When the cars were filled, the sound of groaning metal gave way to a blast of rock music that signified the carnival’s shift into night.
Tate found herself regretting that their excursion was drawing to a close.
THE giant wheel circled, the cooler night air whispering against the accumulated heat at the back of Clay’s neck. He smiled, watching the wind whip the layers of Max’s hair into a froth of messy peaks. They reached the ride’s pinnacle, the gaudily illuminated carnival grounds spread beneath them. Max tilted his face up in wonder, and Clay marveled at how completely privileged he felt.
“This must be what it feels like to be Superman,” Max observed, hovering right at that border between fun and fear.
He clasped Clay’s hand and snuggled in close. Clay felt something inside him swell, flow naturally as a wave into shore. “You’re right.” He gave Max’s hand a squeeze. And felt pretty super himself. There was something… wonderful about having a young child look at you with such unaffected trust and affection.
And he quietly thanked whatever cosmic force that had decided to put this particular child in his path.
The day he’d spent with Max and Tate had done more for his shattered morale than any beach or booze or uncomplicated sex ever could have. It had restored his faith that there was goodness left in the world, and reminded him why he continued his disheartening fight. If his knowledge and skills could make the world a little safer for kids like Max, then every hour he put into that fight was worth it.
The wheel began to circle back around, and Clay caught sight of Tate’s smiling face as she leaned over the metal railing. Something else began to swell in him, but it had little to do with altruism and a whole lot to do with physiology.
He was pretty damn sure he’d never wanted a woman this much in his life.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, easy smile turning feral as he watched her slide by.
That one little kiss had been just enough to learn the taste of her, and he had every intention of sampling some more of the delectable Ms. Hennessey by the end of the night.
The ride finally ground to a halt, but he and Max remained suspended in the air. Their car had come to rest near the top of the circle, and as such made them some of the last to disembark. Max’s bright eyes bore the weight of sleepiness when Clay finally carried him down.
“Did you see me, Mommy?” He tried to stifle a yawn against Clay’s neck. “Mr. Clay said that only the really cool people get to stop like that at the top.”
“Did he now?” Tate thanked Clay with her eyes as he shifted the exhausted child into her arms.
“Uh-huh.” Max blinked heavily, his lids reluctant to stay open. “Do you think we can come back again tomorrow?”
“Sorry, kiddo.” Tate pressed a kiss to her son’s temple. “But this has been a one day only kind of thing.” They started to move off the ramp leading from the ride’s exit, but a little blonde girl had them blocked. Like Max, she looked tired and overextended. Tears coursed in currents through the dust on her cheeks. “Sweetheart, is everything alright?”
The child looked at Tate out of wary blue eyes. Chin wobbling, she shook her head no.
Clay bent to the child’s level. “Are you lost?”
Shaking her head rather quickly, she cautiously backed away. Sensing that she was intimidated by either his size or his gender, Clay straightened and motioned to Tate. The fact that she was a female – and moreover, a mother – might make the little girl feel more comfortable about confiding in a stranger.
Shifting Max from his position on her hip, she stooped toward the disheveled child. “Do you need help finding your mommy and daddy?”
Blonde curls tumbled as she shook her head again. But then the little girl lifted a chubby hand and pointed toward the crowd. “My mommy works over there.”
Following the direction of the child’s extended finger, Clay saw a conglomeration of metal trailers and blinking lights. “Your mommy works here at the carnival?”
“She makes funnel cakes.”
He and Max had nearly made themselves sick gorging on funnel cakes earlier in the day, and Clay was pretty sure he remembered the trailer’s location. He squatted down again to join the others.
“My name is Clay, and this is Tate and Max. If it’s alright with you, we’d like to help you get back to your mama.”
At the child’s unhappy frown, Clay shifted so that he could get his fingers into his pocket. He pulled out his badge, flipped it open. “Do you know what this is?” he asked as the little girl studied the bright gold shield.
