Josh picked up the remote to lower the volume on the stereo. “Who is it?”
“Leo,” Skye answered, lifting the device to her ear. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Sorry to call so late,” Leo began. “But we have a possible missing nineteen-year-old college student named Emelia Navarro.”
As Leo filled her in on the rest, she picked up a notepad and started scribbling down information.
Leo ticked off the bullet points. “I sent you an email with traffic footage from this afternoon taken at approximately four-thirty when the girl got off the bus in Bellevue, the Woodbridge area, to be exact. According to her roommate, who’s also her cousin, Emelia never made it to the apartment. Just view the clip and tell me what you want us to do.”
“I’ll call you back,” Skye said half aloud as she ended the call so that she could access her messages.
By this time, Josh had read the notes over her shoulder. “Snatch and grab in Bellevue?”
“Too soon to tell for certain. But then what else could it be?”
Josh swung his legs to the floor and tried for upbeat. “I’ll go get the caramel-vanilla gelato out of the freezer.”
“You read my mind,” Skye drawled, following him into the kitchen.
Josh lifted the lid on the carton of ice cream and got out a spoon. He carved a chunk from the top and raised it to Skye’s lips. “Here.”
“Oh, that hits the spot,” she stated, sliding onto one of the bar stools at the counter to watch the video. After studying it for several long minutes, replaying the clip numerous times, she handed him her phone. “Tell me what you see.”
Josh wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, then turned his attention to rerunning the video. “There’s a delivery van blocking any view once this girl crosses the street. We don’t get to see what happens then. This is useless.”
After taking another bite of gelato, Skye licked the spoon. “Other than to tell us the girl did get off the bus and walk across the intersection. After that, we don’t know why she doesn’t make it to her apartment, which is in the other direction, by the way. It could’ve been as simple as a stumble and fall or a blitz attack off camera. I need Leo to pull the footage going southbound and closer to the apartment.”
“How is it we know about this so quickly?”
“Leo says the girl’s cousin is a friend of Brayden’s at Bellevue College. She approached him in class for help. She’s waiting back at the office to talk to us.”
“My office or yours?”
“Mine. They’re downstairs.”
“I can see your eyes glazing over with a dozen possibilities already.”
“That’s because it’s not every day we get an opportunity to take on an abduction right after it’s gone down.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “The police won’t be interested for another twelve hours or so. We could jump on this for a change instead of coming in after a body turns up.”
“Do we already know for certain that someone actually called the police?”
“According to Leo, Emelia Navarro’s mother put in a call around eight-twenty this evening, got the usual runaround. Blah, blah, blah, your daughter’s an adult and probably left of her own accord. She’ll come back when she’s ready.”
“The cops never change that tune, do they?”
“It’s a classic for a reason. I’ll call Leo back and get him to scan the entire block, going the other direction with the flow of traffic southbound and around the apartment complex. See if it enlightens us in any way. Emelia didn’t just disappear into thin air. Either she saw a friend once she got to the complex—a neighbor maybe—and got into the car willingly, maybe trusting the wrong person, or someone unknown to her pulled her off the street and into his vehicle. How easy is it in rush-hour traffic to roll down your window and entice someone into a car if they need a ride? But this, the girl was almost home. Why would she do that? We need to find out what happened on the other side of the street and take it from there.”
“You want to go out to Bellevue now?”
“First, I want to see the footage from the street, going southbound, then the entire block, from this red light to the next, and so on.” She hit redial on her phone. When Leo answered, she went into a detailed list of what she needed from the traffic cameras. “And what apartment complex are we talking about?”
“I think Brayden mentioned Woodbridge Terrace, which is south of that intersection. Which means Emelia had to cross the street then turn left to walk another seventy feet or so to the entrance.”
