Page 36 of Broken Princess
“That’s true.”
“She’s too smart to say anything incriminating on the phone anyway. The best way to hear her say anything damning would be to listen to her with Vigil when she’s not on the phone.”
“Yeah.”
He leaned back, twisting his thumbs. “Anyway, that’s it. That’s how I figured out there was probably a secret society operating in Washington with your mom as the leader,” he said. “I just wish I knew more, so I could help Willow.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You said you’ve suspected this stuff for four or five years now. Why didn’t you tell her?”
“I tried to bring it up a few times, but she always brushed me off,” he replied. “Then I started dropping a few hints here and there to see if that would work. It didn’t. She wasn’t interested in hearing any wild conspiracy theory stuff.”
My jaw dropped. “You gave her fucking hints? Why didn’t you just pull her aside and make her listen to everything whether she was interested or not? Or at least warn her that her fiancé’s mother might be a secret sociopath?”
Rowan held up a palm. “Logan, I had no solid evidence of anything. All I really had in the end was a bunch of suspicions. I wasn’t sure what this secret society was actually doing, or whether or not Willow would ever be in danger because of them. So what exactly was I supposed to warn her about?”
My shoulders slumped. “You’re right. I’m sorry,” I muttered, scrubbing a hand across my face. “It’s just so fucking frustrating not knowing where she is or what’s happening to her.”
“I get it. What have you tried so far?”
“Everything I could think of. I used Caldwell’s databases to check flight logs, traffic cam footage, and other stuff like that. It was all a dead end,” I said. “That’s why I came here. I thought you might be able to help me find her.”
“Well, I’m certainly going to try,” he replied.
I tilted my chin to one side. “Do you think she could be at Lilith Hall?”
“There’s no way for me to tell. She could be anywhere.”
“Okay, but from what you know about the place, do you think it’s likely they took her there?”
“Not really. From what I’ve read, the winery gets hundreds of tourists visiting it every day, and the resort next door has hundreds of guests at any given time too. It would be hard to keep the president’s daughter locked up there without anyone noticing.”
“That’s true.” I nodded slowly. Then I jumped up, slapping my palm against my forehead. “Shit! I can’t believe I almost forgot about this. We need to find T.”
“Who’s that?”
“I think he or she might be one of my mom’s most trusted followers. When she was pretending to call Willow the other night, she called them instead. I figured whoever it is might be the one who actually did the dirty work of taking Willow from the White House, and there’s a good chance they’re still with her now.”
“Did you see their number at all?”
My lips flattened. “I didn’t have a chance to look at it for more than a second. I remember it had three nines at the end, but that’s all.”
Rowan turned to his computer and started typing again. “This is the list of numbers I told you about earlier. The ones your mom contacts the most frequently,” he said, bringing up a document. “Do any of them look familiar?”
I leaned closer and scanned the page. “That one,” I finally said, pointing to a number in the middle of the list. It ended with a triple nine. “That’s got to be it. Who does it belong to?”
Rowan clicked something and frowned. “Sorry, it looks like a burner phone. It isn’t registered to anyone.”
I slammed my fist on the desk. “Fuck!”
“Calm down,” Rowan said, lifting a hand. “I can set the phone number up in Vigil, and we can start listening. We might get lucky and hear the person talking right away, and if we recognize their voice, we’ll have a real lead.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I breathed a short sigh of relief. “Fuck, I’m so glad I came to see you.”
“Never thought I’d hear Logan Thorne say he’s grateful for my existence,” Rowan replied, raising his brows as he typed. “Okay, we’re linked up. Let’s just hope the person has the burner on them right now.”
Some sounds started coming out of the speakers, but there weren’t any clear voices. It was just the generic noise of a restaurant or café with the unintelligible buzz of people talking in the background, silverware clinking, chairs scraping, and heels clicking on tiles.
“This is good,” Rowan whispered. “They might not be talking right now, but they’ve got the phone on them, and they’re in a public place. That means they’ll probably start talking soon.”
