“Owen or Ethan or whatever the hell his name is, picks her up and drives them to the bar. Laura likes a few drinks so she’d be happy to make someone else the designated driver. And she’d want her luggage easily accessible when she came back, but she’d want it safe.”

Ashley frowned. “An agent checked the parking garage but I’ll have someone check again for the make and model.”

“Or EG took it,” Novak suggested.

“I doubt he’d risk it. And Laura’s car is top of the line. He’d be wary of anything we can track,” Alex said. “As far as we know he’s still driving the car he stole from Wayne Stockwell with false plates.”

“What about her laptop?” Yael asked.

“Either he has it or it’s in her vehicle.”

Yael’s expression collapsed. “I can’t believe he’s taken her. That even with us all looking for him he was right in front of us the whole time. The bastard chatted to me in a bar and I didn’t even realize it was him. Everything he does is to maximize people’s pain.”

She looked away, wiping her eyes. Pretending she hadn’t been about to cry.

Shane wanted to give her a hug but he needed to let her be professional in front of her boss. “Why’d he scrub so much video if Laura only checked in last night?” asked Shane.

Maybe they’d come here for a quickie last week. The idea was repulsive now but Laura had been into the guy and thought he was a normal date.

Yael frowned at him. “You think he could have booked a room here too?”

“Why not? Ethan Grice knew it was only a matter of time until we found his identity via his workplace. Eric Pierce was his version of Lloyd Zenko’s tripwire and told him when it was time to execute his escape.” Shane crossed his arms. “He had to be staying somewhere close by.” He was officially on vacation from his place of work. Shane didn’t figure the guy had planned to go back. FBI Charlotte were searching for his home but had come up with nothing. “I doubt he’s been moving from place to place all this time. He’d want to have a base and he was already in the area a week ago when he went on that first date with Laura.”

The FBI had discovered he’d wiped his dating app records from the system. Online, it was as if he’d never existed. All that remained was a payment to the company which was from another stolen credit card.