Rescue from Darkness

by Bonnie Vanak

  “My girlfriend...she was...a bit older than me. Used to nice things. I wanted to get her this diamond bracelet she’d seen... I needed her to trust that I could take care of her. And...she didn’t know about my school loans. I had to get rid of them before I could even think about asking someone like her to get serious with me.”

  Brody, who’d always been on the outside looking in where family was concerned, had been willing to do what it took to get one of his own. Riley’s ire stepped down a notch or two, pushed even further back by the twinge of guilt hitting him where it counted. If he’d been more a real player in Brody’s life, instead of a figure at the head of the table during all of the mandatory holiday meals the Colton siblings shared, the kid probably would have come to him for the money. Or at least for advice before investing in such a cockamamie scheme.

  And instinct was telling him they had another, more immediate problem than Brody’s investment choice.

  “Where did you get fifty grand?” he asked.

  Looking nervous again, his brow creased, his lips thin, Brody glanced toward the back door—whether because he wanted to run again, or because he feared someone might be coming in after him, Riley wasn’t sure.

  “Wes Matthews, the banker from RevitaYou, suggested I call this company, Capital X...”

  Riley dropped his head. Biting his tongue, almost literally. He knew of the loan shark group from his years with the FBI and had never been able to bust them—its structure was that intricate, that far underground and into the dark web.

  They were a “company” that always knew where you were, but no one could find them.

  And his family member was involved with them?

  Straightening, Riley braced himself, placing his hands on the desk on either side of him. Filled with the calm that came when he was focused on a case. A calm that wiped out emotion. Doubt. That let his instincts guide him and show him the way to protect those he’d sworn to himself to protect.

  “This Wes Matthews, where is he now? I’ll need his contact information.” The man had led Brody to Capital X. Which meant he could lead Riley to them, too.

  Throwing up both hands, drawing Riley’s gaze to those splinted fingers again, Brody said, “That’s just it...he’s disappeared into thin air!” The younger man’s lips trembled as his voice broke.

  “I’ll need to see the transaction data from the check you wrote him,” Riley said, feeling an urgency growing on him that he hadn’t felt in a while.

  “I paid him in cash.” Brody was really close to full-out whining. “I called him as soon as I knew the vitamins didn’t work, to report the problem with them, and to get my money back, but he didn’t answer so I left a voice mail. And then I get an email from him saying he never received my money and that I had to be mistaken. Next thing I know, the phone number I had for him is no longer working and the emails come back undelivered.”

  “How long ago was this?” His words were short. Succinct. Brody wasn’t just being a kid here. He had a real problem.

  One that Riley was beginning to fear was much bigger than his pseudo little brother even realized.

  Brody was scared, though. He knew he was in serious trouble.

  “Three days ago the guy is in touch with me, giving me all these enticing numbers that were coming my way, excited to have me on board. Two days ago I tell him the vitamins made my girl sick, and then this morning, the day I owe my first big chunk of the payment to Capital X, the emails bounce back, the phone number is no longer in service and the RevitaYou website is down, too.”

  Quelle surprise.

  Brody had done what he could, though. He’d tried.

  “And it turns out that if you don’t pay back the money you owe to Capital X when you owe it, including interest, two goons will show up at your place of business, request a meeting, and then break two of your bones, with a promise to break two more each time you miss a payment.” Brody held up his newly taped ring and pinky fingers. “This was the handshake that happened in the lobby of the professional building where I work.” Brody worked as a very junior corporate attorney, and Riley had gotten the implication that Brody’s position was tenable. He wouldn’t have it for long if thugs continued to show up.

  Riley’s gut clenched. He consciously relaxed it. Brody needed him focused. “How sure are you that they were following you here?”

  “Honestly?” Brody shook his head, his cheeks drooped and his gaze beaten. “I have no idea. I’m pretty sure they were, but I can’t really say if it was real or just fear that had me thinking so. As soon as they left, I got in my car, stopped at a drugstore clinic, had my fingers taped and came here.”

