Inveigle

Chapter Twenty-Five: Kidnapped

Sam never showed up the next day. Nerves were eating away at my insides. Aunt Sarah Gene continually offered me food to try and comfort me. I nibbled on the sandwich she made me before pushing it away. Another bite and it might come back up.

Where is Sam?

The sun was going down when a loud knock on the door made me jump. Aunt Sarah Gene looked through the peephole before unlocking the door. Boss stood there looking worn and tired.

"Sam here?" he asked to both of us.

I shook my head.

"Shit," he said and then he whistled.

I heard car doors slamming and Mom, Robert, and Nathan appeared behind him. Aunt Sarah Gene moved aside for them to come in.

Robert immediately pulled a laptop out of a black backpack and opened it on the table next to me.

"How long has he been missing?" My voice was surprisingly calm even though I felt like the world was starting to vibrate.

Boss sat down in the chair opposite me and began, "He asked me for a ride over here late this morning. He said he was going to walk down to the store for some food first, but he never came back."

"And it took you until now to figure this out?" I blurted.

I could almost feel the muscles of the guys in the room tense up as I spoke to Boss like this.

But he didn't react, "No, we wanted to eliminate all the other possibilities first. Like maybe he ran into a Spade member. 'Lot of the stores are in their territory. Contacting those pieces of shit can take awhile. Snake, you almost in?"

Robert spoke without looking up from his keyboard, lines of code reflected in his glasses, "Almost, and yeah." His face fell.

He turned the computer so the rest of us could see it. There was a grainy video of someone walking down a street. Sam. It had to be Sam. Then a windowless van pulled up in front of him. Two men in suits stepped out. The video showed Sam stopping before turning to run out of the camera frame. The agents chased after him. No one was on the screen for a minute, just the van with its doors open wide. The video quality too poor to make anything out inside. Then movement in the corner of the screen. One agent walked casually back into frame and then to the driver's side door followed by the other dragging an unconscious Sam under the shoulders. He struggled to lift Sam into the van and reached to shut the door.

The screen went blue.

Error: Data Deleted From Main Database

Robert spun the computer back to himself and began to furiously type. We all watched him impatiently.

"Fuck!" he slammed the screen shut.

We all stared at him waiting for an explanation. He was our tech guy, he could hack into government site backdoors for God's sake.

"It's gone. The footage is wiped. There's no trace of it for me to find, so we can't even see the direction the van went. Damn it, damn it, damn it." He pounded his fists on the table. I had never seen him like this, but I had also never seen him outsmarted on any device.

"Check for footage afterward," I said trying to ignore the temper tantrum, "there are cameras all over. If they deleted this video they probably deleted the next few streets the van took, too. We figure out which streets have been deleted and we at least have a general direction."

Breadcrumbs, I heard Logos in my head.

I didn't even give you that idea, Cora.

"Robert?" I asked.

He composed himself and nodded, "It might take me a few hours because the streets spider web from there and checking all possibilities will take time."

I turned to Boss, "Can we talk? I would like to know who you have that can be sent to case out whatever area Robert discovers. How much time do you think it will take?"

His jaw tightened before opening, "Tank is one guy, one stupid guy for getting this far into this. My men go snooping around and maybe more turn up missing."

"Sam is one guy, one of your guys. Boss, you aren't the type of leader to leave one of your own behind. I know that for a fact. I can read it in you. And in case you haven't realized your gang is already intertwined in this. More may go missing as it stands, but wouldn't it be smart to get ahead and at least know where they are going?"

Boss gave a dismissive wave of his hand and the room cleared out, except for Robert who was so engrossed in his work he was practically dead to the world.

Boss cleared his throat, "Tell me what you want."