24. Leo
24
LEO
S he tasted like strawberries. She smelled like citrus. She was sunshine on his winter day. He was floating high as a kite and didn’t even care that he had turned into a driveling poet. Should he write her a sonnet?
He could barely wipe that goofy grin off his face when he met up with Willis who spent no time giving him the current reports of the tech reviews. He’d check on Sage in the green room in about ten minutes then immediately plant himself at the stage in a giant room where the whole shindig would go down.
Leo checked his phone for alerts. Nothing. All clear. Things were going well and Willis even mentioned how he had underestimated the scope of this event and how he’d let Jensen know how well Leo did.
“Jenson mentioned you asked for a replacement on this job a few weeks back,” Willis said as they walked the hall toward the security lounge .
Leo shrugged. “I feared I could no longer be impartial…”
Willis nodded. “Part of the job, kid. I think there's some psychology behind it, you know? Like we get paid to protect and it’s natural your instincts take over and turn it into something it’s not. You’re young now so it feel like a romantic gesture, you know, throwing yourself in front of a bullet for her. And eventually you’ll grow old like me and every young woman feels like some daughter or niece. How’d Jenson react to that little request?” Willis laughed like he knew the answer.
“He pretty much told me the same thing.”
Willis clapped Leo on the shoulder, “Like I said, it’s the psychology of it all.”
Leo had his doubts. And he fully accepted this was more than just a fleeting feeling when he impulsively decided to kiss her. He wished he’d done it sooner. How many kisses had he wasted these last weeks, all in the name of professionalism?
Once Willis settled in front of the camera screens and monitors, Leo opted to pop into the green room early, just so he could lock eyes with her. Did she feel the same way about the kiss? He wasn’t normally that forward, but when he got the call this morning that after this job he’d be flying to D.C. for a new job he couldn’t wait another second and had to just do something.
Tomorrow was another problem for another day.
The second-floor conference rooms were abuzz with excitement. There was a palpable energy in the air. There were news crews—the news?!—gathering interviews from social media managers, fans, and influencers. This was a regular Big. Deal. And Leo found himself wishing he had been a little more kind regarding the whole “hobby game” thing. This was well beyond that. He scanned the growing crowd for any sign of Sage.
“Leo!” someone screeched, running toward him. “Where on earth is Sage? She needs to go on for introductions in like two minutes!”
“She came down here fifteen minutes ago.”
“She’s not here!” Lily said, opening her arms to the crowd in an exaggerated manner, as if to say “Look, idiot. A Sage-less sea.”
“Jared?”
“Texted me that he’s going to try her room and maybe the actual event center.” Lily sighed and ran a hand through her long hair, looking more haggard than normal despite her professional pencil skirt and heels. “Where on earth is she? I guess if there was a threat to her safety, I could go up and explain that. Good grief, where is Jared? He needs to be documenting this too,” Lily said, tapping away at her phone.
“Willis—”
“Camaro,” Willis’s voice cut through the chatter. “Come to the eastern fourth-floor stairwell now. Sage is gone. Suey is okay, but I just called in a medic for her. What the heck happened?”
Leo couldn’t hear the mumbled response of Suey through the earpiece. Leo ran to the stairwell, ignoring the “Leo? Leo, what’s happening? Is Sage in trouble?”
Willis spoke to Leo in the earpiece. “I’m taking Suey out the back. She has a little gash on her head but she’s not thinking right. Looks like someone hit her over the head. Likely concussed.”
“And Sage?”
“Gone,” Willis said. “A guy came out of the stairwell and grabbed her, then another from the Janitor’s closet behind Suey and blitzed her.”
Leo’s stomach dropped. Two attackers? “Report this to the authorities, take care of Suey, then scour the cameras.”
“On it.”
Leo pulled out his iPad and the map of all the AirTags he’d planted on Sage lit up the screen. Now it was just a matter of finding the outlier. Why hadn’t he shoved a tracker in her shoe? There were at least a dozen back left at her house. There was one pacing back and forth, obviously Squash trying to get comfortable on the couch.
There was one in the car they parked at the airport.
A handful in the hotel, likely her room.
But there was one on the move. It was on the far side of the hotel, a dot blinking quickly across the screen. But where? It couldn’t tell him the depth or height! For all he knew she could be on the forty first floor or in the basement.
He wasted a precious moment notifying the building security and Willis of his suspicion that Sage was likely still in the building.
“We need to do a grid search,” Willis said over the radio.
“I know!” Leo said, working hard to keep the rising fear from rising to his throat and strangling him. He stared at the map, willing the tracker to move just a little, something to give him an indication of where she might be. That’s when he noticed another tracker, unmoving, but definitely where it shouldn’t be. Why on earth was it by the pool?
“Start at the top and 22 floor. Everyone work your way down. I’ll start in the lobby and meet you.”
“Understood,”
Willis said. “Security is already on the move.”
Leo ran, dodging people left and right, jumping over a suitcase in the foyer. He looked like a madman.
The pool? There were a ton of people out there, but why would Sage have come this way at all? She wouldn’t have. She hated the idea of being sunburned and would never go out in the highest UV index unless she had to. So why?—
He skidded to a halt when he saw it. Her signature tote bag. It had Squash painted on the front with little pumpkins floating around the rat-dog. Why on earth was it lying near the?—
And that’s when it hit him. The parking garage. Instead of taking the stairs or elevator down to the parking garage, they must have entered in through the car entrance outside the gate by the pool.
Leo switched radio frequencies “Security?—”
“Here.”
“Check out the south parking garage entrance and exit. I need eyes from the last—” he glanced at his watch, “Half hour. Anyone on foot?”
“I’ll check, but you know that the outside cameras are not the quality you’re used to?— ”
“Just check.”
Leo raced down the ramp. Apparently, this was just an exit and there was no need for an attendant. Just his luck. He scanned the busy lot. His service was going to be terrible but something told him there was merit to the parking garage theory.