Elizabeth Heiter - Vanished

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

Evelyn 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.