Vanished: A Beautiful Mess Series Novel

by T. K. Leigh

  “It took a bit of digging. There were a few entries over the past twenty-four hours, but nothing after eighteen hundred hours last night, which is about the same time Mrs. Burnham confirmed she arrived home with her daughter after taking her ice skating. We looked into the database that logs all these entries to see if there were any irregularities.”

  “And were there?”

  “At first glance, no.”

  “But you found something, didn’t you?”

  The FBI agent looked at Alexander, hesitating briefly, then back to Moretti. “Yes. We found evidence that an entry into the house had been deleted from the system. At approximately thirty-three minutes past midnight this morning, someone gained access to the house through the front door. The code and fingerprint used belonged to one Leroy Martin.”

  Chapter Twelve

  December 19

  10:15 AM

  IN A DAZE, ALEXANDER walked calmly and deliberately down the long corridor to the living room. He wanted to believe it was just someone trying to point the finger at Martin, but how could he argue with the fact that his code and thumbprint were used to gain entry, then deleted?

  His footsteps seemed to thunder in his head, the sound of hurried voices in the living room like crashing waves against the shore. Agent Moretti’s words echoed in his mind as he struggled to think clearly. What if he was right? What if Martin was bitter when Alexander left the navy to take over the company? Did Martin really view everything Alexander had as something that should have been his? For the past several years, he had encouraged Alexander to spend more time with his family and away from the office, saying he didn’t want his work to consume his life like it had his father. Alexander had refused over and over again, thinking he was needed. Maybe this was Martin’s final play in getting Alexander to step down.

  The living area was still buzzing with activity, but now there were even more people here. The uniform of the day seemed to be a navy blue jacket, “FBI” in big, bold letters on the back. Some agents snapped photos of every square inch of the house. Others hovered over a large table in the dining area, staring at a map. Alexander’s eyes zeroed in on Martin standing in the corner, his arms wrapped around his mother, offering comfort.

  Heat rose in his body at the duplicity of it all. There he was, acting as if he were truly upset by Melanie’s disappearance, when all the evidence pointed to him being the one responsible for it. Alexander’s heart pounded when he saw him place a reassuring kiss on the top of his mother’s platinum hair. All he could think was how he had been duped…how they all had. He put his trust in him, like his father had, but when Martin realized he’d never run the company, he decided to hit him where it hurt…by taking his daughter, then probably demanding a hefty ransom.

  Alexander strolled casually toward the fireplace, all the stockings hung by the chimney with care. His eyes caught Melanie’s name on her stocking just to the left of where the man he had trusted with his life stood, acting as if nothing were wrong. Rage filled him. His vision became cloudy, his throat grew dry, his heart pounded in his ears.

  “Mr. Burnham, sir,” Martin said, noticing him enter the living area. He stepped toward Alexander. “Is everything all right?”

  Alexander snapped at the fake worry etched on his face. Martin had him fooled. He had them all fooled. Reeling back, he delivered a powerful left hook to Martin’s jaw, knocking him to the ground. Alexander vaguely heard his mother screaming at him that he’d lost his mind, but he ignored her. His head was a complete haze. He’d reverted back to his training. Shoot first, ask questions later.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, his eyes wild, vicious, untamed.

  “Where is who?” Martin responded, holding his jaw, caught off guard.

  Alexander pressed his shoe against Martin’s throat, getting a twisted satisfaction out of watching him struggle for air as he grasped his leg. His face turned a shade of purple and red as he fought for every breath. Officers and other law enforcement officials attempted to disengage Alexander, but he remained steadfast. Their interrogation methods would be completely inept against someone like Martin, who had been trained to withstand some of the worst situations imaginable and still not disclose any information. He would keep them running around in circles, chasing down every false lead, while Melanie remained lost. Alexander couldn’t let that happen.

  “Melanie!” he roared through the lump in his throat. Every inch of him ached from not seeing it all sooner. “Your code and thumbprint were logged in when you came here last night! You tried to erase your tracks, but you failed to realize that nothing online is ever truly erased. Where…is…she?”

  His chest heaved as he stared into Martin’s frightened and confused dark eyes, looking for a sign that proved he betrayed him, as all the evidence led him to believe. He was torn between wanting to do permanent damage to Martin for destroying his family and wanting to stop the pain he was causing him. Something about this didn’t seem right.

  “Why would I take her?” Martin strained with labored breaths, his voice barely audible. “I’ve treated her like I would my own granddaughter. Do you think I haven’t been affected by her disappearance? Because I have, Alex. All morning long, all I’ve thought was that I could have done something to prevent this from happening. The pain you’re feeling, that Olivia’s feeling, that your mother’s feeling…” Martin gasped as Alexander let up the pressure against his throat slightly, still keeping him trapped to the floor. “I feel it, too.”

  Alexander didn’t know what to think, what to believe, his emotions at war with his rationale. He knew Martin. Hell, he was a better father figure to him than his own father was. Martin had put his life on the line countless times to save Alexander. If he truly wanted to take over the company, why would he have done that? Still, Alexander couldn’t ignore the hard evidence — the entry code, the thumbprint, the manipulation of the records.

