VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel)

by Suzanne Ferrell

  Silence filled the space between them and she was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “Because of the dream.”

  “What dream?” Now it was her turn to be confused.

  “The night after we met I had a dream about you.”

  “About me? What kind of dream?”

  “The kind of dream that wakes you up shaking and in a cold sweat.” Suddenly he plopped down on the bed, his coloring pale as he stared out the window. He spoke as if he no longer saw her. “It was dark and we were on a mission together. We’d entered this run-down office complex and I lost sight of you. I kept calling your name, but you didn’t answer. I kept turning corners, like in a maze. Then I saw you, lying face down on the floor. When I turned you over, you were dead.”

  She sat down beside him, slipping her hand in his. “It was just a dream, Luke.”

  “You don’t understand,” he said, and the tightness of his voice sent a chill through her.

  “Help me to understand it, then.” She grasped one of his hands in hers. Its coldness frightening her.

  “I don’t remember dreams. I’m sure I have them, I just never remember the details. They don’t stick with me. No names, place, images, certainly not action or color. But every time I have this dream it’s as if I’m there and it’s real.”

  His words stole her breath for a moment.

  “You’ve had this dream more than once?”

  He nodded, lifting his hazel eyes to hers, fear deepening them until the flecks of gold were almost gone.

  “How many times?” she whispered.

  “Almost nightly when we were in training. It went away once you were in Washington and I was out in the field.”

  “You haven’t had it since?” Some of the anxiety left her body.

  “I had it the night before last in the hotel. Only…”

  “Only?” The tension in his hands and face slammed her own fear back full force.

  “It was different.”

  “How?”

  Once more he stared off into space as if reliving the dream. “You were covered in blood. Your eyes cold and lifeless. And you talked to me.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Why didn’t you help me?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A knock sounded on his office door.

  Senator Howard Klein looked up from the files he was studying for the next interstate highway bill to see his eldest son standing in the doorway. “Did you get our merchandise moving and our little problem taken care of?”

  “Delivery of the trained merchandise to the supply houses down south is on its way with Snake and his men.” Dylan shrugged, then sauntered in to slide into the leather chair across the mahogany desk. “Our other little problem still won’t confess where she’s hidden the flash drive, but I’ve got her secured in the big training house.”

  “You should’ve gotten rid of her permanently.”

  “You’ve seen what she looks like, sir. Once she’s healed and trained properly, she’ll bring a very hefty price. Well worth more than the trouble she’s causing right now.”

  His son was right. The bottom line was finding quality merchandise and the Mathews woman was a natural beauty—what they’d called a stunner when he was younger. That kind of high-end female flesh was hard to come by. “See that she doesn’t cause any more trouble. The last thing we need is for anyone to get their hands on that information. Hollister says she copied locations of the houses throughout the Midwest area.”

  “She’ll be docile and ready to please by the time I get done with her.”

  He fixed his gaze on Dylan and arched one brow. “How can you be sure when you haven’t gotten her to give you the location of that drive yet?”

  “I think it’s time to change tactics. Like any good mare, the first thing is to break down her spirit. The torture by our men has been quite…brutal.” His son smiled like a cobra watching its prey. A well-practiced look the boy learned from him at a young age. “All I have to do now is show her how to please me to stop any further beatings. Part of that will be to tell me where she hid the drive.”

  The senator felt his cock growing hard at just how his son would bring the woman under his control. He’d used the same tactic on more than one of his slaves over the years. “Too bad she won’t be healed up and trained by Friday. There are big spenders coming to trade merchandise at the next auction. Many from overseas.”

  Dylan rose from the leather chair and headed to the bar in the corner of the office. He poured two glasses of imported whisky. He brought them back to the desk, handing him one before taking his seat once more and taking a healthy drink of the amber liquid. “Is Master Lee going to be there this time?”

  “Yes, he is. Why do you ask?” He watched the idea form in the ice-cold blue eyes that mirrored his own.

  “If I can get the information from the slut before tomorrow night, perhaps he’d like to take her off our hands. He’d pay a large sum to do so. The condition she’s in is something he treasures.”

  “With the added benefit that he’d move her out of the jurisdiction of our courts and make her virtually disappear.” He opened his laptop and logged into the account only his special clients could access. “We’ll send him a live feed of her now and see if he’s interested.”

  Dylan set aside his glass and stood to leave. “Then I’d better go visit our little traitor. I’d say by now she’d do just about anything for a kind word or gentle hand, wouldn’t you?”

  He watched his son stride from the room like a man in control of everything about him. His eldest was everything he’d wanted him to be. One day he’d be sitting in the White House, he was sure of it. But for now—the senator turned on the camera to the training stable at the big house where the bitch giving them all the trouble had been deposited—for now he’d enjoy watching his son get the little whore to service him.

  * * * * *

  Hours of reading files about more than a hundred missing women had Abby happy to open the financial data Luke sent to her laptop. The women’s files had angered and depressed her in equal measure. So many lonely women, desperate to find love only to end up in a hell a group of over privileged men had created for their own amusement.

