Vanished (6 page)

A vein started throbbing in the center of his forehead. “You’re here for Cassie, but she’s been dead for eighteen years and you damn well know it. You feel guilty because you were supposed to be a victim, too. But we need someone impartial. We need a real profiler here, not an intended victim coming home to play hero.”

He pounded a fist down on the table. “We need to
catch
this asshole!”

She swallowed hard, unable to form a reply, and then just watched him as he shook his head in disgust, and strode from the room.

She wasn’t trying to play hero. Finding Cassie meant finding Brittany, too. But damn, as nasty as Jack’s words were, he was half right. She could try to use the original abductions to tell her about the perp, but her focus needed to be on the girl missing now, not Cassie.

And for her, it was always going to come back to Cassie.

She pressed a hand to her temple. Maybe Jack had a point. Maybe she didn’t belong here.

Eighteen years ago, she sure as hell hadn’t. Eighteen years ago, everyone had stared at her as though she were some kind of curiosity with her light brown skin in a world of white. At the time, she’d been the only one living in town who didn’t fit.

Some people—like Cassie—hadn’t cared. But a lot of them had. Most were too well-mannered to be rude to her face, but even at ten, she’d heard the whispers. She hadn’t always known what they meant, but she’d known they were about her.

It had been twenty years since she’d first set foot in Rose Bay. The town had changed. But maybe not as much as she’d thought.

She was trying to rein in her emotions when Tomas raced into the room. “Where’s Jack?”

“He left a few minutes ago. Why?”

Tomas’s eyes narrowed, as if he could tell something was off with her, then he said, “I need him to get over to the hospital and talk to his favorite suspect.”

Evelyn stood. “Walter is at the hospital? Why?”

“Brittany Douglas’s dad just beat him up.”

“Why?” Had she screwed up, rejecting Walter as a viable suspect? “Did he have a specific reason to suspect Walter?”

“I don’t know,” Tomas replied. “Two of my officers are bringing Mark Douglas in.”

When Evelyn started to follow him to the front of the station, Tomas warned, “I’d stay where you are. We just arrested the victim’s father. No one’s happy with us.” Instead of returning to the CARD command post, Evelyn picked up her pace to match Tomas’s stride.

He glanced at her, looking surprised, then warned, “Everyone was terrified already. Now we’ve pissed them off. Things are volatile out there.”

As she walked to the front of the station with him, she saw that
volatile
was an understatement. Angry residents swarmed the parking lot, held at bay by a pair of cops. The crowd was mostly men, between twenty and sixty. They wore everything from shorts and T-shirts to suits and ties. Evelyn guessed there were thirty of them, but with only three cops who hadn’t been expecting this kind of trouble, it was too many.

The crowd was pushing and screaming and the cops, even though they were obvious veterans, looked overwhelmed. Evelyn had never seen her hometown like this, even eighteen years ago. Despite what she’d seen in the Bureau, it was actually a little scary.

Especially as a police car pulled up as close to the station door as it could get and two officers dragged a man out of the backseat who had to be Mark Douglas. His eyes were bloodshot, his face ragged with grief, his hands raw and bloodied.

The cops were young, clearly rookies. One held tight to Mark’s arm. The other’s hand lingered near his sidearm, his gaze darting nervously around the crowd as it rushed in on him.

“Pigs!” someone shouted. “We do your job for you and get arrested for it?”

“Let him go!” someone else yelled.

“Shit,” Tomas said. “Jack! T.J.! Get out here! Grab your batons!”

“Maybe...” Evelyn began.

“Stay inside the station,” Tomas told her, heading for the front door. “Most of our officers are out running down leads, and this could get ugly.”

Evelyn grabbed his arm. “Do you have a bullhorn?”

Tomas gave her an incredulous look. “In my office,” he said, pulling free and opening the front door.

The yelling roared several decibels louder. The pair of cops trying to manage the crowd was being pushed back toward the station. The cops trying to bring Mark inside were trapped against their patrol car. One of them pulled his weapon, and just like that, two residents had him slammed into the car.

Evelyn saw the weapon drop to the ground and Tomas raced into the crowd as she spun for his office. She wasn’t a negotiator, but she’d worked with the best the FBI had. And she knew calming the crowd down fast was the best chance to avoid getting someone hurt.

As she sprinted into Tomas’s office and found the bullhorn, Jack and T.J. hurried past, carrying heavy shields she hadn’t expected a small town like Rose Bay would have.

Jack and T.J. shoved their way through the crowd with their shields, trying to get to the rookies by the car.

Evelyn spotted Tomas in the middle, his hands out in a calming gesture. A broad-shouldered man with silver-streaked hair who seemed to be the closest thing the mob had to an instigator yelled back at him, slapping Tomas’s hands away.

