So damned alone. “Ariella’s father loved her?”
“Loves her. Very much. Listen, there’s nothing to say she actually is in there. I tend not to give up hope on missing persons cases until I have definitive proof that everything is final.”
“I just pray that proof isn’t about to come.” She looked at Lake and felt a small connection to him as well. There was something in his eyes that said he understood, that his own history wasn’t something idyllic, either. “And the others? Have you found them, too?”
“The oldest boy disappeared years ago.”
“He’s not disappeared; take my word on that.” Paige wouldn’t say more. Though most of the people in PAVAD knew she was related to the richest man in St. Louis, they hadn’t advertised to the world who Luc actually was. And they all preferred it that way—it kept Paige from drawing the attention of Luc’s enemies again.
So protective; it was Luc’s way. Did he know? About the others? “What are their ages?”
“The older son is in his mid-thirties. There’s another son after him. Given up for adoption at three days old. He’s thirty-two, and I haven’t found him. Haven’t looked. Then you. Ariella, twenty-four. There’s a younger girl, twenty-one, also given up for adoption. And then there’s one more. He and Ariella have recently made contact in the last two months.”
“I see.”
She didn’t. Not really. She’d witnessed firsthand, on two separate occasions, major family reunifications within her friends and colleagues. Dan and his daughters, Carrie and her biological family. Three, if she counted herself and Luc.
She knew it was crazy. Families didn’t just come and go like that in reality. But she’d witnessed it, experienced it firsthand. And now this?
What was she going to do about it? “I’ll need to talk to my older brother. Then we’ll decide what we’re going to do about this.” She looked at Mick. “Do you think Luc knows? And just didn’t tell me?”
“It’s possible with that secretive pain in the ass. But I don’t think he’d keep something like this from you, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. It was the second or third time she remembered him calling her that.
He sounded just like Mal when Mal spoke to Jules.
Did he realize that? Did he realize his tone softened just a little bit when he said it?
And why did that mean so much to her?
Chapter 33
Lake had a new idea of the relationship between Agent Daviess and the big mountain of a guard dog behind her. The guy was hot for her, and really bad. Brockman hovered over her and it made Cam wonder. Was she always that…fragile? Or had something happened to make her that way? She had a cast under her sweater, he could just see the edge of it peeking out around her fingers. The stitch in her lip was fresh. “When were you injured?”
“Last night,” Brockman practically barked it out. He reminded Cam of a bulldog. Or a mastiff. One of those freaking huge monsters that probably shit piles bigger than a normal man’s hand. The kind that could rip a normal man’s hand off with a single bite if the dog wanted. Yeah, that was Brockman all right.
It was hard to reconcile the woman in front of him with the girl he’d collared twelve years ago. That kid had been cocky and jaded. This woman was more sad and vulnerable.
Cam had a harder time figuring out what she felt for the guy beside her, though. She wasn’t touching him—he was touching her—but she was taking emotional support from him.
The sister-in-law—with a baby belly the size of a small submarine—was watching them, as well. Cam saw the speculation on the woman’s face. It made him wonder.
Had he ever seen an I.A. agent get involved with another agent before? Cam didn’t think so. I.A. wasn’t exactly filled with friendly kinds of people. They stuck to themselves and their own kind.
It was the way the rest of the FBI world liked it.
They were finally deemed appropriately prepped to enter the M.E.’s sanctum. The M.E. went in first. With the paper coveralls over her scrubs and her dark hair pulled back, Brockman’s sister-in-law looked like a blue penguin. Cam didn’t tell her that, though.
The woman sawed up bodies for a living. He wasn’t stupid.
The brother-in-law, though. He had a difficult time finding coveralls to cover the shoulders. Cam snickered under his breath. He wasn’t a small man, either, at six-two and two hundred plus pounds. But Brockman was the kind of guy who made other men feel inadequate. Bet the man was a prime jock in high school. Probably attended college on all kinds of athletic scholarships. Cam hadn’t hit two hundred pounds and five-five until he’d been a senior in high school. He hadn’t hit his full height until he’d been a sophomore at college. He’d always felt weird around the quarterback types.
Still, the guy seemed to greatly care about Agent Daviess and the sister-in-law.
The M.E. waddled over to the rack of drawers that freaked Cam out every time he saw them. The idea that the dead were stacked on top of each other in what resembled a really huge set of fridge drawers was macabre. The idea that was probably the way he’d end up some day? Yeah, claustrophobia didn’t begin to describe it.
“This is the first of the girls that fit the description of your Ariella, Agent Lake. There were three that were of similar age, and build.”
He nodded. Then looked at Agent Daviess. “You don’t have to look. I can do this myself if it’s easier for you.”
Cam caught the approval on the lumberjack’s face.
But Agent Daviess shook her head. “I need to know.”
Yeah. Cam supposed that she did. She hadn’t known her sister, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel the connection. He knew what he’d be feeling if it was Lia they were looking for.
He put a hand on Agent Daviess shoulder—Brockman had the woman’s back covered with a large paw—and left it there. Left it there so she’d know she wasn’t alone.
The M.E. pulled the first drawer out.
