by Bonnie Vanak
She forced herself to watch the rest of it. Humiliation crawled through her. Mercifully, the video soon ended.
Nausea boiled in her stomach. Through sheer determination, she kept her gorge down, swallowed hard. The room felt hot, too warm, and the entire house smelled like the spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.
Dimly she thought from now on she would forever associate the smell of spaghetti sauce with seeing herself half-naked on tape.
Someone had violated her privacy, her trust, and filmed her when she was most vulnerable. She didn’t know whether to be more embarrassed by the monologue before the mirror or the fact she’d bared her breasts.
It made her angrier when she realized how vulnerable the children had been in that room, children who trusted them as physicians and nurses and physician assistants to heal them.
Not hurt or humiliate.
She lifted her eyes to Kyle. The anger in his own eyes surprised her. She expected to find sympathy or the cold FBI agent once more. Not this glittering fury, as if he wanted to throttle whoever did this.
The thought comforted a little. Only a little. She clutched her pearls, feeling each one by touch, thinking of her dignified grandmother and what Poppy would do in such a situation.
Help them find whoever did this.
Her hands dropped to her lap as she realized the pearl-clutching damsel in distress look was too clichéd. They probably thought she would wring her hands next. Poor, violated Belle.
She wanted to vomit again.
Instead, she cleared her throat. “I imagine you have questions for me.”
Roarke blinked, but a small, satisfied smile touched Kyle’s full mouth. “Yes.”
But instead of grilling her, he coaxed Boo over, picked up the dog and scratched behind his ears. Boo’s tail beat the air. Agent Anderson certainly had a way with dogs.
When he settled Boo into her lap, she wasn’t surprised. If he was a dog person, he knew petting her dog would lower her blood pressure.
Fingers shaking, she stroked Boo’s short hair. Her mother never understood why Belle kept a shih tzu in a puppy cut, but then again Boo was a rescue and...
“You ready for this?” Kyle asked softly.
She gave a jerky nod.
“When you went into the room to change, did you tell anyone?”
His keen blue gaze remained steady. Like a lighthouse beacon on a turbulent, dark sea tossing whitecaps back and forth, she focused on his calmness.
“Um.” Belle rested her hand on Boo’s back. “Yes. No. I mean, I had finished my shift and Mike, Dr. Patterson, was there working on files. He told me to use Exam Room Four—no one was in it and it had more privacy and space than the bathrooms.”
Anger shot through her, vibrating like a tuning fork. “He told me I should go work out as planned. He knew how tiring it was after a long shift, but exercise was important to relieving stress.”
“Bastard,” Kyle grated out, but his voice remained soft. “Did you see him after you left? How did he act? Pleased? Secretive?”
“He acted...relieved.” She frowned. “If he did this, why would he be relieved? I’d think he wanted a tape of me undressing, he’d be happy, smirking or trying hard to hide his emotions. I thought it terribly peculiar at the time, but I was in a hurry to get to class.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a video for him to watch.” Faint color touched Kyle’s high cheekbones. Such aristocratic cheeks. She wondered what his heritage was.
“He could have wanted you to undress in that room and kept the video as blackmail.” Roarke exchanged glances with Kyle and stopped scribbling in a notebook. She hadn’t even noticed he took notes.
Did the agent take notes while watching the video of her? The thought proved unsettling.
“Blackmail?” Belle was proud her voice didn’t quaver.
“In case you found something out he didn’t want discovered.” Roarke started to speak, and Kyle’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and walked over to the sliding glass doors, talking quietly.
Roarke tapped his pencil on the pad. “These days, it’s all too easy to upload something this incriminating to social media and just the threat might be enough...”
“Incriminating?” She set down Boo, and he loped over to his pillow and lay down, watching them. “I was undressing. Am I the suspect here?”
Red suffused Roarke’s face. “Uh, no, Dr. North, I meant it’s a video Patterson could have used against you to keep you silent.”
“Silent about what?”
“About anything. Most likely the photos of the children we found.”
She was glad when Kyle returned to the table. “Lab called. They ran the prints on the photos of the children and Patterson’s are all over them.” He regarded her with a steady look.
“Our crime lab discovered footage of another video on this same card. The one of you copied over it. We weren’t able to discern much.
“We ran Patterson’s information through IAFIS and found his prints.” Kyle tucked away his cell. “It’s our national fingerprint-ID system. He pleaded guilty to dispensing medical marijuana without a license in New York two years ago.”
Stunned, she sat back.
“Did your family do a background check on him?” Roarke asked.
This was getting worse by the minute. “I assumed Clint did, since he’s in charge of the foundation and the foundation does all the hiring.” Fingernails dug into her palms. “Mike is an old family friend, though, so probably not. My parents are friends of his parents and they socialized in Upstate New York.”
She almost feared to ask him. “Do you think Mike took Anna?”
“At the very least, he had something to do with her kidnapping. We’ll find him. He’s still here in the States.”
Kyle’s words unsettled her further. “He told me he was in the Bahamas, headed to Europe.”
