Chapter Text
Felicity was taken on a Wednesday. Oliver and Diggle had picked her up on their way to work to drop her off at her new dentist's office. Her old dentist was moving his practice to Coast City and had recommended this one to her.
"Felicity, why do we need to drop you off this early?" Digg asked from the driver's seat.
"My files were transferred over but the nurse called and told me that I would still need to fill out paperwork and then she scheduled an appointment for me today because the dentist wants updated x-rays. I asked them if they could fit a cleaning in too so hence the early time."
Diggle nodded and Oliver glanced in her direction before turning back to his phone, checking emails. They slowed to a stop in front of the medical building and Oliver got out and opened her door.
"You sure you don't need one of us to stay with you?" He asked with his hand cupping her elbow, leading her to the sidewalk.
"Thanks but no and don't think I don't know what you're doing." His eyebrows shot up and she grinned, "You are just trying to find an excuse to get out of the meeting with Accounting. You'll be fine, they are going over budget and we talked about that a couple of day ago, remember? Everything is fine, just nod at appropriate times and it'll be over with before you know it." She patted his lapel and bent down to look at Diggle through the passenger side window, "I'll call when I get finished."
"Okay." He replied as he rolled up the window to give them some privacy.
"Oliver, it's really is a routine appointment. It'll be boring and more than likely I'll be texting both you and Digg to keep my mind occupied."
He looked down at her and smiled, "Okay, I'll see you for lunch?"
"Yep," She nodded and headed towards the building entrance, "have a good day at work!"
Oliver and Diggle watched as she went into the building, talking to the woman at the information desk before heading to the elevator banks. She gave them a little wave as she walked around the corner. Oliver got into the car and they were headed to QC.
He got two texts from her while he was in his first meeting, something about Crocs and not allowing parents to embarrass their children. He smiled and sent back a smiley face. She sent another one saying she was proud that he knew what emojis were.
Felicity called Diggle to let him know that she was being taken into the x-ray room and that it shouldn't be too much longer, "Okay, should I leave now or--"
"No," Felicity said quickly, "I don't know if he'll want to go over the scans or not so you can just wait for me to call. If it's close to lunch, maybe we can check out that new diner on 3rd."
"Sounds good, and if Oliver is finished, I'll bring him along." Digg said smiling. He ended the call right as Oliver came out his meeting.
"Was that Felicity?"
"Yeah, she's getting her x-rays done now but she doesn't know if he wants to go over them with her so she's going to call when she's ready."
"Okay, if it's close to lunch let me know and we'll eat out today."
Diggle shook his head, "Felicity had the same idea, she wants to try out that new diner on 3rd."
He nodded and smiled as he and Digg walked down to Accounting to have his next meeting of the day.
The meetings were over and it was nearing lunch when the television in his office popped on suddenly. They both turned towards the sound but all they could see was a concrete room.
"What?!" Oliver murmured and turned to look at Digg. Diggle shrugged and looked back at the tv.
All of a sudden they froze when they heard Felicity's loud voice screaming, "Let me out of here! Who the hell are you and what do you want?" She was banging on something but she was just out of the sight line of the cameras.
Diggle was the first to move, he called down to IT for them to send someone to Oliver's office NOW! as Oliver watched the feed to see if he could figure out where she was. He then took his cell phone out and keyed in a code for their trackers, and according to the app, she was still at home.
The tech ran into Oliver's office and glanced at the television. His jaw went slack when he saw Felicity. She had recruited him directly out of M.I.T and he liked her personality. This was a side of her he had never seen but he was brought out of his daze when Diggle put his hand on his shoulder.
"Hey!" Diggle shouted, snapping his fingers in front of Michael's face, "we need you to track this feed, can you do that?"
He nodded his head and opened his laptop, fingers flying over the keys. This signal was being bounced literally all around the world, there would be no way for him to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from and that was not something that he wanted to tell the very pissed off men in front of him. Suddenly the television shut off and he heard Mr. Queen yell and he looked over at him.
"I didn't do it." Michael pointed out quickly.
"GET IT BACK ON!" Oliver pleaded.
Michael tried but it was just static. Mr. Queen started pacing and Mr. Diggle clapped his shoulder again, "Michael, thank you and stay close in case it comes back on. We'll notify your supervisor that you will be staying up here for the rest of the day, okay?" Michael nodded and walked over to the couch with his laptop, trying to find Felicity.
"Oliver," Diggle cautioned, "call down to IT and let them know that you have a project that will be taking up the rest of Michael's day, while I get a guard up here to post. When that's done I think we need to pay a visit to the dentist's office." Oliver immediately called down to IT as Diggle called one of his trusted men up to the executive floor. They were headed to the elevator when the guard came out, Diggle explained as quickly as he could and told him that if that television came on for any reason, to notify him immediately and that Michael would be working from the office for the day. His guard nodded and took a post that he could see Michael, the television and the elevator.
They were both quiet on the elevator ride down and once they got into the car headed to the medical building, Oliver broke the silence, "Did she seem okay when you talked to her earlier?"
