Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Jag raced down the alley where Cass had pinpointed the last place Steff had been, Hound hot on his heels. Fox was on his way to Cynthia’s place to see if she was okay. He’d texted not long ago to say there was an accident on the highway, so traffic was horrendous.
The smell was rank, but he’d been in places which smelt far worse than this did.
He came to an abrupt halt when he found the shattered pieces of Steff’s phone on the ground, right next to what were once the earrings he’d given her. He squatted to get a closer look. To see if there was a hint of something, anything, that would tell him what the hell had gone on.
Who’d taken her?
Cass was accessing the camera feed from the front of Steff’s therapist’s building to see if she’d met someone.
Jag had called Donelle’s office, finding out that she’d never had a session, because it had been cancelled.
Jag knew for a fact Steff wouldn’t cancel her appointment.
In the past she had, now though, she kept every one. Looked forward to them, even.
“Here.” Hound handed him a plastic bag and gloves.
“Thanks.” He took them and popped the gloves on before carefully picking up the pieces.
He didn’t know if they would get any prints from them, but anything was possible.
He didn’t bother with the pieces of the earrings, there was nothing salvageable about them.
Whoever had broken them had done a good job.
“This is a dead end.” He peeled the gloves off and shoved them in his pocket. “There are no cameras here that Cass can try and pull the footage from. Nothing to help us find out what direction they headed in. Nor who took her.”
“There might be some businesses around that have cameras that Cass can check out. You know she’s not going to leave any stone unturned when it comes to Steff. We’ve seen her do this before. Trust her.” Hound squeezed his shoulder.
“I know.” He closed his eyes, willing the emotions threatening to bubble out, to stay down. Nothing good would come of him losing it right now. Steff wasn’t going to magically appear if he screamed his lungs out. Or pounded the brick wall behind him.
There would be time to lose it all—when Steff was back in his arms.
Fuck, why hadn’t he told her he’d fallen in love with her?
He’d wanted to, but had kept the words hidden inside him. He’d never been a coward. He’d looked death in the eye numerous times on missions and had come out on top. Yet, when it came to facing his feelings for Steff and expressing them out loud, he couldn’t say them.
If–no, when they got Steff back, he would tell her constantly, and make sure she never doubted his feelings for her ever again.
But first, he had to find her and deal with the fucker who’d taken her. Whoever they were, they were going to pay for it.
Jag pulled the steely resolve that had gotten him through BUD/S and numerous missions around him like a winter coat.
“Right, let’s get back to the office with this and see if you’re right and if Cass was able to get something to go on.
By the time we get back, Fox might have been able to speak to Cynthia. ”
Together they made their way back to the street and to where they’d parked the car. Steff and whoever had her, hadn’t walked too far from Donelle’s office before she was dragged into the alley.
There didn’t seem to be any sign of struggle, and Jag didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. Sometimes cooperating with a kidnapper was a way to keep control of the situation. If they thought she was compliant, they may not hurt her. Jag hoped that was the case.
What if Steff had a panic attack and was so lost in her mind, that she wasn’t aware of what was happening to her?
Jag had first-hand experience of seeing the blank look on her face when she was in the throes of an attack. It was a look he didn’t want to see again, but after this ordeal, he feared he might. She’d made such good progress.
No, she’s not weak. She’s strong. She’s going to be okay. Believe it.
Jag clung to what his inner voice was saying. No matter what happened, or what she went through, if she was different when she came back to him, he would love her just as much as he had that morning. Nothing about his feelings for her would change.
He was moving on auto pilot as he got into the car, his hand clenching and unclenching. He was aware of Hound driving them back to the office, but it happened in a blur at the same time.
“Jag!” His teammates voice finally penetrated the trance he’d fallen into.
“What?”
“We’re here.”
The darkness of the parking garage seeped into focus, and Hound was standing by the open passenger door. Jag shook his head, getting it back into the present. Steff needed him to be one hundred percent on his game. “Thanks, man,” he said as he got out of the car.
