Vanished (19 page)

“I’ve caused death before. It’s not something I’d wish on anyone,” Mason said quietly. “Have you ever shot anyone?”

Ava drew herself up on an elbow and tried to meet his gaze in the dark, but his face was in the shadows. “No. I’ve never pulled my weapon on a person.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I know. I pray all the time that I’ll never have to do it.” She wished she could see his eyes. “What happened?”

A long silence ticked by, and she wondered if he’d open up to her.

“Three people. I’ve taken three lives. Two were in the same incident.”

Her heart cracked at his quiet tone. “A long time ago?”

“Decades. But both times are as fresh as yesterday. It never goes away.”

“No, I don’t think it ever will. It’s part of the curse of our profession. We do it to solve crimes, to help the people who can’t help themselves, but sometimes we’re forced into horrible situations.”

Mason exhaled loudly. “Amen. Both times I know I had no choice. But my mind still reexamines whether or not I could have done something slightly different. I drag myself down into a well of depression and then slowly climb back out, arriving at the same conclusion each time.

“The first time a guy leaped out of his car at a traffic stop. He took one step and fired at my partner, who was approaching his vehicle. I’d just stepped out of our car. I shot. He died instantly.”

“And your partner?” Ava breathed.

“Saved by his vest. The bullet hit directly on his sternum. It would have killed him.”

“You would have been next.”

“Yes. He was already aiming at me when I fired.”

Mason shuddered, and Ava ran a soothing hand down his cheek to his shoulder. “What else happened?” She could feel his need to tell her. He wouldn’t have brought it up if he hadn’t wanted to get it off his chest. She wondered how long it’d been since he talked to someone about it.

“The second time one of them was a child.”

“Oh no!” Ava froze.

“A homeless man had the child in front of him as a hostage and was slicing his throat open.”

“What?”

Mason nodded in the dark. “It was awful. I fired at the man at the same time the child jumped. The bullet hit both of them. If the boy hadn’t moved . . .”

“Oh, Mason. How horrible.” Tears dripped down her face.

“The boy would have died if I hadn’t fired. It was a no-win situation,” he said flatly.

Ava scooted closer, seeking his heat and offering her own as solace. She kissed his forehead, trailing her lips down the side of his face to his mouth. “You did the right thing.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

Wanting to heal his emotional wounds, she gave him the comfort of her body.

From a dead sleep, Ava grabbed her buzzing phone and answered without opening her eyes. “McLane,” she said without an ounce of sleep in her voice.

“Ava, can you leave your sister? We could use you,” came ASAC Ben Duncan’s voice.

Ava opened her eyes and looked at Mason’s digital clock on the bedside table—3
A.M
.
Mason sat up and swung his legs out of bed. She instantly missed his heat. He sat silently, his back to her, listening.

“Yes, no problem. What’s happened?”

“We’ve found some bloody children’s clothing at the Woodburn rest stop on I-5.”

Ava knew that rest stop. Partially wooded, partially grassy. At least a few acres in size. Along a mostly isolated stretch of freeway. “You’re searching the area?”

“Yes, we’ve got a big crew going over every inch.”

“What clothing did you find?”

“A pink Justice zip-up sweatshirt. Rhinestone hearts. Size ten. There’s blood inside the hood. Not a lot.”

Ava’s heart sank. Henley’s sweatshirt.

Mason followed Ava through the crowded parking lot. The freeway rest stop had been closed to the public and now overflowed with police cars and FBI sedans.

A woman’s dog had discovered Henley’s jacket at the rest stop. The traveler from southern Oregon had taken her dog to the far border of the grassy area, stretching her legs and letting her dog roam, when the dog had returned with the pink coat.

The woman reported pulling it out of her dog’s mouth and feeling bad that a child had lost her coat, but hadn’t thought much of it until she’d noticed the dried blood. The entire state knew that Henley had vanished. She’d quickly Googled some news articles until she found one describing Henley’s clothing and then immediately called 911.

