by Elle Gray
“That would be great, thank you.”
Brock stood up again to make her coffee and Olivia took the case notes up, scanning them with fresh eyes. Hopefully, now that she’d gotten multiple uninterrupted hours of sleep, she’d be able to pick up on any patterns she might have missed before. There were detailed profiles of Amelia and her family members in the file that Brock added in, but they didn’t tell her much she didn’t already know, other than the fact that Gabriel had recently been a lawyer for a now-convicted murderer.
“Did you see that Gabriel was a lawyer for a murderer? That’s heavy stuff. Do you think that might be enough of a motive for someone to target his family?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if he’d won the case, I would understand, but I read up on the case. It seems like Gabriel even knew it was a lost cause from the start. I don’t think he gets a choice in who he represents. Seems like he’s a public defense lawyer.”
Olivia sighed and continued to flick through the pages. She felt Brock nudge her arm and accepted the coffee as he handed it to her.
“Thanks.”
“So,” Brock started, sitting on the edge of the bed. “New partner. I barely know a thing about you. Care to divulge a few details?”
“Shouldn’t we be looking at the case?”
“All of the best lightbulb moments happen when you stop looking so hard. And if you don’t stop frowning at that case file, you’re going to have permanent lines on your head forever.”
“I’m sure there are worse things than a few wrinkles. But actually, annoyingly... I agree that focusing too hard never helps. It’s just extra frustrating.”
“Annoyingly, huh? I really get to you, don’t I?”
Olivia ignored the question, thinking that might be the best way to deal with a man as pompous as Brock. “I’ll tell you three facts if you promise we can get back to the case right after.”
“Alright, it’s a deal. I’ll start with an easy question. Where did you grow up?”
Olivia chuckled. “You call that an easy question? Well, here, there, and everywhere, to be honest. My dad is in the military. We moved around quite a lot until I was a teenager. Then my mom decided enough was enough and we settled in DC.”
“A military brat, huh? Me too,” Brock said with an easy smile. “Seems like we have something in common then. Did you ever live abroad?”
“No. We hopped between a few states, but we never had to go too far. How about you?”
“We did a fair amount of travel, but mostly in America. My dad went out to Iraq for a while, but we stayed put, of course.”
“Did it bother you? Moving around so much?” she asked.
Brock shrugged. “It was hard in some ways. It was hard to make friends because I was never at a school long enough to really settle down. But luckily, I’ve got a lot of natural charm, so I did okay.”
Olivia rolled her eyes and Brock grinned. “What about you? Did you hate it?”
“I didn’t hate it, but I was definitely happier once we settled in DC. It was hard because my dad would be away for months at a time, and it was always hard to reach him. Still is now. But we had a good life.”
Had. That was the key word in that sentence. For Olivia, life hadn’t been good since Veronica died. Now, her mother had disappeared off the face of the Earth too, and her father didn’t seem interested in keeping up with her either. Part of her thought that maybe if she could go back in time and relive those days where they were constantly on the road, she’d do it. At least they were all together then.
“Olivia?”
She looked up to meet Brock’s eyes. He raised an eyebrow.
“You kind of zoned out there. I asked you if your family is still in the District?”
Olivia felt her mouth dry out. She tried to swallow, but it was an effort to do so. How could she explain to a near stranger that her whole world had been turned upside down and she didn’t know how to make it right again?
“Not really,” Olivia said vaguely. Brock watched her with interest for a moment, but held back, seeming to realize he’d stumbled across a sensitive subject. His eyes drifted back to the case file.
“Alright, new question. What do you do when you’re not doing this?” he asked, gesturing to the file. Olivia sighed.
“I like to read, but I don’t have as much time for it as I might like. I finished Jane Eyre for the fifth time the other day.”
“The fifth time? I couldn’t even get through that book once,” Brock replied, wrinkling his nose.
“It’s a beautiful book. No one writes like the Brontes anymore. Not to mention that it’s full of drama. You should try it again. You might actually find something in there that you like.”
“I don’t think I’ll be doing that,” Brock said. “But thanks for the recommendation, I guess.”
Olivia felt a little sour at his response. After all, he was the one who wanted to get to know her, and all he’d done so far was make fun of her interests. She sniffed.
“Well, you asked. What do you do? Sit around and sneer at what makes other people happy?”
Brock grinned. “You’ve really got me pegged, haven’t you?”
Olivia rolled her eyes at him. “You seem pretty black and white to me.”
“Alright, then let’s switch it up. Why don’t you ask me something about me?”
“I’m not sure I’m interested in knowing anything about you.”
“Okay, ouch. Come on, it can be anything.”
Olivia chewed her lip. She didn’t want to ask anything really personal, and yet she couldn’t help feeling curious about what made Brock tick. Beneath his cocky exterior, there had to be something that made him act like a real human being with feelings. She met his eyes, feeling a surge of confidence.
“Alright. What case have you covered that’s stuck with you the most?”
