Vanished (13 page)

The earlier light had gone out of her eyes. Her flat tone told him volumes about her relationship with her sister. Mason felt a bit guilty for bringing up something so deeply personal, but he was touched that she’d confided in him. Ava McLane had many layers. Sharp investigator, empathetic agent, and wounded sister.

He wanted to know more.

He looked back at the teen, who was now being interviewed by a pair of agents. “So where does this leave us? How certain are they that he had nothing to do with Henley’s disappearance?”

Ava swallowed hard, and he watched her shift her concentration back into work mode.

“They’re 99 percent certain. He spilled his story on the way over. He’d heard about the kidnapping in the news, and his family has taken a bit of a financial hit. Sounds like he’s a daydreamer. Spends too much time in his head, dreaming up ways to get his hands on money. Said he often had wondered what it would be like to stumble across a stash of cash, and the kidnapping sparked a fantasy of him making a fast buck. He acted on it.”

“He didn’t think the FBI would catch him?” Didn’t the kid watch TV? Or maybe that was the problem. He’d watched too many movies where the guys get away with the cash. Something like
Ocean’s Eleven
, where the thieves were glamorous.

“I guess his first plan had been to pretend to turn in the money at the restaurant and then try to claim it later. When he saw the rush of agents, he panicked and ran.”

“Dumb. Where are the smart crooks these days?” Mason muttered.

“I know where one was yesterday morning,” Ava said softly.

“Not smart. Lucky,” stated Mason. “And his luck will run out soon.”

“What an idiot,” the man told his television. Had the child really thought he could steal two million dollars out from under the FBI’s nose? He kept his respect for the abilities of the police at the forefront of his mind. He might have hated the police, but he knew they had skills. Maybe not every member of the police force, but most of them. Police had a set purpose in the world. They caught the bad guys and offered them up for justice. Without a police force, the country would fall out of balance.

Balance was vital.

If only everyone could see what he’d seen; they would understand that they needed to work to restore the balance in their personal lives. It’d taken him years to see the truth. He’d made a lot of wrong turns and horrible decisions in his life that had hurt the people around him. But he’d finally understood how life worked. Give and take. Rest and work. Black and white.

By thinking before he acted, he was able to make the right decisions. Every action a person made had a decision behind it. He chose what to eat for breakfast. He chose what to watch on TV. These decisions might have seemed like nothing, but they were everything.

He chose not to eat a donut for breakfast. From that simple decision, he avoided the chemicals and saturated fat. The ability to choose gave him power. Power over his health and weight. Thinking about every bite he put in his mouth made him strong. And kept his health and weight in balance.

He rarely turned on his TV except to watch the news. Sex, advertising, gluttony, noise. By hitting one button, he removed those aspects from his everyday life, uncluttering his brain. He didn’t need the excess crap pitched to him on television; he had important things to think about. It kept his mind calm and balanced. Why were so many people unable to push that button? Their lives would have been better for it.

A Christmas commercial danced across the television screen, and he changed the channel. It was impossible to avoid every cheap celebration of the season, but he tried. Christmas didn’t mean what it used to.

Most people looked away when a mother was dealing with a screaming child. He would always look right at her and smile. He remembered those days. It was a rite of passage for a parent to deal with a public situation. It was his way of acknowledging her pain and being thankful that he’d survived his son’s childhood. If you chose parenthood, you should experience the painful moments
and
the happy ones. You didn’t pick and choose what moments you wanted; you embraced it all.

And you had the right to be a parent. If someone took that right away, they should lose their right, too.

Balance.

It was so simple, so clear. Why couldn’t more people see the truth?

That boy who tried to steal two million dollars didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t his money. The police were right to stop it, and now the boy would be punished for fighting the natural balance.

His own personal gifts were the ability to see the natural balance and the brain to figure out the steps to restore it. He closed his eyes, studying the colors on the back of his eyelids. He would experience a green aura when things were good in his life. He didn’t actually see the colors; it was more like he felt them, breathed them. Right now things weren’t quite right; his aura seemed more of a muddled yellow. He knew what big step he needed to take to restore his life’s harmony, but he hadn’t found the right opportunity. But tonight there was a small step he could take. It would help get him through until he could take the final leap.