Mason felt sick to his stomach. The rest stop could indicate that the kidnapper had immediately jumped on the freeway and headed out of town with Henley. All those man-hours spent combing the neighborhoods and areas near where she’d vanished could have been for nothing.

After Ava’s phone call, she’d jumped out of bed, kissed him, and disappeared into his shower for five minutes. Mason had used his guest shower and been dressed by the time she stepped out.

“I’ll drive since your car is still downtown,” he’d said.

On the way down, she’d told him no one had informed the family yet. He’d argued a case for at least calling Lucas, but Ava had overruled him. The FBI wanted to wait until morning before calling the family. Mason saw their point, but that didn’t mean he agreed with it. If Jake had been missing, he’d want to know the second any huge leads came up.

The family was sleeping. Hopefully. And Ava had a point about waiting to see if anything else turned up at this scene before notifying them.

They signed in at the scene log and headed toward a small group of agents. Mason could see Ben Duncan and Sanford in the group. The rest stop was crawling with police and FBI. The trash had already been pulled and transferred to a location where lucky forensic investigators would examine every scrap of garbage that travelers had left behind. Diapers, chip bags, pee bottles. Good stuff. Huge portable lights illuminated the woods and grassy areas.

The group of five agents opened as Mason and Ava approached, welcoming them in.

“Anything new?” Ava immediately asked.

Sanford shook his head. “We’re still looking. The blood is human. We’ve found that out so far. Next test is to compare it to what we have on file for Henley Fairbanks.”

“How long ago was it found?” Mason asked.

“About 10
P.M
.
” Sanford turned to point toward the line of fir trees at the far edge of the stop. “A dog found it right over there. The dog’s owner was talking to one of us within thirty minutes. One of the first agents on the scene took the sweatshirt directly to a lab.”

“At nearly midnight on a Sunday?” asked Mason.

“We do what needs to be done,” answered Sanford simply.

Standing at a freeway rest stop at four in the morning fell under what needed to be done when a child was missing. No one looked sleepy. Everyone was wide-awake and on high alert. It comforted Mason to see the response. In a way, he was fortunate. Henley’s parents had to wait for him or an agent to update them on the investigation. Mason, however, got to see it hands-on. He’d go crazy if he were sitting at home wondering if anyone was searching for his child.

“If this is fake, heads are going to roll,” stated Ava. “Robin mentioned that those pink jackets like Henley wore are still in the stores. If someone bloodied one and dumped it as a prank, I’m not going to forgive this time.”

A murmur of agreement went through the group. They were still smarting from the fake ransom note.

“Are there cameras here?” Mason asked.

“No,” said Sanford.

Too bad.

Sanford was studying him intently. Mason raised a brow at him.

“You surviving away from the job?” Sanford asked.

Mason froze.
Was that an insult or a genuine question?
“Not an issue.”

“There are a lot of rumors out there,” Sanford probed a bit more. The other agents looked at Mason with interest. Beside him, Ava stiffened, and Mason felt her annoyance zero in on Sanford.

ASAC Duncan had stepped out of the group to talk to the local police. Duncan knew everything that was going on with Mason’s work situation. Apparently Sanford had heard some side talk, or Duncan had brought him up to date. Either way, he was being a deliberate dick.

“There’s always rumors,” Mason said.
Don’t let him know that he’s irritating you.

“Any idiot could see that the fingerprint evidence is pretty strong,” pushed Sanford.

“An idiot did,” answered Mason with a touch to the brim of his hat. Ava quivered as she swallowed a laugh.

Sanford had the grace to smile.

A chorus of shouts from the edge of the field grabbed the group’s attention. As one, the agents and Mason moved in the direction of the noise. As they drew closer, Mason saw a field investigator with two small white objects in her hands.

