by Rebecca Deel
“I have no idea.” Rowan shuddered. “I don’t contact him for anything.”
Anger simmered inside Brent. He was definitely going to have a talk with this guy. No woman should be afraid.
“Will Fortress help?” Taylor asked Brent.
“Count on it. What do you need?”
“Have one of the tech geeks ping Maxwell’s phone. Let’s see where this guy is. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find Alexa with him.”
Brent released Rowan and grabbed his phone. He called the direct number for the comm center, placing the call on speaker phone, and was relieved to find Zane was still on duty.
“Murphy.”
“Z, I need you to ping a cell phone.”
Over the phone’s speaker, he heard the tapping of computer keys. “What’s going on, boss?”
“Possible child kidnapping.”
“Name of the vic?”
“Alexa Maxwell. She’s six. Black hair, brown eyes, looks like the poster child for cherubs.”
“Clothes?”
He described Alexa’s coordinated pink outfit.
“Where are you and what number am I pinging?” Once Brent supplied the information, Zane said, “Are we on the case alone or has the FBI been called in?”
Brent scowled at the thought of the alphabet agencies. “Right now, Taylor is working the case. Guess he’ll have to call in the feds soon.”
Taylor winced, then gave a short nod. “After we locate and question Maxwell. Don’t want to call in the feds on a domestic unless he’s kidnapped his own child. Hurry, Zane. Alexa is not in the house. I want a location on the father before I call in the feds.”
“Hold.” More keys clicking. “The signal shows the phone at your location, Taylor.”
“Can you pinpoint where?”
“Nope. System’s not that good.”
Brent considered his options. “Is the satellite in the right position to do an infrared scan?”
A pause, then, “We’re in luck. What am I looking for?”
“A small form lying down or huddled somewhere in the house or nearby.”
“Give me a minute.”
“You have access to a satellite?” Rowan asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Zane. Who are you?”
“Rowan Scott.”
“Nice to talk to you, Rowan. Would you be the famous Coffee House Rowan?”
Brent’s cheeks heated. Looked like Claire would be a widow soon because he planned to kill his longtime friend. “Shut up, Murphy.”
A chuckle came over the speaker. “Yes, sir. Satellite images are up. Lots of activity around the house and neighborhood. Looks like you have a cop or two searching the house, Taylor. No small forms. From what I can see, Alexa is not in the residence or hiding outside. I don’t know anything about kids, but is it possible she wandered away? If so, how far can she walk?”
“Alexa’s mother said someone took her daughter.”
“I was afraid of that. What else can I do to help, boss?”
“Tap into the security system. See if you can get a picture of the person who took Alexa.”
“Copy that. I’ll get back to you as soon as I find something we can use.”
“Can he really hack into the security system?” Rowan asked, her eyes wide.
Brent’s lips twitched. “Zane is a man of many diverse talents, but he is a first rate hacker. He should have results for us soon.” He glanced at Taylor. “Doubt Maxwell would leave his phone here unless he didn’t want to be tracked by it.”
“Agreed. Simmons didn’t see Maxwell in the house during his search for Alexa.”
And he and Rowan as well as the cops would have seen the man if he’d been in the front yard. That left the back. “Backyard been checked?” he asked his friend.
“Doubt it. Let’s go.”
The three of them traipsed downstairs to the patio. Brent breathed easier when he didn’t see a pool Alexa could fall into. Taylor turned on a powerful flashlight. “Not Metro issued, buddy.”
A snort. “I prefer the Fortress equipment. So sue me.”
Brent chuckled. “Glad I can equip one of Metro’s finest. If you’d give up the fame and perks, you could play with these kinds of toys all the time.”
“Yeah, yeah. I hear you. I’m also ignoring you for now. Stop nagging me.”
“You won’t be able to resist forever, Cal.”
The beam from the flashlight swept the yard.
“Hold up.” Brent pointed to the right. “Go back.”
Taylor redirected the light and stopped at the corner of the yard, near a row of bushes. He hissed, then turned to Rowan. “Stay here.” He jogged across the remaining distance to the bushes.
Since his friend hadn’t issued him the same order, Brent followed. Dread grew in his gut as he drew nearer. A body. Taylor checked for a pulse, glanced at Brent, shook his head. After patting down the victim, the cop pulled a wallet from the vic’s pants pocket.
“Jay Maxwell.”
He crouched beside Cal. “Please tell me you don’t need Rowan to identify him.” The head shot hadn’t left much to identify Maxwell with and he didn’t want her to have that memory.
Instead of answering, Taylor reached into another of Maxwell’s pockets and pulled out a cell phone. The last call that came in showed it was from a private number.
Brent recognized it as Taylor’s. “Good. Guess we have our answer without subjecting Rowan to this horror.” Looked as though Brent wouldn’t be having that talk with Jay Maxwell after all. At least Rowan and Heather didn’t have to worry about being safe from this clown. “I assume this will now be your case since there’s a homicide involved.”
“Would have been anyway.” Taylor stood and tossed Brent the flashlight. “See if you can find Alexa out here. Try not to trample any clues in the process.”
