good thought winging after her—and to Avery and Nicole as well, as if such things made a difference.
Hold on, wherever you are. We're coming for you.
Chapter Nineteen
Nicole had no intention of sitting quietly in her cage, waiting for her captors to come back while going out of her mind worrying about what they were doing with Avery. The problem was figuring out what to do.
It was obvious this wasn't their first time restraining wolf shifters—or people they thought were wolf shifters, at any rate. The cage was much more heavy-duty than the animal shelter kennel it resembled. Rather than wire mesh, it was made of steel bars sunk deep in the concrete floor, reinforced with a horizontal band every foot or so. The bars were closely spaced enough that she could put her arm between them, but not her head. Even as a koala, she didn't think she could squeeze through.
The cage went all the way up to the ceiling, where steel beams and bracing had been used to anchor the bars at the top. The actual ceiling of the cage—she stretched, trying to touch it, but wasn't quite tall enough—appeared to be gray-painted plywood, while the wall behind her was cinderblock. Because there were no lights in the row of cages themselves, the back was slightly dim, offering a certain illusion of privacy; only an illusion, as she'd spotted another camera at the far side of the room, and between the two of them, they covered most of the cages' floor space and the area in front of them. Still, the back with its semi-privacy was where the toilet was, and Nicole dragged her pad back there beside it. Lying propped on her elbow, she considered the problem. It gave her something to do other than pacing while her mind screamed at her with worry for Avery.
Of the whole structure, the ceiling was probably the weakest part, but she had no easy way to reach it ... as a human. As a koala, she could easily climb up there. Could her claws dig through plywood? Koalas were not digging animals. Too bad I'm not a wombat, she thought glumly, which led her to wonder
if there actually were wombat shifters. Tim and Erin would know.
And they're not here, but I am, so let's try to figure a way out of this, okay?
Wolves couldn't climb. Koalas could. That was her one big advantage right now, the fact that she had an asset her captors didn't know about. Unfortunately she'd give away her advantage as soon as she shifted. And it wasn't like they were going to sit around idly and let her claw and chew her way through the ceiling, even assuming she could.
There was one other weak spot in the cage, which was, of course, the door. Nicole returned to the front of the cage, where she'd laid her clean plate aside with the plastic utensils neatly stacked atop it. No one had come to claim it yet. She drank a palmful from the water dish, as she wasn't about to get down on her knees and drink like an animal, and then inspected the cage's two opening elements: the door, and the slot where Evans had put the food in.
The latter was no help to her. It was just a loosely secured hatchway like the kind in a parakeet's cage. She could open it from the inside, but all she could do was put her arm through; although wider than the gap between bars, it was only about six inches top to bottom.
The main door wasn't human height. When Nicole stood up, the top of it was only a little past her waist. This meant anyone leaving the cage would have to shift, or else duck deeply to get out. Nicole thought she could do it simply by bending down and standing up on the other side, but a large man might have to crawl. Thus reducing the danger to anyone on the outside, she supposed, though someone coming in would be at the same disadvantage. Not that it mattered much when the cage's denizens could be tranquilized from a distance.
The door was locked at both top and bottom with new, shiny padlocks. They didn't look easy to pick, even if she'd had something to pick them with or, for that matter, knew anything about lock picking other than what she'd seen on TV.
There were some odd little projecting metal pieces around the door, one at each corner and two spaced evenly along each side. Nicole had to study them for a few minutes before comprehension struck—they were clamps for securing something to the other side. Probably a smaller cage, for transporting prisoners without having to give them even a moment's chance at freedom.