Chapter 12
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KNOX SAT WITH THE TEAM in the bullpen, eyeing the big screen.
Emily had pinged Quinn’s cell phone, tracking her movements from several days ago.
Quinn had walked down the block where they’d seen the footage of her, and then she’d been driven away in a vehicle—likely against her will.
There was no chance she’d leave her car running on the side of the road and simply disappear.
Fucking terrorist assholes.
Emily and Logan stood side-by-side at the front of the room, Logan typing on a laptop as Emily briefed the team.
“From here,” she said, pointing to an intersection several blocks away from Quinn’s car, “her phone next pinged at the outskirts of the city. The last ping was from a cell tower several miles away,” she said, showing them the location.
Knox frowned, studying the map.
“That road heads right to a small airport,” Gage said, his brows creasing.
Knox looked over, his heart racing. He could hear his heartbeat thudding in his ears, his entire existence suddenly narrowing to the point. Quinn. Her missing cell phone. An airport.
Emily nodded, slanting a brief glance his way. “Yes. The final ping from her phone was at a cell tower there, half a mile from the airport.”
Knox’s stomach dropped.
Logan looked up from his laptop. “There’s nothing from her phone after that. No texts. No further pings from other cell towers. At that point, it was either turned off, destroyed, or taken out of the service area.”
Knox blinked, shock coursing through him. “Wouldn’t they eventually turn it back on? Say they flew to L.A. or wherever. Wouldn’t the towers there pick it up?”
Holt muttered a curse. “That’s a small regional airport. It’s possible they took her somewhere to catch another flight.”
“Who the hell are these guys?” Knox asked, growing angry. “The terrorists we’ve already ID’d? We have their photographs and names. We should be able to ID her kidnapper. Can’t we track their movements? Follow their cell signals? We need to head to the airport!”
The room was silent.
“Only some of them were arrested over the weekend,” Knox continued. “We need to find out who’s missing and start from there. Do they have driver’s licenses? Passports? They fucking took Quinn against her will, and we’re just sitting on our asses!”
Xaden came hustling into the bullpen, his own cell phone in hand.
“I just spoke with the Seattle PD. They’ve got the vehicle we found the empty crates in secured at an impound lot.
Coop and I will head over there now to meet with detectives and thoroughly search the vehicle for clues.
Forensics detectives can take samples to see if Quinn or anyone else was inside the trunk. ”
Knox swallowed, bile rising in the back of his throat. It felt like the room was beginning to spin as nausea briefly overtook him. His hands fisted as he sucked in a deep breath. Someone shoved a bottle of water his way, and he took a few gulps, centering himself.
Fucking hell. Not only was Quinn gone, but she’d been forced into a goddamn trunk. Was she alive? Hurt? Was she the one who’d written the word help on the side of a wooden crate?
He had no idea what horrors she was enduring, and all of the options made him sick.
“What about Quinn’s vehicle?” Logan asked. “It’s obviously not still sitting on the side of the road.”
“Quinn’s car was towed to another lot,” Xaden said. “A tow company picked it up Friday night. We’ll start by searching the self-driving vehicle and then move to hers. I’m not certain we’ll find any additional clues in Quinn’s car.”
Knox’s gaze slanted his way. “No. She willingly exited her own vehicle and followed that man down the block. We saw it on the footage. No one was near her car until it was eventually towed away.” Guilt churned through him.
He should’ve been with her that night. He should’ve called and checked in to make sure she was okay.
If Quinn had told him she was following a goddamn suspected terrorist, there was no way in hell he’d let her go through with it. What had she been thinking?
“Do you think she was trying to track him?” Emily asked, nervously biting her lip. “She had cameras and tracking devices.”
Knox looked over at her. “I think that’s exactly what she was doing.”
“I had a missed call from her that night,” Cooper told them, looking chagrinned.
“I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it was after I’d walked her to her car.
I assumed she’d have left a message or kept calling if it was important.
Maybe she saw something suspicious and followed him on her own. ”
“God damn it!” Knox muttered. “That was both brave and stupid as hell. She’s not a trained operative. She didn’t even have a weapon.” He looked around the room in exasperation, noting for the first time who was missing. “Where are Boone and Radley?” he asked.
“They headed right from my house to Quinn’s apartment,” Holt said. “We realize she’s not there, but they’re doing their due diligence. They’ll be back at the office shortly.”
Knox processed that piece of information then eyed the map on the screen again, staring at the airport and tiny little blip, where Quinn’s phone had last pinged. For a second he wondered what her apartment looked like. Would she ever see it again? Would he?
He’d fantasized about taking her to his own bed, but shit. He’d also imagined picking her up for a date. Bringing her flowers. Walking her to her door at night so she wasn’t alone.
Damn it all to hell.
