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Arden nodded somewhat warily. He didn’t seem content with Brook’s response. He retraced his steps to his desk, though she doubted that he would leave the office until he had alleviated his concern. He had become somewhat of a caretaker to the team since he had joined the firm. It had taken her some time to get used to such close monitoring of her daily routine. The others, not so much.
Brook struggled to concentrate on the statements taken at the time of Stella Bennett’s disappearance. There hadn’t been much to go on back then, and the police had always suspected Stella’s uncle as being the one behind the girl’s disappearance. After reading every paragraph, Brook glanced to the right of the screen.
Arden was still sitting at his desk.
She had seen him pick up the phone several times, presumably trying to reach Bit. Sighing in resignation, she picked up her own phone and attempted to reach him herself.
The fifth ring sent her call to voicemail.
A red notification had appeared at the bottom of the display to inform her that Sylvie’s message had finally been recorded, but Brook opted to try Bit once more. She could count on one hand the times that she’d heard his recorded message.
“Can’t answer. I’m still looking for my missing sock. Leave a message.”
Bit had changed his greeting from the last time she’d left a message, which was months ago. Knowing that any sign of apprehension from her would only amplify Arden’s concern, she casually slipped both feet back into her high heels.
Bit had the ability to monitor everyone’s cell phones on one of his numerous computers. She wasn’t the most tech-savvy when it came to his software applications, but she could have Theo walk her through the steps.
Brook pushed her chair back after accessing her phone’s speed dial list. She pressed Theo’s name. He and Bit had walked out of the office at the same time earlier this afternoon. Theo could have information that would explain why Bit wasn’t answering her call.
She wasn’t an optimistic person by nature, but she was holding out hope that the FBI hadn’t decided to act on old information. Bit’s tendency to blur legal lines had him on the wrong side of the law in previous years. She had managed to rectify the situation, but the past tended to rear its ugly head now and again.
By the time that Brook had made it to the hallway, her call had been sent to Theo’s voicemail. Now was the time to worry.
“Arden, keep trying to reach Bit,” Brook directed as she exited her office. Never, in all her time leading the team, had she not been able to reach one of her colleagues. Graham was currently on the West Coast, and his flight was due in tomorrow morning. “Theo and Sylvie aren’t answering my calls, either.”
While Brook had been talking to Arden, she’d attempted to reach out to Sylvie once more to no avail. Given that they were all between cases so that they could concentrate on proving Jacob was responsible for Stella Bennett’s disappearance in 1996, they had more than deserved a night to themselves.
Still, Brook couldn’t stop the sickening fear that lurched in her stomach as she quickly made her way to Bit’s office. He had set up a security measure for when he wasn’t on-site, just in case the biometric scanner failed its function.
Brook entered the correct code and waited for the activation light. Once it had switched from red to green, she shoved it open with more force than necessary. She was going to be angry with herself for allowing her past experiences to influence how she handled a potentially innocent scenario. On the other hand, she couldn’t help but mull over the latest developments in everyone’s personal lives.
Sylvie’s day-to-day routine had been turned upside down with her father entering hospice and choosing to live out the remaining days of his life in her one-bedroom apartment.
Theo was having dinner with someone the team had never met. All any of them knew about the woman was that she liked to jog the same route as Theo every morning.
Bit had been out with Zoey a handful of times, but it hadn’t escaped anyone’s notice on how she came across so perfect for someone as unique as Bit. He was extremely intelligent, a creature of habit, and yet oddly unique.
Brook rolled Bit’s chair out from underneath the long table that housed several monitors and laptops. She set her phone down on the hard surface and made sure Sylvie’s voicemail was on speakerphone while attempting to figure out which computer held the application needed to locate the phones of each team member.
The distinctive sound that came from Brook’s phone resembled that of when someone mistakenly pressed a button while busy doing something else…muffled. A loud noise soon followed, almost as if Sylvie had dropped her phone onto a hardwood floor. Brook replayed the message, hoping to pick something else up that she’d missed the first time around, but she had no such luck.
Brook’s frustration began to mount the longer it took her to locate the appropriate application. Right when she had discovered the icon, her phone rang loudly enough to echo around the room.
Relief flooded her system at the name on the display.
“Theo,” Brook greeted as she sat back in the chair. “Thanks for calling back. Arden has been having trouble reaching Bit, and then Zoey called to say that Bit didn’t show up for their six o’clock date. Sylvie and I have been playing phone tag, though I think she might have called me by mistake. Let’s just say that our imaginations were working overtime tonight.”
“Bit dropped his phone in the toilet right before we left the office,” Theo replied with a smile in his voice. “He was going to stop by the phone place before meeting up with Zoey. He’s probably running late.”
“That’s good to know,” Brook said, doing her best to keep a lid on her distress. She hadn’t had to use her counting method to cope with everyday issues in a very long time, but she resorted to using it now. Once she’d gotten her heart rate under control, she brought their phone conversation to an end. The last thing she needed was for him to hold this over her head. “I won’t keep you, Theo. Enjoy your night.”
“That’s the plan,” Theo replied, though the previous humor in his tone had vanished. The two of them had gotten very close over the years. Brook had stopped having true friends many years ago, but that had changed since she’d assembled this team. Having Jacob behind bars was probably the main driving force, but she tended to do her best not to psychoanalyze herself. “Brook, do I need to—”
“You don’t need to come back to the office,” Brook stated firmly as she monitored the blinking dots on the screen. The application had finally loaded, and everyone’s dot had appeared, sans Bit. Hopefully, he would soon have a new phone and be able to enjoy his rare evening out. Sylvie was at her apartment, and Theo was at a restaurant not far from the office building. “I let my imagination get the best of me, that’s all.”
A chime forced her gaze from the screen to her phone.
The number on the display indicated the caller was local.
