Chapter Text
Colby tapped his foot impatiently as his phone continued to ring and walked down the hallway looking into lecture halls and classrooms he walked, still waiting for Don to answer the call.
“Eppes,” Don said when he finally answered.
“Hey Don, did Hayley mention anything to you about going anywhere today?” Colby asked.
“Umm, no not that I know of,” don replied, “although now that I think about it she mentioned having a paper she needed to work on so maybe she’s at CalSci. But shouldn’t you have more of an idea where she is since you’re her fiancé and I’m just her dad?”
“Yeah well she’s not answering her phone, she’s not my apartment or yours, and she’s not at Charlie and Alan’s either,” Colby huffed.
“Did you try CalSci?” Don asked.
“I’m here now and she’s not,” Colby responded as he walked out of the building he’d been searching, “hang on I see her car in the parking lot.”
Don was quiet while he waited for Colby to reach Hayley’s car.
“Shit,” Colby cursed as he stood beside Hayley’s silver hybrid.
“What?” Don questioned.
“Don, you need to call David and Megan in,” Colby replied, fighting to remain calm, “Hayley’s handbag is on the ground here and it looks like there was a struggle.”
Both men were silent for a moment before Colby exploded in rage and kicked out at the front tire of the car.
“I’m on my way,” Don replied, panic clear in his voice.
By the time Don reached CalSci, David and Megan had already arrived as well as Charlie.
“What have we got?” he asked trying to remain professional as he reached the group standing around his daughters abandoned car.
Megan looked up from where she was talking on the phone.
“There’s a security camera over there,” she explained, gesturing to the corner of the closest building, “I’m trying to get my hands on the footage.”
“Charlie anything you can do buddy?”
“I don’t know Don,” Charlie sighed, running his hands through his hair, “there’s not enough data.”
“Okay, it’s okay Charlie,” he replied, placing a comforting hand on his little brothers shoulder.
Four hours later Don watched on as Colby stared at the computer screen in front of him. The same 4 minutes of footage played in loop over and over again. On the screen Hayley walked to her car, when a man in a dark hoody approached her from the side and grabbed her. She struggled against her attacker as a dark blue van pulled up blocking them from the camera. Moments later the van drove away leaving only Hayley's handbag and textbooks thrown across the pavement next to the car. As the footage started again Don cleared his throat and Colby snapped his gaze up to Don, hope lighting his eyes.
“Anything new?” he asked desperately as he began to stand.
Don shook his head and Colby slumped back into his seat his head in his hands.
“I should have been there,” he said for what may have been the hundredth time that night, “I should have protected her. That’s my job.”
Don sat down in the seat next to him.
“We will get her back,” he said quietly.
“We’ve got something!” David yelled excitedly, sticking his head through the door.
The two men looked at one another before simultaneously standing up and rushing from the room.
Charlie was standing in front of a display screen when they enter the conference room and Megan, David and Liz Warner were already sitting down.
“Ok so I ran the security footage through a couple of filtering algorithms and I’ve managed to isolate a reflection off this parked car,” Charlie announced excitedly, “to which I applied a belief propagation algorithm. It took the variants of the factor graph and…”
“Charlie,” Colby interrupted abruptly, “can we skip all that and just tell us how it helps us get Hayley back?”
Charlie nodded, gathering his thoughts for a moment.
“Of course Colby, I’m sorry. Uh, basically I have this partial plate from the van,” he finished with far less flair then he usually revealed the solution.
“Alright someone run that plate and everyone get ready to move out,” Don said standing up and heading for the door.