Vanished (2 page)

Two

T
he Nursery Rhyme Killer was back.

The words repeated themselves in her head the way gunfire echoed after the shooting stopped, but she couldn’t make sense of them. Eighteen years of silence and then another abduction? It wasn’t completely unprecedented, but it was really rare.

Eighteen years ago, before kidnapping Cassie, her abductor had taken two other girls, from two other communities in South Carolina. No bodies had ever been found, but the press had called their abductor the Nursery Rhyme Killer.

After Cassie went missing, all of Rose Bay had been terrified, expecting him to strike again. But he never did. The trail had been cold ever since.

And Evelyn had waited eighteen years for the chance to investigate. Determination put speed in her steps as she strode through the bull pen toward her boss’s office.

“Attitude incoming,” Kendall White singsonged as she marched past his cubicle. “I knew that laid-back thing you had going for the past two weeks was just a ruse,” he called after her.

She ignored him, but something uncomfortable wormed around in her gut. In her year at BAU, her work ethic had been intense and nonstop. The past two weeks had probably seemed like an anomaly to her colleagues, but she’d intended to make a real change.

It wasn’t going to happen now. Not with the Nursery Rhyme Killer grabbing new victims. She pushed open her boss’s door without knocking. “Dan, I need to go to Rose Bay, South Carolina.”

Dan Moore, the assistant special agent in charge who ran BAU, lifted his frustrated gaze to hers and sighed. “Damn it.” Then he said into the phone at his ear, “I think I know who has it. I’m going to have to call you back.”

He hung up the phone and then barked, “Shut the door.”

Shit. She should have knocked. But Dan wasn’t exactly her biggest fan on the best day, so she tried not to let his reaction worry her.

When she’d closed the door and turned back to him, Dan said, “That was Chief Lamar from Rose Bay.”

Relief swept through her. If Rose Bay was formally requesting a profiler, it would be a lot easier to get herself assigned. “I already know the case. I—”

“Because you requested the case file under false pretenses?” Dan interrupted, his cheeks darkening to an angry, mottled red. “Chief Lamar was calling to find out if the FBI had come up with anything on the abductor since we’d asked for a copy of the file a month ago. I was in the process of telling him we’d never requested that file when you barged in.”

He slapped the desk hard, making her jerk backward. “What the hell
are you doing, Evelyn? Assigning yourself cases without the Bureau’s knowledge or approval? Are you
trying
to get yourself investigated by OPR again?”

Evelyn stood a little straighter and prepared for a fight. The Office of Professional Responsibility hadn’t really investigated her, but they
had
reviewed the case she’d profiled last month that had cost another agent his life and almost took hers, too. She’d never been in trouble before that case. It hadn’t occurred to her that requesting Cassie’s case file could put a stain on her FBI personnel file.

When her grandma had let slip after seventeen years of silence that the note left by Cassie’s abductor had said he’d taken her, too, she’d needed to know. And the case file had told her it hadn’t been her grandma’s dementia talking.

Eighteen years ago, she’d somehow escaped dying alongside Cassie.

Evelyn reached a hand up to smooth hair she knew was tucked neatly into its usual bun. “I had to find out what really happened. This is why I joined the Bureau in the first place.”

Dan rubbed his hands over his temples, sending the hair on the sides of his head—the only place it grew—shooting outward. “This is
that
case?”

He hadn’t realized? She knew he was aware of her past. Having been best friends with a kidnap victim and being so intensely invested in the case had almost prevented her from being accepted into BAU. But apparently Dan either hadn’t looked into the case too closely or had forgotten the details. He’d been a lawyer before joining the Bureau, and since he could easily spout court case details from thirty years ago, she suspected it was the former.

She’d nearly lost a spot in BAU and Dan hadn’t even known the facts of the case. She pushed her annoyance aside. It didn’t matter now.

“Yes, this is the same case. If the perp is back, I’m in the best position to profile him. I know the case and I know the people involved.”

Dan shook his head. “Or you’re the worst possible choice, because you’re too personally involved to be objective.”

“I’m the only one who can—”

“A CARD team is there now,” Dan interrupted, his tone hard and final.

The FBI had Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams throughout the country that could respond quickly to child abduction cases and bring specialized resources. Usually a BAU agent coordinated with the team, either from Aquia or, more often, on-site.

