Lost and Found

Chapter Forty-Five

Hank's POV

Wu called me. He had been following Seventh Street for a while when they finally pulled up along a curb outside of a hotel in the Southeast. Wu kept driving so he wouldn't raise suspicion, and parked down the street. I drove to the location he told me and was surprised to find that it was the hotel where Nick and I had arrested Trubel. Wu was standing outside and saw me pull my car up across the street. He walked over and climbed in the passenger's side.

"Any action?" I asked him.

"No," Wu said. "It's been pretty quiet."

"Did you talk to the manager?" I asked him.

"Yeah," Wu told me. "He said that they're new guests and that he hasn't seen them before. I showed him a picture of Trubel, and the strange thing was, he said he had seen her before, but it was a few years ago."

"Makes sense. Trubel stayed here the day we arrested her for the triple homicide," I informed Wu. "They must have contacted her after getting released."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Wu said. "By the way, that," he said, pointing to the door we were watching, "Is the only way out of the building aside from the fire escape. If they leave, we'll know."

"Good," I approved. "Now we wait for people to show up to the party."

"If anyone comes at all," Wu added. "They didn't go back to their safehouse for a reason."

He was right. "At least we can keep them from doing anything stupid for now. I'm sure Andre won't be happy that we're getting in the way."

Wu and I sat in silence for a minute before I finally asked, "What do you really think about what Trubel's doing?"

"So we're going there, huh?" Wu asked me.

"Nick's not here. I figured now was as good a time as any to talk about this," I said seriously.

"Yeah, I guess so," he admitted.

"So what do you think?" I asked him.

"I think Trubel's doing some bad things and I hope she has a good reason for it, but I just don't know. I can see why Nick wants to see the good in her, and I want to too, but..." Wu began.

"But she's not acting like herself?" I guessed. Wu nodded. "I feel the same way," I told him. "It's just, even if she did this all against her will, she could have contacted us, given us some sort of clue if that's what she wanted... But she didn't."

"What about that first robbery where she got in a fight with Andre?" Wu asked.

"Was it really a fight?" I asked him. "Or was it all staged like the second robbery?"

"We're thinking everything has all been a setup by Trubel?" Wu asked skeptically.

"She's been keeping all of us in the dark on purpose, and I don't know how else to explain that," I admitted. "But the only way to find out for sure if by getting Trubel back."

"That is, if she decides to finally be honest with us," Wu added cynically. "I wonder how it's going with Nick."

Hopefully, Nick was making some progress because we definitely weren't.

*************

Nick's POV

"Burkhardt, we cannot let you in," the man blocking the entrance warned me. The man, his name was Owen, and I had had many conversations like this over the course of Trubel's disappearance, rescue, death, and revival. I had tried to enlist HW's help every step of the way, but they didn't seem all that concerned about Trubel's wellbeing, especially since Black Claw was no longer a threat.