VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel)

by Suzanne Ferrell

  Frank nodded. “I didn’t give Paolo details about why we wanted to know the group’s location. Got the idea he didn’t want to know details. But with some more arm-twisting we can get a few people inside with Kirk.”

  “We’d need to do an assault from outside, too. I wonder how many people Jeffers can get us?”

  “You and he don’t know who can be trusted. You’re going to have to call Columbus,” Castello said, giving him a meaningful look.

  Call the family.

  “We need to find Brianna before anyone storms from outside. I’ll need to go inside, too.” Abby said beside him.

  “No.”

  Both Abby and Castello looked at him.

  “No to calling the cavalry?” Frank asked.

  “Or to me going in to find Brianna?” Abby asked, that stubborn glint in her eyes.

  “Both.” He ran his hands through his hair while they both stood there watching him. He focused on Castello, because he couldn’t deal with the idea of Abby even remotely close to this operation. “I’m trying to keep this off official records for as long as possible. You know they’ll storm in here, take over and Abby’ll be in danger before the group’s leaders are caught.”

  “It’s your case. They’ll move on it how you want. Besides the Fed has resources we’re going to need to bring down a Senator,” Frank said.

  They both knew Luke’s brother-in-law would have to be called into the situation.

  “I won’t be in danger with you by my side,” Abby said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, her brows drawn down in that stubborn set he’d learned meant she was digging in her heels.

  He couldn’t deal with her right now, so he turned to Frank. “Okay, I’ll call them. But if any of them get hurt, you get to explain it to Mom.”

  That caught Abby’s attention “Exactly who are you calling?”

  “Three of the biggest pains in my ass,” Luke said, taking out his phone and punching numbers. He pointed to Castello. “He makes it a quartet.”

  The dial tone sounded in his ear as he watched Abby. She’d turned her head to one side, her glasses resting on the tip of her nose. Gently, she nibbled on her bottom lip, reminding him how it had tasted earlier when she’d been snuggled on top of him.

  “This better be good, Luke. Judy’s about to put dinner on the table.”

  “Dinner can wait, Dave, it’s about Senator Klein.”

  Luke had walked out onto the patio in back, leaving Abigail with a ton of questions. That left Frank to answer her questions.

  “Who is Dave?”

  “His oldest brother,” Frank answered, apparently not wanting to give more information.

  “And why would Luke be calling him?”

  “He’s a cop. Other brother Matt is a highway patrolman and their brother-in-law, Jake, is FBI.”

  “Oh. I thought he’d be calling people in his own agency.”

  “Neither one will have the jurisdiction Jake will. Other than the possible fraud that you and your friend may have found, this doesn’t fall under Treasury. Besides, this is personal. Luke’s been looking into Senator Klein for some time now.”

  “Why?”

  Frank patted the barstool beside him and she sat down, waiting for the explanation.

  “Because a crazed gunman took Dave’s wife hostage along with the senator’s son last winter. Something in the way the senator’s people handled it tipped Dave and Luke’s radar that something might not be on the up-and-up. They’ve been thinking it was illegal arms sales.”

  “But since it’s not, Homeland won’t be too interested in what we’ve found,” she said.

  “Kidnapping and transportation of illegal aliens, sex-slave trade? This is all going to be under the Federal umbrella, but Luke wants to keep your name out of anything official.” Frank winked at her. “So we call family.”

  She couldn’t help but grin at him. “You’re part of their family, aren’t you?”

  He lifted his eyebrows and nodded. “Matt’s wife, Katie, was once in my WITSEC program. When her cover was blown and Matt came into her life, I sort of got attached to the crazy Edgars clan.”

  Before she could tell him how envious she was, Luke sauntered back in the room to stand on the kitchen side of the island. “Jake, Dave, Matt and Katie are on their way.”

  “Your sister-in-law is law enforcement, too?” she asked.

  Luke shot Frank a narrowed-eyed look. “See you’ve been filling her in on the family dynamics.”

  Frank shrugged, looking none too concerned that he’d been sharing family secrets. “Just a little background information I thought she might need to know before the gang gets here.”

  “Katie’s a neonatal nurse,” Luke said, turning his attention back to her, “but she grew up in a paramilitary cult and handles herself well with guns, as well as disarming security systems and bombs.”

  “Bet she volunteered and Matt wasn’t happy,” Frank said, a bit of humor in his voice.

  “Actually, once he heard what these guys were doing to women, Matt just said she’d be coming, too. Guess he wasn’t going to even start the fight over her staying home.”

  “And the Fed?” Frank asked.

  “Jake said he’d get the details once he was here and decide how to proceed. He wanted to know about the local cop situation and I let him know we had them involved, but Jeffers hasn’t contacted his boss, yet. The rest we’ll deal with in the morning.” Luke yawned and stretched, then walked around the counter. He took her by the hand and pulled her off her seat. “You get the couch, old man. We’ve got something to discuss in private.”

  Without looking back he led her into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  “You might’ve just announced to him that we’re sleeping together,” Abigail said as she stalked across the room, her cheeks still warm from his highhandedness.

