“And why do the police think she ran away?”
“Her best friend, Brooke Martin, told the police Candace was planning to leave home, but Candace never said anything to me to make me believe that.”
“Fifteen-year-olds don’t always share everything with their uncles.”
“She did. She talked to me about a lot of things. I would know if she was planning to run away.”
Elise suspected that might not be the case, but she didn’t bother arguing the point. Her work had taught her that teenage girls were notoriously secretive with adults. What made Josh’s relationship with his niece so different? More important, what made Josh believe their relationship was different?
He turned into the hotel and parked beside Elise’s blue SUV.
She got out, careful not to place undue weight on her injured leg. “I’ll have to go to the office and get the spare key.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Josh’s gaze stopped her. She followed it and saw her hotel room door standing open, the lock busted and the wood splintered.
Movement caused them both to jump. Whoever had broken into her hotel room was still inside. Elise stumbled to her SUV and keyed in her security code. The lock released and she opened the door, grabbing her gun from beneath the seat. She ignored the pain in her leg and the dizziness raking over her and headed for the hotel room, ready to pounce on whoever was inside.
Gun raised, she rushed into the room. “Don’t move!” she shouted, causing the short, sandy-haired man inside to jump and raise his hands quickly.
“Don’t shoot, Agent. It’s only me, Bobby Danbar, the hotel manager.”
Josh pushed past her. “Bobby, what are you doing in here?”
“I saw the door was busted and I was worried about Agent Richardson, especially since I hadn’t seen her since she checked in.”
Elise lowered her gun as the vague memory of this man filtered through her scrambled brain. She’d met him yesterday in the office. “You found my room this way?”
“Yes. Someone must have kicked in the door. Whoever did this was gone before I came along.”
Elise surveyed the room. Her clothes were scattered as if thrown from where she’d neatly folded and placed them into the dresser drawers. Her makeup bag was overturned on the bed and her briefcase had been cracked open.
Josh motioned to the dresser where her badge and ID still sat. “Why didn’t they break into your car? Steal your gun or your FBI credentials?”
“Who knows? Maybe they couldn’t break the lock on my car. Or maybe they got interrupted before they could finish ransacking the room and ran. Regardless, they got what they came for.”
“How do you know?”
She picked up her briefcase and held it open for Josh to see.
“It’s empty.”
“Exactly. My laptop is gone, and so are my case files. They’re the only things missing, as far as I can tell.” All her files on missing girls in three states. All the evidence that pointed toward a human trafficking ring operating in this area. Gone. “These intruders knew what they were looking for.”
* * *
“Seems like you brought some trouble to town with you, Agent,” Daniel commented.
Elise was still dressed in the scrubs the hospital had furnished her with since she’d been careful not to move anything in her hotel room before the police arrived to work the scene for prints and trace evidence. Josh hoped she felt more confident than she looked. In truth, she looked young and vulnerable, her dark hair curling around her cheeks, her face devoid of makeup, revealing a faint but cute line of freckles on her cheeks and nose, and her hazel-colored eyes wide with surprise at the comment.
“I’m sorry to have been such a burden to you, Chief Mills.” The bite of sarcasm in her tone belied her sincerity. “Tell me, do you treat all victims of crime in your town with this regard?”
“I meant no harm, ma’am. It’s just that first my officers spent all morning cleaning up that mangled mess downtown and now this. It’s taking a lot of man-hours we aren’t accustomed to in our sleepy little town. Besides, now we know you’re not any ordinary crime victim, are you? When were you planning to inform the police that the FBI was conducting an investigation in our jurisdiction?”
Elise pushed a runaway curl behind her ear, folded her arms and stared coldly at Daniel, and Josh got his answer. Even bandaged, bruised and dressed in hospital scrubs, she demanded the full respect due an FBI agent. “I am not required to inform you of anything, Chief Mills. The FBI has the jurisdiction to investigate any crimes that intersect your city line. Your duty right now is to gather and collect the evidence of two crimes that have occurred within your city limits. And I will expect and demand a full accounting of said evidence. And let me make myself clear. If I find any stone left unturned, you will wish you had never laid eyes on this FBI agent.” Her expression was firm and fierce, and Josh noticed Daniel stiffen at her threat.
He replaced the hat on his head and nodded to her. “I already regret that, Agent Richardson.” He walked out, leaving his crew inside dusting for prints.
Josh suddenly felt the need to apologize on behalf of his hometown and his friend. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
She turned those green eyes on him, but they seemed to soften a bit, the golden-rimmed fire going out. She gave him a wiry smile. “He’s not wrong. I am certainly not your normal crime victim.”
He saw no anger or bitterness in her eyes. She had compassion and he liked that. But that didn’t excuse Daniel’s behavior. “Elise, someone tried to run you over and now they’ve broken into your hotel and stolen files. FBI or not, that has to affect you.”
