Façade

Chapter 31

Garcia took her first step into the unknown, as she entered room eighty eight of the Widder hotel in Zurich. A small gasp escaped her lips, as she had never seen such grandure. It was, hands down, the most beautiful hotel room she'd ever seen. She figured as much, seeing as the couple's combined net worth exceeded that of most small countries, and they didn't have much else to spend their fortune on, besides themselves.

A huge kingsize bed, draped in a red sheet, stood opposite a wall of glass, which boasted a breathtaking view of the snow capped city. Positioned in front of the colossal window was a black leather armchair, next to it stood a coffee table with a mammoth bowl of fruit on it. She had to use a great deal of self-control not to begin to eat any of it. She noticed that the covers of the bed were extremely messy, suggesting either a tremendous amount of amorous love-making, or, a struggle. Garcia's professional opinion told her the latter was more likely. She separated from Nolan, retuning to the main area of the suite. An open bottle of champagne, glasses, and empty plates littered the kitchenette. Maybe they had been getting frisky...

Emily's eyes fluttered for a moment, before snapping open, to see SWAT agents surrounded her bed, and dragged her downstairs, the more she fought her captors, the tighter their grip on her became. She kicked and screamed, as her feet hit the wooden stairs on her way down. A light was shone in her face as Victoria entered with Daniel. "Thank you for telling me about her, baby" she cooed. Daniel stared at Victoria blankly, it dawned on Emily that he told her about her true identity. "I always knew you were a dishonest little bitch" Victoria had suddenly decided to peep out from behind her mask to taunt Emily at having lost hers. The SWAT team dragged her out from the house, in much the same way as they did when she was nine, only now it took two of them.

"Emily! Wake up!" through the fogginess, she heard Daniel's voice and woke. She was back in reality with her husband. "What's wrong, babe?" Daniel asked, with all the concern he could muster. "I had a dream. Well, more of a nightmare, actually. Your mother found out about my true identity, and she had a SWAT team come and take me." Daniel, once again in a show of concern, made a reach for her hand and replied "It was only a dream. She's in prison." Emily, however, knew that it couldn't be. She knew that Victoria would eventually burrow her way to the truth, and she'd be exposed. Like a deer in headlights, a fish out of water. "I think we should go to the press ourselves. Come clean, so your mother can't do that instead." Her reasoning was rock-solid and Daniel knew so. He agreed and it was decided that if they ever got away alive, they'd come clean.

Days of nothing but thought had been and gone, and they hadn't been able to think of an escape route. At that point, Emily was praying for some sort of miraculous rescue. But, alas, as every lengethening second drew to a close, her hope grew dimmer and dimmer, to the point where she was already mourning the loss of Daniel.

Little did she know that Nolan was working on that. He and Garcia had deduced that there had been a struggle, and Emily and Daniel had been taken against their will. They set out a plan to try to get security footage of the hallway on the night in question. It invovled preying on a weak-willed night manager, and relying on both Garcia's feminine whiles, and Nolan's technincal skills.

The night manager of the Widder hotel was a simple man, not too bright, and didn't really have too much common sense either. Which is why, when the pretty Hispanic woman approached his desk, looking to see if he'd help her with something, he obliged without much thought.

Nolan then set about hacking into the computer, using the night manager's account. "Let me guess... the password is, password?" He typed it in, and, to his amusement, it worked. "What an idiot" he whispered to himself. He took all the files from that particular week, and dragged them to his memory stick. From there he high-tailed it back to room eighty-eight, to comb through the hours of video he had from various areas Daniel and Emily might have been, throughout the hotel.

He saw a dark-haired man with a leather jacket and a mysterious looking can make his way past the front desk, up in the elevator, to the corridor of room eighty-eight, where he swiped the maid's master key card, and silently entered the room he was currently in. Flawless execution. It could only have been one man, Aiden Mathis. "My God" Nolan whispered, as Garcia joined him on the seat in which he was sitting "What?" He bent his head down, held it in his hands, and replied "He's done it again. They won't stand a chance if we don't find them."

© Sarah Egan 2013 - 2014 This story is subject to copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without the express permission of the author.