When She's Gone

by Palmer, Jane;

  There. A shadow formed into a man dressed in dark green. Followed by another. Slowly, the agents filed out of the building, their rifles angled safely away. No mad rush, no shouts. Just the dragging steps of men who were unhappy with the outcome.

  “What happened?” Ara asked. She started toward the building, but her arm was grabbed by her babysitter, halting her movements.

  “Let me go,” she demanded.

  “I’ve been ordered to keep you here,” he insisted, his jaw set in a stubborn line. “Don’t make me arrest you.”

  “That’s my job.”

  The familiar voice was weary, and Ara spun to find Luke approaching them. He’d removed the gas mask and helmet. His face was red with exertion, his eyes shadowed.

  Her lips trembled. Luke didn’t have to open his mouth. For once, she could read everything he was about to say all over his face.

  “No.” She backed away from him, holding out a hand. “No.”

  “Ara—”

  She pounded a fist into her thigh and swallowed a scream. Sam couldn’t be dead. God damn it, she couldn’t be.

  It was all her fault. She’d failed her. She’d killed her. As surely as if she’d pulled the trigger herself.

  Luke grabbed her arms and shook her so hard her teeth clattered together. “Listen to me.” Ara blinked, forcing herself to focus on him, to clamp down on the emotions that had tears springing to her eyes.

  “There is a woman’s body inside. She’s blonde and the same size as Sam.” He paused.

  “Just spit it out.”

  “They shot her in the head. We can’t ID her yet.”

  Ara closed her eyes as if it would block out his words. But they replayed in her mind.

  We can’t ID her.

  She opened her eyes, and as she took in the furrow of his brow and the hard line of his mouth, Ara understood in a flash what he wanted.

  “Take me to her.”

  “You don’t have to do this.” He let go of one of her arms and captured her chin between two of his fingers. The pressure of his touch felt oddly comforting. It centered her.

  “We can take fingerprints,” he said, tilting her face up to his.

  Ara took a deep breath, the acrid scent of smoke burning her nostrils. “No. Fingerprints take time. I might be able to do this in a matter of moments. If it isn’t Sam in there, then every second counts.”

  “Ara.” His voice lowered to a soft whisper, his face reflecting a pity that nearly broke her in two. “It’s probably her.”

  She fought past the lump in her throat. “I know.”

  * * *

  The warehouse was cool, and Ara shuddered a little inside her leather jacket. The tear gas had dispersed, but the space remained surprisingly empty. She supposed Luke had kept most of the agents back, and the forensic crew, who would tear the place apart looking for DNA and fingerprints, hadn’t arrived yet.

  He held her hand in his own, a firm grasp of callused palm and warm fingers, and led the way farther inside. Her gaze skipped over the interior, her mind taking snapshots of the space.

  A workbench with painting supplies in the far corner. Half-done paintings stacked against the walls along with several fresh canvases and easels. Trash piled up in the opposite corner, mostly beer cans and pizza boxes. Oil stains from some kind of vehicle marred the floor. Near the side door, there was a spattering of blood drops.

  And in the center, surrounded by a few FBI agents, was a sheet-covered form.

  Ara held her breath and nearly tripped over her own feet. She silently cursed herself, ignoring Luke’s concerned glance. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d viewed a body. She’d lost members of her team before, seen death up close.

  Yet this one hit far closer to home. The faces of other teenagers, girls Ara hadn’t been able to save, flashed across her mind. She remembered every one, could picture them as easily as if they were standing in front of her now. And it squeezed her heart so much she thought it would burst, the pain of her own failures like a vice on her chest.

  Those girls had died in a flophouse in Russia. And this one in a warehouse in New York. But the grief and guilt Ara felt was the same. She had survived; they had not. And both situations were her fault.

  “Guys, clear back and give us a little space.” Luke’s order had the other agents drifting away. They knew exactly why she was there.

