the cars, Dylan was in touch with everybody except the man he most wanted to find: J.T.
He’d lost track of Scout Leesom the minute she’d dropped over the side of the building with a guy Red Dog could only describe as a cross between Luke Sky-walker pulling the “Save the Princess” moves from both Star Wars and Return of the Jedi and the cop from Demolition Man. But Scout was not Dylan’s problem, and neither was the man who’d rescued her.
Jane was his problem. Though truth be told, his gut was telling him J.T. was in far more danger than the gallery girl. Hawkins had reported that the GTO had pulled over to the curb and stopped in front of the Quick Mart for a few seconds, and at 30th and Vallejo for longer than that, both times long enough for her to have gotten out, if she’d wanted to—and she hadn’t.
Of course, J.T. could have been holding a weapon on her … but maybe not.
Dylan wasn’t exactly the social butterfly of Special Defense Force—that honor was a toss-up between Hawkins and Skeeter—but even he remembered the young woman who’d hung around the Steele Street alley way back when, trying to get a look or two at J.T. Quinn and Creed had teased him about her mercilessly. She’d been a real hard case, a survivor, all skinny arms and skinny legs and lanky hair hanging in her pretty green eyes, about half fed most of the time.
No one would tease J.T. about her now. The urchin had turned into a heartbreaker with all the gloss and sophistication Katya Hawkins and Suzi Toussi could infuse in and slather on a young woman.
It was difficult to believe she might still be nursing a crush on J.T., but women were hardly his area of expertise. Again, that honor went to Christian Hawkins, Superman.
He leaned forward and keyed the mike on the radio. “Hey, Superman.”
“Copy,” Hawkins said.
“Give me the sitrep.” The “situation report”—Dylan was hoping for better than he’d gotten five minutes ago.
“Nada,” his second in command said. “We’ve got nothing. We’re getting a little spread out. It might be time to come in and regroup.”
Not a bad idea.
“What did Travis and Red Dog find at the motel?” Hawkins asked.
“Meds,” Dylan told him. “Lots of meds, and a chart book he keeps, tallying what he’s taking for different symptoms. Gillian looked it all over and didn’t like what she saw. She thinks he may be going down faster than she feared.”
He heard Hawkins swear under his breath.
“She and Travis are still staking out the motel,” Dylan continued. “They’re hoping he comes in to get something, especially since we hit him with the Halox.”
“We need a break,” Hawkins said, and Dylan could only agree. Denver wasn’t a big city by international standards, but it was big enough to get lost in. “Do Zach and Kid still have Lancaster in their sights?”
“Zach is locked onto him like a tractor beam,” he said. “Kid’s got a date with Crutchfield at O’Shaunessy’s. The lawyer called Skeeter about ten minutes ago, wanting to buy her a drink, or maybe just flat-out buy her, but we all know how much fun Kid can be, so I sent him, too, to keep the party going. That leaves Lancaster all on his own at the Kashmir Club.”
“And Sam gave up six all total?”
“The management duo and two teams, Karola and Walls on one team, and two other guys named King and Rock working together.”
“Hell,” Hawkins swore.
Dylan agreed.
“Why didn’t Jane get out of Corinna?” he asked. “She had two chances to get out, and she didn’t.”
“Man of her dreams comes back to life after six long years? The girl is sticking.” Christian didn’t hesitate to answer. “Out of curiosity, if nothing else, and she’s enough of a team player to know we want him.”
“You don’t think he’s threatening her, holding her against her will? That he might hurt her?”
“Hell, Dylan. If he wanted to hurt people, he would have been throwing fragmentation grenades, not flash bangs.” Again Hawkins didn’t hesitate. “And Red Dog said he had her dead to rights on the tenth floor, and he obviously didn’t pull the trigger. And he didn’t hurt Suzi Toussi in Paraguay, either. Jane’s a burden, an accident that happened in his getaway car. She’s not an asset. He came for the girl, and you saw Scout. You can’t beat that kind of loyalty into somebody. She’s a straight-up girl, fully self-actualized. She’s been well cared