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She let out a breath and nodded. Slowly stepping forward she desperately prayed for help.
22
Myles paced the boutique.
Tate sat behind the counter on a stool, his laptop open before him. "Tell me again what happened."
"I took a stack of boxes that were to go to the post office out the back door and to my truck. I opened the door and bam, something hit me on the back of my head. I remember the pain, then nothing until you showed up and found me."
Tate typed and Myles' stomach lurched. "Tate, we have to find her."
"I know Myles. I've just gotten the cameras from the businesses in the alley. I'm pulling the first one up now from Computer Networking behind us here."
Myles hurried over to stand over Tate's shoulder as the video started. "I'm starting the video at one-fifteen."
Myles stomach quelled. The hit on the head he sustained made quick movements especially difficult on his stomach. Dizziness forced him to hold on to the counter.
Without a word, Tate stood and pointed to the stool. Myles sat, swallowing and taking shallow breaths to fight off the uneasy feeling.
The video was a lot of nothing happening until a car finally turned onto Oak Street, which was actually the alley between the boutique and Computer Networking. The black car, an Impala, likely five or six years old, slowed behind the boutique. The driver's face could be seen in the window. "Can you get facial recognition on him?"
Tate leaned forward, backed up the recording then copied the frame with his face in it. "Let's see if Rafe can hurry this along."
Tate emailed it to Rafe then started the recording again. The car left the camera lens. No activity showed for ten more minutes. Another car, a silver Kia, turned on Oak Street and moved past the boutique without a glance.
The back door to the boutique opened and Myles was shown carrying the stack of boxes to his truck. He balanced the boxes on a knee as he opened the back door and as he lifted the boxes onto the seat a man walked around his truck and came up behind him from the driver's side, his blind side with the door open, and hit him on the head with a pipe. The pain shot through his body once again as he watched it happen. The man then turned and entered the boutique.
A few minutes later, the man appeared again, dragging Shianne from the building. He had a hand over her mouth and his other arm wrapped around her just under her breasts. Shianne bucked and scratched and kicked at the man, but he was stronger than she was. Another person appeared on the screen and jabbed a needle in Shianne's neck, then headed into the boutique.
Nausea threatened to burst from Myles' body, and he ran to the bathroom in the storage room. He leaned over the toilet and closed his eyes. Heat crawled up his body and he began to sweat. He tried breathing through his nose and out of his mouth. Several moments passed and he'd managed to get this wave of nausea under control. He splashed water on his face from the sink next to the toilet. Dried off with a paper towel and left the bathroom.
On his way out of the storage room, he skirted boxes strewn about. Whoever these people were, they opened every box and container looking for something. Drugs he supposed. Kicking at a box on the floor, he saw a yellow lanyard lying on the floor under some bubble wrap likely pulled from the box on the counter.
He picked it up and carried it out to Tate. "I found this lying on the floor in the back. Can you go back to that asshole walking up to me and see if he was carrying this?"
Tate rolled the video back and they watched eagerly as he approached Myles, hit him, then turned and went in to get Shianne. Nothing.
They examined the lanyard for anything that could help. The hook at the end of the lanyard had bent open and whatever had been hanging on the end of it had fallen off.
Myles huffed out a breath. "What about the other person?"
"Already there." Tate started the video again at the point the other person entered the camera view.
A baseball cap on the person's head hid his or her face. A puffy olive-green vest covered the person's body. Blue jeans and tennis shoes offered no other identifying feature. As the person stuck the needle in Shianne's neck, he or she twisted and there was a yellow string hanging from a back pocket.
"There it is," Myles said.
Tate stopped the video and enlarged the screen. "Yes. That's it."
"Can Rafe do anything to see this person's face?"
"No. But he is trying to obtain the security videos from Paxton's next door and the tattoo parlor down the alley."
"Okay." Myles moved back into the storeroom and started stacking boxes and piling clothing and signs and all sorts of things Shianne had stored into the boxes to see if he could find something that might have been on the end of the lanyard. It also kept him busy, and he felt like he was doing something to help find Shianne. His mind raced to what she must be going through, and his stomach roiled again.
"Myles?" Tate called to him.
"Yeah."
