Again, none of the guys asked for more proof than that. Every single one of them knew what it was like to have the woman they loved in jeopardy.
Rescue first. See how accurate the gut instinct was later.
Aiden handed out communication devices that would allow them to talk to and hear each other if they were separated. They were also connected to Kendrick back at his computer.
“I know it’s a holiday,” Aiden said, “but this place looks like a ghost town. Shouldn’t someone be here? Security or something?”
Kendrick’s voice came into their ears. “It looks like Ramford might have messed with their schedules. He made all the guards think someone else had the shift. I’m sure everyone was excited to have the holiday weekend off.”
“This campus is pretty large,” Zac said, pulling out an electronic tablet so they could look at a map of the campus. “It’s going to take quite a bit of time for us to search room by room.”
Time Baby was afraid Quinn didn’t have.
“Let’s split up. I’ll head to Quinn’s office.” He pointed to the building on the map. “Gavin, you head over here to the computer lab where the break-in occurred. The rest of you start taking the other buildings systematically.”
Everyone nodded. If any of them had a problem with Baby giving orders, there was no evidence of it whatsoever.
“Your first stop needs to be here.” One of the buildings on the map lit up at Kendrick’s words. “You’ll have to break into that one, but you’ll find master sets of keys there. I’m shutting down all security alarms for the time being.”
They all looked over at Gavin at the mention of illegal activity, but he just shrugged. The man didn’t like to break the rules, but he knew sometimes it was necessary.
They broke into the maintenance room to get the master keys, then headed in separate directions. Baby got to the office Quinn shared with the other part-time instructors and found it empty. He checked room by room around it but didn’t find anything nearby either.
He didn’t like this. Didn’t like how long it was taking. Maybe he was wrong and Ramford didn’t plan to hurt her but—
“Oh shit.”
Kendrick’s muttered words struck fear into Baby’s bones.
“What?” all five of them responded at the same time.
“I’m sending a picture to each of your phones. I found it when I started digging deeper into Ramford on his temporary cloud drive. It’s where he holds stuff until he decides where he wants to put them permanently. He was working in a hurry and got sloppy.”
Baby thought he’d been scared before, but nothing in his entire life had ever terrified him as much as the picture on his phone.
A wide shot of Quinn, a noose around her neck, balancing precariously on a stool.
There were various muttered curses in his ear. Baby couldn’t force out air, much less a word.
How long ago was this taken? Were they too late?
“Can you pinpoint where he is?” Finn asked.
“No. He’s using the TSC servers to upload data, so it could be any of the buildings. And...oh fuck, he just uploaded a suicide letter from Quinn. It’s scheduled to release in an hour to every email on campus along with the picture.”
Baby struggled to push back the red haze of fury that threatened to overwhelm him. He needed to focus.
“Finn, meet me in the south parking lot. I need the tablet so I can see this picture bigger.” Baby was already running for the door and could hear his brother moving too. “Blaze, I need building plans for the campus. Now.”
“On it.”
Baby burst out of the building, his brother running from the other direction. Finn threw the tablet the last few feet, and Baby caught it, already studying it.
Baby avoided more than a short glance at Quinn’s terrified face as he zoomed in on the picture near the top.
“There. That light.” He pointed at a shadow about two feet above Quinn’s head. “That’s coming from a window with an unusual angle.”
Finn nodded. “Shit, you’re right.”
“Back there.” Baby zoomed in on the far corner of the picture. “That’s not a right angle, either.”
“How can you tell that?” Finn asked from over his shoulder.
“You know how you had an innate understanding of distances and the effect of wind shear when you were a sniper?”
Rapidly, Baby scrolled through the building plans Kendrick had sent.
“Yeah.”
“It’s sort of the same for me with schematics. My brain just sees it.”