Page 88 of Nothing to This
Until her baby came back, she wouldn’t make sense of anything.Their lives would never be the same, because as soon as she got Sky back, she’d never risk losing her again.
THIRTY-ONE
“How is she doing?”Brenna asked when he returned from the hallway to the vision of craziness.
In the kitchen and around the dining table, security agents and cops worked hard, some were on phones, some were on laptops.Everyone was busy, yet he wanted to yell at them for not doing enough.Reaching for his sister, he caught her shoulder and pulled her into a hug.Everyone needed to draw a little comfort from each other today.
“She fell asleep,” he said, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and swinging her a few inches left to right.“Kye’s asleep too, I looked in on him… I just wanted to scoop him up and take him to his momma, you know?”
“None of us want to be alone right now,” she said.“Mom’s taking it hard.”
Keeping Brenna in his arms, he twisted to look toward the living room where his mom was being comforted by Lotta.“It’s not her fault.”
“No more hers than it is mine,” Brenna said.“Jame, I’m so sorry.Rylee trusted me and—”
“Hey,” he said, taking her shoulders to guide her back and look down at her.“There’s plenty enough blame to go around for everyone.Can we just stand together right now?For Sky’s sake.”
He managed a tight smile, so she reciprocated, and he hugged her again, using his sister as a leaning post.
“How are you staying so strong?”Brenna asked as he observed the people working to find his daughter.
“Rylee,” he answered without thinking about it.
“Rylee?”
“Her focus is on Kye right now, she needs my eyes on Sky.She’s close to breaking and when she does, God help us all.”
“You think she’ll lose it?”
That was his greatest fear.Though it was obvious losing Sky had shaken her, Rylee was strong.That same strength would get their daughter through whatever she was enduring.
One guy on a laptop gestured another closer.After a quick conversation, they called over another person, saying something about footage.
Clinging tighter to his sister, he couldn’t hope.Information was coming in from all angles, and these first hours were crucial.Hope was dangerous, yet he had to think it was possible, they would get their girl back.Every lead had to be followed, but not all would necessarily pan out.
Everyone filming or taking pictures at the party was asked to send their files to a central email account.Technological genius Xavien Rourke, courtesy of Roxanna Kyst, had written a quick program to read the metadata of every file and arrange them into chronological order with a sub-path on geographical location.
Their allies had increased the reach of their request too.Rather than just those at the party, everyone in the city, the country, the planet, with any hint of images or video of the park or party, were donating their material to the same program.Anything might be relevant.To see something out of place or unusual, the same people had to see the same area from as many angles as possible.Compiling the data would take time and time was one thing they didn’t have on their side.
Those around the table with laptops analyzed every frame.While he wanted a set of human eyes on every nanosecond, he was also running every piece of media through facial recognition for Sky and having separate files set up for each party attendee.Those closest to the event could be suspects.It might seem like an invasion of privacy but tracking people at the party could be important.As soon as they had Sky back, he’d burn it all.He just wanted to be ready if they identified a culprit.
Letting Brenna go, he went around her to the table.“What have you got?”he asked, startling the men huddled around the machine.
“Maybe nothing.It’s something that we want to—”
“Don’t fuck with me, Stone, what is it?”
“Rourke’s building a 3D recreation with the media we’re getting.Putting it all together to show us from every angle—”
“What is it?”
He’d be wowed by the technology another time.After he got his daughter back.
The others stepped away from Stone as he pushed the shoulder of the man in the chair, making him vacate so the boss could sit in his place.
“Getting that back angle of the ride is impossible, the foliage is too thick and there’s a wall before the street, but…”
Going around the table, JD bent to look over Stone’s shoulder as he restarted the muted video of the carousel just barely peeking through branches and leaves, hidden in shadow.
