Or killed.
The music was loud. No, ear-splitting. But this dive on the edge of the Georgetown campus was where Sam needed to be.
She stood just inside the doorway of The Core, letting her gaze sweep across the packed bar. The bouncer at the door, a tall, muscled guy with an ear full of piercings, had waved her inside when she’d flashed her badge. She knew other agents had already talked to the guy. Kevin Milano had been working the door the night Jeremy vanished, but he hadn’t remembered seeing the vic leave.
According to the e-mails that she’d read, Jeremy Briar had met his friends here every other Friday night.
And the third victim, Curtis Weatherly, the guy who’d managed to come back home and then get shipped right out to Mexico, had also visited this bar. Sure, a visit to The Core had meant a long drive from his home in Virginia, but he’d come… a week before he’d vanished. Curtis hadn’t answered the agents’ questions, so she hadn’t gotten that detail directly from him.
Luckily, he’d posted it on his Facebook page, and she’d logged his activities.
Two victims, one bar.
Another pattern. And maybe, just maybe, if she dug deep enough into the lives of the other victims, she’d find that they were linked to The Core, too.
It was edging close to midnight. She hadn’t told Luke about the link yet, but she’d tell him first thing tomorrow.
And she was there because—
Someone bumped into her, and Sam spun around, her arms coming up.
“S-sorry…” A drunken slur as the man weaved past her.
She exhaled slowly. Get a grip. Her weapon was in her bag. She was surrounded by drunken frat boys. Not killers.
But, no, maybe one of them was a killer.
And that was why she was here. Why she’d forced herself to come inside the bar after staying in the car for twenty minutes. She was an FBI agent, for Christ’s sake! Her job was to follow leads. She could do this.
If she’d called someone else to check the bar, Hyde would’ve wondered about her. Even more than he already did. A quick sweep, sure, she should be able to handle that.
Right?
Pulling her jacket close, Sam eased her way through the crowd. Not her scene. But then, she’d graduated college when she was seventeen, so it hadn’t exactly been legal for her to be in a joint like this.
After an eternity, she made it to the bar and slapped her palm down on the gleaming surface. The bartender glanced up, one eyebrow raised. “Whattaya need?”
Sam took a breath. “I’m looking for a man.” The profile pointed to a man as the leader of the kidnapping ring.
“Sweetheart…” He motioned to the crowd, “take your pick.” The guy looked to be around thirty with a gleaming bald head and tattoos on his hands.
Her back teeth ground together and her spine snapped up. “No, a young guy, probably in his twenties, attractive, smart—”
“Yeah, look, your to-do list is fuckin’ fascinating, but—”
“He would have been alone,” she continued doggedly, aware that her cheeks were heating and her words coming too fast. “And he would have spent his time staring at the other customers. Maybe focusing on the ones who liked to spend too much money…”
“Samantha?” The gravel-r