Chapter 10 #2
Next to her, Alex huffed out a sigh as he let his head fall back against the cushion behind him. “Okay, now this is estimating it will take over one hundred hours to search. We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Narrow it down.”
“How?” Alex shouted, his frustration evident.
“Easy, Ace. We can figure this out.” She rubbed his shoulder before she poked a finger at the map on her screen. “Narrow it to the streets around the hospital. Find him there, then we’ll move to the next set of streets.”
He glanced at her display, his forehead creasing before he broke into a grin. “I love when you’re super smart, Sparky.”
She grinned at him. “We make a good team.”
“Mm, I couldn’t agree more. Okay, read me the names, I’m going to send this search through those cams only.”
She rattled off the surrounding streets as he modified his program to only search the traffic cameras in that area and set it running. “This will only take twenty minutes to search. Sparky, you are my hero.”
She kissed his cheek before dumping her laptop on the coffee table. “Cheese balls and soda?”
“You know it,” he said with a grin. “But I’ll get it.”
“Alex, I’m capable of carrying two sodas and a can of cheese balls from the kitchen. You don’t have to wait on me.”
“Okay, I’ll just sit here with Giz and wait for you,” Alex said as he scooped up the small dog.
She winked at him before she disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve their snack.
She grinned as she twisted the cap off the two sodas and wrapped an arm around the cheese ball canister.
No matter what the surprise was that Alex had planned, she still enjoyed these simple moments with him. She always had.
She returned with the food and drinks and settled onto the couch next to him, pulling a blanket over her legs as she snuggled closer. “Did it get any hits?”
“Yeah, on Queen Street.”
Ava pulled her laptop onto her lap and narrowed her eyes at the screen. “Got it. Which way was he headed? Could you tell?”
“Uhh, east,” Alex answered.
“Okay, so that means he either continued straight on Queen, turned right onto Prince, or left onto Duchess.”
“Okay, setting this to search those cameras next.”
The search took them into the wee hours of the morning when they discovered that the car disappeared somewhere on Silverwood Street. Alex alerted Julia, who agreed to check it out immediately.
He settled back into the cushion next to Ava, wrapping an arm around her. “Well, do you want to head to bed?”
“Bed? Now? With Julia searching for Kyle’s car?”
Alex shrugged. “I didn’t want to go either, but I thought you were tired.”
“How can I be tired with all of this going on? I wonder how long it’ll take for them to get there?”
“Oh, wait,” Alex said, pulling his laptop closer and tapping around on it. “There we go. We’ll know when they get there.”
“Are you tracking her phone?”
“Yep,” he answered as he leaned his cheek against her head.
“I’m getting jealous,” she said with a coy smile.
“Don’t worry. I keep a constant tracker on your phone with a scrambler so no one else can track you.”
“Really? Since when?”
“Two thousand twelve.”
She pulled back, her face screwing up. “Alex, are you serious?”
“As a heart attack, babe. No one tracks my wife and gets away with it.”
She grinned at him. “Aw, that’s sweet.”
“Oh, looks like they’ve stopped, and not at a light. They’re not at a crossroads.” Alex drummed his fingers on the laptop’s edge.
“Do you think they found him?”
“One way to find out,” he answered as he grabbed his cell phone. “I’ll call her.”
After a brief conversation where they learned that the car had been located abandoned along with tire tracks leading away from the scene, Alex reviewed the footage at the next traffic camera around the time the car disappeared.
Ava provided street names to continue the tracking through the city as the desperate search for Kyle Carter continued. Together, they guided them turn-by-turn through the van’s path until it, too, disappeared from the camera network.
After a few moments of searching ownership on the street, they narrowed it to a building owned by an associate of the company that had been actively seeking to destroy Julia’s husband.
With Alex’s help, they opened the electronic lock and entered the building.
Ava wrapped her arms around Alex as they waited for any word from the camera-less interior. After a few moments, Julia’s hushed voice whispered, “Alex, are you still there?”
“Still with you, kid. Any chance of toggling on your camera for a bird’s eye view?”
The video feed appeared on his phone, and Ava leaned closer to peer at it. “So far, nothing much to see. But I thought I heard something.”
She rounded a corner in the hall and continued down it. Light glowed at the end.
“I see lights,” Julia whispered.
“Be careful, Sunshine.”
They waited, both of them with tense muscles as Julia reported, “I hear someone talking.”
The bobbling camera continued down the hall until they spotted the limp form of Kyle Carter tied to a chair.
“He doesn’t look so good,” Ava said.
Alex tapped on his laptop.
“What are you doing?”
“Dispatching emergency services.”
Ava patted him on the chest, a silent affirmation of his action. After fifteen agonizing minutes with sounds of a scuffle, but no video feed, emergency services finally arrived to attend to a critical Kyle.
The call ended, and Alex and Ava snuggled closer together on the couch. She pressed her cheek against his chest, the frightening experience with her friend in New Orleans a reminder of the danger they faced.
After a few moments, she pulled herself away from him as his breathing turned rhythmic. She studied his features, easing a lock of hair away from his forehead before she rubbed his cheek with her thumb.
With a smile, she carefully slid his arm from around her shoulders and leaned forward to grab her laptop. With all the commotion that just happened with Julia’s stepson, she couldn’t sleep.
Her mind raced with concern about the man along with concern for their own situation. She wondered how long it would be before Raven made contact. So far, there had been no blips on Alex’s tracking program to give them a clue about Raven’s identity or location.
With a sigh, she clicked away from the screens they’d used to track Kyle Carter and returned to her research on the Bancrofts.
Her tired eyes grew heavy as she read the public news available on each of them. The typical wealthy elite, he was known for being personable yet shrewd in business, she was known for being gracious and a goddess of charity.
Ava clicked to see Vivienne’s interests, logging a list of charities in her mind. As Alex’s wife, she should be welcomed to get involved in any of these and use them as a way to learn more about Vivienne Bancroft.
She rolled her eyes. Actually, it wasn’t Alex or his wife who would be welcome, but Alex’s bank account.
As her eyes glazed over and information stopped making sense, she clicked on the images tab to view pictures of the couple.
She scrolled through event after event until she spotted something that caught her attention. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaned closer to the screen, her pulse quickening.
She may have just found the perfect way into the Bancrofts’ life.