Chapter Four

Kane

I watched Katy glance at me, but to her credit, she didn't look alarmed. "I can wait outside," I said to both of them, but then Katy stepped in front of me.

All five-foot-six, and one hundred and twenty-five pounds of her. I tried not to gape like an idiot. Rawlings simply grinned, openly enjoying the ass-hat detective's discomfort.

"Do you have an update for me, Detective?" Katy asked.

He glanced at both of us in annoyance. "Not yet. We're waiting on CCTV footage."

Katy nodded, then went to the door and held it open for him. "If you'll excuse us."

"Ma'am, I'm only watching out for your safety, especially—" He glanced pointedly at me. "Especially as we have no idea if his abilities are controlled." She didn't bother replying, just waited for him to leave. I watched as the detective stalked out.

"I really can wait outside," I added.

"No. Diesel trusts you, or you wouldn't be here."

"Right, Katy." Rawlings got out his phone. "You're on speaker with our tech expert, Danny."

She nodded and took a breath. "Rain's always been a daddy's girl. You know how it is when you get deployed. You spend half your life not being there for your kids." She paused. "To be honest, my marriage was over a long time ago. I came from a small town and Patrick was this rich older man who completely turned my head. I was twenty when we met while I was on leave and I got pregnant a year later. He was very manipulative, and I was even considering leaving the service early like he wanted me to. I got orders, and we were given special leave before we flew out, so I turned up at his offices to surprise him." She winced. "Not sure what sort of dictation involves the exchange of bodily fluids with his assistant, but you get my drift."

Danny interrupted to get Saunders' business details and confirm some dates, then Katy continued. "I had to deploy again as I had no choice, but we were just coming to the end of our four months and I got a call to say he'd been arrested. I came home."

"We can find the trial transcripts, so you don't need to go into that," Rawlings said.

She nodded. "Rain never forgave me. She seemed to think somehow I was responsible for getting her father arrested."

"Does she know what he was arrested for?" I asked.

"Unfortunately. School parents knew nearly immediately. I couldn't move right away, as all our assets were seized. The house is up for sale as you can see, but I've no family."

"We can put you up in an apartment whenever you're ready," Rawlings said, and my respect for the guy went up a notch.

"I can't leave here yet."

"When you have Rain home," Rawlings confirmed with quiet confidence. "No family at all? How was Saunders in touch with Rain?"

"He has a grandmother. I couldn't stop Rain from seeing her, and Rain used to go regularly even though the woman's not a fan of mine. And yes, the cops have been there."

Danny immediately asked for a name and address.

"Tell us what happened last night and today," Rawlings asked.

"We ate dinner around six, she said she had homework and spent the evening—"

"Who's Alicia Brenner?" Danny interrupted.

Katy stared at Rawlings' phone. "She's a school friend. Her parents have still been friendly." Which meant there were plenty that hadn't if it was remarkable enough for Katy to comment on it.

"I'm just going through their direct messages on social media."

She winced. "I know she's only ten, but she's lost so much, and I have the ability to block things if I need to."

Rawlings nodded. "And I'm assuming the cops are talking to her friends and looking at all these?"

The scoff from Danny was clear over the line, and for the first time, Katy smiled a little. "She came down at nine for a drink and said goodnight. I stuck my head in her room around ten when I went to bed and she was asleep. That was the last time I saw her." Katy forced a swallow down her throat.

"And you actually saw her, not just a lump under the covers?" Rawlings confirmed.

"Yes. The alarm woke me at six and when Rain hadn't appeared by six thirty, I went into her room, and she was gone."

"She has her own key?" Danny asked. "House alarm?"

"Yes and No," Katy replied.

The detective barely knocked before he opened the door again. "We have Roswell Street Bus Station footage showing your daughter. We're heading out to intercept the bus and thought you'd like to come."

Katy jumped to her feet, hugged Rawlings, and rushed out. We headed to the truck and climbed in.

"Did they say which bus station?"

I startled, having forgotten Danny was still on the phone.

"Roswell Street, but I think there's at least two bus stations close." Rawlings didn't start the engine, and Danny was silent for a long few seconds.

"I have a picture. I'll run it on both. Should have something by the time you get back."

Rawlings nodded, put his phone back in the holder, and drove back to the apartment. He was silent, so I just stayed quiet.

"It was Cobb street," Danny greeted us with when we got back. "There's no CCTV near Katy's home. I've checked all the ride apps and there were no logged bookings. It's walkable in just over two hours, and I'm just checking all external cameras on the route." He winced. "Wish Gael was here."

"Who's Gael?" I asked.

"One of the Tampa enhanced team. He can get cameras to ‘talk' to him," Danny said, the envy obvious in his voice. I managed this time not to use the "f" word even to myself.

"Let's wait and see if they've found her. If not, we'll give them a call." Rawlings decreed.

