Page 58 of On Fire

“We have a missing person too,” he says. “Sort-of.”

“Explain.” Finn is not messing around.

“Look at this this,” he says, and holds up a tablet. “We film everything. We arrived with nine members of the unit. “But here’s something weird,” he says freezing a frame. “Somehow, we added one. And then he disappeared.”

I quickly count. There’s ten people in suits. Bryce takes the tablet and moves into the shade so we can see better.

I can’t help myself. “This should be reported immediately.”

“Correct, and we just did.”

We watch for several minutes and then Bryce taps the screen to freeze it again. “You need to send this to Jack Carlson and Finn Colton immediately.” Bryce turns to me. Whatever he saw has him upset. “We have to get to the office.”

This is easier said than done.

I can’t haul my ass out of Rockland for hours. I have an official capacity to fulfill. I go through the motions for the next hour, imagining the worst. Police are now looking for Nic and a bomb. Then I get an order from Carlson to go back. I’m supposed to leave the engine with a chain of command in place and return to Colton Security. I want to throw up. This is not good. By the time I hit the station, word’s out that Nic’s missing.

I change clothes and whip it to The Inn. I hit the front door, scaring guests I’m sure, and haul myself upstairs.

Mateus opens the door to the office. He looks pale.

“What have we got?” I stand there in the middle of the room not realizing Finn’s on speakerphone with Carlson.

“I just sent you what Sophie was able get to cleaned up,” Finn is saying.

I glance to Mateus, mouthing “Sophie?”

He answers. “IT person. Boston office.”

Finn stares at the screen in front of him with the video feed. We are all watching the same thing. He tells Carlson, “Okay so go to seventeen zero two.”

That’s a time signature for the video. I lean closer to the screen in front of Finn. It’s basically where Bryce had frozen the tablet.

Then I see it. The tenth person in EOD is almost outside the shot, in the distance and nearly hidden by two large rectangular metal trash bins. This time, when Finn stops it, he’s able to zoom in. Pixels take a second to readjust, but the picture is quite clear.

Someone else in on the ground, out of shot, just part of a blue-suited leg shows, and a leather shoe.

My stomach bottoms out. It’s Nic.

Finn slows the film down, but all we can see is a large person in EOD bent over, then sitting on something moving slightly and then holding still. All that is visible is part of the person’s back.

After five minutes or so, the person rises. He stands a moment and then steps back, disappearing from the frame. In twenty seconds, a tan minivan pulls up, parks beyond where we can see anything, and whoever is on the ground disappears as well.

Nic was incapacitated. Taken. Moved.

Finn’s been talking to Carlson the whole time and when he reverses to where the person stands, I grab his arm to stop him. It’s the last time we see Nic.

“That’s Nic—”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “And we’ve got to find that van.”

There’s beeping on the other end of the phone. Carlson’s already sending out a description. But even when Finn slows the video down frame by frame, it’s too blurry to get a read on the license plate.

I feel almost faint.

What the fuck.

Finn looks up at me from his bent over position at the computer. “We’re going to find him,” he says.

I can’t speak. A rush of adrenaline scours my stomach, and I feel like every nerve is on fire. I’m suddenly jumpy. “Give me something to do,” I say. “Anything.”

I know the situation. There is nothing for me to do. I'm just a firefighter, not an investigator, not a colleague, not a Colton Security guy, and not with the police.

And then I understand why Nic is so close to Finn.

“You're going to stick right with me,” he says. “You're going to be with us every step of the way.”