Chapter 15
EVELYN
My phone rang, and I picked it up without looking at it. “Stone Dynamic Security, how may I help you?”
“First of all, what the fuck is that greeting? Is that your customer service voice?” Danny asked on the other end of the line.
I looked down at my phone. I had grabbed my personal cell, not the office phone. “Sorry. I didn’t realize what phone I picked up. It’s been crazy.”
When I walked in this morning, Marcus informed me that he had terminated the Keenan contract. I wasn’t crying over it. Keenan was an ass, but it was a flurry of reorganizing resources now that we didn’t have to deploy a team for that contract.
“You sounded weird as fuck,” Danny teased. “All professional and prim and proper.”
“Fuck off.” I rolled my eyes. “What’s up?” I asked, typing quickly to finish an email to the R I would smell what they had smelled. I would bear witness to it.
“Search it,” I said. “See if there’s anything they left behind that might identify them.”
Marcus, Adrian, and Sebastian joined me and Danny as we moved and checked mattresses. We carefully moved one after the other, shaking out each of the blankets and towels as well, trying to find any clues as to who these girls were and where they came from.
“Evelyn,” Adrian called me over to the far corner. He had pulled a mattress away from the wall. “Look.”
I crouched down, peering closer at where he was pointing. A series of numbers were scratched into the drywall roughly, like someone had used a nail or a fingernail to do it. 827301. Next to it, a weird squiggle was scratched.
“What is that?” Marcus asked, crouching next to me.
“I don’t know,” I said, pulling out my phone and taking a picture of the numbers and the squiggle. “But whatever it is, it’s important enough that someone risked punishment to scratch it into the wall.
“Boss,” Wilder said from the doorway. Alexander stood behind him. “We found something else.”
I stood up and followed him out of the room.
Two doors down, Alexander stood in the open doorway.
He reached out, pulled me into him, and pressed a kiss to my forehead before letting go.
Wilder stood in a small office that looked like it had been hastily cleared out.
Drawers were open on the desk, and a small coffee machine sat on the small table against the wall with the door.
Wilder pointed at the coffeepot. “It’s still warm,” he said. “I think we just missed them.”
I placed my hand on the pot. It was still warm. Not hot, but too warm for it to have been made hours ago.
“There’s one more thing,” Wilder said, gesturing toward the warehouse.
I followed him out the door. Dominic and Jasper stood in the loading dock area over a puddle of oil.
“This oil is fresh,” Dominic said. “I think the truck just left here recently.”
“Liam, are you getting all of this?” I asked.
“On it, Boss Lady,” he said. “Give me thirty seconds.”
Alexander joined me in the loading dock area. “Marcus said they didn’t find anything else unusual.”
“Boss Lady?” Liam said quickly. “I found the truck. It took a different route out of there than the first one did, but I think it’s headed to the rail yard.”
“Fuck!” The rail yard was at least a forty-minute drive away, and they had at least a thirty-minute head start on us. “Stall them if you can.”
“Working on it,” Liam said.
“Wilder, you and your team with Matt and Jerome stay and process the scene,” I ordered. “Everyone else, we have to get to the rail yard now!”
Everyone sprang into action as I raced towards the doors. Izzy screeched to a halt in front of the door, and we climbed in quickly. The door had barely closed, then we were racing away. But would we make it in time?