Sweetest Taboo (SIN 3)

"That's the question. He rents a house in Queens, but he's not there, and neither are Jane and Adele. Noah and Tony found a receipt for a recent storage shed rental, though. They're en route. I'm expecting them to report back any minute."

Dallas nodded, his gut twisting. "They won't be there. Adele will have her someplace more secure. More private. Too many people coming and going at a storage shed."

He didn't say that the only way they'd find Jane in a storage unit was if that was where Adele had dumped the body. He didn't say it because he couldn't even bear to think it.

"What about property in Adele's name. Still no hits?"

"Nada."

"Shit." He was just about to insist that Liam call Tony and check in when Liam's phone chirped with an incoming text. Site clear. No J. No A. No sign of recent activity. Dead end. Heading to Breakers.

"What's that?" Dallas asked, reading over Liam's shoulder.

"A bar Brown is known to hang out in." He sighed, sounding about as miserable as Dallas felt. "We're scraping the bottom of the barrel here, Dallas. The guys are going to ask around. Maybe see if Brown said something. If he mentioned a woman he was seeing, a property he went to with her. Anything that might point us in the right direction."

"We don't have time for that."

"You think I don't know that?" Liam's retort snapped out fast and hard. "Shit. Sorry, man. I didn't mean--"

"I know. I get it. Fuck. Traffic cams? ATMs? Can we track the van's path? Find out what neighborhood it ended up in?"

"Quince is on it." He pointed to the conference room where Dallas could see Quince pacing behind the glass, a headphone strapped on and a tablet computer in his hand. "He's called in favors with MI6 and also with some friends at the FBI. Nothing yet, but there's a lot of data to sift through. We might get lucky."

"We don't have time for luck. We've only got one chance of finding out where Adele took her. Colin."

Liam shook his head. "We can try again, but he's resistant to the drugs. The only clear results Quince has managed to get have been the polygraph, and it's not like we can point to every building in Manhattan and ask if Adele is there."

"Quince isn't the one going in," Dallas said as Archie approached with mugs of coffee for both men. "I am. And I don't want him drugged. I want him to talk to me."

"You really think he'll tell you anything?"

"He loves Jane," Dallas said simply, then looked at Archie. "You've been there our whole lives. You knew Colin before I ever met him. You saw him with Jane, with Mom. Am I right? Will he tell me?"

Archie's face grew tight. "He's not the man I once knew. But if any hint of that man still exists inside him--yes. That Colin loved his daughter. If he helps you, it will be for her."

"That settles it," Dallas said, and without waiting for either man to respond, he crossed the room to Colin's cell and punched in the code.

"Dallas." Colin looked up as he walked in. His face was drawn, his eyes bloodshot with dark circles that gave him a skeletal appearance. He hadn't shaved in days, and his patchy beard gave him an even more haggard appearance. He sat behind the table, but this time his hands were cuffed to the arms of the metal chair.

He looked defeated.

Dallas hoped to hell he

was.

"We know about Adele. You tried to protect her because you love her. I get that. You've been together for even longer than I realized--more than seventeen years. There's a history. There's understanding. But despite all of that, there's your daughter."

While Dallas spoke, Colin didn't move. Hell, he barely breathed. But Dallas saw his eyes flicker just a little at the mention of Jane.

"Adele has her now. She used a van to run Lisa down in the street." Another flicker. And the knuckles on Colin's hands turned white. "When Jane went to help her mother, a man got out of the van and dragged Jane inside." He deliberately didn't say "our" mother.

Colin lifted his head. "Where is Adele now?"

And that was it. He had him.

Dallas sat across the table from him. "We don't know. But what I do know is that she'll kill Jane." His voice cracked as he spoke, but he made no effort to hide it. Let Colin see how scared he was. Let him know that the risk to Jane was real. Too damn real.

"I don't understand." Colin's voice was almost a whine. "Why are you in here? Why aren't you out looking for my little girl? What do you want with me?"