“All good. You’re not alone. Don’t forget that. We want her back as much as you do. We all know how important she is to you.”
Jag looked at his friend. “She’s my everything. I don’t know wh—”
“Stop! Don’t even think it. We’re getting her back. Now let’s get upstairs so that we can start planning.”
Jag didn’t know what he’d do if he didn’t have his brothers around him. Their support meant everything, and if a similar situation arose for either one of them, he would do everything he humanly could to help them through it too.
The ride in the elevator to the office floor was a quiet one, as was the walk into the office.
Yolanda looked up and offered him a small smile.
She was like a mother hen to all of them, and now that her daughter was Isaac’s partner, she was even more ingrained in the Alliez family than she had been previously.
“Any news?” he asked the second he walked into the packed conference room.
Everyone was there. Irish was standing behind Cass, his hands on her shoulders, gently massaging them, as she pounded away on her keyboard.
Ox and Growler were looking at a tablet; it looked as if they were going through some footage.
Angel and Deal stood at the large map of Los Angeles that was on one of the walls, pins in their hands as they put them in, highlighting the places Steff had been that day.
Isaac was on the phone–he didn’t know who he was talking to–but it looked intense.
Fox was still missing, so he assumed he was still at Cynthia’s place, or was on the way back with her.
Eveline and Teresa were also there, working on computers, no doubt doing what they could to assist Cass.
“The footage Ox and Growler are looking at was what I managed to pull from the cameras surrounding the alley. There weren’t many, and the quality of the feed isn’t that good. But it’s something.” Cass didn’t look up from her computer.
“Right. Any news from Fox?” Jag checked his phone as he sat, but as it had been in his pocket, and he would’ve heard and felt it if a message had come in, it was a pointless exercise. He needed to do something.
“Not yet,” Ox said. No sooner had he finished, the phone in the middle of the table then shrilled to life.
Irish reached over and hit the speaker button. “Yes, Yolanda?”
“Fox is on the phone.”
“Great, put him through.” Irish looked over to him as if to say, your mission to lead. Jag glanced at Ox, and he gave a slight nod. The fact the team was giving him the okay to control the situation was one he appreciated, especially considering it was his woman who was in danger.
“What have you got for us, Fox?” Jag asked.
“Cynthia’s not here. She didn’t answer her door, and when I used the key, the place was empty except for her earrings.” His voice hitched on the last word. Jag had never heard his team leader sound that way.
“What do you mean empty?”
“Empty as in fucking empty. Everything’s gone. All her clothes. Furniture. Every fucking thing.”
“But she left her earrings there?” The question was probably a silly one to ask as Fox wasn’t a liar, but what he was saying didn’t make sense to Jag.
“Yes. In the middle of the floor.”
“Which was why we thought she was there,” murmured Irish.
Silence fell around the room. He could hear Fox pacing around Cynthia’s apartment. He couldn’t imagine what was going through his friend’s mind. To find nothing in his girlfriend’s apartment had to be messing with him.
“Come back here, Fox. We need to plan,” Ox instructed.
“Fine.”
The call disconnected, and no one said anything for a few seconds, all in shock with what Fox had relayed—even Cass had stopped typing.
“You don’t suppose?” Deal started, and then stopped.
“What?” Jag wanted his friend to continue with his thought.
“It’s probably ridiculous, but what if they’re together? They were supposed to meet up today. Good opportunity to take both,” Deal said.
“They were, and I suppose it’s possible.
Perhaps whoever was after Steff was connected to what happened to them before, and decided why not take Cynthia again, especially seeing as they’d reconnected recently.
” Jag hated to think it was possible, but they had to look at all angles. “Isaac, is this feasible?”
The older man sat back and twisted the phone in his hand. “Some traffickers get angry when their cargo is taken, but I’ve not really heard of any going after previous targets if they’d been rescued. Too risky.”
“But it is possible,” Jag pressed.
“It is.” He leaned forward, the strain of the situation furrowing his brow.
