Tobias closed his eyes and tried to breathe. “He’s in there. Ghost’s in that townhouse somewhere.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Come on. Give me one other guess who it could be, if not Ghost?”
“The whole point is that you’re guessing. We need proof before we do anything.”
“And in the meantime he’s just stuck in there? Sullivan, if he had free rein of the place, he could make his own sandwich. He’s...he’s tied up or something. We have to help him.”
Sullivan sank back into his seat. He watched Spratt’s townhouse for a long, quiet minute. “You know this is shitty, right?”
“Of course it’s bad. He’s in trouble.”
Sullivan still didn’t look at him. “I didn’t mean...whatever. If. If he’s in there. And even then, we don’t know that we’d actually be helping him.”
Tobias frowned, wondering what he did mean, but then the rest of the sentence caught up with him. “You think he wants to be there?”
“You think he’ll thank you if he’s been working the situation for a month to get to wherever he is and we blunder in and ruin it because we think we know best?”
“Sullivan—”
“And you’re the one who keeps saying Nathalie’s alive and with Mama—”
“She is, it’s the only thing that makes sense—”
“So what happens if breaking in to Spratt’s house falls back on her in some way. Ghost isn’t my only responsibility here.”
“Or helping Ghost could give us a lead to finding her.”
“I’m not saying it won’t. I’m saying not yet. We don’t know enough to be sure that we won’t make things worse. I don’t think we’ll do him or ourselves any favors if we yank him out of there and it screws something up for Mama.”
“I don’t understand why you’re fighting this. It’s like you don’t want him to be in there.”
“Of course I don’t want him to be in there,” Sullivan snapped. “Do you...haven’t you put together what’s going to happen if he is tied up in the basement? Don’t you get what you’re signing us up for? So don’t blame me for wanting to double-check everything first. We don’t know enough yet.”
No, Tobias hadn’t considered what would happen next, what it would mean if Ghost was being held there against his will. He’d only thought of finally finding him, and suddenly the size of the whole thing hit hard. Look at how much time and effort the redheaded cop had put into finding Nathalie; look at the lengths Spratt would go to in order to get what he wanted. They wouldn’t give Ghost up easily. If they weren’t careful, Tobias and Sullivan would have these two dodging their every step, and with every advantage of the system that a cop could finagle.
He tipped his head against the passenger window. The glass was hot against his face, and through it he focused on the red door of Spratt’s townhouse. “We’re so close,” he murmured.
“So let’s not fall on our faces at the finish line. We confirm he’s there first.”
They sat in the car for another hour, then parked someplace else and sat there for another hour. They didn’t talk much; Tobias was vaguely annoyed—more with the reality of the situation than Sullivan specifically—and he suspected Sullivan was aware of it and was giving him the space to deal with it. It was thoughtful, and later, when he wasn’t as frustrated, he would appreciate it.
Eventually, near dinner time, when the staff at the diner had changed shifts, they went back to eat again. They were wrapping up a late, interminable meal and guiltily ignoring their exasperated waitress when Spratt emerged from the stairwell leading to underground parking across the street.
It must’ve shocked their waitress to spend nearly two hours with a slow-moving pair only to have them suddenly throwing money on the table and rushing out.
When they’d made it back to the car, Sullivan immediately pulled the camera and binoculars out, handing the latter to Tobias. It wasn’t quite dark out yet, so they could still see everything with relative clarity.
They watched Spratt move through his rooms with the air of a man staying in for the night. He removed his suit jacket and hung it in the closet before heading into the kitchen to wash his hands and start preparing food.
He didn’t get far before he abruptly lifted his head like he’d heard something, then turned and disappeared into the basement. Tobias scooted forward on his seat as if those extra three inches could help him see down the stairs. “What’s he doing, do you think?”
“I don’t have any more information than you do,” Sullivan replied, though not unkindly. “But I don’t think he’ll hurt whoever is down there. It looks like he needs Ghost—if it’s Ghost—to trust him, remember?”
Sullivan proved to be right; not five minutes later, Spratt returned to the main floor, this time with Ghost in tow. Hair tousled, feet bare, wearing a too-large button-up shirt that was on the verge of slipping off one shoulder, and a pair of black shorts. His hands were cuffed in front of him.
“Oh, God, that’s him,” Tobias whispered, too horrified to even say I told you so. Not that he would, but still.
He watched through the binoculars with his stomach roiling. “I figured it would be something like this, but I didn’t want it to be true. But why else do you send a prostitute, right?”
“He doesn’t look hurt, at least. He really is...” Sullivan trailed off.
Resigned, Tobias said, “You can say it. He’s gorgeous.”
Sullivan was quiet a second. Then he said, “I was going to say hard to read.”
Tobias slid a glance at him, found Sullivan still staring
