Vanished (3 page)

“The CARD team has a desk for you in their command post. They have everything you need. But let me give you the basics right now.”

“Great.” She pulled out a pen and notepad.

“Brittany Douglas disappeared last night from her front yard. Her mother was inside when it happened. She didn’t see the abduction, but she said she’d been checking out the window periodically, so there’s a pretty small time span when he must’ve grabbed her. Around 9:30 p.m., Brittany hadn’t come in yet, so her mom went outside—and found a nursery rhyme.” As soon as they’d seen it, all the veteran cops on the force had gone pale.

“Just a nursery rhyme?” Evelyn’s voice was steady, but the tension in her body betrayed her.

The media had gotten hold of the fact that the abductor left nursery rhymes at the abduction scenes eighteen years ago—that was how he’d gotten his moniker. But what the media didn’t know was how the Nursery Rhyme Killer had changed the rhymes. “A twisted version of a nursery rhyme.”

Evelyn released a loud breath. “Just like before.”

“It’s the same person from eighteen years ago, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know yet. I need to study all the notes first. I’ve read part of the original case file, but to be honest with you, I haven’t read the whole thing.” She looked at her lap, obviously struggling with something, then finally added, “I only read the note they found at Cassie’s house.”

The note that had mentioned her. Tomas didn’t like it, but he understood. “Okay. So, now you can read them all. And after you go through the files, you’ll be able to tell me if this is a copycat?”

Please, please, let it be a copycat
, Tomas silently prayed. Having a child abduction was bad enough. But the Nursery Rhyme Killer hadn’t left a single piece of useful forensic evidence eighteen years ago. Tomas had reviewed the old file enough to know they’d never caught one promising lead on the perp. He’d been like a ghost.

If he was back, Tomas was terrified this time wouldn’t be any different. No matter how many FBI agents with their databases and manpower and specialized experience showed up in Rose Bay.

“Yes,” Evelyn promised. “Give me a couple of hours and I should be able to tell you if it’s the same person.”

A few more hours. The weight pressing on Tomas’s chest seemed to double. It made him wish he hadn’t asked the lead agent from the FBI CARD team earlier in the day what Brittany’s odds were. Made him wish she hadn’t told him that most abducted children who were later found dead had been killed in the first three hours.

Were they already too late?

* * *

The FBI CARD team’s command post at the back of the station was the size of Evelyn’s study. Tables had been crammed into the room and covered in laptops, files and photographs. Briefcases and FBI duffel bags were shoved under tables and littered the small aisles. There was even a bloodhound asleep in the corner—from the FBI’s Forensic Canine Unit, Evelyn assumed.

At one point, the room must have been crowded with agents and officers, but now it was mostly abandoned. Only one agent remained, trying to ignore the frantic buzz from the front of the station. She spun her chair around and jumped up as Evelyn stepped into the room. Everything from the lines on her forehead to her no-nonsense stride as she met Evelyn in the center of the room, hand already out, screamed
in charge
.

Evelyn put her hand in the agent’s, who shook it vigorously, her mass of curls bouncing in a high ponytail. Words burst from her mouth in an overcaffeinated frenzy. “I’m Carly Sanchez, the lead agent here. We got the call about ten hours ago and we’ve been on-site for seven.”

“I’m Evelyn Baine. Tomas told you I was on my way?”

“Yep. We’ll need the help.”

“How far have you gotten?” Evelyn asked, feeling overheated in the tiny room. Despite the air-conditioning pumping through the vents on the ceiling, between the South Carolina early-summer heat and the number of computers running, the room was stifling.

“We’ve taken statements from the parents. Gotten our basics on Brittany’s routine, possible grudges against the family, that kind of thing. Most of my team’s out canvassing and conducting interviews. We’ll reconvene here as soon as you’re ready to present your profile.”

“Okay.”

“In the corner there is Cody.” She pointed to the bloodhound. “He arrived just before you. His handler will be back in a minute and they’ll be heading over to Brittany Douglas’s house. They’re from the Human Scent Team.”