Evelyn tried to put on her most professional voice, but it vibrated with emotion she couldn’t hide. “We don’t have one of our agents on-site yet?”

Dan’s jaw jutted out and she sensed that he was debating whether or not to share something. Finally he said, “Vince is in Florida. He was supposed to be on his way, but his current case just had a major turn.”

Before Dan could tell her who he planned
to send instead, Evelyn interrupted. “I’m already up to speed. I can leave now.”

Dan made a noise that might have been laughter, except instead of amusement it was filled with frustration. “I have to choose the agent best suited for the case, Evelyn. And we have agents who’ve worked many, many more child abductions than you. Agents without a conflict of interest.”

Evelyn stepped closer, rested her palms on Dan’s desk. She had to convince him. Nothing was keeping her off this case. “There is no one—
no one
—who cares about this more than I do. Okay, you’re right. It
is
a conflict of interest. But maybe that’s
exactly
what will solve this case after eighteen years.”

She stared at him, unblinking, certain the passion in her tone and the truth in her argument would convince him.

But he frowned, emphasizing the deep lines bracketing his mouth as he reached into his desk drawer and popped a handful of antacids into his mouth. “Evelyn, I’m sorry. I can’t assign you.”

“I’m going, anyway.” The words burst from her mouth without thought, then her heart started pounding a rapid, almost painful tempo. Her job was everything to her.

Dan’s lips compressed into a thin line that hooked up at the corners with disapproval. When he spoke, his voice was quietly intense. “You’re willing to throw away your career for this? Because if I don’t send you and you go, anyway, any OPR investigation will be for show. You’ll be out of the Bureau.”

Pain pierced her eyes. She’d given up everything to be in the Bureau. But she’d joined for Cassie.

“I have to.” Her voice quavered, but she pressed on. “Whatever the consequences, I can’t turn my back on this. She was my closest friend.” Evelyn clenched her fists. “I have to do this for her.”

Dan jolted to his feet, his face a mask of fury. “You are the biggest pain in the ass I have ever supervised.”

“What?” Hope pushed through her dread.

“If you fuck this up, do you know how much heat
I’ll
be in for sending you? Damn it, Evelyn! You’re a good profiler. I don’t want to lose you. And I don’t appreciate being put in this position.”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond, just pointed at the door. “Get the paperwork in order now. And when this case is over and you come back here, you are going to be the most obedient employee in the whole damn office—do you understand me?”

“Yes,” she choked out, suddenly wanting to run around the desk and hug Dan. Instead, she croaked, “Thank you,” and hurried out the door.

After thirteen years, she was finally going home to Rose Bay. And this time, she wasn’t leaving without knowing what had happened to Cassie.

* * *

“You’ve got to send her home.”

Police chief Tomas Lamar looked up from the information about the Nursery Rhyme Killer covering his desk. “What?”

Jack Bullock, longtime police officer, son of the previous police chief of Rose Bay and general pain in Tomas’s ass, stood in the doorway of his office. Jack was scowling as he let the chaotic noise of the station blast in.

“Evelyn Baine,” Jack snapped, a tic quivering near his eye and a vein throbbing on his forehead.

Tomas jerked to his feet. “The FBI profiler is here?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Jack gaped at him. “You don’t know who she is?”

It figured Jack would have some kind of problem with the profiler. The head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit had told Tomas that Evelyn was originally from Rose Bay, but he’d gotten the impression she’d left town at seventeen.

“What now, Jack?”

“Wow. Really? Did you even read the case file?” Jack made an ugly sound through his nose. “She was named in one of the damn notes!”

Tomas leveled a warning look at him. “Lose the attitude.” Then he frowned. Jack had a decade less experience than he did but knew the town better. And Jack had been a rookie during the original investigation eighteen years ago. “What are you talking about?”

Jack’s nostrils flared as he made an obvious attempt to rein in his temper. “Evelyn Baine. She was best friends with Cassie Byers. The note said the perp had also taken Evelyn. We don’t know why he didn’t, but Evelyn is way too connected to this case. She shouldn’t be here.”

