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“Kidnapping,” I cut her off. “Someone is kidnapping these women.”
Abandoning her bracelet, Gwen fiddled with the silver rings on her left hand. I wasn’t used to seeing her so fidgety.
“So,” Mya picked up when Gwen went quiet, “if we have any hope of figuring out what happened to these women, and stopping anyone else from disappearing, we need to join their seventh competition. We put eight of our names, well, aliases we cooked up, on the waiting list.” She peered at Carter. “But we only managed to get six to drop out.”
“First of all, didn’t that look suspicious to whoever is running this thing?” Gray asked, stepping away from the jet, eyes on Mya. “And secondly, how’d you convince six to drop out?”
Gray echoed my exact thoughts—we were usually on the same page—but when I cut my attention to my other team leader at Gray’s side, I put two and two together. “Ah, Batman’s money,” I joked. “You figured if these people signed up to win the contest for the money, you could offer them an easier payout to drop out instead.”
“Yeah, but we had to do it in a way that wouldn’t draw attention.” Mya let go of a heavy breath. “We put together a fake competition, acting like they were poaching the guest list from them, offering them a better deal. Stuff like that happens all the time in the online entertainment world.”
Gray shifted to face Carter. “So, you were part of this and didn’t tell us?”
“We went to Carter yesterday when Mason’s company had to spin up unexpectedly on another mission. We asked Carter if he could help instead,” Mya said. “And Mason chose to hang back and work with us on this. He knows Brazil well. Especially the area we’re going to because it has a history of, um, trafficking in that region.”
Yeah, I could narrow down the list of locations quickly based on that factoid.
“And you’re really expecting us to go undercover and participate in this thing, and what, make it to the end to see if someone comes after one of us?” I asked, uncomfortable with the plan.
“This has all been kind of on the fly, so I think we have to make it up as we go,” Gwen said with a small, nervous smile.
Like sending me to a speed dating event just to pull me away. I stared at her blankly, waiting for her to continue. This was going to be a shit show.
“I’ll understand if you don’t want to do this, because there are more questions than answers . . .”
“Yeah, but that’s always how it is with us.” Not wanting Gwen to feel bad or guilty for the fact I hated this op, I teased, “Our missions are real page-turners. It’s what we do.”
“Thanks, Jack.” Gwen’s uneasy smile became a genuine one, which made me feel a little better.
“As soon as Mason gets here, we should roll out. The meet and greet cocktail hour is tomorrow night. We’ll make it just in time,” Mya announced. “We’ll have to act like we don’t know each other, though. I used our first names with fake last names.”
“And our aliases had to be unique based on the other contestants and who they previously chose for past events,” Gwen tacked on.
Wyatt offered a nice little reality check and pointed out the important elephant in the hangar by saying, “You all realize a show means you guys will be on camera.” He turned to face Carter, the man who’d gone rogue from the CIA and was wanted by people all over the world. “How’s that going to work, for you especially?”
“The show is filmed weeks before it’s broadcast online. Nothing is live streamed,” Gwen countered. “That’s kind of suspect since almost all these things these days are live, which makes me wonder what they’re editing out. What don’t they want the public to see?”
“The women that have gone missing, does it happen before or after the show airs? That’s an important detail,” I pointed out. “Otherwise, it could be any wacko with Wi-Fi watching the event online going after these women.”
“They’ve all gone missing before their show aired, which is why I think someone connected to the show is behind the disappearances. Plus, in each case, there’s been an excuse as to why the women mysteriously went missing,” Gwen explained.
“Meaning someone is making it look as though they chose to go ‘off the grid,’ but your friend Harley isn’t buying it?” I asked.
“Exactly. The show has only been around for two years. Four events last year, and this is their third one this year. So, having women go missing in such a tight timeframe, all with ties to the event, should draw attention either way,” Mya shared. “But these women aren’t all disappearing from Delaware, you know? They’re from all over the world. No way to connect the dots unless you know what you’re looking for.”
“Well, lucky for your friend Harley, you think outside the box,” Wyatt said to Gwen, his expression softening into one more of pride than frustration. “Let me guess though, these missing women, they don’t have strong family ties, do they? No one reputable to come looking for them when they vanished?” And he was back to passively aggressively poking at her for her choice in friends.
Man, you’re such a dad.
“Yeah, I guess you could say that,” Gwen said without letting that dig from him rock her resolve.
“And all six seasons, a woman went missing? Just one?” I asked, and Mya nodded. “Same exact pattern?” Based on my knowledge on the matter from reading fiction only, serial-type assholes usually had weird quirks, kinks, and shit like that. “Was the first time different?”
“The women were all taken ten days after the end of the game, except for season one—she’s our anomaly,” Mya answered. “She vanished after the show publicly aired.”
“So, the first time was probably unplanned. After that, they decided to do it again but made adjustments not to draw attention back to the show.” I was disgusted that someone could do something like this once, never mind have the forethought to cover their tracks so they could continue to do it again and again. “And uh, do these women have anything else in common?”
“The women are all smart from what I can tell, boasting different skills on their applications. But everyone who’s part of the show is required to have unique skills.” Gwen paused and glanced at Mya. “Every woman on the show is in their twenties or thirties, so we can’t really use that to narrow it down, but all the missing women are blonde.”