“Pings on his cell show he’s in Miami and headed for the Keys. We’ll catch him.” Kyle reached over, slid his palm over hers. “You okay?”
Part of her liked the comforting feel of his hand over hers, his quiet voice soft with concern. The other half recalled how he had labeled her a suspect simply for calling her brother before the FBI.
Belle yanked her hand away. “Am I still a suspect?”
His expression shuttered. “You’ve dropped way down on the list.”
“Because of this.” Disgust filled her as she pointed to the video. “You were ready to accuse me, until you saw this?”
“Yes.”
At least he was honest. But that wasn’t earning him any points. Incredulous, she struggled with her rising temper. “Just because now you see me naked on a video, I’m innocent? Your logic is inane, Special Agent Anderson.”
“I’ll use any logic I damn well please to catch whoever is behind these kidnappings, and find Anna.”
Roarke held up his hands. “Think I’ll take a stroll outside, look at the perimeter.”
He went out the sliding glass door as Kyle drained his bottle of water. Slamming it down on the table, he glared at her.
“Look, I didn’t want to believe you had anything to do with the kidnappings. But I have to do my job. My first priority is finding those girls.”
“Mine, as well. And if you’d stopped jumping to conclusions about me, and my family, simply because we have money...”
“Money has nothing to do with it. I don’t give a damn if you’re rich as Midas. It’s...” He took a deep breath, seemed to struggle with his own temper.
“It’s what? Because I’m blonde? Because I have faults like other people? What is it?”
“I don’t trust doctors.”
Kyle rubbed a hand over the bristles on his chin. “And your Dr. Patterson gave me another reason for that mistrust.”
Belle stared. “Must be hard when you need medic
al care.”
“I make damn sure I don’t.”
Kyle flexed his fingers. “I like you, Belle, I really do. I don’t think you had anything to do with this. We’re going to need your help to reel in Patterson. He’s the only solid lead we have so far and each day that goes by it gets less likely that we’ll find Anna alive and well.”
That made no sense because Patterson hadn’t abducted Anna. “What about Jesse Dugin?”
Muscles jumped in his tight jaw. “Vanished. We’ve searched last known location, offered a reward. Combed the community where he lived. Nothing.”
But he wasn’t telling everything and she had to know. “You don’t think he was behind all this. There’s something greater.”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“You can level with me if you want me to help catch Mike.”
Kyle’s gaze flicked to the sliding door, where Roarke paced outside. “All right. Dugin was the middleman, hired for the abduction and to kill Rosa. Patterson is the one who arranged everything. On the day Anna vanished, eighty thousand dollars was wired to Dugin’s account from a bank in the Bahamas.”
Somehow she wasn’t surprised. “And with Mike having a vacation home there, that puts even more suspicion on him.”
“Correct.”
“And my brother, for hiring Mike, and not checking his background?”
“Somewhat. We have a team now questioning Clint.”
Her brother wouldn’t cooperate fully. Clint and Mike were fishing buddies. Probably Clint knew about the conviction and decided to hire Mike to give him a chance.
The action tarnished her brother’s sterling reputation. She was glad her parents had gone away for a few weeks. Mom would be even more upset with what’d developed.
Because the clinic and now the entire foundation were entrenched in this situation, and their family reputation?
Didn’t matter.
Not while there was a missing girl and a slim thread of time for her to be found safe and alive.
She forgot her anger and her earlier embarrassment. “What do you want me to do?”
Kyle studied her, his expression softening. “You’re not like any doctor I’ve ever met, Belle North. Most of them are too busy and dismissive to take time to help.”
“Then I’d say you haven’t met many in my field, Agent Anderson.” She wasn’t ready to forgive him yet for his earlier suspicion. “Widen your horizons and it’ll do you a world of good.”
“Maybe. But I’ll still stop at an office supply place to staple my own wounds.”
He winked at her as she rolled her eyes, but his teasing tone brought a smile to her face.
Kyle stuck out a palm. “Truce?”
She held out her hand. “Truce.”
For a minute, he held her hand, and then lightly squeezed it. A shiver of pure awareness shot through her.
“What do you need me to do?”
“Come to the station and look at mug books. See if you recognize any of the associates of Dr. Patterson’s who may have come to the clinic.” He pointed to the stove. “Sorry for making you miss dinner.”
She went to turn off the spaghetti sauce. It was ruined, anyway.
Who could have an appetite after watching something like that?
* * *
Kyle kept his mouth shut and watched Belle as she turned the pages of the mug books. After nearly a half an hour of looking, she’d not identified a single one. Not that it surprised him. Patterson was clever, and not the type to openly associate with criminals at his workplace.
She closed the last book. “Now what?”
For a moment he hesitated. The next step involved risk to her, and he hated exposing her to it. Yet they had the advantage now.
“Call Patterson. Tell him you need to meet him in a location halfway for you both. Tell him the police have named you as a suspect and you don’t know where to turn.”
She looked doubtful. “You really think he’ll care?”