Diggle nodded, "Nothing out of the ordinary and she didn't give me the code word so whatever happened was quick. I checked out her tracker," Oliver's eyes shot to Digg's in the rear view mirror, "it says she's at home."
"Well, we know that she's not there." Oliver groaned in frustration, wiping a hand down his face, "I'm going to call Thea and ask her and Roy to go by her apartment. We know she's not there but--"
"Do it."
Oliver called Thea, who picked up on the second ring, "Hey Ollie, I was going to call you late--"
"Speedy, I need you and Roy to go to Felicity's apartment. She's been kidnapped, we picked her up this morning and dropped her off for her dentist's appointment and we got a feed in my office that shows her not where we left her. Her tracker says she's at home, we're headed to the dentist's office, can you and Roy check her apartment?"
"Yes, I'll pick up Roy and we'll head straight there." He heard rustling and doors slamming, "Call me whenever you have more information and I'll call you after we check her apartment."
"Thanks Speedy."
They pulled up to the same spot they were in this morning and walked into the building to the same woman at the information desk.
Oliver flashed his CEO smile and asked where Dr. Tennall's office was. She pointed to the elevator bank and told him the 14th floor. He thanked her and they made their way to the elevators. Both men were tense waiting for the elevator to make it to the 14th floor, once the doors opened there was a sign on the wall telling them the floors' tenants and the corresponding suite numbers. Once Diggle found the right number, they walked silently down the hall and opened the door. They both stood there in shock because there was absolutely nothing in this room. No patients, no chairs, no office hustle and bustle. There was literally NOTHING in the entire room.
Diggle turned and walked back down the hall to the sign and he nodded to Oliver when he realized it was the correct suite number. Diggle walked back towards him and Oliver pulled out his phone, calling Laurel.
"Hey Ollie." Laurel answered.
"Hey, can you contact your dad and have him meet me at this address?"
He heard papers rustling, "Sure, what's the address and is he meeting you or the other you?"
"Me and I'll explain more later but Felicity's been kidnapped. Her tracker says she's home but we dropped her off this morning at the address I'm going to give you. Please tell Lance to hurry, okay?"
"Okay, what's the address?" He heard her scribble it down and then the line went dead. Two minutes later his phone rang, it was Lance.
"Queen," Lance said and Oliver heard the sound of tires screeching, "give me details." Oliver filled him in on everything that he knew. By the time he was through, Lance was getting out of the car and walking into the building. He met Oliver and John on the 14th floor, right outside of the elevators. He walked down the hall with them saying, "I'll call in a couple of favors and get CSI in here. There has to be something, they can't clean up that quickly. What time did you say she called you?" He asked Diggle.
Digg checked his phone, "10:48 and it's now 12:53 and we've been here for about twenty minutes so they only had, at most, an hour and thirty or an hour and forty minutes because we didn't pass anyone in the lobby or on this floor."
"Actually no one has been on this floor, Digg."
Captain Lance and Digg looked over at Oliver, "What?" Lance asked, confused.
"The entire time we've been on this floor, for the past thirty minutes, more or less, there has been no activity on this floor. For a bunch of medical professionals, isn't that odd?"
The three men looked at one another and started knocking on doors, when no one answered any of them, they opened them up seeing the same thing they'd seen when they opened Dr. Tennall's door, nothing. The entire floor was empty even though the sign said it was fully occupied.
"I'm calling everybody in for this." Lance pulled his phone from his pocket and started talking to the station. Oliver's phone rang and he answered when he saw Thea's face.
"Hey Speedy."
"Hey Ollie, nothing is out of place here. It looks like it always does when I come for movie night so whoever took her, didn't come here but we want to stay just in case they do. What's going on there?"
Oliver explained quickly and agreed that one of them needed to stay but he wanted one of them to get to the lair. Thea volunteered since she knew more about computers than Roy did. Felicity had been training her and Laurel on some basics in case she was tied up in a meeting and wasn't able to make it before they went patrolling.
He hung up with Thea about the same time Lance hung up with the station. He told Quentin and Diggle what Thea told him and that she was headed to monitor Felicity's computers while Roy stayed at her apartment.
"Okay, I've got CSI and uniforms coming to talk to the front desk worker and take your statements. Meet them in the lobby, I've told them to get you two first so that you can get back to QC in case a ransom demand comes in."
"Is that what you think it is?" Diggle questioned Lance.
"Honestly, until we get some more information, I have no idea but you know the press is going to get a hold of this. You might want to get in front of it somehow, press conference, press release, whatever it is you think needs to be done but we need to keep control of this as much as we can. Also, set up a way to record your television. They might try to contact you again and instead of going from memory, we'll have something tangible." Oliver nodded and he and Digg headed to the lobby to wait on the police.
Three hours later, he was standing on the steps of QC giving a press conference on his missing VP. He'd talked to the PR department and they had a plan for him to talk to the press. Honesty was the best policy in this instance because of the lack of information they had. He told the press that no ransom had come in yet but since she was missing, he had made that assumption because she was the youngest VP in the city. He answered every question he could and his frustration mounted when he came to the realization that most of his answers were 'I don't know.'
