No answer.
Ham dropped his bag on the floor. “Problem?”
“Alarm’s off.” Skeet moved through the lower level—family room, kitchen. “Chloe! You here?”
Nothing.
The living room looked undisturbed. Chloe’s laptop sat open on the coffee table, screen dark with sleep mode.
“Her computer’s here.” North’s voice carried the same edge that had crept into Skeet’s chest.
“Chloe!” Skeet called again, louder this time.
West appeared from a first-floor bedroom. “Not in there.”
“Upstairs.” Skeet took the steps two at a time, the other three behind him.
Empty bedrooms, bathrooms. Beds still made from this morning.
He walked back out into the hallway. “She’s not here.” He did an Oscar-worthy job of not letting the imploding of his chest leak out into his voice.
“Could she have gone out?” Ham had come upstairs behind him.
“Where? She doesn’t have a car. Doesn’t know the neighborhood.”
“Phone?”
Skeet was already dialing. Straight to voicemail. Dead battery or turned off.
“Maybe she went for food,” North suggested. “You said she mentioned getting something for the team.”
“Without telling me? Without leaving a note?” The words shot out of him. “That would be colossally stupid.”
Ham and North exchanged a look. And great, they were clearly starting to piece together why their teammate was unraveling.
Yeah, well, fine.Let them figure it out.
So he had fallen for her a little. Or a lot. Clearly the woman needed an entire spec ops team to keep her safe.
“If Leonid Volkov knows about her—or us—his people could have grabbed her while we were at the airport...”
The sentence hung unfinished because he couldn’t bear to complete it.
Because this was Narin in Myanmar all over again. Someone under his protection disappearing, kidnapped... and then what?
“Skeet,” Ham said. “Take a breath.”
“Whatever.” Skeet was already dialing Coco’s number. “We need surveillance footage from the neighborhood cameras. Traffic cameras on the access roads. Phone records?—”
“Skeet? You back?”
The voice from downstairs made everyone freeze.
Chloe’s voice.
He was already heading to the stairs.
She stood in the entry holding a couple plastic bags. Grinning at him.