“Right.” He stood and retraced his steps to Rowan.
“Who is it?” she whispered, her gaze clinging to his.
“It’s Maxwell.”
“Oh, no. How am I going to tell Heather?”
“Don’t worry about that right now. Taylor wants me to search the yard for Alexa. Will you be okay right here?”
She looked at the detective, still crouching beside Maxwell’s body. “Do I need to identify him or something?”
“Not necessary. In fact, you’ll want to stay as far away from the body as possible so you don’t contaminate the scene.”
Rowan eyed him a moment. “That bad?”
Smart woman. He brushed her bottom lip with his thumb. “Not something you need to see, sweetheart.”
“I want to help you look for Alexa. If she’s hiding, she might not come to you.”
With a nod, he laced his fingers through hers and began the search of the outskirts. Despite Rowan calling Alexa’s name and their careful search, he and Rowan didn’t find the girl.
By the time they returned to the patio, the crime scene team had arrived as well as the coroner. Across the yard, Taylor looked his direction. Brent shook his head. The detective said something to one of his co-workers and walked to the patio.
“No luck, Cal.”
He sighed. “Guess I don’t have a choice but to call in the feds.”
“Glad I don’t have to work with them,” he muttered and handed Taylor the flashlight.
A roll of his eyes, and Taylor stepped away from them, cell phone pressed to his ear.
“I want to keep looking for Alexa, but I also know Heather will be frantic with worry. I don’t want her at the hospital by herself.”
“Come on.” He led her to his SUV and helped her inside. “We’ve been looking for Alexa for almost an hour. The cops are covering this neighborhood, looking for her. They have a better chance of finding her than we do because of sheer volume.” Brent cupped her cheek with his palm. “Zane should be getting back to us soon. In the meantime, you can give your sister some badly needed moral support.”
She pressed her face against his hand for a moment.
“You’re right. I need to be with Heather.”
With a nod, Brent dropped his hand and closed the door. His gaze scanned the area, taking in the buzz of activity and crowd of neighbors craning their necks to see if they could glean some tidbit of information to share.
His hands clenched. Where was Alexa?
CHAPTER FOUR
Rowan hurried into the emergency room entrance with Brent. The woman behind the desk glanced up.
“May I help you?”
“Heather Maxwell. She was brought in with a gunshot wound. I’m her sister.”
“Give me a moment to find out where she is.” The woman grabbed her handset and placed a call. After a moment, she hung up and said to Rowan, “Go through the double doors and turn left. There’s a family waiting room. Your sister is in surgery right now. When it’s complete, the doctor will talk to you.”
She and Brent walked to the waiting room, but Rowan was too antsy to stay seated. She hopped up and started pacing the small, utilitarian space.
“Rowan.”
When she turned, he was right there, less than six inches away. How had he moved that silently? “I can’t sit still. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Adrenaline has your system revved.” He moved in closer, placed his hands on her upper arms. “We didn’t have a chance to eat dinner. Are you hungry?”
The very thought of eating made her stomach do a slow roll. Okay, food was not on the menu for a while. Rowan shook her head. “I’m thirsty, though.”
“You have a preference? I feel it only fair to warn you that you’ll be stuck with vending machine fare. If I were you, I wouldn’t risk the coffee. Trust me, it’s nothing like yours.”
A spurt of amusement shot through her. “Anything carbonated is fine.” How did he know so much about vending machine coffee?
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
After he left, Rowan resumed her pacing. Adrenaline, huh? She felt as though she had enough energy to power her house for a month. The question was, how would she feel after the adrenaline left her system? She’d probably crash with a vengeance. Hopefully, Heather would be out of surgery and assigned a room before that happened.
A minute later, Brent returned with two bottles of soft drinks. “Here.” He handed her the green bottle. “Sugar to combat the shock and no caffeine.”
“Thanks.” She broke the seal and guzzled a quarter of the liquid. “You aren’t having problems with adrenaline?”
He shook his head. “Compared to what I experienced in the military, this is nothing.”
Rowan thought about his statement while she paced. She eyed him as he lounged back in a hard plastic seat, looking comfortable in this utilitarian environment and not the least bothered by the circumstances. Of course, it wasn’t his relative who was even now in surgery. “You didn’t serve on a Navy ship, did you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I can’t see you as a sailor. And after watching you in action this evening, I’d say you’re a Navy SEAL. Am I right?”
His lips curved. “Good guess.”
Nice. Really nice. She’d seen documentaries on the training of the SEALs and concluded those guys were modern-day supermen. “How long did you serve?”
“Fifteen years.”
“A long time for dangerous work.”
“I felt a million years old by the time I resigned my commission.” His cell phone signaled an incoming message. Brent glanced at the readout and placed a call. He touched the speaker function. “What do you have, Z?”
“Video feed. Have your laptop nearby?”
“In the SUV. I’m at the hospital with Rowan. Give me the abbreviated version.”
“Got footage of a dark-colored van with a racing stripe in the drive of the Maxwell place. Two guys dressed in black with masks got out of the vehicle and kicked in the front door. A different man races out the back and is chased down by one of the masked men. A couple minutes later, they leave the house, this time carrying a child.”