  “Sweetheart, he figured that out this morning when you came out dressed in my shirt,” Luke said, slowly advancing on her.

  She held up her hand and took a step backward. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Why?” he asked, even though he stopped more than an arm’s length away.

  “Because we need to talk and I can’t think straight when you touch me.”

  He smiled that little-boy grin of his and her heart did a flip. She forced the charm from her mind and subdued the urge to walk into his arms.

  What she had to say was important.

  “You know I have to go in to the mansion.” She hurried on when he opened his mouth to speak. “I’m the one Brianna called. If they’ve got her imprisoned there I’m the only one she’ll know and trust. She saved me once and I now it’s my turn to save her.”

  “How did she save you?” he asked, all humor gone.

  “When we lived at the orphanage I was bullied quite a bit, especially by the boys.” She folded her arms around her middle. “One day, a gang of them had me cornered behind the gym. They’d broken my glasses and were calling me names, like ostrich and freak. Just when I thought they were going to do more, Brie comes running out of nowhere right into the middle of them with her back to me and both hands up in fists, threatening them.”

  “She was going to take them all on for you.”

  Abigail nodded through the tears welled in her eyes. Dashing at them with one hand, she fought to gain control of her emotions. She needed Luke to understand why she had to do this.

  “It wasn’t just that. For the first time since my mother died, someone had shown that I was worth caring about. Someone showed me that I mattered to them. And I learned I could trust people—or at least Brianna.”

  “She’s not the only one you can trust, Abby,” he said, understanding and a promise in his eyes.

  “I need to do this.”

  “I know.”

  “You know?” she asked, trying to determine if he truly meant what he said. He wasn’t going to fight her? Or was he just placating her?

  He inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower, a bi
g decision coming with the action. “I knew it in the other room as soon as the words were out of your mouth.”

  She blinked hard, some of the tension that had filled her since they came in the room easing.

  He frowned. “Just because I agree that yes, you do have to go in to identify Brianna and you’ve earned the right to be there when we rescue her, it doesn’t mean I like putting you in danger any better.”

  Then it hit her.

  The big super-spy, Luke Edgars, cared about her. It wasn’t her lack of field experience that had him concerned. It was his feelings for her. And it was fear. Fear for her. Fear that his dream would come true.

  Slowly she approached him like a wounded lion. “I won’t do anything rash.”

  “Damn right you won’t.”

  She stopped inches away. “I’ll follow your every command.”

  “Damn right you will.”

  She slid her hand up his arm, over his shoulder and along his jaw. “I’ll stay right by your side.”

  He jerked her into his body, lowering his lips to hover just above hers. “Damn straight.”

  Then he claimed her mouth with all the tension she felt strumming through his body pressed so tightly to hers. She wound both arms around his shoulders, letting her fingers play in his thick, dusky-blond hair. He slid his hands down her back to grip her by her ass and lifted until she was pressed tightly against the ridge of his erection. A moan escaped her as he rocked them both in the rhythm of mating. When she parted her lips for him and he slipped his tongue inside, he growled inside her mouth and the feeling sent thrills down her. She’d caused this need inside him. Her. No one else.

  God, she wasn’t going to last. She gripped him by the hair and pulled back until their lips parted and he stared down at her with passion-filled eyes. “I need you,” she said.

  “I know, sweetheart,” he murmured, trying to capture her mouth once more.

  “No, Luke. Now!”

  He laughed. The damn man laughed.

  Then he lifted her, forcing her to release her hold on his hair and grip his shoulders, at the same time wrapping her legs around his hips. And wasn’t that the best thing? The thick ridge behind his pants rubbed even harder against her. She forgave him the laugh.

  He walked backwards until he landed hard on the bed, which creaked with the new weight.

  Abigail froze. “Oh, my God. What about Frank?”

  “He can get his own woman,” he said with a grin just before catching her mouth with his again.

  Then it was a sudden flurry of hands and fingers until their clothes landed into piles on the floor. Straddling his lap, she looked into Luke’s eyes as he handed her the condom, the powerful connection in his gaze speaking of trust and need. Her fingers shook as she covered him—the first time she’d ever done such a thing with any lover.

  Another first with Luke.

  Then he lifted her until she slid down onto his shaft, impaling her and sealing them as one. A deep moan escaped him.

  “You fit me so well,” he murmured as he gripped her hips and helped her ride them both to completion.

  * * * * *

  In the near dark Aaron hunched over his kitchen table, the overhead pot light letting him study the files again. The faint light from his laptop flickered as he clicked it to update. Still no activity for their fake girl, Mary’s profile. It was after midnight. Doubt they’d get a hit tonight. Might as well shut it down.

  He signed out and closed the lid. Then he reached for the glass of rum and coke he’d been sipping on since coming home.

  The information he’d learned at Edgars’ safe house had stunned him. He’d been so sure he was looking for a serial killer. How had this sex slavery ring been working right under their noses all this time? Could someone in the local political scene, besides Senator Klein, be helping to keep the group’s activities off the radar? If so, did their tentacles reach into his own department?

  “Don’t go looking for cases when there aren’t any, Jeffers,” his boss, Captain Davis, told him when he’d brought his suspicions to him about the possibility of a serial killer. “Our job is to try and locate those people we know are missing, not those that might be.”

