by Bonnie Vanak
Bristling, she started to retort when she caught a slight grin. Teasing her. Fine. Two could play at this.
“My silver spoon happened to be gold. Monogrammed.”
“I suppose your diapers were all monogrammed, as well.”
Belle sputtered. “Excuse me? What about you, Agent Cowboy, if we’re talking diapers. Or did you run wild and naked as a baby?”
“I save the running wild and naked for now. Lots more fun.”
Heat crawled up her neck. I bet it is more fun.
Kyle Anderson could be fun as well if he lost some of that tension riding him. The man needed to relax.
Following her directions, Kyle pulled into her driveway.
Belle dashed inside, grabbed the keys and gave a quick pat to a sleeping Boo.
Back in the SUV, she turned the keys over in her hand. Against her better judgment, she had started to like Agent Anderson. The purely feminine part of her that felt the attraction sizzling between them felt compelled to draw him out. Peel off a layer to find the man beneath the gruff exterior and the rigid dedication to the job.
“Have you ever sailed?” she asked.
Seemingly lost in thought, Kyle stroked the steering wheel. Her fascinated gaze tracked the moves. He had nice hands, long, subtle fingers. What would they feel like stroking her naked skin?
A flush ignited her face. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice.
“Yeah. Buddy of mine has a sailboat moored in Miami.”
“Sailing takes skill, but there’s nothing like the challenge of heading into the wind, the breeze on your face, nothing but you and the open sea.”
He drew in a deep breath, released it. As if he, too, felt the sexual tension sizzling between them in the close confines of his vehicle.
Then a smile touched his mouth. A dangerous smile.
He continued, “Of course, you haven’t had real fun until you’ve sailed naked. That’s the challenge. The wind in your face and your hair, and the rudder hitting you in parts unknown. Bet your mother would enjoy something like that.”
Belle dissolved into laughter at the thought of her genteel mother even trying to skinny dip. When she finally ceased, she saw they had pulled up to the clinic.
Dozens of black-and-white patrol cars parked in the lot. Not only patrol cars, but vans with satellite dishes, men and women milling about, television cameras in hand. Even with the windows rolled up in the SUV, she could hear the cacophony.
Her laugh died on a gasp. “I guess the sheriff’s office finally got that press release out.”
Kyle pulled into a space. “This isn’t going to be easy, Belle. You don’t have to do it. You may wish you stayed at that tea.”
“It’s my family’s clinic. You need someone from the family there as you search it.”
“Yeah, it’s best that you’re here. You ready for this?”
He had deliberately distracted her with small talk earlier. Clever. She put her hand on his jacket sleeve.
“Thank you for getting my mind off my own problems.”
Kyle stared down at her hand. “No thanks needed. You were tense. Thought you could use a diversion.”
Then he squeezed it tight. “Let’s do this.”
As she stepped out of the SUV, reporters bolted over. Microphones were thrust into her face, and the loud shout of questions made her head spin.
“Are you the owner of this clinic?” one yelled.
“Do you represent the North family, who does own it?” asked another.
“No comment,” she said clearly.
Hand on the small of her back, Kyle guided her through the crush, his big body shouldering aside the throng.
Her hand was remarkably steady as she unlocked the front security gate, and then the door. Kyle helped, holding the door open. He motioned to a deputy.
“Keep all of them out.” He gestured to the media, “Tell them any official statements will be forthcoming from your department. The FBI is offering a twenty-thousand-dollar reward for information that leads us to Anna Rodriguez, also known as Anna Alvarez. The man we’re looking to question was wearing dark sneakers or shoes, white shirt, jeans and a gray jacket.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nerves slightly rattled, she disarmed the security system, glad Kyle took charge of the chaos outside. Two other agents, including Agent Calhoun, entered the clinic, along with a slew of crime-scene investigators from the sheriff’s department.
Belle only hoped they could find something that would lead them to Anna. Far as she knew, the clinic was spotless and their reputation sterling. But perhaps some DNA or fingerprints might help.
“Walk me through exactly where they sat, what room they were in,” Kyle instructed.
His presence was soothing, his manner professional. Belle pointed to the rows of chairs in the waiting room. “You can try dusting for prints there, but I honestly can’t tell you where they sat. You’ll have better luck in the exam room.”
She opened Exam Room 2. “There were plenty of patients after Anna, and we always clean up after each one.”
Kyle looked around. “Including the doorknobs?”
“No.”
“We’ll dust that. Just in case. Did Smith touch anything else?”
“He filled out the paperwork for Anna. I don’t suppose you can lift prints off paper.”
“You’d be surprised what our lab can do.”
Snapping on a pair of sterile gloves, Belle went to the cramped office where they kept paper files on all the patients. But as she searched, unease gripped her. Meticulous as the receptionist was, the file should be here...
“Find anything?” a deep voice inquired.
“Oh!” Belle whirled, almost tripped.
Hands on her arms, Kyle steadied her. “Easy.”
“You’re very quiet. I didn’t realize you came in. Or that you were right behind me.” Heart racing, she swallowed hard. Having him this close, the heat of his palms on her cool skin, was highly arousing.