Mason squinted. Socks. Someone had found a pair of small white socks. Exactly what Robin had written on Henley’s clothing list from the day she vanished. Drawing closer, he could see the brown splotches on the white. Dirt or blood?

“Oh no,” Ava breathed.

20

72 HOURS MISSING

“What happened? How long have we been gone?” Ava asked as she eased down the street in front of the Fairbanks home. The media presence had tripled. Vans, people, cameras. It was nearly eight in the morning, and Ava was feeling the lack of sleep and the exhausting effects of standing at a crime scene for four hours and then riding downtown to retrieve her car.

Beside her Mason stared out the windshield. “Holy cow. Did they find out about the rest stop?” By some miracle, no media had turned up at the rest stop. For once, everyone who was supposed to keep their mouth shut did.

Ava honked her horn at the cameramen blocking the drive. They parted but turned their lenses their way. Some of the reporters started to shout and moved their microphones closer to her car. But they weren’t looking at her. They were looking at Mason.

“Detective Callahan!” Ava heard the shouts through the window.

Oh no. They found out he’s been put on administrative leave.

She stole a look at Mason. His lips were pressed together, and he tugged his hat down an eighth of an inch closer to his eyes. He said nothing. She saw his Adam’s apple move in his throat as he swallowed hard, and her stomach tied in knots. Nothing was worse than hungry reporters wanting a bite of you.

She pressed on the gas and the car surged, scattering the reporters. She drove to the far side of the home and parked out of sight of the vultures. She turned off the car and sat quietly.

“Looks like the cat’s out of the bag,” Mason stated.

“It doesn’t change anything,” said Ava.

“Yes, it does. It applies pressure to my department to take some action. They may have placed me on administrative leave, but the public will want something bigger. Like my beheading.”

“You haven’t been charged with anything. And you won’t be.”

Mason nodded. “I know. I didn’t kill anyone this time.”

His words stung, and she wanted to ease his pain. He’d offered her an intimate look at his soul last night in a way she suspected hadn’t happened in a decade or two. He was human. He’d buried his mistakes and moved on, but current events had ripped them out of the dirt and brought them up to the surface, their pain as fresh as the day they’d happened.

His ex-wife, his son, his career.

“We need to go in,” she said. Henley had been missing for just over seventy-two hours. Her window of survivability was shrinking exponentially. “Are you ready to talk to them?”

Mason had called and warned the family a half hour ago, letting them know new evidence had been found at the rest stop, but that nothing had led them to Henley. Yet.

“Yes, this is what’s important.”

She took his hand. “You’re important. You’re a good man and a good cop. You give a crap about what happens to people. It’s a tragedy that your hands are tied when you could be helping more people. I’m glad you’re here to help me.”

Brown eyes studied her. “We make a pretty good team. Too bad you’re a fed.”

She smiled. “Does that affect anything?” she asked lightly, holding her breath for his answer. Sometimes men couldn’t deal with her title and position. Especially cops. They felt like they had to prove their jobs were as important as hers.

“Not at all.”

She believed him. “Good.”

He got out of the car, and she followed him into the home. Lilian, Robin, Lucas, and Jake were in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. The house was warm and smelled of spices. Robin pulled a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven as Ava and Mason joined them. The only people who looked interested in the food were the two cops hovering in the background. The family was tired of sweets.

Ava pulled the eight-by-ten photos out of a folder and set them on the table. Lucas spread them out. Images of the front and back of the pink sweatshirt and the socks. To Ava, the bloodstains glowed. Lilian caught her breath. “Yes, that’s the same sweatshirt as Henley’s.”

“But can you tell for certain that it’s hers?” Ava pressed.

Lilian slid the photos closer and studied each one. “I don’t know. It was new. It didn’t have any tears or stains, and I didn’t write her name in it. So I guess I can’t say for certain. But it’s the right style with the rhinestone peace emblem.”

“And the socks?” Ava asked.

“Plain white socks. They look like what she has.”

