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“I’m not jumping to conclusions,” she insisted. “When I left Fleet tonight, he was all set for getting his plates removed tomorrow and getting home. He might have been a little…down, earlier, but we talked things out, and he was more than ready to move things along. If he’d had any second thoughts, he would have called me.”
“His state of mind might not have been that reasonable, Talia. The hospital gave him drugs, as you said, remember? He could have been having some kind of pharmaceutically induced episode. And he’s certainly technically savvy enough to have disabled an alarm.”
Before she could rebut, Welker spoke up again.
“Have maintenance turn off the stairwell lights, Nolan.” Their forensics expert used his own mic to make the request of their techie, obviously understanding that Mason was attempting to talk Talia off her metaphorical ledge.
Talia growled, and Mason responded.
“Hey. Don’t lose it on me now. Use your brain. Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is the most likely. And the simplest thing is that he went a little loopy and took off.”
Right.And he had the knowledge and the wherewithal to disable a magnetic alarm while in an altered state.Bullshit.
Talia bit her tongue as the area went dark and Welker began pointing out blood droplets again. She ceased grumbling, not one to normally argue with her chief, but in this instance she knew she was correct and made one more stab at it.
“Somebody took him,” she stated through stiff lips.
Mason sighed but placated. “If that’s the case, we’ll find out. What’s most important right now is not following conjecture, but examining the evidence. Once we have intel, we’ll know how to proceed. In the meantime, the squads are all doing their jobs. Are we agreed?”
Talia felt like she was chewing metal shavings, but of course what Mason said made sense. She turned to him and nodded, but she sure didn’t like it.
“Agreed.”
CHAPTERTEN
Why is it so freaking cold?
Fleet struggled to find the blankets that must have fallen off, but couldn’t quite get his hands to work. Or his eyes to open. Stupid meds. They were not only making him an ice-pop, they were impeding his motor functions. His brain, however, seemed to be functioning because…
What the hell? He wasn’t smelling antiseptics. His nose was full of…outdoor odors? Dirt? And what was lying across his face? It wasn’t the softness of a sheet, it was something…scratchy. He could tell by the way it moved when he exhaled.
Fleet started to panic, but forced himself to calm down.
Breathe in. Breathe out.Do notaspirate whatever the hell was covering his nose and mouth.
Eventually, having successfully controlled his respiration, he swallowed.
Okay. What next? His first order of operation should be to get all his body-parts cooperating, but…Fuck. He was so goddamned tired.
Maybe just another short nap…
* * *
It had beenan hour since the hospital discovered Fleet missing, and now bits and pieces of information were starting to flood in. Talia had glued herself to Mason’s side, despite the fact she wanted to be searching in every closet inside, and under every bush outside. She knew the boss would be apprised of each bit of intel first, so she needed to be one-hundred percent in his orbit to get all the details—both good and bad.
Currently, they were in the command bus that Mason’s brother Spencer had driven to the hospital, having parked it dead-center in front of the main doors while all the teams scoured the vicinity for any kind of evidence.
Welker had lost the trail of Fleet’s blood no more than fifteen paces outside the back door, and no matter how much he went back and forth over the pavement, he couldn’t pick it up again. They were hoping that when Harvé arrived, Muddy would have better luck. But speaking of luck, it certainly wasn’t on their side.
Only ten minutes ago, Harvé had called, expressing his frustration that he and his dog were at some lake house to the north. He’d only just received Mason’s call, and was packing up to be on his way. He wouldn’t be on site for at least fifty minutes, though, and that was if he ignored all speed limits…which he assured Mason he was going to do.
Welker had since hustled all his samples off to a lab run by a friend, who, despite the early morning hour would expedite running the necessary tests.
Now Mason was on the phone with Quint.
“What the fuck?” Mason’s growl did nothing to calm Talia down. Just the opposite. She knew whatever he was hearing was bad news.
“Okay. Thanks for getting back to me so fast. We’ll have to approach things from a different angle now.”