The two cops who’d been holding back the crowd were yelling, too. It sounded as if they were agreeing with their neighbors that Brittany’s dad shouldn’t have been arrested, and promising to let him go if the crowd went home.

The rookies who’d brought in Mark Douglas were down near their patrol car. One had crawled half-underneath it to avoid getting trampled, while the other struggled to get back to his feet, his hand pressed to his bleeding head.

Mark, still in cuffs, was being dragged through the crowd. He kept looking backward, and seemed to be arguing with the crowd to let him get arrested, which was only making them angrier.

Evelyn opened the door, stepped to the edge of the crowd and lifted the bullhorn. She pressed the button to broadcast, knowing she needed to return their focus to what really mattered. “This isn’t helping Brittany. You need to leave the investigation to the police!”

The crowd quieted, seeming to still almost instantly. But that only lasted a fraction of a second. Then the man talking to Tomas yelled, “Was it your idea to arrest the victim’s father?” And the crowd surged forward, shifting direction, toward the front of the station, toward her.

Evelyn took a quick step back, pressing the button on the bullhorn again. But it was too late. Two people closest to her shoved her sideways, away from the station door, and the bullhorn fell from her hands.

She regained her balance, put her right hand near her hip to protect her weapon and tried to move backward. But someone else came in from the other side, blocking her way.

Then Jack’s voice cut through the yelling. “Evelyn! Hey! Move away from her!” He started pushing toward her, leading with his shield, and knocked someone out of his way.

Suddenly everyone seemed to be moving at once, in different directions. The men on her left spun to face Jack, knocking her backward.

She stumbled, and righted herself just as a cloud of pepper spray dispersed into the air. It filled her lungs, making her cough with every breath. Her eyes burned, watering until it was hard to see.

The crowd moved fast to get away from it, shoving and pushing away from the station, and Evelyn went down hard on one knee.

She tried to get to her feet, but the crowd suddenly shifted again as a gunshot rang out. Someone slammed into her, and she fell to the ground. Then all she could do was curl up and try to protect her head, hoping she wasn’t about to get trampled.

Five

G
abe slammed on the brakes, getting their rental car close to the rioting crowd in front of the Rose Bay PD, and wrenching Kyle against his seat belt. He’d unbuckled and opened his door before Gabe had the car in Park.

Kyle stepped outside and pepper spray stung his eyes, burned in his nose and throat. Instead of wading immediately into the crowd, he hopped on top of the rental car for a better view.

More reinforcements were right behind them. He’d heard the call come over the radios at the search party, drawing the cops and FBI agents back to the station. Since Gabe had spent extra time on the FBI’s defensive driving course, he’d driven. At every turn, Kyle had urged him to go faster, so they’d beaten everyone else back to the station.

Whatever got them to Evelyn the fastest.

But where was she? Kyle peered through the crowd, assessing. Residents fleeing the pepper spray, fighting with the cops, pushing a handcuffed man toward a truck. Two cops down by a patrol car. Two more standing back-to-back, holding shields to protect themselves as the crowd jostled them. The police chief ducking as a resident threw a punch. And there, by the side of the station... Kyle squinted. Was that Evelyn?

The crowd shifted and, oh, shit, it was. She was down, and in real danger of being trampled.

He had to get to her
now
. Kyle jumped down next to Gabe and pointed. “She’s over there.”

“Let’s go.”

They’d been partners for three years, so he and Gabe didn’t need to talk. They spent hundreds of hours each year training with live rounds, when knowing exactly where your partner was meant the difference between a successful training exercise and a real death.

They’d also been friends for three years, so Gabe knew how deep his feelings for Evelyn ran, how complicated they’d become. Gabe would understand that, right now, he was feeling pretty damn desperate.

Kyle waded into the crowd, sticking to the side, where he’d encounter less resistance. Gabe tracked along beside him, far enough away to allow room to maneuver, but close enough to provide assistance.

Kyle felt his eyelids swelling as he skirted the back of the cop car, close to where the pepper spray must have been dispersed. Residents—a few women but mostly men—rushed past him, heading in both directions, not seeming to know whether to flee or fight. Someone took a swing at him, and Kyle sidestepped it, twisting the man around and down onto the trunk of the squad car without breaking stride.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Gabe dodge a pair of men running full out for the street.

The crowd was dangerous, but it was relatively small. And he and Gabe had helped break up a prison riot last summer, so in comparison this was a piece of cake. At least here no one was trying to shank him.

As he closed in on Evelyn’s position, he saw her roll away from a guy in a suit who’d stepped back to kick her.

Kyle put on a burst of speed and tackled the man before he could try again, throwing him off to the side.

Gabe came up beside him as Kyle yanked Evelyn up and over his shoulder. He felt a surge of relief the second he had her off the ground where he could protect her.

