Missing by L C Lang

and then went back down to the cargo area. Matt and Damon bagged the two bodies and left them lying together.
    “ I checked the rest of the boxes, but there was nothing in any of them. There are two larger boxes I think the bodies had been in.” He pointed to the two boxes.
    “ Dust them. We might get lucky and find a print.”
    “ Maybe. At the rate this is already going, I doubt it.”
    Matt nodded. “Yeah, I know, but we have to try.”
    Damon nodded, and then followed Matt up the stairs. He went up to the front, pulled a fingerprint kit out of one bag, and then headed back down the stairs to the cargo area.
    Matt had waited at the back of the plane. Once Damon had gone back down, he turned to Colin and Sean. They had just finished checking the upper luggage holds in the economy class.
    “ Anything at all?”
    They both shook their heads.
    He blew out his breath. “Okay. Start the fingerprinting. Start at the front. Forget about the seating chart. I want one of you to fingerprint and one to document every seat. Damon and I will start on the back section and we can meet in the middle. I have a feeling everything has been wiped, but dust everywhere just in case. Maybe we can get lucky and find a latent print they missed. We have got to be thorough about this.”
    “ Okay,” Colin said. “What happened downstairs?”
    “ There are two bodies, both male, both shot in the head. Although I doubt either of them is one of the passengers or the crew. No identification on either of them and there is no luggage in the cargo hold. There are about a dozen boxes and that is it. The boxes are either empty or have shredded paper in them.”
    “ What’s going on here? This is like a ghost plane.”
    “ I know. I have no idea what’s going on either.”
    Colin and Sean nodded, and then went back up front. They pulled out the supplies they needed and began fingerprinting.
    Matt suddenly thought of something. He went up to the front of the plane and got into one of the cases. If one of the passengers had taken over the plane, then maybe there was other evidence of what happened. He got out a bottle of Luminol, and then pulled out a portable light. He plugged the light into the strip and walked into the cockpit.
    Damon came up from the cargo area and closed the hatch. Then he followed Matt into the cockpit.
    “ What are we going to do in here?” Damon asked.
    “ I have to assume the pilot and first officer were overtaken. I want to see if we can see if it was a hostile takeover.”
    “ You mean blood splatters?”
    Matt nodded. “Yes.”
    Damon took the portable light and held it up, so it lit the whole cockpit. Being careful not to spray the plane’s electrical equipment, Matt first sprayed the floor around where the pilot and first officer had been sitting, then all the way back to the door. Then he stood up. Nothing happened. Next, he sprayed the seats, front and back. Still nothing. He shook his head. No blood meant it wasn’t a hostile takeover. So what happened?

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
     
    LATE SATURDAY MORNING
    Washington, DC
     
    James Fitzpatrick sat on the plane as it waited in line to take off. He had wanted an earlier flight, but Patty hadn’t been able to get him one. Kim was gone before he got up anyway, so it didn’t really matter. They don’t sleep in the same room anymore, so he never heard her leave. She sure made her plans fast, he thought. Must have called Susan when she got back upstairs late last night. He doubted she would be home when he got back tomorrow afternoon. No matter. He had made some decisions last night. If he was going to tick off Glen Harper, he might as well make Monday an even better day and tick off Kim too. He was tired of what she was doing. He would make the call when he got to Texas.
    Kim was nothing to him now. He no longer wanted a trophy wife. He knew he had made a mistake a year into the marriage. He would simply call his lawyer, have him draw up the papers, he would sign