More likely it had been a Cabal sniper who didn’t dare admit his mistake to Lucas. If it had been the gang, they’d been aiming for whoever was holding Rodriguez.

I didn’t argue, though. The truth would come out. The Cabals might kill one of their own to keep him from talking, but I was sure the gang wouldn’t.

“There’s something else we were hoping you could help with,” Paige said. “You may have heard the gang mention an off-site place where they keep supplies and such?”

“Yes, but I don’t have any idea where it is.”

“The Cabal has the address. It’s a warehouse unit. We’ve had a team staking it out since three. At around four, two young men went inside. They haven’t come out. We presume it’s a rendezvous point and the others were already in there.”

Others? With Rodriguez dead, there were only three members left.

“What about Jaz and Sonny? Have you found out anything? Is the Cabal still claiming they aren’t responsible?”

A pause.

My heart hammered. “You’ve found them? Their bodies?”

“No, but Lucas is certain the Cabal isn’t behind this. With everything that’s happened, Benicio would come clean, if only because it could help solve the case. Lucas is—” A buzz of the phone, as if she was moving. “He’s beginning to suspect they were never abducted.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain later. About the warehouse, though. Lucas wants to go in within the hour, and we thought you might want to be there just to, you know, negotiate. If things don’t go as hoped, Lucas really doesn’t want this to end badly.”

That was her politic way of saying they feared if the gang resisted, the roust could turn into a massacre.

“We’ll be there.”

HOPE PARTY TIME

HOPE

PARTY TIME

Karl picked the lock of the unit adjacent to the one rented by the gang. Snipers covered us from the neighboring building. I knew that was supposed to make us feel safe, but it didn’t, any more than the Kevlar vest I wore or the panic button in my pocket.

The door opened in to a cavernous, dark room filled with carpet rolls. I turned on my flashlight and we picked our way over the rolls to the far side of the room. Karl pressed himself against the wall shared with the gang’s unit, listening. I knew what I should be doing—“listening” for chaos vibes or visions. But I was still raw from the night before, and spent the first couple of minutes just standing there, clenching the flashlight, braced against visions. When not so much as a stray chaos vibe pinged, I relaxed.

I glanced at Karl. He shook his head. No sounds from the unit either.