Cody McFadyen - Abandoned

“When did the class end? Does it say?”

“Of course it does, honey-love. They traveled down all the same mental paths as you. The class began at seven and ended at eight. The gym was only ten minutes away, and according to the husband she was always prompt in returning home. When she hadn’t answered her cell phone or arrived home by eleven o’clock, he called her partner.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Three hours? Why’d he wait so long?” I pause. “Ah. Right. I’ll bet he said that he wasn’t all that worried because she was a cop.”

“Point to you,” Callie confirms.

“Where’d she park?” I ask.

“It doesn’t say.”

“And no one noticed anything?”

“No. Too busy feeling the burn, I suppose.”

I shake my head. “Whoever took her was confident and accomplished. Maybe overconfident, certainly a risk taker. A well-lit parking lot not long after the class let out? Daring.”

“Strike the well-lit,” Callie says. “They noted that all three of the lights nearest where Heather was parked were out. Expertly vandalized.”

I turn to Alan. “She’s a cop. How would she think and how would he use that against her?”

He ponders this. “It’s a tough one. She worked homicide, so she’d know that the moment she climbed into a vehicle with him, her chances of survival would be lowered. I guess if I were him … I’d stick a gun in her back and tell her if she said a word, I’d shoot her. Cops know better than anyone that you listen to a man with a gun. You cooperate and wait for an opening.”

“He’d obviously studied her life or had been given details about it by the husband,” James says. “He could have used those against her. My partner has your husband and kids at home. Come with me quietly or they die. Pure conjecture, but the point being, there are ways.”

“Still daring,” I say.

“Yes and no,” James replies. “Sunset in April is seven-fifteen, seven-thirty, or thereabouts. It would have been dark; he’d taken the lights out. The women coming out of the class would be tired, thinking about getting safely to their own vehicles and home. How many rapes occur in supermarket or shopping center lots after dark?”

“Tons,” I admit.

“Their attention would be on themselves and making a beeline to their cars. He comes up to Heather, puts a gun to her back, and employs quiet but convincing verbal threats to get her into his vehicle. He would have told her to act natural, not to make a sound.” He shrugs. “Daring, yes, but not the riskiest plan possible if he was confident and aggressive.”

“She probably dropped the keys herself in that scenario,” I say. “She’d know her car would be found and that the keys would make it clear it was an abduction.”

I mark the relevant info on the whiteboard. “What happened next?” I ask Callie.

“Too much of nothing, I’m afraid. It’s as if Heather vanished into thin air.” She flips a page. “It seems the detective on the case dismissed the idea that it was random fairly quickly.”

“Why?” I ask.

“I’m not sure, but—” She sweeps a hand to indicate the piled folders. “There’s lots more to read. They went after the husband very hard, but there was nothing to hang him with. No trace of money transfers to or from accounts belonging to him. Nothing found on any of his computers or laptops, either at work or at home. There were large-sum life-insurance policies on both of them, but neither had been taken out recently.”

“Was she ever declared dead?” James asks.

Callie flips through the folder pages. She finds nothing in the first or second folder, then stops near the end of the third. “There’s a note, newer than the rest. From a year ago. The husband had her legally declared dead seven years after her disappearance. And get this: He collected on the life insurance just two months ago. Seven hundred thousand dollars plus.”

“And then she reappears?” I say. “Some coincidence.”

It’s not, of course. I walk over to the board and write: Wife held until life insurance payout/then reappears. I circle it. Twice.

“Did the husband get remarried?” I ask.

“Yes indeedy,” Callie says, smiling a shark smile. “To she of hotel-room-photo fame. Three years after his wife went missing.”

Husband marries mistress , I write, then: PATIENT in big block letters. I circle it two times as well.

“He did it,” I say, “or he’s in collusion with whoever did.”

“Amen to that,” Alan says.

Follow the line of inquiry , the note had said. That’s starting to make sense.

“James, Callie, I want you to go through these files with a fine tooth comb. Put together a detailed timeline and a database of all the relevant information. I’m looking for something that will give us the basis for a new warrant.”

“This is so much better than Bora-Bora,” Callie mutters.

“Alan, you and I are going to go and see Douglas Hollister. Somehow I don’t think the reappearance of Heather was a part of his plans. Let’s drop that bomb on him and see how high he jumps.”

“Good idea.”

My cell phone rings. “Barrett.”

“Smoky.” It’s AD Jones. “I need you to come up to my office. Pronto.”

“Yes, sir.” I hang up. “Okay,” I say, “who has answers for me about the whole strike-team scenario? Alan, you and I have already talked. James?”

He scowls at me. “Were you deaf last night? I already said: The reasoning is sound, and whatever you decide is fine with me.” He goes back to the file he’d already begun to dig through.

I mime a neck-wringing gesture in his general direction. “Callie?”

“I talked to my new husband. After softening him up with my—”

“Hey!” Alan warns.

“—cooking,” Callie says, batting her eyelashes at him. “Why, what did you think I was going to say? Anyhoo, we both agreed, I’m in at the beginning. If it comes to moving to Quantico, we’ll have to reevaluate.” She tilts her head and eyes me with speculation. “What have you decided?”

“I don’t know. Thanks, though. All of you.”

“As if we’d leave you to flounder on your own,” Callie chides. “You should know better than that.”

“Well, thanks.” I turn and head to the door leading out of the office.

“Cooking?” I hear Alan say. “My ass.”

“Actually,” Callie purrs, “it was my ass that was cooking, honey-love.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Sit down,” AD Jones tells me.

He’s already seated. It’s the same battered leather chair he’s had since I’ve known him. It matches the man. If forced to come up with a single word to describe my boss, it would be workhorse. He lives to do what he does, to plow the fields. He doesn’t do it for the glory. He does it for the pleasure of a well-placed furrow.

“I thought I had forty-eight hours, sir,” I say, once seated.

He waves his hand. “I wanted to talk to you myself. Without the director here. Sorry to blindside you like that, by the way.”

“I figured you were probably as surprised as I was, sir.”

He bobs his head. “I was. The director showed up, serious-faced and sans entourage, aside from that grim reaper he calls an assistant.” He hesitates. “I put the screws to him on this, Smoky. I wanted to make sure it was on the up and up and not just a political power play on his part.”

“And?”

“At his position, everything is political to some degree. But I’m convinced his motives are what he said they were. He wants to preserve what we can of the NCAVC network. You can take it relatively at face value.”