Chapter 32

Chapter Thirty-Two

N oah strode down the corridor and opened the door to the small office the ADA planned to use as a virtual witness stand. Violet stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring out through the main entrance to the street beyond. She didn’t glance up, even though she must have heard him. When she was in on-duty mode, nothing distracted her.

Without bothering to knock, he pushed the office door open and strode inside. “Annabelle?—”

The room was empty, apart from a bunch of tech equipment scattered on top of the desk and credenza.

She must have gone back to the loft. Noah jogged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and let himself into the apartment.

“Annabelle,” he called as he entered the vast space.

There was no reply.

Harry and Logan followed him in. “Rochelle sent us to secure the windows,” Harris said.

Logan nodded. “We’re locking everything down for the duration.”

“Should have got in snacks first,” Harris complained.

“Annabelle?” Noah called as he hurried to the panic room.

There was no one inside. His heart racing, he walked straight through to check the guest rooms and bathroom. She wasn’t there either. He rushed back into the loft.

“Have either of you seen Annabelle?”

“Wasn’t she in the office downstairs?” Harris locked one of the window’s shutters.

“No.” An icy chill crept up Noah’s spine.

Without another word, he ran back downstairs and into the open-plan office space. No Annabelle. His stomach performed somersaults as his mind raced over possibilities. He didn’t like any of them.

“Has anybody seen Annabelle?” he asked Katrina, Evan, and Rochelle.

“She hasn’t been in here.” Rochelle frowned. “Did you check upstairs?”

“She isn’t there, and Harris and Logan haven’t seen her either.” Sharp talons of panic pierced his mind. “I don’t know where she is.”

“I’ll check the bathrooms.” Katrina hurried from the room.

Evan turned to his beloved computer. “I’ll go over the camera feeds for the last few minutes and see if we can find her that way.”

“I’ll get the rest of the team, and we’ll comb the building.” Rochelle strode out the door.

A second later, she shouted Annabelle’s name in the stairwell.

There was no reply.

Noah tuned out the rushing footsteps and raised voices in the corridor and crossed the room to look over Evan’s shoulder. There were no cameras inside the small office the ADA had been using, but there was one in the hallway right outside it, pointing down the stairs.

“That’s her going in and you shutting the door behind her,” Evan narrated unnecessarily. “Then we’ve got a whole lot of Violet standing guard. There’s the ADA coming in here for a couple of mugs of coffee, leaving Annabelle in the room with the tech. Nice guy. Knows his stuff.” He was rambling, worried.

“Did we run a background on the tech guy?”

“Aye. He’s clean. No connections to Hanson or his gang.” Evan pointed at the screen. “That’s the detectives arriving and the ADA stepping into the hallway to take a phone call before briefly going back into the room and then coming in here. There’s the tech guy moving the secure equipment back out of the room and Violet telling him he can carry it downstairs on his own. The detective helping because you can’t thump thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment down a flight of stairs.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “The ADA goes back into the small office, gets her stuff, then stops in here again before going downstairs and straight into her car, which is parked right out front. Then the other detective leaves.” He cast Noah a fearful glance. “No sign of Annabelle. I’ll check a different angle.”

He tapped the keyboard to zoom in on the footage from the camera covering the front door and the street beyond it. They watched, in silence this time, as Johnson helped the technician load his large black wheeled case into his van before going back to shout through the door for his partner. Ms. Grant dashed past Johnson and into her own car. The tech and the ADA drove away at the same time, heading in different directions before the detectives got into their vehicle.

No Annabelle.

Rochelle stalked back into the office. One glance at her expression, and Noah knew what she was going to say.

She said it anyway. “She isn’t in the building, Noah.”

It was as though all the air had been sucked from the room. The walls tilted, and the floor rolled beneath his feet. He staggered backward until a chair hit the back of his knees, and he sat with a thud. For a second, it was impossible to breathe. He bent over, closed his eyes and focused on getting control of himself. Annabelle needed him. He’d panic later.

A moment later, he looked up at his boss. “How?”

Her expression flitted between worry and fury. “I don’t know. Evan, you got anything?”

“There’s nothing on the cameras. She didn’t leave the building.” He was scared. It was in his voice. “She has to be here somewhere. Has anyone checked the roof? She went up there that night. She might have gone again.”

“The roof’s clear.” Abasi strode in to join them. “I just came from there.”

“What about the cameras covering other exits and the area around the warehouse?” Rochelle asked. “Have you been through those yet?”

Evan flushed. “No, just the front door and the corridor. I’ll check the rest now.” He hesitated. “But she wouldn’t go outside, would she?”

“Not willingly.” Noah got to his feet while fighting to keep his heart rate under control. “The mole,” he muttered, trying to think when his head was filled with screaming. “Somebody in the building this morning has to be the mole. Maybe they sneaked someone in?—”

“Not possible.” Violet folded her arms. “I was on guard duty.”

“There are other entrances, Violet,” Rochelle pointed out.

“Annabelle didn’t leave that room.” Violet was adamant. “I would have noticed.”

“She’s right!” Noah was already running, very much afraid that he knew exactly what had happened.

Everyone followed close behind him, filling the corridor as he threw open the door to the small office near the stairwell.

He pointed at the equipment spread over the desk and credenza. “Evan, is this the high-tech security stuff you were supposed to hack?”

Evan looked bewildered. “Some of it.”