Brock’s smile slid ever so slightly. Olivia immediately realized it was the wrong question. There was a reason that FBI agents kept their business to themselves. She just essentially asked him which horrifying case had scarred him the most. No one kept a catalog of nice stories from the work they did. Olivia wished she hadn’t said anything at all, because now Brock looked like he was stuck between telling her something horrific and staying completely silent.
“Maybe that’s a story for another time,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers. “We all have skeletons in the closet, right? I don’t think now is the time or place to tell you what mine are. Maybe when this case is over and done with, I’ll explain.”
Olivia nodded, not wanting to push his buttons any further. He might be the master of getting a reaction out of her, but now that she’d done the same to him, she felt nothing but guilt. She’d taken it too far. She wanted to apologize, but when she opened her mouth to speak, nothing came out. And then, the moment to say something had passed.
Brock broke the silence by taking a deep sigh and grabbing the manila folder, opening it on his lap once again. He was acting like the conversation hadn’t even happened, but Olivia could sense the elephant in the room. His smile was long gone now.
“Alright, playtime’s over, I think,” Brock announced, pretending to study the file with particular interest. “We should get back to it.”
Olivia nodded, though he wasn’t looking at her now. She took a sip of some coffee for something to do, trying to swallow her guilt along with the brown liquid.
“We still haven’t come up with a single thing that could be used as a motive,” Brock said thoughtfully. “We don’t have enemies of the family to consider. It seems like the Barnes family keeps their social circle small. So why would someone want to take Amelia? And why or how did they get her all the way from Seattle to here?”
“Jealousy?” Olivia offered, hoping to immerse herself in the work and forget the awkwardness between her and Brock. “Everyone wants what they don’t have. Perhaps it’s someone who wants money and status like Amelia’s parents, so they took something priceless from them.”
“It’s a good theory. It’s like the family said, they would have paid anything to get Amelia back,” he mused. “But he’s not some superstar bigshot lawyer, just a public defender. They didn’t even ask for the reward money. Maybe it’s about humiliating the family for some personal slight?”
“But then why would they let Amelia go in that scenario? Remorse?”
“Possibly.” The pair of them fell silent. The truth was, they were once again stuck. Neither of them was any closer to figuring out what had happened. Olivia rubbed her temple. Her headache was seemingly becoming a permanent feature.
“We must be missing something,” Brock muttered irritably, flipping the pages of the file to scan them. “There’s only one other thing I can think of, and it seems... it seems too dark to be possible.”
“We’re used to darkness in this job, right?” Olivia said quietly. “What’s on your mind?”
Brock sucked in a breath. “Maybe whoever did it knows the family. They know how to get into the house somehow without being caught. And they know that Amelia is non-verbal. They knew that they could take her away and do horrible things to her—or hand her off to a trafficker offering more money than the reward. She’d never be able to say a word because she’s unable to articulate her experiences. And that’s why they were able to let her go. Because whoever did it had already had their fun, and they showed some mercy knowing... knowing…”
“That they’d never be caught,” Olivia finished. She didn’t want to admit it, but it was a good theory. She didn’t want to imagine that poor Amelia had suffered even more than they thought, but it was entirely possible. They didn’t have enough information to decide whether the hunch had any weight to it, but if it was true, did they have any reason to believe others might be at risk?
“The hospital said there was no sign of sexual trauma,” she told him. “So that could be a major dent in the trafficking theory.”
“That they know of,” Brock countered. “We have no way of knowing what went on wherever she was captured.”
Olivia nodded. There were so many questions and so few answers. She knew that one thing was for sure: if the kidnapper didn’t strike again, then they might never get answers. Was it be better to never get justice for Amelia, or to find the culprit after they decided to strike again? Olivia felt sick to her stomach at the thought of someone waiting out there to do the whole thing over again.
“We have to catch this person before they do it again,” Brock murmured. Olivia nodded in agreement. He was right. That was the only option.
The rest was unthinkable.
Seven
Olivia woke to sunlight streaming in through the window of the B&B and a foggy headache that made her groan out loud. She couldn’t believe she had fallen asleep again. Maybe she was more tired than she’d even realized. She sat up and noticed that she was lying on the sofa in Brock’s room. A blanket was draped over her and she knew she didn’t put it there herself. Brock must have covered her with it after she fell asleep, and the thought made her heart beat a little faster.
She tried to piece together the previous night in her mind, though she was still half-asleep. She and Brock had spent what felt like years going around in circles, trying to figure out more details about the case, but they’d come up with nothing. Olivia wasn’t a defeatist, but she’d never had such a challenging case before. The complete lack of evidence was making her feel like there must be something glaringly obvious that they’d missed, but what that might be, she had no clue.
She glanced around the room. Brock had passed out on the bed, clutching the manila folder beside him like a child’s teddy bear. He was still fully dressed, shoes and all, and he hadn’t managed to clamber under the sheets. Olivia allowed herself a moment to be amused at how different Brock looked when he was asleep, unable to come out with annoying quips and snarky comments. The fact that his mouth was hanging wide open was an added bonus.
“Not so cool now,” she murmured to herself with a giggle.