  Brody pulled some brochures out of his bag, handed them to Riley. “I got these at the seminar I attended,” he said. “I was a class ‘A’ idiot. I get that, but I need the family’s help, Riley. Professionally. Please. You have to find Matthews. Get my money back. Capital X is charging me thirty percent interest on top of the fifty grand. There’s no way I can pay all that back...”

  Riley sure as hell didn’t have a quick sixty-five thousand dollars sitting around in liquid cash. And was fairly certain none of his siblings did, either. What he did have was a family team of part-time investigators, full-time lawyers, a crime-scene investigator, too, all with their own accesses to databases and contacts.

  “Stay right here,” he said to Brody. “As in, don’t move from that seat. I’m going to make some phone calls to the others and see what we can find out.”

  Riley moved swiftly to his office, had his phone at his ear and already ringing through by the time he made it to his desk. And while he talked to his sister, Sadie, a twenty-eight-year-old crime-scene investigator, he was scrolling through a password-secured list of his own contacts from the underbelly of the criminal world. Sadie, who had a particular soft spot for Brody, told Riley she was going to see what she could find out about either Wes Matthews or Capital X. She planned also to call her twin sister, Victoria, a JAG attorney. They both had a lot of law enforcement connections.

  He called Kiely next. At thirty years old, the full-time professional investigator sister worked freelance for the FBI and various police departments. Kiely assured him that she’d see what she could find out. She also asked Riley to tell Brody to be careful and said she’d call her twin sister, Pippa, also an attorney.

  When he was satisfied that he had all four of his biological siblings on board, he phoned Griffin, their officially adopted brother. He didn’t call Griffin last because the thirty-two-year-old was any less a family member, but because, as an adoption attorney, he had fewer skills to help solve the immediate problem—keeping Brody safe. Griffin also asked some questions he wasn’t yet prepared to answer—he had some hesitation about getting Colton Investigations involved with something as big as Capital X. But he agreed to attend a meeting that evening with the rest of the siblings to discuss the situation.

  As satisfied with his progress as he was going to be, Riley sent off a quick email to a former confidential informant with ties to white-collar crime, asking for a meeting as soon as possible.

  And, fewer than ten minutes after vacating the main office, he was heading back to Brody.

  Pal was there, sitting by the archway through to the dining room and kitchen.

  There was no sign of Brody. Or his bag.

  Copyright © 2020 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from No One Saw by Beverly Long.

  No One Saw

  by Beverly Long

  One

  With a week’s worth of mail in one hand, A.L. McKittridge unlocked his apartment door with the other. Then he dragged his carry-on suitcase inside, almost tripping over Felix, who had uncharacteristically left his spot by the window where the late afternoon sun poured in. He tossed the collection of envelopes and free weekly newspapers onto his kitchen table and bent down to scratch
his cat. “You must have missed me,” he said. “Wasn’t Rena nice to you?”

  His partner had sent a text every day. Always a picture. Felix eating. Felix taking a dump. Felix giving himself a bath. No messages. Just visual confirmation that all was well while he was off in sunny California, taking a vacation for the first time in four years.

  I can take care of your damn cat, she’d insisted. And while he hadn’t wanted to bother her because she’d have plenty to do picking up the slack at work, she was the only one he felt he could ask. His ex-wife Jacqui would have said no. His just turned seventeen-year-old daughter, Traci, would have been willing but he hadn’t liked the idea of her coming round to an empty apartment on her own.

  Baywood, Wisconsin—population fifty thousand and change—was generally pretty safe but he didn’t believe in taking chances. Not with Traci’s safety. She’d been back in school for just a week. Her senior year. How the hell was that even possible? College was less than a year away.

  No wonder his knees ached. He was getting old.

