Hidden Impact (Safeguard #1)(15)
“She send pictures?” Marc was still grinning.
“Text service doesn’t allow for pictures. She just wanted to reassure me she was eating.” Maylin might have been nagging her a little. Okay, a lot. “She always forgets to eat.”
“You said most—what was unusual?” Lizzy hopped off her stool and brought her plate to the sink, where Gabe was making quick work of washing the dishes.
Maylin backed up so she could see them all, leaned back against the refrigerator and started twisting the dish towel in her hands. “A few texts. She said her presentation went well. Then there was a text that someone made a job offer but she wasn’t going to take it. Then she said she wanted to come home. Now.”
Anxiety rose up, her heart starting to beat harder. Something was wrong, wrong, wrong. In a way that she hadn’t been able to explain to the police. But she had to get this right here, with these people. And to convince them her gut feeling was real.
“Only one or two texts after that, along the same lines of looking forward to coming home. No updates about getting to the airport or confirming when her flights were. She’d have checked with me to make sure there were no schedule changes so I could pick her up from the airport.” And that was an awful twist in her stomach too. Because Maylin had always been so busy, she hadn’t been reliable. Even if An-mei had been on the flight home, An-mei would’ve checked to be sure Maylin hadn’t got caught up with something work related.
“This text service, you access it via a web browser?” Lizzy asked quietly, wiping dishes as Gabe handed them to her.
“Yes.”
“Will you share it with us so we can take a look through the texts?”
Maylin nodded. “I’ll give you my password for the account. And hers.”
“You know her passwords?” Marc dropped his forehead into his hand.
Maylin shrugged. “An-mei was a little absent-minded, so she asked me to remember them for her after I told her not to put them on a Post-it note. She doesn’t know mine, though.”
“Well, it’ll help if we can take a look through those texts—and her recent email too, if the passwords you know access that.” Lizzy tossed the towel she’d been using on the counter. “Is that it? You didn’t hear anything else?”
Maylin sighed. “The only thing that happened next was me sitting at the airport, waiting for her for hours. No one at the airport could tell me anything but that she hadn’t boarded in China. The police said to wait a few days. My calls to the Chinese embassy said the same. I was researching private investigators and contractors with international affiliates when my job last night came up. Your corporation’s name came up in my research and was on the list of vendors as private security. The best of the best. That client doesn’t hire anything less. So I figured if anyone could help me, you could.”
“It’s not our usual type of mission.” Gabe crossed his arms, leaning back against the counter in front of the sink. “Our fire team is a part of a bigger squadron and we usually go in to cause a lot of damage and get out. Extraction is not our primary objective.”
“Not usually, no.” Victoria tapped her lips. “But not unheard of.”
Gabe nodded in acknowledgment. Maylin’s heart jumped. Hope. They were listening to her.
And she wanted to know about them, about what they might be able to do. “How many of you are there?”
“I lead a fire team of four soldiers—me, Lizzy, Marc and Victoria. We’re one of four to five fire teams in a particular squadron. Depending on the contract, fire teams can get moved around in the squadrons based on the needed skill sets for the mission at hand.” Gabe’s jaw flexed, as if he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. Bad habit, or maybe the echoes of an old one already given up. Her dad used to chew tobacco and did that for years after he’d quit. “Our entire current squadron is back on US soil, but only two of the fire teams came west for recovery here in Washington. Otherwise, we’d be at the corporate headquarters in the DC area.”
She couldn’t help looking back over the others. None of them looked injured. In fact, every one of them looked more fit than anyone she’d encountered either at work or walking on the street. It was in the way they stood, the way they moved smooth and soundless. There was a potential for action there, keeping Maylin on edge even before she’d thought to put a definition to it.
“Dislocated shoulder.” Lizzy tapped her left and gave her a feral grin. “Not fit for the kind of rough and ready duty we usually do, but more than fine for the simple bodyguard duty we were doing last night.”
“Broken thumb. Doesn’t seem serious, but you need your thumb to operate a lot of equipment.” Marc scowled as Victoria snickered. “Look. If the other squadron leader hadn’t seen me fumble my weapon on the way into the pisser, he’d have never known.”
“We were already headed here anyway,” Gabe interjected. “No reason to hide it, and better to get it splinted and taken care of.”
“Ah.” Maylin didn’t know what to say.
Was Gabe injured in some way? They all had looked at him, to him, to follow his lead in how much to share. She might not be super-secret military, but she could recognize at least those signs.
“Regardless, we’re all mended and more than capable of investigating your sister’s disappearance.” Lizzy cut the air with her right hand.