She stepped out into the breezeway and gripped the guardrail as if determination alone could keep her going, but he noticed the slight tremble of her hands and the cringes of pain she tried so hard to cover. “I don’t have the luxury of letting it affect me.”
He stared at her a long moment, impressed by her tenacity. Another time or place and his opinion of her might have grown into more than attraction, but he wasn’t interested in a relationship. And besides, this was the woman who’d taken his brother from him. No amount of tenacity and determination could ever overcome that.
He heard her name and saw Bobby rushing toward them, waving a card in his hand.
“Your new room is ready, Agent Richardson. It’s on the second level whenever you want to move your belongings. I just spoke to Daniel and he said we could clean this room in another hour or so. Of course, it’s no rush because I have to have the door replaced before I can rent it again.”
Elise took the card, thanking him with a nod of her head. “I’m sorry for all this, Mr. Danbar.”
“I’m only glad you’re okay,” he said before walking off.
The officer dusting for prints appeared at the doorway. “We’re finished here. We found several good prints, so maybe we’ll get a hit.”
Elise didn’t look enthralled as he walked off.
She walked back inside and began gathering her belongings, her full lips pressed together grimly. Josh followed to help. “That’s good news that they found prints. Maybe they can figure out who did this.”
“Assuming the person is in the system, it will probably only be someone who stayed in this room before me, or one of the cleaning crew.”
“Is Daniel right about someone following you to town? Is this fallout from another case you’ve investigated?”
“I’ll know more when I get the preliminary reports, but I don’t believe it is. I think whoever was driving that car was keeping an eye on me while his partners broke in here and stole my files.”
“But who knew you were in town?”
She stopped sorting clothes and turned to him, realization dawning in her eyes. “You did. How did you know?”
“I ove
rheard Bobby telling someone last night that an FBI agent had checked into his hotel. I figured you had to be here about Candace.”
The fire in her eyes reignited. “Where were you when you overheard this?”
“At the steak house. I was picking up supper for my sister-in-law. She’s been a mess ever since Candace vanished.”
“So if you overheard it and put two and two together, there’s no telling who else overheard and did the same.”
“You think whoever did this could be responsible for Candace’s disappearance?”
“I think it’s one possible scenario until I can rule it out.”
His mind whirled at the idea of all those he’d seen at the restaurant last night. “The restaurant was crowded. Half the town was there. And Bobby was drinking and talking loud.”
She settled her hands on her hips in a way that made Josh feel sorry for his friend when she got ahold of him. “Then half this town just became suspects.”
* * *
Elise rechecked the door locks to ensure they were secure. Despite what she’d told Josh, her nerves were on edge and the pain in her head pounded like a jackhammer. Per doctor’s instructions, she wasn’t supposed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Josh had offered to stay up with her, but she’d politely declined his offer. She didn’t know him well enough to impose that way, and it wasn’t appropriate for her to have a man stay in her hotel room. Besides, the hospital staff would be calling her cell phone every few hours to check on her. Nurse Stringer had informed her that if she didn’t respond, they were sending the paramedics over to break down the door.
She smiled now, realizing she couldn’t let that happen. Two broken doors in one day? She couldn’t do that to Mr. Danbar.
Then again—her sympathetic feelings for him faded as she remembered he was the one telling folks she was in town in the first place—it would serve him right to have another room damaged because of his big mouth. She would have to remember to write a letter to whatever board governed hotel operations. Certainly it went against some code to announce who was staying in his hotel? What had ever happened to privacy rights?
She’d hoped to have at least one night of peace then show up bright and early at the police station to gather information about the missing girl. So much for her surprise. And so much for her quiet investigation into Candace Adams’s disappearance.
Was the attack on her this morning the result of the trafficking ring trying to get her to back off the investigation? Or simply someone who’d got wind that the FBI was in town and wanted to find out why?
Either way, she needed to replace her missing files.
She reached for her phone and called Lin Wildwood, her partner in the FBI for the past three years. “Elise, where are you?” His voice was full of concern. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“I’m in Westhaven, Mississippi, looking into the disappearance of a teenage girl.”
He sighed wearily. “When are you going to give up on this futile quest and come back to work?”
Elise had been expecting this reaction. Three months ago, she’d taken a leave of absence from the Bureau to pursue evidence of a possible human trafficking ring operating in the Southeast. She didn’t yet have enough proof to support an official FBI investigation, and many of her colleagues believed she was chasing at shadows, but Elise was certain something was going on. She just had to gather enough facts to support it.
“I can’t, Lin. I’m close to uncovering this ring. This missing girl might be the key.” But she wouldn’t know if she didn’t have her files. “I need a favor.” She filled him in about the break-in, being careful to downplay the seriousness of this morning’s events. “I have backup copies of all my most recent files on a flash drive in my apartment. Can you send it to me?”
“Fine, but only on the condition that you’ll come back to work if this investigation doesn’t turn up anything. I have a stack of cases—actual reported missing persons cases—that need to be investigated.”