Her libido didn’t care about a missing child. Normal biological reaction to a handsome, masculine guy with authority.
“I tend to do that to people.” Mouth twisted in a crooked smile, he pointed to the filing cabinet. “Let me guess. File’s gone.”
She nodded, shoving a hand through her hair. “I could check and see if it’s misfiled, but...”
“Is there anything else Dugin touched?”
“Not that I recall. He may have had a cup of coffee. We offer free coffee.”
“When does your dumpster get picked up?”
“Tomorrow. It’s in the back, locked behind a gate to prevent anyone from the neighborhood dumping there, or raiding it.” She handed him the thick ring of keys.
He handed them off to two investigators who’d trailed them into the exam room. Two additional ones began scouring the room.
“I’ll be in my office,” she told him. “I’m going to search for Anna’s digital file. It should be there. Let me know if you need anything.”
Once inside the tiny office she shared with George and Dr. Patterson, she opened the top drawer of her desk. Every day before leaving the clinic, she made notations in a leather-bound journal about her caseload.
Last night before leaving, she’d made certain to record her observations about Anna.
The journal was missing. Belle frowned. Someone inside the clinic definitely wanted to eradicate any trace of Anna’s visit.
The computer offered no digital footprint, either. Anna’s file was gone.
It was as if she’d never been here.
I bet the cleaning crew threw out everything and wiped down every single surface. It will be a miracle if they can lift any usable fingerprints.
Maybe she’d left the journal in another drawer. She searched but found nothing. The bottom drawer contain
ed a sloppy assortment of papers, prescription pads, pens and empty pill bottles.
“George, Dr. Patterson, you both need to be tidier,” she murmured, digging through the mess.
Her fingers hit an indentation at the drawer’s bottom. Curious, she lifted it, wondering what lay beneath.
Oh no. This wasn’t good. Even if it was innocent, it looked pretty bad. Belle ran to find Kyle.
When he came into the office, she silently pointed to the false bottom.
Kyle opened the thermal lunch tote and unzipped it. He plucked out a thick stack of one-hundred-dollar bills and thumbed through them with his gloved fingers.
“Whose desk is this?” he asked.
“I share it with Dr. Patterson and George. But that’s Tony’s lunchbox.” Her heart sank as she realized the importance of what she’d found. “Our security man.”
Kyle handed the tote over to a crime-scene tech. “Get this to the lab ASAP.”
Belle licked her dry lips. “Do you think he did it and this is his payment?”
“Maybe. But the fact that someone tampered with your security footage and now we found this doesn’t look good for him. We’ll bring him in for questioning.” Kyle’s expression hardened. “If he’s been stealing drugs from you, chances are he may have been forced into other illegal things here.”
Such as kidnapping little girls. Belle nodded.
“Whatever you need from us, we’ll provide it for you.”
But deep inside, she knew it wasn’t looking good for them. And every minute that passed with Anna missing, her chances of being found alive grew slimmer.
Chapter 9
Dead ends. Nothing but dead ends.
Dugin was no closer to being found than before.
After finally tracking him down Monday morning, police brought in Tony, the clinic’s security guard, to the station. Now he sat in an interrogation room as detectives peppered him with questions. Questioning Tony Fontaine looked to be a dead end. The security man insisted he’d hidden the money because he withdrew it from the bank, planning on taking a cruise for his anniversary. George had told him about the false-bottom drawer and Tony stashed the cash the day Anna went missing, planning on giving it to the travel agency.
Bank records confirmed the withdrawal.
At the local police station on Monday, Kyle and Roarke watched the taped interrogation from the security camera.
“Well, this is a waste of time,” Roarke muttered.
Kyle said nothing, his mind analyzing the recent events. “Wait. Maybe we’ll get something on the clinic’s security footage.”
But Tony admitted the machine was broken and the clinic lacked the budget to fix it.
“Miss Belle, she’s so good to all of us. But we’re behind on budget. So instead of telling her about the system being broke, I had a friend try to fix it. He ended up looping it over and over. Everyone in this community respects the clinic,” Tony insisted to the questioning detective. “They need this service. If we keep overspending, the foundation will have to shut it down.”
Too many threads were connected to this clinic. The sheriff’s office had questioned all the clinic’s employees, except one.
“Well?” Roarke asked.
He studied his cell phone. “Anna’s been missing one day. All the other girls were returned to their families forty-eight hours later. This isn’t the same victimology. Her mother was assaulted, unlike the other girls, whose family members were left unhurt. If Dugin did this, why didn’t he attack the other girls’ families?”
“Because it wasn’t necessary,” Roarke mused.
“Maybe. It could be that Anna’s mother got in the way and he didn’t want a witness. Still, this case bothers me. The MO is different. All the girls had green eyes and dark hair, but Dugin had Anna and her mother living in a secure location for at least a week. Why go through all that trouble? Why not simply take Anna and leave? Hiding someone for a week isn’t easy.”
“Unless you want to be hidden,” Roarke said, his gaze sharp.
