kitchen. His sister-in-law turned from the counter where she was preparing snacks and placing them on trays for guests. The mixture of bite-size sweets, crackers and cheese, and fruit looked good. Small bottles of water and soft drinks were lined up beside the trays.
“Welcome back,” Emma said with a smile. “Any luck?”
“We made progress.” Not enough, but Owen would take what he could get. He turned to Gigi. “I need to call Zane. I won’t be long.” He didn’t want anyone to overhear his conversation with the Fortress tech wizard.
“I’ll be fine. If I run into trouble, I know how to scream loud enough to attract plenty of attention.”
The corners of his lips tugged up. He remembered her boisterous cheering from the sidelines at his high school football games. Also, Caleb would hear her if trouble came calling.
After pressing a quick, hard kiss to her mouth, Owen walked to his SUV. He needed to send a copy of the files on the flash drive to Zane and Caleb. Hopefully, one of the men would know if the files were important enough to kill for.
He booted up his computer and plugged in the flash drive. Owen frowned. The drive contained only one file. He sent a copy to his brother and the Fortress tech wizard, then called Zane.
“Yeah, Murphy.”
“It’s Owen Montgomery.”
“Perfect timing. I planned to call you in a few minutes.”
“You have something for me.”
“Several things. May not be enough to run with, but it’s a place to start.”
He breathed a touch easier. “I’ll take it. Tell me what you have.”
“First, Gigi’s phone should arrive at the B & B within the next hour. A friend of yours will drop it off. Second, I cleaned up the images of the kidnappers and ran them through our facial recognition system. You won’t like the identification. Third, I traced the license plate of the SUV used to transport Toni Webster from the restaurant.” Zane’s voice was grim.
“Bad news?”
“Oh, yeah. Complicates the situation and makes your job that much harder. I sent everything to your email. How else can I help?”
“I need a background check on Chaz Banks, Cassie Miles, Addison Cramer, and Theo Cohen. Cramer is Ellis Matthews’s supervisor. The rest are his coworkers.”
“What’s your gut say?”
“Cramer’s a jerk, but his sole focus is his own career at Huntington Tech. The only reason he’s concerned about Ellis is because his absence impacts the workload for the division as a whole and hampers Cramer’s chances of being noticed for the right reasons by the company CEO. I got the impression Ellis is the star of the software development division. His absence is a source of aggravation for Cramer.”
“Anything I should know about Ellis’s coworkers?”
“Ellis is friends with Cassie Miles and Chaz Banks. Other than that, he’s a loner.”
“I’ll get back to you soon. Cramer, Miles, and Banks have top priority. I’ll dig into Cohen when I can squeeze him in. One of the black ops units will need communication support soon. They’re traveling into a hot zone for a hostage rescue.”
Owen’s hand tightened around his phone. “Which team?”
“Shadow.”
He stilled. “I heard about them from the Texas unit. Are they as good as Texas said they are?”
“Shadow unit is phenomenal. They specialize in hostage and human trafficking rescues. No unit has a better track record on those missions.”
He whistled softly. Holy cow. Owen had run across a few human traffickers during his time as a Marine and a cop. Human traffickers were the worst bottom feeders. “How are they able to handle the work long term?” Continuous exposure to those missions had long-term repercussions.
“Maddox gives them breaks from the assignments by handing them bodyguard work to balance things out. He keeps a close eye on them and insists they see a counselor after each of the trafficking assignments. If they need a longer break than normal between missions, they get it. No questions asked.”
“Tough assignments,” he murmured.
“The worst,” Zane agreed. “Lucky for us, Shadow unit has a heart for the work, and they ask for the assignments.”
Owen had nothing but respect for Nico Rivera and his crew of operatives. They must be incredibly strong to hold up under the pressure placed on their mental health. “Thanks for your help, Zane. If you’re not able to run the searches, let me know. I can ask my brother, Caleb, to lend a hand.”
“Caleb’s into computers?”
“I don’t know if he’s in your league, but he’s better than anyone else I know.”
“Hmm. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Owen frowned at