“I know, but Suds, the dude scared the shit out of me.”
My fists clench. “Did he hurt you?” If he did, I don’t care who he is, the mother fucker will pay.
“No, he didn’t raise a pinky even. It’s just… And, don’t make fun of me. He got angry and… well… his eyes glowed.”
Huh, If not for little Stacy, I would’ve laughed. It’s probably better I leave out how I saw something similar this morning and change the subject. “What did the Feds find on Vlad’s computer?”
“Nothing yet. Everything was encrypted.”
“So, in truth, you have nothing but a couple of billionaires wanting control of a company and one of the men asked you to back off. Sweetheart, this is a slam dunk. For once, let it go.”
“What if the Russians reallyareexperimenting on human babies?”
“Then, we let the government handle it. It’s not even happening on US soil.” I pull her to stand and hug her to my body, surprised she’s shaking underneath.
“There’s more. The Fialkos can document their family tree to the sixteen hundreds and I’m betting even before.”
“So?”
“I think they purposely were… picking weird genetic traits.” She cups my cheeks and stares into my face, completely serious.
“Sweetheart, not so long ago, breeding was normal. There were only so many nobles to mate with.” I’m beginning to think my wife suffers from the fear of Halloween. I wonder if that’s even a thing. I’ll Google it later.
She pouts. “I guess… But something sure as hell isn’t right.”
I’m about to show her how right things can be but am interrupted by someone banging on my door. Weapon in hand, I stare through the peephole at a distraught nanny.
“Stacy went missing,” she cries out.
“What? How? I just dropped her off a minute ago.”Shit. I open my phone’s child tracking app and my heart stops.
“Dammit, she’s not transmitting. Sam, call hotel security.” I speed dial Slate while following the caregiver into the hall.
Seconds later, my boss answers and I report in. “Stacy went missing and GPS can’t locate her.”
I turn away from the phone to the kid’s father who joins us. “Did you find her?”
“Nyet. She is not here.”
The older woman pales. “I couldn’t’ve been in the bathroom more than three minutes.”
“Sugar? Take the employee’s elevator. Vlad, you take the main one and I’ll use the stairs. I’ll meet y’all in the lobby.”
Empty handed, we converge downstairs where my wife flashes FBI credentials at the maître d. “We need to see your security footage.”
He leads us to an impressive room where a young man sits at a keyboard, dwarfed by a wall of monitors. “What floor?”
“Twentieth. Room 2015. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes ago. Sam, go check the front.”
As my partner flies out, the nanny points at the screen. “That’s her.”
In the display, Oblonsky’s daughter sneaks out of her hotel room and dashes to the elevator. The security guy presses a button. The video feed switches to the lobby where Stacy strolls behind a woman leaving the building. As the well-dressed lady exits, Stacy pretends to hold her purse. From there, the little escapee runs down the sidewalk and out of view.
The young man pops up sidewalk footage and shrugs. “There’s nothing more.”
“She can’t get far on foot. For God’s sake, she’s just a little girl. Do something.” Oblonsky puts his hand to his heart, begging for me for help.
My wife dashes back in, all out of breath. “The doorman says she went south.”