Cam studied the body. The girl was of the right age, but the facial features were off. And Ariella had a small birthmark under her chin that this woman didn’t. He’d studied more than a dozen photos of the woman provided by her father. He shook his head at the M.E.
This wasn’t her.
The next woman was a closer match. Far closer, and for a long moment he wasn’t entirely certain. But there was a tattoo on the woman’s wrist that he knew wasn’t fresh—and that he knew wasn’t Ariella’s. He’d seen several photos of her playing the violin. The location of the tattoo would have meant it was highly visible.
He shook his head again.
“This is the last possibility.” The M.E. hesitated.
“What is it, Jules?” Agent Daviess asked.
“I saved her for last. The resemblance between the two of you? Paige…I can’t say conclusively. You know how I feel about that…but…this woman was killed a little more violently than the others. You need to be prepared for that. I can do this with Agent Lake, if you need me to.”
Cam understood what the woman was saying. If Ariella was anywhere in this cooler, it was in the drawer labeled A-13.
His admiration for Agent Daviess grew when she stood straight and faced the M.E. “If it’s my sister, then I owe her this. I need to make sure for myself and for her. And if it is her, I won’t be stopping until I have her killer. If it’s her, I need to see.”
The M.E. pulled out the drawer.
Cam looked down.
Chapter 34
It wasn’t her.
Cam knew it, but it took him a moment to see it conclusively. The jaw was the biggest difference. Ariella, like her sister and younger brother, had a distinctly rounded jawbone. Almost delicate on the women, even. This victim had a stronger, squarer chin.
He pulled the snapshot he’d carried close to his heart for three days out. He showed it to the M.E. “Similarities are definitely there. But I’m ninety-five percent certain it’s not Ariella Avery.”
He didn’t miss the relief on th
e faces of the other three people. Cam understood it. They hadn’t wanted it to be a connection to one of their own. But they were saddened by the woman’s death. It meant just as much to them, but the wound wasn’t quite as deep as it would have been if it had been Agent Daviess’ sister in the drawer.
Daviess leaned over the woman. “I think it’s Heather. The one in the center of the photo, Mick. I can’t remember her last name.”
The M.E.’s cell peeped. “O.K. Mal’s in my office, waiting for all of us. If we are finished here, I suggest we meet him there. He’s probably getting impatient.”
Agent Daviess nodded. “I’d like to hear his profile. See if I can figure out what kind of person did this. See if I know anyone who would…It was probably Miles or Leo. They are the only connections between all of us. With me and these girls. But…why now? We need to talk to Mal.”
Cam got the picture. He didn’t often work with profilers, and wasn’t sure he trusted them, anyway. But after seeing what had been done to the victims in their case he wasn’t adverse to any help at all.
He dealt most often with runaways, endangered missing, kidnappings—not with mass murderers. He wasn’t even sure where to look next. And he wasn’t so arrogant that he couldn’t see that.
“I’ll get you everything I have on Ariella Avery. And if you don’t mind, I’d be happy to continue following down that angle. I’ve been in Missing Persons for over a decade now. I’d like to think I can help somehow.”
Brockman nodded. “We’ll discuss it after we get the profile.”
In the M.E.’s office another dark-haired man waited. He wasn’t quite as big as his brother, but he resembled the other man enough that Cam hadn’t had to ask about the relationship.
He’d never heard of brothers working out of the same field office before. But rumor had it PAVAD was different in a lot of ways. The guy immediately started in on the M.E. “You were supposed to be taking it easy.”
“Do not start, Malachi. There are some things happening that you do not know.” But the M.E. took the chair her husband rolled out from behind the desk. The husband started rubbing her shoulders.
“I’d shake hands, but you seem to be busy. I’m SSA Cam Lake. Dallas Field Office.”
“Yes. I think we met before. About six years ago. The Dubrowski teen? Missing from his soccer practice.”
“Yes, of course.” One of the cases that had ended well, custodial interference at the extreme.
“What brings you to St. Louis?”
“He’s tracking Paige’s missing sister. Her name was on our list of stolen IDs.”
The husband looked at Agent Daviess. He left his position behind his wife and stood in front of Agent Daviess. He put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Are you ok? How’s the head?”
“Not quite as sore as the heart, Mal.”
“We’ll figure this out.”
She nodded. “I know. I just don’t know how many people will be lost in the meantime.”
“We do our best. And we know that the lives lost were lost no earlier and no later than they were supposed to be. We cannot control the hand of fate. We all know that. You can only do what you can do, baby. No more.”
“Then let’s get started.” Cam watched as the husband patted the woman’s hand. They were all close, weren’t they? Was it because of Agent Daviess’ relationship with the brother?
Cam shot a look at the big guy. The man looked ready to prowl, like a caged bear. “So what’s next?”
“Profile. Find if there are other cases that match this MO. Find your missing girl,” the bigger brother said. “Figure this out before anyone else gets hurt. Anyone heard from the hospital?”
“Detective Beck’s been sedated. She woke a few hours ago. Long enough to be told of some of the damage,” the sister-in-law said.
“What’s her prognosis?”