An eye for an eye.

He wasn’t a religious person, but there was truth and strength in those words. The phrase vibrated with power and precision.

They were words to live by.

14

48 HOURS MISSING

Ava closed one eye and focused on the figure in front of her. She slowly exhaled, then held her breath as she smoothly pulled her trigger over and over. She emptied her magazine and smiled at the paper figure full of holes in his chest.

Nothing was more relaxing than seeing those holes. With one swift movement, she swapped out her magazine for a second one on the table in front of her and filled the paper man with holes again, ignoring the hot shell that bounced off her neck and burned for a brief second. She welcomed the prick of physical pain. She laid down her weapon and listened to other weapons firing in the sheriff’s facility, her earplugs and hearing protection muffling the shots into soft thumps.

She’d had enough.

She’d felt the need to hit or shoot something this morning. She pulled off her eye protection, gathered her gear, and headed through the double sets of doors of the firing range and into its lobby. Her brain was clear and her energy renewed as she stepped outside and unlocked her bureau vehicle. She loved to shoot. She’d never had to pull her weapon on the job, but she relished her trips to the firing range. Some of the agents she worked with hated the mandatory qualifications with their service weapons. She’d seen both men and women sweat as their test day drew near. Not her. She loved it. And she was damn accurate.

She’d never touched a gun before she entered Quantico. The academy had taught her to shoot. Some agents never became comfortable with their weapon, but since the first day she’d touched hers, she’d known it was a skill she wanted. So she’d worked her ass off until her instructors were impressed.

Now she used it for stress relief. After the anxiety of waiting all day for last night’s ransom drop, she needed to blow off some steam. She was surprised she’d managed to sleep. She’d been wired enough to consider a run at two in the morning. The utter disappointment of the ransom drop had shaken the whole team. The late briefing last night had been overcast with anger. The agents were angry at the young man and the time and effort they’d put into the situation, only to have it go nowhere.

They felt like they’d been hurled back to square one.

She drove to the church, parked, and went in for the morning briefing. The blown-up ransom note was still on the whiteboard. No one had taken it down. Ava scowled at the note, a symbol of someone who had jerked the FBI around and pulled vital resources from the real investigation. Maybe the note should stay up; it would remind everyone to take every lead seriously and not get distracted. No one knew which tiny lead would find Henley.

But today was another day. Henley had been missing two full days, and it was time to find her and bring her home. Renewal and fresh determination swept through Ava.

She stood in the back of the small conference room, listening to ASAC Ben Duncan and Special Agent Sanford discuss the digital recording of the Portland Airport’s luggage pickup area. Sanford touched his laptop, and a grainy video appeared on the big screen at the front of the room. “Here’s what we got from the airport security cameras. If you watch this man, you’ll see him grab a black wheeled suitcase.” A yellow circle appeared in the video, highlighting a man in a baseball cap. He stood close to the baggage carousel, carefully watching each bag, occasionally checking the tag on a black bag. Every few seconds he scanned the growing crowd. He finally grabbed a suitcase after taking a hard look at the tag. He immediately extended the handle and headed out of the frame, the bag rolling behind him. A second video clip appeared, showing the man walking across the traffic lanes outside of baggage claim, heading for the parking garage directly on the other side. Ava squinted at the figure. Light baseball cap, simple black jacket, jeans, dark shoes. Was his hair gray or blond?

The video vanished. She waited for the next clip.

“That’s all we’ve got so far,” Sanford stated.

“What?” Ava was shocked. “What about inside the parking garage? Every inch of that place must have cameras.”

“We’ve gone through every angle twice. We can’t pick him up after that shot of him walking across to the garage.”

“What about at the pay station?” Another agent asked from the group. He was familiar, but Ava didn’t know his name. There were probably forty agents and local police squeezed into the small conference room.

“We’ve reviewed all the images from the pay station up to an hour after the incident. We haven’t spotted him. I’ve still got agents combing through video from the garage and pay station. We’re going through everything a third time and expanding the time frame.”

