“I don’t like the idea of splitting up,” Jeff said.

Magnus scratched Ralph behind the ear. “This one likes me. He’ll have no problem going with me. We can cover more ground faster if we split up.”

Jeff cast a glance at Liam who was talking to Reese as if she was a girl he was asking on a date.

“Who is this pretty girl?”

Reese sniffed Liam’s hand suspiciously.

“I’m a good guy. I promise. If you behave, I’ll take you out to lunch. Do you like burgers?”

Reese’s ears perked up as if she understood him.

“Ah, that’s my girl. We are going to have so much fun together. Do you like In-N-Out? Because I do. Best burgers ever.”

Jeff shook his head. “I guess your friend is okay too.”

That was a relief. Magnus didn’t want to thrall the guy again. He felt bad enough about forcing Jeff to cancel the appointment he had scheduled, so he could come and help them search for the Doomer.

But the bigger picture was that a Doomer on the loose had the potential to cause much more damage than Jeff’s disappointed clients would incur.

It wasn’t as if they were looking for a missing child, although to them it might have felt like that. People got very attached to their pets. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need Jeff’s help for the entire day, and the guy could still help Mr. and Mrs. Faber find their missing pooch.

“What about them?” Jeff glanced at the four additional Guardians.

“Insurance. The guy we are looking for is dangerous. He might get aggressive. I didn’t tell you that before, but my missing partner is an ex-commando suffering from a resurgence of post-traumatic stress disorder. He might think that he is still in the war zone.” The story was a last minute inspiration to explain the inconsistencies without messing with Jeff’s brain again.

The guy frowned. “You should’ve told me that.”

“Don’t worry. He will never get near you. Once we find his location, you and the dogs can go inside your van and wait a safe distance away. We will handle it from there.”

“Why do I need to wait, then?”

“In case he is no longer there, and we need to keep on searching.” Magnus made a sad face. “I have to find him before he does something that would have him put away for a long time. It’s not right for a war hero to end up in a mental institution.”

The patriotic speech achieved the desired result.

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good.” Magnus clapped Jeff on the back. “Let’s get going, gentlemen. We fan out from here.”

The hacker had found the last location the phone had transmitted information from, and just as Magnus had thought, it was right next to the truck.

The Doomer was cleverer than he had given him credit for. Parking the truck inside the garage of a vacant home for sale proved that he was resourceful. The stupid part was dumping the phone right next to it. Except, the Doomer probably had no idea that smashing the phone would not erase its location history that was stored in the cloud.

Frankly, Magnus hadn’t known that either.

Still, the guy hadn’t been inside the vacant house, which meant that he was hiding in someone’s home. Hopefully, he’d only thralled the occupants and hadn’t killed them.

Doomers didn’t have much respect for human life.

“Let’s go, Ralph,” Magnus told his new friend after stopping for a short pee break.

Seven minutes into the walk his phone rang with Liam’s number on the screen.

“I found the house.” He rattled out the address.

“I’m on my way. Don’t do anything until I get there.”