He’s not here either.
The pieces click together so fast it’s almost clean.
Riley missing.
Hammond missing.
A request for privacy.
Me pulled into the hallway by Chen’s call.
A perfect little window of time.
My chest goes cold. My vision narrows.
I move to Riley’s abandoned pile like it’s a body and I’m checking for signs of life. I don’t touch anything at first—just look.
Then I see it.
A faint smear on the floor where someone’s boot dragged.
Not a scuff.
Adrag.
And beside it, the tiniest dark dot—like a spilled pen, like a fleck of oil?—
Like blood.
My teeth grind together.
I spin toward the door and step into the hall, eyes cutting down both directions.
People pass. A couple of airmen in conversation. A maintenance guy pushing a cart. Everyone’s normal.
No one’s alarmed.
No one’s even looking twice.
That’s the part that makes me want to break something.
Because if she was taken, it was done the way professionals do it—quick, controlled, quiet. Like it wasn’t a kidnapping.
Like it was a transfer.
I grab my phone. I thumb it on. “Chen,” I snap.
Static, then her voice—tight, immediate. “Hawthorne?”
“Riley’s gone.”
A beat of silence.
Then Lexi Chen’s tone sharpens into steel. “Confirm.”
“Confirmed. She’s not in the lab. Hammond’s not in the lab. I think he took her.”
I hear movement on her end—boots, voices, the clipped cadence of someone switching from administrative to war.