  “There’s an unusual amount of similarities in their backgrounds, sir.”

  “Doesn’t matter. You stick to the cases assigned or I’ll have you back in uniform. Is that clear?”

  Yeah, the message had been loud and clear. Drop it or else.

  Was the warning for a different reason than wasted man hours? Had his captain or someone higher up been involved with the slavery ring? If so, who did he trust with this?

  If he went to the wrong people, the women could all disappear—permanently.

  In the end he’d acquiesced, but only so far as not pursuing his investigation openly. After that conversation, he’d kept all his inquires on the down low and watched for any other women who might fit the similarities of his victims—and he’d been sure they were all connected somehow.

  Only, he’d been way off base.

  Lifting the pictures of the suspected victims, he looked at each of them slowly until their images burned in his brain, finishing with Brianna Mathews. He turned off the kitchen light, took her picture and stretched out on his sofa.

  He studied Brianna’s face.

  Something about her fascinated him. Sure, she was drop-dead gorgeous. He’d noticed that the night she went missing. Hell, how couldn’t he? Her home had been littered with pictures of her.

  Normally a woman that narcissistic wouldn’t interest him. The more he learned about her, the more intriguing she became. Abigail was loyal to the woman, so there was something more to her than vanity. According to Abigail, Brianna was quite good with numbers, so she was intelligent, but smart enough to hide the fact when it suited her. They hadn’t discovered what she had planned to share with Abigail before her abduction, but he’d bet money that she’d somehow stumbled onto the slavery ring herself.

  All the blood at both crime scenes—her condo and the warehouse—bothered him. Could she have survived that much blood loss? From what he knew about her, if there was one woman who could’ve lasted that torture, Brianna Mathews fit the bill. But to what cost?

  The ringtone of his cell phone broke the silence in his apartment. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the caller ID.

  “Haven’t gotten any activity on the profile, Edgars,” he said without preamble.

  “Didn’t expect you too. We’re going to have to put that on the back burner for now.”

  The back of his neck tingled. Something had changed since he left the condo. “Something new come up?”

  “Can you be at the safe house before noon tomorrow?”

  Aaron checked the calendar on his phone. “Got to check in at the precinct, but then I can be there. Why? What’s up?”

  “There’s another auction scheduled for Friday.”

  “Damn.” He looked at the photo in his other hand again, a sinking feeling in his stomach. “You think they’re going to move Ms. Mathews then.”

  “That’s our guess. It’s time to go on the offensive.”

  That idea suited him just fine.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Why the hell did you call the Marshal instead of one of us?” Luke’s oldest brother, Dave, stood almost nose-to-nose with Luke, his voice and accusation rising over the conversations taking place all over the condo’s great room and kitchen.

  Abigail, sitting on one of the barstools, swiveled around to watch the pair. Ever since the invasion of Luke’s family she’d been overwhelmed with the amount of people and noise surrounding her. She’d expected his brothers, but was surprised that not only had Luke’s sister-in-law Katie come along, but his sister Samantha had, too. Both were nurses and thought they might be able to help.

  “I needed a safe place here. Frank had one.” Luke had his arms crossed over his chest. “What good would it have done me to call you?”

  “Might’ve kept you f
rom getting up to your ass in trouble.” Dave poked him in the chest.

  “You do know this is my job, right?” Luke took a step closer, indignation written all over his face.

  Were they seriously going to start hitting each other?

  “They might shove a little, but they haven’t hit each other since Dave left for college, except during kickboxing matches.” Their sister, Sami, scooted onto the stool beside her. “Now, if it were Matt and Luke, yeah, it might come to blows.”

  “Or any of them and me,” Sami’s husband Jake said from the other side of the island. He was making another pot of coffee.

  “They only attacked you once,” Sami said, with a grin. “And that was only because you’d kidnapped me.”

  “He did?” Abigail turned to study the couple.

  “Sure did,” Jake said with a wink. Then leaned across the counter to kiss his wife. “Best damn thing I ever did in my life.”

  “Even if it meant Matt and Luke beat you up?” Sami teased.

  “I gave as good as I got, and there were two of them and only one of me.” Then his lips lifted in a mischievous grin. “Besides, I had to take it easy on them, I was already wounded.”

  “You’ve been using that excuse since the day we met,” Luke said, his attention diverted from his older brother.

  “That’s because you attacked me the moment you walked into the cabin.”

  Matt wandered over from the sofa where he’d been seated next to his wife, watching his brothers. “In case you don’t remember, you held our sister captive in the woods.”

  “He did?” Abigail asked Sami.

  She leaned in to talk softly. “Yes. But it was only because he’d been wounded and needed my help.”

  “Doesn’t matter, a man doesn’t take a woman by force,” Dave said.

  The smile on Jake’s face eased a little and a predatory gleam entered his eyes. “Trust me when I tell you I never took your sister by force, ever.”

  “Jake!” Sami stared at her husband with an open mouth and her face flushed bright pink.

  And with that the two older brothers cornered their brother-in-law in the small kitchen.