Laney rushed over. Two images—Willow’s sketch and a photograph of a convict—were on the screen.
“That’s definitely him.” She couldn’t contain her smile. They had identified one of the kidnappers. That meant they were a step closer to finding the missing children and closing down the child trafficking ring.
“You were the perfect witness, Laney,” Grayson said. “I knew you’d be the key to identifying the kidnappers.”
“Willow was the key. If she hadn’t been able to sketch what I saw—”
“Let’s give credit where credit’s due,” Willow countered. “You managed to really see this guy and commit his face to memory. That’s hard to do, even under the best of circumstances. I consider myself fortunate to get a 75 percent likelihood of a match.”
“And that’s a high average.” Grayson added, saving the image to his laptop.
“What do we do now?” Laney asked.
“We put out an APB on David Rallings Jr. Tonight.”
*
The sun was low in the sky, the air crisp. Grayson sat on the porch swing, rocking with one foot. The three dogs had followed him out, and after a brief romp around the yard, they had each found a place on the porch to relax in silence. The windows were open, the aroma of chicken and freshly baked Pillsbury rolls wafting through the screen, mixed with the scent of honeysuckle and pine, nearly masking the now faint smell of smoke. Light chatter and low bouts of laughter came from the kitchen where Laney and Willow were helping Rose prepare dinner.
In any other circumstances, this would have been an idyllic fall afternoon, the evening quiet and relaxing.
He was tense, though, anxious to hear from the local PD. The APB on David Rallings had been issued, and Grayson was hopeful they’d be able to bring the guy in for questioning soon. They had a name, a last known address. And a lengthy criminal record with multiple charges for assault, robbery and domestic violence. He’d served jail time five years ago, but had been clean—or just avoided being caught—ever since. Kent had sent officers to Rallings’s house, and they were procuring a search warrant.
Things were coming together.
Unfortunately, there had been no match on the second suspect. They might have an ID soon, though. If Rallings wasn’t at his house, if he couldn’t be located, both sketches would be released to the media on the ten o’clock news.
The dogs came alert to the sound of tires on gravel, lifting their heads simultaneously, eyes focused on the driveway.
A candy-apple-red 1965 Camaro rounded a curve in the drive.
Arden. Finally.
He loved his sister, but her fear of flying made it difficult for her to move from location to location quickly. But he’d choose her any day over a more accessible computer expert.
She’d driven ten hours, from a contract job in Georgia, to make it to Maryland this morning, heading directly to the precinct to examine their system. He wondered what she’d found, but was certain if something was there, she’d know it. She was a genius, graduating from high school at fourteen and from college with a master’s degree by the time she was eighteen. Focused and independent, she marched to her own drum. That was one of his favorite things about her. Unfortunately, along with the genius IQ came some quirks that didn’t necessarily endear her to everyone.
She came up the walk, a backpack slung over her shoulder. With her black shoulder-length hair, fair skin and blue eyes, she looked much like their mom.
“Hi, Gray. Mom said to tell you you’ll be in hot water if she doesn’t hear from you before the week is out.” She grinned, stepping into his embrace.
“Is that the way you greet the brother you haven’t seen in six months—with threats from Mom?”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.” She brushed a hand over her hair, sweeping thick, straight bangs from her eyes. It was a new look. One that had probably taken her a year to decide on.
“You look great, kid.”
“Flattery won’t get you anywhere. You owe me big time, and you know I’m keeping track.”
Grayson laughed. “I’m sure you are.”
“What’s with the dogs?” she asked, bending down to scratch each behind the ears.
“Two of them belong to my witness, Laney. The other is a dog she’s training for the MDP.”
“Laney, huh? Chief Andrews told me about her this morning. He thinks highly of her.”
“I do, too.”
“Hmmm…guess I need to meet her, then.” With that, she walked into the house without ringing the doorbell or knocking. That was pure Arden. No qualms about walking into other people’s space, barely any acknowledgment of the boundaries most people lived inside. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the rules. She just tended to ignore them unless it was absolutely necessary to do otherwise.
He followed her into the house and wasn’t surprised when she made a beeline for the kitchen. Arden loved cars, computers and food.
Laney and Willow were slathering butter on slices of bread. Rose was tossing a salad. Hopefully she’d had nothing more to do with the cooking. If her burnt cinnamon rolls and mud-like cookies were any indication, the woman should be kept far away from meal preparations.
Inhaling deeply, Arden dropped her backpack on the floor.
“Something smells good. Do you have room for one more?” she asked, taking a seat at the kitchen table before she was invited to do so.
Grayson shook his head.
“Of course there’s room,” Rose said, setting a plate in front of her. “But get yourself out of that chair and help first. If you want to eat, you’ve got to work. Get the tea from the fridge and some glasses from the cupboard to the right of the sink.”
Laney looked horrified at Rose’s barked instructions, and Willow tried hard to squelch her snicker.
Arden laughed outright.
That was another thing Grayson loved about his sister. She knew how to laugh at herself. “Laney. Rose.” Grayson gestured toward Arden as she got up to do as she’d been told. “This is my sister, Arden. She’s the computer-forensics specialist I told you about.”
