He went into the outer office to retrieve his overcoat and told Mary, the receptionist, she could go home.
"Thanks, Mr. Hogan." said the rather mousy looking girl. "Are you seeing Stella again? I sure hope everything works out."
"Yeah, me too, Mary, me too."
And with that the two of them left the office together.
Ben Peterson was in the lobby, waiting, when Jack left. He calmly got up and folded the newspaper he had been pretending to read, and shoved it under his arm. He casually walked through the lobby to the offices. He tried the door and it opened, so he slipped inside. He was not so lucky with the inner office door-it was locked-so he got out the small leather case of picks from a pocket in his overcoat and went to work.
In hardly any time at all, he had the door open, so he went in and closed the door behind him. He went to the desk and turned on the old fashioned green and brass desk lamp. There was something in this desk that pertained to his case, he just knew it. The top drawer was unlocked, and contained nothing of interest, but the bottom drawer was locked.
He worked again with the picks until the drawer clicked open. He went through the files, and felt his heart pounding as he pulled out the one labeled 'Sara Mathews'. There it was; a duplicate photograph of Sara, David and Abdulah. Attached to it with a paper clip, was a slip of paper with the notation: 10,000 - H.
What did that mean? Ten thousand what? The H could stand for Hogan. He did have quite a distinctive accent, but then so did a lot of people here.
Ben put Sara's file aside and went through the others. There were six, and each had a similar photograph. A young, beautifully blond girl sitting with the Arab and either one other person or a group of people. It was uncanny how each girl, including Sara, looked alike. They could have all been sisters, yet each one was from a different part of the country and were not related, at least as far as he could tell.
Ben had a sinking feeling he had stumbled onto something much bigger than he had expected. He made a quick decision and took out all the folders and placed them in the newspaper. Then he closed and re-locked the drawer and left, carrying the folders hidden in the newspaper, under his arm.
"So you're telling me that each one of these girls has been reported as a missing person?"