  In a swift move, he grabbed Martin by the throat, picked him up, and pinned him against the wall, pulling his gun from his holster and holding it against the man’s head.

  “Don’t give me that sob story,” he ground out. “You were pissed when I came back and took over my father’s company, the company he had pretty much groomed you to run. You must have been planning this for months, maybe even years. Wait until I was distracted, take Melanie, cover your tracks, then demand a hefty ransom in exchange for her safe return, all because you felt cheated out of my father’s company. I never thought you’d be capable of such deceitfulness and spite, but I guess I was wrong about you.”

  “Alex!” a stern voice yelled.

  Alexander snapped out of his hate-filled trance and looked at his mother, her dark eyes begging him to be reasonable. But all reason had left him the minute he walked into Melanie’s empty bedroom. He needed answers, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get them, including actions of questionable legality.

  “I was nowhere near here last night!” Martin explained. “You can waste all the time you want blaming me, but it won’t bring Melanie back.”

  “Then where were you?!” He pressed his gun harder against Martin’s head, completely ignoring the officers who now had their weapons pointed at him. They could threaten to shoot him all they wanted. He wasn’t going to let up until he had answers.

  Opening his mouth to respond, Martin scanned the room and hesitated, as if he were trying to figure out his story.

  “Tell me!” Alexander bellowed, imploring him to come forward with an alibi. This man had stood by his side through everything. He had lost his daughter this morning. He didn’t know if he could handle losing Martin, too.

  Martin swallowed hard, uncertainty in his gaze. Alexander pinched his lips together, his breathing labored, the gun in his hand like a ticking time bomb. His nostrils flaring, he begged, “Please, tell me.”

  “He was with me!” Alexander’s mother, Colleen, answered, catching him off guard.

  He shot his eyes to her as she approached them, her murderous expr
ession making him feel like a four-year-old little boy instead of the forty-year-old man he was. Mothers had a habit of doing that. He could face some of the most vile and dangerous men who walked the earth, but put him in an interrogation room with his mother and she’d have him singing like a canary in a coal mine in a matter of seconds.

  “Ma?” Struggling to hide his confusion, Alexander focused on his mother’s eyes as she placed her hands on his biceps, trying to placate him.

  “Martin was with me from around eleven last night to just after seven this morning.”

  Alexander’s lips parted as he looked from his mother to Martin, then back at his mom again. He stepped back, lowering his pistol.

  “What was he doing with you last night?”

  “I don’t kiss and tell, dear,” she answered sarcastically. “I’m not so sure you’d be interested in the details.”

  Alexander shot his eyes to Martin, who was readjusting his suit and rubbing his neck. He felt a pang of guilt when he saw the red bruise beginning to form. Martin shrugged, his expression offering him a silent apology.

  “Wha…? I mean, how…? I mean…” Alexander slumped onto the couch, defeated. As much as he didn’t want to believe Martin was the one behind Melanie’s disappearance, at least it was something. Now all he had was the knowledge that whoever did this was sly enough to obtain Martin’s security code and thumbprint to gain entry into the house.

  “He wanted to tell you years ago, but I wouldn’t let him,” Colleen explained.

  “Years? This has been going on for…” He shook his head.

  “He’s always been a good friend of the family,” she continued. “After your father passed, I found myself missing him more than I thought I would. In his line of work, I knew the probability of me outliving him was very high, but when I heard he was killed… I don’t know.” She sighed, joining Alexander on the couch, grabbing his hand in hers. “I got through the funeral being the strong woman everyone thought me to be. But when the dust settled and I was surrounded by Thomas’ ghost, I guess I just wanted to be able to share my pain with someone. Leroy and I, well… We mourned your father together. When I finally moved back to the Boston area after Melanie was born, what started out as a friendship based on shared grief blossomed into something neither one of us expected.”

  “I’m sorry I never said anything, sir,” Martin offered in his normal, curt tone, his voice a little scratchy. “I assure you my relationship with your mother has never interfered with my ability to carry out my responsibilities and it never will.”

  Alexander nodded, still in a daze as he processed this new information and how he’d never put the pieces together before. Shaking his head, he wrapped his arms around his mother.

  “I’m happy for you, Ma.” Kissing her platinum hair, he pulled away and stood up, approaching Martin. “For both of you.” He offered his hand to Martin, who shook it. “But if you hurt her,” Alexander said in a low voice, gesturing to where he just had Martin pinned to the ground, gasping for air, “that was just a taste of what you can expect to see from me.”

  “Sir,” Martin nodded, then broke his composure briefly and gave Alexander a small smile.

  “Mr. Burnham,” Agent Moretti interrupted. “If you two are done sorting this out, I’d like to get back to the investigation since Martin apparently has an alibi.” He looked at Martin. “We do need to speak to you about how someone could have obtained your security code and thumbprint.”

  He stepped forward. “I’m more than happy to answer any of your questions.”

  “I can also have my tech guy help with that,” Alexander offered. “He may be able to shine some light on the safeguards in place in our computer systems.”

  “I would certainly like to speak with him, as well.” He pulled out his notepad again. “What’s his name?”

