Her Striker by Charlene Raquel

Chapter Twenty-four

 

 

“Where the hell are they? They better not have snuck off to be alone together.” Dean paced the living room he shared with his best friend, Drew.

Sam was at the window, watching for any sign of her best friend, Gwen, to come up the stairs to the third-floor apartment. Gwen and Sam had been planning to make dinner for Dean, Drew, and Dean’s brother, Jeff, but Gwen and Drew never showed up. “Gwen wouldn’t do that. Not with everything that has been going on.”

“Will you two sit down? We need to figure out where they are. Neither one of their phones are on. Sam’s called both dozens of times.” Jeff, Dean’s older brother sat at the dining room table with two laptops open in front of him.

Sam dropped herself into the chair next to Jeff. “Something has happened to them. I feel it.”

Jeff studied Sam for several long seconds. “You should always go with your gut, if it’s actually a gut feeling and not just worrying.”

Sam narrowed her green eyes. “I know the difference. Dean’s not the only one here with a Special Forces brother. My father taught us from an early age to follow our instincts and mine is screaming at me that something’s wrong.”

“Fuck!” Jeff’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Why didn’t you say that before? Dean, get your ass over here and pull up surveillance footage from the campus.”

Dean’s eyebrows shot up while he hurried to his laptop. “How’d you know I have access to it?”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid?” He glared at his little brother when he opened his mouth to comment. “Don’t answer that.”

Dean smirked but let the comment go. He needed to focus. “I’m going to find Drew first. His game was over before the tennis tournament. I saw him go into the building, but never saw him leave. I figured he went to see Gwen.”

Sam opened her laptop too. So far, she had kept her computer skills quiet. She could get into just about any system, but she rarely did so. With her luck, she would get caught somehow. Hopefully, Jeff would keep them out of too much trouble. “Drew headed into the building before any of his team.”

The two men in the room thought they were the only ones with skills. Jeff’s incredulous smile and Dean’s dropped jaw were worth the risk she took. “What? You two think you are the only ones who can sneak into a crappy campus security system?”

Dean shook it off. “That’s my girl.”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Fast forward until he comes back out.”

Sam scrolled through the video frames while Dean and Jeff watched. “He didn’t come back out this way. We just scanned an hour.”

“Damn.” Jeff blew out a frustrated breath. “Dean, check the other doors. Sam, make note of who comes in and out of the door where Drew entered. Let me know if you see anything odd.”

Dean arched a brow. “What are you going to do?”

Jeff smacked his brother on the back of the head. “I’m going to check the cameras around the tennis courts.” He pulled up the video files from the closest camera to that area. It looked over the side of the equipment shed and part of the parking lot around the athletic building. After a few minutes, Jeff ran his hands through his hair and screamed, “Fuck!”

“What? What did you see?” Sam moved closer to look at the paused video. Gwen was being pulled into a van. It was not a good angle to see who was inside, but it was clear that it was Gwen. “Oh my God! What do we do? Should we call the police?”

Jeff shook his head. “Not yet. We need to gather as much information as we can. Once we call the local police, they will take over the investigation and we’ll be told to back off. I don’t know any of them and I don’t know who is mixed up in the Scorpio Society.”

Sam swallowed the lump in her throat. “Okay.”

Dean leaned over his brother’s shoulder. “Play that again.”

Jeff played the recording several times, pausing at different sections to see if they could tell who was in the van or any identifying features or license plate numbers.

“Shit! The sun glare makes it impossible to see the plate and the windows are tinted so darkly that we can’t make out the driver.” Dean sat back down at his computer. “I’m going to see if any of the other cameras in the parking lot saw anything else.”

Jeff shook his head. “Let me focus on the van. We still have to find Drew. I need one of you to continue to scan the footage of the athletic building to see when Drew comes out and one of you to see if there are any inside cameras that were on.”

Dean brought up his back door access into the internal camera system of the Athletic building. “I got inside.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll keep looking through the outside footage.” She paused. “Are there any tunnels or passages under the building? I know that was something you and Drew had been looking into.”

Dean groaned. “We hadn’t gotten to that yet. Too much had been going on.”

Jeff pulled at his hair again. “We might need some additional help.” He pulled out his phone.

It rang once before James “Crash” Carter answered. “Hey Asshole, miss us already?”

“How’s lazing around, Dickhead?” Owen “Rip” Swinton called out from the phone. 

“Crash, I may need you guys.”

Crash stopped laughing. “You’re on speaker. Only Rip’s here with me. The others are working.”

Jeff placed his phone on the table so Dean and Sam could hear. “Thanks man. I’m here with my brother and his friend, Samantha…uh.”

Sam rolled her eyes. “Sam Leventis.”

“Wait. Is Matt your brother?” Rip asked, respect in his voice.

Sam shrugged her shoulder. “Yeah, Matt’s my brother. You guys know him?” Her brother had been a Navy Seal for a long time and had made friends and contacts all over the world.

Crash couldn’t believe how much of a small world it was. “Yeah, we’ve worked with him before. He’s a damn good Seal.”

“I thought Jeff was in the Army. How do you guys know a Navy Seal?” Sam knew the military Special Forces community was small, but these guys were Army.

Jeff slipped a baseball from his pocket and tossed it in the air. “If you’re Matt’s little sister, you know we can’t talk about work.”

“Oh shit, big bro has his baseball out.” His brother played with the baseball he carried around with him when he was stressed or worried.

“What’s going on, Jeff? I know you wouldn’t talk about a job in front of the kids.”

“We’re not kids, asshat.” Dean muttered a few other colorful names under his breath. “Our friends are missing.”

“Fill us in.” Rip sounded all business.

Jeff explained the situation with the Scorpio Society and Gwen’s probable kidnapping.

Crash swore. “Tech, only you could be on medical leave and step in a steaming pile of shit.”

“Tech?” Sam asked.

Jeff groaned. “It’s my nickname, for obvious reasons. Rip, Crash, when can you guys get here?”

Crash was already making a plan. “It’ll take us a little under four hours to get there. I’ll see if any of the others are up for a road trip.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you soon.” Jeff clicked off the call. “We have four hours to get as much information as possible.”

Sam fidgeted in her seat. “Uh. I can get us into any traffic cameras in the area. I stumbled upon the access point by accident before.”

Jeff shook his head. “You are a treasure. Do it. Find the van.”

 

~*~*~

 

Drew managed to get to his feet and stay somewhat steady leaning against one of the nearby trees.

He still felt like crap, but his head was finally clearing. Concentrating on moving, he made it to the next tree and three more after that one. At the rate he was going, he would get out of the woods by morning.

Drew reached into the front pocket of his jeans and was thrilled to feel his phone. Pulling it out, he fumbled with it until his finger hit the button to power it up.

It took several seconds for his eyes to focus so that he could read the screen. One line on the signal bar and twenty-seven percent battery would have to be good enough.

Scrolling through his contacts, he hit Dean’s name.

Seconds later, his best friend answered. “Where the hell are you?” Dean yelled into the phone.

“I have no idea.”