After the twenty five minute press conference, he and Diggle headed back upstairs.
"Michael," Oliver barked, causing the man to jump, "did you get the recorder set up?"
"Yes, I've programmed it to start recording as soon as the tv comes on. I have it set up to alert your work phones and it will also alert me so I can start tracing it." He walked from the tv back to the couch where he'd been sitting all day trying to find his employer.
"Thank you." Michael's head popped up at that and he looked directly at Oliver Queen.
"You're welcome but I'd be tracking her anyway once I found out she'd gone missing. She plucked me directly from M.I.T saying that I reminded her of herself at that age." He scoffed once and mumbled, "Like she's that much older." He heard a grunt and looked up to see Mr. Diggle trying to hold back a smile, "Sorry, I tend to talk to myself but she was nice to me when a lot of people weren't. I'd be hacking at home if I wasn't sitting in your office." Both men nodded and he went back to his laptop.
"Since you have alerts set up, why don't you go on home." Oliver told him as he walked from behind his desk, "I'd like you to work from up here until we come up with something concrete. I'll contact your supervisor and let him know." Michael nodded and packed up his laptop to leave.
Diggle talked to the guard, letting him know that Felicity was missing and informed him to get a team together by the end of the day because Mr. Queen wanted someone posted on this floor 24/7. The guard nodded and left along with Michael.
Diggle walked back into Oliver's office. He was staring across the hallway to Felicity's empty office. "So, what do we think this is? Newest VP and they can get a ransom, Oliver Queen related, or Arrow related?"
"John, it just seems too contrived to be for a ransom. They went through an entire charade to get her there, setting up an office and there were people waiting in the same room with her because she texted me something about kids and Crocs...wait, didn't she say this morning that her files were transferred? Why? Who was her dentist before?"
"I'll call HR and see if they would look and tell us and since you're her emergency contact, they may tell us." Oliver nodded and watched as Diggle talked to HR and he reached over Oliver's desk grabbing a pen and pad, writing down whatever they were telling him.
"Thank you, Pam, we appreciate it and I'll personally call Captain Lance to get him to check it out." Diggle hung up the phone and tossed the pad to Oliver, "So, Lance or will he get a visit from the Arrow tonight?"
"Both, I want the police to have legally obtained evidence in case he's a part of this. Digg, can you call Michael back?" Diggle raised an eyebrow but nodded and picked up the phone again. A few minutes later, Michael was back in the CEO's office.
He looked towards the television, "I didn't get an alert, is everything okay?"
Oliver nodded and motioned for him to sit, "Can you hack into secured footage?"
Michael shifted in his seat, "Um, well, that's illegal so um--"
"You told us earlier that Felicity picked you personally because you reminded her of herself, we know she can hack, can you?"
He looked from one man to the other and nodded slowly.
"Okay, can you check the medical building that Felicity was in earlier today and see if you can find a parent and child on it on the security footage. I don't know if the parent was the mother or father but Felicity sent me a text telling me that parents shouldn't dress their children in Crocs, especially bright orange Crocs. That's all I've got but maybe if we can find them maybe we can get some answers." Michael nodded and started typing.
Oliver and Diggle walked to the other side of the room and Oliver called Quentin to let him know about Felicity's original dentist. They were going over when they had dropped her off this morning to see if they could recall anything out of the ordinary when they heard Michael mumbling.
Oliver walked closer to the man, "Is everything okay?"
"Hmmm? No, most definitely not okay, it's been scrubbed."
"What do you mean scrubbed?" Diggle questioned him, walking up behind Oliver.
"I mean that whoever took Ms. Smoak, has some impressive computer skills because there is nothing on these tapes. The lobby tape shows her talking to the information desk, waving and walking to the elevator. The elevator tape shows her fidgeting with her phone and stepping off the elevator on the 14th floor but as soon as the elevator door closes, there is no more footage. All of the footage of the 14th floor is blank until you two step off the elevator, nothing before that at all. I'll check previous days footage but if they scrubbed this, then I'm not holding out hope."
"Do what you can, Digg, call Lance and let him know what we know."
"Wait! What I just did is illegal, I don't want to go to jail."
"Trust me, you won't, keep trying to find something please." Michael nodded and set back to work.
Diggle called Lance, letting him know what Michael had found out.
"Okay, I'll get a warrant and see if I can get the tapes so we have it on record. Keep me in the loop and as soon as I talk to the dentist, I'll contact you." Diggle hung up with Lance as Michael was packing his bag again.
"I have some searches set up but they are going to take a while to run," Michael told them as he got up to leave again, "if anything comes up do I call both of you or--"
Diggle shook his head, "Call me, I always have my phone on me, the boss here seems to leave his in random places sometimes." Michael nodded left passing the guards coming into Oliver's office.
Diggle got the men set up for the night, they all knew to contact Diggle if the television came on no matter what time it was. With that settled, Oliver and Diggle headed for the elevator and once they were in the car they called the team in to meet at the lair, it was time to come up with some kind of plan.