The Buried

CHAPTER 5

THE MOMENT THE photos arrived, Helen logged into her agency’s system and navigated to the information interface. The module would not only search her group’s database, but also cull information from other US intelligence and law enforcement organizations.

She typed in the five names Quinn had given her, set the parameters for a basic search so that it would be quicker, and clicked the ENTER button.

She received the results for the first four women within minutes. Wright, Holland, Blackwood, and Venton all matched the IDs Quinn had obtained. Each had been reported missing within the last month from different locations, all within a three-hundred-mile radius of Seattle.

None of the cases were getting much attention, however. The four women were recovering addicts of one type or another, and law enforcement officials in charge of each case seemed to think the person they were looking for had probably fallen back into her addiction and would turn up eventually, either stoned or dead. Because of this and the distances between the cases, no connections had been made to reveal a pattern.

Helen had started to assume Danielle Chad was a similar case that just hadn’t been reported yet when her computer spit out a response:

A&D — apprehend and detain, in this case with the highest priority. It had been routed through the NSA, but could have originated from any of a dozen or more other agencies. Usually some basic information about the individual would come with such an order, even an alpha one, but the only other item was a link to a contact. When she clicked on it, she was presented with a screen telling her that remote access to the requested information was restricted.

She spent several minutes searching other databases for anything she could find about Danielle Chad but came up with nothing.

It looked like she wouldn’t learn anything until she went into the office.

But that could wait for now. She was already late getting back to Quinn.

The moment Orlando hung up with Quinn, she arranged through an app service for a car to pick her up right away. By the time she reached the street and removed her laptop from her backpack, her ride pulled to the curb. She gave the driver her address and settled into the backseat.

Using the information from the IDs, she conducted a similar search to the one Helen was doing on the other side of town. Her results for the first four women were basically the same. When it came to Danielle Chad, all her normal sources returned nothing.

Orlando then did a general search on the woman’s name. She received several hits but none matched the age and description of the woman Quinn had found.

There was only one other thing she could do. After cropping the woman’s photo out of the ID, she uploaded it into her web-based facial recognition interface and hit START. There was no telling when, or if, it would kick back any results, so she closed her computer and put it away.

She squirmed in her seat, trying to alleviate some of the aches she was feeling. When that didn’t work, she twisted to the side so she could rub the base of her spine. She couldn’t remember having this much back pain when she’d been pregnant with her son Garrett twelve years before.

Barely five feet tall, Orlando’s pre-baby weight had always hovered around ninety-four pounds. Her little passenger had added over twenty percent to that, rocketing her to — at last check — what she considered a hefty one hundred and fourteen.

Being pregnant again wasn’t all annoying, though. She was having a baby with Quinn. Thinking about that always brought a smile to her face. Okay, perhaps they hadn’t planned it this way, but damn if it wasn’t cool. She could already tell Quinn was going to be one of those overly involved, pain-in-the-ass dads, and she loved him even more for that.

As the baby nudged against her belly, Orlando sucked in a breath, the movement catching her off guard. She rubbed the spot and said, “Sweetheart, come on out anytime you’re ready.”

“Excuse me?” the driver said.

She looked up. “Sorry. I was — hey! There!” She leaned forward and pointed down the street to where a small crowd had gathered next to several food trucks. “Pull over.”

“But this isn’t where—”

“Just pull over.”

“Okay, okay. No problem.”

She opened the door as soon as he stopped. “Wait for me. I won’t be long.” She started to get out but then asked, “You want anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

“You sure? My treat.”

“A Coke, I guess,” he said. “And a taco. I mean, if that’s okay.”

Orlando climbed awkwardly out of the car and waddled over to the end of the line in front of the Mexican food truck.

Barely half a minute later, her phone rang, the caller ID reading HELEN CHO.