“I seem to be lucky” was all he said. “How the hell I only caught one is beyond me.” Lin’s gaze seemed to linger over Eli a moment, but then he focused back on Daniel. “Anything from the CCTV?”
“Nothing. But we’re working on the assumption you were followed from our offices. The gunman waited outside for you both to exit and ignored another customer who left barely five minutes before you did. What can you remember?”
Lin sighed. “Sam wanted some water. She had some pills to take and had left them in the car while we were with you, and neither of us had anything.”
“So it was a complete random decision?”
Lin nodded. “I got a call from Orlando airport to say the witness had been seen while we were still with you. We rushed over there because I didn’t want the airport police to screw it up and lose him again. Just as we got near the store, I got another call to say he’d gone, so Sam asked if we could stop as we weren’t in so much of a hurry anymore. I don’t think I’ve ever been in that store in my life, and we would have been out at the same time as that customer, except Sam was on the phone. Family, I think. I heard her mention someone’s birthday.”
“But you don’t know whose?”
“No, but I’ve not met her family. We’ve only been partnered two months.”
“Yeah?” Daniel said casually. “What happened to your last one?”
“Retired the day he got his twenty-five years in,” Lin explained. “I only moved from Atlanta last year, and John was just counting the days. Not that I blame him any. We came here because my wife has been sick, and she wanted to be nearer her folks.”
Daniel carried on asking casual questions like he was shooting the breeze. Eli knew he wasn’t, and he was pretty sure from Lin’s wry smile he’d worked it out as well.
“Do you have any active cases apart from the possible trafficking at the moment?” Daniel asked finally.
Lin shook his head. “Not for five months.”
“Did you call anyone to say where you were stopping?”
“Like I said, Sam was on the phone, but I wasn’t really listening.” He leaned his head back on the pillow. “I shouldn’t have stopped.”
Daniel paused from taking notes. “It wasn’t on you. You had no idea you were being followed.”
He nodded but looked miserable. “I remember thinking if she didn’t hurry up, Cabrera would be pissed. She wasn’t happy we’d lost the witness again.”
Eli absorbed that. “She was a long time on the phone?”
Lin shrugged. “It seemed like it, but I honestly don’t know. Maybe just because I was in a hurry, but I gave her shit for it when she hung up. I was angry because she was more involved in whoever she was talking to than getting a damn bottle of water. Some partner I am, huh?”
Daniel stood and smiled sympathetically. “We’ll keep you in the loop, but take it easy, huh?”
Lin nodded. Then he squirmed a little. “There’s something else, but we hadn’t got anywhere with it.” Lin frowned. “To do with the club.” He shot a glance at Eli.
“What?” Daniel asked.
“There’s an enhanced working there according to info. We never saw him, but one of our agents that covered for me one time with Wright noted they saw an enhanced unpacking a delivery.”
“And it wasn’t the driver?”
“No. He came from inside the club.”
Daniel nodded. It didn’t mean anything, but Eli understood why Lin would be nervous telling the team, even though he should have told them at the briefing, but then he didn’t mention the club either.
Or the fact they got called away by the airport police. Lin wasn’t mentioning a lot of things.
He looked up as an older woman came into the waiting area where the cops were. Ryker held the door open because she was pushing a wheelchair with a younger woman in. There were also two young children following. He smiled. Must be Lin’s family. “Last thing. If it was Wright that wanted the water, why did you go in the store?”
Lin shrugged. “I was going to get some. If Wright had to, I thought I might as well.”
Daniel smiled again and held the room door open for Lin’s family to rush in. Eli hung back out of the way but caught the curiosity on the little boy’s face, and then the smile. Eli smiled back before he even thought about it.
“Look, Mommy,” he said in a stage whisper to the woman in the wheelchair. “It’s an X-Man.”
Daniel paused infinitesimally and seemed to frown, then turned and looked assessingly at Eli. But Eli didn’t know why. The nickname didn’t bother him. It was quite common, and he followed Daniel out. Ryker smiled as they left, but Daniel didn’t linger.
Eli was pleased but still wasn’t sure why he should care. Who Daniel hooked up with before, or even now, was none of his business.
They got in Daniel’s car, and Daniel drove away from the hospital. “It didn’t worry me,” Eli said because Daniel was still quiet. Daniel glanced over. He just raised one of his eyebrows but looked back at the road without speaking. “The kid,” Eli rushed out in case Daniel thought he meant Ryker. Because that wouldn’t have been true, even if Daniel couldn’t ever be allowed to know that. “Calling me an X-Man. It’s quite common. Like Superman.”
Daniel nodded and chewed his cheek thoughtfully. Eli could practically see the gears turning in his head. “What?”
Daniel hesitated briefly. “Do you remember the advertisement? The preteen hardcore?”
“Sure,” Eli clipped out, much as he wished he didn’t.
“And they assumed the X stood for extra? Well. What if it doesn’t? What if it stands for X-Men?”
Daniel turned a corner. “What if someone somewhere has enhanced children? And what if they are including their abilities in services offered?”
Daniel didn’t know how he knew, but as soon as the kid had called Eli an X-Man, he was certain. He needed to speak to Talon. He also wanted to talk to his mom, but he didn’t want to talk to his mom in front of Eli.
He pressed his phone, and after a minute, Talon’s voice filled the car. “How’s Agent Lin?”
“You’re on speaker,” Daniel said immediately so Talon knew Eli could hear. “We left as his family arrived. Two things that struck me. PTHCX? The ad?”
“Yeah?”
“What if the X stands for X-men?”
There was a silence as Talon absorbed that information. “Have you ever known it stand for extra, or was that a guess?”
“No,” Daniel said. “And the word extra doesn’t make sense now I think about it. The whole point is they do whatever the buyer wants. It’s not a negotiation.”
“And you think the perps would risk an enhanced?” Talon didn’t sound doubtful, merely clarifying what Daniel meant.
“Maybe. These kids are often groomed. We’re not talking kids from secure backgrounds that have the confidence to stand up for themselves. If they have the ability to fight back, they are often past the point at which they can do so.”
“You’re thinking something like Stockholm syndrome?”