Without A Trace Book Novels & Stories

Waiting for a trace that wasn’t coming. Because she was gone. Vanished after the drop. I stared down at the flash drive in my hand, the one she’d handed over to my driver like a good little soldier, then poof off-grid. No phone signal. No appearance on any of the external traffic cams we had on sweep. She had made one mistake, though, paying for that Inn with a transfer. The document was clean. Devastating. Sunny was mine now; all I needed was a forensic accountant to dumb it down for boardroom rats in case Sunny tried to lie his way out of it. But that victory felt stale.

“Follow me.” Once inside, I sat down, placed the laptop on the desk between us, then leaned back in the chair and crossed my legs. “Okay, Mark. I need to make sure this can’t be traced.” His polite smile cracked. “I’m sorry?” I leaned forward. “I want to contact someone without the risk of being tracked. No digital footprints whatsoever. I’m talking completely off the grid.” His brows drew together. “Miss… I’m not sure I understand. If this is some sort of prank or shady activity—”

"I'm serious. He gives you an impossible task and expects you to solve it before you can take the throne? That's not a test. That's sabotage." I don't answer. Because he might be right. "How are we supposed to investigate something that happened ten years ago?" Colt continues. "Any evidence is long gone. Any witnesses are dead." "Then we find what's left," I say quietly. "We go to the Midnight Pack. We talk to people. We dig." Colt exhales hard. "Fine. When do we leave?" "Tomorrow." That was four months ago. Now I'm standing in my temporary quarters at the Midnight Pack, staring out the window at wolves training in the yard below. We've been here for months and I still don't have answers. No

Cain obeyed without hesitation, but not before giving Avi a look that said I’m still here. Trace folded his arms. “You left something off your military application,” he said evenly. “Affiliation with a group at war with the Draynor would fall under required disclosure.” Avi swallowed. “I haven’t been with them for over a hundred years. I haven’t used magic either. I didn’t think it was still relevant.” “It’s always relevant when someone is trying to kill you,” Trace replied sharply. “Where is your mother?” “I don’t know.” Trace stepped closer. “For some reason she is hiding from us. Now where is she?”

Patrick called Trace over again and asked, “Are you sure that the surveillance didn’t catch her leaving?” Trace said, “Master Patrick, we went back and forth with the surveillance several times and didn’t see Lady Aimee leave.”Patrick was almost laughing at Trace’s comment when he said, “So what, you think she can be invisible and just leave the house and no one will notice?”Trace is also afraid to squeal. However, the surveillance video he did watch several times, and indeed did not see Aimee’s figure.

Alex opened the book Damian had given him in his library. It looked very old and dusty. Alex felt something strange about the book, as if it was calling him to read it. On the first page of the book was written in big letters: "Traces of what once was... Clan Echelon: Past, Duty and Destruction".

Thousands of lives moving in tiny glowing pulses beneath my fingertips. Normally I enjoy this part. Tonight every flicker of light gets under my skin. “There’s still nothing?” I ask. My voice sounds calm enough that another man might believe I’m handling this well. Zarek isn’t another man. “No trace,” he says after a moment. “No magical spike, no emotional echo, no fracture ripple from the Veil. We tracked her to the outer perimeter and then the trail just cuts dead.” Cuts dead. Fuck that. “She didn’t just disappear.”

"The network doesn't know it happened." "Also yes." I set the tablet down. For a moment neither of us spoke. Victor had worked with me long enough to understand the difference between a mistake and an impossibility. This was drifting dangerously toward the second category. "The trace failed?" "It never started." That pulled my attention back to him. Victor folded his arms. "The caller disconnected five seconds before the trace protocol activates." I stared at him. "Coincidence?" "No." The answer came immediately. Not defensive.

Its spines were tattered and appeared like spiky wires beneath the poor lighting. Trisha walked slowly to where it was and pulled it out of the other nine books crammed into the same row with it. She repeated the same process she had with the other books she'd picked—dusted it's shabby cover to see it's name. Unfortunately and very shockingly, too, there was none inscribed on it. That was odd. She flipped the book to the other end but nothing. It was empty of inscriptions, just like the front was. Slowly, she opened the book to first page.

E. I’ve put away all of Trace’s clutter here inside his office and sorted out the papers that weren’t fixed in placement in the right container. I carefully and quietly cleaned Trace’s entire office room because I didn’t want him to wake up and be disturbed because of me. I accidentally dropped an album that was placed on his bookshielf, and suddenly it unfolded inside the album and I saw a familiar photograph.