Me to team: Drawers open. Toiletries gone. She’s running.
* * *
“Gabriel’s on his way,” I tell Jake.
“I’m backing out,” he says. “No one’s here. She’s gone.”
* * *
Me to team: Jake’s backing out. Place empty.
* * *
My phone buzzes again.
* * *
Quinn: Alicia’s security cameras just went offline.
* * *
My blood goes cold.
My fingers fly across the laptop keyboard, pulling up the security feed.
Every angle.
Every camera.
Black.
Like someone flipped a switch. Or cut the power from the inside.
“Jake,” I say, voice tight. “How fast can you get here?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Make it five.”
I’m already moving toward the stairs, reaching for my weapon, every nerve on high alert.
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
Alicia
A sharp clang slices through the house.
Stella’s in her pajamas, curled on her bed, scrolling through posts from the play on her phone—the one her father bought her. The blue glow lights her cheeks, carefree and warm.
But the sound downstairs is wrong.
Too loud.
Too deliberate.
Not a settling pipe or shifting wood.