Laney and Rose smiled in greeting. “Nice to meet you,” Laney said. “Make yourself at home here.”
“And you remember Willow…” Grayson began.
“Hey, Willow,” Arden interrupted. “It’s been a while. How’s the facial-recognition system working out?”
“Perfectly. Which you know. So stop fishing for compliments,” Willow responded with a smile, setting a platter of roasted chicken in the middle of the table.
“Not fishing. Making sure the program I designed works,” Arden responded, reaching for a piece of bread and getting her hand slapped away by Rose. “Got paid a lot of money to do it, and I want to be sure the FBI is happy with the return on their investment. I’ve been toying with some upgrades to speed the processing, mostly by giving it the ability to read multiple file formats without conversion.”
“I didn’t know upgrades were in the budget.” Grayson cut in, trying to steer away from the more technical discussion that was sure to ensue once Arden got on a roll.
“They aren’t. I just feel it’s not the best product I could have delivered. The first set of upgrades will be on me.” Arden tried to snag a cookie from the jar on the counter, and Rose sighed.
“Young lady, we haven’t even said our grace yet.”
“Oh. Right. Let’s do that, then.” Arden sat, and everyone else followed suit.
“Grayson,” Rose asked as she took a seat opposite him, “would you be willing to do the honors? And if it comes to mind, pray for my niece and her safety. She’s too stubborn to listen at times, and we—”
“Rose!” Laney nearly shouted. “Enough!”
“Enough what, dear?” Rose asked with an innocent smile.
“Let’s pray,” Laney responded, and Grayson was pretty sure she mumbled before I kill someone under her breath as everyone bowed their heads.
When he finished praying, he leaned close t
o her ear and caught a whiff of freshly baked rolls and something flowery and sweet.
“Murder is a capital offense,” he whispered, and she choked on her sip of tea.
He patted her back until she stopped coughing and thought about leaving his hand right where it was—resting between her shoulder blades, his fingers just touching the edges of her ponytail.
“So, Laney,” Arden said suddenly, her voice a little too loud in the quiet room. “My brother tells me you’re a dog trainer.”
“That she is,” Rose interjected. “Probably the best in the country.”
“Let’s not exaggerate, Aunt Rose.” Laney shook her head.
“No,” Arden argued. “Your aunt is right. I thought you might be the Laney Kensington from Colorado, and you are, right?”
“Yes,” Laney said, her voice tight, her expression unreadable.
“I’ve read all about you,” Arden said through a mouthful of buttered bread.
“I’m sure there wasn’t all that much to read.”
“Sure there was. Up until the past couple of years, you were in the news all the time.”
Uh-oh. Here she goes, Grayson thought. Arden had a photographic memory…and no filter. “I saw a picture of you, Brody and a family you and your team pulled off the mountain—they ran an article about you being the youngest dog handler on the Colorado Wilderness Search and Rescue Team.”
Laney couldn’t hide her surprise. “I thought that article only ran locally. Were you a Colorado resident?”
“Oh, no. I liked reading good news stories when I was a kid, so I developed an app that collects and downloads good news from more than three hundred online publications worldwide.”
Grayson knew the real reason Arden had developed that application. At thirteen, she’d worried too much about the state of the world—the news stories would keep her up all night. In typical Arden fashion, she’d decided the best way to stop worrying about the bad news was to read only the good. She’d never told anyone but Grayson that, and he’d kept her secret. For her to even admit to the app…she was up to something.
“That must be a lot of reading each day,” Willow interjected.
“Surprisingly, no. People would rather read about calamity, so that’s what news reporters cover,” Arden countered. “Anyway, when I saw that article, I put you and your team into my search engine so I could follow your adventures—they were pretty cool. Volunteers risking their lives to save others. I have tremendous respect for people like you.”
“Um, thanks. But I gave that up a couple years ago.” Laney’s face had gone ashen, but of course Arden wouldn’t stop.
“It’s a shame. I read that you and Brody had the highest success rate for live finds of any dog-and-handler team in the nation.”
“Those stats were probably inflated,” Laney responded. “Besides, I retired Brody when he was six—bad hips.”
“Do you think he misses the work?” Arden asked.
“At times.”
“Do you?”
“No. I lost the passion for it, so it was better I walk away. You have to be on point for wilderness search and rescue. People’s lives depend on your ability to stay focused and do your job.”
It was a practiced answer, and Grayson wondered what the real reason was.
“What about Jax?” Arden pressed.
“What do you mean?”
“I read he was even better than Brody. Do you think he misses it?”
“Lay off with the twenty questions, Arden. Laney’s had a rough couple of days.” Grayson figured the direct approach would be the only chance of making his sister realize she was treading on thin ice.
“Sure. No problem.” Arden grabbed another piece of bread. “I miss reading those stories, though. They were some of the best. It’s a shame that avalanche killed your teammates. Must have been hard on you, huh?”
“I think,” Laney said, pushing away from the table, “I’m done.” She headed to the foyer.
