Chapter 32
Carson’s heart thumped wildly in his chest as he drove up and saw Allie’s door open. He pulled into the same spot as he had last night and got out. The neighborhood felt eerily quiet as they all walked up to the house.
The team spread out as they surveyed the area. Each took a section of the house while a few went around the property.
Carson gasped when he stepped into the house and took in the mess.
Some pictures were askew on the walls as if they had been bumped into.
One was on the ground, and the glass shattered.
Her couch was pushed at an angle as if someone had fallen into it.
There were a few dark drops on the floor that Carson knew was blood.
Hers or theirs, he wouldn’t know without a DNA test.
“It looks like a small fight, but hardly any damage,” Luke remarked, his eyes taking everything in.
“The door doesn’t appear tampered with or broken, which means she opened the door for them,” Barry pointed out, studying the door lock and keyhole.
“Allie would never just open the door for a stranger,” Sandy assured him. Carson knew that as well. She must have seen him last night and thought the knock on the door had been him. “They must have showed up right after you left, Carson,” Rob stated, confirming his own thoughts.
Carson had left her vulnerable, and he hadn’t been watching his surroundings. If he had been paying better attention, he would have known something was off and could have prevented this. If anything happened to her because of him, he’d never forgive himself.
“Did you see anyone else while you were here?” Barry asked him.
Carson wracked his brain, hoping in vain to remember something, anything to help, but was coming up blank. He hadn’t been thinking about his surroundings at the time. Only talking to Allie then chickening out and leaving.
They walked around the rest of the house, but didn’t find any more clues other than they guessed by the damage left that there had been more than one person that came into the house.
“Nothing outside,” Rob and Daniel confirmed, coming inside. “The grass looks undisturbed. They stuck to the driveway and pathway as if they knew we’d be looking for something like that.”
“I’m not seeing anything here that can help us find her unless she has some kind of security camera,” Jack said, looking defeated.
“It’s as if they cleaned up any evidence they could have left,” Rob commented.
“This isn’t the work of some random kidnapping. These are people that know what they are doing,” Luke expressed.
That didn’t bode well.
“Wait, Carson, don’t you have a dash cam?” Greg asked.
“Yeah,” Carson answered, not sure why Greg was asking, then it hit him. “If they were waiting for me to leave, it might be on the cam.” He pulled out his phone, pulled up the app, and started going through the footage.
“Would you see anything if they were parked behind you?” Sandy questioned, looking hopeful.
“I have front and back cameras.” The screen was too small to try and see if anything could be helpful in finding Allie.
Barry took his phone from Carson and plugged it into his laptop that he never went without. The images from the camera were enhanced across the screen, making it easier to see if there was anything. His teammates all gathered around and studied the footage.
“There.” Sandy pointed to a car parked across the street, but facing the opposite way. It was a black sedan that looked empty, but when Carson turned on his truck, the taillights had cast a light on them. A person was barely visible in the back passenger window.
“Barry, can you enhance that?” Luke inquired.
They all watched in anticipation as Barry typed away on his computer, isolating the person and filtering it. Within a few minutes, the image cleared up, and they could all see who it was.
“Fuck me,” Barry hissed.
“How?” Carson asked, staring in disbelief.
“Who is that? You all seem to know who that is,” Sandy accused.
It was Yurgio. Carson didn’t understand. Why was he here? Why had he taken Allie? It didn’t make any sense.
“We have a major situation on our hands,” Luke announced.
“Will someone tell me what the fuck is going on?” Sandy shouted.
Carson turned and gripped Sandy’s shoulders. “Allie has been kidnapped by a very bad man.”
“How bad?” she asked. “Jeffrey Dahmer bad or Hannibal Lector?”
“He’s not going to eat her brain, but this person is known for murder as well as…” Carson gulped, not wanting to finish.
“As well as what?” Sandy yelled, begging with her eyes for him to finish that sentence.
“Trafficking,” Jack answered for him.
Sandy’s legs started to buckle, and Carson tightened his grip to keep her standing. “It won’t come to that. We’ll find her,” Carson assured Sandy. He passed Sandy over to Greg as he pulled out his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Sandy asked.
“My contact who’s helped me find this guy before,” Carson responded as the phone rang. “Char, I need your help, quick.”
“What’s going on?” she replied easily, as if there had been nothing untoward between them.
“Yurgio took my girlfriend.”
“What? I thought you got him in LA?”
“No, we saw him and captured everyone else on the ship. He snuck out. He must have followed us back then followed me to my girlfriend’s.”
“How can I help?”
“I have a picture of him on my dash cam. I can give you the license plate of the car he was in.” Carson could only hope they hadn’t dumped the car. “Also, check Allie’s phone. I don’t see it here.”
“If it’s off, I can’t track it.”
“I know, but just to be safe.” It was unlikely it was still on. Yurgio hadn’t avoided the authorities this long by being sloppy like that.
“Alright, I’ll call you back shortly,” she said then hung up.
They all waited impatiently for Charlotte to call back. It felt like an eternity, when in reality, it was only ten minutes. They used that time to help straighten up Allie’s house. She would hate to come home to the mess. And yes, she was coming home.
Carson didn’t care about capturing Yurgio. He just wanted to rescue Allie from him. He didn’t allow himself to think about what Yurgio was doing to her.
“Hey,” Carson answered his phone when it barely rang.
“I tracked the car to a Juan Gomez.”
It wasn’t a familiar name to him. “How is he connected to Yurgio?”
“He’s not. Not as far as I can tell. He’s a cardiovascular doctor there in Vegas.”
“Wait? A resident here?”
“Yeah. The past ten years. Clean record.”
With no connection to Yurgio.
“What is she saying?” Sandy asked, coming up to him and looking frantic again.
“The car is registered to a doctor here in Vegas, but has no connection with Yurgio.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Rob said, looking confused.
“Maybe he stole the guy’s car,” Sandy suggested.
Carson tried to connect the dots. Yurgio didn’t do anything random. There was a connection. “Where does he live?” Carson asked Charlotte.
“A remote house in the spring mountains about an hour outside the city.”
“Yurgio killed him and took his car to get Allie. He’s taken her to the house,” he said out loud for everyone to hear.
“I’ll get aerial footage to help you,” Charlotte offered.
“Thanks, Char, as always for everything.”
“Good luck, Carson.”
“Thanks.”
He hung up, and they started making a plan as intel started coming over his phone. “We need to move fast. As soon as Juan’s body is discovered missing, people will go to the house looking for him. Yurgio will have already moved on to another location, and then we’ll be fucked.”
“Sandy, I’m going to insist you stay behind for this,” Carson told her.
Sandy stood taller and jutted out her chin. “I’m not leaving my friend at the hands of this animal.”
“We’re trained to handle situations like this. You are not. You’d be more of a hindrance than a help at that point. No one could focus on their job and keep you safe at the same time.”
Sandy looked even more determined than deterred.
“Listen, buddy. You’re going to need me.
Allie is going to need a friend after you get her out of there, and I’m sure you are the last person she wants to see.
I know what you’re doing is dangerous, and I’ll stay out of the way, but don’t ask me to stay behind. ”
Carson battled with himself. His instincts told him to leave her behind. “I know where you’re going. I’ll just follow you if you don’t let me come. So, you might as well agree.”
Carson’s lips pinned in frustration. “Fine, but you do everything you’re told, or I will have you handcuffed and stuffed in the trunk of someone’s car.”
Sandy made a cross over her heart.
“Alright, let’s go,” Luke directed, and they all left.