“Make him care. Keep him on the line, however you can. We’ll trace the call and get his exact location. His cell keeps bouncing.”
Belle still looked doubtful, the cute little frown line indenting between her silky dark gold brows. She dug her cell phone out of her Gucci bag, and then glanced around at the busy police station.
“Not here. And not your cell phone.” Kyle led her to a quiet conference room filled with equipment where men monitored the phone calls.
She picked up the conference-room phone, dialed Mike’s number as the men waited. But the call went to voice mail.
“He’s not picking up.”
Belle dialed again. Nothing.
She tried her cell phone. Same thing. This time she left a message, asking him to call her on the station phone number.
Kyle’s expression tightened. “Either he’s not picking up the phone for anyone or...”
“Or what? He’s already left the country?”
“Doubtful. We have alerts at all the airports to search for him. Unless he left by boat.”
“Mike doesn’t have a boat. He used to, but sold it about two months ago...”
Her expression fell. “Oh, that sounds terrible. Suspicious. He told me his boat needed too much work and he didn’t have the time or the energy for it. Do you think he sold it for money?”
Kyle nodded grimly. And wondered if Patterson was in deeper financial trouble than they’d realized. Which made him a perfect accessory for someone wanting to kidnap a little girl from the clinic...
* * *
He drove her home in the sleek black SUV. Belle kept checking her cell phone. Finally when they were almost at her house, it rang.
“Patterson?” Kyle asked, not taking his eyes off the road.
Belle nodded. She’d given them permission to wiretap her phone. At this point, anything to catch whoever did this.
If it was Mike, she’d have her own special way of dealing with it. One that involved lawyers.
Taking a deep breath, she answered. “Mike, where are you? I’m in real trouble.”
“Belle. I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t help you.”
“Can’t or won’t? Mike, what the hell did you do?”
Perhaps the fact that she swore, a rarity for her, stunned him into silence. Or perhaps he was simply scared. Heavy breathing came through the line.
“Mike, I’m not taking the fall for this. I can’t. I have my future ahead of me. Remember what you told me about becoming a doctor? I wanted to be like you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kyle nod and mouth, “Good.” He made a stretching motion.
Cue for keep Mike talking so they could trace the call.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to, Belle. You and Clint. I may...not survive this.”
For the first time, real fear shot through her. Mike didn’t sound pompous or dramatic. He was scared. Terrified.
“Where are you?” Fingers tightened around her phone. “I’ll tell Clint to pick you up.”
“No. I don’t want him involved.” Worry riddled his tone, as if the man were sitting next to her. “Cops with you now?”
She hesitated.
“Level with me, Belle. I need to talk to them. I have information they need. I want to make a trade. Put me on speaker.”
Taking a leap of faith, she did.
“Who’s with you, Belle? The feds?”
“This is special agent Kyle Anderson of the FBI, Dr. Patterson. What information do you have to offer?”
“Not here, over the phone. In person. I’ll give you everything. Names, dates, where Anna is.”
Belle bit her lip. He knew, the bastard. He knew everything.
“She’s alive? Where is she? Is she okay?” she blurted out.
Kyle put a hand on her arm. “Easy,” he mouthed.
“She’s fine.” Mike sounded impatient. “But they’re going to move her out of the country in a few days and you’ll lose her forever.”
She could only think of one reason to get Anna out of the United States—a child-trafficking ring. Her mentor was involved in with criminals who stole children and sold them.
“Mike, how could you do this?” Belle’s throat closed tight. She trusted him so much in the past. To find out he participated in stealing Anna was like finding out her own brother was a criminal.
A heavy sigh. “Nothing is as black-and-white as you make it out to be, little Bluebell,” he said, using her childhood nickname. “Especially with family.”
The remark made no sense. “You mean your family?”
“No.” The word was curt. “Stay out of this, Bluebell, before you get hurt. The people behind this have money and power and they’ll stop at nothing to get what they think is theirs.”
“What do you want, Dr. Patterson?”
How could Kyle remain so calm, his voice so even? Her heart raced a mile a minute and she wanted to scream at the phone.
“I want to cut a deal. My testimony and the information I’ll give you in exchange for I don’t do any time. For anything.”
“I can see what can be arranged.”
“Do it.”
“Where do you want to meet?” Kyle asked.
“The Old Pine Tree Motel in Dade Town on US 27 in one hour. Room Six. Only you. And Belle. No other cops or feds.”
“No.” For the first time Kyle’s voice sharpened. “I’ll meet you but not with Belle. I’ll need more than an hour. It will take that long from where I’m at. Two hours. Eight p.m. sharp.”
“Fine. Two hours. But bring her or there’s no deal and I won’t say a damn word.”
The phone clicked off. Belle stared at the screen.
Consulting her GPS, she sucked in a breath. “It’s a good forty-five minutes from here. Looks like the motel is a truck stop. Why would he stay there?”
“Truck stops specialize in anonymity. Like no-tell motels.”
“Oh.” Of course. Glad he couldn’t see the heat suffusing her cheeks, she studied the map. “If you take the interstate down to...”
