Lucian and Travis returned to the SUV, the heavy thud of the doors sealing out the ambient noise of the highway. Wearing pristine nitrile gloves, Lucian carefully retrieved Jillyanna's cracked, mud-stained smartphone from the evidence bag. Powering on the device, his fingers moved across the glass screen to check her call logs and encrypted messaging channels, searching for any sudden, anomalous communications that might offer a breadcrumb trail to her captors.
"I never would have guessed her personal contact directory would be this sparse," Valkyrie noted from the rear seat, leaning forward over the center console as he watched Lucian navigate the settings. "A woman of her standing... it's almost empty."
Lucian offered a slight, knowing smile before launching her primary social media applications to skim through her secondary inboxes.
"Wait!" Valkyrie blurted out, throwing his hand forward to physically stop Lucian's thumb from scrolling past a feed update.