“Was she fighting them?” Rowan asked.
A pause, then, “How are you holding up, sugar?”
“I’m okay. What about Alexa?”
“She didn’t move a muscle that I could see.”
“Drugged?” Brent asked.
“That’s my guess. I don’t know much about kids, boss, but I’ve never seen one that still, especially if they’re being taken some place they don’t want to go.”
Rowan’s hands clenched. These guys drugged her niece? She was only six. How did they know the right amount of the drug to use on Alexa to knock her out but not hurt her? Hearing Zane’s conclusions made her even more frantic to find her niece and check for herself that the girl was unharmed.
“Did you get a shot of the license plate?”
“Yep. Not going to help much.”
“Let me guess. The van is hot?”
“Bingo. Reported stolen this afternoon.”
“What does that mean?” Rowan asked. Nothing good, she was sure.
“The van’s a dead end.”
“Have you been able to track the van once it left the Maxwell home?” Brent asked.
“Working on that as we speak.”
“Stay on it. I want to know where that van goes. By the way, the racing stripes are red.”
“Copy that.”
Brent slid the phone in his pocket and eyed Rowan. “You okay?”
She shook her head, blinking back the sudden tears flooding her eyes. “Alexa hates needles,” she whispered.
“We don’t know that they injected her. Too much trouble and too dangerous. A better alternative is chloroform.”
“I hope you’re right. Thinking about her suffering kills me.”
Footsteps approached the waiting room. Seconds later, a white-coated man walk into the room. “Maxwell family?”
“That’s me. I’m Rowan Scott, her sister. How is she?”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Scott. We did everything we could, but Ms. Maxwell’s injury was too severe. She’s gone.”
Stunned by the news, she barely felt the muscled arms wrapped around her. The doctor said something else, but Rowan couldn’t understand the words just as she couldn’t make out Brent’s response.
After the doctor left, Brent turned her in his arms so her head rested over his heart and simply held her. For long minutes, Rowan tried to wrap her mind around the fact that her sister was gone. Now she had no one except Alexa. Rowan’s parents were long dead and so was the grandmother who had stepped in to raise her and her sister.
How was she going to tell Alexa? A wave of grief swept over her. Her precious niece wouldn’t remember much about her own mother. Rowan would make sure Alexa knew how much Heather had loved her. She’d show pictures and tell her stories about when Rowan and Heather were growing up. Heather had been a trouble magnet. The stories she could tell about the funny and sweet things that happened in Heather’s life.
Finally, Rowan’s brain started to function again. She realized Brent had been stroking her hair for some time, not saying anything. Rowan circled his waist with her arms.
“Are you okay?” he murmured.
She shook her head. “How will I tell Alexa?”
“One thing at a time, baby. Let’s find her first. We’ll deal with her questions after we bring her home. She needs to know you love her and will be there for her even though her mother can’t be.” He pressed a light kiss to her temple. “Do you know where your sister’s will is, Rowan?”
“I have a copy in my files at home. Heather made me Alexa’s legal guardian if anything happened to her and Jay.”
“You need to have a copy with you at all times. The last thing we want after all this is for Alexa to be dumped into foster care.”
She nodded and edged closer to him. Brent tightened his grip. “I don’t know what to do now,” she whispered. “I have to find Alexa, but I need to take care of the arrangements for Heather.”
“What about Jay? Does he hav
e any family?”
“No family.” She sighed. “Guess I’ll have to take care of his arrangements, too.”
“Want help?”
She froze a moment, then leaned back far enough to see his face. “Why would you do that? You didn’t know either one of them.”
“I know you. I’d like to help.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Easy. Say yes.”
She blinked. “But we haven’t even been on a date yet.”
A quick grin. “We’ll get there, but fair disclosure, I’ve been interested in you for months.” He sobered. “You don’t have to do this alone. Say yes, Rowan.”
“Yes. Thank you, Brent.”
“Come on. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
After giving contact information to a nurse, Brent walked with her to the SUV. He negotiated the hospital parking garage maze and drove to the interstate.
A call came in over his Bluetooth. “Tell me something good, Zane.”
“Sorry, boss. I hacked into the traffic cams. Once the van left the Westhaven neighborhood, it disappeared. The driver took back roads wherever he went.”
“Roads with no traffic cameras. Not what I wanted to hear. Capture a face for me?”
“That I did get. Already running facial recognition. Might take a while and it could be unsuccessful.”
“Good job, buddy. Has Claire arrived yet?”
“She came in an hour ago.”
“Tell her I said thanks for letting me tie up your time.”
“When she found out a child had been abducted, she pulled out her laptop and started working on her pictures. Don’t worry, I plan to make it up to her. Any news about Rowan’s sister?”
“She didn’t make it, Zane.”
“Ah, man. I’m sorry to hear that. Rowan?”
She swiped tears from her cheeks before clearing her throat. “Yes?”
“Let me know if you need anything, sugar. Brent will give you my cell phone number. Use it, okay?”
“Thanks, Zane. Thank your wife for me, too.”
“Sure thing. Boss, anything else I can do before I take off?”