“Okay, plenty of time for someone to follow her. That’s why I need the layout of the grounds, including which apartment belongs to Emelia, and its location to the street. I want to know how far she had to walk from the bus stop to get home. I mean the exact route she would’ve taken. Did she stop at the mail slots to check her mail? Did she talk to anyone in a car? Did she meander through the parking lot, and that caught someone’s eye? That sort of thing.”
“I’ll need Brayden’s help for that,” Leo pointed out.
“Then get him and his friend back upstairs. What is her name?”
“Brayden called her Dani.”
“Then put Dani to work, too. It’ll get her mind off the cousin, if only briefly. Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll be there to help out.”
After ending the call, Skye looked at Josh. “While I’m going through the footage, you stay here with Sierra and get flyers printed up. That way, come morning, we’ll be able to hit the ground running at the complex, ask around if anyone saw a car lingering or anything else suspicious. I mean, look at that video. It’s bumper to bumper traffic. Surely, someone saw something.”
Josh leaned in to kiss his wife. “Send me a copy of the full footage so that I can email it to the rest of the team. I’ll start the preliminary stuff with them, catch them up to speed, and they’ll be ready to go by morning. You go talk to this Dani. Find out what you can about the cousin. Do you think this Dani knows about what Brayden went through?”
“I’d bet money on it. Anyone who’s Internet savvy can do a deep dive and find out most anything in about five minutes.”
“I hope she doesn’t break his heart.”
Skye scooted off the barstool to put her arms around Josh’s neck. “This from a guy who gave Brayden such a hard time for six months after he got here.”
“Yeah, well, Brayden’s proved himself. He’s one of the nicest kids you’d ever want to meet. I just don’t want to see some strange girl come along and make his life miserable. And it wasn’t six months.”
“If you say so. Seemed like that long to me.”
“Call me when you’ve finished up and on the way home. I’ll stay up and wait.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. And if I can reach Zoe, I’ll meet you at the apartment complex.”
Skye narrowed her eyes. “You’re calling Zoe? How much money are you willing to dangle to get her to stay with Sierra? Better hurry. Because right about now on Thursday nights, you’ll find Zoe just getting off shift at Country Kitchen. She’s bound to be ready to get off her feet.”
Josh picked up his phone and smiled, used speed dial for Zoe’s number. “Good to know. If I offer her a lump sum, she might not have to work the weekend.”
Skye narrowed her eyes. “I’m not getting in the middle of that. Velma finds out you stole one of her best waitresses away during the weekend, and there’ll be hell to pay.”
“Yeah, but Velma adores me.”
“Never overestimate your real estate value. In this case, Velma’s infatuation versus securing reliable weekend help. If she gets mad at you for stealing Zoe, don’t blame me. You were fore-warned against it.”
Forewarned or not, Zoe jumped at the chance to babysit. For what Josh was willing to pay, the soon-to-be college sophomore agreed to make herself available throughout the entire weekend. Lucky for him, Zoe was hoarding her cash for a trip to Hawaii before the start of the school year. And f
ortunate for Zoe, Josh could pay the rest of what she needed to use for her airfare.
Locking in Zoe for four-days meant Skye could leave knowing Sierra was in good hands, someone who knew the child’s habits as well as she did. And knowing Zoe could handle herself in a tough situation put Skye’s mind at ease, enough that she could focus on the disappearance without worrying about Sierra back at home.
On the trip into downtown, Josh sat behind the wheel of their minivan, a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid that had seen a lot of miles. Instead of trying to carry on a conversation, he recognized Skye’s mood had turned brooding. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
She came out of her fugue state too deep in thought to catch much of what he’d said. “I’m sorry. What?”
“You’ve got that look on your face that says you’re trying to figure something out.”
“Yeah. Like the ins and outs of abduction. Why take Emelia Navarro? Was it random or was he familiar with her habits? Why this Thursday afternoon in broad daylight when traffic is stacked up? Why rush-hour traffic when it’s damn near impossible to pull off a smooth getaway?”
“The guy’s overconfident. Bold.”