Grayson got up to follow her.
TWELVE
She needed some air, because she felt like she was suffocating. She unlocked the front door and yanked it open.
“Not the best idea, Laney,” Grayson said quietly.
She turned to face him. “I have to check on the dogs.”
“You have to stay safe,” he responded, opening the coat closet and taking out her jacket. He dropped it over her shoulders, lifting her hair out from under the collar. “So if you need to check on the dogs, I’ll go with you.”
“You have your sketches and an ID. I’m not necessary to the case any longer, so maybe it’s time for me to keep myself safe.”
“Still grumpy?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then I’ll just assume my sister’s comments upset you.”
“They didn’t.” Not really. It was the memories that upset her. The guilt.
“Arden has no boundaries, but she doesn’t mean any harm.”
“I know.” Laney walked outside.
The sun was just falling below the horizon, golden rays resting on leaves tinged with gold and red. A hint of smoke still hung in the air, mixing with the crisp fresh scent of early fall. That she was there to enjoy the beauty of it was a matter of chance or circumstance. That’s what she had always believed, because it had been too hard to believe that the God who had allowed her mother to be beaten and mistreated actually cared about the world or the people He’d created.
Her grandfather had disagreed. Rose disagreed, her years as a missionary in Africa sealing her belief in God’s grace and mercy, His direction and guidance.
“You’re sad,” Grayson said, pressing a hand to her lower back and guiding her down the porch stairs.
“Not really. I just wish…”
“What?”
“That I had the kind of faith you have. The faith Rose has. The kind that says everything is going to be okay. No matter how bad things seem.”
“Is that what you think my faith tells me?” he asked, his hand slipping from her back to her waist as they walked side by side. She could almost imagine that they were more than an FBI agent and his only witness. She could almost imagine that he was worth pinning hopes and dreams on, worthy of putting her trust in.
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” He stopped, urging her around so they were face-to-face. “It doesn’t tell me that everything will be okay. It just tells me that no matter what happens, I’ll be okay. Life is tough, Laney. No matter how strong my faith, no matter how much I believe, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m living in a sinful and fallen world. Bad stuff happens.” He frowned, touching the very edge of her head wound. “People are hurt. People are kidnapped. People die. I can’t stop that from happening, but I can do everything in my power to make sure the people responsible pay for their crimes.”
“Your purpose, huh?”
“Exactly.” He smiled and started walking toward the kennels again.
*
It took two hours to check on the dogs, give them playtime and attention and settle them for the night. It was her normal routine, one she’d carved out of the ashes of her old life. She loved it, but on nights like tonight—with the early fall air touching her cheeks and the crisp hint of winter in the air—she longed to be out on the trail again, working with a team, searching for the missing. Grayson moved beside her as she fed the last dog, locked the last kennel.
“Done?” he asked.
“Yes. It takes a while. I’m sorry if I pulled you from your job.”
“Right now, you’re my job.”
“Your job is to find Olivia and the other children.”
“I’m working on that, too.”
“Do you think it’s really possible they’ll be found?”
“I am going to do everything in my power to make it happen.”
“If I’d been able to keep them from getting Olivia—”
“Don’t,” he cut in.
“What?”
“
Don’t play that ‘if only’ game with yourself. Regrets don’t do anything for anyone. As a matter of fact, they usually just keep us from doing what we could and should and would accomplish if we weren’t so caught up in the past.”
“Did Rose pay you to say that?” she asked, because she’d heard the same thing from her aunt more than once.
“No.” He laughed. “Why? Have you heard it one too many times?”
“Maybe.”
“Because of what happened with your team?”
She stopped short at his words, her heart slamming so hard against her ribs, she thought it might burst. “That’s something I don’t talk about.”
“Maybe you should,” he countered.
“Maybe. But not tonight.”
“Okay,” he said simply. He didn’t say any more. Didn’t press her to tell him what had happened. If he asked Arden, he’d get the truth, but Laney doubted he’d ask. She had the feeling that he’d wait until she was ready to tell him.
She liked that about him, the patience, the willingness to allow her to reveal what she wanted when she wanted. She liked him.
Moonlight painted the grass gold. Crickets chirped a constant melody. And Laney? She felt oddly at peace. Just for a moment, she allowed herself really to believe that Grayson was right. That everything happened according to God’s plan. Her childhood, career choices, and search-and-rescue successes and failures all converging to make her into the person God needed her to be.
And that maybe, just maybe, Olivia was in her path last night for a reason.
And maybe that reason was to bring Olivia and the others home. With hope in her heart, she silently prayed for the strength to see it through.
*
Laney looked beautiful in the moonlight.
The thought was one that Grayson couldn’t allow himself to entertain. Eventually, the kidnapping case would be closed. Laney would no longer be part of his investigation.
And then what?
He knew what he should do. Walk away. Let Laney go her way while he went his.
But there was something about Laney, something that he couldn’t ignore. Something he wasn’t sure he wanted to ignore.
Love Inspired Suspense May 2015 #2 Page 51