He heard more cars coming in, sirens blaring, as he rushed for the station door. The crowd scattered, moving faster; most of them had obviously abandoned thoughts of fighting.

But the man Kyle had tossed aside had gotten to his feet—Kyle hadn’t thrown him hard enough to knock him out, hadn’t wanted him to get trampled by the crowd. And instead of running away, he was coming back for more, fury on his face and a police baton in his hand, up and ready to swing.

Kyle just kept going, stepping over a bullhorn, and taking Evelyn farther away from the rushing man. Gabe moved in front of them fast, as Kyle had known he would, using the man’s own momentum to push him against the brick of the station wall. Instead of forcing him onto the ground, Gabe twisted his arm behind his back, making him drop the baton, then pushed him inside the station alongside Kyle.

Kyle lowered Evelyn off his shoulder, steadying her as she swayed. He pushed her into a chair as she pressed a hand to a bump swelling her forehead. Tilting her head back to check her pupils, Kyle stared into her eyes. They were clear, the pupils normal-size and tracking. She looked a little dazed, but she was okay. Damn, when he’d seen her on the ground, he’d wanted to forget strategy and just plow straight through the center of the crowd.

He glanced back at Gabe. His partner had the man he’d brought inside cuffed to a metal bar on the station wall. When he caught Kyle’s gaze, he nodded toward the door.

“Stay here,” Kyle told Evelyn. “I’ll be right back.” Then he followed Gabe outside.

The mob was pretty much under control now. Most of the residents were long gone. A few were on the ground, being cuffed by the additional officers and FBI agents who’d arrived. The police chief was helping the cops near the squad car to their feet. A gruff-looking veteran officer set down his shield and grabbed a Glock from the ground, tucking it beside his own weapon.

“Where’s the profiler?” the veteran cop asked, scanning the ground as if he’d seen her go down.

“She’s in the station,” Gabe said. “She’s okay.”

The cop scowled. “She shouldn’t have been out here. She shouldn’t be here at all.” He spun away from them and handed the weapon he’d picked up to one of the newbies by the squad car.

Kyle looked at Gabe and pointed back to the station, and his partner followed him inside.

Evelyn got to her feet as they came in the door. The bump on her forehead was nasty and her eyelids were almost swollen shut from the pepper spray. Her suit was torn at the knee and shoulder, and from the way she hobbled when she walked toward them, he guessed a heel had come off her shoe.

But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

“Is anyone hurt?” she asked. “I heard a gunshot.”

“It didn’t look like anyone was shot,” Gabe said.

“Good.” Evelyn bent down and took her shoes off, then peered up at them. “What are you guys doing here?”

“What do you think?” Kyle asked, a little more harshly than he’d intended. He took a deep breath. It wasn’t Evelyn’s fault things had gotten dangerous. And it wasn’t her fault his emotions took over wherever she was concerned.

He didn’t quite know how it had happened. But sometime between a year ago, when he’d first seen her in the BAU office, and now, everything had changed. She’d gone from the newbie agent he couldn’t resist teasing to the woman he flat-out couldn’t resist.

“We heard what went down. I was worried you were in the middle of it.”

She frowned back at him, but then seemed to realize what she was doing, and said, “Thanks for the help. It got nasty out there fast.”

“Is the station going to need reinforcements?” Gabe asked as cops streamed back inside, some hauling prisoners.

Evelyn shook her head, then put her fingers gingerly against the bump on her forehead. “I don’t think so. They just didn’t expect this reaction to bringing in Brittany’s father.”

“What a fucking mess,” the veteran cop with the shield contributed as he came in the door hauling a cuffed and bleeding resident.

“Is anyone hurt, Jack?” Evelyn asked as Gabe signaled a free cop and swapped the cuffs on the prisoner he’d brought inside.

“Nothing serious.” Jack pushed the resident into a chair. “Stay there,” he told the man, then turned his gaze on Evelyn. “What the hell were you doing out there? Inciting them with the bullhorn? Are you crazy?”

Kyle forced back a response, because he knew it would piss Evelyn off to have anyone stand up for her. It always did.

“I was trying to calm them down, remind them what we all need to be focused on,” Evelyn replied, a lot more calmly than Kyle had expected.

Jack snorted. “Yeah, that worked well.”

Kyle couldn’t stay silent any longer, but he tried to keep his tone nonconfrontational. “The problem wasn’t trying to talk the crowd down. The problem was not planning better for that arrest.” He should know. He’d helped execute arrests on enough high-profile targets.

Jack shot him a look, then turned pointedly to Evelyn. “How do you know those guys? Who are they? More feds?”

Instead of answering Jack, she asked Kyle, “Can you give me a ride back to the hotel?”

“You’re just going to leave now?” Jack cut in.

What was this guy’s problem? Kyle stepped closer, angling into Jack’s line of sight with the kind of warning glare he liked to use on uncooperative targets.

