“I would think so, but it needs to be a big-enough advantage to make a difference,” he murmured. “We really do need a break on this.”

  At the door to Amy’s hotel room, Riff stopped, looked around, pondered.

  “What are you thinking?” Wallace asked him.

  “I’m wondering when her room was last cleaned and if they saw anything.”

  “Chances are, it wasn’t cleaned because she wasn’t due to check out yet, but …”

  “Right, but we can’t count on that.”

  “Nope, we sure can’t,” Wallace confirmed. “I can track down maid service—unless it’s the same people who worked yesterday …”

  “Exactly,” Riff agreed. “Let’s check out the room first.” And, with that, Riff let himself into the room.

  A moment later, Wallace realized that Riff didn’t have a key, and Wallace saw no lockpicks used either. He tucked away that bit of information in the back of his head. As he walked into the hotel room, they both stopped, and Wallace frowned. “Cold, empty, no energy at all. Is this even her room?” he asked, curiously looking around. “It doesn’t feel like her room.”

  “I know. It doesn’t feel like anybody’s room.” Riff frowned, as he looked around. “If this was her room, I don’t think she ever stayed in it.”

  “I agree with you there,” Wallace replied. “And, if it wasn’t her room, then why were we told it was?”

  “Exactly.”

  Frowning at that, he turned to Riff. “I’ll head back down to the front desk and double-check the information we got.”

  Riff just nodded.

  Wallace quickly headed for the elevators, and a few minutes later was at the main reception area. He explained to the desk clerk just who he was and why he was here. He explained how there appeared to be some mix-up, and they were given the wrong room number.

  The woman frowned at him. “That’s what I have on the registry.” She clicked on the computer keys, bringing up the registration.

  “Then she obviously changed her room,” Wallace suggested.

  The woman shook her head, while she read the notes on the computer, then exclaimed, “She did. You’re right. I am so sorry for the mix-up.”

  “Good, so what room was she in then?” he asked, sounding harsher than he intended.

  The clerk checked a few other screens and then replied, “Fifth floor. Room 512. I’m so sorry for the mix-up.”

  “Was a reason given for why she changed rooms?” He studied the clerk. “Did you ever see her?”

  She shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen her myself. So I haven’t checked her in or out.”

  “Right now, as far as we’re concerned, she’s missing.”

  “But maybe she’s in the other room.”

  “Would you not have had that information to give the cops in the first place?” he asked, getting frustrated.

  She frowned and nodded. “We should have, yes. So I don’t understand why we didn’t.”

  “And that is my concern. If 512 is her room, then why did everybody else get sent to a different room? This can’t be a simple mistake.”

  “I see a notation that her room was changed at her request, but I don’t see a reason why.”

  “Not that a reason is necessarily an issue, but the fact that she made a request and that you gave it to her is good. Yet, when the cops contacted you, they should have been directed to the new room that she was checked into. The fact that the cops weren’t given that info raises questions, serious questions.” Wallace sighed. More research to do, including deep background checks into all the employees in this hotel, whether part-time or full-time, then cross-referencing their friends and family. Levi and Terk may both need to be on this project.

  “I don’t know why, sir. You are absolutely correct, but I can offer no explanation.” She kept apologizing over and over, but the conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

  He finally held up a hand to her. “Stop. Our people will check into that. Can you just give me the correct room key? I need to check that room.”

  She seemed distraught as she handed over the key.

  Wallace headed to the elevator, already texting Levi and Terk with his latest need for more research. He went straight up to the fifth floor, now texting Riff about the room change and to meet up here.

  At the door to Amy’s actual room, Wallace used the key and let himself in. Inside the room, he noted the energy. Unfortunately it was all the wrong kind. Because this room hadn’t been mentioned initially to the cops, the assumption had been made that Amy had been missing since she had been dropped off. However, now it seemed more likely that she had had a visitor, who had completely destroyed the room, looking for something or just wanting to destroy things.

  He phoned the front desk and asked when the door to 512 had last been opened.

  After a few keystrokes, the clerk stated that the room was opened at 11:15 last night. When he asked when it had opened afterward, she replied in a concerned voice, “I don’t have anything else here, not until you just entered the room only minutes ago.”

  “So, you’re saying that it was opened at 11:15 p.m., and I presume she left at that hour and was she alone?”

  “I don’t know,” the clerk admitted, her tone nervous. “All I can tell you is that, according to the computer, the room was accessed at 11:15 p.m., and that’s all.”

  “And to access security camera footage?” he asked.

  “You’ll need the manager for that.”

  Thanking her, he ended the call.

  The only way a kidnapping could happen was if Amy had opened the door to somebody, who promptly knocked her out. Then propped open the door, so her intruder could destroy the place—or could make it look as if they were destroying it. Thereafter, the kidnapper picked up Amy and took her away, letting the door close at that time.

  If that was what really happened—and it was a big if—this sucked.

  As he stood here, Riff walked in behind him and whistled. “What happened here?”

  “At 11:15 last night somebody accessed her room, but the door hasn’t been opened since then, not until I came in just now.”

  “We think she opened her door willingly?”