“That’s what I’m thinking, a risk-taker who couldn’t control the urge when he spotted an opportunity. Which tells me this isn’t his first and it won’t be his last. I’ll call Harry in the morning and get a list of all abductions that fit Emelia’s in, say, the last year or so.”
“I can take care of that via email so you can concentrate on what happened,” Josh offered as he steered the minivan into the underground parking garage and into his designated slot. He pointed to Brayden’s pickup parked in its usual spot. “I think that truck gets shinier every time I see it. If he doesn’t stop washing and waxing it, he’s likely to rub the paint clean off.”
Skye grinned and opened the door to the van. “I think he’d sleep in it if he thought he could get away with it. He spends his weekends washing it down and then applying this special kind of turtle wax to it. Did he tell you he installed a camera above his parking space so that he could keep an eye on it when he’s at work?” She pointed to a dark corner of the lot right above Brayden’s pickup.
Josh chuckled. “No, he didn’t mention that. Although it explains a lot. I took everyone out for lunch last week and when we came back, he said he thought this guy kept lingering a little too long and getting a little too close to the bumper. I was sure he planned to jump out right then and there and shoo the man away.”
“At least we know he adores that truck.”
“No doubt about that.” Josh ran his card key through the basement reader to access the seventh floor. “Look, you just focus on Emelia’s disappearance, and I’ll handle the collateral issues.”
“That’s fine, but first, I’d like your take on what Leo found on the traffic cams.” She held up her phone. “He just sent me a text saying he’d finished scanning the southbound lanes up to, and beyond, the apartment complex. He’s found an anomaly.”
Anomaly was a word they used for something that didn’t fit or look right during the commission of a crime. That’s if they were fortunate enough to have CCTV capture the event. In this case, Brayden had spotted a late-model, silver Audi SUV turning into the apartment complex about the same time Emelia, on foot, reached the first few feet inside the entrance.
When the elevator reached the seventh floor and they stepped off into the atrium, Skye noticed the office door to Ander All Games stood open. Right before she went on alert, a cute brunette bounded on her toes to greet them.
“Hi, I’m Daniela Torres, Emelia’s cousin. Brayden and Leo are in the back, still going through the traffic cams and angles. I don’t know how to thank you both for showing up like this so late. I knew Brayden knew you guys, but I never imagined he’d be able to pick up the phone and…here you are, ready to help me find Emelia. Thank you.”
“It’s what we do,” Skye said mildly, sizing up Daniela Torres like an overprotective mother hen. “You know Brayden from school, right?”
“Uh-huh. He’s a whiz at programming.”
“I taught him everything he knows,” Josh cracked. “Let’s go look at some footage.”
“There’s plenty of it. Tonight was like the final exam for all of us. That’s how I knew something had happened to Emelia when she didn’t show up at school.”
Daniela made her way through the maze of desks, and past the area where the programmers enjoyed a spacious spot that looked like a daycare center where toddlers played indoor games during recess. The recreation area sported a basketball hoop, various pinball machines lining the walls, and a ping pong table set up in the middle. “This place is amazing. I can see how Brayden knows so much working here every day. You’d be astonished to see the amount of information Leo and Brayden have assembled right at their desks in such a short amount of time.”
Skye’s lips curved as she sent Josh a knowing look. “I’m always amazed at what nerds do on a computer.”
“Hey, Skye. Josh,” Brayden said, swiveling his chair around in greeting. “I see you’ve met Dani.”
“We’ve managed to amaze her with our superpowers,” Leo boasted from the other side of the workstation. He wriggled his eyebrows up and down and added, “She’s already impressed.”
Skye found the bravado amusing. But it was time to get down to business. “Putting superpowers aside for a minute, one of you needs to dazzle me with what you found.”
