“What have you got for us, Fox?” Jag asked.
“Cynthia’s not here. She didn’t answer her door, and when I used the key, the place was empty except for her earrings.” His voice hitched on the last word. Jag had never heard his team leader sound that way.
“What do you mean empty?”
“Empty as in fucking empty. Everything’s gone. All her clothes. Furniture. Every fucking thing.”
“But she left her earrings there?” The question was probably a silly one to ask as Fox wasn’t a liar, but what he was saying didn’t make sense to Jag.
“Yes. In the middle of the floor.”
“Which was why we thought she was there,” murmured Irish.
Silence fell around the room. He could hear Fox pacing around Cynthia’s apartment. He couldn’t imagine what was going through his friend’s mind. To find nothing in his girlfriend’s apartment had to be messing with him.
“Come back here, Fox. We need to plan,” Ox instructed.
“Fine.”
The call disconnected, and no one said anything for a few seconds, all in shock with what Fox had relayed—even Cass had stopped typing.
“You don’t suppose?” Deal started, and then stopped.
“What?” Jag wanted his friend to continue with his thought.
“It’s probably ridiculous, but what if they’re together? They were supposed to meet up today. Good opportunity to take both,” Deal said.
“They were, and I suppose it’s possible. Perhaps whoever was after Steff was connected to what happened to them before, and decided why not take Cynthia again, especially seeing as they’d reconnected recently.” Jag hated to think it was possible, but they had to look at all angles. “Isaac, is this feasible?”
The older man sat back and twisted the phone in his hand. “Some traffickers get angry when their cargo is taken, but I’ve not really heard of any going after previous targets if they’d been rescued. Too risky.”
“But it is possible,” Jag pressed.
“It is.” He leaned forward, the strain of the situation furrowing his brow. If Deal was right, whoever took the girls was connected to Viktor Koznovic, the man who’d beaten Isaac so badly, he’d almost died. It was a threat that still hung over him, even though there was nothing to suggest Viktor wanted to go after him again.
A heavy silence fell over the room. Everyone lost in their own thoughts about the current situation.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Ox had gone over to where his wife, Eveline, sat and took the seat next to her. “We don’t know if Cynthia is with Steff, although her empty apartment is unexpected. We need to break things down and see if anything interconnects. Hopefully when Fox gets back, we’ll have a few more answers.”
Jag doubted that, because his friend had no idea what he was about to walk into when he opened the door.
They started to work through things. Teresa managed to catch a glimpse of Steff coming out of the alley, but a group of people came out of a store, blocking their view of the person with her. When they switched to another view, the group were still obstructing them. It was almost as if the person who’d taken Steff was using the crowd to keep them hidden.
Fox walked in, and no one said a word. He threw the earrings down on the table before taking a seat next to Jag. “The landlord said that Cynthia didn’t notify him she was leaving. A truck turned up yesterday. She spent the fucking night at my place last night, and didn’t say a fucking word.” He slammed his fist down on the table.
Had Deal’s suspicion been right? Had Cynthia been taken with Steff? Cynthia’s empty apartment was a puzzle piece Jag couldn’t make fit.
“Wait. This isn’t right,” Cass muttered, her fingers flying over the keyboard. A second later the image on the wall mounted television changed to show a map with a glow of red dots. A clump were situated in the area of their building, and the other was blinking near Acton.
“Who’s out there?” asked Ox, getting up to look at the map, which Cass enlarged for them all.
“It can’t be one of us, because we’re all here and we know that Steff’s earrings were smashed. She only had one set,” Jag said.
“Each tracker has a code, allocated individually to each person I give them to. Even though Steff only took one lot, there are still two which are hers. This one isn’t hers, but it is…” She glanced over at Fox. “Cynthia’s.”
“What the fuck? She always wears those earrings.” He pointed to the box on the table. “The other set she…”
“She what?” asked Cass.
