Jack (Eidolon Black Ops #8) - Maddie Wade Page 0,68
picks them up heading out of town. Once they hit the countryside we lost track, so we don’t know where he took her, but my guess is somewhere close. He’s a creature of habit and will work with what he knows best.”
Evelyn leaned back in her chair, her huge bump making the naturally graceful woman look awkward. “You couldn’t trace the call?”
“No.”
“Hmm, and is there anything out that way that you know of? A house or residence of any kind?” Pax crossed her legs as she spoke, looking a little paler than usual from her pregnancy and Jack was proud these women had stepped up for Astrid.
“Not that we know of and believe me, we’ve been looking.”
“He has to be somewhere though, and close if he’s been making visits to your mother’s home undetected.” Roz rolled her throwing stars through her knuckles as she spoke.
“I know.”
“Is he alone?”
“We believe so. He seems to have sent all the men he has working for him to London. My guess is he thinks he can talk me around and doesn’t need force, especially when he has Astrid.”
“So, he’s an idiot who underestimates his sons a lot. Got it.”
Jack had no intention of telling Roz the extent of his father’s crazy plan, or at least the story behind it, but they needed to know some of it. “He wants to overthrow the crown and plans to use me to do it.”
“Then we need to find him so you can get some payback before our girl Astrid kills him.”
Jack eyed Roz, hands on his hips. “My girl. Astrid is mine, and I’ll protect her.”
Roz stood and walked to him slowly. “She’s Zenobi.”
Jack and Roz were almost nose to nose. “She’s mine. I love her.”
“But you don’t own her.”
“No, she owns me. Completely and totally.”
Jack saw a grin quirk Roz’s lips as she nodded. “Fair enough.”
The eight of them spent the next three hours working through the CCTV they had and any knowledge they had of Frederick, which was less than they needed.
“I’ve got it,” Will shouted and Jack ran to the computer and looked over his shoulder.
“Wait, that’s Mum’s place.”
Will looked up, his eyes bright with discovery despite the exhaustion. “I know, but I isolated all the sounds and kept picking up the sound of school kids. You know the noise kids make when they gather in the mornings.”
“Yeah, I do. I hear it every damn morning.” Jack’s mind was already on the move. “So, you think he has Astrid there?”
“No, I know. Look!”
Will sped up the images and saw a different car than the one Frederick had first used pull up outside his mother’s home and pull into the garage.
“So, no visual, but the odds are it’s Frederick and Astrid.”
“Yes.”
Roz stood. “Let’s go.”
“Wait, we should make a plan.”
Roz sighed but relented. “Fine, let’s plan.”
Over the last few hours she seemed to have ceded control of the operation to him, and he had a feeling it was because he’d faced her down over how she spoke about Astrid. It had been an asinine test on reflection, and he’d passed. Women, he was realising, thought differently to men, but it was a good thing. The ideas they had were more outside the box, more prone to emotion, but that was a good thing too.
“I should go in first. It’s me he wants anyway. You can provide back-up, so he doesn’t get away and just in case he has any surprises planned.”
Will shook his head. “That’s a bad plan. He could kill you.”
Jack shook his head. “No, I don’t think he will. He wants me to help him, so he needs me alive.”
Will sighed. “I don’t like it.”
“Noted, brother, but may I remind you that you stole a plane and flew to the other side of the world to protect Aubrey.”
“Fine, but I’m on comms.”
“Fine by me.”
Jack spent the next hour talking through the property’s layout with Roz, Bebe, Laverne, and Aubrey who had insisted on coming even when Will hit the roof. They had then revised the plan so Will would go with them too. Jack understood it now because he felt the same.
“Ready?”
“Let’s go get your girl back before she does something stupid.”
Roz pushed past him at the exit, always needing the last word but he’d take that. Without Zenobi, this would be much harder.
The house was dark when they arrived, hiking in from the back roads and over the fields rather than coming in directly. His mother’s home, the house he’d grown up in,