  After her little tirade and talk with Luke, the group decided on different areas to investigate and Luke had assigned them each information to gather. Castello had driven Kirk to work so he could talk with the caterer about the party last month, but hadn’t returned yet. Jeffers had headed back to his precinct office for a few hours to see if there was any information about the three dead women, even though they all knew that unlike what most people saw on TV it would be days, if not weeks, before the forensics people came up with anything. Since his return this evening he’d been working another database Luke had hacked. This one seemed to be a shipping firm owned by a company that was owned by another company that ultimately was owned by Hollister-Klein.

  “You okay, Ms. Whitson?” Detective Jeffers asked from across the table.

  She sighed, but nodded. “Yes. At least with the financials there aren’t any faces staring back at me. And please call me Abigail. After today, I think formality is a bit overrated, don’t you?”

  “Yes it would. And I’m Aaron.” He gave her a tentative smile and the corners around his deep-blue eyes crinkled a bit, though a sadness still remained.

  What had made him so unhappy? His job? Or something more personal?

  “Is that what you do back in Washington?”

  His question caught her still wondering about his story and it took a moment for her to realize he was talking about the information on her computer. “I’m an analyst for the Treasury Department.”

  “Isn’t that a branch of Homeland Security now?”

  “Only part of it. The Customs Department, Secret Service and FLETC moved under the umbrella of Homeland. The rest remains still as the Treasury Department.”

  “You don’t usually handle missing persons cases then, I bet.”


  A laugh escaped her. “Not really. I mostly look into international money laundering and fraud.”

  The humor left Aaron’s face. “So if your friend hadn’t stumbled onto something odd and contacted you, we wouldn’t have a clue this was going on right under our noses, would we?”

  “You would’ve caught on to the problem at some point.” Luke looked up from his laptop where he sat on the couch. “No one stays hidden forever. This group is getting sloppy and cocky. Otherwise Abby’s friend wouldn’t have found out whatever information it was that has them running scared.”

  “You’re assuming anyone could’ve found what she did,” Abigail said, fixing him with a stare that dared him to say her friend was stupid.

  Luke set aside what he was working on, stood and stretched, pulling the dark sweater tightly over his chest and flat abdomen. Heat surged through Abigail remembering all that warm skin and firm muscles beneath that she’d run her hands over last night. When he stopped and their eyes met, she knew he was thinking about the same thing. Her face grew more flushed but she wouldn’t break the contact between them as he slowly sauntered over. Field agents weren’t cowards and neither was she.

  “No. I’m saying they left a trail that only she was smart enough to find—at this time.” He stopped right beside her, forcing her to look up at him. “What I’m also saying is that was probably the first mistake they’ve made. Had your friend not found it, they would’ve gotten more arrogant and started making more blatant and obvious mistakes.”

  “Like the burned, murdered women,” Aaron said, drawing Luke’s attention.

  Luke nodded. “Right. You would’ve eventually seen a pattern in the investigation you started before we arrived.”

  “But how many women have already been enslaved? And how many more would’ve been taken or murdered before then?” The edge in the detective’s voice spoke of the controlled anger and frustration they were all feeling.

  Luke pulled out a chair, turned it and straddled it. “Let’s not go there. Luckily, we’re here now and on their trail.”

  “And hopefully that means no more innocent women will fall prey to their vile plans.” Abigail laid her hand on Aaron’s arm, squeezing it then releasing it when Luke made a pointed stare at her. She tried to shove down the little feminine imp inside her that wanted to fist pump like a quarterback hitting his man in the end zone at Luke’s jealous reaction to her act of sympathy. Never in her life had a man reacted to anything she did, much less in such a possessive manner. The feeling was…exhilarating. Now she understood why Brianna had spent so many years getting men to act like idiots over her.

  “Which brings up something we’ve not done yet,” Luke said as if nothing had just passed between them.

  “What’s that?” she asked, willing her mind to focus on the case and not just Luke.

  “We need to profile our victims.”

  “Why? You know everything I know about them,” Aaron said.

  Luke nodded at him. “True. We know their statistics, but I want to know their psyche—what made them take the plunge into on-line dating, risk the chance of meeting someone in person.”

  “You’re going to make up a fake profile,” Abigail said, almost reading the scheme rolling around in his head.

  He grinned at her and for the first time ever it didn’t irritate her. “You got it, sweetheart. Let’s see if we can draw these guys out.”

  “So where do we start? The only victim we really know is Ms. Mathews,” Aaron said, “and she’d not our typical target.”

  “True. But I think we have an untapped source to reveal some of the thought processes these women might’ve been going through to put themselves in such jeopardy.”

  “Who?” Aaron said and Abigail could’ve kissed him because she knew who Luke meant.

  “Me,” she said.

  “You? You wouldn’t need a dating service any more than your friend did.” The detective looked so incredulous, she couldn’t help but laugh a little.

  “Thank you, but Luke’s right. I do know exactly how they’d feel. I’ve been there.” She sobered. She’d been so lonely on more than one occasion she’d browsed the different sites, some of them on the very list she’d made from Brianna’s URL history. But her own prudent nature kept her from ever filing her information.

