Chapter 7
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“Is Oakley still outside?” Andrea asked. “What did he find out about our nighttime visitor?”
Trent replied, “Oakley followed him to a car, got the license plate, and Mason—or Tesla—are tracing it. Probably stolen and a dead end for us, but we’ll check it out anyway.”
Hayden nodded. “Oakley confirmed that our recent stranger didn’t match our six most recent sketches either. Probably a one-time local hire.”
She felt disconnected from everything, yet her mind was spinning. They had data that led to no information and the questions that had no answers.
“So Oakley should still be outside,” Hayden stated. “I’ll send him in for some breakfast, unless you want to go out somewhere, in which case he can find breakfast for himself. Don’t know how you feel about him crashing here.”
She nodded. “He can come in and crash. That’s fine.”
“Breakfast?”
“I don’t want to go out for breakfast,” she declared.
He turned to face her, and she shook her head.
“No, not right now,” she repeated. “In fact, I really just want to get back in the shower and clean off the stench of everything gone wrong in my world right now.” Instead she heard a knock on the door and went to answer it.
Yet she was immediately stopped by the instinctive reactions of both men. “Isn’t that Oakley?” she asked.
“It should be,” Trent replied, “but I’ll get the door just to confirm.”
Sure enough, he checked the peephole and let someone in. The tall, strong, grim-looking man was almost what she expected him to be. As she stared at him, she said, “I guess you’ve already heard the news.”
He looked at her. “What news?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard.” Then she frowned and looked from Hayden to Trent.
“Was I supposed to hear something?” Oakley asked.
She continued. “I just assumed from the look on your face that you’d already heard that the prisoner we had so much fun with yesterday is dead, supposedly committing suicide while in the local jail.”
His eyebrows shot up, and he turned to Trent and Hayden, asking, “Do I look as if I just heard bad news?”
Hayden laughed. “Yeah, you do.”
“But he really doesn’t,” Trent corrected, now laughing too. “He looks that way all the time.”
Oakley shook his head. “Glad you guys are having so much fun in here while some of us are working. I was just checking in with you. What’s Trent doing now?” Oakley asked.
Trent smiled at Oakley. “As you can see, I’m on the laptop. What I’m doing is getting a list of every student who’s gone missing from that London campus or even the New York City campus, all while Arlene worked for that university—or those sister universities, whatever the hell they are.”
Hayden turned to Andrea and explained, “Trent and Oakley have almost matching skill sets. They both are experts in all things communication.”
“I’m a better shot than Trent but not as good as Hayden though,” Oakley shared, as a yawn escaped him.
“We can sort out the list,” Trent offered. “You need sleep.”
Oakley nodded, but then he yawned again as he headed for the front door.
Andrea shook her head. “Don’t let Oakley leave.” Then she turned to Oakley. “You need to sleep.”
He stared at her for a moment, then back at the guys.
Hayden nodded. “Yes, she’s being serious. We’re just switching off, so you get to crash for a few hours.”
“That would be good,” Oakley admitted. “That vehicle is not exactly the most comfortable for staying in all night, even when staying awake.”
“I don’t know how anybody can do that,” she muttered, staring at him. “It’s definitely not comfortable out there.”
“No, but it’s the job,” he replied, studying her closely. “You look familiar. Doesn’t she look familiar?” He turned to Hayden, then Trent.
“No, I don’t,” she snapped.
His eyebrows shot up, and he shrugged. “Okay, you don’t. Where can I get horizontal?” Without a word, she led him to the couch.
He laughed. “This’ll do.” He stretched out on the couch and was asleep in minutes.
She asked, “How can he do that? He’s … sound asleep right now.”
Trent and Hayden shared a knowing glance. Hayden simply told her, “We train for it.”
“You must be kidding. You can’t just train yourself to sleep just because there’s an opportunity to sleep,” she argued. “That’s not how that works.”
Trent smiled at her. “That’s absolutely how it works.”
“You must be joking.”
“No, I’m not. Granted we cannot train for just one or two days and perfect this skill. However, nothing is impossible if you set your mind to it.”
“Let me guess, it takes years?” she asked.
“Right.” Trent nodded.
“I don’t have years,” she muttered.
“What difference does it make whether you did or not?” he asked, staring at her curiously.
