“Okay.”
“Good. Now I’m going to get my baby back.”
We walk into the market, united in more ways than we’ve ever been before. I scan every person I see, searching for Rory’s untamed auburn hair and sweet face—andthe face of a killer.
An ambulance is parked at the road, but I don’t see any EMTs anywhere. A cop car is parked in front of it, but I don’t see them either.
“What was she wearing again?” I ask, making sure I have it right and my riotous brain didn’t somehow decide I was looking for something different.
Keira’s head is on a swivel when she replies. “Pink leggings. White-and-pink striped shirt.”
I rake my gaze across every face in every booth and every customer, looking everywhere for our girl.
Goddamn it, couldn’t he have given us better instructions? A fucking stall number?
No, of course not. That would make it too easy, and this is a man who’s way fucking smarter than we realized when this nightmare began.
“We don’t see him or Rory.” Moses’s voice comes into my ear through the wireless comm earbud that Mount’s people produced. “But keep walking. Keep looking. If you seeanything, you know what to do.”
He means I make the gesture we all agreed upon in the few minutes we had to come up with a haphazard strategy to save Rory and not get me killed in the process.
If Moses is terrified right now, he’s not letting it show. He’s aware I won’t hesitate to sacrifice myself if that’s what it comes down to.
“I think I see—” Keira’s chin jerks toward a stall with knitted goods, and then her whole body deflates with disappointment. “No. Not her.”
“We’re still a few minutes early. Let’s keep walking.”
We weave our way through the stands and the busy Saturday crowd, looking at everyone. Everywhere.
Someone bumps into me, and I whip around, expecting to see a man with a knife, but I stare into the eyes of the same damn kid who tried to steal my purse the day I was walking through the Quarter. The day Moses returned.
“Not today, kid. No fucking time today.”
“I’m not trying to steal anything. Some dude gave me money to bring you a note.” He offers it up, and I unlock arms with Keira to rip it out of his hand.
“Did he have a baby? Pink pants? Did you see a little girl?” she asks him as I flip the note open at the same time.
“No. Just a dude in a hat and sunglasses. He told me to come to you.”
His words fade away as I read what’s scrawled on the page.
Stall 202
I look up to ask the kid another question, but he’s gone, already melted into the crowd.
“What does it say?”
I show it to her, and her eyes light up as she reads it out loud, which is what I should have done because I need Moses to know where we’re headed.
“Go straight and then turn left. Head down the row. It’s the second to last from the end, according to the map,” Trey says in my ear.
I nod in the right direction, showing Keira where we need to go.
“Oh God. My baby’s here. I can feel it,” she whispers.
I pray she’s right. Hope floods my soul, but with each step we take toward stall 202, I worry it’s one step closer to the end for me.
I want to believe this is going to work out, but I have to prepare myself for the alternative. The blood-encrusted murder weapon Cavender tossed on the table flashes through my brain.