  Or maybe it was flying coach for four hours. But the trip had been worth it. Tess had wanted to see the ocean. Wanted to face her nemesis, she’d claimed. And she’d been a champ. Had stood on the beach where less than a year earlier, she’d almost died after a shark had ripped off a sizable portion of her left arm. Had lifted her pretty face to the wind and stared out into the vast Pacific.

  She hadn’t surfed. Said she wasn’t ready for that yet. But he was pretty confident that she’d gotten the closure that she’d been looking for. She’d slept almost the entire flight home, her head resting on A.L.’s shoulder. On the hour-plus drive from Madison to Baywood, she’d been awake but quiet. When he’d dropped her off at her house, she hadn’t asked him in.

  He wasn’t offended. He’d have said no anyway. After a week together, they could probably both benefit from a little space. Their relationship was just months old and while the sex was great and the conversation even better, neither of them wanted to screw it up by jumping in too fast or too deep.

  Now he had groceries to buy and laundry to do. It was back to work tomorrow. He grabbed the handle of his suitcase and was halfway down the hall when his cell rang. He looked at the number. Rena. Probably wanted to make sure he was home and Felix-watch was over. “McKittridge,” he answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “Home.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  He let go of his suitcase handle. Something was wrong. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “We’ve got a missing kid. Five-year-old female. Lakeside Learning Center.”

  Missing kid. Fuck. He glanced at his watch. Just after 6:00. That meant they had less than two hours of daylight left. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  * * *

  The Lakeside Learning Center on Oak Avenue had a fancier name than building. It was a two-story building with brown clapboard siding on the first floor and tan vinyl siding on the second. There wasn’t a lake in sight.

  The backyard was fenced with something a bit nicer than chain link but not much. Inside the fence was standard playground equipment: several small plastic playhouses, a sandbox on legs and a swing set. The building was located at the end of the block in a mixed-use zone. Across from the front door and on the left were single-person homes. To the right, directly across Wacker Avenue, was a sandwich shop, and kitty-corner was a psychic who could only see the future on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

  A.L. took all this in as he beached his SUV in a no parking zone. Stepped over the yellow tape and made a quick stop to sign in with the cop who was at the door. The guy’s job was to ensure that there was a record of everybody who entered and exited the crime scene.

  Once he was inside, his first impression was that the inside was much better than the outside. The interior had been gutted, erasing all signs that this had once been the downstairs of a 1960s two-story home. There was a large open space to his right. On the far wall hung a big-screen television and on the wall directly opposite the front door were rows of shelves, four high, stacked with books, games and small toys.

  It was painted in a cheery yellow and white and the floor was a light gray tile. There was plenty of natural light coming through the front windows. The hallway he was standing in ran the entire length of the building and ended in a back door.

  There was a small office area to his left. The door was open and there was a desk with a couple guest chairs. The space looked no bigger than ten feet by ten feet and was currently empty.

  He sent Rena a text. Here.

  A door at the far end of the hallway opened and Rena and a woman, middle-aged and white, dressed in khaki pants and a dark green button-down shirt, appeared. Rena waved at him and led the woman in his direction. “This is my partner, Detective McKittridge,” she said to the woman. She looked at A.L. “Alice Quest. Owner and director of Lakeside Learning Center.”

  A.L. extended a hand to the woman. She shook it without saying anything.

  “If you can excuse us,” Rena said to the woman. “I’d like to take a minute and bring Detective McKittridge up to speed.”

  Alice nodded and stepped into the office. She pulled the door shut but not all the way. Rena motioned for A.L. to follow her. She crossed the big room and stopped under the television.

  “What do we have?” he asked.

  “Emma Whitman is a five-year-old female who has attended Lakeside Learning Center for the last two years. Her grandmother, Elaine Broadstreet, drops her off on Mondays and Wednesdays between 7:15 and 7:30.”

  Today was Wednesday. “Did that happen today?”

  “I have this secondhand, via her son-in-law who spoke to her minutes before I got here. It did.”

