Page 122 of Tortured Tones

I wanted to say ‘stay in the dressing room’ but my priority was Charlotte. “If you’re going to disobey orders, at least have one of us with you so we can radio the team. Stay with Becks and Sloane backstage. Venue staff has the outside of the auditorium and exits covered. Search everywhere. Let’s go.”

“We’re on it.” Slip nodded.

I spun to face my team. “Search every box, cupboard, closet, and corner.”

“Will do.” Beckett turned on his heels and rushed off with the guys.

Cole and I ran to the security office on the far side of the stage area. Wells hovered over a security guard sitting at the desk, scanning the video footage on one of the monitors. Another gentleman sat beside him; his eyes were glued to the other twenty-odd screens lit with live footage of the venue.

“Cole?” Wells snapped. “What the fuck are you doing here? You should be in the dressing room.”

“No chance.” His jaw tensed and twitched. “My daughter is missing. Have you found her?”

“Not yet.” Wells’s eyes flared at me. “Ava? Breathe. I’ll take it from here.”

My chest shuddered. He was my boss. He had authority. But Charlotte was missing. Her safety was all that mattered. Adrenaline burned through my veins. “Let’s just find Charlotte.”

The zooming video footage caught my eye. “Stop,” I hollered and pushed past Wells. “Go back...there.”

With her headphones on and Barney tucked underneath her arm, Charlotte had ventured out of the guys’ dressing room...alone.

“Oh my God.” Air shot from my lungs. “She’s not taken. She’s just wandered off. Lost.”

“Where?” Cole wiped his hand down his sweaty face. “Where’d she go?”

But the next section of footage showed Charlotte walking out into the main corridor, into the sea of thousands of people. We couldn’t find her again. We scanned the video surveillance recordings of the door exits, the gates, and people leaving. There was no sign of her.

“Fuck,” I mumbled. “That’s not good.”

“What if someone recognized her?” Stress quivered in Cole’s voice. “Covered her up? Stole her? What if some psycho fan has taken her and uses her to get to me?”

I didn’t want to think about that scenario, but we had to be prepared for anything. “Cole?” I didn’t want to give false hope, but I injected confidence into my tone. “We’ll find her. Trust us to do our job.”

Worry clouded his eyes, but he nodded.

It took thirty minutes for venue staff to clear the auditorium. Another hour to clear the corridors, check the bars, the restrooms, the merchandise stands, and the foyers. Cole and I joined in searching the food service areas, the storerooms, and the kitchens. There was no sign of Charlotte. None.

With every minute that passed, my panic levels rose. But not as much as Cole’s.

With a team of security personnel, we formed lines and walked every row of seats in the complex, searching under the chairs and along the aisles.

Where could she be? Fear constricted my chest and seized my veins. “Charlotte,” I called out. “Charlotte.”

As Cole and I finished the section of seating in front of the stage, his breath rasped. Fear loomed in his eyes. “Ava? I’ve gotta find her.”

“We will.” But with every second that passed, those odds deteriorated. I radioed Wells. “Any update?”

“None. The gate crew has checked every small child that walked out of the place but none of them were Charlotte.”

“Okay.” My mind swam through what to do next. “Let’s search the parking lots. The tour buses. The semitrailers. And every equipment trunk. Can you get a team on that, Wells?”

“Ava?” I didn’t like the tension in his tone. “Yes. But—”

“Thanks.” I clicked my talk button, cutting him off.

Cole clutched his gut, then pummeled his fist against his forehead. “This is my fault. I should’ve had someone watching over her and Hannah all the time. I should’ve organized a second nanny for the times Hannah’s been tired. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK!”

“Hey?” I clutched his forearms. He shook all over. His focus, distant and distraught. “This isn’t your fault. This place is covered in surveillance, and we have hundreds of people searching for Charlotte. We’ll find her.”

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