She frowned. “I don’t know. … I have trouble sleeping lots of the time, so it would be a good thing to learn.”
“It would be a great thing to learn,” Trent declared, “but it’s hardly a priority for you at the moment.”
She glared at him. “But you don’t know that.”
Trent sighed. “No, I really don’t. But, on that cranky note, I will check out the street.”
“You mean sit on watch in the vehicle,” she clarified.
“Something like that.” With a smirk in Hayden’s direction, Trent headed out.
She frowned. “I guess I wasn’t very polite.”
“You’re not here to be polite,” Hayden stated. “It doesn’t matter to us, so don’t get upset about it. They are used to cranky.”
She spun on a dime and glared at him.
He held up his hand. “Let’s be honest. You are cranky.”
Her shoulders sagged, and she muttered, “I shouldn’t be though, should I? I mean, everything’s fine. The guy who was after me is … dead. So, at least I don’t ever have to worry about him.”
“That’s right. You don’t,” Hayden confirmed, “and soon we’ll have a better list of missing students who your lovely admin may have had on her h—on her target list—and then we’ll go from there.”
She glared at him and then at Oakley, slumped on the couch across from them. “Amazing. He’s asleep. … Trent’s on watch outside in his car. You’re working on your laptop. What am I supposed to do?” she asked.
His eyebrows shot up. “Rest and try to recover.”
She shook her head. “I could help.”
“Okay, then write down everything you know about every one of your classmates. Flag whoever may have had a parent with influence or any family member or any connection that these kidnappers may want to target.”
She stared off in the distance. “Okay, that’ll be a broad list. I can do that.”
“Good, and a list of missing male students too. Plus, now would be great.”
She shook her head at him. “Wow, you really do enjoy giving orders, don’t you?”
“No, but it would be a really good thing to have that list. We can run it through our databases, check in with our people, and maybe put somebody on checking out each of them, confirming they aren’t missing, dead, or in trouble.”
“Everybody’s sleeping or on guard,” she stated, “so I highly doubt anybody’ll be doing anything, not anytime soon.”
He started to laugh. “Sweetheart, there’s a hell of a lot more than just the three of us here involved.”
She stopped in the act of getting her laptop. “Seriously?”
“Yes. We have a dedicated team. I already told you about Rubin, Julius, and Kane. You know Mason, who is our leader, the boss. Tesla, his wife, and a damn-good hacker. Still, at the moment, on the ground, we have six team members, with another six coming on as needed. Well, Rubin is on the ground in San Diego, but still … We are not limited in manpower. I can bring in hundreds to help.”
Her eyes widened at that.
“So, don’t you worry about that. We also have a big team of researchers who are there to give us a hand with those online things.”
“I had no idea.”
“That’s okay. Why would you? But, if you can get us that information, it’ll give us a head start as to what we should be looking for.”
“And who you should be looking at.”
“Exactly,” he agreed, with a smile.
She turned and headed off to snatch her laptop. When she returned, she asked him, “But, if your researchers can check—hack—the database of the university and get that information in no time, why ask me for it? I don’t get it.”
“It’s more than that,” he explained. “We’ll get the information that’s in the files, whether college records or criminal records, anything official.
But that won’t be the same thing as an insider’s perspective on what’s going on and who they may have for influence or anything else.
Surely you know something about these people with whom you’ve been going to school. ”
“Sure, I know something,” she mimicked. “That doesn’t mean that I know what you are looking for.”
“We’ll find that out soon enough. You put down everything you remember, and we’ll go through it.” He returned to face the laptop in front of him and repeated, “I mean it. Anytime now would be great.”
*
Hayden and Andrea worked steadily for the next hour. When he looked up the next time, she stood by him, holding out a printed piece of paper.
“Here’s what you asked for,” she murmured. “Time for some coffee.”
He frowned at the coffeepot. “We need food too.”
She shrugged. “You want to order in or are we making something?”
He laughed. “I want to go over this page you just gave me. Then I’ll come up with something to eat.”
“Good. Otherwise I can do eggs.”
“Eggs would be fine,” he replied. “Do we have some?”
“How many am I feeding?” she asked.
“You and me for sure. Oakley will need food when he wakes up, and we’ll have to get something for Trent.”
“Unless he already picked up something,” she noted. “He’s in a vehicle after all.”