  Alexander narrowed his gaze, cognizant of Moretti’s thinking. “Jamie Simpson, but I wouldn’t waste your time investigating him. Yes, he has the expertise to hack into even the most stringent computer systems, but he has no motive. Plus, he was at the office all night working on a few things for me.”

  “That may be so,” Moretti said, “but I’d like to be the judge of whether or not he had anything to do with this. If what you say is true, I’m sure we can quickly cross him off our list. In the meantime, the rest of the CARD team is setting up the command center at an elementary school just down the street. They’re already combing through hundreds of tips received from the amber alert. We have local agents going door to door, asking if anyone noticed anything suspicious last night.”

  “Door to door?” Alexander interjected, his voice rising. “That’s your solution to finding my daughter? Asking people if they’ve seen anything suspicious? I thought the FBI was supposed to be experts at this type of thing!” He paced the room, tugging at his dark hair. He knew all these things were important, but he wanted answers. He wanted to know they were close to finding Melanie.

  “Mr. Burnham, I assure you, we’re exploring every avenue possible. Based on what we know so far, this was a meticulously planned abduction. To that end, I’ve been in contact with your publicist. We’ve agreed to go ahead with a press conference this afternoon. Both you and your wife will be present. Many times, it’s the public’s assistance that helps solve these cases, but we need to give them a reason to tear themselves away from their smart phones and keep their eyes peeled for your little girl. We need to make the public think of Melanie as their daughter, too, so they feel vested in her safe return.”

  “That’s it? That’s your genius plan? Have the public do your job for you?”

  “Mr. Burnham—” Moretti began.

  “Do you think that will work?” Olivia interrupted, squeezing Alexander’s arm. When he shot his fiery gaze to hers, she gave him a pleading look. Reluctantly, he bit back his temper.

  “It might. It might not,” Moretti answered truthfully, causing Alexander’s frustration with him to rise. “But, right now, we need to try everything to find your daughter.”

  “Do whatever you want,” Alexander barked, “but while you and your team waste time going door to door and setting up a command center, I’m going to do what you should be doing right now instead of drinking my coffee…and that’s finding my daughter.”

  He grabbed Olivia’s hand, pulling her toward the garage. He didn’t want to be in that house anymore, the memories of Melanie ripping him open. Her soul was carved in the wood frames. Her laughter was in the nails that held it together. Her spirit was in the air he breathed.

  “Mr. Burnham, I must insist you stay out of the investigation,” Agent Moretti ordered. Alexander spun around to face him, his eyes narrowed. “You’re personally involved and can’t possibly act with a clear head, which could not only endanger your life and the lives of all the law enforcement officers here who are trained to find missing children, but it could put your own daughter’s life at risk. Your best course is to remain out of sight and out of the way. All we need is for you to attend the press conference. Let your wife do all the speaking. She’s a much more…likable person than you are. Hold her hand. Rub her back if she cries. But under no circumstances should you conduct your own investigation.”

  Alexander took several slow steps toward him, glowering. “I’ll play your little game, Agent Moretti, but there’s nothing you can do to stop me from doing everything within my power to find my daughter. You’re right. I am personally involved. Sometimes the only time you can get things done is when the stakes are high. And the stakes have never been higher, so I suggest you stay out of my way.” He turned away from him, pulling Olivia with him.

  “I can have you arrested for interfering with an ongoing police investigation!” Moretti called after him.

  “You’d get crucified by the media!” he shouted over his shoulder. Pausing, he faced him once more. “I can just see the headlines. FBI Agent Jails Kidnap Victim’s Father. I’m not so sure the boys in blue need any more bad publicity these days. Don’t int
erfere with my work, and I won’t interfere with yours.”

  Moretti opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut.

  “That’s what I thought.” Alexander spun around again, grabbing Olivia’s hand and heading toward the garage.

  “If you find anything, you’d better tell me!” Moretti shouted, his authoritative tone waning as he made one last stand.

  “Likewise,” Alexander said, having no intention of following through on his promise. He couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but something about Agent Moretti and his vast knowledge of his family’s history didn’t sit well with him. Like the agent said, everyone’s a suspect until proven otherwise…including Moretti.

  “Alex, slow down!” Olivia ordered as he pulled her out of the house and through the garage. The large door was open, letting in the frigid winter air, while crime scene techs searched for evidence Alexander was certain they’d never find. Moretti was right. This was a thoroughly planned abduction. Whoever took Melanie wouldn’t mess up and leave fingerprints or a hair fiber behind.

  Finally able to breathe again for the first time since entering the house this morning, Alexander stopped and drew Olivia into his arms, hugging her tight. He needed to feel something real, something tangible in a world that seemed to turn on its head in the matter of just a few hours.

  He kissed the top of her head, burying his face in her dark curls. Ever since the reality of what happened set in and their house became flooded with law enforcement, Olivia had been surprisingly composed. She had remained focused, just as Alexander had, worried that one missed detail could mean the difference between finding Melanie and having to watch the sun fall this evening, praying she survived the cold night wherever she was. Now that they were alone and away from judgmental eyes, they could finally let go. They had been through many ups and downs over the course of their relationship, but through it all, even when the outcome looked bleak, they always found their way back to each other.