“Oh God! I’m going to be sick.” Ronnie stands quickly from the couch and runs to the bathroom on the ground level.
“I’ll go check on her,” Noah says as he hurries to his feet and follows after her.
Barely a minute goes by when the elevator dings and the doors open. A man I don’t recognize walks in, but Julian turns and greets him immediately. “Agent Callahan, thank you for coming.” Julian shakes his hand.
So this is the agent Ronnie was in touch with.Originally, we were meant to meet him last week to drop off the box Victor left her, but he had other obligations and sent his partner instead.
“No, thank you for informing me right away.” He nods and steps toward me. “Hello, my name is Agent Scott Callahan. I work with the Federal Bureau of Investigations and am the one who has been assigned to Victor ‘Snake’ Cordova’s case for the past four years.”
I stand and shake his hand. “Gabriel Ellis, Ronnie’s partner.”
At that moment, Ronnie and Noah re-enter the room. “Agent Callahan?”
He turns and smiles warmly at her. “Hello, Veronica. It is nice to see you in person again, although I’m sorry it must be under such circumstances once more.”
“So am I.” She sighs, shaking his hand, then sitting back down on the couch.
“Noah Adler, Veronica’s partner.” Noah takes his hand as well.
Scott chuckles when he catches on to our relationship. “Agent Scott Callahan.”
Noah takes his spot as well as we look up at everyone standing in our living room. “What do we do now? How the hell did he even get into the penthouse? You need a keycard to access the elevator. How come your men and cameras didn’t pick him up?” Noah asks Julian furiously.
“Because he never came into the building,” Julian says calmly.
“What do you mean he never came in?! He was clearly here!” I’m getting aggravated. They are supposed to be the best in the business, yet Victor got by them.
“What I mean is that he never entered nor exited the building, at least not in a way that can be detected. We have access to every camera in this building. Jessie and his team have been going over this past week’s footage with facial recognition, and he has not appeared once. Not even someone with a similar look or build.”
“How is that even possible…” I mumble to myself.
“As for the lobby footage, the only people who have used your private elevator are yourselves and a man by the name of Graham Stevenson, who escorted a deliveryman with groceries. Which means he came in from the underground garage. Unfortunately, the camera for the garage does not give us a clear view of the elevators, but we will be rectifying that immediately.”
“Oh my God… he’s still in the building…” Ronnie stares ahead with wide, terrified eyes.
“That’s what we believe. I’m working on getting a search warrant for every condo in this building, but it will take some time,” Agent Callahan informs us.
“But wait, that dress he picked out was one I wore a week ago. He was clearly at the club or near it to have seen me, which means he had to have left the building that night.” Ronnie shakes her head with confusion.
“Like Julian said, he wasn’t on any of the cameras. So if he is coming and going, he’s doing it in a way that can’t be seen,” Jessie says.
“Which means?” I ask.
“The only way I can think of is in the back of a car, which tells us he has inside help. And since he clearly has a keycard, I’d put my finger on it being an employee.” Jessie sits down beside me and turns the laptop toward him, typing away on it once more.
“Jess, get your team to go through everyone who lives in this building, every employee, every friend of a friend of a friend. Distant family, everything,” Julian instructs his brother.
“Already on it.”
“We will be changing the codes for the pad to the elevator and giving you new cards,” Julian tells us.
“Isn’t that all kind of illegal?” I raise a curious brow.
Jessie chuckles. “Let’s just say it’s in the gray zone.”That’s what I thought.
“And you’re letting them do this?” Noah asks Agent Callahan.
He shrugs. “Look, my only goal is to catch this fucker. If I have to turn a blind eye to this in order to catch him, I will.”
