Page 30 of Marked

“I didn’t even get to tell him to leave the tape off.” Funny that this was the thing upsetting her most right now.

He gave her shoulder a light shake. “S’okay. She’ll be home soon.”

She nodded. “The police should be there... It feels so wrong agreeing to meet these criminals, knowing what they’re doing to children and not taking this opportunity to organize a raid.”

Cole shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. The meeting isn’t going to happen.”

She tipped her head back an inch to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“We’re going to get Bella out sooner.”

Wetting her lips, she squeezed her eyes together as she processed this information. Getting to Bella ASAP was ideal, but at what cost? “Why won’t he meet with me sooner? I can get the name right now.”

“Because it’s not just the name he wants.” Cole’s tone was hard. “He wants to control you. The longer you’re without Bella, the weaker and more pliable you’ll become.”

“Ugh!” She dropped her head back and clenched her fists. “This is madness. I want to find her. Now.”

“Good. Then do what I tell you.”

***

Sophia massaged her forehead. After the events of the day, which had followed a mostly sleepless night, every muscle in her body screamed at her to get horizontal.

But she couldn’t.

Cole had finally admitted that he had facial-recognition software—something the police didn’t even use. Street cameras? Absolutely. But Cole’s technology was next level.

She sat on the stool he’d pulled up for her while he worked on his computer. He operated on two screens at once. One was trying to track Bella’s next appearance, the other held a zoomed in image of a license plate. Cole had warned her that they could come up empty on this front. There was no telling where she’d been taken out of the van and if any cameras would have been around to spot her. It was unlikely.

“I’ve got a plate number.” He highlighted the digits on the grainy image.

Sophia leaned forward and jotted the number down in her phone. She couldn’t exactly text this information to Kenneth without explaining how she’d gotten it, though. Once she’d decided to cut out the police, she’d also cut herself off from those resources. “Are you able to find the owner?”

“Yeah, but not until morning. I’ll call my contact who can run the plate and give us the details.”

Her shoulders deflated. More waiting. “What about following the van’s route? We could do that with street camera footage.”

He moved to a folder on his computer and flicked through a series of photos of the van as it passed by each street camera. “I did. It heads out of town right away and there’s no sighting of it after 4:00 p.m.”

She pushed down the growl that wanted to erupt from her lips. “Which direction?”

“The last shot we have is it passing through Monroe on Interstate 2. My bet is they headed past Woods Creek. But that road could go anywhere.”

Interstate 2 could take the driver out of the state. “But they want to meet tomorrow night, so they probably wouldn’t travel that far, right?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. They also don’t want to get caught, and we don’t know what their plan is for tomorrow.”

“So it’s hopeless then.” Irritation rose inside her as she stood. Crossing her arms, she moved across his bedroom floor and back. The blanket he’d given her earlier sat in a heap on the mattress, which was calling her to sprawl out and sleep... just for five minutes.

Cole wheeled around in his chair. “I never said that.”

“Really, though. Where do we go from here? We can’t track them—”

“I’m still waiting on intel. I have Lionsgate insiders asking around.”

Her eyes widened. He hadn’t told her that. “Your brother?”

A cloak of vagueness fell over his face, as if he’d forgotten she’d helped rescue the kids Nash Holmes and Alexis Ivanov had located.

---