  “You’re right, Jeffers. She doesn’t need them now or ever again,” Luke said and the heat in his gaze warmed her clear to her core “But I suspect you can tell us how the missing women might have been thinking. Am I right?”

  Damn him. He knew how desperate she’d been. Then she looked into his eyes and saw something warm and understanding there. He knew and he didn’t judge her.

  Something flipped in her chest—like an on switch—and warmth spread throughout her.

  Her height had always intimidated men, but not Luke. Her photographic memory she’d kept hidden, but Luke discovered it and accepted it. Loneliness had been with her all her life, Luke not only understood it, but knew they could use the experience to save Brianna and other women. How could she not love him?

  “Abby?” Luke laid his hand on hers and the concern in his voice brought her out of her reverie.

  “Yes. I’ve been in that mindset before. What do you want to know?”

  Luke turned her hand beneath his so they were palm-to-palm. “What would our girl, let’s call her Mary, what would make her join one of these sites to begin with?”

  He was asking her to bare her darkest moments. Taking a deep breath, she let her fingers curl around his hand. She could do this.

  “Mary would’ve always been a loner, the geeky girl no one invited to parties, never dated in high school and maybe only a few times since then. Even other girls didn’t include her into their group.”

  “Except her best friend,” Luke said squeezing her hand.

  “Yes, though if she had a best friend she probably wouldn’t be so desperate for companionship or love as to try these services.” She stared into his hazel eyes, wanting him to realize she wasn’t just looking for Brianna because she was missing, but because she owed her so much.

  “So loneliness is motivating them to put their lives at risk?” Aaron said.

  She broke the mental contact with Luke and nodded at the detective. “That and hope.”

  “Hope?” Aaron truly sounded perplexed.

  God bless the man. He was so clueless.

  “Hope that out there in the great unknown is someone meant for them. Someone who will love them for what’s inside them. Someone who will want to spend time with them, talk with them, ease the loneliness.” She inhaled slowly and blinked to keep any tears from forming. “They’re also curious.”

  “Curious?” Luke turned his head at a tilt. “What are they curious about?”

  “How the process works. Who might respond. Will anyone respond? What will they talk about? Just the possibilities of that kind of interaction is enough to push some women into putting all their personal information on the internet.”

  “Okay, I can buy that,” Aaron said. “But what makes them decide to meet a stranger in real life. They have to be smart enough to read all the reports of stalkers using the internet to rob, rape or murder people.”

  “I imagine whoever answers their posts taps into their need and desperation,” Luke said, releasing her hand. “They’d lay on the charm, probably working on them slowly, maybe even acting as shy as they are to gain their trust.”

  “Like a con man who reads the faces of their marks, convincing them it’s their idea for the meeting.” Aaron said, understanding in his eyes.

  “And because the women think they’ve suggested the meeting, they think they’re in control and nothing bad could happen to them, only the men trick them into meeting them at a place where they can get them alone…” Abby looked from Luke to Aaron and back again.

  “Then poof, they’re gone.”

  Luke stood and paced the length of the front room, letting his mind see the puzzle pieces. With A
bby’s help they’d figured out how the men were preying on the women, but which site would be the best on which to post his fake Mary’s profile.

  “We don’t have time to look at all the sites the women might’ve frequented. We need our Mary to be quickly hit upon.”

  “There were three sites that the five girls missing from this area used,” Abby said, pulling up the list. “In about half the cases I read I saw at least one of those sites listed.”

  “But which one is the one they’re using?” He ran his hand through his hair. The need to do something ate at him.

  “What if they’re using more than one site?” she asked.

  He stopped pacing and shook his head. “I don’t know. That might be too variable for them. This group is powerful. They’d want to be in control of every detail. My bet is they’re running whichever site they’re using to troll for the women.”

  “I think Abigail might have a point,” Jeffers said, standing to pace, too. “It’s like being a fisherman.”

  “Fisherman?” What the hell was the detective talking about? He eyed the man with the look he’d learned from his brother Dave, the one that said, are you crazy?

  Jeffers stopped and held out his hands like a professor teaching a class. “They’d cast a wider net. A good fisherman realizes he can’t catch all the fish in one place without it playing out and depleting the source. He studies the stream and the fish, learning their feeding habits, their breeding habits, what spots attracts the fish more frequently and at what times of the day.”

  Of course. “They know the kind of women they want, so they troll those sites they would visit. Probably in the early evenings or late at night just before bed.”

  “Times when the women would feel loneliest or want some sort of human contact,” Abby said. Then a delicate blush filled her cheeks and she looked away.

  “What is it?” he asked, wondering what had her turning so rosy.

  She shook her head, suddenly concentrating on her computer screen again. “Nothing. Just a stupid thought.”

  “Sweetheart,” he said, walking over and slipping his hand under her chin. He lifted until she was meeting his gaze once more before he released her. “I’ve learned the hard way that nothing you think could be termed as stupid.”