Page 7 of Clay

Dev had made it clear from the start that while he might be bankrolling this operation, SMS was a team sport. They might be Robin Hoods of a sort, but they had to agree on what jobs--and what risks--they were willing to take.

Clay wondered, not for the first time, how much of what Dev had done for The Agency had been downplayed. Because the man clearly didn’t think hacking into police records or the NCIC was a risk.

“Usual payment schedule?” Tate asked. Even though he’d been a munitions expert, he had a head for business that couldn’t be beaten, so had officially taken on the role as their numbers runner. He also ensured their equipment was top of the line and ready to go. He was basically invisible and indispensable.

Clay nodded at his question, which meant payment hadn’t even been discussed. When someone was truly scared, with nowhere else to turn, as Ivy had been, payment was the last thing on their minds.

They all waited a beat, each weighing the pros and cons.

“We don’t have anything lined up right now,” Tate said. “I vote yes. If she’s been snagged, we need to find her.”

Warren and Dev nodded in agreement, then each of them looked to Clay as the lead for this mission.

“Then let’s do this,” he said, pushing up from the couch. “Let’s go find Katie and bring her home, if that’s what the situation warrants.

~

He was no one’s fool. And he wasn’t one for bitches to push around. Never had been, never would be. So for Katie fucking McAlister to put on airs and think she was better than him, well that wouldn’t stand. He was gonna enjoy every single second putting her in her place.

Chapter Three

The next afternoon Ivy blew out a breath and tried to concentrate on the portrait of a dog she’d been commissioned to paint. Normally she loved stuff like this, loved giving pet owners back a little piece of the animal they’d lost, even if it was almost diametrically opposite to her normal work.

But today that feeling of doing something good, something right, just wasn’t there, and it was showing in her work.

She put the canvas aside. She had a bit of time on this one if she needed it, and right now she was too worried about Katie to do anything creative.

Since creativity was one of the lodestones of her life, the lack of inspiration was disquieting.

Even the disco soundtrack pulsing through the air wasn’t enough to lift her mood, to put her back to what right felt like.

She looked out the window onto the neighborhood that had gone from affordable to astronomical in the six years since she’d bought the building. What had been a run-down but safe neighborhood had been gentrified, and her bodega-turned-studio was the last original holdout on a street that now looked like an explosion of shitty mid-century modern replicas.

The people were pleasant enough, but the grit that had drawn her to the neighborhood had long since been shined off.

Her cell chimed as she ruminated, and she frowned when she saw the “private” number. That meant it likely wasn’t spam. Normally she’d let it go to voicemail, but what if it was her mystery SMS guy? What if was Katie? Or hell, it could be something as simple as a new job.

She connected, putting it on speaker as she wandered across the scarred concrete floor of the ground-floor studio.

“Hello,” she said and waited for the caller to speak.

All she got was heavy breathing. NotI’m-a-pervbreathing, but rather a sound that sent chills slithering up her spine. “There you are,” the voice whispered, before the call disconnected.

She stood frozen for a long moment, staring at the phone before her lizard brain kicked in, warning that she might be in danger.

Part of her wanted to write it off as a wrong number, as a prankster. As anything but a threat. But even as optimistic as she was, she couldn’t ignore it. Wouldn’t. Not with Katie missing.

So she did the smart thing. She called the SMS number again and crossed her fingers that no-name hottie would pick up.

~

Clay looked at the name on the display of his cellphone and rolled his eyes. Even though he’d found a new mission in life by helping people, sometimes all the reassuring got tiring. And he just knew Ivy Foster wanted reassuring.

He and Devin had spent the last day diving into Katie McAlister’s past and present and found almost nothing beyond what Ivy had given them, which frustrated the hell out of him. This should be a simple missing person’s case. Should have beensomething he and Devin could have a handle on, or at least a place to start, within a day.

Instead, Devin was now hacking into the Charleston police department’s files to see if there was something they’d missed on the surface-level research of McAlister’s time there before moving to Vegas.

And even though they were working harder than they should have had to, Dev seemed to be enjoying the hell out of himself.

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