Beckett looked at Digger before bringing his focus back to his boss. “That’s the same amount the terrorists demanded when they made the ransom call to Mitchell.”
“Wait!” Falcon interjected. “Are you saying Evie’s dad, or whoever the hell he is, is the one behind all of this?”
“I’m saying, the evidence I’ve gathered up to this point sure makes it seem that way,” Baker answered from the screen.
“What evidence?” Beckett frowned.
“I accessed the CCTV footage from the cameras in the area of the condo where your girl was taken. A blacked-out Chevy Tahoe is seen entering the alley behind the condo approximately ten minutes before a nine-one-one call was made from a woman identifying herself as Evelynn Mitchell.”
Beckett’s gut clenched as Baker began typing on his keyboard. A beat later, the conference room was filled with the panicked sound of Evie’s sweet voice…
“Nine-one-one, what’s the address of your emergency?”
“Hello? Is this?—”
“This is nine-one-one, ma’am. Are you experiencing an emergency situation?”
“Yes! Um, I-I mean, not me, but my friend. We were just sitting and talking and laughing and I left the room for like two minutes, and when I came back she was lying unconscious on the floor.”
“Okay, ma’am, I understand, and I’ll send first responders your way as soon as I have the address where you and your friend are located.”
Beckett’s heart broke into a million pieces as he listened to Evie recite Lo’s address for the man on the other end of the line. The fear in her voice tore at his insides, but then his own fear grew to an almost unbearable level when he heard the last part of the call…
“Please. You have to hurry! I have no idea what happened. She just got home from an early flight, so maybe she’s just exhausted? I don’t know. She seemed fine just a second ag?—”
His hands curled into painfully tight fists as they rested atop the conference table’s smooth wooden surface. The nausea he’d felt earlier returned with a destructive force, but thankfully Baker began talking again, and Beckett’s focus was pulled away from his body’s desire to puke.
“The SUV pulls back out of the alley less than two minutes after the call ended. I was able to track it to a marina there in Charlotte, down on Lockwood Drive.”
“Someone came into her friend’s condo in the middle of the day, drugged her friend, kidnapped Evie, and then drove her to a fucking boat?” Beckett stared back at the man as if he’d lost his damn mind. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It will in a minute,” Baker stated with confidence. “When I saw where the SUV was headed, I hacked into the marina’s security system. From there, I could see the asshole carry the missing woman?—”
“Evie,” Beckett corrected sharply. “Her name is Evie. And she’s not just some missing woman, she’s…”
“I get it.” Baker’s hardened gaze softened just a touch as the man gave a slight dip of his bearded chin. “As I was saying, the cameras show the asshole carrying Evie like a sack of fucking potatoes to one of the yachts docked at the marina.”
“You get the name of the boat?” Owens asked before Beckett got the chance.
“Even better.” Baker grinned. “I’m sending you a digital copy of the yacht’s title, along with a bank statement from an offshore account, and information on the shell company attached to both the account and the yacht.”
The laptop Owens always kept inside the conference room dinged with an incoming email. A few clicks of the keys later, and Baker’s image shrank to make room for the three windows that popped up on the screen.
Beckett stood up and walked to the front of the room to get a closer look. He scanned the electronic documents, his pulse spiking when he saw what Baker was referring to.
“Jesus Christ.” He stared at the name scribbled on the dotted lines. “It really was him, wasn’t it?”
Phillip Mitchell was listed as the CEO of a shell company with an address far away from his East Hampton estate. That same company was listed as the yacht’s purchaser and current owner, and the individual who signed the bill of sale on behalf of that company…
Phillip. Fucking. Mitchell.
“I’m going to kill him,” Beckett stated calmly and with conviction.
The threat was far from empty, and he was as serious as he’d ever been.
Rather than try to talk him out of cold-blooded murder, Digger responded to the deadly vow with a rumbled, “Might want to hold off on that until after you make him tell you where he has Evie.”
“Problem’s going to be finding the son of a bitch,” Beckett groused. “If he’s with her on that boat?—”