Elizabeth Heiter - Vanished

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.

“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.”