  “If it’s just the one time instance—and that’s what the desk clerk is saying—then Amy obviously let somebody in, or at least opened the door, thinking it was somebody she needed to talk to.” Wallace gave a wave of his hand. “What we’re looking at then is that somebody possibly came in at that time and snagged her but destroyed the room to make it appear that a burglary or an argument or something happened here. Then they somehow managed to get Amy out of here at the same time.”

  “So, we also need to check the elevators at that time period,” Riff suggested, looking around. “We need to see who may have knocked her out and took her away.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Wallace said, staring at the room. “Definitely energy is here, but it’s just not energy I like.”

  “There’s nothing about it I like,” Riff declared. “This feels as if there was a struggle, a woman fighting for herself, for her life, and I won’t say she lost her life, but she certainly lost her freedom.”

  With that, Wallace turned and headed back downstairs, looking for the security camera feeds from last night. It took a little bit longer to get a manager and to get the clearance to bring up that footage. As soon as they had it, he watched as a cleaning cart rolled down the hallway, and the maid in a uniform stopped at Amy’s door, as if to hand over extra towels, and the laundry hamper was pushed in. When it was pushed back out again, it headed back down toward the same service elevator and then disappeared.

  When he asked for cameras for the service elevator, it was a no-go. “Sorry, we don’t have any of those,” the manager replied. “They’re literally just for workers.”

  “Of course it’s for workers, but maybe your workers are involved in this kidnapping ring. Did you consider that?” he asked in frustration. The manager frowned and shook his head. Wallace continued. “I’ve already got a team doing a deep dive into all your employees and their known associates. Meanwhile, you guys can explain to MI6 why you don’t have cameras in this area and why a guest the government brought in was kidnapped from your hotel at that hour, and you don’t have any record of it.”

  The manager paled and panicked. “It is something that we’re in the process of getting,” he offered, “but nothing’s been set up yet.”

  “Where does the service elevator go?”

  “It stops at every floor, but it also goes down to the laundry area.” With that, the manager led Wallace down to the laundry room, part of the basement. Wallace sent a text to update Riff and harbored a faint hope that Amy might still be unconscious in a laundry hamper somewhere nearby. However, a thorough search of the area didn’t reveal such a simple answer. Riff showed up and joined them now that they were done searching. A grim expression on his face, Wallace looked over at his partner.

  Riff nodded in concern. “Nothing is here, absolutely no sign of where she’s gone or when. We’ll head out to the parking lot, check street cameras, any hotel cams,” he added, turning to look at the manager, who shook his head. Riff turned to Wallace. “We’ll have to check anything around that 11:15 p.m. time.”

  Taking their leave, they returned to their vehicle and phoned Jonas, wanting access to local street cams, hoping to use Jonas’s supercomputer.

  Jonas sighed. “Sure, I can get you access, but the kidnappers may have avoided being seen on any of them already. Considering Amy had appointments this morning with MI6, we would know to worry when she didn’t show up. Still, taking her at 11:15 p.m. gave them at least a nine-hour head start, which was probably planned.”

  “Do we get access or not?” Riff asked.

  Jonas groaned. “Yes. I’m just telling you that it’ll end up being a waste of your time. Still, give me some time to set up a secure spot for you to work from, where no one will bother you or will know what you’re doing either. I’m sure you’ll find something useful to do in the meantime.”

  “Definitely something is going on here that we aren’t seeing,” Wallace declared, “and we need to. Otherwise there’s a chance Amy won’t see the light of day again.”

  With that, he ended the call.

  *

  Wallace and Riff remained in the MI6 rig, in the hotel parking lot, planning out their next move. “I presume Terk has been in contact with her,” Wallace shared with Riff.

  Riff quickly dialed Terk and asked him, putting him on Speakerphone.

  “Amy has no idea what happened, no idea where she is, even wondering if this wasn’t some twisted job interview to see what she could do.” Terk’s tone was hardened with disbelief.

  At that, Riff’s eyebrows shot up, and he stared at Wallace. “I might have thought that myself, if I was locked up as she’s apparently been.”

  Terk agreed. “Especially when she was picked up from her room, doesn’t know who took her, doesn’t know anything about it. So far, she’s met one captor, and they are feeding her, but she’s lost time, so they’re obviously drugging her,” Terk shared.

  Wallace sighed. “That makes sense, and it also keeps her compliant, dulls her gifts.” Wallace hated the idea, but what if she was right about a twisted job interview? The thought pissed him off, but it was all too possible.

  Terk added, “She’s waiting for somebody to arrive but doesn’t know who or what to expect. For the moment, they’re treating her okay. She believes she’s in London—or at least that’s what she was told. I’ll stay in touch with her for as long as I can and will keep you updated.” Then Terk ended the call.

  “If they’re not lying to her and if she really is in London, that would be a very good thing,” Riff replied, with a nod. “Terk does have a locator on his staff, so I bet he’s getting Langdon in on this.”

  “If a locator does just that, then I would imagine so,” Wallace said. “Yet you never really know because not everybody can turn it on and off all the time. Plus, certain buildings can block our energy.”

  Riff nodded. “In addition to your two points, in this case, where we have so much added pressure as one of our own was taken, our energy work doesn’t always hold up to the stress factor.”