“She’ll survive. But as far as recovery? That’s open at this point. It all depends. But she’s alive, and that’s what matters now. “Any news on the shooter’s brother and sister?”
“Bodies were found in the basement of their apartment building. They were probably dead within minutes of the call to give the order. The killer had no intention of keeping them alive,” the woman’s husband said.
“And so now there are two more bodies coming my way,” the M.E. said. “Paige, we’ll find the monsters responsible for this. You have to believe that.”
Chapter 35
THEY spent the rest of the day going over everything they had. Over and over and over. They had results for the drugs used to subdue the victims. But there were anomalies—most of the girls hadn’t had enough in their systems to make a difference at one time. But the hair tests had proven that they’d had the drugs in their systems on more than one occasion. She didn’t understand that. At all.
Paige had known she wouldn’t lead to anything. All of their connections had been twelve years ago. And those ties had been tenuous at best. She hadn’t known any of the other girls’ last names. Their ages or histories. How was she supposed to put it all together now? When all she had was that damned photo and the knowledge that someone out there was stalking her?
Hernandez had used facial recognition software that Carrie had designed three years ago specifically for Bureau usage to age the girls in the photo. He was then cross-checking arrest records. Anything to see if they could identify the remaining girls.
They spent hours going over everything. Going over and over.
Finally, Mick called it, and ordered everyone home. To return the next morning early. Paige didn’t protest. She knew he was taking her to his house, where he and Al and Seth could guard her.
She hated feeling confined, but what other choice did she have?
He went back to his office to check his messages again. When he returned, he was glowering everywhere. “Change of plans.”
“What?”
“Mom called. Dad’s got the flu. With Jules being ready to pop at any time, they can’t risk her getting it. So it’s a hotel for the two of us.”
“No one else?”
“Compton will have the specifics. He’ll watch the room from the road. He’ll trade off with Stephenson in the morning. Get your bag.”
She didn’t protest. It wasn’t ideal, but she would do what she had to. And there was nothing to keep the two of them from continuing their work. She’d work all night if she had to.
He drove, taking several roundabout ways. She just hoped it would be enough. She’d hate it if something happened to him because of her.
She tossed her bag on the bed furthest from the window and looked at her roommate for the night. The room seemed so small with him there.
He saw her staring. “Talk to me.”
“I never knew it would come to this.” Paige sank into the only chair in the room and pulled her feet up under her. “When we—I—decided to stay with Leo and Miles. Carrie and I had no food, most nights. Or if we had anything, it was a cheap sandwich off the dollar menu at a fast food joint. We’d go inside to use the restrooms to clean up, then we’d split the hamburger between us. One burger, two people. If we’d get really lucky, someone working the counter would throw in a free soda or an extra burger if Carrie’d sweep the floors and I’d take out the trash. That was on the good days, when we found money on the sidewalk, or when one or the other was able to have a short cash job somehow. Most nights were the same—hunger. Old. Wet, dirty.”
“I hate that you went through that.”
“I’ve envied you, Mick, since the moment I met you. Your family. You all just fit together so neatly. You’re the kind of family that you find in the made for TV movies. The gooey, feel good kind. The kind I never had.”
“I’m not sorry for the parents I was given, Paige.”
“And you shouldn’t be. But you have to understand that some of us have never known what to do with parents like yours. With a family.”
“But you have a family now.”
> “I have Carrie. And Sebastian. Luc, definitely. Now. And Payton. But I still say I had her before Luc did. Just saying.” She could have gone to Luc’s tonight. But that would have put the only biological family she had out there in the line of fire. She would never do that.
“And Al. And Dan Reynolds and his three million children. And you have my brother and Jules.”
“They’re friends, not family. I have Carrie and I have Luc and Payton.”
“You don’t have to be alone. You’re not alone now.”
“I’m tired of being a hanger on, someone just there on the fringes, hoping for a scrap of familial affection, Mick. I did that for the first eleven years of my life and it nearly got me destroyed.”
“What happened to you? Tell me, baby.”
“What do you think? We’ve seen the same old story countless times in this job, and in my work at the shelters. Some guy thinks he’s doing you a favor, letting you hang around, be a part of his family. But then after a while, after you just start to feel safe, he wants to call in that debt. The first time, you’re terrified, thinking it’s all a bad dream. The second time you know what’s going to happen. I ran before there was a second time.”
“Do you regret running?”
“Not for a minute.” Of that she was absolutely certain. For her, it had been the only decision she could have made. “I got away and I lived. I found Carrie and I saved her life a few times. I know this. And she saved mine. Without me, I don’t know what would have happened to her. Nor do I know what would have happened to me without her.”
“I’m sorry. I hate knowing that you went through all that because the person who should have protected you didn’t.”
“She sold me. I don’t remember any of the details, but my brother does.” She knelt on the window seat and looked out at the night sky. “I never bothered checking my own file. Too afraid of what I’d find in there.”
Warm male hands rubbed her shoulders. She could smell him, that slightly spiced scent that she knew was him. What did it mean that she knew what he smelled like? Was she going insane? “I don’t know anything about who I was, who I came from. I can’t look at my mother the way you can yours. And I never will.”
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