“Thermal from a traffic camera half a block away shows at least three heat signatures inside. Could be more.”
“Three armed men,” Dad said. “Waiting for you to come home.”
I pictured myself walking through that front door, calling out David’s name, maybe noticing something wrong and maybe not until it was too late.
“We need to move,” Carter said. “If they realize you’re not following instructions, they may relocate. Or they may come looking.”
“For me,” I finished.
“The storage unit is secure,” Carter said, “but not secure enough if Marcus heard that call fail.”
Dad grabbed a go-bag from the cot.
“Emma, we need to relocate you to a federal safe house.”
I stared at the dead black screen of my phone.
They had taken my mother’s face and her voice and tried to use them to lead me to slaughter.
“No,” I said.
Both men looked at me.
“I’m not running.”
I stood.
“They’re in my house. They have Mom. David is out there somewhere, maybe coordinating all of it. You said you had a plan to get her back. I want to hear it.”
“Emma—”
“They used my mother’s face to try to kill me,” I said, my voice going hard. “I want to hear the plan now.”
After a long moment, Carter nodded.
“All right,” he said. “But you aren’t going to like it.”
