Marine's Mission - Rebecca Deel Page 0,16
near where they’d found Toni’s car and hurried toward Hawthorne’s. Fifteen minutes later, Toni parked beside Gigi’s SUV. When she stepped from her vehicle, Toni glanced around, clutched her purse closer, and took off at a fast clip for the restaurant.
Owen stopped the feed, backed it up, then played it at normal speed. Even with the mediocre picture, the expression of fear on Toni’s face was plain to see. He paused the video.
Gigi’s breath hitched. “That was Toni’s expression when she walked into Hawthorne’s last night. I asked her what was wrong, and she said she was in trouble.” She turned to Owen. “She was right. Less than two hours later, we were run off the road, and Toni was taken.”
He threaded his fingers through hers. “How long were you in the restaurant?”
“Ninety minutes.”
Owen restarted the video. He wanted a look at the person who sabotaged Toni’s car. Fifteen minutes after Toni entered the restaurant, a black pickup cruised through the parking lot and parked a few spaces away from Toni’s car. That was the truck that forced Gigi’s SUV off the road.
He frowned. A fifteen-minute gap was too long for the driver to tail Toni by sight. That only left two possibilities. The perp had tagged Toni’s ride with a tracker or they knew where she was going and didn’t need to keep her in sight. Had the driver overheard Toni making plans to meet Gigi or was Toni working with the driver to set up her friend? Owen couldn’t see the latter happening. Toni and Gigi had been friends since elementary school.
The truck’s driver and passenger doors opened. Two men walked to Toni’s car. One man stood with his back to the car, acting as lookout. The other pulled a knife from a sheath at his waist and crouched beside the tire, then moved to the back tire. Within seconds, Toni’s car began to lean. The knife wielder stood, and the two men returned to the truck. They waited.
Owen sped up the video again until he spotted Gigi and Toni walking to their vehicles. He slowed the speed and saw the moment Gigi realized the tires were flat. As he watched, Gigi unlocked her SUV and nudged Toni inside.
The truck’s occupants opened their doors. Even though Owen knew Gigi escaped from the parking lot without incident, tension wracked his muscles. In less than a minute, Gigi drove from the lot with the truck trailing a distance behind her. “Did you see the men near the truck?”
She shook her head. “How could I miss them? They were only four spaces away.”
“The rain was heavy, and you wanted to get Toni to safety.” The fact that she didn’t notice the two men made Owen twitchy. Gigi needed to be more aware of her surroundings. Owen wouldn’t always be by her side to protect her. All in good time, he cautioned himself. He’d help G pay more attention to what went on around her.
Although he and his brothers needed to study the footage more closely, Owen sped up the video again, watching for the truck to return to the parking lot. Not long after Gigi and Toni left the restaurant, other patrons streamed from the establishment, leaving the parking lot empty. Donaldson lumbered to his vehicle, gave Toni’s disabled car a cursory glance, then climbed into his car and drove away.
Two hours later, the truck returned to the parking lot with new damage to the front grill and side, followed by an SUV. Didn’t take long for the two men to transfer an unconscious Toni from the truck into the SUV. One of the men returned to Toni’s car and searched the interior with a flashlight in hand. When he closed the door and jogged toward the SUV, he shook his head and climbed into the backseat. The driver peeled out of the parking lot.
“They were looking for something,” Gigi said. “I wonder what they wanted.”
His gut knotted with concern for Gigi. “I don’t know, but they didn’t find it.” Although Owen tinkered with the system, he couldn’t magnify the license plate or sharpen the picture. The rain last night didn’t help the video quality, either. Perhaps Zane could help with the footage. Although he’d obtain David’s authorization to send the footage to the Fortress tech wizard, he knew his brother would welcome any help.
After making sure the footage was on the flash drive, he pushed back from the computer and pulled Gigi to her feet. Seeing the stricken look on