“Let me grab a file, okay?” Evelyn raced off as though she hoped her disappearance would make Jack lose interest.

But Jack just moved forward, giving Kyle his own cop stare.

“You might want to watch your prisoner,” Gabe said mildly as Jack got in Kyle’s face.

“Shit!” Jack took after the bleeding resident he’d brought in a minute before, who was hobbling for the door.

Then Evelyn was back, and Kyle ushered her out the door toward Gabe’s car. “What’s with that guy?”

“Apparently he’s held a grudge for eighteen years.”

Kyle steered her around the broken glass from the patrol car headlights since she wasn’t wearing shoes. “He had a grudge against a
twelve-year-old
?”

Gabe looked questioningly between them as Evelyn shrugged. Evelyn had told Kyle about her past, but Gabe didn’t know what this case meant to her, or her history here.

Kyle had tried to respect her privacy and keep it to himself, but if she was in danger—and with a town that fast to mob, she definitely could be—he’d have to tell Gabe soon.

And he really didn’t like the atmosphere in the police station, either. There was definitely something off about Jack.

To hell with sleep. When he got back to the hotel, he was going to check into the guy’s history. “What’s his full name?”

“Jack Bullock,” Evelyn answered. Then she seemed to realize why he’d asked, and added, “I think it’s just this case. He was on it eighteen years ago and couldn’t solve it then. It’s probably haunted him ever since.”

Like it had haunted her.

She didn’t have to say it; the words were written all over her face.

But considering why she was here, she was handling it a lot better than he’d expected. Maybe she was still too numb from learning that her best friend’s abductor was back to really take in what was happening, or maybe she was just burying it all.

Either way, the calm wasn’t likely to last long.

* * *

Evelyn sat on the edge of her bed in her hotel room, a police file on her lap. She needed to remove her dirty, torn clothes and take a shower. She needed some ice for her forehead. But she couldn’t think about any of it until she looked in the file.

Inside was the original FBI profile of the Nursery Rhyme Killer.

She hadn’t reviewed it when she wrote her own, because that could have subconsciously influenced her analysis. Now that she’d given her independent profile, it was time to look at everything else—from the original suspects to the original profile.

Since she’d profiled the abductor as being the same man from all those years ago and not a copycat, now was the moment of truth.

Did her profile match the one prepared eighteen years ago?

Back then, when Cassie had gone missing, an FBI profiler had come to Rose Bay. Evelyn had seen him at the police station once, confident and a head taller than most of the cops. She’d been leaving after another round of questioning from Jack Bullock. She’d seen the agent studying the volunteers as she’d walked at the rear of the search parties with her grandparents. When she’d spotted him leaving the Byerses’ house, she’d run over and demanded to know who he was and when he was going to find Cassie.

He’d leaned down to her level and actually shook her hand. He’d been aware of who she was, of course, but back then she hadn’t known why. Then he’d told her his name and explained what he did for the FBI.

And that conversation had changed the entire direction of her life.

She’d never seen Philip Havok again. But she could still remember the exact shade of his sharp blue eyes, the dark gray of his suit, the quiet confidence in his voice. He was the picture she’d had in her head all the years since, the idea of what she wanted to be. A profiler. Someone who could bring girls like Cassie back home.

She’d looked him up when she’d been accepted to the Academy, wondering if he was still in profiling, and discovered he’d retired the year before. He’d spent nearly twenty-five years in the Bureau—meaning, he’d been granted an exception to the FBI’s mandatory retirement. More than half of that time had been spent profiling serial predators. Now it was her turn.

Evelyn opened the file. The basic description was right at the top: “white male, between the ages of twenty and thirty, works a job with flexible hours.” Add eighteen years and that matched what she’d profiled.

She kept reading. “Unclear whether he is single, but if married, the relationship is controlling. Could have his own child, and if so, likely to be the same age as the victims.”

Evelyn paused, realizing she hadn’t considered every angle about kids. She’d thought about them as a reason the perp could have started the abductions—because he’d lost a child that age. And she’d thought of them as a reason he could have stopped the abductions—because he had an easy victim at home who had reached the age he wanted. But she hadn’t considered the other possibility. That he might be abducting other children so he’d stay away from his own.

Evelyn closed her eyes, feeling gingerly around the tender skin on her forehead where she’d bumped it. An image of Cassie filled her mind, vibrant, laughing and full of life. What had happened to her after he’d ripped Cassie away?

Evelyn pushed back the sleeves on her suit, opened her eyes and kept reading. When she finished, she closed the file and stared blankly at the bare hotel walls.

Philip had come to the same conclusions she had. Possible molester, possible delusions of being a “savior.”

But how the hell did she figure out which one? And how the hell was she going to catch him before Brittany ran out of time?

* * *