Vanished: A Beautiful Mess Series Novel

by T. K. Leigh

  “Who are you?” Laila asked.

  “My name is Olivia Burnham. Mischa Tate was a very good friend of mine.” A few quiet voices translated in Pashto to those who didn’t understand English very well.

  “What happened?”

  The woman took a deep breath, briefly closing her eyes before looking around the room at all the women. “As you may have already heard, she was murdered. I apologize for all the uncertainty and lack of communication, but it was imperative to get all of you to a safe house in case her death was related to her work with you.” She paused. “Based on the autopsy results, I fear it is.”

  “How did she die?” one of the other women asked.

  “The official cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head causing severe cerebral hemorrhaging. The method is what got my attention.”

  “Which was?” Laila asked, her skin crawling with nerves. She pulled her son closer to her.

  “The police believe she was stoned to death.”

  Several of the women gasped. Laila shared in their horror, her stomach queasy just thinking of what Mischa had endured. She glanced at Fatima, one of the other women Landon had helped save. She was the reason he started the shelter in the first place. She had been a victim of stoning, but she had survived, albeit barely.

  “After discussing with one of the only other people who is aware of, well, all of you, he agreed it was most likely related, that Mischa was probably…” Olivia trailed off, closing her eyes before regaining her composure. “She was probably tortured by someone desperate to find one or all of you, then murdered. We didn’t know whether any of your identities or locations had been compromised, so we erred on the side of caution and brought everyone to a temporary safe house. We’re in the process of securing a safer option for each of you. It’s best that no one return home until we can ensure there’s no longer a threat to your safety.”

  “How long is that going to take?” Laila asked.

  Olivia opened her mouth to answer, but something stopped her. She stepped farther into the room, heading toward Laila.

  “You must be Selena,” she said in a soft voice. “Mischa told me all about your little boy.”

  Laila opened her mouth to correct her, then closed it. For the past thirty-six hours, she had been living in a vacuum, all but forgetting about her new life here in the States, including her new name.

  “He’s my life,” she said, holding her baby a little tighter against her. “I don’t want his life to be tainted with the darkness that has followed me. He needs to know that good really can overcome evil.”

  Olivia tilted her head and gazed at the dark-skinned little boy. “What’s his name?”

  Laila peered at her son, then met Olivia’s dark eyes. “Landon,” she answered. She believed it fitting to name him after the man who saved her life. “He was born here in the States, so he’s an American. I wanted him to have an American name. I probably wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for—”

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Olivia interrupted, giving her an encouraging squeeze on her arm. “And I promise, I’m going to do everything I can to keep you, Landon, and the rest of the women here safe from harm.”

  “I can’t go back,” Laila pleaded. “Little Landon… His father…” Her body began to tremble as she was forced to face memories she would rather leave buried.

  She gazed down at the boy with all the affection a mother could bestow on her child. A family should be built on love and devotion, not honor. Family should not toss a loved one out for not wanting to marry a man fifty years her senior, for not wanting to be subjected to daily abuse, for wanting to be a normal teenage girl.

  “He won’t find you,” Olivia assured her. “I promise. Mischa swore to always keep you safe. And I promised Mischa I would carry out her wishes if anything ever happened to her. She was a wonderful woman with a beautiful heart. Looking around this room, I see her legacy, her life’s work. I will not let her sacrifice, or her brother’s, be in vain.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  December 20

  10:00 AM

  “MY WIFE?” ALEXANDER MURMURED in disbelief, staring at the black figure on the computer screen.

  Swallowing hard, his mind. What did his wife have to do with any of this? It was his company that set up the women’s shelter in Afghanistan. It was his employee who ran it, then apparently decided to take matters into his own hands and smuggle women out of the country. Olivia had never shown an interest in the workings of the shelter. Granted, she was involved with quite a few charities here in the States, but she had absolutely no connection to the shelter.

  “Hmm,” the man said, his voice still obscured.

  The last of the church bells rang in the background. Alexander glanced at his watch to see it was just after ten in the morning. People across the city were sitting in church, praying for forgiveness for their sins, while he feared he would never have the chance to atone for his.

  “It appears you do not know your wife as well as you think you do. You may want to rectify that if you want to find your daughter.”

  He opened his mouth to speak, but the screen went black. A flurry of activity erupted behind him as Gibson tried to get the man back on the screen. Alexander knew it was useless. He wouldn’t answer. He’d given them exactly what he wanted them to know, nothing more.

  Jumping to his feet, Alexander scanned the faces around him. He wasn’t sure where to begin. All he knew was he needed to get to Olivia before anyone else did. He’d already lost a daughter. He wasn’t going to lose his wife, too. The only thing that gave him any peace of mind was knowing Martin had stayed behind to keep an eye on her.

  Pushing through the crowd of agents, Alexander stormed toward the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Moretti asked.

  He spun around. “I need to talk to Olivia, see whether any of this is true.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” He stepped toward Alexander. “She’s a person of interest in this investigation now. I’ll be the one speaking with her.”