She was hesitant to make such an agreement, but if it would get her the files... “I’ll consider it,” she told him. “If I don’t turn up anything here.”
He seemed to take what he could get. “I’ll swing by your apartment on my way to work.”
She gave him instructions for where she’d hidden both the spare key to her apartment and the flash drive, and he promised to have it sent first thing in the morning.
She hung up then lowered herself into a chair by the window. She had a long night ahead of her before she was supposed to meet Josh and get started with the probe into his missing niece.
How weird was it that the girl she’d come to town to investigate was Max’s daughter? But then, the University of Southern Mississippi, where she’d gone to college, was less than an hour’s drive from Westhaven. Elise knew many people from these small Mississippi towns lining the highway made that drive to attend classes. She thought back to that terrible night ten years earlier when she’d been walking to her dorm room and had been greeted by a man with a gun. Max Adams, a complete stranger, had stepped between her and the assailant, taking the fatal blow. As the attacker had run off, she’d held the dying man in her arms, thanking him and assuring him that everything would be fine. She would never forget his face or his bright blue eyes.
She got goose bumps remembering seeing those same blue eyes staring at her this morning on the street. But it hadn’t been Max. It had been Josh Adams.
If she believed in God, she might believe in some sort of spiritual connection and feel as if God had allowed her to live so she could someday help Max’s daughter. But how could she believe in a God that allowed such terrible things like Max’s death and the abduction and trafficking of young girls to happen?
Her mother had been a believer and had taken Elise to church regularly, but a car accident when Elise was fourteen had taken her mother from her. She had been sent to live with her father and the new family he’d started after her parents’ divorce. She’d been an outsider there throughout her teenage years, offered food and shelter but never love. In fact, Elise’s stepmother had made a point of reminding her daily that she didn’t truly belong. Elise had worked hard to make the good grades required to earn a scholarship to college and had fled that house, never once looking back. In fact, the only contact she had with them now was the yearly Christmas card she received complete with holiday family photos proving how happy they were without her.
She had never been able to mesh her mother’s idea of a loving God with her own experiences. Where had God been during her teen years? And why had He allowed a lonely girl to suffer alone? The painful truth was that because of her, Max’s daughter had grown up without a father and his wife had gone ten years without a husband, and Josh had lost a brother.
If there was a God, He obviously didn’t care enough to intervene.
But Elise cared.
She turned her focus back to the investigation and dug through her purse for a pen and paper. She needed to get the names of everyone in the restaurant that night Bobby had spilled the secret of her arrival. Someone had known she was here, and she was determined to discover who had tried to run her down and had stolen her files.
Her cell phone rang, startling her. She didn’t recognize the number but saw it was local, so she answered it.
“Agent Richardson, this is Nurse Stringer from the Westhaven Hospital. Just calling to check on you.”
“I’m fine, Nurse Stringer.”
“Any dizziness or blurred vision?”
“I said I’m fine.” Her tone was a bit harsher than she’d intended, but Nurse Stringer either didn’t notice or didn’t let it bother her.
“Very good, then. I’ll give you a call again in another few hours. Have a blessed night.”
Elise hit the off button and threw down her phone. That woman
sounded way too chipper for it to be so late. She knew she’d been abrupt with her, but the truth was she was feeling dizzy and her eyes were blurring. But she wasn’t about to admit it and be hauled back into the hospital. She had a job to do, and she wasn’t going to allow a little thing like a mild concussion slow her down.
TWO
Josh stopped by the bakery and purchased coffee and breakfast sandwiches before heading to the hotel. He still couldn’t believe he was turning to Elise for help. He’d wrestled with the decision all night and was still having trouble reconciling the image he’d carried in his mind all these years of the girl responsible for his brother’s death with the flesh-and-blood woman who’d appeared out of nowhere yesterday.
It had been a difficult enough decision to seek out the FBI for help in finding Candace given his distrust for any of the three-letter government agencies after his army-ranger squad was betrayed by a CIA-vetted translator, but he’d had to concede that finding his niece outweighed his dislike for the agency. He needed FBI resources.
He needed Elise.
She was up and dressed when she answered his knock, having traded the secondhand scrubs for slacks and a white blouse. He was stunned at first glance. He’d seen her yesterday probably at her worst and she’d been beautiful, but now... His heart kicked an extra beat as he stepped in and closed the door.
He held up the paper bag in his hand, glad to have something to distract him from his own racing heartbeat. “I brought breakfast.”
Her face paled at the sight of the sandwiches, and only then did he notice the draw of weariness beneath her flawless hair and makeup. Yesterday’s ordeals had indeed taken their toll on her. “Thank you, but I don’t think I could eat anything.”
He placed the bags on a round table by the window, pulled out a cup of coffee and gave it to her. She cupped it in her hand, took a whiff and smiled a big wide smile that caused his heart to hitch again.
Yuletide Abduction Page 2
