a coincidence, and it hadn’t been someone trying to hurt Noelle. They’d been looking for something. “They know she left you information.”
“But they didn’t find it,” she insisted. “They looked in the locker, but I bet they didn’t find it. Madison painted the magnetic box almost the same color as the locker. If you don’t feel for it, you won’t know it’s there.”
She was getting excited, but fear was what he felt.
Whatever was on that drive, Jessica Layne had been willing to kill for.
“I think I’m going to call Tag.” He was going to move her. “There’s clothes for you in that bag I brought in. Get dressed. I think we might make that trip to Louisiana tonight.”
He would have someone bring him a car and take off. If Layne even had a whiff that there was an investigation, she would want all the loose ends tied up.
Noelle was a loose end.
“Why? Hutch, we need to get to that locker,” Noelle said.
He grabbed her cane and handed it to her. “Someone will. I promise. But it won’t be you.”
He dragged his boxers and jeans on and reached for his cell just as it lit up and started to hum. Michael. He swiped to accept it because Michael had the night shift watching Kyle. Had he slipped out again? “What’s going on?”
“We have company. I need…”
The line went dead.
And then the lights went out and Hutch realized the night had taken a deadly turn.
Chapter Eighteen
It was so dark. Without windows to let in any light, the room that moments before had felt warm and safe now sent a chill through Noelle.
“What’s happening? Did we have a power failure?” She couldn’t see Hutch at all. At least she’d managed to get her cane in her hand.
A light came on, splitting the utter darkness. Hutch held his cell in his hand and illuminated part of the room for her. “Cell service is out, and Michael said we had company. I need you to get dressed as quickly as possible, baby. I’m going to start my laptop and pull up our security feed.”
“I thought we were safe here.” She opened the bag MaeBe had dropped off for her and thanked the universe for underwear since hers had been ripped off. She quickly got into the jeans and T-shirt while Hutch hauled his laptop out with the hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight.
“Even if someone cut our power, the security system has a backup,” Hutch explained. “And if they think they can break in, they should think again. The windows are bulletproof, and the locks would take a long time to cut through. I can access the security cameras and listen in through the comm. It looks like the backup is already online.”
“Who’s Michael?” She picked up Hutch’s shirt and handed it to him.
The laptop had turned on and glowed, making his face a bit ghost-like against the darkness of the rest of the room. “He’s the man who’s watching the man who’s supposed to watch us.”
Ah, the one they had trailing Kyle because they were worried he was a spy. She still hadn’t completely processed that bit of information, but she couldn’t see it. Still, she was grateful they had someone on the outside. “So he called and said we have trouble and then the power went out. We’re in the middle of downtown Dallas. Who does he think is going to show up?”
Hutch handed her the cell that was working as a flashlight. “Where you live, Dallas is pretty vibrant. There are always people around. This is a warehouse district. No one lives here. Well, Kai and Kori live next door, but they’re in California right now, so we’re alone at this time of night. But if there’s trouble, Michael will already have called someone in. He’ll call Tag and Alex first, but Theo is closest. Still, even the cops are probably ten minutes out at this time of night. More if they’re working an accident or something.”
“How can he call if cell service is down?” She sat on the bed beside him, watching as he worked. She wasn’t worried. Power went out a lot, and how would anyone know where they were?
“We don’t know how far the outage goes. Maybe it’s all on our end. Michael will figure it out.” Hutch was always an optimist. And then his eyes went wide. “Oh, shit.”
She looked at the screen where Hutch was staring and saw an eerie site.