  “Person of interest? Person of interest?” Fuming, Alexander’s skin prickled with heat. “She’s my wife!”

  “If you two are as close as it appears you are…” Moretti leaned into him. “How is it you claim to know nothing of her involvement in this? If this man is to be believed, she violated over a dozen federal laws by smuggling these women into our country!”

  “We don’t know anything for sure. Even if she did what that guy wants us to believe, we shouldn’t treat Olivia like a criminal. She’s a better person than me…than any of us.” He glanced around the room, one of the black-and-white passport photos catching his attention. He stormed toward the wall. “Look at this face.” He ripped the photo of Fatima off the wall and held it mere inches from Moretti’s eyes. Alexander could see the anger in his fiery gaze at his disregard for the crime scene.

  “It used to be covered with scars and bruises. With all the swelling, you couldn’t distinguish her eyes from her nose. Thanks to my friend, Landon, she got better. She finally had a safe place to call home, and not in the shelter. Here in the United States. And you know what I did? Nothing. Absolutely nothing!” Alexander roared, the regret he felt from failing Landon returning with a vengeance.

  “I should have done something, like he asked me to,” he continued, lowering his voice. He returned to the wall, running his fingers over Mischa’s photo. “I could have used my resources to make sure these girls had a better life, but I didn’t.” His shoulders slumping, he faced Moretti once more. “I followed the rules. I didn’t engage. I walked away, even after Landon came to me asking for help. Even after the clinic had been attacked. Even after knowing these girls’ lives were in danger.” He drew in a shaky breath, a year of remorse leaving him as he exhaled. He couldn’t turn back the clock, but he could do what was right going forward.

  “If my wife played a part, we should thank her because that means these women…” He gestured to the pho
tos. “These women are all alive today because of her, because of Landon, not because of me. If you want to treat her like a criminal, I know nothing I say is going to stop you. We don’t even know what her role in all of this was, if anything. Instead of jumping to conclusions, I’d prefer to work together to bring all this madness to an end, to bring my daughter back home.” He looked back at the photos. “And find these women before someone else does.”

  Alexander stormed out of the house, ignoring Moretti’s orders that he come back and answer his questions. Rushing down the street toward his SUV, he avoided the press the best he could without seeming like a prick, repeating “no comment” over and over again as he fought off microphones and cameras. It took all the restraint he could muster not to punch a reporter in his face when he asked if they had found Melanie’s body.

  Finally in the relative solitude of the SUV, Alexander sped away, heading toward his house as he tried to get in touch with Olivia.

  “Alex,” she answered, picking up on the third ring. “Is everything okay?”

  He hesitated, not sure what to say to her. Did his wife really help smuggle dozens of women out of Afghanistan and into this country? How did she keep that from him for so long? How did Mischa factor in all this? Regardless of what Olivia did or didn’t do, this wasn’t a conversation they could have over the phone.

  “Maleek’s dead,” he told her. “He’s an Afghan national.”

  “Afghan?” Her voice rose in pitch. He could sense her surprise and unease, as if she were putting the pieces together.

  “Yes. And Melanie…” He drew in a breath. “She was here, but she’s not anymore.”

  “Where—”

  “I don’t know, love, but…” Pausing, he glanced out the window at the snow falling at a steady clip. “I know what they want, what they’re after.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  Pulling his bottom lip between his teeth, he shook his head, his eyes drooping. “We’ll talk when I get home. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Alex, what—”

  “I love you, Olivia,” he interrupted, then hung up.

  She probably had a thousand questions about what he found at Maleek’s house, where Melanie could be, why she was taken. He simply couldn’t answer any of those questions without looking her in the eye and asking her the question he feared the answer to. If she was involved, he wanted to be angry. He should have been absolutely furious that she kept it from him for so long. Something like this could have destroyed his company’s reputation.

  Despite it all, he was proud to call her his wife. He should have done what she found in her heart to do. Instead, he was too concerned with keeping the lucrative contracts that had made his company as profitable as it was. He didn’t care about helping people. He didn’t care about doing what was right, about being a good person. All he cared about was what would make the company the most money. He was selfish, and because of that, he lost a dear friend. This was his penance, his retribution for his failure to act. But Melanie shouldn’t pay the price. This was his burden to bear, and his alone.

  Struggling to keep his tired eyes open, he cracked the window, allowing the chill to fill the car. For days, he hadn’t slept for more than a few hours and it was starting to wear him down. He used all the little tricks he learned in the navy when forced to stay awake in some hole. One minute of sleep could mean the difference between life and death. He tried to keep his mind busy, thinking about everything from the beginning, about who could have been behind his daughter’s abduction.

  He swallowed through the heavy lump in his throat when his thoughts roamed to Melanie and what she could be going through at this moment. His stomach churned when flashes of her face appeared before him, begging him to let her come home. These were people who placed little value on human life. They took what was arguably one of the most peaceful religions and distorted it, waging a war against everything they disagreed with in the name of their perverted views. They preyed on the vulnerable, promising them everything a young, poor boy from a remote village in Afghanistan could want. These young men had nothing to believe in…until now. He had seen it too many times.

