Phoenix

Chapter 18: The Hunt Begins

Kida watched rays of sunshine break through the darkness of night from her bedroom window. Max was snoring on the edge of her bed, her brothers were still asleep, but Lena was still at the hospital working a late night/early morning shift.

Luke and Kida left The Apartment around 2 in the morning. By then, they had gone through all of Benito's service files, looked over hours of video footage on the Glass Building, hoping to find something out of the ordinary. They drank so much caffeine that it caused Luke's fingers to shake uncontrollably while Kida's heart rate spiked to a dangerous level. After Luke passed out with his eyes open twice and Kida accidentally froze the room's circuit board, they called it a night. Yet as the caffeine wore off, sleep refused to come to her.

'Is there something we missed?' she wondered. 'Things just aren't adding up.'

'Benito or Mike figured out where Em was hiding, drove over, and more than likely planned on attacking her in The Apartment. Yet, according to the camera's and Nick's story, Benito's men never made it into the building. Everything happened in the alleyway. Meaning nothing in her Apartment was disturbed until police investigated it.'

'So what isn't sitting right?' she questioned herself as she left the window to sit at her desk.

The blue light from her laptop stung for a moment as she scrolled through Em's Apartment's photos forensic took. The majority of them were of the hidden chasm of bullets and missing Glock, which was recovered in the alleyway, pictures of the limited framed family pictures Em had, and the stairwell leading up to her Apartment.

'Why did they take pictures of the stairs?' she wondered. 'They never made it inside.'

Kida scrolled through the stairwell pictures until she came upon Em's dismantled phone. The screen was shattered, the battery was removed, and motherboard exposed to the elements.

'A bullet could've shattered the screen, but someone would've had to physically rip open the back of the phone. But the only person who could've done that was ... Em!'

Kida scrambled to grab her phone and dial Luke's number. Her fingers tapped uncontrollably on her desk as she waited for Luke to answer.

"Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up," she whispered under her breath while her gaze stayed glued to the photos pinned to her screen.

"Do you have any idea-" he yawned "-what time it is?" Luke grumbled, still half asleep.

"You planted a tracker in Em's SIM card, right?" Kida asked, ignoring Luke's tiredness.

"Yeah, why?" he questioned, seeming partly interested while his brain was still waking up.

"Forensics has pictures of Em's phone ripped open on the stairs, but none of Benito's men ever made it into the building so-"

"Em must have taken the SIM card out knowing we could track her without anyone noticing," Luke finished. "Give me a minute."

Now wide awake, he typed away on his computer, tracking the pin in the SIM to triangulate Em's coordinates while Kida held her breath.

"Please help us," she quietly prayed.

"Got something," Luke revealed, releasing Kida's breath. "Her tracker hasn't moved for the last 45 hours."

"I'm heading down there. Send me the coordinates," Kida ordered as she grabbed her bag with her IceWings uniform.

"Lena- I mean Kida, it's 4 in the morning. We haven't slept in 24 hours and drank so much caffeine that my hands are still shaking. Please wait until at least noon before going after her," Luke begged, sleep still clouding his mind.