“We need to head to the airport,” Knox told the team. “We’ll get flight logs and see what planes flew out that night. We need the pilot and air traffic controller’s names, too, so we can question them. Passenger manifests. Surveillance footage from anywhere nearby the airport or final cell tower.”
Xaden crossed his arms, frowning. “I agree with all that, but one questions remains. How the fuck did they get her to willingly board a damn airplane?”
***
TWO HOURS LATER, KNOX felt sick. While they’d been successful in obtaining flight records from Friday night as well as all passenger names, no one remembered seeing Quinn.
Nor was her name on a manifest. Of course, if she’d been kidnapped, she wouldn’t have willingly handed over an ID.
There were no records of her getting on a plane, however, and she hadn’t been seen in video surveillance, which begged the question, where the hell was she?
He glanced around the small control room, happy his teammates were with him, but pissed as hell they were even in this situation to begin with.
“I’m sending the passenger names over to IT,” Radley said, typing a message on the laptop she’d brought.
“They can take the photos from the fake IDs and compare them to the names and photographs of the known terror cell members. We’ll be able to confirm this is the flight we want and determine what alias each man is now going under. ”
“Good idea,” Knox said.
They continued to watch the footage of the men gathering near the tarmac, readying to board the plane. Knox narrowed his gaze, studying the man with dark hair and dark beard. “He looks like the guy walking by Radley’s car in the other surveillance,” Knox pointed out. “Same build. Same facial hair.”
“Agreed,” Gage said. “He changed clothes, but it appears to be him.
Boone muttered something. Knox glanced over at his teammate, standing at his side in the small control room.
“Something’s not right about this,” Boone said, his voice a deep rumble.
“Why would they head to the airport with Quinn’s cell phone and not Quinn?
It pinged by the tower. She’s missing. She had to be with them. ”
“Let’s look at the videos again,” Radley said. “We’re missing something.”
Security rewound the footage, and Knox ran his hands through his hair, agitated. “The plane landed at San Francisco International Airport. We need to head there. The kidnappers may have been traveling under aliases, but we can still track those and see what flights they took from SFO.”
“We need to get on the phone with SFO and send someone down there in person to speed things along,” Boone said.
“Wait a sec,” Radley interjected, watching as they replayed the footage of several men arriving at the small Seattle airport.
The surveillance was slightly grainy, made even worse by the fact that it was night.
The man they recognized was in the front, but there was a second guy behind him.
“Look at the man with the large suitcase,” Radley said, her voice low.
“He’s a big guy, but he seems to be struggling to heft it around. ”
Knox froze, icy cold fear washing over him.
“How much do you think Quinn weighs?” Boone asked, his gaze hard as he studied the footage.
“Certainly over one hundred pounds. When they weigh your luggage at the airport, it’s considered oversized if it’s more than fifty pounds.
Look how that guy has to shift to carry this suitcase and manage the weight. It’s heavier than normal.”
“No way,” Knox said, knowing in his gut that they were probably right. “No fucking way.”
“He’s having trouble with it,” Radley agreed. “Quinn’s what, maybe five foot seven or so? She’s slender. She could fit inside it.”
“But she’s—” Knox couldn’t continue, his voice choked.
Radley’s small hand landed on his bicep.
“We don’t know anything,” she stressed. “If they needed to furtively load her onto an airplane, this was one way to do it. It’s a small airport.
Look at the footage—he’s carrying the suitcase directly onboard that small plane.
It’s not a huge airplane where they’re loading suitcases into the cargo hold. He kept it with him.”
“They put her in a fucking suitcase,” Knox ground out, shock washing over him. “Holy shit.”
“They wouldn’t be carrying around a dead body,” Radley said bluntly, her voice calm. “If they killed her, they’d could’ve easily left her in the trunk of that vehicle or disposed of her some other way. She’s alive, and they’re smuggling her out of Seattle in an airplane.”
Boone was already picking up his phone, calling Holt.
“We need to get surveillance footage and flight manifests from SFO, stat. The terror suspects loaded Quinn onto an airplane here in Seattle in a large suitcase. We need to know where her kidnapper traveled after that plane landed, because I guarantee Quinn is with him.”
“He’s a dead man,” Knox seethed, a feeling of resolve washing over. “When I get my hands on him, he’ll wish he’d never been born.”
“We’ll find her,” Radley assured him. “They’re keeping her alive, and that works in our favor. It gives us time to locate her, formulate a plan, and stage a rescue. This is good news. We’re going to get her back.”
Adrenaline surged through Knox, readying him to spring into action. They had a lead. A name. A fucking chance. They’d locate Quinn, of that he had no doubt. And as for the men who’d taken her? Possibly hurt her?
They’d never walk the face of the Earth again.