  Alexander ran his hand over his face, slapping at his cheeks to keep himself awake. Every time he blinked, memories from his past flashed before his eyes. Growing up in Connecticut. Moving to Boston. Going to Red Sox games with his dad. His father’s vacant seat at the dinner table. His mother’s excuses that he had an important job. Cutting class his first semester of Harvard and going to the navy recruitment office. Boot camp. Deployment. The last time he saw his father the night before he left for BUD/S training. Meeting Landon for the first time. The last time he saw Landon alive.

  He wondered if his friend had gone to Olivia immediately after begging him for help. Would he really go behind his back and ask his wife for help, then keep it a secret from him? That didn’t sound like the Landon he knew. Then again, the Landon he knew would certainly bend, perhaps even break, the rules to get what he wanted.

  Alexander tried not to jump to any conclusions before he had a chance to talk to Olivia about what she did or didn’t know. Despite not wanting to believe he had been so blind as to not see it, he feared his wife held the missing piece to this puzzle.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  December 20

  10:15 AM

  “ALEX?” OLIVIA REPEATED INTO the phone, her pulse racing, but there was no response. She glanced at the screen and saw he had ended the call. She didn’t know what to think. All she knew was it had to be one hell of a coincidence that Maleek was an Afghan national.

  Pulling her lip between her teeth, she straightened her spine, blinking back the tears fighting to escape. She knew the risk involved when she had agreed to help. In the final days before her murder, Mischa had warned Olivia she thought someone had figured it out. Olivia was simply a silent conspirator, for lack of a better word. She only provided the funds for Mischa to do what she needed to ensure these women landed safely in this country, then had enough financial support to begin their new lives here. She was largely ignorant of most of the details…until she went over to Mischa’s for coffee at the beginning of the month and she shoved folder after folder in front of her, telling her names, cities, phone numbers, how to go about getting in touch with each and every one of them if something were to happen to her.

  Never did Olivia think something would. Now she was left to carry on her legacy, but at what cost?

  The instant Olivia realized Melanie had been taken, she feared her association with Mischa may have had something to do with it, but she didn’t think it possible. No one could have known of her involvement. It was impossible to trace anything, even the money, back to her. They made sure of that. She had told herself it was just a series of unfortunate coincidences. Now she knew it was all connected. She had a feeling Alexander knew, too. She prayed her secrecy wouldn’t be their undoing.

  Dropping her phone into the pocket of her jeans, she headed into the kitchen and straight toward the coffeemaker. For the first time since this all began, Colleen wasn’t in there. Instead, Olivia found her in the living area just off the kitchen, talking in hushed tones with Tyler, his wife and little boy playing on the floor.

  Since getting back from Kiera’s, her mind had been preoccupied after hearing all those women’s stories. Now, she had to juggle that along with Alexander’s cryptic phone call. She felt pulled in a thousand different directions, as if the weight of the secret she’d been keeping for so long were about to crush her.

  Frozen in place, she stared at a seemingly happy family playing in front of an elaborate Christmas tree. Envy trickled through her veins. That should have been her laughing with her little girl, watching Christmas movies and talking about Santa’s visit in just a few days. Instead, she was alone, unsure of whether they’d be a family again by Christmas…or ever.

  “Mrs. Burnham,” Agent Long said, approaching Olivia, snapping her out of her thoughts.

&nb
sp; Colleen and Tyler looked at Olivia, finally noticing her. Their eyes were full of compassion and unease, silently asking her if she knew anything. She didn’t know what to say. How could she possibly tell these people, this family who took her in and treated her like one of their own, it was her fault Melanie was taken? These were good people who didn’t deserve things like this to happen to them. But Olivia? She never knew what love was until Alexander all but forced his way into her heart. These people loved unconditionally and without hesitation. Now, she wasn’t sure she deserved it.

  “Is everything okay?” Agent Long asked, placing a hand on Olivia’s shoulder. She met her eyes, searching.

  Olivia felt exposed, as if Agent Long were able to cut through the lies and see the truth of what she had done. Agent Moretti most likely told her what they found at Maleek’s house. It was only a matter of time until it all unraveled.

  “Alexander’s on his way home,” she replied, avoiding Agent Long’s question. Nothing was okay. Nothing had been okay since she had heard about Mischa’s death. She doubted whether anything would ever be okay again. “He called to tell me Maleek was found dead, but Melanie wasn’t there.”

  Tyler stood from the couch and headed toward her, wrapping his arms around her. She allowed herself this one moment of sympathy. When Alexander returned and the truth revealed itself, she doubted she’d get any compassion from this group of people. They would never understand why she got involved, the importance of what Mischa was doing.

  After hearing what was going on and what Landon wanted to do, Olivia felt compelled to help, to do everything within her power to give these women, women who had suffered a traumatic event at the hands of those who should have looked out for and protected them, a second chance.

  “It’ll be okay, Libby,” Tyler comforted her. “You know Alex. He won’t stop until he gets Melanie back and makes the person who’s behind all of this suffer for the rest of his pathetic life.”