“Yes, but he can’t leave his post unless we are all aware and have made adjustments. Plus, it’s not as if he can order something delivered to the car.”
She chuckled. “That would be pretty amazing if he did.”
“Actually he could do that, and we’ve done it before,” Hayden admitted, with a smile.
“But, in this case, it’s not a good thing, as it would give him away to the bad guys.
However, I can text him and see if he wants something.
Otherwise, give me a few minutes with this list, and I can make some egg sandwiches and take one or two down to him. ”
“How will that be subtle if he’s in the vehicle?” she asked, with a headshake. “Seems that defeats the purpose.”
“Maybe. So let me finish this off, and then I’ll text him and ask him. Chances are he’s already dealt with it.” She frowned at him, and he shrugged. “If you have anything else you need to do—”
“I signed up for one online class this semester. I can’t seem to go for long without taking one or two a year. So I’ve got schoolwork to catch up on,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “Are you okay if I head off and work on it?”
“Sure, but stay here.”
“Yeah, everything I need is in my bedroom.” He gave her a wave of his hand. And, with that, she headed back to her bedroom.
He heard her bedroom door close. He wasn’t exactly sure whether she was telling him the truth or something else was going on, but he figured that she couldn’t get into too much trouble while she was still here.
At least he hoped not. By the time he finished his review of her classmates’ list and shared it with Mason and Tesla and his team, Hayden walked over to her bedroom and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” she called out.
He pushed open her door and then laughed. She had her glasses perched on the end of her nose and looked like an old schoolmarm.
“What?” she asked, distracted.
“You look cute.”
Her eyes widened, and she blinked.
He laughed again. “I just wanted to say that I’m done. I have a few questions for you, but I wanted to start on the food.”
She brightened and replied, “Food would be good.”
Yet her mind was on her studies, something he also noted. He smiled. “I’ll bring you a sandwich in a few minutes.” And, with that, he headed to the kitchen and sent Trent a text.
Trent replied that he had already eaten, which was a good-enough answer for Hayden.
They all made do with all kinds of food at various stages of their jobs, and Hayden knew that Trent could look after himself. It was hardly a hardship to be sitting in a vehicle and watching for intruders, while eating power bars or whatever stash he had on him.
As Hayden made egg sandwiches, he heard a noise in the living room. As he walked in there, Oakley peered around, as if reorienting himself to where he was.
He took one look at Hayden and yawned. “I guess I went out, didn’t I?”
“And with good reason,” he noted. “You’ve been up most of the night.”
He nodded. “I’m still bloody tired too. This job gets a little harder the older we get.”
Hayden smiled. “Not arguing with you there.”
“You ended up on quite the case this time, didn’t you? Did you hear about Rubin?”
“I sure did.” He chuckled. “I left them at his place. They plan to enjoy life while they still can.”
“And that’s how it should be,” Oakley stated.
Hayden asked him, “How are you doing? Do you want some food? I’m making egg sandwiches.”
“Yeah. That would be great.” He got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back out, he settled in the kitchen and asked, “Any chance of getting some coffee?”
“Yeah, Andrea put some on a little bit ago, but it’s cold and almost gone. Give me a sec.” He made up six sandwiches, put them on three plates, and then turned to put on a fresh pot of coffee.
Oakley pointed. “You seem to be handy in the kitchen. And did I hear something about you two knew each other already?”
Hayden shrugged. “Years ago we were an item, but she was Ann Baker back then. I had this weird gut feeling that something wasn’t right, that she was withholding something important from me, and I couldn’t get past it.
So I broke it off. And, of course, now I know what that gut feeling was, but I can also understand what she did and why.
It just sucks that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me back then. ”
Oakley smiled and nodded. “Got to wonder about those instincts of ours, huh?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “And because she was trying to avoid any conflicts or fuss connected with her father, she was trying to fly under the radar.”
“Is her dad somebody important?”
“He’s a big shipping magnate, has a lot to do with supply policies and trade routes all over the world,” he shared.
“He’s powerful and used to getting what he wants.
I know Mason isn’t all that enamored with him right now.
And, of course, Andrea’s his only daughter, which has her limiting contact with him to avoid her dad’s very tight reins. ”
“Of course,” he noted, with a smile. “Interesting. So, is the spark still there?”
Hayden turned to him, but Andrea’s bedroom door opened before Hayden could answer.