“Well, I wasn’t one of them. I barely know the man.”
“And what if you had heard that? Would you have done anything?”
“Yes, goddammit. I would have.”
Liv tilted her head and studied him as if trying to decide whether she believed him. He noticed for the first time how much she looked like her sister. They had the same eyes. The same coloring. But Liv had a wariness about her he’d never seen in Thea. She looked like someone who desperately wanted to trust people but didn’t know how.
And he suddenly desperately wanted her to trust him. “You know you can’t do this alone, Liv. Don’t be stubborn.”
“You want to help? Fine. Give Jessica a job. I need to get her out of there.”
“Done. I’ll hire her today. How do I contact her?”
Liv blinked. “I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” He matched her skeptical tone from earlier.
“It’s not like we were friends,” she said, spreading her hands wide. “I don’t have her phone number, her social media is all set to private, and it’s not like I can go talk to her at work.”
Mack thumbed the screen of his phone. “What’s her last name?”
“Summers.”
Mack typed the name into a Google search bar and added “Nashville” to filter out the results.
Liv squinted. “Are you being serious right now?”
“Yes, I’m serious.”
“You’re going to offer her a job.”
“I just said that, didn’t I?”
His Google search turned up about two million results. Liv let out a heavy breath and shook her head. “You really think I didn’t try that already?”
When he didn’t respond, she rolled her eyes so hard he could almost hear it. “I’ll let you know when I get in touch with her,” she said.
This time, when she walked away, Mack let her. Because even if Liv didn’t know how to find the girl, Mack knew someone who could.
Mack shoved his phone back in his pocket and dug out his keys. He passed Sonia at her cubicle. She looked up. “What the hell was that all about?”
He ducked the question. “I’ll explain later.”
Sonia shrugged and said something sarcastic under her breath. Mack walked through the kitchen and out the back entrance into the alley behind the bar where he’d parked his car.
He drove across town quickly, making a phone call as he went.
It was just before four when he pulled into the meeting spot—a three-story brick rectangle with the name Dagnabit’s painted in fading green letters on front above the door. It looked like the kind of place where the whiskey was cheap and the cooks didn’t wash their hands. Which made it the perfect place for meetings like this.
Mack walked up the weedy, cracked sidewalk and pulled open the door. It creaked as if offended. Inside the lights were dim and the TV was loud. The place was nearly empty except for a pair of biker dudes who leaned heavily on the bar over half-finished pints of beer, their eyes glued to the baseball game on the TV. Neither glanced his way. Two seats away from them sat a man with stringy hair and a phlegmy cough who looked like he was one minute away from losing his shit and screaming about the CIA.
Mack chose a spot safely in the middle and ordered a beer.
Five minutes later, the door creaked again, and Noah Logan walked in. He had his hands shoved in the pockets of a beaten-up leather jacket and a skullcap tugged low across his forehead. By all outward appearances, he was your average, everyday computer IT specialist. Mack suspected it was a cover for some kind of super–secret agent thing. No one could be that smart and deceptively well built without working for the government on the down low. Mack had hired him several years ago to help set up his network security but realized rather quickly that Noah’s skills went far beyond the standard, and he’d been essential in helping Mack with another sensitive project that had earned him a permanent spot on Mack’s most-trusted list.
“Dude,” Noah said, claiming the stool next to Mack. “What’s the big emergency?”
“I need you to do something for me.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Mack dropped a five on the counter and stood. “Let’s take a walk.”
“We just fucking got here,” Noah complained.
Ten minutes later, he was no longer complaining. Noah slowed his steps and shook his head. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “I knew there was something sleazy about that guy. What do you want me to do?”