She shook her head again. “This badge says that I’m a policeman.” Of sorts. “Did your mama explain to you that it’s okay to trust a policeman if you’re lost?”
“But I’m not the one who’s lost.”
At that, Clay frowned in confusion.
“Is your sister lost?” Max piped up from his position between Clay and his mom.
The little girl nodded and Clay turned his frown toward Max. “I saw them earlier,” Max explained with a shrug. “She pointed at my bear and told her sister she wanted one. Her sister said ‘get real’.”
Impressed with Max’s powers of observation, Clay’s mouth moved in the hint of a smile before he returned his attention to the other child. “Where did you lose your sister?”
“Here,” the little girl explained. “She always waits for me to do the Ferris wheel ‘cause she’s scared of heights. But when I got off this time she wasn’t here.”
“How old is your sister?”
“Thirteen,” the child supplied. “But she’ll be fourteen real soon. She wants an iPhone for her birthday, but Mommy told her she couldn’t have one.”
Clay relaxed a little as he catalogued the information. A disgruntled teen being pressed into babysitting duty had most likely simply wandered away. She was probably hanging out by the picnic tables where he’d seen the other teenagers gathering. He started to suggest that he and Tate walk the child back to her mother, and let the other woman deal with her misplaced teen, but Tate’s next comment stopped him cold.
“I think I saw your sister talking to your daddy,” she told the little girl.
“I don’t have a daddy.”
As Tate winced over her inadvertent blunder, Clay’s instincts kicked into gear. “Why did you assume the man was her father?”
“I don’t know.” Tate shrugged. “He looked… older. I guess I just assumed he was her father. I should know better.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Well, like I said, he was probably somewhere in his thirties, although I could be off because his face was partially hidden by the cap. He was big, though. Really bulky.” She used her hands to guesstimate shoulder width. “Like maybe he lifted a lot of weights.”
Clay cursed under his breath, just loud enough for Tate to hear. “Do you remember how he was dressed?”
Tate shrugged, clearly growing uneasy. She unconsciously pulled Max against her side. “To be honest, I didn’t really notice. I just remember that he was wearing a cap.”
“Anything on the cap? Any words or emblems?”
“Ah,” she struggled to remember. “There might have been an ‘A’, like for the Braves.”
With that, Clay returned his attention to the child. “Do you think you could tell me your name?”
The girl looked at the shield, which Clay had purposefully kept visible. Then she lifted her eyes toward his. “Amber.”
“Okay, Amber.” His smile was gentle. “Does your mommy have any friends that wear a cap with a letter ‘A’ sewn onto it?” There was always the chance the man was someone they knew.
Amber shook her head and frowned. “I don’t think so. Old Tom wears a hat, but his is made out of straw.”
Clay gathered that she was referring to the man in charge of the ponies. Not wanting to alarm her, he kept a smile in his voice when he spoke. “Amber, Miss Tate and I are going to take you back to your mama. And then you have my word, as a
policeman, that I will help you find your sister.”
He stood and offered his hand to Max. “Max, if it’s okay with you, I think that Amber might be more comfortable if she held onto your mama’s hand. Do you mind walking with me?”
Smiling up at Clay, Max tucked a hand into his. “I like walking with you.”
The four of them made their way through the gathering throng until they arrived at the trailer peddling funnel cakes. The smell of fried dough and powdered sugar wafted out, and when the frizzy-haired blonde purveyor saw her younger daughter in the company of strangers, she frowned out the sliding window.
“Amber, where’s Casey?”
Amber let go of Tate and raced toward her mother, who opened the door and caught the child in her arms. “What happened?” she demanded, dividing another frown between Tate and Clay.
“Ma’am, I don’t want to alarm you, but we found your daughter alone near the Ferris wheel, and she claims to have lost her sister. Is there any chance your other daughter came by here?”
“No.” Her worn face twisted into an angry mask. “She knows I’d tear a strip off her hide for leaving her sister alone. You sure she wasn’t hanging around that ride and you just didn’t see her?” she asked her daughter.