Well, Evelyn would hope so, since the other Canine Unit was for victim recovery and trained to scent on human decomposition. “Any promising leads?” Evelyn shifted her heavy bag on her shoulder as she looked up at Carly, who had a solid eight inches on her own five foot two.

Carly’s lips twisted and Evelyn read frustration there, but not defeat. There were ten Bureau CARD teams, spread across the country, ready to leave at a moment’s notice to assist local law enforcement whenever a child went missing. If it was a parental abduction, chances of recovering the child were good. But for nonparental abductions, the statistics were a lot grimmer. Anyone who chose to work on a CARD team had to be either unrealistically optimistic or impossibly hardened.

Probably the same could be said about BAU. And Evelyn knew on which end of the spectrum she fell.

“We don’t have much,” Carly answered. “Brittany lived on High Street. You remember it?”

Evelyn nodded. It was a few blocks over from where she’d lived with her grandparents from the time she was ten until she was seventeen. If it was like it had been thirteen years ago, the houses were big and far apart, neighbors were cordial but not close, and landscaping was designed for privacy.

“Then it probably won’t surprise you that we had no witnesses. I’ve got a team of seven here and they’re all paired up with officers. One of my agents is running down the nearby sex offenders and five are conducting interviews with neighbors. We’re hoping to get lucky on a vehicle description, but so far, nothing.”

“What about forensics?”

Carly shrugged, shoving back the sleeves on her pinstriped blazer. “Unlikely. The note was taped to Brittany’s bike, and we dusted it, but we only got Brittany’s mom’s prints on the note. We’re running the prints from the bike, but I doubt we’ll get a hit.”

Evelyn tried not to feel disappointed. She’d expected that. She’d been too young eighteen years ago to be told much about the investigation, but she’d understood what was going on from her grandparents’ expressions. Evidence had been slim. And as the days turned into years, hope had become even slimmer.

She vowed that this time would be different. “Where’s my spot?” She raised her voice to be heard over the chatter that had picked up in volume at the front of the station. When a child went missing, people often assumed that a police station would be empty, but it was usually packed. With officers manning tip lines and coordinating with specialized resources. With civilians reporting suspicions, demanding answers and volunteering to join search parties. “I’d like to get to work.”

Carly pointed to a place at the end of one of the tables, stacked with boxes. “Right over there. Brittany’s file is on top. And the boxes contain copies of the evidence from eighteen years ago. You’ve seen those already?” Carly asked, eyebrows raised, telling Evelyn she knew her history here.

Evelyn shook her head, then walked toward the case files. A sharp whistle brought her up short, made her spin around.

The bloodhound shot to his feet and followed his handler out of the room as a pair of cops pushed their way in to give Carly updates.

Dumping her FBI bag on the floor, Evelyn squeezed around the table to get a better look inside the boxes. She tried to ignore the increasing level of noise as officers walked in and out of the room, but it was a sharp contrast to the morgue-like quiet that usually pervaded the BAU office.

Folding back the cardboard top, Evelyn looked inside one of the boxes and saw a stack of photographs. The first photo showed a well-loved and dirt-caked doll lying on the grass, an evidence marker next to it.

Matilda.
The name of Cassie’s doll came back to her as soon as she saw it.

Evelyn slapped the lid shut. She felt Carly looking at her, but didn’t lift her gaze. She could do this. Dan
wasn’t
right about her being too close to the case to properly profile it.

She just hadn’t expected to see Cassie’s toy. She’d gotten a copy of the case file two months earlier, but she’d mainly wanted to read the note left on Cassie’s bed. She hadn’t read through the list of cataloged evidence. She didn’t know they’d found Cassie’s doll. She’d only known they hadn’t found Cassie.

Fortifying herself, she tried to open the box again, but her hands trembled. She needed to do this in private, not surrounded by the chaos of the station.

Hefting the boxes in her arms, she went back the way she’d come. She tried to make her voice sound normal as she told Carly, “I’m going to find a quiet corner to work.”

She glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’ll be back in three hours with a profile.” It wasn’t enough time, not really, but Brittany had already been missing for thirteen hours, and after twenty-four her chances decreased even more. They all had to hurry.