"Do you have the photo they used to confirm it's her at the bus station?" I asked, trying to be casual. "And any others of her you have," I added.

I saw Rawlings and Danny glance at each other, but if I was going to help…

Danny gestured to the room he used as an office, and we walked in. I even managed to ignore the dog as it lay curled up on a dog bed. The room looked, I imagined, like the cockpit of some jet. One monitor had the CCTV picture, and another monitor had about a dozen different photos of Rain. There were another three monitors, but they weren't important right at that moment.

"That's as large as I can make it without it pixelating," Danny said, but I didn't need it. It barely showed one side of a girl's face, eyes down. Her lip ring was just visible. I eyed another picture of her standing next to a friend, taken ten days ago according to the date stamp. She still wasn't smiling, and the lip ring was visible.

"Do you have a full figure one of her at the bus station and something to compare it with?"

"A back view of her at the bus station, but it seems to be the same girl, and…" Danny typed, and two more photos shared the bus station screen. One of her at some sports event and one posing with an older woman next to a large black car.

"Is that the grandma?"

Danny nodded. I gazed at the new pics, but they were really only for confirmation. I knew the girl at the bus station wasn't Rain.

"My program is saying 91% match on height and body mass, allowing for different clothes."

"The girl at the bus station isn't Rain," I said.

Danny gazed back at the pics. "What makes you so sure?"

"Shoe size, but if it was just that, it could be accounted for by different shoes, but in each of the others, Rain has tied her laces with her dominant right hand. The girl at the bus station tied them with a dominant left hand. The loop was pinched in her left hand."

Rawlings grunted. "I can barely see the laces." He squinted at the picture.

"And enlarging any more becomes pixelated," Danny said and looked at me. "This is your ability?"

I nodded. One of them, but I sure wasn't going to say more.

Rawlings nodded just as Danny's computer screen flashed a red triangular symbol at the bottom of the screen. He bent and pressed a few keys, enlarging a black car identical to the one the grandma had in the picture. There were no tags visible. "Can you tell if it's the same one?"

I looked at them both. There were no stickers, and my eyes took in the immaculate paint work, no rust, no dents, then I nodded. "I can't tell if it's the same car, but it's the same pair of hands driving it." I pointed to the older one of the grandma. "No visible rings, but I'm guessing she's got arthritis or had a broken finger. The joint is swollen and she has two identical age-spots on the finger I can see."

"Pull up the grandma's address," Rawlings said. "I need to know if there's been any movement. It may be possible Saunders is there or close." He picked up his keys. "Do we have anyone near? Ringo?"

"No. Fifty minutes at a minimum, and you can be there in twenty-five."

Rawlings looked at me. "With me." I followed him out.

"You need to sign that contract," he said, getting back in the truck.

I didn't answer. I hadn't asked all my questions yet.

"Want to share what else you have going on?"

"Just my vision," I said mostly honestly, just leaving off the extra part. "But I can't see through things, nothing like that."

He nodded and pressed a button on the dash when a screen lit up above it. "What did you find?" he asked Danny.

"There's been no activity apart from the one journey the grandma made," Danny said. "They have an attached garage, so I have no idea if she returned with Rain. We know what time Saunders was last seen and unless there's some kind of secret underground passage, he's not there yet."

"Can you disable the cameras from there?"

My eyebrows rose. Was that normal now, or was Danny just that good?

"The ones attached to the monitoring company are looped, but you have two that are on an internal system I can't get to."

"Where?" I asked.

"The back. One on the east corner and one above the back sliding doors from the lounge."

"Okay," I said and looked at Rawlings. "How about you take the front?"

He looked at me for a heartbeat. I wasn't admitting anything. "I can see when they focus." I could, but it wouldn't help with what I had in mind.

"How will you get in if it's locked?"

"Fuck," I swore. Rawlings nodded to the dash and I opened it, drawing out a bunch of keys. They looked weird, like they had been filed down.

"If it's a regular lock, there's a bunch of skeleton keys," Rawlings said. I glanced over. "They will fit most locks, or an old-fashioned credit card will do." I huffed in mild amusement. "If it"s an old house, she's not going to have any thumbprint electronic code shit."

Rawlings parked out of sight, and I headed for the woods. I had five minutes to get to the door before Rawlings went to the front. I raced ahead and paused at the edge of the fence, knowing it would take some scaling, then I looked at the cameras a good quarter of a mile away. All except two had a steady green light on them. The two that were flashing were the one above the sliding doors and the one in the farthest corner. I stared at both and in my head plotted the angle of vision and where precisely I had to run in order to be missed.

Easy, and I got to the sliding doors. This didn't need any eyesight expertise, and I silently thanked Archie for the few tricks he'd taught me and got out my ‘gate money' debit card. It took fifteen seconds to slide the door open. I did and stepped into the large sunroom area, then turned to slide the door closed behind me.

For the second fucking time in twenty-four hours, I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun loading.