They settled into three sets of adjoining rooms, clearly a big coup for the mostly unoccupied motel, since an “exception” was made regarding the usual check-in time. Everyone got their own bed to rest, Rich insisting the team needed to take a time-out before going any further. All Devin really remembered after that was ordering three times the amount of Cracker Barrel he could possibly eat and putting himself into a food coma.

He glanced over at the other bed, finding the blankets rumpled but empty. A quick look at the open, dark bathroom doorway told him Marnie had slipped out at some point to join the team. They’d probably taken a few hours off and gone back to work. How long had he been out? The light peeking through the shade told him he hadn’t slept into the night. His watch said he’d given it his best effort: 6:48 p.m. He’d been out for more than ten hours. Rich and Karl probably had the next operation planned by now.

Devin rolled off the cheap mattress and reached for the ceiling to give his stiff body a quick stretch. He noticed a fresh pair of jeans, a few T-shirts, socks, and underwear on the dresser. Someone had been busy. He grabbed the jeans and checked the inside of the waist, finding them a few sizes too large—but not big enough to slide off. The shirt was a large, which would hang off him but otherwise work just fine for now.

He took everything into the bathroom and changed out of the swampy outfit he’d been wearing, before indulging in a quick shower to wash away the grime of last evening’s mission. Feeling deceptively refreshed, he tucked his wallet and satellite phone into his pockets and stepped into the crusty boots next to his bed. The sort-of-human feeling the shower and new clothes had loaned him took a hit when his feet sank into the damp boots. More than just damp. He stood up, and they squished—not that he was complaining.

He swiped the old-school metal key from his nightstand and headed out to find the team. His search didn’t last long. A pizza-delivery car idled in the parking lot below, where a teenager was unloading about a dozen pizza boxes between Scott and Alex.

The past week didn’t feel real. From setting off to follow his mother’s clues to the apartment to the forty-eight-hour whirlwind tour of violence across three states, none of it seemed possible. But here he was—watching a mercenary who had easily killed a half dozen or more people over the past three nights dig into his pocket to pay a pizza-delivery kid. An entirely unremarkable transaction to an outside observer. It made him wonder how many times he’d witnessed something this extraordinary before without even knowing it. Devin met them a few rooms down.