Page 65 of Dead Fall (The Quantico Files 2)

“I’m sorry you think so little of being a part of law enforcement. You help people. Protect their lives.”

“Save it. I made a decision. My son’s running with the wrong crowd, and my daughter’s on drugs. This is my chance to take them somewhere else. Start over.”

Alex could hear the anger in her voice. Julie hesitated for a moment, just long enough for Alex to see the pain in her face. She was struggling. Just like Ben, who probably had worse problems than losing his daughters’ college money. Leave it to a grand manipulator to find someone’s weakest spot and exploit it.

“Julie, he’s not going to give you anything,” Kaely said. “He’ll kill you once he’s done with you. Can’t you see that? He can’t afford any loose ends. Which is exactly what you are.”

“You’re wrong. He cares about me. He ... he says I’m the daughter he never had.”

“Oh, come on,” Alex choked out. “You can’t be that naïve.”

Julie walked up to her. “If you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll put you in even more pain. Do you understand me?”

Julie was past reasoning. Alex prayed that Kirk had given the note to Logan. Where was he?

Logan waited in the food court for everyone to return. None of the guards had seen Kaely leave. The only people who’d checked out of the academy were supposed to, and none of the FBI cars were missing.

Todd and Robin came back first. He looked at them questioningly.

“Sorry. Couldn’t find her,” Robin said. “We thought she might be in the library, but she wasn’t. It was actually closed until a little while ago. We waited for the librarian, but she hadn’t seen her.”

“Has anyone heard from Alex?” he asked Todd, who shook his head.

“Ben asked to go with her to drive around the grounds,” Robin said. “He wanted to see Hogan’s Alley.”

“Alex isn’t a tour guide,” Logan said, frowning.

“She knows that,” Todd said. “It will probably take them a while to check out all the buildings. Ben will help her get it done faster.”

“They should only be looking for signs of life,” Logan said. “All the new recruits have cleared out by now.” He wanted to chew Monty out for not sending more people to look through the grounds, but it wasn’t his fault. Monty was doing the best he could with the number of people he had.

Monty, Nathan, and Bethany walked into the food court. “We couldn’t find her,” Nathan said. “Madison was locked up tight. The only people in Washington are the staff cleaning the rooms and gathering dirty laundry.”

“Where’s Alex?” Monty asked.

“Not back yet.”

“She checked out their room one more time before she left with Ben,” Monty said. “She wanted to make sure she hadn’t missed something. Maybe a note from Kaely or anything that could help us find her.”

“Has anyone seen Julie?” Bethany asked.

“I got a text from Ben,” Monty said. “All it said was that Julie is with them. Didn’t he text you?”

Logan shook his head. He took the phone out of his pocket and tried to check his texts. Nothing. “I think this thing is dead.”

“Did you charge it?” Bethany asked.

“Of course.” He sighed. “Great. If Kaely tried to call me...”

“If she couldn’t get you, she would have called one of us,” Monty said. He handed Logan his phone. “Take this. At least you can contact Alex if you need to.”

“Thank you.” Before his phone quit working, he’d tried to call Kaely several times, but the phone just rang and rang. “Anyone else try to call Kaely?”

“We all did,” Bethany said. “No answer.”

He didn’t like being out of touch with his team. He tried to call Alex with Monty’s phone. No answer. Maybe her phone was down too. At least she had police detectives with her. She should be safe. He really didn’t expect them to find anything. The idea that Kaely would find a way to leave the building without a car, and in the middle of a snowstorm, was ludicrous. But where was she?

“I checked with the guards,” Logan said. “Kaely didn’t leave the building through any of the gates. No cars missing. She’s got to be here somewhere. We’ll wait to hear from Alex, Ben, and Julie or for them to get back and let us know they found her.”

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