Chapter 957 - Following the clues

~ Los Angeles, White corp. HQ ~

1:59 PM

In the CEO's office, Jeff, JoAnna, Felix, Sophia, Steve, Bridgette, Oscar, Elanor, Edward and Stella are looking through the various information on their laptops and printouts.

"Now what?", Sophia slouched back in the sofa chair.

"Let's not give up…" Jeff stood up and got everyone's attention. "What do we know? On Thursday, at 7:41 PM, Sarah and Aiden left the coliseum. They didn't reach the parking lot."

Edward continued: "We can assume that their disappearance happened then, on the street. Their devices lost signal at 6:56 AM which gives us about eleven hours of a blackout. A homeless woman was caught on the surveillance video in front of the coliseum, running back from the direction of Sarah and Aiden at 7:53 PM. Three unanswered phone calls were made from that location at 7:52 PM. Calling number is under a non-existent name, but it made all three calls to the number registered to Alexander Pavlov who is an employee of White corp. He is in Sarah's team. Sarah and Aiden stayed late after the event to debug an issue which happened on his tool, and the issue is an obvious sabotage from inside the company. Alexander has access and knowledge to do the sabotage and to erase his traces."

"He is currently logged in from his workstation.", Steve said when Edward finished his summary.

Edward pointed at the employee file. "Alexander is one of the suspects planted in the company with a goal to watch over Aiden."

"Watch over Aiden?", Jeff asked.

"Yes. From one of THOSE families.", Elanor responded.

Jeff looked at Elanor in disbelief. "You knew that he is watching Aiden and you didn't tell us?"

Oscar waved his hand dismissively. "Focus on what is important. Do we get him for an interrogation, or do we follow him and see where he leads us?"

Everyone looked at Stella.

Stella rubbed her forehead. "This does not make sense… He is a low ranking member from a branch family. He will not be involved in more than observing a target. Assuming that Sarah and Aiden were attacked because of Aiden, they should know his skill level… this branch member has no chance against Aiden. And considering that it was two of them, to overpower them, it would take a lot of people or few elites. I have the information that no elites are currently in the vicinity, and there were no big movements in the area."

"You forgot about the gun." JoAnna said. "And we found that abandoned building which looks that it was recently used for a medical procedure. Sarah and Aiden, or at least their rings, spent there more than two hours. The place is cleaned up, but we still found traces which could only be leftovers of a surgery."

Stella sighed. "Assuming that the homeless woman attacked with a gun. It's two of them. Both are very fast with great reflexes, and none of them freezes in the face of danger. She would not be able to hit both of them… if she was far away, they could avoid the bullet, and if she was close, they could grab the gun."

"Not if they were protecting each other.", Sophia's words made Stella frown.

"At least we know that they are alive.", Elanor's comment made everyone look at her. "If they were shot and had a surgery, they were moved after the surgery was complete. And the cleanup would not happen if they are not alive. Whoever has them wants them alive and not found."

Stella nodded in approval of this theory. "Them being hurt and having a surgery would explain why their things were found hours after their disappearance and the proximity. They didn't have time to move them far enough. But why dump their things instead of keeping it sealed? If they kept the box with them, we would not find it."

"Faraday cage is not full proof." Felix said and explained when he noticed questioning gazes directed at him: "To make an efficient Faraday cage, you need to know the density of the conducting material which is blocking the signals and the frequency of the signal being blocked. They placed probably everything metallic they could find on them in a tin box and then wrapped it in aluminum foil. That tells us that they suspect Sarah and Aiden can be tracked, but they were not aware that their trackers are in the rings. Also, they are not sure about the type of tracking, so they used both tin and aluminum."

"But most importantly…", Sophia continued. "Because they removed trackers, it means that Sarah and Aiden are alive and close."

"And they are not going anywhere.", Oscar said. "We closed the ports and all airports are being monitored. Security at all airports has Sarah's and Aiden's photos as potential victims of trafficking, and any cargo heavier than 50kg is being manually inspected by my men."

"What about the cars? Highways?", Sophia asked.

"Highway patrol is looking for them, and department of transportation checks all the trucks as they stop at the weight stations.", Elanor responded. "We got everything covered."

"It seems that we are all sharing an agreement that the woman running with a gun shot at them. One or maybe both of them got hurt and whoever got them, removed their trackers and operated on them before moving them to an unknown location." Sophia summarized. "And our only link with the incident is this Alexander."

"Mom…", JoAnna addressed Stella. "You said that he is a low level branch member but that does not mean that he does not know the woman who is holding a gun. Why else would she call him three times last night? And he might know what happened to Sarah and Aiden."

"He didn't answer her calls.", Edward came to Stella's help. "And he didn't call her from his cell phone or from his office. I believe that he sabotaged the tool for some reason, and he is in contact with that woman, but he probably does not know what she did. If he knew, he would not come to work today."

"What if we give him a hint of what happened?", Bridgette who was silent so far stood up. Bridgette swallowed hard when she saw that everyone is looking at her. "They all know that I'm a good friend with Sarah. I can go and talk to her team, hinting that it's unusual that she didn't show up to work today and that I can't reach her. If Alexander knew that the homeless woman wanted to approach them, he will get the hint that something went wrong and he might try to contact her."

Stella nodded in approval. "He is useless, but that woman is not. We can use him to lead us to her."

"I can use my thing to make him talk.", JoAnna was referring to her truth serum. "Why bother with their roundabout ways?"

"We could. But our goal is for that woman to talk, not him. Victims of your truth serum can't stop themselves from talking, but they also know that something is not right. Even under the truth serum he can alert her." Stella countered.

…

"Did any of you hear from Sarah today?", Bridgette asked Sarah's team members when she approached them.

They exchanged glances and shook their heads.

"Hmm…", Bridgette frowned. "We were supposed to meet for lunch, and then to discuss my brilliant idea for a new tool. Sarah promised that she will come no matter what. But she didn't come, didn't cancel, and I can't reach her."

She glanced two desks away where David and Fox are. "Hey, did Aiden come today?"

"No.", David responded.

Bridgette's frown deepened. "This only makes me more worried. I saw them last time yesterday at the event. I hope nothing happened…" She turned around and left.

"Do you think something happened?", Marcus asked his four teammates.

"Since when is unusual if Sarah does not come to work?", Lee responded with a question.

"I will not deny that, but if she has a meeting and she can't make it, she will cancel it.", Marcus' commend made Alexander shift in his seat nervously.

Alexander glanced at his phone and could still see three unanswered phone calls from last night. He does not want to concern himself with Evalina, but this… is unusual. He knows that she wanted to meet with Aiden, and then she made three calls, and now they are missing!

Alexander stepped away from his desk and called Evalina. Message greeted him: 'The number you called is no longer in service…'

"Shit!", he cursed under his breath. He will need to go and check Evalina's place. Why is her phone disconnected?

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