It really hadn't been all that hard, convincing the task force to move a good portion of their resources north to the Boston area. This was the epicenter after all, of the Donnelly and Hagan and Tills triumvirate of families, and as likely a place to search for the boy as any. 

No one really had to know, this move was as much penance as hope for Special Agent Brigit Walsh. A newscaster droned on about a storm front moving across the Midwest, a tornado watch in the Oklahoma panhandle. But Bree absorbed as much of anything useful from the television white noise, as she deciphered in the patterns in the hotel ceiling tiles overhead - which was to say, not a single damn thing. 

At the moment, she was far too "busy" wallowing in the fourth straight night of self-recrimination, wondering what in the world she could have done, what magical words she could have conjured that would have somehow, some way, proved the siren song to convince Ethan to be here now. Four days. [i]Four days[/i] and all the man with the numbers had given Jacob "the next couple days" or so. Sure, Ethan might have thought he was being clever, leaving off the deadline implicit in his reassurance 

But now those couple days were past, the better part of a week was already irrevocably behind them. Though Bree knew they were at least closer to Jacob by hundreds of miles, the suburbs of Boston were immense, and the judicial system byzantine. Law enforcement could provide list after list of warehouse, homes, buildings and offices associated with this family triumvirate all day long, but search warrants weren't given out for suspicions about very bad people. Whoever of the families' hirelings conducted these kidnappings had been very, [i]very[/i] thorough. As with the arrival of the thumb drive, there had been not so much as a slightest whiff of an evidence trail to follow. Nothing. Nada.

She still didn't regret what she'd said when Ethan refused her. She still didn't regret slapping him. Not even a little, just on principle. During the daylight hours she'd managed to maintain a pretty solid facade, grim but determined and undeterred no matter the developments - or lack thereof. Tanner was here - he'd actually been insistent enough to qualify for "demanding" that he'd be coming with Bree to Boston. She suspected it might have something to do with the way he'd made a complete fool of himself in her office with Ethan, a little ingratiating maybe - but Bree didn't care. Not really. There was something almost soothing about the indomitable, dogged presence of Tanner; reassuring, solid, dogged - but they still weren't getting any closer to figuring out where Jacob really was, and inevitably the seconds turned to minutes, then hours, and now days.

Yes, the daylight hours with Tanner, the other agents - they were almost tolerable. But it was the nights that were the worst -

Bree winced - though with a small wisp of a grin - as she felt what should have been soft paws turn into a dead weight that stole her breath for some seconds. Her enormous black cat Riddick pounced atop the bed, and then made himself quite at home on his favorite 'mattress' atop Bree's chest. all warm and soft, with the rhythm of Bree's heart a nice little accompaniment to his naptimes, rather like the sound of rain on a rooftop.

"Hey Riddy," she whispered, one hand cradling her head against the too-soft hotel pillow, chin tucked toward her chest as the fingers of her other hand gently scratched behind the cat's velvety soft ears until his deep purr rumbled all through her chest. 

"So what do you say buddy?" she murmured softly, welcoming the painful pinpricks of his needle-sharp claws kneading into her skin, a distraction from the painful ache in her chest that wanted to crush her with dread, a little more with every passing, futile minute. 

"How about rubbing off a little of that black cat luck on me? Screw numbers. Who needs numbers anymore? Right now we need a goddamned miracle, and I'm willing to toss every rock and building and mobster in Boston to make it happen."