“Is that blood on the socks, too?” Jake asked.

So the boy
could
speak this morning. “Yes,” said Ava.

“Did they find anything else?” Robin asked. She’d stayed back from the table, behind the island in the center of the kitchen, as if she didn’t want to get too close to the photos. She cut two cinnamon rolls out of the pan, plated them, and gave the breakfast to the cops, who graciously accepted. No one else asked for a roll, and Robin didn’t seem to expect any other takers. Ava hadn’t eaten since before the vigil last night, but she wasn’t hungry. The thought of biting into a gooey cinnamon roll didn’t appeal at the moment.

“Nothing else turned up at that scene,” answered Mason. “They searched the whole place before we left, although they still had the garbage to finish sorting. But the early lab results say the blood is the same type as Henley’s.”

Lucas looked ready to vomit. Silent tears streamed down Lilian’s cheeks.

“But that’s hardly any blood,” Lilian said. “That’s not enough to show that someone has been . . . hurt.” She whispered the word “hurt,” and Ava mentally substituted “killed.”

“We agree,” she said to Lilian.

“I can’t think of her out there in the cold,” cried Lilian. “Did they really look everywhere? She’ll be so cold without her sweatshirt and socks.” She dissolved in her seat, breaking into sobs, and laid her arms and head on the table. Lucas wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his face carefully blank. Robin came forward, took the chair next to Lilian, put her arms around the woman, and rested her head on her shoulder.

Jake shoved back his chair and left, his shoulders sagging and his face hidden. Mason followed him out of the room.

The cops stopped eating.

Ava wanted to run away. Instead, she moved closer to the table. “We went over the area with a fine-toothed comb. We still have people searching the fields outside the rest stop. If she’s there, we’ll find her. But frankly, I think the items were left for us to find. Like a distraction or something to put us off the real trail. Who loses both socks in the same place?” she asked.

“That doesn’t make sense,” agreed Lucas, his face hopeful. “They were probably placed there. Do you think it’s a fake, like the ransom note?”

Ava shook her head. “We don’t know. There was a general description of Henley’s clothing in the paper and on the news the first day, but from what I’ve seen, that clothing store has put out dozens of pink sweatshirts with different rhinestone patterns, right?”

Robin nodded, still embracing Lilian.

“So someone got lucky and picked exactly the right one? I don’t think so. I think it’s Henley’s clothing, but I think it was purposefully left for us to find. The big questions are why, and what does it mean? That’s where we’re at now,” Ava said gently.

Lucas reached for the seat beside him and picked up a newspaper. “Before we heard about Henley’s clothing, we were already concerned about what’s going on with Mason.” He tossed the paper on the table. “We wanted to ask Mason about this article. Jake saw it, too. We’ve all read it.”

Ava picked up the paper. Mason’s name was there in clear print. She scanned the article. It was a rehash of yesterday’s article but with his name added.

Who leaked?

“What do you need to know? Obviously, he didn’t do this.”

“Has he really been placed on leave? Why hasn’t he said anything?” Lucas asked.

Ava glared at him. “Because he’s worried out of his mind about your daughter. He’s putting every ounce of his strength into finding Henley and keeping his personal problems locked away. He didn’t want you to worry about anything else.”

“He could have said something.” Lucas toyed with the paper that Ava had tossed back on the table, his gaze averted.

“That’s how Mason operates,” said Robin slowly. “He sees it as his problem and no one else’s. He shoulders stuff like this alone. I’m not surprised one bit.”

“But he’s family,” argued Lucas.

Robin shook her head. “You don’t understand. That’s not how he thinks. In his brain, it’s none of our business.” She looked at Ava with experienced eyes. “He’ll keep it in until it eats him alive. I’ve watched it happen before. He needs someone to talk to about it, draw it out of him.”

Ava blinked.
Did Robin suspect something between her and Mason?