Three

E
velyn clutched three boxes of case details, carrying them as low as she could to see over the top. Her duffel bag swung toward them with every step and her briefcase dangled precariously from her right hand. Her thighs bumped the boxes as she hurried toward the hotel.

Normally, the files wouldn’t have left the station, since it was no longer a cold case. But they were only copies and she’d promised Tomas she wouldn’t let them out of her sight until she got them back to the station in three hours.

The chain hotel was a few miles from the police station, on the outskirts of town. It was well back from the road, hidden by a canopy of live oaks draped with clumps of Spanish moss. A hundred and fifty years ago, a plantation had claimed this spot. When she’d lived in Rose Bay, it’d been the location of a little bed-and-breakfast. But the town had grown, both the permanent and tourist populations booming in the past decade. The results of that, at least the ones she’d seen so far, were more bars, restaurants and hotels.

It felt surreal to be back. She kept expecting to turn a corner and see her grandparents. To see Cassie.

But her grandpa had been gone for fifteen years and her grandma now lived in Virginia, in an old-age home near Evelyn. And Cassie... Whether Cassie was dead or alive, maybe Evelyn would finally learn where she’d been all these years.

Greg had booked the hotel for her. He’d made all her reservations while she’d rushed straight to the airport and hopped on the first flight to South Carolina. The nature of her job meant her FBI “Go Bag,” currently weighing down her left shoulder, had already been in the trunk of her car.

As she held the boxes higher, blocking her sight, then grabbed the door and pushed through, the bag slipped off her shoulder. The strap dropped to her elbow with enough force to jar her hand from the boxes. “Shit!”

Evelyn yanked her hand back up, bag swinging, trying to catch the boxes before confidential case information spilled all over the hotel floor.

A pair of hands grasped the boxes from the other side. “Got them!”

She knew that deep, drawling voice. As the boxes were lifted away from her, Evelyn stuttered, “M-Mac. What are you doing here?”

Heat rushed up her face as Kyle McKenzie’s eyes locked on hers. “I figured you’d be staying on-site.” She’d known HRT was in the area, but they were working a case a few towns over, so she’d assumed they would have set up a command post there.

She’d thought about calling him and telling him she was going to be nearby. The idea of having Kyle to lean on while she looked into Cassie’s case had been too tempting. She’d resisted because he had his own job to do, and she didn’t really know where things stood between them.

Kyle gave her a big grin, complete with dimples, and despite the fact that he had heavy circles under his deep-blue eyes and his hair stuck up in odd directions, Evelyn’s entire body went clammy.

“The activity we’re monitoring is happening at night, so that’s when we’re surveilling. During the day, we’re here. The people we’re investigating live in a small town, and if we stayed too close, they’d definitely notice us. We’re telling the people at this hotel that we’re engineers, in town on a company-sponsored trip.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Did they really expect anyone to believe that? HRT agents were the most fit group in the Bureau; their regular routine included physical training, helicopter rappelling and mock terrorist takedowns. HRT agents tended to either look like Olympic-level long-distance runners or military special-operations guys. Definitely not engineers.

“Don’t blow our cover, okay?” he added with a wink, shifting the boxes with annoying ease. “Where am I taking these?”

Evelyn held out her hands. “I can carry them. I just got here, so I need to go to my room and work on my profile.” She ran a hand over her hair, tied neatly back in a bun, aware that she was talking abnormally fast.

In an average social situation, she was shy and uncomfortable. Throw Kyle McKenzie into the mix and she was instantly self-conscious. Especially in the past month, since she’d opened up to him about her past, about Cassie. Since she’d kissed him, and considered jeopardizing her place at BAU for him.

Technically, they weren’t on the same squad, which was usually when dating a colleague meant risking reassignment. But the Critical Incident Response Group was unique, an overarching group made up of BAU, HRT and other essential units that responded to crises around the country. At any given time, she might be called to travel or to work intensely stressful situations with the other CIRG units. She didn’t know quite what the protocol was for dating another agent in CIRG, but her boss had made it abundantly clear that it wasn’t happening on his watch. And for years now, her job had been her whole life.