Noah locked his knees to keep from falling. “The cases. There was a big black plastic case on wheels. They brought in the equipment using it, and Johnson helped carry it back down the stairs. But if the equipment’s still here, why did the tech need help to carry the case?” He focused on Evan. “Was that case big enough to stash Annabelle?”

He paled. “I think so. She’s kinda small.”

Noah clenched his hands into fists, desperately wanting to punch a hole through the nearest wall. He faced his team. “The tech was in on it. Maybe Johnson too. We need to get that case before he takes her to Hanson.”

Nobody argued with him or told him he’d lost his mind. There just wasn’t another logical explanation.

“Evan,” Rochelle snapped. “Go over all the camera footage, see if you can get a license plate for the tech’s vehicle and a direction for us to head in.”

“I could, um, access the local traffic cameras if need be,” he offered. “But, em, I’m already on probation for hacking. I’m not supposed to…”

“Do it,” Rochelle ordered without hesitation. “If there’s fallout, I’ll deal with it. You won’t get into trouble for this. I promise. The rest of us will follow the tech van. We’ll pair up—Abasi and Harris, Logan and Rodrigo, Katrina and Violet. Noah comes with me. When you have a specific location, Evan, notify the team. In the meantime, what are we looking for?”

It was Noah who replied. “A small white van. It has discreet signage on the side, identifying it as the property of the DA’s office. That’s about it. The guy driving it’s in his twenties, medium everything, and wearing black.” He wouldn’t forget the sight of that van and its driver as long as he lived.

“I’ll send a number plate as soon as I get it,” Evan said. “Everybody, remember radios and earpieces. It makes it easier to talk to all of you at the same time.”

“We’ve got them here,” Harris said from the corridor. “Pick them up as you pass.”

Rodrigo and Abasi came to stand with Rochelle and Noah as the others equipped themselves with comms and weapons.

“Why take her?” Noah asked, a massive weight pressing against his chest. “Why not kill her here?”

“My guess,” Rochelle said, “is that leaving a dead body in the office would narrow the mole suspect list right down. Our traitor’s hoping to escape unscathed.”

Noah’s hands shook. Adrenaline. Fear. Take your pick. Harris came over and handed them their comms gear.

“We’ll get her.” He patted Noah on the shoulder. “We’ve got your back, Noah.”

Violet called from the doorway, “Boss, what do you want us to do if we see the vehicle? Or Hanson? Detain, disable, death?”

For a second, Rochelle appeared shocked that Violet had even asked. “No killing unless Annabelle’s life is on the line. Everything else is on the table. Let’s get our client back.”

With a somber murmur of agreement, they hurried downstairs. As Noah climbed into Rochelle’s large black SUV, his radio crackled.

“I have a direction,” Evan said. “The van’s heading northeast. I’ll access the traffic cams and be in touch when I know something more.”

They screeched away from the curb, Rochelle behind the wheel. The other team vehicles slid into place behind them.

“They must have sedated her,” Noah said, more to himself than his partner. “Wouldn’t have been able to get her out of the building if they hadn’t. She’d have screamed the place down.”

“Sedation would be the most efficient way of dealing with the situation, yes.” Rochelle sped through traffic like a Formula One driver taking curves.

Noah remembered, yet again, that she’d once been in medicine. “What are we talking here? An injection? A pill?”

“Could be as simple as something slipped into her coffee.”

He swallowed hard. “Is it possible they could have accidentally given her too much?”

She glanced his way before concentrating on the road again. “You mean an accidental overdose?”

“Yeah.” It was stupid and irrational, but part of him just wanted Rochelle to reassure him that Annabelle was indeed alive and well.

“Unlikely,” Rochelle said. “Think about all the people dosed with date rape drugs every year. One pill is all it takes. Same with most sedatives. A hefty sleeping pill could knock her out in a minute or two. All you’d have to do is grind one up and slip it into her food or drink.”

“Wouldn’t she taste it?”

“Not if it was in that crap coffee the boys make.”

Noah could barely see the road in front of them past the images in his head—Annabelle drugged and bound, or squashed into that small, dark space, or worse still, her coming round to find she was no longer in the warehouse. That her worst fear had come into being. That she’d been kidnapped—again—and taken away from the safety she so desperately needed.

“She’s still alive, Noah,” Rochelle said quietly. “If he’d wanted her dead straight away, we’d have found a body. No matter how eager the mole is to stay undiscovered, I can’t imagine they’d have said no to Eddie Hanson if he’d ordered them to kill.”

“Yeah, but how long will she stay alive once he gets his hands on her?” His stomach knotted until all he could taste was fear. “You heard Rodrigo and Abasi—they’re the gang experts. Eddie can’t afford for his case to go to trial. He needs to eliminate the witness.”

“There’s a lot going on for him,” Rochelle said as she gripped the wheel tightly. “He may not be thinking straight. We have no idea what his priorities are or what he’ll do next. Right now, Annabelle is alive, and we’re not that far behind her. That’s all that matters. Concentrate on that.”

He nodded, once. But the dark thoughts filling his head wouldn’t go away.

“I’ve only just found her,” he whispered. He couldn’t lose another woman he loved… he just couldn’t.

He wouldn’t.

Noah lifted his chin, staring out at the road. “We will get her back,” he vowed.

“Hell yes, we will,” Rochelle agreed.