His partner had firsthand experience with that. Kyle never questioned his history, but knew Roarke had a reason for leaving the military and working for the FBI. He was a newer recruit, with sharp instincts and an even sharper intellect.
“Okay, let’s say Rosa’s on the run from the law. Or someone. We don’t yet have a DNA hit on her, so we have no idea of her real identity. Everyone in the trailer park where she’s thought to be have lived said she was quiet and nervous. Then she gets kicked out for not paying bills and comes north, homeless, with her kid, desperate...”
“Where she meets Dugin, who promises to be her savior. Where did they meet and how? The clinic?”
The security guard might know. He was a link in a long chain. “Let’s do this,” Kyle told Roarke.
Kyle knocked on the door, and entered, closing it behind him. He introduced himself and then stared at Tony as he spread out the flyers with Anna’s face and Rosa’s.
“Have you ever seen this woman or her daughter at the Harold Donald Clinic before?” he asked.
Tony frowned. “I might have. There’s a lot of people who pass through. I just hang outside and in the lobby.”
“Tell me about Dr. Michael Patterson, the man in charge of the clinic. What does he do?” Kyle told him.
Tony licked his lips. “Everything. He was hired by Mr. Clint to run the place. He’s a good doctor, works every Saturday, too.”
“He oversees ordering medication, including Propofol? Did you know five vials were missing in the last two weeks and not reported to the authorities?” Roarke asked.
Sweat trickled down the big man’s temples. “One of the nurses told me, but when I reported it to Dr. Patterson, he said he would conduct his own investigation.”
Right. Meaning, not do a damn thing.
“Where is Patterson? Where does he like to go for vacation?” Kyle questioned.
Tony frowned. “He had a family funeral.”
The family funeral had turned out to be a distant cousin, and none of the family recalled seeing Patterson after the services. The doctor had simply slipped out of town. All his instincts warned the clinic’s chief physician was involved in Anna’s disappearance. Dugin might have taken Anna, but Patterson wasn’t clean, either.
Kyle took out the mug shot of Jesse Dugin and showed it to Tony. “What about him? Ever seen him around?”
Squinting, the security guard studied the photo. “Maybe. Can’t really tell.”
The mug shot was old, when Dugin’s hair was short and he was bearded. Next, Kyle showed Tony the updated computer-generated photo that showed Dugin with a baseball cap, longer hair and no beard.
The security guard’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Him I’ve seen. Once, ah, maybe twice.”
“How and where?”
“Two, three weeks ago maybe. He came in to treat a cut on his hand. I remember him because he insisted on seeing Dr. Patterson right away and not waiting. And the cut, it wasn’t bad.” Tony snorted. “I would have put a bandage on it.”
Exchanging glances with Roarke, he pressed on. “What other time did you see him?”
But Tony could only recall that one time. It was enough.
Dugin had gone underground, with no visible way of finding him yet. Police were combing through the locations where Anna and her mother had lived, questioning residents. Yet they had no solid leads. Until now.
They had to find Patterson and bring him in for questioning.
Outside the interrogation room, Kyle made yet another attempt to contact the doctor. The call went directly to voice mail. He tried Clint North’s cell phone. Same thing.
“No luck?” Roarke asked.
Palming his cell, he looked at the two-way glass. “Maybe. I know one person who could know how to contact Patterson.”
Questioning he
r would take diplomacy and tact. Belle worked at the clinic that belonged to her family, and she had contact with all the parties involved in Anna’s disappearance. She knew Patterson.
His gut warned that Belle was the key to all of this.
* * *
Working at the cardiology office on Monday proved a good distraction for Belle. Until her mother called and asked her to come over when she was finished her shift at three. There was a quaver in Shirley’s voice she didn’t like.
The normally quiet, tree-lined street where her parents lived was packed with news vans and media hovering outside the iron gates. Two security guards checked her driver’s license and opened the gates for her.
Inside the house, her mother sat in the living room with Mindy Worthington. Shirley looked pale and far older than her sixty-eight years. Belle sat beside her, took her pulse.
“I’m fine. Medically. It’s the stress. I asked Mindy to come over because I’m leaving town, Belle, and I have all my social obligations to meet.” Mrs. North rubbed her temples. “Dealing with the media, the reporters camped outside the clinic and our house, has been dreadful.”
Her genteel mother disliked the limelight. Belle empathized. “Hire more security guards to keep them away.”
“Your father already did, but they pounce soon as we leave the property. I’m all but trapped here.” Mrs. North sipped her wine. “Now they’re saying our clinic and foundation are at the heart of the investigation. Our name will be ruined.”
“After all that you’ve done for the community. All your projects, your charity efforts.” Mindy tsk-tsked.
Guilt crept over her. She had been the doctor on duty who treated Anna. If she’d called the police with her suspicions that day, Anna might have been rescued. None of this would have happened.
“I promise you, I’ll do everything I can to clear the clinic and our family name, Mom.”
Her mother turned the wineglass in her hands. “I don’t know what you can do, Belle. The matter has been taken out of our hands and it rests with the authorities.”
