“Fair enough.”

“Did she give you any indication where she might be headed?”

“Like I said, she didn’t indicate that she was going at all. I suspected, but . . . Can we head back to the bedroom so I can have my clothes? Unless you like me naked or something?”

“Fuck no.” Thorpe moved out of the doorway.

Sean ambled into Callie’s room, looking at the window with a frown. “She crawled out that window with the bars?”

Thorpe nodded, seeming both vexed and oddly proud of Callie. “I took a flashlight and examined the area where she’d loosened the bars in one corner. It appears that she did it some time ago to make sure she had an escape route.”

“So she’s always had a plan, I suppose.”

“I think she always does. How else could she manage to elude you guys for so long?”

Sean nodded and located his clothes in the mess Thorpe had made searching the room. Setting Callie’s collar on her nightstand, he swore he’d have it around her neck again, someday, somehow—for real. Then he slipped on his pants. “I’ve studied her patterns. From what I can tell, she came most recently from Oklahoma City. I don’t see her going back there. I’m sure you’ve looked at the security footage. Did she leave in her car?”

Thorpe hesitated. “She did, but I don’t expect her to keep it long.”

“Agreed. It’s a liability. She wouldn’t want to run the risk of us putting an APB out on her or being arrested by the first overzealous cop who runs her license plate.”

“No.” The club owner didn’t add a single other word to the conversation. Obviously, he wasn’t going to lift a finger to help.

“I wished I’d listened to my gut and put a GPS tracker on her car.”

“You don’t have any other way to track her?” When Sean shook his head, Thorpe sighed in frustration. “Are you fucking kidding me? You knew she was a flight risk.”

“I had devices in both her collar and her purse. She conveniently removed the first and left the second behind. If I was going to play the pointless blame game, I’d ask why you didn’t check the bars on her windows to make sure they were secure. After all, you knew she was a flight risk, too.”

“Fuck off.”

“We don’t have Axel to referee for us now. Are we going to narrow down where we might find Callie or just fight?”

Thorpe clenched his fists, looking ready to spit nails. “We’re going to find her.”

“Good. I’ve got some theories. She wouldn’t head anywhere north or northeast with winter coming,” Sean mused aloud.

“What makes you think that?”

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid.” He bristled. “Callie dislikes the cold. And over the last nine years, we’ve tracked her through eight states. We’ve often missed her by days, sometimes even hours.” Sean couldn’t help but admire her guts as he slipped on his shirt. “But she always chases the warmth. You know, we’ve been aware for some time that she was in Texas. We even suspected Dallas, but couldn’t pin her down.”

Thorpe swallowed thickly. “How did you find her?”

“We got a hit on facial recognition software when you sent her to your bank to make a deposit at the end of January. It took a few weeks for the bureau to positively identify her, then another six weeks for me to watch this place, you, the others here, and her, so we could decide how to proceed.”

Thorpe closed his eyes, and Sean could guess that he was kicking his own ass. “I never imagined that a simple errand would put her at risk.”

“Don’t blame yourself. It could have just as easily been a traffic or sidewalk cam.”

But Thorpe’s face said that he absolutely felt responsible and that if he ever found Callie, he wouldn’t make that mistake again. Sean would bet every dime in his bank account that the man was already planning to secret her out of the country, someplace far warmer and south of the U.S., out of the bureau’s reach.

He regarded his nemesis, hoping like hell he wouldn’t have to detain or hurt Thorpe. It would just be a waste of time and the loss of a temporary ally.

“So you don’t have any ideas where Callie might have gone?” Sean challenged, wanting to know if Thorpe was going to play nice. Obviously, the man had ideas. Time to see how much he’d be willing to share.

“Not really. The only thing I’ve ever been able to count on with Callie was the unpredictable. Maybe Florida. If she wanted to get out of the country, doing it from the Keys would be easier.”

Sean pounded his fist on the wall beside Thorpe’s head. “Bullshit! The longer you play this stupid fucking game with me, the longer she has to get away. She won’t go to Florida because she thinks my home and business are there.”

“Well, damn. I guess I can’t accuse you of being stupid after all.”

Sean just snorted.

“Are you based in Florida?” Thorpe sounded almost hopeful.

“Right here in Dallas.” He smiled acidly.

