been a staple for decades, and it needed a facelift. The Dogs are going to give it that.” God, he felt like a politician.
Someone said, “What about these other stores here?” An arm reached up out of the crowd and gestured toward the neighboring storefronts.
“One of those is going to be a boutique furniture store. All handmade originals. I know the craftsman, and he’s been really successful in London, where he was born. The café is being revamped, too. It’s gonna be Southern home cooking. All these businesses” – he gave a sweeping gesture – “will be locally-owned and operated. They’ll be hiring soon, so if you know anyone who’d be interested, tell them to be on the lookout for online job postings.” He offered what he hoped looked like a sincere smile. “Sorry for all the trouble tonight, everyone. Enjoy your evenings.”
When he rejoined Leah, she was beaming, eyes sparkling under the streetlights. “Oh my God,” she whispered, delighted. “You totally practiced all that beforehand, didn’t you?”
“Of course I did. I’m not an idiot.”
She laughed. “The whole thing was a PR setup. Nice. Were the kids in on it, too?”
“Actually, no.” He frowned. Around them, the crowd was dispersing, talking amongst themselves, providing a kind of open-air privacy. “I have no idea who they are, but they don’t look like the guys we saw on the surveillance footage.”
“Ah. You let them go, though.”
“Technically, yeah. I did. But Ten and Reese are following them.”
“Ooh, spy shit.”
He made a face. “God. I hate the spy shit.”
She laughed again, and looped her arm through his – a move that surprised him in its casual intimacy. “Come on, number twelve.” No one had called him that in a long time; it filled him with a pang of longing for the old days – and a bit of hope that, maybe, through helping Elijah, he could reconnect with his former football life, at least a little. “I’ll buy you a latte.”
~*~
The kids were fast, slender and leggy and young, and fueled by fright, too. But though they skirted down a couple alleys, and finally clambered into a beat-up Toyota, they were painfully easy to follow.
“There, in that blue car,” Reese said as he slid into the passenger seat of the nondescript blue club truck, and slammed the door.
Tenny was pulling away from the curb before the latch even clicked. He’d wiped his face mostly clean, and handed over a rag without taking his eyes from the road. “If someone looks through the windows, and sees us with our faces camouflaged, that’s going to draw undue attention,” he explained, when Reese hesitated.
He took the rag and started wiping. “They’re heading for the marina.”
“That was my thought.”
After a few more turns, the buildings gave way to the diamond glitter of moonlight on water. Long, floating docks extended out into the river, flanked by tied-up boats: everything from small ski boats to the big, expensive yachts that Tango had explained were often anchored outside the stadium at the university and used for on-the-water tailgating. Reese understood that in practical terms, but not in theory. Humans had such strange rituals…
Ahead of them, the Toyota slowed and turned into one of the many parking lots along the river’s edge. A large lot, with a small, squat office, and, in back, a boat ramp, and a warehouse big enough to back a boat trailer inside. Flash Customs, the sign marked it.
There was no other traffic on the road, so Tenny slowed to a crawl. Slow enough that they could see the two teens scramble out of the car and go pelting inside the office. It had to be closed for business for the night, but the door was unlocked, and Reese glimpsed the faint glow of a light on somewhere deeper inside.
The truck came to a halt.
Reese noted another car in the parking lot, a dark pickup. “They were sent to do that.”
“Which means they aren’t the brains of the operation.” Tenny pulled out his phone; put it on speaker when it started to ring, and Fox’s voice crackled through the cab.
“Status?”
“The op was successful,” Tenny said. His voice went very flat and official when he was talking to Fox about business. “The marks weren’t the ones from the video. Two males, late teens, highly anxious. We followed them to Flash Customs, and they went inside to rendezvous with someone.”
“Should we engage?” Reese asked.
“No.” Emphatic. “Pull back. Ghost and I’ll go tomorrow and have a chat with the shop owner.”
Tenny