“It’s already tomorrow.”
“I’ll be back in the morning.” She got in her car. Val stepped away so she could back up. He watched her go down the driveway.
He was still outside a minute later when Max came outside. “She sent some of the photos to herself,” he said.
“I thought you had the Wi-Fi shut down.”
“She used her phone as a hotspot.”
“Which photos?”
Max handed his phone to Val, who flipped through half a dozen images, all of the team. He looked at Max. “She said she was coming over in the morning to talk to us.”
“About fucking time.”
*
Mandy sat with Rocco at the big table. Val, Max, and Greer were shutting down the house. Everything had been cleaned up after their big supper and readied for the morning. Rocco had asked her to sit with him while he had another piece of their wedding cake.
He reached for her hand. “Tired?”
“Exhausted. But so happy.” She looked at their wedding rings. “I can’t believe we’re married.”
He smiled. “I can.” His face became serious. “You know, Em, I don’t think I would have found you if anything in my life had unfolded differently than it did.” He looked into her eyes. “If that hell was the cost of getting you, I would pay the price over and over again.”
Mandy blinked away her tears as she reached over to touch his face. “I wouldn’t wish that hell on anyone. I hope our lives together will be so full of great memories that they’re all you ever remember.”
He nodded. “Let’s make that happen.”
He offered her the last bit of cake on his plate. She shook her head. “I can’t eat another bite.”
“Then how about I take you to bed, Mrs. Silas? You look ready to drop.”
“I am,” she said, smiling. “I love you, Rocco.”
He wrapped his arm around her and led her into the hallway. “I wish there was a better word for what I feel for you than just ‘love.’ But since there isn’t, in English, anyway, I’ll just have to take the next seventy or eighty years and show you what you mean to me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Val watched Owen pace around the conference room in the bunker. It was early yet. Rocco’s wedding had only shut down eight hours earlier.
“Where’s Ace?”
Val put his feet up on the conference table and leaned back in his chair. The team had been given the morning off, so the two of them were alone in the room. “I guess she’s not in as much of a hurry as you are. Who’s Adelaide?”
“Someone I thought was dead.” Owen looked at Val. “Call up the security cameras at her place.”
Val flipped through the different cameras on his phone. “The system isn’t armed.”
“Call her.”
Val dialed Ace. Her phone rang through to voice mail. “Maybe she’s not up yet and forgot to arm the system last night.”
“Maybe something’s wrong. Let’s head over there.”
They started up the stairs. Val dialed Max. “Good morning,” he said cheerily.
“Is it?”
“Owen and I are going over to see Ace. Can you see where her car is? Don’t want to head over if she’s not at home.”
“It’s behind Ivy’s building. Want company?”
“Negative. We got this.”
They picked one of the team’s SUVs. Val drove. Owen was usually an intense guy, but right now he was strung as tight as a high wire. “So you want to tell me who Adelaide is?”
“A woman I loved…and buried.”
“Shit.” Val looked over at Owen. He could only see part of his profile as he faced the window. “Then it can’t be your Adelaide that Ace is working for.”
“Or I was lied to. The woman in the pic she showed us last night looked like her.”
They parked in the alley behind Ivy’s diner, right next to Ace’s beater. Owen looked at her car, then drew his weapon. “Her passenger-side window has been busted.” Val palmed his pistol, then opened the unlocked door to the back of Ivy’s building. He checked the door to Ivy’s diner—it was still secure. So was the door to the basement. They moved upstairs silently. There was blood on the handrail, dried and brown. He exchanged looks with Owen.
The door to Ace’s apartment was closed, but not locked. Blood spatter was on the floor and the walls. Val’s stomach dropped. Someone had been brutally slain in this room, but there was no body. They went through her entire apartment. It was empty of dead—and living—bodies. Her phone was on the kitchen counter…but Ace was nowhere in sight.