"Can't let you through, ma'am," the man who looked about eighteen told her.
Ma'am? Ma'am was the wrong thing to say but Cade sucked up her anger and pride, and calmly told the officer her name. It didn't ring a bell. She was met with indifference. The folks from Mac didn't pay any attention to the woman standing in a sweat-soaked tee and jeans. So Cade knew she needed someone to recognize her before she blew a fuse.
"Zee? Jax? Bruno?" she called out.
One of her coworkers looked up from his phone and walked to the officer. "Let her in. She's the one they've been waiting for."
Damn right, she was! She wanted to yell at the cop but she knew the man was only doing his job. Cade pushed past the two men and headed straight to Jax's suite. There she found a lot more action, bordering on chaos.
"Jax! Jax?"
"Cade!" Jax appeared from the bedroom, rushed to her and raised his arms to hug her but stopped.
Cade glanced around. There were too many people around them. Too much curiosity. She ached to hold him, comfort him somehow, brush off the worry from his eyes, and kiss it off his lips. She decided it was best to get down to business. "Anything?"
Jax guided her towards the couch and sat her in front of three laptops on the coffee table. He pointed at the one on the left. "This was earlier in the morning," he began, "Hotel CCTV found her exiting the premises at eleven a.m. The guys and I were at rehearsal. Tina was here. Har was staying with Penny across the hall."
Cade looked up and found Penny standing in front of them, sullen, defeated. No words were spoken between them but by Penny's rolled shoulders and furrowed brows, Cade knew that Penny was embarrassed and ashamed that she had let an eight-year-old out of her sight. Penny was also sorry. More sorry than she could tell Cade-at least not in front of all these men. The apology passed between them in a silent understanding.
Jax continued to the middle monitor. "Again, hotel CCTV caught Harley catching a cab."
"She's on the phone with someone." Cade pointed out.
"Yes."
"Can't you access that? Track her?" Cade asked.
Jax sighed before answering, "It wasn't the phone I got her." Zee stepped forward and handed Jax a cellphone. "This was the phone I asked her to carry around. I don't know where she got that phone."
If she could pull her hair out, Cade would have but she didn't want to show how frustrated she was. They had underestimated the little girl. Harley had been right. Everyone thought she was incapable. Well, they would think otherwise now.
"Did you get a hold of the taxi company?"
"We did," Zee answered this time. "The driver told us that he had dropped off Harley at the airport."
"The airport? Where the hell would she go?"
"She had bought tickets to Vancouver with my credit card, but when we checked all the flights out, she wasn't in any of them." Cade couldn't tell if Jax was frustrated, annoyed, or proud of his daughter.
"A diversion?"
"I think so," Jax answered, "This last feed was from the airport. It shows Harley getting off the taxi, then going straight to the bathroom. But she didn't come back out."
Cade played the video, fast forwarded it, rewound it and played it again. She was eerily aware of all eyes on her. The entire suite had gone quiet. They awaited her input. If they had taken the time to get to know Harley, they wouldn't have been in this predicament. The fourth time she played the video, she paused and waved at the screen. "There!"
Zee, Penny, and Jax all huddled over the monitor and peered at the figure Cade had pointed at.
"Well, I'll be damned," Zee muttered.
"Is that her?" Penny asked.
Yes, it would have been easy to miss Harley disguised as someone older, taller, and blonde, but Cade had watched her enough to know her little nuances. Cade could tell from miles away how Harley walked, her left leg dragging slightly before clearing the floor. It eluded the others because they didn't know that Harley had twisted her ankle the day they arrived in LA, when she and Cade had a bout of the giggles, and Harley jumped off the bed and mis-stepped. It was a minor sprain but clearly, it still bothered Harley.
Also, Harley tended to pull on the hem of her shirt when she was nervous. In the video, she had done it a few times in the span of two minutes. Whatever she had planned to do made her nervous. But where was she going? Cade continued watching the feed, keeping an eye on the girl, disguised in a pink halter, matching leggings, denim fringed jacket, and platform white shoes. The outfit was clunky and not very Harley. Harley made it through security, showed her ID-most likely fake-and proceeded into the bowels of LAX.