Vanished. Elizabeth Heiter
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.
Still, after Kyle had helped her face down a serial killer, she’d shocked them both by acting on their attraction. She’d thought they would sort out what it all meant while she was on medical leave, but he’d been called out of town three weeks ago.
And now that her immediate emotional vulnerability from that case had faded, and the most important investigation of her career had surfaced, she couldn’t make any mistakes. Not even for Kyle.
As she shuffled her feet, Kyle’s expression got serious. “Greg called. He told me you were on your way.”
Unspoken was that Greg had asked Kyle to watch out for her, but Evelyn heard it in Kyle’s voice.
He stepped closer, seeing far too much as he studied her. “I know you’re working on your friend’s case, Evelyn. If you need anything, I’m here for you.”
She nodded silently, unable to meet his gaze, unable to talk about it yet.
He must have sensed that, because he told her, “I’ve got the boxes. Go check in and I’ll carry them up for you.”
Letting Kyle anywhere near her room? Bad idea. Her mind might’ve been made up, but her hormones didn’t seem to have gotten the message. “You don’t need to do that.”
Amusement sparkled in his eyes, as if he could guess exactly what she was thinking. “Sure I do.”
Instead of wasting time arguing, she checked in and let him follow her up to her room. After he’d set the boxes inside, she shooed him out by telling him she had to be back at the station in three hours with a profile.
And when the door closed behind him, she breathed a nervous sigh of relief. She’d worry about Kyle later. Right now, she had to figure out if Cassie’s abductor really was back, or if Rose Bay had a copycat.
* * *
Turkey vultures soared overhead in wobbly circles, their wings spread in a wide V. They were scavenging, and Kyle knew what that meant. They’d found a fresh carcass.
Kyle looked at the sky, out in the distance, over the high grass that led to the marsh. In his line of work, he’d seen way too much of what one human being could do to another. But the kids always hit him the hardest.
Knowing how important the case in Rose Bay was to Evelyn made it even worse. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since he’d seen her at the hotel. How the hell was she profiling this?
He prayed she’d get the answers she’d been searching for all these years, but even if she did, they were unlikely to be good. And there wasn’t much he could do besides join the search for the girl who’d gone missing yesterday.
Behind him, police officers and civilian volunteers from the search parties were heading in the opposite direction, toward the overgrown field beside the cemetery. Overhead, a helicopter buzzed, on its fifth hour of an aerial search.
Officially, despite his training, Kyle wasn’t supposed to be involved at all. He wasn’t here for this case. But his current mission only claimed his nighttime hours, so he and his Bureau partner, Gabe Fontaine, had volunteered with the civilian search parties looking for Brittany Douglas