“There’s the Audi,” Brayden began, prepared for the business-like approach Skye always brought to the situation. “See how the SUV makes the turn into the apartment complex right behind Emelia. The driver slows to a crawl but then follows Emelia around to the back of the property. Fortunately for us, we were able to get additional feed off that security camera at the rear of the complex where her unit is located. Right before she reaches the sidewalk that leads upstairs, the driver comes to a stop. At this stage, Emelia still isn’t aware she’s being followed. You can see activity inside the vehicle. Right here is where he puts the car in park, before leaping out to grab her from behind. Notice how he puts his hand over her mouth and then drags her into the back seat.”
“Wait. What’s that in his hand? Is that a rag he’s holding over her mouth?” Skye asked, leaning toward the monitor for a closer look.
“Looks like he might’ve used ether to subdue her,” Josh pointed out. He pivoted to Brayden. “Run that footage in slow-mo and see if you can get a closer look at his face.”
Brayden hit the keys to his laptop, playing the footage at the slowest frame per second. “Is that any better?”
“Slows down his movements well enough but doesn’t give us a clear enough image of his face.” Josh let the scene play out again and then pointed to the screen. “There. See how she goes limp. Right before he puts her in the back seat, she’s incapacitated and no longer struggling or able to fight. He gave her something that knocked her out. Quick.”
Skye glanced over at Daniela. “I’m sorry. It must be horrible to see it play out like this.”
“It was the first time I caught sight of what was happening over Brayden’s shoulder. But I’ve watched it now at least a dozen times, and there’s nothing I can do to help her. I’m doing all I know to do right now standing here with you guys.”
“That’s a good way to look at the situation,” Skye said. “But there’s more we can do tonight, like get the tag number on that SUV.”
“Way ahead of you,” Leo stated. “The Audi was reported stolen at five-thirty this afternoon from a manufacturing industrial office complex on El Roy Street, about four miles from the abduction site. And before you ask, there’s no working surveillance camera in that location or at street level. El Roy Street is barely that. It’s used merely as an artery into and out of the offices located there and then loops around. It’s more of a circle than a street.”
The wheels began to turn for Skye. “We know the SUV had to be stolen earlier than that since it was used in the abduction
at four-thirty. As the clock ticked down, he drove around looking for a victim. That’s weird behavior for a random abduction in broad daylight. Don’t you think? I’m trying to get a handle on why. What did he do? Did he decide to cruise up and down 128th Avenue until he found someone alone and vulnerable? What about following his route—?”
“Out of the complex?” Brayden offered, not letting her finish. “We did that.” He flipped to another browser and brought up the next video showing the Audi exiting onto the southbound lane of 128th Avenue, entering traffic.
“Where does he go?” Skye wanted to know. “It’s not like he can zoom off at eighty miles an hour.”
Leo nodded. “He chugs along here, blending in with traffic until he goes underneath that huge interchange where the 405 and 90 come together. Notice how he sticks to the service road along 90 heading east. Then he decides to pick a side street where traffic isn’t as congested. He shoots a U before heading down to another industrial complex, takes a right at 37th Street, uses a cut-through to Eastgate. That’s where we run out of camera footage. But using the GPS app, I can see there’s a dead-end alleyway at this location where you can park your car and head into a wooded area on foot. It’s like a nature preserve but not.”
“We need to get down there,” Skye instructed, pivoting toward Leo. “Keep trying to run the grainy image of his head through facial recognition.” She held up a hand. “I know it’s a long shot, but at this point, it’s all we have.” She turned to Brayden and bobbed her head for him to follow. “Could I talk to you for a minute out in the recreation area?”
“Sure.” He stood up, glanced at Josh, before following Skye out into the game room. “What’s up?”
“I think it’s time you took Dani home, get her out of here. She looks exhausted and a little bewildered by all this. Stay with her if you like at the apartment. I just don’t want her here while we go check things out where she’d be privy to our conversations. At this stage, there’s no telling what we might find. Do you get my drift here?”
Down Among The Bones Page 3