“Glad you like it. This is home for the duration of the case,” I say.

An hour after my meeting with Church and Barlow, the team was on a plane heading east. A little over five hours later, they arrived, were picked up by a car Church had sent for them, and were coming through the door of our HQ.

“There are four bedrooms in the place,” I say. “I don’t anticipate us getting a lot of sleep, but each room has two bunks, so grab one and settle in quickly. We’re on a clock, so we need to get to work on this as quickly as possible.”

The black site Church set us up with is a three-story, white brick row townhouse in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood. It’s a quiet street and probably the last place you’d expect to find an off-the-grid Bureau operational center, which is probably the point. Other than tables and workstations, there isn’t much else in the way of furnishings. There are no decorations on the walls, the bunks in the rooms are hard, and there is nothing warm or inviting about the place. It’s spartan, functional, and utilitarian. It’s perfect.

The rest of the team files in, sets their things down, then starts poking around the townhome and claiming their workstations like cats marking out their territory—all except for Nina who pulls a small black box out of a bag. It beeps after she flips a switch, then she starts walking through the place with it held out in front of her, watching the small screen built into it.

“It’s a Bureau black site,” I say. “Do you really think it’s bugged?”

She shrugs. “They bugged us in a Bureau field office..”

“That’s fair,” I say.

“That’s smart,” Astra adds.

“Thanks for taking the precaution, Nina. I appreciate the diligence.”

“Hey, I am nothing if not paranoid,” she says. “I’m not about to let some other idiot like DeClerk take advantage of us.”

“Every door has been reinforced with steel, the windows are bulletproof, we have a dedicated server room in the basement, and the lock and surveillance systems are cutting edge. Military grade,” I tell them. “This house is probably safer and more secure than any field office.”

“Are we expecting an army to attack?” Astra asks.

“Expecting? No. Is it possible? Given this team’s luck, it’s always best to be prepared for the unexpected no matter how outlandish,” I reply.

“True enough,” Astra says with a laugh.

Done settling in, the rest of the team gathers in the main room on the ground floor and takes their seats around the long table, getting themselves set up and ready to work. Church had the room set up to my specifications—a long conference table sits in the center of the room with a large monitor on an elevated easel at the foot. A whiteboard sits to the right of the table with a fresh pack of dry erase markers taped to it. I pull the markers off and set them on the table, then tape a picture of Ashley Barlow to it and write her name below it.

“How is your hearing with OPR going?” Astra asks, her tone concerned.

“Not well. DeClerk has his allies coming for my head,” I say.

“Please tell me you’re playing nice like I told you.”

“I… tried. I really did.”

“Dear God,” she replies, putting her head down.

“It’s fine. We’ll deal with that later if it comes to that,” I say. “Senator Barlow and Church both said they’ll make the whole thing go away.”

“Do you trust them?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No. I suppose not. Well, fingers crossed,” Astra says with a slight smile.

I cross my fingers, a strained grin on my face. Astra grabs my hand and squeezes it, trying to look encouraging, but I can see the worry in her eyes. If this hearing situation goes to pot and DeClerk’s allies are able to drop the hammer on me, there will be consequences not just for me but for the rest of my team as well. If I’m reassigned or demoted, the odds are high they will be too. But we’ve got a case right now, so I’m trying to avoid thinking about it and to focus on the task at hand instead. All I can do is hope Barlow and Church are able to come through and make it go away. Everything else right now is beyond my control.

“Okay, you guys were briefed on the plane. It’s not much, but it’s all we have to work with at the moment,” I start. “This case stays in this room. Senator Barlow does not want word of his daughter’s abduction leaking to anybody—especially the media.”

“It might be tough to maintain complete secrecy when we start poking around,” Astra notes. “Her friends are bound to notice she’s not around, and when we have to question them, they’re likely only going to get more curious.”

“I know. But we’ll have to be as delicate as possible. When we question people, we’ll tell them we’re doing a background check at the request of the Senator. It’s flimsy, but it’s going to have to do for now,” I respond. “We really need to keep this as quiet as possible for a long as we can. If this is an abduction, we don’t want to put any added pressure on the kidnapper.”

“Do you doubt it was a kidnapping?” Paige asks.

“Right now, I doubt everything. We need solid information before we know which way this is going,” I say. “Senator Barlow believes his daughter was taken, but we have no confirmation of that yet. We haven’t had a ransom demand, and I’m not certain we’re going to get one.”

“It hasn’t been a full twenty-four hours yet. It may still come in,” Astra says.

“It might. That’s why I want Rick and Mo to go ahead and post up at Barlow’s home in Arlington. I want you guys to be there just in case a call comes in, and if it does, do your best to trace it,” I say. “And Mo, while you’re there, do a little digging. Talk to Barlow’s staff and find out what their relationship was like. I want to know if he’s telling us everything.”

“Copy that,” Mo says.

“Call us when you get there and get set up. I’ll text you the address,” I tell her.

Mo and Rick get to their feet and grab their things, then head out, the electronic lock on the door chiming behind them as it engages.

“So, if we don’t get a ransom call, are we assuming this is a sex thing? That maybe she was taken by somebody who wanted to traffic her?” Paige asks.

“That’s something we’re going to have to consider, yes,” I reply. “But as we all know, stranger abductions are relatively rare, so I want to start looking closer to home. I want to check out the people in Ashley’s direct orbit.”

“Do you think her dad had anything to do with it?” Astra asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t. I think he’s being genuine with us,” I respond. “So, we’re going to check out everybody with a direct and personal connection to Ashley first, and we’ll expand outward from there.”

“Okay, who’s in Ashley’s direct orbit?” Astra questions.

“We’ve got Lieb Tal, her driver-slash-bodyguard. And there’s also her aunt, Violet Wagner. She stays at the Arlington house and keeps an eye on Ashley,” I say. “Nina, can you—”

“On it,” she says.

Her eyes fixed on her laptop screen, Nina’s fingers fly over the keys as she does a quick and dirty dive into the backgrounds of Lieb and Violet. It’s going to take a couple of minutes, so I turn back to Astra and Paige.

“What do we know about Ashley’s relationship with her father?” Astra asks.

“According to him, they have a great relationship. He said they grew very close after his wife, Samantha, passed away,” I say.

“Right. I remember reading about that. Breast cancer, wasn’t it?” Paige asks.

I nod. “Yeah. That’s right.”

“How does Barlow know Ashley didn’t just blow town with some girlfriends?” Astra asks. “She’s a rich kid who, presumably, is surrounded by other rich kids. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned on this job, rich kids sometimes feel untouchable and entitled and do stupid things. I mean, how many times has somebody sounded the abduction alarm only to find out their kid and some friends took the family car up to the Hamptons for the weekend?”

“Plenty of times,” I reply. “But he says that’s not a possibility—”