Glitter and Gunfire/Bulletproof (Shadow Agents 4)

Fingers trembling, she pressed to connect the speaker.

Then they could all hear Genevieve’s cries.

“He says...h-he says that if you don’t come, I’m mort.”

Mort. Dead.

“Je ne veux pas mourir!”

Tears stung Cassidy’s eyes at those pitiful words. I don’t want to die.

“You won’t,” Cassidy promised. “You won’t! Just tell me where you are. I can bring help to you.”

A train’s whistle sounded in the background. The sound was long, mournful.

“Je ne sais pas.”

Cassidy swallowed the lump in her throat. I don’t know.

“Track her phone,” Mercer whispered to Gunner. “Get Sydney to triangulate that call’s location.”

“He says that you have to come for me.” Genevieve had switched back to English. She did that when she was upset, a tumble of her mother’s English and her father’s French. “He...he wants you to meet him. H-he said...said to meet him at midnight, at a park just behind—”

Genevieve broke off, screaming, a pain-filled cry. As if she’d been struck or—

No, don’t imagine it, don’t. Cassidy’s breath sawed from her lungs.

“Behind Dunlay Street and M-Manchester,” Genevieve finished, tears nearly choking her.

Cassidy heard Gunner softly repeating the instructions to the person on the other end of his phone.

“P-please...be there, Cassidy...”

“I will,” Cassidy vowed.

But Genevieve wasn’t there to hear her.

The line had gone dead.

* * *

THE CLOCK ON Mercer’s desk was ticking far too loudly.

Cale paced back and forth in the small confines of that office, tension and adrenaline pulsing through his veins. Cassidy waited down on the level below him, guarded by Gunner and Lancaster, but—

I need to see her.

Instead, he was being called in for a sit-down with Mercer. Like he needed to deal with office politics right then.

The door opened behind him. Ah, so Mercer had finally joined him. Let the battle begin.

Cale’s shoulders stiffened. “I’m not letting her go to that exchange without me.”

Mercer’s sigh carried easily to him. The sigh and the soft click of the door shutting behind the director.

Cale glanced over his shoulder at Mercer. The lines on the man’s face were even deeper than they’d been before.

Mercer lifted a hand and pointed at Cale. “You’re making a mistake.”