“Arlington,” he replies. “I try to make it home every night, but some sessions go late into the night. On those occasions, I’ll just come here to get a few hours of sleep.”

I pull a notebook and pen out of my coat pocket and jot down a few notes. My initial thought was to search this home for evidence, but if this is his secondary home near the Capitol, not his primary residence with his daughter, there might not be much here. So, the fact that he was here while his daughter remained behind in Arlington, only about half an hour away, doesn’t immediately set off any alarm bells in my head.

“All right, so not since this morning,” I say. “And how did you know something was wrong, Senator?”

“Just call me Elliot,” he says. “Please. We don’t need to stand on formality here.”

“Very well. How did you know something was wrong?”

“Lieb called me at five-thirty to tell me that Ashley was not at Aurelio’s studio,” Barlow said. “Lieb told me he spoke with Aurelio, and he said Ashley never showed up for her lesson.”

“And who is Lieb?”

“Ashley’s driver-slash-bodyguard. He’s been with me for a while. He used to be on my personal detail, but when she got a little older, I assigned him to be her shadow…”

His voice trails off, and I watch as Barlow’s face turns red. He squeezes his eyes shut with a grimace as he struggles to fight off the waves of tears, that steely self-control I observed just moments ago seeming to be crumbling. The emotions I see in his face seem genuine, and sincerity rings in his voice loud and clear. I’m not getting any bad hits off the man. Barlow sniffs and runs a hand across his face as he collects himself. I take the time to jot down the driver’s name and a couple of other things I’ll want to follow up on.

“Sorry,” he says, his voice thick.

“Nothing for you to be sorry about,” I say. “I know this has to be difficult for you.”

Barlow nods and looks like he’s aged another ten years in the last few minutes. But he grits his teeth and narrows his eyes, then clears his throat and raises his eyes to mine.

“After speaking with Lieb, I called Violet—that’s Sam’s sister. She lives in the house in Arlington and keeps an eye on Ashley when I’m here,” he continues. “She confirmed that Ashley wasn’t at home, and she hadn’t been able to reach her either. I rushed home and couldn’t find her anywhere. That’s when I called Lauren.”

“Okay, but what is it that made you immediately jump to abduction?” I ask. “Is it possible she left with some friends or—”

“Absolutely not. She would have told me if she were going somewhere,” he says, his voice tight. “She would have called and let me know. She wouldn’t just disappear. Like I said, I allow Ash to keep her secrets, but when it comes to something like going somewhere that’s not on the schedule, we have a hard, fast rule to always tell each other.”

“Is it possible you two got your wires crossed? That she—”

“Again, no. Between my schedule and all the extracurriculars she does, we both have so much going on, we always write our schedules down on the calendar we keep. We always put our schedules down just to avoid worrying about each other. Always,” he says.

“And neither of you have ever forgotten to jot something down?”

“Not once in the last eight years,” he says firmly. “Our lives are on those calendars, Blake. You can go back through all of them and see exactly where we are and what we’ve done on any given day. It’s all right there.”

Documenting every single thing they do is taking organization to another level. But then, given how busy the Senator and his daughter’s lives are, I guess it’s probably helpful to know where each other will be at any given time just to avoid situations that could result in a misunderstanding that causes a lot of undue worry.

“There’s another thing,” he says. “I haven’t seen her phone ping on the tracking app since the end of school. It’s like she just vanished.”

I frown. “You track your own daughter?”

“Of course I do. Most parents do, in this day and age.”

“There are a ton of apps out there these days for parents to track their kids,” Church supplies. “There’s lots to discuss about the idea that parents should have immediate access to their kids’ locations at all times; but for our purposes, it’s become pretty helpful to solve cases. They’re like Ring cameras.”

I file that away. Not having kids myself, I didn’t realize that it was so prevalent. “So you both have a security guard tailing her and a constant live feed of her location?”

Barlow nods slowly. “I know it sounds like a lot, but… I just want to make sure she’s safe. I trust my daughter, but we agreed that for another level of security, we’d share our locations with each other. That no matter what happens… even if…”

He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Even after putting multiple contingencies in place, even after fearing for the worst, it still happened. My heart breaks for the man.

Barlow twists the wedding band on his finger in a way that reminds me of the way a person who’s lost a limb might touch the spot where it used to be. Given the fact that his wife has been gone a long time now, and he’s still wearing his ring, it seems to pretty much be the same thing. Barlow sits up and picks up a picture frame that sits on the corner of his desk. It’s a photo of his daughter. His face turns red, and his eyes shimmer with fresh tears as he stares at it. The fear enveloping him is palpable.

“Can you help me, Blake?” Barlow asks. “Can you bring my little girl home?”

“I can look into it, Senator. But I’m not going to sit here and make you any promises about what I can and can’t do. I don’t believe in giving false hope to anybody just to make them feel better,” I tell him.

“I understand,” he says, his tone colored with fear.

“What do you need from me, Blake?” Church asks. “I can quietly divert whatever resources your team needs. But I need your word that you will keep this out of the media.”

“That’s not a problem. My team doesn’t leak,” I say.

She nods. “I know. It’s one reason I called on you for this.”

“What about my OPR hearing? I’m expected back tomorrow morning—”

“I’ll take care of that,” Barlow says.

“How so?”

“I have plenty of friends on the Hill who don’t think too fondly of Deputy Inspector Graves,” he replies. “I’ll pull some strings and see if I can make this whole thing go away.”

“It’s a sham that never should have been elevated to the point of a hearing in the first place,” Church says. “It’s only gotten here because DeClerk still has friends who want to tarnish my reputation by discrediting yours.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that feeling,” I say.

“We’ll deal with it,” Barlow says. “What do you need to get this done?”

“Two things,” I reply. “My team and a safe place that’s off the grid for us to post up.”

“I know just the place,” Church says. “I’ll get that set up while you go call your team and get them out here. And I know I don’t need to tell you that time is of the essence, Chief.”

“Copy that.”

I drain the last of my scotch, then get to my feet, mentally preparing myself for the long night ahead. I wish I could say something comforting to Barlow or somehow reassure him. He looks like a man in emotional purgatory. But I have no words of comfort to offer. In child abductions, every second is critical. But there is no more important time period than the first twenty-four hours.

And I’m already several hours behind the ball.

FBI Operational Black Site, Foggy Bottom District; Washington DC

“Nice digs,” Astra remarks with a whistle as she walks through the door.