“Mack, you keep watch on the suspect’s house. Update me every half hour.” Lawson was instructing the team of officers he’d gathered. “John, you’ll be stationed at the office if he turns up there. My gut tells me that he’ll return to find the documents.”
Lawson turned to Nolan, his sharp eyes questioning. Nolan nodded. “Don’t worry, I photocopied the stuff and put them back. The tech team installed a secret camera as well.”
“Good,” Lawson said. “Now catch that son-of-a-gun. Mack and John, you know what to do once he arrives at either location, right?”
“Yes Boss,” Mach replied and John nodded.
Both officers and their partners set off. It was protocol that no officer worked alone, for both safety and evidentiary purposes. In Alan Smith’s case, they were instructed to attach a tracking device to his car and watch him. Their plan was to see where he went, in the event he was the one holding Leah Brooks.
“We’ll find her,” Nolan said. “I don’t think he wanted to kill her, or his goons would have done the same as with Harrison.”
“Yeah, but what was the reason for kidnapping her in the first place?” Lawson fingered his chin. “I don’t see the connection.”
“You think maybe the guy has gone psycho or something?”
Lawson seemed deep in thought. “Nah, its something else. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“Maybe he wants to interrogate her, find out what she knows,” Nolan suggested. “He might think she saw the goons.”
“That doesn’t make sense, unless he was there the night Quinn was assaulted. The surveillance shows that he already left the building and his apartment security confirmed that he was home at the time of the attack.”
“So we don’t really have a strong motive here.”
“This is so damn frustrating,” Lawson groaned. “I know we have the right guy, I just don’t know if we are on the right track with the Leah Brooks disappearance.”
At that moment, a call came through to Lawson. “Lawson here.”
“This is the head of Security at The Lake Towers. You need to get over here ASAP, we got something.”
He gathered Nolan and one other officer and was on his way. It’s been more than twenty four hours since Quinn dropped off Leah Brooks at work. Lawson assumed she made it to the office and returned to her car when she was taken. Trying to piece this case together was not easy as there was no clear evidence.
They arrived at the security station of The Lake Towers in about fifteen minutes where the head of security escorted them to a maintenance closet off the basement car park. When the man pushed the door, one of the guards was lying on the floor gagged and bound.
“What the…?” Lawson exclaimed.
“His shift changed at 4:00 AM and we thought he’d gone off,” the chief of security told him. “When he didn’t report for duty tonight we tried calling him and got no reply.”
“Who found him?”
“One of the maintenance crew. This closet isn’t often used. Fortunately one of men had something to put away and that’s how he was discovered.”
The detective put the pieces together. The new security guard was mugged during his rounds in order for the kidnappers to get Leah Brooks. The other question was, how did they entered the car park in the first place? They had to bypass one security post in order to get in.
They removed the man’s gag and rope, which tied his wrists and ankles. They took him to the main security office where they gave him a warm beverage and sandwich. When asked if he needed to see a doctor he said he was fine.
“Tell us what happened,” Lawson said.
“I was making my rounds when I noticed that a delivery van that had entered the premises earlier that day was still there,” he began. “I took my radio off my belt to call the office about it when someone jumped me from behind. Something hit me in the back of the head and I blacked out. When I awoke I was tied up in the room.”
“What time was that?” Lawson asked.
“Around eight last night.”
Now they were getting somewhere, having a time frame with which to work. With the guard’s statement, Lawson was sure that Bolin and his men took Leah, if Alan was involved then they would soon find out.
* * *
The payphone was broken and Alan couldn’t very well call the police with his own cell phone. It was now past eight and many of the electronic stores were closed. The best option was to obtain a disposable phone, the one you could buy without an ID or credit check. The last thing he needed was to leave a trail.
By now, the police must be aware of her disappearance. What should he do? What if Bolin did something to let the police suspect him? Now panicking, he raced towards The Lake Towers, remembering that he’d left the papers in his office. If for some reason Quinn should go in there, he’d be dead meat! He must get rid of them before anyone saw them. He was hoping against all hopes that no one suspected him of the crime against Quinn.
This was turning into a nightmare. Alan slowed the car. He had to save Leah. But how? Should he leave her somewhere where someone would find her? No, he had to get the papers first and then go back to save her.
When he pulled into the sublevel parking area, it was deserted except for three cars. Quinn’s car was not there and he breathed a sigh of relief. It was now 10:13 and Quinn would be off somewhere with one of his women.
Alan never once thought that one of the cars in the area was Leah’s. He made his way to the office and withdrew the documents from his desk drawer. Good, they were where he left them. He folded them and stuffed them into the left breast inside pocket of his jacket.
As he put away the documents, his hand brushed his phone. When he pulled it out, he noticed it has no charge. Turning out the lights, he returned to the car and plugged the phone into the car mobile charger. He then waited a few minutes before switching it on.
Several missed calls were from Quinn and most of all from Nicole. A voice message from his wife revealed how upset she was that he wasn’t home yet. She threatened to have his balls cut off if he wasn’t home by ten. It was already near 10:30. Without thinking further, he sped toward home.
“I’ll see about Leah tomorrow. For now, I have to talk to Nicole about all this.”
* * *
“Sir, he just left the office,” an officer from the surveillance team told Lawson. “Yes, I did as instructed … yes, Mack knows what to do.”
As Alan Smith drove into his apartment premises, Mack called it in. No one was supposed to approach him. Alan Smith parked rather badly, cutting across two spaces. He slammed the door shut and ran through the front door of the building, not stopping to give his usual greeting to the security man. The officer watching the apartment leaned back in his seat, doughnut and coffee in hand.
“This is going to be a long night.”