Page 27 of Hacker Christmas

When Annabella stopped crying, I guided her into the seat next to me.

“You think Regina did this?” I asked Neal.

“Brock ran her face through the video feed of the airport. Nothing came back. We’ve also sent her picture through the video feed of the street cameras. It’s as if she is still in that same building or she somehow went through a tunnel. The police are researching the building she went into.”

“Why would this woman want her?” Annabella asked.

Neal ran his hand through his hair. “People go crazy when they are at the end of their rope. The prison released her because of overcrowding. But she did the same thing again. She helped keep three women as prisoners, and there is no way a judge won’t give her life in prison. The pictures I saw of these women are bad.” Neal shook his head. “Regina has nothing left to live for except the need for revenge against Daisy.”

The bathroom door opened, and the detective stepped out with evidence bags. Each bag held pieces of Daisy’s things.

The silver locket in one bag caught my eye—it had her tracker in it. When she first moved to Ft. Lauderdale, she would wander off, and Brock got worried, so he had a necklace made to help track her location. I’d asked her why she still wore it, and she’d said it felt like a security blanket. Now, her security blanket sat in an evidence bag.

I squinted to look closer and saw that the chain to the necklace was broken. “Hey, Neal.”

He raised his head from the computer.

“Come here.”

In a few short strides, he was next to me.

I pointed to the evidence bag. “Whoever took Daisy ripped her necklace off. How would Regina know about her tracker?”

The detective looked down at the bag. “She probably didn’t want you to track her if she left you.”

My day job was a movie star, but I had done hours of research for each role. In one movie, I played a detective, and I’d spent six weeks following a cop around and learning all aspects of the job. “She wouldn’t leave us.” Neal shook his head next to me.

The guy looked back at the door. “Personally, I think it’s nothing more than a woman who changed her mind and no longer wants to be with you. She dropped her purse before she left.”

“That doesn’t even sound right. Why would she leave her purse and her money if she wanted to escape us?”

The detective didn’t seem to care. He glanced down at his watch. “I’ll take the evidence to the sheriff’s office and let the next shift know your girlfriend is missing. You can’t file a missing person’s report for twenty-four hours.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Someone kidnapped her.”

The detective glanced at his watch again. “In my professional opinion, it looks like she dropped her purse before she left. There are no signs of a struggle.”

I glanced at Neal, and his eyes looked past the detective. “Can I see the pictures of the crime scene?” Neal’s voice sounded deadly.

The detective shrugged. “I didn’t think they were necessary. We picked up her stuff and put it in a bag. She can come down to the station. She probably just got sick of you.” He tapped his watch. “My shift is over. You can talk to the detective on the shift after mine.”

He turned and left. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard. “Did I hear that conversation correctly? I want the number to the chief of police. I will have his badge by the end of the day.”

Neal hugged me. “We don’t need the police to find Daisy. We will get her back ourselves. I need to look into him.” He pulled back. “There’s something off about him. He couldn’t wait to get out of this building. I overheard that he sent the other detective home and said he could handle the scene. Let’s get home so I have all my computers and can find her. We will find her.”

Anger from the cop blowing us off still bubbled under the surface. I wasn’t used to people not doing what I told them to do, but Neal was right. I had faith he would be able to track Daisy down. I couldn’t think something would happen to her.

“Let’s head to the house,” he said, “and I will put up a comm between us and Brock. As for that guy, I will take care of him after we find our woman.”

* * *

Neal

The detective’s background came back clean. He had a wife and kids and never so much as a parking ticket. He volunteered for every event at his daughter’s school. Pictures online suggested that he took good care of his wife.

The next thing to do was get back to searching for Regina. Everything led to her—she never left the building. I watched the footage over and over. She walked into a building in downtown LA and never came out. Ten men walked into the office building and never came out. Brock and I had both gone through the video feed. I looked for signs someone had faked it.

Brock’s face came across the screen. Aaron drew his brows together. “We found Regina. The building has a secret room. The FBI missed their first sweep. When they raided the room, they walked into a sex-slave trade. Sixteen women were up for sale, and those ten men were there to buy them. Regina was in charge of the sale.”

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