“No, I think Hutch and I need to come down to the station to talk to you. She’s been taken.” My voice shakes, and I’m moments from a panic attack.
“I’ll be at your house in twenty minutes at most.” Is all he calls out before the line goes dead. There is no way he will make it from the city in twenty-minutes but I don’t put it past him to turn lights on to get here.
I walk down to Graham’s room and let myself in with my thumbprint. The robotic beep sounds letting me into the room. The sapphire blue blackout curtains are covering the giantwindows that line the far wall. The only light emanating from the four giant monitors that line the wall to my left.
Hutch appears to be passed out on his forearm that is resting on the desk. I look at the monitors. Multiple programs appear to be running simultaneously, one scanning city cameras for facial recognition, the other pulling any information we can find regarding Nyx. We know we haven’t known her long, but she is our absolute everything.
“Hey Graham,” I call out gently from the doorway. “I hate to wake you up buddy, but you gotta get up.”
“Ugh.” He groans out. “What time is it?”
“It’s like eight in the morning. Cap is coming over. I had to call him. Nyx had to work this morning.” His head shoots up off his desk, and he looks around panicked.
“We have nothing to give him, Dee. He's going to kill us.” He spits out.
“I know, but we couldn’t keep him in the dark anymore. She had to work, they would have noticed.”
“Fuck, okay. I’ll pull any of the reports I have and prepare for him to get here.” He runs his hands through his golden blonde hair. You can tell he hasn’t showered or shaved since we got the call from Callum. He picks up a whiff of himself and cringes. “And, ya know, maybe take a quick shower.” He chuckles and turns back to his computer to see what the scans have pulled so far.
“I’m going to head down and make some coffee. Do you want anything to eat?” I open the bedroom door, waiting for his response.
“No, make a good coffee for me. I’m over these K-Cups right now.”
I nod and head out of his room and make my way to the kitchen. Shortly after I leave, I hear his shower turn on, and I take a quick smell of myself. Yup, I need a shower too.
Fuck coffee right now. Shower first, then coffee.
Graham and I are both freshly showered and are sitting in the kitchen drinking our lattes when the gate buzzes. Hutch pulls up the camera on his phone and sees it’s Montgomery.
“Opening the gate, Cap.” Graham says through his phone, and Cap growls out his response.
Fuck, he is pissed.I run over to the door to be there when he pulls up.
His fist pounds on the reinforced front door. I swing the door open with a forced smile on my face.
“Good morning.” He takes one look at me and knows it’s all fake.
“Stop with the bullshit, Demitri. Neither of you look like you have slept in days. You smell clean, but I can tell neither of you have shaved, and the distressed look is evident. How long has she been gone? Don’t lie to me boys.” His tone is no nonsense.
“It’s been three days, sir.” I hang my head.
“IT’S BEEN THREE FUCKING DAYS AND YOU’RE JUST NOW CALLING ME!” I swear I can hear the bulletproof glass rattle at his roar.
Graham shoves past me, “Sir, we know we should have called, but I know I can access things you guys technically can’t. So I wanted to try, and keep you out of it.” His body is shaking, but I know he wants to take the blame for everything.
“Nope, Graham. I was the one who said we need to handle it alone. I didn’t want to disappoint you, sir.” I push him behind me.
“I don’t care which one of you kept it from me. What exactly happened?”
We take him to the kitchen table to sit and chat. “Do you want a coffee, sir?“
“Sure.” His tone is stern.
I pour him a cup of black coffee. Thank goodness I made a pot too, not just the espresso shots, and hand it over to him.
“So, start from the beginning.”
We take him through how we discovered the girls were missing. The leads we have followed, the shit Hutch has hacked. It is all very calm, except I can see the vein in his temple throbbing. I think he’s pissed, but he knows we are doing all we can currently.