Amber shook her head and clung to her mother. “She wasn’t there, Mommy, I promise.”
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind me asking, do you or your daughter happen to know any men who wear an Atlanta Braves hat? About six feet tall, dark hair and eyes, and very muscular – like a weightlifter?”
The woman opened her mouth, obviously wanting to deny any such knowledge, but seemed to change her mind. “A man like that bought a funnel cake from me today. I remember because he was a real hottie. I like a man that looks like he can handle himself, you know what I mean?”
She looked Clay up and down. “Why do you want to know?”
“Miss Hennessey” – he nodded toward Tate – “saw a man matching that description talking to your daughter while Amber was on the ride.”
“And what, you think she went off somewhere with him?” She scoffed. “Casey knows better than to do something that stupid. She probably just went to the bathroom. Although I’m still going to lay into her for leaving her sister alone.”
“I hope you’re right,” Clay said evenly. But he had a bad feeling, nonetheless. And after years of dealing with the worst kinds of offenders, he’d learned to trust his instincts. “Has she ever gone off like that before?”
She hesitated, growing suspicious. “Are you a cop or something?”
Clay pulled out his badge again, noting that this was the third time he’d done so on his vacation. “Special Agent Clay Copeland, FBI.” He could tell he was making the woman nervous. “And I’m not interested in trying to persecute you for anything, ma’am. I’m merely concerned for the safety of your daughter.” He handed her the identification so that she could study it, continuing in a friendly voice. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer to help you locate her.”
The first crystals of fear began to form in her eyes. “You think that man had something to do with her wandering off?”
Given the vibes he’d gotten from that man, he was afraid it was a possibility. “It would be premature to speculate at this point,” he informed her. Freaking the mother out totally wouldn’t do either of them a whole lot of good.
And there was always the chance he was wrong.
“Maybe you could just check the places you think she might have gone, and make both of us feel a whole lot better.”
“You’re right.” Her smile came over-bright and false. “She’s probably just back at our camper, or maybe hanging around those no-good teenagers over by the woods.”
Clay turned toward Tate, skimming the back of his fingers along her cheek. “I know you and Max are both tired, but would you mind terribly if we stuck around?”
“Of course not.” She shivered slightly. “And just for the record, I think it’s awfully nice of you to want to help out.”
Clay smiled, dropping a kiss on her brow before bending down to consult with Max. “I’m going to help Amber look for her sister, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind taking care of your mama while I’m gone?”
Max’s small chest deflated with disappointment. “Why can’t I go with you? I could be your deputy agent.”
Clay’s heart swelled yet again, just like the damn Grinch on Christmas morning. But he didn’t want Max tagging along, because he was afraid of what they might find. “You are my deputy agent, Max. And the assignment I’m giving you is to stay here and look after your mama. It’s a really important assignment, because your mother is very special.” And because he knew a little bit about child psychology, he pulled out the standard reverse. “But if you don’t think you can handle it, I can give the job to someone else.”
Max straightened his shoulders. “Nobody can take care of Mommy better than me.”
“I’m counting on it,” Clay said solemnly. And then he gave Tate’s hand a final squeeze before heading off with the distraught mother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWENTY minutes later, Clay returned with a tearful Lola – that was the mother’s name – after they’d dropped Amber off with some friends. Tate waited on the picnic table near the funnel cake trailer, Deputy Max asleep on her lap.
“No luck?” she asked as they approached.
Lola moved blindly toward the trailer, and Clay shook his head as he sat. “No one that we talked to had seen her. Normally, I wouldn’t be all that worried because teenagers pull this kind of thing all the time, but I get the impression that this Casey is a pretty responsible kid. Responsible kids do stupid things, too, but factor in the vibes I got from that man earlier today and I don’t like how it adds up. I convinced the mother to call in the local police, because I didn’t want to waste any more time canvassing the area when there’s a chance he took her out of here.”
