Chapter 22
Sam and Danny were calling all over the state of New York to try and find out where the construction sites were located while Viv had gone to take a quick nap on Jack's sofa. So far they were having zero luck and it seems that Mac was having as hard a time hacking to Jake's computer. He had the finest firewalls up and an encrypted system that if the wrong password was entered more than three times his hard drive would erase all files.
They needed to catch a break and they needed it to happen soon. Sam rubbed her weary eyes and reached for the phone to make yet another call when she heard Jack approach.
"Any luck?" Jack asked with his eyes on Sam.
She shook her head while Danny's expression was equally disappointed. Sam swiveled around in her chair so she could face Jack. "Are we all set for the ransom drop?"
"I have four mobile units ready to roll when we get the call." Jack leaned on the edge of Sam's desk. "It's just hard when we don't know where it's going to be. You look a mess, go get some sleep. I need you to be on top of your game."
Sam shook her head and replied, "I can't sleep, not until he's home."
Jack's cell phone rang. Keeping his eyes on her pressed 'Talk' and answered, "Malone. When?" Sam and Danny could tell by Jack's tone that this was an important phone call so Sam kept her gaze on him while Danny got up and moved towards them. "You did? That's great, give it to me." Jack reached over and picked up a pen from Sam's desk wrote down a phone number on a file folder. "Can you hold for a second? Thanks." He put the phone on his shoulder and said to Sam, "It's Jeanne Gellar. She said that she just got a phone call from Jake. Danny, this is the number he called from; track it down and tell me where it came from. Sam, go find Victor." Sam did want to walk away but she knew that Victor needed to hear this so with her heart racing she stood up to find Martin's parents. As she walked away she glanced back at Jack who put the phone back up to his ear and said, "Jeanne, tell me exactly what he told you."
Sam hurried down the hall and found Victor and Beth in the break room sitting closely together and talking in hushed voices at the table. They obviously didn't hear her come in so she cleared her throat to get their attention. They looked at her and she said, "We have a lead on Jake Miller."
They quickly jumped out of their seats as Victor asked, "Where is he?"
"I don't know. Jack's on the phone with his ex-wife." Sam replied as they walked down the hall to the bullpen.
Jack was still on the phone and said, "How soon can you get down here? Okay, see you then." He clicked off the phone and turned to the look at them.
"What did she say?" Victor asked.
Sam's stomach clenched as she waited for Jack to speak.
"She said that Jake called her early this morning. He was drunk and rambling so she didn't really understand him but he sounded really frantic." Jack paused a second and Sam knew that he was formulating the best way to give someone bad news.
"What Jack? What else?" Sam asked nervously.
"She said right before he hung up he told her that everything went wrong." Jack breathed out watching Victor and Beth closely.
"We got him!" Danny announced as he hurried back into the bullpen. "We traced the number to the Garden Court Motel in New Jersey."
Sam was already at the elevator by the time the rest of the team joined her.