  He waited until everyone was out of earshot. “Are you sure about this? She won’t be a pretty sight.”

  “I’ve seen gunshot victims before,” Ara snapped, suddenly furious with him. “You don’t need to tell me.”

  He didn’t react to her outburst. At least not in the way she expected. Luke gently squeezed her hand. Immediately, her anger lost its edge. Getting upset with Luke was pointless. The person she was truly angry at was herself. But she did no one any good like this—not Luke, not the investigation, and definitely not Sam.

  When he crouched down next to the sheet, Ara tensed in preparation and gave a hard nod.

  “Do it.”

  He pulled the sheet back, revealing what was left of the poor girl’s face, topped with fragments of hair that might have been blonde at some point but were now stained dark with blood. Ara’s stomach jumped at the sight of the carnage, but she swallowed hard, forcing the bile back down. She stepped closer to the body.

  “Pull the sheet off all the way.”

  Luke silently complied with her request. The woman was definitely Sam’s height and build. Full breasts, slender hips, long legs. She was wearing a pair of skin-tight jeans, a coral-colored blouse, and cheap wedges.

  “Those aren’t the clothes Sam was wearing when she was kidnapped.” Ara’s voice came out flat, without a hint of the swirling emotions inside her.

  “They may have made her change. That’s not enough.”

  Ara nodded. Luke was right. It would’ve been smart for the kidnappers to have Sam change into different clothing. Especially if they hoped to move her at some point.

  She sucked in a breath and forced her mind to clear of everything except the matter at hand. Ara bent down close to the body. She could smell the cloying scent of blood and . . . something else. Her heart picked up as she leaned down closer still, so close her lips nearly brushed the corpse’s shirt.

  Lavender. The scent of lavender.

  “What?” Luke broke through her thoughts. “What is it?”

  “Perfume. A scent Sam would never wear. She hates lavender.”

  Ara slowly tracked down the body. It wasn’t until she got to the left foot that she found the proof of her suspicions.

  “This isn’t Sam.” She pointed a finger at the barely visible curve of ankle just below the cuff of the blue jeans. “This girl has a tattoo on her leg.”

  She wanted to hoot with joy and relief, but her gaze caught sight of what was left of the woman’s face, and the sound died in her throat. Luke leaned down, checking to see the tattoo for himself. When he looked up, confusion played across his features.

  “If this isn’t Sam, who the hell is she?”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  She kept replaying the details in her mind. They appeared in slow motion, like in a movie, almost as if it’d happened to someone else. Yet the rusty scent of blood coming from her skin was a constant reminder. It’d been all too real.

  The escape plan had been half-witted to begin with. If she’d been thinking clearly, Sam would’ve realized they were no match for professionally trained killers, but she was desperate and she’d panicked.

  It was only a short distance to the door, to freedom. At the time, it’d seemed possible.

  The rapid beat of her heart, the sound of pounding feet against concrete, the nearly silent whistle of the gun and then . . . the blood and brain matter splattered her, shockingly warm. She’d been unable to stop herself, and she’d tripped over the body, sliding across the floor, scraping her skin raw.

  She clambered to her feet and turned around. Sam could hear the scream building insi
de of herself, but it got caught in her throat, never clawing its way out of her open mouth.

  Instead, she gaped, staring down at the body on the floor in front of her. The woman who had been, less than a second ago, alive and running for her life. Now she was dead, unrecognizable.

  And Sasha, his gun pointed straight at Sam, had laughed.

  It was the most terrifying thing she’d ever heard. That rumbling, deep-throated, full-scale laugh. Like he’d been told the funniest joke, the most delicious punch line.

  Thinking of it now, hearing the echo of that laugh in her mind, fear curled in her belly and tightened her throat.

  Sam had no idea where she was. Maksim and Sasha had bound and blindfolded the group of them and driven them here. She’d tried to keep track of the turns, but sheer terror had crept over her and she’d lost count.