Still, after Kyle had helped her face down a serial killer, she’d shocked them both by acting on their attraction. She’d thought they would sort out what it all meant while she was on medical leave, but he’d been called out of town three weeks ago.

And now that her immediate emotional vulnerability from that case had faded, and the most important investigation of her career had surfaced, she couldn’t make any mistakes. Not even for Kyle.

As she shuffled her feet, Kyle’s expression got serious. “Greg called. He told me you were on your way.”

Unspoken was that Greg had asked Kyle to watch out for her, but Evelyn heard it in Kyle’s voice.

He stepped closer, seeing far too much as he studied her. “I know you’re working on your friend’s case, Evelyn. If you need anything, I’m here for you.”

She nodded silently, unable to meet his gaze, unable to talk about it yet.

He must have sensed that, because he told her, “I’ve got the boxes. Go check in and I’ll carry them up for you.”

Letting Kyle anywhere near her room? Bad idea. Her mind might’ve been made up, but her hormones didn’t seem to have gotten the message. “You don’t need to do that.”

Amusement sparkled in his eyes, as if he could guess exactly what she was thinking. “Sure I do.”

Instead of wasting time arguing, she checked in and let him follow her up to her room. After he’d set the boxes inside, she shooed him out by telling him she had to be back at the station in three hours with a profile.

And when the door closed behind him, she breathed a nervous sigh of relief. She’d worry about Kyle later. Right now, she had to figure out if Cassie’s abductor really was back, or if Rose Bay had a copycat.

* * *

Turkey vultures soared overhead in wobbly circles, their wings spread in a wide V. They were scavenging, and Kyle knew what that meant. They’d found a fresh carcass.

Kyle looked at the sky, out in the distance, over the high grass that led to the marsh. In his line of work, he’d seen way too much of what one human being could do to another. But the kids always hit him the hardest.

Knowing how important the case in Rose Bay was to Evelyn made it even worse. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since he’d seen her at the hotel. How the hell was she profiling this?

He prayed she’d get the answers she’d been searching for all these years, but even if she did, they were unlikely to be good. And there wasn’t much he could do besides join the search for the girl who’d gone missing yesterday.

Behind him, police officers and civilian volunteers from the search parties were heading in the opposite direction, toward the overgrown field beside the cemetery. Overhead, a helicopter buzzed, on its fifth hour of an aerial search.

Officially, despite his training, Kyle wasn’t supposed to be involved at all. He wasn’t here for this case. But his current mission only claimed his nighttime hours, so he and his Bureau partner, Gabe Fontaine, had volunteered with the civilian search parties looking for Brittany Douglas this morning.

Gabe wasn’t aware of Evelyn’s connection to the case, but Kyle didn’t need to tell him about it for Gabe to want to help. In HRT, they were often a last resort—an overwhelming tactical solution when all else failed—so they’d seen a lot of screwed-up situations. But the ones where kids were in danger tended to piss off the guys the most. The rest of his team would probably take a shift later in the afternoon.

When he and Gabe had arrived, he’d pulled aside Noreen Abbott, one of the administrative assistants from the Rose Bay PD who was coordinating the search parties. He’d quietly told her their full names and shown her their badges, knowing they’d be checked out otherwise. All volunteers were, because sometimes the perpetrator joined the searches. He didn’t want anyone wasting time doing background checks on him and Gabe.

Exhaustion weighed down his steps. He’d managed a three-hour nap after his team came in from their mission around 8:00 a.m. But he and Gabe had vowed to help as soon as they were marginally functional. Sleep was overrated, anyway.

Except that now, as the turkey vultures narrowed in on something they wanted down below, sleep sounded like a damn fine idea.

“Shit,” Gabe muttered next to him. He swiped a hand over his forehead and Kyle knew it wasn’t the ninety-degree heat, but fear of what they might find that was making his normally unflappable teammate sweat.

“Not a good sign, turkey vultures,” a man said.

Kyle turned around, surprised someone had come up behind them without him or Gabe noticing.

And the man was big, considering his stealth. He wasn’t tall—he was actually a solid four inches shorter than Kyle’s six feet. But he was wide. And none of his girth was fat. He appeared to be in his sixties, although Kyle’s gut said he was younger, and the deep lines on his face were from hard living.