  The hair on the back of A.L.’s neck stood up. When Traci had been little, she’d gone to day care. Not at Lakeside Learning Center. Her place had been bigger. “How many kids are here?” he asked.

  “Forty. No one younger than three. No one older than five. They have two rooms, twenty kids to a room. Threes and early fours in one room. Older fours and fives in the other. Two staff members in each room. So four teachers. And a cook who works a few hours midday. And then there’s Alice. She fills in when a staff member needs a break or if someone is ill.”

  Small operation. That didn’t mean bad. “Where are the other staff?”

  “Majority of the kids get picked up by 5:30. According to Alice, she covers the center by herself from 5:30 to 6:00 most days to save on payroll costs. Emma Whitman is generally one of the last ones to be picked up. Everybody else was gone tonight and she’d already locked the outside door around 5:45 when the father pulled up and pounded on the door. At first, she assumed that somebody else had already picked up Emma. But once Troy called his wife and the grandmother, the only other people allowed to pick her up, she called Kara Wiese, one of Emma’s teachers, who said that Emma hadn’t been there all day. That was the first time Alice had thought about the fact that the parents had not reported an absence. She’d been covering for an ill staff member in the classroom that Emma is not assigned to.”

  Perfect fucking storm.

  “She quickly called the other two teachers and the cook, everyone who’d worked today, just to verify that nobody had seen Emma. When they hadn’t, she called the police,” Rena said. “Officers Pink and Taylor responded and secured the scene and began a room-by-room search. I arrived at the same time as Leah Whitman, mother of Emma Whitman.”

  “When the parent or grandparent or whoever drops off, do they deliver that child to the assigned room?”

  “I asked that. Alice said that’s what they want to have happen. But there are times, when a parent is in a hurry, that they will leave the child in this general area.” She waved her hand toward the front door. “When they do that, they are supposed to do two things. One, sign a clipboard that normally hangs there,” she said, pointing to the
wall, right outside the office door, “and two, make sure they connect to a staff person, that somebody knows there is a child who needs to be escorted to his or her room.”

  “What happened with Emma?”

  “Again, according to Troy Whitman, Mrs. Broadstreet supposedly arrived around 7:15 this morning. She walked Emma into the building. There she saw Emma’s teacher, Kara Wiese, standing in the doorway of the office, and left Emma with her. Then she went to work at her job at Milo’s Motors.”

  He knew the place. It was a used car dealership on the south side of town. “Did the grandmother sign in?”

  “There’s no record of it.” Rena crossed the room and picked something up from a table. She returned with the clipboard and sign-in sheet, already in a closed and tagged evidence bag. She showed it to A.L. There were two signatures. Neither of them were Elaine Broadstreet.

  “I’ve also already bagged and tagged the sign-in sheets located in the two classrooms,” Rena said.

  “Mrs. Broadstreet isn’t here?”

  “No. She’s on her way.”

  “Where are the parents right now?” A.L. asked.

  “Troy and Leah are in Classroom 1. They’re shook.”

  It was a parent’s worst nightmare. He studied the space. The office was maybe six feet from the front door. “You said that Alice called Kara Wiese to see if Emma was here today.”

  “Yes. Because Alice already had Mrs. Broadstreet’s version of events via Troy, she asked Kara about it.”

  “And what did Kara say?”

  Rena’s eyes looked troubled. “That she never saw Mrs. Broadstreet or Emma this morning.”

  Somebody was lying or had a real shitty memory.

  “Height and weight of child?” he asked.

  “Three-feet-two-inches and forty-four pounds. They had a well-child visit just three weeks ago,” Rena added, to explain the exactness. “She was wearing blue jeans, a pink shirt with a unicorn on it, a gray lightweight hoodie and pink-and-white tennis shoes. And we’ve got a ton of pictures, off the parents’ phones. I had them send me a couple of the best ones.” She held out her phone for A.L. to see.