Oops

Chapter 13

                                                                                    Blake

                “Whoa,” Shane murmured, breaking me from my reverie. “Blake, come look at this.”

                I stopped air drumming and scooted over on the bed towards him and his laptop. His nimble fingers flickered as they typed in rapid commands, pulling up windows faster than I could register what was on them. The windows held a series of pictures—grainy, mostly black and white, and with one consistency.

                “Oh, my God,” I said, pointing at one of the pictures. “That’s her!”

                Shane didn’t answer right away. “I used the FBI’s facial recognition program and cross-referenced it with the pictures most of our fans were using at the time of the kidnapping,” he said, leaning back and cracking his knuckles. “These are mostly from traffic cams all around LA.”

                The clearest picture of the girl was in a dark van of some sort. She was talking, mouth partly open, glossy black curls flying in the wind from the open window.

                “So they’re still in Los Angeles?” I rubbed my hands together. “We should tell Dawson—”

                “That’s not what I wanted to show you, bro.” Shane looked grim as he reached for the keyboard again. Clicking a few keys he brought up another photo: same van, but this time the girl was in the passenger seat, head lolled to the side, eyes closed in sleep. In the driver’s seat, driving, was a familiar face. It was wearing girl’s sunglasses and had a blue baseball cap pulled over the curly blonde hair, but there was no mistaking it. That was Rocky.

                I stared at the picture, and then at Shane. He gave me a shrug in response. “Is he helping her?” I asked, incredulous. “Why would he do that?”

                Shane shook his head, getting his bangs in his eyes. He blew them back and said, “If he is, there’s a reason. You know Rocky.”

                Yeah, I knew Rocky. Rocky was the most rebellious person in our tight knit little family, but he wouldn’t do anything like faking his own kidnapping just to freak us out. And if he were kidnapped for real, he wouldn’t help out his unconscious kidnapper by covering up his face, carting her around LA like he was her personal chauffer. That just wasn’t Rocky.

                I sighed and leaned back against the numerous pillows scattered on the bed. “So what do we do?” I asked. “If we tell the cops, they’ll have to treat Rocky like he’s an accessory—which we know he isn’t.”

                Shane gave me a look. I blanched, trying not to blush. That last bit wasn’t meant to come out so defensively. He just shook his head again and went back to typing on his computer. I took that to mean that I was the thinker, and he was the enforcer. It was up to me to decide if we tell the cops or not.

                If we tell the cops and they thought Rocky was an accessory in his own kidnapping, they wouldn’t pay the ransom or take it as seriously. But if we kept quiet about it, they could shoot Rocky’s new “friend”—and that probably wouldn’t end well.

                “Can we track this?” I asked finally.

                “Already done,” Shane said, smirking. He turned the laptop towards me again and I spotted a map with a small red dot blinking on it. I assumed that was the van. It wasn’t moving, so that was a good sign. Shane watched me with unblinking eyes, that little smirk on his face like he already knew what I was thinking. “Well?”