“No,” Gabe corrected, “very practical. Van Amee’s limo driver, Armando Castillo, reported him missing when he didn’t show for his scheduled pick-up. Building security had no clue anything was wrong until Armando raised the alarm.” He scanned the building, looking for faults in its security. At first glance, he didn’t find many. A guard here, a camera there, angled just right. Not necessarily unassailable for a trained operative, but a newly formed, ragtag terrorist faction would have a rough time of it.
“Leads me to believe the EPC has someone on the inside,” he continued. “How else would they know who to hit and when? They had to have surveillance on him.”
“I’ll call Harvard, see if he can hack into their network.” Jean-Luc flipped open his phone, spoke for a moment, gave the camera’s brand name and apartment’s address, and nodded. “Harvard says it’s a go. He’ll have the footage for us in an hour.” He closed the phone and slid it into the front pocket of his button-up shirt, which he wore open over a Pink Floyd T-shirt. “So, mon capitaine, we have time to kill. You want us to sneak a peek inside?”
“Not yet. I’m going to recon the block first. You stay here and keep eyes on.” Gabe climbed out of the 4Runner and grabbed one of the radios Harvard had given him before they left the safe house. “Anything suspicious, radio me. Don’t go in by yourself.”
“Aye-aye. But, uh…” Jean-Luc reached into the backseat. “Shouldn’t you take your cane?”
“Goddammit.” He snatched it from Jean-Luc’s hand. The only reason he had the fucking thing was Jesse Warrick, after getting a load of his medical history and doing a physical, insisted he use it more. Since he told his men to defer to the medic, he couldn’t very well go against his own order.
“Goddammit,” he said again and Jean-Luc laughed as the car door shut.
…
Nothing.
Not that Audrey had expected a glaring neon sign with an arrow that said, Find Bryson Here, but, well, at least one clue would be nice. The apartment was disgustingly tidy, so like Bryson. No ruffled pillows, no dust on the rosy hardwood floors, no leftover dishes in the sink or crumbs on the marble counters. The coffee pot appeared unused and the fridge sat mostly empty. Also not a surprise. Brys couldn’t cook worth a damn, somehow managing to burn everything he toasted, nuked, or fried up in a skillet. Like the time he’d tried to make Mama’s famous casserole shortly after their parents died to cheer her up and ended up with half of Savannah’s fire department on the front lawn.
Audrey smiled a little and ran a finger along one of the unused frying pans hanging above the kitchen’s center island. Yes, they had their issues, but she couldn’t have asked for a better big brother.
Now he was gone.
Her smile faded, but she wouldn’t let the surge of stomach-churning fear get to her again or else she’d spend the next several hours hung over a toilet like she had when she realized she’d witnessed his kidnapping.
God, that short call might be the last time she ever talked to him.
No. No, she refused to think that. Bryson deserved better than that from her. He’d go to the ends of the earth to find her if she was in trouble. She couldn’t do any less than the same.
But where to start?
Audrey drifted over to the window that took up one whole wall of the living room and stepped out onto the balcony. So many buildings, people, and parks in this quiet neighborhood alone. She had no idea where or even how to start looking. Chloe, the Wicked Sister-in-Law of the West Coast, had been next-to-no help.
“Don’t get involved,” Chloe had said. They simply had to do what the kidnappers wanted. Pay a ransom, get Bryson back. No police involvement. “Everything will be all right,” she had said. “Trust me.”
Uh-huh. Audrey would trust her the day Chloe admitted her boobs, butt, and the age on her ID were all fake. The only thing that woman had ever done right in her miserable life was give Bryson two sweet, adorable sons.
Audrey had ignored Chloe and called the FBI, who hadn’t seemed all that interested, but said they would “look into it.” Wasn’t the FBI supposed to be all about finding kidnappers? At least, they were on Without a Trace. So she tried every other alphabet soup bureaucracy she could think of, and even Bryson’s insurance company, in hopes someone could do something. But everyone said it was someone else’s jurisdiction, except the insurance company, which was more worried about their bottom line than her brother’s wellbeing. As soon as she hung up with them, she called her manager, canceled her show, and started packing her bags. If nobody was willing to help, she’d just find Brys herself.