Frustration bubbled up, amplifying nerves already frayed to the breaking point. As if he didn’t have enough problems. A police force he’d inherited from Jack’s father, too many of whom distrusted him because of the color of his skin or where he’d grown up. A child abductor hunting for victims. And a terrified town looking to him to stop a predator who’d gotten away with it for eighteen years. “Damn it.”

Jack nodded, the vein in his forehead disappearing. “You’re going to send her home, right? We have plenty of FBI crawling around. We don’t need an intended victim mucking around in the investigation.”

Tomas’s shoulders slumped. He’d spent nineteen hours at the station, running on adrenaline and caffeine, but he suddenly felt bone tired. “Tell her to come in.”

“Chief...”

“Just tell her to get in here, Jack.”

Resentment sizzling in his eyes, Jack nodded curtly and left the office.

When the door opened again, Tomas wasn’t sure who was more shocked, him or the woman standing there in her prim, boxy suit and tidy bun.

Her surprise must’ve been because the top law enforcement official was black in a town she would’ve remembered as almost entirely white and intent on keeping it that way.

His was because when Jack said she’d been an intended victim, he’d assumed she was white. And she was. Partly. But she was partly black, too.

When he was a boy, Rose Bay had been a town stuck in the past. North of Hilton Head and south of Charleston, nestled in a small bay, it was mostly old money. The town had relegated its poor and unwanted to the outskirts of town, near the marsh. Rose Bay had been almost totally segregated.

Tomas had spent his childhood in the marshes, but he’d been long gone by the time the Nursery Rhyme Killer struck. Still, he knew attitudes hadn’t been vastly different then.

He studied Evelyn curiously, her light brown skin so different from that of the girls in the pictures he’d spent the past few hours reviewing. All the Nursery Rhyme Killer’s victims had been white. But if Evelyn had been an intended victim...

Dread rushed over him like a tidal wave. He’d already drilled it into each of his three boys that his youngest—his only daughter, who was in the age range of the perp’s victims—wasn’t to go anywhere alone. As soon as he talked to the profiler, he was calling home to make certain they were following orders.

Shaking himself out of his stupor, Tomas held out a hand. “Agent Baine. I’m Police Chief Tomas Lamar. Thanks for coming.”

She put a tiny hand in his and he shook it briefly, carefully. “When I spoke with Dan Moore, he didn’t discuss your personal connection to the case.”

Evelyn dropped the FBI blue duffel bag that was about as big as she was from her shoulder to the ground. Then she placed her briefcase on the floor, settling back in her seat and unbuttoning her suit jacket, which made the gun on her hip visible.

He didn’t need to be a profiler to read
that
move. She was telling him she wasn’t leaving, no matter what he thought of her personal connection. “Relax, Agent Baine. I’m not thrilled that I had to find out from my officers, but I’ll take all the help I can get. And I’ll assume the fact that you requested this case file a month ago means you’re committed to it and you’re going to help us nail this son of a bitch.”

Her shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch and so did the tight line of her mouth. But the intensity in her eyes didn’t diminish as she said, “He’s not getting away with it this time.”

He hoped to God she was right. Brittany Douglas had been missing for thirteen hours. And to his mind, catching the Nursery Rhyme Killer wasn’t a success unless they could also bring Brittany home alive.

He sank into his seat, couldn’t keep his shoulders from slumping as he took a gulp of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago. “Give it to me straight, Agent Baine. Are we already too late?”

She leaned forward and locked sea-green eyes on him. “I can’t tell you that. Not yet, not even when I’ve reviewed the case—not with one hundred percent certainty. Which is what you’d need in order to call off all the searchers I saw when I arrived. But I do have to see Brittany’s file. Everything you’ve got. And the ones from eighteen years ago, as well. Then I’ll give you a profile of who you’re looking for. Sometimes, if you can’t trace the victim’s movements, you get inside the abductor’s head. Because if you can find
him
, you’ll find Brittany.”

Tomas nodded quickly, the sliver of hope that had refused to vanish even as the hours ticked by beginning to grow again. “I talked to the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team the FBI sent. They said they knew you were coming.” The FBI’s CARD team had shown up fast, set up a command post in his conference room at the back of the station and gotten to work immediately. But so far, they still didn’t know where Brittany was. Maybe a profiler would change that.