  She’d thought they were being driven to their death.

  Instead, Maksim and Sasha had brought them here. A cold, dark place with a dripping faucet that was about to drive her insane. A basement, maybe? It smelled damp and faintly like mildew, and they had been forced down a staircase before being chained.

  At least she wasn’t alone. Sam stretched out her foot, and the chain holding her to the floor rattled. It was heavy and thick, no chance of ever breaking, but it was long enough that she could touch Nick.

  He pressed back. She couldn’t see him or talk to him through the duct tape, but his presence was reassuring. If she’d been left entirely alone, Sam wasn’t sure she would survive it.

  Selfish.

  The thought ran through her head, the guilt like a hot blade in her gut. She was selfish, more selfish than she’d ever realized. If she truly loved Nick, she would never want him to be down here chained up with her. His words played in her head, over and over again.

  This isn’t going to work. You’re playing with things you can’t understand.

  Oh, how she wished she’d heeded his warning. She had been playing with things she didn’t understand. She’d been angry—about her father’s and brother’s deaths, about her mother’s remarriage, about the restrictions Oliver placed on her. She’d been so filled with hatred, so desperate for attention that she’d foolishly believed faking her own kidnapping would solve her problems. Her mother would finally come to her senses and realize Sam needed her. She would understand that her daughter was more important than the charity events and social lunches.

  How many times had Sam played the reunion in her mind? A hundred. A thousand. It would happen in the police station. Her mother would fling open the door and pause, searching the room for her. Sam would call out, and her mother’s gaze would fly to her face. Tears would gather, spilling over onto her pale cheeks, and her mother would race to her. She would gather Sam into her arms, rocking her as she had when she was little and muttering all the words Sam desperately needed to hear.

  I was so worried.

  I love you.

  I’m sorry.

  It would change their relationship. Her mother would be so grateful that she would never take Sam for granted again.

  A foolish dream. No, not just foolish. Stupid. Downright stupid.

  And with every hour that passed, Sam had less and less confidence she would get out of this alive. Ara hadn’t come. The message Sam had given her had been too cryptic, the trail too hard to follow. And now, next to impossible, since Maksim and Sasha had been smart enough to move them from the warehouse to this new location. Even if Ara could figure it out, there was no way to trace Sam here. For all she knew, Ara and the rest of her family had given up on her. They’d found out she’d planned the kidnapping and they’d stopped there.

  They may have no idea about the trouble she was in now.

  No, Sam was going to die. She would never see her mother again, never be able to tell her all the things she needed to say. She said them now, silently, in her head, praying her mother would somehow feel them and know.

  I love you.

  I’m sorry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Gina Antonova.”

  Thomas handed a manila folder to Luke, who opened it. Leaning over his shoulder, Ara got her first good look at Gina, staring back at her from a DMV photo. Flawless skin hidden behind heavy makeup and lots of eyeliner, large, dollar-store earrings, and crooked front teeth.

  Thomas reached out and flipped the picture to another. This time of a woman behind the wheel of a van. “This is the cleaned up photograph we pulled from a camera near the restaurant.”

  “She was the getaway driver,” Luke said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do we know about her?”

  “Twenty-three,” Thomas answered, efficiently giving the most important facts. “Small record for shoplifting and minor drug possession. Dad’s dead. Mom’s doing a stint in county at the moment for prostitution and drug possession. No siblings. I got forensics doing a sweep of the house, but it doesn’t look like she’s been there for a while. No food in the fridge. Smelled real stale. Neighbors haven’t seen her for more than a week.”

  “So where has she been all this time?” Luke flipped to the next page. “Where does she work?”

  “Officially, nowhere, although her neighbor said he’s seen her down at a nightclub called Mist.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “It’s a nasty place. Supposedly owned by the Russian mafia.”

  Ara’s heart skipped a beat. Luke passed a glance at her, almost as if he’d heard the flutter. She carefully schooled her features, but worry and fear left a metallic taste in her mouth.

