Page 40 of Toy

I returned her smile. “Yeah. We are.”

* * *

Beck cameand woke me up a few hours later. I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes as she dangled a USB in front of me. “This is it,” she said. “Boarding gate footage from every flight to Costa Rica within two hundred miles of here. Just in case, I got them to send the last three days, even though I don’t think they would’ve left right away.”

“That’s gonna take a while to look through. It’s a lot of airports, right?”

“Yeah, but I’ll copy the data from this drive and give it to you, so you can help. You’ve got a laptop, right?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Don’t worry too much if we don’t spot anything. Like I said, they probably haven’t left yet. We’ll keep checking every day.”

I nodded and went to retrieve my laptop.

Several hours later, Beck let out a groan. “I’ve got nothing,” she said, looking up from her desk. “How about you?”

I shook my head. “I just finished going through the Gulfport-Biloxi stuff. They’ve got a flight five times per week which goes to San José via Miami, but I didn’t see anyone who looked even remotely like Jolie.”

“Remember, he’ll probably have her disguised a bit.”

“I know, but I didn’t see anyone.”

She let out a frustrated puff of air. “Damn.”

I furrowed my brows. “Hang on. Why are we only looking at airports within two hundred miles of here?”

“They’re the most likely spots he’ll try and fly out from.”

“Why?”

“Well, he’ll want to lie low, like I said earlier, but not so low that he’ll head thousands of miles away before flying out. In the end, his top priority is getting Jolie on a plane.”

“But these guys are smarter than average, remember? Paranoid, too. So what if this one actually drove Jolie all the way across the country before flying out? He’ll probably assume we’re looking closer to home, so he might think it’s safer to fly from somewhere like New York or LA.”

Beck’s forehead wrinkled. “Good point. He might be thinking along those lines,” she said slowly. “Christ, though… do you have any idea how much footage we’ll have to sift through?”

“It’s worth it if we find something, right?”

“Yes, of course.” She sat up straight and covered her mouth for a moment as she yawned. “Sorry, I’m just tired. I didn’t mean that it’s a bad idea overall, just that it’ll take a hell of a long time to go through.”

“I know, but I really don’t have anything better to do,” I said, sagging back against my chair.

“What about your company?” she asked gently, cocking her head to the side. “It must be weeks since you last went in to work. Could you maybe call and check in with them while I get my hands on all the extra surveillance footage? That might help you pass some of the time while you wait for me. Better than having you sitting around stressing.”

“I appointed someone else as interim CEO after I got shot. He’s good. Doesn’t really need me to check in all that much.”

“Ah.” She stood. “Well, I’ll go and request the footage now. You get some more rest in the meantime.”

She returned a while later with two more USB drives. “Hope you’re ready for a long night,” she said, tossing one to me. “I had a triple espresso on my way back, so I’m wired.”

I gave her a tight smile. “Let’s get on it.”

We spent the next few hours analyzing every moment of every relevant piece of footage from hundreds of different airports. There was no sign of Jolie on any of it, but I didn’t let myself feel defeated. I couldn’t. I had to be strong for her, and I couldn’t give up the fight.

If none of this showed anything, then we’d look elsewhere. We could check out private airfields and their flight logs, even though we’d previously vetoed that as an option. We could also get in contact with border security and ask them for help, as there was a chance Jolie’s kidnapper might actually be bold enough to try and cross the border into Mexico, then fly to Costa Rica from there instead.

If that all failed, we could assume Beck was right earlier, and the cult intended on keeping Jolie right here in the States. I wasn’t sure what we’d do if it came to that, but I knew we’d find her somehow.

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