Virginia Vaughan - Yuletide Abduction

She gave a haggard sigh. “I suspect it’s because I’m the FBI agent you were going to speak to.”

* * *

“You’re FBI?”

Elise didn’t care for the incredulous tone of his voice, but she was in no mood to chastise him. Her brain hurt—actually hurt—and she was having enough trouble putting words together for a rational conversation. The doctor who looked to be thirty years past retirement age had told her she’d suffered a concussion, but he might as well have said she’d scrambled her brains. It felt the same.

“I’ve been with the Bureau for six years. In fact, I owe my career to your brother in a way. I changed my major to criminal justice after my attack.”

“Are you here because of Candace’s disappearance? I know she didn’t run away. She wouldn’t do that, especially not right before Christmas.”

Elise visualized a photograph of a young, redheaded girl the police had classified as a runaway. How had she not realized it before? “Max’s daughter is the girl that vanished?”

“That’s right.”

Determination settled inside her. She pushed back the blanket and pulled her injured leg over the edge of the bed, struggling to balance as she stood.

Josh rushed to her side, steadying her with his arm. “What are you doing?”

“Getting out of here. I have work to do.”

She owed it to Max to find his daughter.

The doctor and a nurse rushed into the room. “Agent Richardson, we need to keep you for observation,” the doctor insisted.

“I’m fine,” she said, wishing her legs were just a bit more steady. But Josh slipped his hand under her elbow and acted as her support. Beneath his gentle touch, she sensed strength and power and was confident he wouldn’t let her fall.

The doctor sighed. “Well, I can’t keep you, but you’ll have to sign something saying you’re leaving against medical advice. And I insist on having one of my nurses phone you every few hours just to check on you. Leave your number with Nurse Stringer here,” he stated before walking out.

Elise wrote down her cell phone number then changed into a pair of borrowed hospital scrubs with the nurse’s help.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Josh asked her as they exited the hospital. “You did sustain head trauma.”

She grunted, already tired of hearing that question. “I’m fine. Candace may not be. Now, please take me to my hotel. I’d like to change my clothes.” She glanced at the shirt he was still wearing, stained red with her blood. “I’m sure you’d like to go home and change, too.”

He opened the door to a black, four-door Jeep and helped her into the passenger’s seat. “Daniel—Chief Mills—loaned me his Jeep while my truck is in the shop.”

He walked around and slid behind the wheel then donned aviator sunglasses similar to ones Elise had seen military men wear. He didn’t have the clean-cut look of most of the former military types she knew, but there was something about his manner that was orderly and neat and made her wonder about him.

“Since I guess I owe you my life, tell me about yourself. What do you do for a living?” She felt silly asking, like a schoolgirl digging for information about the boy she liked, but she tried to keep her tone matter-of-fact because she wasn’t a schoolgirl and Josh wasn’t the object of a girlish crush. She was an FBI agent and he was the brother of the man she’d got killed.

“I’m a security consultant for an oil company. I arrange and oversee security for the executives when they have to travel overseas.”

That only confirmed what Elise suspected. “Isn’t that the kind of job former military usually take?” She’d been around enough former military men to recognize the signs.

He nodded. “I served fourteen years in the army. Discharged last year.”

“Why did you leave? You could have stayed and retired in only a few more years.”

He shrugged. “Things change. People change.”

His guarded expression and suddenly rigid body language told her there was more to that story but he wasn’t going to share it. That piqued her curiosity. Vague people generally had something to hide.

But she hadn’t come to town to learn about Josh. “Tell me about your niece. When did she go missing?”

His entire demeanor changed in an instant. His eyes perked up as he spoke about his niece. “Candace is smart and funny and so kindhearted. She often tutored other students.” His smile faltered. “That’s what she was doing the day she vanished. It was a Thursday afternoon and she’d stayed after school. I spoke to her before she left, but she never made it home.”

“And why do the police think she ran away?”

“Her best friend, Brooke Martin, told the police Candace was planning to leave home, but Candace never said anything to me to make me believe that.”

“Fifteen-year-olds don’t always share everything with their uncles.”

“She did. She talked to me about a lot of things. I would know if she was planning to run away.”

Elise suspected that might not be the case, but she didn’t bother arguing the point. Her work had taught her that teenage girls were notoriously secretive with adults. What made Josh’s relationship with his niece so different? More important, what made Josh believe their relationship was different?

He turned into the hotel and parked beside Elise’s blue SUV.

She got out, careful not to place undue weight on her injured leg. “I’ll have to go to the office and get the spare key.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Josh’s gaze stopped her. She followed it and saw her hotel room door standing open, the lock busted and the wood splintered.

Movement caused them both to jump. Whoever had broken into her hotel room was still inside. Elise stumbled to her SUV and keyed in her security code. The lock released and she opened the door, grabbing her gun from beneath the seat. She ignored the pain in her leg and the dizziness raking over her and headed for the hotel room, ready to pounce on whoever was inside.

Gun raised, she rushed into the room. “Don’t move!” she shouted, causing the short, sandy-haired man inside to jump and raise his hands quickly.

“Don’t shoot, Agent. It’s only me, Bobby Danbar, the hotel manager.”

Josh pushed past her. “Bobby, what are you doing in here?”

“I saw the door was busted and I was worried about Agent Richardson, especially since I hadn’t seen her since she checked in.”

Elise lowered her gun as the vague memory of this man filtered through her scrambled brain. She’d met him yesterday in the office. “You found my room this way?”

“Yes. Someone must have kicked in the door. Whoever did this was gone before I came along.”

Elise surveyed the room. Her clothes were scattered as if thrown from where she’d neatly folded and placed them into the dresser drawers. Her makeup bag was overturned on the bed and her briefcase had been cracked open.

Josh motioned to the dresser where her badge and ID still sat. “Why didn’t they break into your car? Steal your gun or your FBI credentials?”

“Who knows? Maybe they couldn’t break the lock on my car. Or maybe they got interrupted before they could finish ransacking the room and ran. Regardless, they got what they came for.”

“How do you know?”

She picked up her briefcase and held it open for Josh to see.

“It’s empty.”

“Exactly. My laptop is gone, and so are my case files. They’re the only things missing, as far as I can tell.” All her files on missing girls in three states. All the evidence that pointed toward a human trafficking ring operating in this area. Gone. “These intruders knew what they were looking for.”

* * *