Sweet Pain (Amatucci Family #3) - Sadie Jacks Page 0,38
over the phone was full of tension and rapid breathing. As we listened, she got her breathing under control. “Tell me what the plan is. I’ll nudge the collective.”
Ryker’s shoulders eased the slightest degree. He nodded. “We’re heading downstairs to check the security offices. See if they found anything on the phone in the box they sent.”
“I’ll head that way. Give me ten minutes, I’ll be walking in the doors.” She hung up.
Ryker tapped his phone’s screen. Pulled up his email app. I backed up, gave him his privacy. Looking over at Daphne, she didn’t seem nearly as threatening and intimidating without her heels on. Maybe only one or two inches taller than me in my bare feet.
Her fingers were clenched together so tightly her knuckles had bleached of all color. The tips of her fingers were an odd purplish red tone that didn’t bode well for her extremities. I reached out, grabbed her hand. “You still here?” I asked her softly.
The door to the elevator finally dinged. I turned and read the panel. Seventh floor. Ryker grabbed my hand again, pulled me through the door. With my other hand still grabbing Daphne’s we made an odd little train of anxiety and fear.
“Mr. Penn! I wasn’t expecti—” a man jumped up from the reception desk.
Ryker waved him back down. “This is an emergency. Where is Hughes?”
The man’s face slid into professional lines. “Of course, sir. Right this way.” He rose from his seat again, darted around from the desk. Took off at a brisk pace down the right hallway. “He’s in his office. What can I do to assist you, sir?”
“Get my girlfriend a new phone. Secured. On our network. Samsung, newest model,” Ryker said. “I want it programmed with all essential numbers and in her hands within thirty minutes.”
The man nodded and raced off back the way we’d come.
I grimaced. The man could have been put to better use than fetching me another phone. Ryker’s sister’s life was literally hanging in the balance. Me getting a phone was not a priority.
Daphne snickered. “My son likes to be able to get in touch with the people he loves. Give him this, please,” she said softly as we turned into an office with more computer equipment than I knew even existed. The command center at the bunker hadn’t even been this decked out.
I nodded, at a loss for words. Ryker pulled me into his side, wrapped his arm around my waist. “Hughes. I need all the information you got from the burner phone in the box.”
Pretty sure Ryker’s voice could simultaneously freeze steam and burn up hell. I was just glad I wasn’t the one trying to bear up under that icy gaze. I shivered.
He tightened his arm around me.
The man nodded, spun in his chair. His shaved head was glossy under the low lights in his office. With no windows to speak of, it was a little hard to discern the rest of him. His rimless glasses reflected the light of the screens in front of him.
“Okay, Penn, I’ve got a burner phone. Local buy. By the serial number, the manufacturer lists it as being bought and sold to a convenience store at the corner of Wabash and Tenth. I dug through the store’s security feed. Narrowed it down to three possibles for purchase. Two men, one woman.”
“Ages?” Ryker demanded.
Hughes nodded, clicked some more buttons on his mouse. “Man One, roughly six foot even, a solid one-eighty, brown and brown. Best guess puts him in his late fifties.”
“Next.”
“Man Two, six-four, two hundred, hat and shades. Best guess is mid-twenties.”
“Any identifying marks?” Ryker asked.
Hughes shook his head. “None on camera.”
“Dammit. Woman?”
Hughes called up a different file. “She’s got a record. One Tilly Sherman, wanted for hooking and drug possession. Just got released on…” he leaned forward, nodded, “Tuesday. So the day before she bought the phone.”
“She associated with anyone?” I could hear the hope in Ryker’s voice.
“Her stable is under the protection of de Silva,” Hughes said.
Ryker’s entire body vibrated for one brief moment before he got himself back under control. “I want everything you’ve got on her. All movements since Tuesday. Give me her parole officer first.”
Hughes nodded, his fingers already dancing over the keys. “Give me two minutes.” He hummed a tune that was oddly familiar under his breath as screen after screen flashed up just to be darted through before I could even figure out what the page was for.
“One Court Services Officer II, a Ms. Ketya Nonovich.”