Daniel spoke up. “If he’s got another base of operations nearby, he might stick around.”
It was a decent possibility.
“Somehow, I doubt he’s gone far,” Jace said. “But wherever he is, he’s got to be deep undercover. Even if he’s not showing his face now, he’s got to have some history. Maybe cruising up to an ATM to pull out cash for that cheap government suit he was wearing.”
Jared snorted. “Yeah, maybe. I’m tapped into all the databases back at Riverwise. Hasn’t pinged anything yet. I’ve got an alert set up on my phone.”
Jace gave him a nod, impressed. Jared was actually bringing his A-game to this, rather than heading off to the forest, per usual, to get lost in the woods—literally and figuratively.
Jaxson gestured to Daniel. “You’re Army, right? Where are you stationed while you’re stateside?”
Jace grimaced. They’d already had this fight, last night, with Piper.
Daniel’s face pinched in, but he kept it cool. “The Joint Base at Lewis-McChord. My father is a Lieutenant Colonel there.” He threw a pained look to Jace. “But Piper is right—he’s really not the best one to go to for help. Not unless you’ve already got solid intel.”
Jaxson and Jared looked at him, expectantly. “Which we do not,” Jace reminded them. He turned to Daniel. “I think we need to bring Piper into this. She might have more intel to share than she was willing to give up last night under, er, less than desirable circumstances. Why don’t you go fetch her? She’s in the last bedroom on the left, end of the hall, upstairs.”
Daniel looked like Jace had just asked him to dip his fingers into the latrine. But he turned and jogged off toward the stairs.
Jace waited until he was out of earshot. “Daniel and Piper… have issues,” he explained to Jace, Jared, and Olivia. “Last night they had a hell of a fight. Some kind of thing with the dad, the Colonel at the Joint Base. Piper wanted Daniel to use his clearance to get into their systems and poke around, looking for Noah. Daniel was having none of that. But it might not be a bad idea.”
“I don’t know,” Jared said, a skeptical look on his face. “We don’t know how far this thing reaches.”
“True.” Daniel crossed his arms tight over his chest. “Maybe Daniel can look around but keep it quiet. Meanwhile, we’ll do our research on the outside. If Noah’s truly disappeared, it has to be connected to this Agent Smith. If we can get a clue as to where he’s hiding, that has to help. And if Daniel’s careful, he won’t violate any classified material protocols and shouldn’t raise too many alarm bells.” Jace glanced at Olivia. “And maybe we can get a little magical help from our favorite witchy office assistant.”
Olivia grinned. “Aunt Gwen’s dying to help me learn some spells. I think a seeking spell might be first on the list.”
Jared seemed dubious about that, too, but Jaxson had a small smirk on his face.
“Either way,” Jace said, “we need to get on this. If we work together, cover multiple fronts at once, we should make the fastest progress. We already know Agent Smith was experimenting on the prisoners he had before. If he’s taking military shifters now—” The sound of bare feet pounding down the stairs cut him off.
Daniel came flying back into the kitchen. “Piper is gone.” He rushed the words all out at once.
Fuck. Jace hung his head down, shaking it slightly. “Man, I should’ve known. No way was she settled last night. Dammit.” Just like a Wilding to run off half-cocked, doing God-knew-what. Probably the craziest thing possible. From what little he knew of Piper, it was probably the most dangerous thing possible. Somehow that roused his wolf up from the depths almost as much as her curvy little behind in the moonlight. He growled back at his wolf, shoving him down again, then whipped his head up to look at Daniel. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where she’s run off to?”
His scowled, the muscles in his jaw working overtime. “I know exactly where she’s gone.”
Getting onto the Joint Base wouldn’t be that difficult, now that Piper had swiped her brother’s identification and base pass. She’d used his ID to create a slightly-modified duplicate, putting some of her counterintelligence skills to good use, but the security just wasn’t that tight at the Joint Base to begin with. At least, not at the front gate, where she sat in a line of cars idling in the early morning wait to get waved through.
The sun was just starting to rise over the mountains in the east. The small guard shack sat under a long corrugated metal roof stretching over the three lanes that marked the entrance. She’d retrieved her car—the one she used when she was in Seattle—to drive to the base rather than take a cab, like she’d used to return from River brothers’ safehouse in the mountains, a good hour away. She imagined Jace was looking for her about now, and she couldn’t help wondering what his reaction would be when he discovered she took off. Royally pissed, probably. Her wolf had been whining ever since she left, but she doubted Jace’s first reaction would be regret that they hadn’t ravished each other before she disappeared. Piper rolled her eyes at her wolf’s pathetic whimper about that.