  Wallace faced Riff. “How come nobody from the government has gotten back to us on the street cams? That seems a bit dodgy.”

  “Because we asked for their help,” Riff replied, with a wry look. “Also because somebody in-house may be involved in Amy’s kidnapping. … You do know this would go a lot faster without them, right?”

  “In that case, let’s do it without them,” Wallace stated.

  “Good.” Riff snorted. “Let’s jump in and do this. I do better without any of them looking over my shoulder.”

  Wallace glared at him. “If you had a better idea right from the beginning, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I did, but you were still thinking this wasn’t necessarily a big deal.”

  “Wait. I’ve always considered it a big deal,” he declared, staring at Riff. “Amy’s not here, and I assume it wasn’t her choice to leave, but I was hardly expecting a drugged kidnapping of a potential MI6 hire. That’s pretty brazen.”

  “That’s the thing about government work,” Riff noted. “You can’t ever really count on anything. So you never know what to expect. I wouldn’t put it past MI6 to be putting her through a test. If that is not enough for you, look at the job you guys were being asked to do.”

  Wallace nodded. “Not a bad theory,” he admitted. “I sure hope Amy’s wrong about that though because if we can’t trust Jonas …”

  “Yeah, well, in a way, I would hope that she’s right because then, chances are, we’ll get her out of this in one piece. However, if it’s a private contract, and somebody else is looking at her skills, wondering what she can or can’t do, that’s a whole different story. If she fails, … who says she’ll get a free pass to just walk out.”

  “No, they won’t take that kindly, will they?”

  “They never do,” Riff said, his tone hard. “These people, if not MI6, will have a very different take on this scenario.”

  “So, how do we find out if it is or is not an MI6 trial run?” Wallace asked, staring at Riff.

  “I don’t generally deal with governments. I avoid them like the plague,” he shared cheerfully. “Mostly because of shit like this.”

  “You think her theory has merit?”

  “Of course it has merit,” he stated, frowning at Wallace. “Didn’t we just say that?”

  “I guess it just feels wrong to think that the British government would do that.”

  “Wrong maybe, but when it comes to Special Ops, Black Ops? … Hell no. They pull this shit all the time.”

  Such vehemence filled Riff’s tone that Wallace had absolutely no doubt that, as far as Riff was concerned, it was totally possible. Still, it was a little unnerving to consider. Wallace wasn’t at all sure he was ready to jump on the same hating of governments bandwagon that Riff was on.

  Riff grabbed his duffel bag from the back seat and pulled out his laptop. “Let’s hack into MI6’s street cams.”

  Wallace nodded, grabbing his laptop too. Two hours later, he shook his head. “Jonas may be right. They avoided all the street cams.”

  “And,” Riff added, “Jonas has still not called us back.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Wallace asked.

  “Damn straight. Let’s go have a face-to-face chat with Jonas.”

  Riff and Wallace left the hotel parking lot and shortly pulled into the parking lot below MI6 headquarters, parked, and headed upstairs. As it was, they stumbled on to Jonas, ripping into somebody in the hallway. As he turned and saw them, Jonas’s glare widened to encompass the two of them. “What the hell is going on here?” he roared.

  Wallace’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not sure what this is and what you think we’re up to, but we’re trying to find Amy.”

  “Where is she?” Jonas asked.

  Wallace shook his head. “It appears she’s been kidnapped. We’re not sure whether you guys had a hand in it or that was just a coincidence.”

  From the look of complete shock on Jonas’s face, it was obvious that he’d never once considered such a thing.

  At that, Wallace nodded. “I’m really glad to see it wasn’t you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Jonas roared.

  “Thinking of the job she was brought in to do,” he explained, “we couldn’t help but wonder if somebody in your office decided some test was in order.”

  Jonas blinked several times, and then he slowly sagged onto the closest wall. “Good God,” he muttered, with a headshake. “That would be just beyond everything.”

  “Sure, but it’s also not out of the realm of possibility,” Riff declared. “And we all know it.”

  At that, Jonas shot him a hard look. “I sure didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean the British government didn’t.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he murmured, rubbing his hands through his hair. “Good Christ, I need to make some calls and see what I can come up with. You guys keep trying to find her.” Then he turned to face Wallace. “If you know she’s been kidnapped, where the hell is she? Did they ask for ransom? Is that what this is about?”

  “No, as far as we’re concerned, we’re still looking at you guys,” Riff interjected smoothly, not letting Jonas off the hook. “Other than that, we don’t know where she is. For now we’re presuming London.”

  Jonas looked confused for a moment. “So how do you know she didn’t just walk away? Decided the job wasn’t for her and just packed up and left?”

  “I’m sure plenty of people may wonder if she did exactly that, particularly if she’d been picked up as some MI6 test. If she fails, what’s to stop somebody from just deep-sixing her?”

  At that, Jonas swore again. “We’re a government agency here, not the mafia.”

  “Not all that easy to tell the difference sometimes,” Riff noted, with a wry grin directed at Wallace, apparently unable to avoid pushing Jonas’s buttons at every turn. “Also Terk’s been in contact with her.”