“How do you know that was Jake Callahan’s bag?” asked a local cop. “That guy looked at three other bags before grabbing one.”

“We don’t for certain,” started Duncan. A groan went up from the room. “Hang on a minute.” Duncan gestured in a “settle down” motion. “I’m not done. What we do have is Jake’s agreement that this looks like his bag, and another video of this guy coming in the doors from outside to grab a bag. He didn’t come from upstairs, where the passengers disembark, and no one else on that flight reported their bag missing.”

“Can we see that clip?” asked the local cop.

Sanford fiddled with his laptop on the table at the front of the room, and Ava watched their man with the cap stroll through the automatic spinning door from outside and take a position at the carousel.

“He knew exactly which carousel to go to and what time to stroll in,” said Sanford. “We put him at about six foot one and two hundred pounds. We tried to get a better shot of his face, but the cap is too low and the cameras are positioned too high.”

Convenient.

“His hair is gray, his shoes are black Nikes, and he’s wearing jeans.”

“No brand name on the jeans?” someone muttered, and laughter scattered through the group.

“Age?” asked Ava.

Duncan met her gaze and shook his head. “The hair suggests forty and up, but that’s not very precise.”

“He moves like he’s older,” she said. She scowled, not knowing why she thought that. There was nothing she could put her finger on to explain it.

Duncan nodded. “I agree. There’s a bit of a stiffness to his stride that suggests age. But it could easily be a past injury that slows his walk.”

“And the way he pulled the suitcase off the carousel makes him look older,” offered a Clackamas County deputy. “He pulled with his whole body, not just using his arm strength like a younger guy would, you know?” Several of the other agents nodded in agreement. Sanford ran the clip again, and Ava saw what the cop meant. The man didn’t simply lift the bag off the carousel, he lunged with it, using his body to lift and pull its weight.

“Also, there’s no video of him before he entered the luggage area, and nothing on the parking garage tapes,” stated Sanford.

“So he probably didn’t park in the garage. What about one of the shuttles? Did he park in the economy lot and take a shuttle? They’re located in the same direction he’s walking,” said Ava.

Duncan shook his head. “We checked the video feed there, too. Our theory is that someone must have given him a ride and picked him up, which we’ve searched for and can’t find a visual record of.”

Mutters of disappointment rumbled in the room.

Their suspect vanished into thin air?

“We’re still looking. We’ll figure out where he went,” promised Duncan. “It could be a fast thief that’s totally unrelated to this case. Just like the ransom note. Or it could be something more.”

“But why did he take the bag?” Ava asked. “What was in the bag that he wanted? He kidnapped a young girl. How does that connect with her stepbrother’s bag?”

“Good questions,” answered Duncan. He scanned the group. “Any theories?”

The investigators looked at one another.

“Maybe this is focused more on the family, not just on Henley. Perhaps Henley is just part of what he’s doing. Are any other family members missing things?” an agent tossed out.

Ava noticed several agents nodding along with the theory. Were the other family members in danger? She swallowed and fought an urge to dash back to the house. Clackamas County had deputies outside the Fairbanks house and at Robin’s parents’ home, where her two younger daughters were staying.

A number of agents shifted uncomfortably in their chairs, feeling the same unease about danger to the children.

“Nothing like that has turned up in their interviews. No oddities reported,” answered Wells from the front row. Ava leaned to the left to see Wells. She hadn’t noticed the agent in the room.

“Let’s ask them specifically if they’ve noticed anything is missing,” suggested Duncan. “Anything at all.”

Ava raised her hand. “What about Detective Callahan? He’s had some weird things happen at work.”

Duncan nodded at her. “I’ve been following that.” His gaze covered the room. “One of Detective Callahan’s confidential informants was murdered the night before Henley vanished. I’m keeping in touch with his supervisor.”

Ava’s personal phone started vibrating, and a few cops glanced her way. She pulled it out of her pocket and turned it off after seeing Jayne’s name on the screen.

“Another focus is Lilian Fairbanks’s ex-boyfriend,” Sanford stated. “He doesn’t have an alibi for Friday morning. Basically, he was alone in his apartment, asleep after a late night out watching college football at a sports bar in Tigard.”