Kyle held out his hand. “I’m Kyle. This is my friend Gabe. We’re here on a company trip, so we figured we’d help with the search.”

The man’s dark gray eyes narrowed in his craggy face, then he put his hand in Kyle’s and shook forcefully, before pulling his hand free. “Frank Abbott.”

Gabe gestured back toward the sign-up table for the search parties. “Are you related to the girl handling the sign-in?”

“My niece,” Frank replied. “She works at the station. And I didn’t have any jobs today I couldn’t reschedule, so here I am.” He heaved out a heavy sigh. “This again.”

“You lived here during the original abductions?” Gabe asked.

“I’ve lived here all my life. Can’t believe this shit has started up again.” He shook his head, suddenly looking tired, and headed toward the marsh, glancing back to call, “You want to check this out with me?”

Hell, no.
Instead of saying it, Kyle nodded tightly and fell into step beside Frank. The older man walked fast, with purpose, his jaw set in a grim line.

The sounds of the search party faded as they walked, replaced by the strange clapping sounds someone had told him were made by Clapper Rail birds. It would’ve been peaceful had the circumstances been different.

Beside him, Gabe and Frank were silent, too. Gabe had the same training he did, the same ability to force back fear and get the job done, but a civilian wouldn’t. To Frank’s credit, he didn’t slow as the low, nasal whine of the vultures reached their ears.

Kyle tried to prepare himself as they continued walking, as the marsh grasses got taller and thicker, as his feet began to get stuck in the muddy ground.

“Watch your step,” Frank warned, trudging ahead without looking back. “The marsh is low now, but to get to the vultures, we have to go in.”

“If there’s a body out here, wouldn’t the alligators have gone after it by now?” Gabe spoke up, shoving back blond hair in need of a cut.

Frank snorted and kept going. “No gators. Not in these marshes. Down the coast, maybe. But not here. Come on.”

Kyle followed, his shoes sinking deeper until it was difficult to pull them free. The marsh grasses crept up around his knees as they got closer to the water. High enough to hide a body. And definitely deserted enough. The sound of the other searchers had become nothing more than a low murmur.

Kyle knew that as soon as Evelyn gave her profile, she’d be out there among them, just like she’d probably insisted on doing eighteen years ago. It was easy to imagine her as a young girl. Her best friend torn from her life, abducted only hours after Evelyn had seen her.

Even at twelve years old, Evelyn wouldn’t have sat home hoping everything would turn out okay. He could picture her, green eyes too big for her face, long hair in pigtails, wearing the determined look that seemed to be her default expression. There was no way she would’ve tolerated being left behind.

And he knew there was no way she’d leave Rose Bay now until she uncovered the truth. No matter how horrible it was, no matter what it cost her.

The image of Evelyn faded as the smell of something rotting wafted up.
Please, God, don’t let it be Brittany Douglas.

He tried not to inhale too deeply as Frank splashed into the low marsh waters, startling three turkey vultures. They gave deep, guttural hisses, then took off into the sky, revealing a carcass along the edge of the marsh.

The breath stalled in his lungs. It was the remains left by some hunter, but it wasn’t human. Just a deer. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a moment of relief.

Beside him, Gabe sighed. “Thank God.”

Frank stared down at the carcass, then off into the distance, where the marsh wound through tall grasses and eventually disappeared from sight. “Let’s keep looking.”

Far behind them, the search was continuing.

* * *

Each time Evelyn read the note that had been taped to Brittany Douglas’s bike, goose bumps rose on her skin.

It wasn’t so hard,

I went to the yard,

Where you’d left the poor child alone.

When I got there,

It felt like a dare.

I thought to myself, Take her and run.

It matched the notes from eighteen years ago...and yet, it didn’t. Back then, just like now, the nursery rhymes focused on two ideas. First, that the child was being neglected in some way by the parents. And second, that the abductor was rescuing her from that.

But eighteen years ago, the abductor hadn’t displayed such obvious joy at the abduction. That idea dominated the new note, a macabre revision of “Old Mother Hubbard.”