If Deal was right, whoever took the girls was connected to Viktor Koznovi?, the man who’d beaten Isaac so badly, he’d almost died.
It was a threat that still hung over him, even though there was nothing to suggest Viktor wanted to go after him again.
A heavy silence fell over the room. Everyone lost in their own thoughts about the current situation.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Ox had gone over to where his wife, Eveline, sat and took the seat next to her.
“We don’t know if Cynthia is with Steff, although her empty apartment is unexpected.
We need to break things down and see if anything interconnects.
Hopefully when Fox gets back, we’ll have a few more answers. ”
Jag doubted that, because his friend had no idea what he was about to walk into when he opened the door.
They started to work through things. Teresa managed to catch a glimpse of Steff coming out of the alley, but a group of people came out of a store, blocking their view of the person with her.
When they switched to another view, the group were still obstructing them.
It was almost as if the person who’d taken Steff was using the crowd to keep them hidden.
Fox walked in, and no one said a word. He threw the earrings down on the table before taking a seat next to Jag.
“The landlord said that Cynthia didn’t notify him she was leaving.
A truck turned up yesterday. She spent the fucking night at my place last night, and didn’t say a fucking word.
” He slammed his fist down on the table.
Had Deal’s suspicion been right? Had Cynthia been taken with Steff? Cynthia’s empty apartment was a puzzle piece Jag couldn’t make fit.
“Wait. This isn’t right,” Cass muttered, her fingers flying over the keyboard. A second later the image on the wall mounted television changed to show a map with a glow of red dots. A clump were situated in the area of their building, and the other was blinking near Acton.
“Who’s out there?” asked Ox, getting up to look at the map, which Cass enlarged for them all.
“It can’t be one of us, because we’re all here and we know that Steff’s earrings were smashed. She only had one set,” Jag said.
“Each tracker has a code, allocated individually to each person I give them to. Even though Steff only took one lot, there are still two which are hers. This one isn’t hers, but it is…” She glanced over at Fox. “Cynthia’s.”
“What the fuck? She always wears those earrings.” He pointed to the box on the table. “The other set she…”
“She what?” asked Cass.
“She said she didn’t want them, but she never gave them back. When I asked her about them, she…” He shrugged, not needing to say anything more.
“They didn’t show up when Cass got the notification that there was an issue with Steff’s. I was in the office when she pulled up the map.” Irish tapped his fingers on the table.
“If they weren’t showing up, and you didn’t see them at her place, Fox, then where was she keeping them?” Angel asked the question that had to be asked.
“I don’t fucking know. What is going on?” he muttered and ran his fingers through his hair.
“We need to go wherever that tracker is transmitting.” Jag stood and moved closer to the screen. “Steff could be there.”
“You’re assuming they’re together. They might not be,” Fox argued. “Cynthia could’ve been taken by someone else.”
Jag doubted that, and the longer he thought about the information they had in front of them, the more an unbelievable one formed. “Unless Cynthia took Steff,” he said quietly.
“What the fuck?” Fox’s response was expected, and if his team leader wasn’t thinking purely with his emotions, but more clinically, he’d see that Jag was onto something. “Why would you think that?”
“Her apartment is empty. She left the earrings there knowing that if we checked, we’d think she’s safe there, and you would head over there to see if she was okay.
Plenty of opportunity for her to meet Steff at her therapist’s office, which Cynthia was aware of because they were supposed to meet after Steff’s session.
” Jag took a breath, knowing that with every word he said, he was putting a nail into the coffin of Fox and Cynthia’s relationship.
“An appointment that was cancelled, but we didn’t know that, so given the time, we would expect her to still be at her place. ”
“Fuck, Jag, I hate to say it, but I think you’re on to something.” Deal was making notes on his tablet.
“If y’all think that, then what does the flashing light mean near Acton?” Fox ground out.
If putting it out there that Cynthia had taken Steff was hard, this was even harder. “She wants us to go there.”