Wells picked up the narrative. “He interviewed well. He was shocked about the child’s disappearance and seemed genuinely concerned about her welfare and Lilian’s. He wanted to contact Lilian and join one of the volunteer groups searching the parks, but we discouraged it for now. He understood why we were talking to him, and he wasn’t defensive at all.”

Duncan was nodding in agreement. “He’s not too high on our list. He allowed us to search his home and talk to his friends and family. He’ll be talking later today with one of the BAU agents who is a child-exploitation expert. We’ll see what kind of read he gets from him.”

“Did the mother have any other past boyfriends?” asked a deputy.

“She gave us two other names, but the relationships were pretty old,” Duncan stated. “One has been married for two years, and the other lives in Florida. We’ve talked with both and consider them low on our list.

“We’ve got the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children involved. They’ll be handling a big media push to get Henley’s face out there and expanding the coverage to neighboring states. Local media has been helpful, but they’re wanting an in-depth press conference. We gave them a statement last night about what happened at the waterfront, and we’ve told them we support the candlelight vigil at the park tonight. In my opinion, the more people who know, the better.”

“Who’s in charge of the security coverage at the vigil?” asked a Lake Oswego officer.

“We’re coordinating with the Portland Police Department since it’s on their turf.” Duncan made a face. “It’s a few hundred yards from where the ransom drop took place last night.”

Ava’s brain rapidly processed those two facts. Was there any connection between the two locations? “Who organized the vigil?” she asked.

“The Parent Student Organization at Henley’s elementary school,” answered Sanford.

Ava deflated a bit. It was doubtful that there was a relationship between the parents who made up the PSO and a busboy who failed to trick the FBI. Sanford nodded at her. “Yes, we found the location odd, too. But I think it’s a coincidence. The busboy is from Troutdale, miles away from Lake Oswego. He doesn’t know anyone in Henley’s neighborhood or school. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. I’m surprised he managed to find the school to drop off the ransom note.”

Duncan wrapped up the meeting, and Ava waited until she’d reached her car before checking her phone. She listened to Jayne’s lengthy voice mail and tried not to roll her eyes. Jayne’s car wouldn’t start and she needed a ride this morning. To a job interview? Who had a job interview on a Sunday?

Her phone vibrated in her hand, and she tried to decline the call but hit “Answer.”

Shit.

“Ava?” asked Jayne.

Ava closed her eyes. “Yes, I was just listening to your voice mail. I was in a meeting when you called earlier.”

“A meeting? On Sunday? Are you going to church now?” Her sister laughed.

“No. It was work.”

“Can you come pick me up? I need to get there before eleven. You don’t have to give me a ride home.”

“Who has job interviews on a Sunday?” Ava asked. She’d learned the hard way not to believe a word her sister said. Where did she so badly need to be on a Sunday?

“It’s a restaurant. They want me to come in before the lunch rush. They need a bartender.”

“Is that a smart job to consider?” Jayne’s history was littered with drug and alcohol addiction. Every time she told Ava she was clean and never getting high again, she’d lose a job because she was too stoned or hungover to show for her shifts.

“Jesus Christ. Don’t get all bossy. I need a job, and they’re hiring. You don’t know what it’s like not to have any income. You managed to find a great job.”

Jayne had special skills; nothing was ever her fault, and she could make Ava feel guilty about her own success with one sentence—and imply that Ava only had a good job because of luck. Not because she worked her butt off and made personal sacrifices.

While Ava was running obstacle courses and studying her brain out at the FBI Academy, Jayne was flitting from boyfriend to boyfriend and trying every drug they laid in front of her.

“Where is your interview?” Ava looked at the clock in her vehicle. She’d told the Fairbankses she’d be back by noon. She still had a few hours.

Jayne gave a squeal of joy and gushed with love for Ava.

Ava gritted her teeth.

Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up in front of Jayne’s apartment building and sent a text that she’d arrived.

She waited, tapping her steering wheel as she debated the wisdom of doing her sister a favor. Every encounter with her sister seemed to cause some havoc in her own life. Ava would drop her off at the restaurant and leave. End of event. That couldn’t cause any repercussions, right?