“Well, hunky fucking dory. Isn’t it my lucky day?”

“Hey, you don’t have to like me any better than I like you. But right now, we have to work together to find her. Every minute that ticks by—”

“Is another minute she slips farther away. I know that, asshole.” Thorpe gave an agitated huff and raked a hand through his hair.

“Look, whether you believe me or not, my feelings for Callie are real. I have a very vested interest in making sure she doesn’t go to jail, especially for a crime there’s no way she committed.”

That set Thorpe on his ear. “You know she’s innocent?”

“Of course. But is that really the important question?”

“Why does the bureau want her? Murder isn’t really their jurisdiction.”

“Now you’re thinking. That’s something I’ve asked myself over and over. I don’t have an answer, and before you say a word, that’s not a load of crap. I don’t have the time or energy to lie to you, man. They keep giving me a line about identity fraud.”

“Callie wouldn’t steal anyone’s identity.” Thorpe frowned.

“But she’s created personas and gotten fake IDs, sometimes crossing state lines before shedding them and her car, then starting over.”

Thorpe looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “And that’s cause for the bureau to send in an undercover agent for months?”

“Exactly. None of this adds up for me, either. And they’re treating the case like it’s vital to national security.”

“What? That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“What makes even less sense is that my directive is just to keep tabs on her and search for anything she may have taken of her father’s.”

“Not to arrest her?” Thorpe looked tense, poised on a knife’s edge waiting for the answer.

A part of Sean wanted to let the club owner squirm in discomfort, but they just didn’t have time. “At least for now. If they really believed she had violated laws, they’d want her behind bars pronto. Two and two isn’t adding up. Something’s rotten in Denmark. Use whatever cliché you like, but it’s messed up. And I’m going to do everything I can to protect her.”

“That makes two of us.” Crossing his arms, Thorpe swallowed. “All right. She mentioned something about L.A. to me last night.”

Sean’s whole body tightened. “Does she know anyone there?”

“Not anymore. Xander moved to Louisiana. And they aren’t close.”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Sean considered the suggestion. “It’s a possibility. They have fairly warm winters. It’s far from here. It’s a big city, so she can get lost.”

“That makes sense.”

Thorpe looked like that notion scared the hell out of him. It worried Sean, too. What if he couldn’t find her there? Or anywhere?

“She’ll definitely head west. Where’s my damn phone?” Sean patted his pockets, then looked around the floor, then the bed. Finally, he spotted the device and nearly pounced on it. The second he tapped in his code, the picture that appeared made him swear a blue streak. “I know why Callie ran. Damn it, she fucking tricked me and figured out that I know who she is.”

He flashed Thorpe the picture of her teenage self, chipper smile, dark blond hair, and those same blue eyes he could drown in.

Thorpe’s sibilant curse filled the air. “That would do it.”

“I scared her.” Sean’s face filled with regret.

“No doubt. If you think she’s going west, I’m going to find her.”

“You?” Sean shook his head. “This is my job. You need to stay here.”

“Not happening. I’m going with you to find Callie and make sure you don’t drag her away.”

“You’ve got to stay here and act like everything is normal.”

“How?” Thorpe demanded, looking at Sean as if he never had any mind to actually lose. “My world is upside down. Anyone who knows me knows damn well that I wouldn’t let that girl go without a fight.”

“Maybe, but you’re crazy if you think the bureau isn’t watching you, too. They don’t get eyes on Callie too often outside Dominion. But you . . . every time you’ve hopped on a commercial flight or even taken a taxi since we identified her has been tracked and noted, just in case you leaving is a sign that she’s darting with you.”

“Someone inside the club snitched that we’re close?”

Sean quickly assured him with a shake of his head. “Before I joined, I couldn’t get anyone to talk, but the bureau surmised it. She’s never stayed in one place for even half this long, so we had to assume that she was attached to someone here. You seemed like the most logical choice. The second I got in the door, I knew she’d remained here all these years for you.”

He didn’t tell Thorpe that he knew Callie had largely accepted his collar to see if Thorpe would care. If the bastard hadn’t figured out that she was in love with him, too, Sean didn’t feel the need to enlighten him. In his book, if Thorpe hadn’t claimed her by now, he’d missed his chance.