  “This doesn’t look like a mob job.”

  The striking sound of a metal gurney snapping into place seemed to punctuate his sentence. Ara’s gaze was drawn to the body, now wrapped in a shroud of black plastic, as the coroner’s aide pushed it past them.

  “The mob is usually cleaner than this,” Luke continued, oblivious to the commotion happening behind him. “They wouldn’t have left Gina here for us to find. Or they would have removed her fingers along with shooting her in the face, in order to prevent identification.”

  “Maybe they never expected us to find the warehouse,” Thomas suggested. “Nick’s record is squeaky clean. Without Ara, we never would’ve made it this far.”

  She appreciated the compliment, but it felt like a sword in her stomach. This was no real victory. A woman was dead, and if they’d been faster, if she’d been smarter, it might’ve been prevented.

  Ara couldn’t pull her attention away from the large blood pool on the concrete. She was jittery and upset, but cutting through all that chaos was the whisper that things were not as simple as she’d thought they were. Something was happening, something beyond a simple kidnapping and ransom request.

  “Maybe,” Luke went on, “but the whole job would have to be mafia related, and this is a bit too high profile for them. They’re cockroaches mostly, making their money by human trafficking, drugs. Dealing in the unwanted and the unnoticeable. They don’t like media.” He frowned. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Both Gina and Nick are small fish, though. Two people with very little criminal history, and they’re jumping right into kidnapping. And now murder.” Ara shook her head. “I don’t think they’re acting on their own.”

  Luke tilted his head. “It’s improbable but not impossible.”

  “This doesn’t feel right . . .” She felt cold. Her hands were like ice. She shoved them into her pockets and crossed the room toward the workshop. The brushes, the paintings, the half-done canvases. One caught her eye, and the piece of a puzzle clicked into place.

  She felt Luke’s solid presence come up behind her.

  “He’s the one making the copies.” She pointed to the familiar, horrible gray painting. “This painting was in the gallery the night of the kidnapping. Holly purchased it for Oliver’s office. It was supposed to be delivered today.” Her voice dropped. “Delivered by Nick.”

  “He’s switching them. Keeping the originals and delivering the fakes.”
Luke rocked back on his heels. “It makes sense. The gallery hangs the originals in their space. The buyer makes a purchase. Then Nick makes a copy. When he delivers the painting to the buyer, he gives them the forgery. The original gets sold on the black market.”

  “Right.” Ara frowned. Something tugged at her, but she couldn’t figure out what. She knew the dramatic escalation of the crimes was part of it. Painting forgeries was a far cry from kidnapping and murder. If Nick was acting alone, he’d jumped into far more violent territory than his record would reflect. As Luke pointed out, it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, but Ara just couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something. Something vitally important.

  “Sir.” An agent waved Luke over from the center of the warehouse room. Ara tagged along with him, wanting as much information she could get.

  “What is it, Vicki?”

  “It looks like they had a car in here. Recently.” She pointed to a stain on the concrete.

  “You’re right. This oil stain is fresh. The van, probably. Do we have someone retrieving the video surveillance?” Luke asked.

  “Already working on it.”

  “Put out an APB on the vehicle. If we’re lucky, they might still be driving to their new location. An officer might spot them.”

  Vicki’s eyebrows creased. “Sir, there are a lot of white, unmarked vans out there.”

  “At this point, I’m willing to have officers stop every damn one of them if it gives us a bit of an advantage.” He jerked a thumb toward a single room in the back of the warehouse. It was the only enclosed space, probably meant to be an office. “What’s in there?”

  “Not much. Agents have cleared it, but we haven’t fully searched it yet.”

  Ara was already moving in the direction of the office. She felt, rather than saw, Luke and Vicki following along behind her. The light inside the room was already on and revealed a battered desk, a broken, wobbly chair, and several finished canvases.