Olivia stood up and folded the blanket, trying to get herself organized for the day. Her body was already crying out for coffee, but she didn’t want to wake Brock up. It was only six and she felt like since they hadn’t gotten to sleep until at least two-thirty, he deserved to stay asleep for a little longer.
Olivia didn’t want to admit it, but Brock was shaping up to be a pretty good partner for the case. He asked all of the right questions, even if finding the answers was proving to be very difficult. He kept the mood light and despite his annoying teasing, he did seem to have some sense of when to take things more seriously. Olivia knew, at least, that she could count on him for the duration of the case, and that was all she needed from him. She hoped they’d be done with the case pretty quickly and then, they would both be able to go their separate ways. Even if she found his company somewhat enjoyable, she always found it easier to work alone most of the time. Isolating her bad experiences in the job somehow made it easier to cope with. Knowing that she was alone in many of her experiences meant that no one would ever have to relate, and strangely, that made her feel better about things.
Olivia’s phone vibrated in her pocket and her heart immediately dropped to her stomach. She doubted anyone calling at six in the morning would have any good news for her. She pulled out her phone to see that it was Maggie Stone. She took a deep breath. This definitely wouldn’t be good news.
She picked up the call.
“Olivia Knight speaking.”
“Olivia, hi. I’m glad you picked up,” Maggie said, rushing to get her words out. “We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s going on?”
“There’s been another disappearance.”
Olivia had thought she was ready to hear those words, but they still knocked the wind out of her. There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment, and all that Olivia could hear was her blood thumping in her ears.
“Olivia?”
“I’m here,” she rasped. “Okay. Okay, we can deal with this. What details do you have so far?”
“The missing person is Sophia Edwards. She’s fifteen, blonde, five foot four. Her parents called a few minutes ago to say that she wasn’t in her bedroom when they checked. No windows or doors were unlocked, and there was no sign of a struggle. Absolutely no evidence left either. She’s just... gone.”
Olivia felt her knees buckle underneath her. She had to shuffle back to sit down on the sofa. It was completely identical to Amelia’s case. It didn’t take a genius to work out the similarities. The girl even fit the same description as Amelia: a teenager with blonde hair, short in height, disappeared from her bed as though she’d never been there in the first place, kidnapper left no evidence.
“Okay. I’m coming straight to the station. If you can contact the parents and get them to come too…”
“They’re already on their way. I said you’d want to talk to them.”
“That’s great. Thank you, Maggie.”
Olivia was about to end the call when she heard a despairing sigh on the other end of the line.
“You’d think after as long as I been in this job it wouldn’t surprise me anymore. Belle Grove is a safe place. This isn’t a coincidence anymore. Some monster might be holding these girls there for his twisted—”
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” interrupted Olivia, though fear was clawing at her heart as she said the words. “I don’t care how long it takes. This isn’t your fault.” The only thought running through her head was how she could find the kidnapper—before he fixed whatever error that allowed Amelia to escape. “Hang tight. I’ll be there soon.”
Maggie sniffs again. I’m glad you’re here, Olivia. If anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”
The call ended and Olivia took a second to try and compose herself. This was exactly what they hadn’t wanted to happen. They were trying to prevent anyone from falling victim again. But they’d been sleeping as another girl was snatched right in the middle of the nig
ht…
Olivia stood up and went to shake Brock. They didn’t have time to rest now. He stirred slowly beneath her hand.
“What’s the rush?” he slurred sleepily.
“We have to go,” Olivia told him sharply. “Another girl has gone missing.”
Brock sat up immediately, staring at Olivia in shock. It took him a moment to process what she’d said, but then he nodded and got up. There was no time for either of them to get changed, though they were both wearing the same clothes as the night before. They headed straight down to Brock’s car and Olivia solemnly directed him to the police station.
“This one’s local,” Olivia explained. “Parents are driving up to the station here.”
“But why would this one be so close and the other be all the way in Seattle?” Brock mused.
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
When they arrived, they headed straight inside to find Maggie talking quietly to a middle-aged couple. To Olivia’s surprise, neither of them looked particularly concerned. They were strict-looking people. The woman had a severe bob that sharply ended at her chin and an expression like she’d been eating sour grapes. The man was wearing a full suit and tie, looking far too polished for someone awake at seven in the morning. Olivia fought to keep a straight face as they glared at her in disapproval. After all, she’d just turned up to work wearing crumpled clothes that she’d just used as pajamas. She wouldn’t have trusted her with the job of finding her missing daughter either.
“Good morning. I’m Olivia Knight, and this is Brock Tanner with the FBI,” Olivia started. The woman offered her a hand to shake, still pursing her lips.
“Alice Edwards. This is my husband, Elijah. Are you going to find our daughter?”
What Olivia didn’t say is that she had no idea and she couldn’t guarantee a thing. She’d have liked to say she was going to find Sophia if it killed her, but she learned long ago not to make promises like that to families.
“I’m going to investigate this disappearance with the full resources of the Bureau,” she said instead. Alice at least looked impressed by how sure she sounded, and her lips loosened a little.