Jake’s door slammed shut two seconds before Mason reached it. He pounded on the door. Jake knew he was right behind him. His boots weren’t exactly quiet. Mason counted silently to three.

Jake opened the door. The boy’s eyes were red and swollen. He turned away and walked over to the window and stared outside. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Mason took a deep breath. “We don’t know that.”

“But the police think she is, right?”

“No one is saying that. Not at all. They’re still balls to the wall trying to find her.”

“It’s been too long, Dad. If she was left outside somewhere, she wouldn’t survive in this cold.”

Mason moved to stand next to his son, fighting the urge to pull him into his arms as if he were a child and hug him until the pain was gone. Jake angrily rubbed his eyes.

“Don’t assume anything, Jake.”

“What’s the deal with that article in the paper this morning? They’re saying you’ve been placed on leave? Is that true?”

Mason’s heart sank. “Yes, that’s happened.”

“How can they do that? They really think you killed that woman?” His son was stunned.

“No, they don’t think I killed her,” Mason started. “There’s some evidence at the scene that makes me look really bad. They have to react to that. They can’t simply ignore it.”

“Why? How bad is it?” Jake looked like his favorite superhero had been shot.

“At first look, it’s bad.”
How much should he tell the boy?

“You’re not telling me something. What do you mean
first
look?”

Mason looked hard at the boy. “My fingerprints are on the murder weapon.”

“What? There has to be a mistake. That can’t be right.”

“I agree. Especially since I know I didn’t do it,” Mason said wryly. “We both know fingerprints can be planted. I’m just waiting for them to figure out what really happened. Someone set this up to make me look bad.”

“They did a good job,” Jake said. “I thought I was going to get sick when I read that. Mom tried to hide it from me, but I found it.”

“The truth will come out,” Mason said. He wasn’t about to tell Jake that the weapon had been one of his practice bats.

“I fucking hate this.”

“Don’t swear. Everybody—”

“Stop telling me not to swear! You swear all the time!” Jake looked him right in the eye, anger burning on his face.

He’s reacting about Henley, not you.

“Swearing doesn’t sound weird when it comes out of my old redneck mouth. You’re a fresh-faced kid. It sounds like you’re trying to be older than you are.” As soon as the words spilled out of his mouth, he knew he’d made a mistake.

Jake turned another shade of red.

Damn.

“I’m not a kid. I’m in college! I can drive, I can vote, and I can go to war. Don’t treat me like I’m a child!”

McKenzie again.

“Look Jake, this isn’t about last night. I’m sure McKenzie’s a nice girl, and I get that it sucks that you can’t go over there. But these are special circumstances, you know? There’s a reason the FBI wants you where they can keep an eye on you.”

Jake slumped. “She makes me feel better. It’s been miserable here for the last few days.”

A thought chilled Mason’s brain. “Uh . . . are you using a condom?”

Horror crossed his son’s face. “Jeez, Dad! No! I mean we haven’t . . . Christ!” Jake spun away and strode in a small circle, shaking his hands like they were wet and making an
ugh
noise.

Mason blinked.
Ugh? Is that for me or the girl?
“Uh . . . well if you do, use a condom,” he asserted. There. His parental advice for the decade.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Jake put his hands over his ears and kept walking in circles.

Mason reached out and grabbed an arm, halting Jake’s trek. “Look at me. I know you’re upset about Henley. We all are. I understand that seeing McKenzie makes you feel better. It’s great when you have that special someone that you can spill your guts to and they don’t judge you. Maybe McKenzie is that person for you right now, but you can talk to her on the phone or text her or video chat. I’m glad you’ve got someone to talk with, because keeping it all in will make you explode.”

Frozen in place, Jake stared at him with wide eyes.

Is he listening?

“You’re not to leave the house without an agent or cop with you. Got it? If Ava’s not available, someone will be,” Mason said.

“I can’t take a cop with me to McKenzie’s house,” his son said. “That’s embarrassing.”