Tate drew in a shaky breath. “You think he abducted her.”
It was a statement, not a question. Clay glanced toward the trailer to make sure Lola couldn’t overhear. She was walking a fine line between holding it together and losing it, and he didn’t want to push her over the edge. “I don’t have enough information to make that call.” He started to leave it at that. No need to upset Tate any more than he had to, either. But recalling the story she’d told him that morning, he realized that platitudes weren’t enough. So he put aside professional circumspection, and said what he thought. “It’s certainly plausible. There was something entirely wrong with the guy’s behavior. I noticed him when we were in the picnic area earlier. I think he was selecting his quarry.”
Tate flinched at the harsh analogy. But it was, he knew, how this type of perpetrator thought. “What happens next?” she asked carefully.
“We wait for the cops. You’ll have to give them a statement. Luckily, the mother and I both got a good look at him earlier, so they won’t have to rely totally on your description. But just to warn you, if she doesn’t turn up in the next twenty-four hours, you may have to look through some mug-shots.”
“Do you think she’s going to turn up?”
Clay sighed and rubbed the tension from the back of his neck. “Unless she’s simply off somewhere in a teenage pout, or went with that guy of her own free will, I’d say that possibility’s unlikely. He allowed several people, including the girl, to get a good look at him. That means he’s not concerned about being caught. If he’s not concerned about being caught, he either wasn’t contemplating committing any crime, or he feels sure he can’t be tied to one.” He reflected on the man’s demeanor and suspected he’d been planning the abduction all day. “If he took that girl, you can almost bet she’ll never be found.”
Tate looked at the trailer, where the girl’s mother was locking up, and clutched her own sleeping child. “Isn’t there anything else that can be done?”
Clay felt the weight of that question settle like lead. “If the police ask me, I
can offer them a personality assessment of the suspected offender. Combine that with eyewitness descriptions, put out some flyers, do some canvassing, and there’s a chance someone will recognize him and turn him in. I can also suggest several techniques for drawing him out.” He blew out a breath full of frustration. “But in cases like this, the first twenty-four hours are critical. If she’s not located by then, there’s less than a fifty percent chance of recovering her alive. The problem, of course, is that the local authorities are often reluctant to consider a person missing until twenty-four hours have passed. Children are a different story, but the fact that Casey is a teen doesn’t weigh in her favor – they’re notorious for exercising their own will.”
“But you’re here,” Tate protested. “Can’t you tell them that she didn’t just run off?”
“I don’t know that for sure,” he reminded her gently. “I wasn’t able to observe the girl personally, so I’m not really at liberty to offer an opinion about what she might be likely to do. I can only take her mother’s word for that, and a mother’s word isn’t always reliable. However,” he reached out and stroked her arm when he recognized her frustration, “I can offer an educated opinion that the man you saw her speaking with was not… on the up and up. Again, it’s just an opinion, as we have no solid evidence of wrongdoing. Hopefully that opinion will hold enough water to prompt them into launching a full-fledged investigation. But that’s their call to make, not mine.”
Tate sank back against the picnic table. “It must be very difficult for you, doing what you do.”
Clay looked at the sleeping child in her arms and thought of another little boy, now dead. “Sometimes more than others.”
Two sheriff’s deputies arrived, and Clay and Tate spent the next forty-five minutes giving statements and discussing what they’d seen. Then if the night hadn’t already turned crappy, the arrival of a local news crew sent it right into the toilet. They’d been filming a human interest piece on the carnival and caught wind that something was going down. Lola, who was growing desperate to find her daughter, let it slip that Clay worked for the FBI. That particular piece of information had sent the ambitious reporter into a frenzy. But Clay calmly informed her that he was not at liberty to discuss anything because it wasn’t his case, and that the FBI had no official role in the investigation. He suggested, quite equably, that she should direct any questions she might have toward the local sheriff. He wasn’t inclined to have his face plastered all over the news.
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