Page 19 of Room Twenty-Four: Under Their Hands

“What the hell is going on, Alexia?”

“Seth?” She sniffles and I see her telling the cop she has to take this call. She walks away and covers her mouth so that no one can see what she’s saying.

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Just tell me what happened.” Bruno picks up his laptop and starts hacking into the security cameras for the building.

“I don’t know. All I know is that Vi went out to get a smoothie at this place that she likes to go to and she never came back. It’s only a couple of blocks from here and she’s been gone for at least four hours.”

“Shit! Why the hell didn’t you call us earlier! We would find her a helluva lot faster than the cops.”

“I didn’t know your number and I didn’t know if there was really something wrong.”

“Never mind. Bruno’s hacking into the cameras around here. We’ll be able to see everything here shortly. Just give me the name of the place and when exactly she left.”

“Juice Heaven. It’s only a few blocks. She left at nine this morning. We had an early morning.”

“Fine.” I open the barrier again. “Cannon. Find this Juice Heaven place and I want you to crawl up and down the streets around there. I want to know if you see a damn thing out of place.”

“Do you see anything, Bruno?” I pick up the phone and dial Marco. “Hey! Something’s gone wrong. Vi left to get a smoothie early this morning and hasn’t been seen since. Bruno is searching the surrounding cameras. I’m gonna start talking to people in the immediate vicinity.”

“I’m gonna call the Agreganos. They may have heard something on their side of town.”

“Good idea. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Bruno gets the cameras up and we start going through them, focused on finding a single blond head in a sea of heads.

But we see her right away. At about quarter after nine, I see her walking up the street. Then I see something that makes me sit up and take notice. A car that I swear I recognize.

“Run that back.” I pull up the video I was searching on my phone earlier. I play it next to his video and we run it slow. In slow motion we watch it pull up alongside her and a man rush out and grab her. She’s kicking and screaming and then she goes limp.

“Fucker drugged her somehow. Probably chloroform. He’s holding something over her nose and mouth.”

“Enhance it. I want to get as close as possible without losing the focus.”

He hits a couple of buttons. I’m looking straight into a face I know so well that I could sketch him with my eyes closed.

“Fuck!” I groan loud and long. I pick up the phone and call Marco back.

“It’s Daniels. He’s the leak and he’s the one that’s got Vi.”

“Why the hell did he grab her?”

“I don’t know but I was watching video earlier and he was meeting someone that I swear I recognized the car in the video. It’s not Daniels.”

“I want to know who the fuck is in that damn video. I’m gonna find that fucker and I’m gonna kill them with my bare fucking hands.”

“You’ll have help,” I snarl viciously. I knew we couldn’t trust that bastard and now I’m wishing I had just gone with my first inclination.

I tap the glass and Cannon rolls it down. “Go back to her office. Park out back. In the lot.”

I dial the number that I called before. “Alexia. Meet us out in the back lot.”

“I’m with the cops,” she whispers.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah. I’m not doing that kind of meeting. The cops and I don’t get along. Find some way to slip around back in the parking lot. I need you to check something out.”

“Got it.” She hangs up and I direct Cannon to the back.

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