by Elle Gray
“Say something,” Brock told her gently. She shook her head.
“This is a real low point, Brock. I think it’s going to take a while to bounce back from this.”
Brock sighed. “I wish you could see this rationally. This isn’t your fault. We just got dealt a rough hand. Do you know how many cases go unsolved every year? It’s a lot.”
“I’ve never failed a case before,” Olivia admitted quietly. “Sometimes it takes me a long time, but I get to the bottom of it eventually. But this time feels so different. It feels like I was set up to fail right from the beginning.”
“I know. I know the feeling well. But I wish I’d had someone telling me the first time I had an impossible case that it wasn’t my fault. So now I’m telling you because you need to hear it. They could assign a thousand agents to this case and we wouldn’t have gotten any further with it. The important thing is that Amelia is safe. She’s going to be okay, and that’s because of you.”
“Barely. She showed up at my door and I made sure she was okay. That was before I even knew about the case. Anyone could’ve done the same. And Sophia is still out there somewhere. My gut is telling me that she didn’t just leave. I think she would’ve come back by now if that had been the case. And now that we know Craig isn’t involved…”
Silence fell between them in the car. Olivia knew Brock was feeling as deflated as she was, even if he wasn’t showing it as much. She felt so angry that she could punch something. Was it too much to pray for answers to save a young child? That’s all she’d ever asked of the universe. To give her a sign, to help her solve the case. But maybe some things just weren’t meant to be.
“I guess I should go in,” Olivia said quietly. Brock looked uncomfortable at the level of upset that Olivia seemed to be showing. He chewed his thumb.
“Do you want some company?”
Any other time, Olivia would’ve jumped on that offer. Having Brock beside her was the only thing that had kept her sane that week. But right then, she needed something else. Time alone to reflect and come to terms with how things had panned out. She shook her head.
“I think I’ll just go to bed. Try and sleep.”
“You should. But Olivia, I’m only a phone call away if you need anything. Don’t hesitate if you want to talk to someone. I mean it.”
Olivia managed a small smile. “I was worried that we wouldn’t work well together when I first met you, but you’ve been a pretty good partner. Thank you, Brock. I owe you a lot.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Brock said, his eyes gentle. “Except maybe a drink when I’m back in town.”
Olivia’s heart skipped a beat. “Back in town?”
“Yeah, well, I’m guessing I won’t be here much longer now. I think they’ll pull me from the case first if they think it’s a dead end. Maybe they’ll let you stay on a little longer, but I think they’ll send me back home. It makes sense.”
Olivia nodded, feeling a little numb inside. She knew that Brock would have to leave at some point, but she wasn’t ready for him to go. She wasn’t ready to let go. But she couldn’t say any of that to him, she had to be professional. She smiled tightly at him.
“Well, if that is the case... then I’ll miss you. It’s been great working with someone new.”
Brock smiled back. “It’s my pleasure, Olivia.”
Olivia managed a half-hearted scowl to make Brock laugh. As she opened the car door to get out, she felt strange. It felt wrong to walk away from Brock after everything they’d shared since they met. Was she walking away from him for the last time? Would she ever work with him again, or were they done now? She had no idea, but she didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want to say goodbye.
She did anyway.
“I’ll see you around,” Olivia said quietly. Brock nodded to her, his smile not quite meeting his eyes. Olivia lingered for a moment, waiting for something to happen. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen, just that she wanted something.
But the moment passed. She walked up the steps as Brock drove off. She wanted to look back, but she didn’t. By the time she got inside and shut the door, she felt well and truly alone.
She didn’t bother to get changed. She simply kicked off her shoes and headed upstairs to bed, clambering under the covers and trying to find some comfort in the warmth of them. With her eyes closed, she played back everything she could’ve said, everything she could’ve done. Not just to Brock, but the case as well. It wasn’t even ten A.M and she’d already had one of the worst days she could remember—and she’d had a lot of those.
Even as her body begged her to fall under the veil of sleep, her anxiety wouldn’t allow her to drift off. So she just lied there for a long time, feeling the weight of her misery, wondering how everything had fallen apart so quickly.
She must’ve fallen asleep at some point because she found herself stirring at the sound of her phone ringing. She groaned and sat up, expecting it to be Jonathan telling her that Brock would be heading back to DC. She didn’t have enough time to prepare for the blow of it, so she just picked up the phone and tried to brace for the pain.
“Knight.”
“Olivia, it’s Maggie. I’ve got something for you.”
Olivia bolted upright, feeling alert all of a sudden. “What’s going on? Did Craig say anything?”
“No. We’ve got him in holding to be brought up on drug charges. His statement was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. So I thought it was all over at that point. But I just got a call this morning. Another girl has gone missing.”
“Oh my God…”
“Her name is Hayleigh Roberts. She’s fifteen and blonde. She looks like the other girls. But there’s something really strange about this one. She went missing in the middle of a sleepover with her friends. No evidence. No sign of a break-in.”
Olivia was floored by the new information. Another girl of a similar description to the others meant there was a pattern. It also made it far more likely that the cases were connected, putting Sophia’s case back on her radar. But the fact that she went missing during a sleepover... that seemed crazy to her. How did the kidnapper possibly get away with stealing away a young girl when she was surrounded by her friends?
“Okay, this is major. I need to make some calls,” Olivia said. Her first thought was to call Jonathan. Her second was that she needed to speak with Brock. Maybe he’d be able to stay after all. For a little while longer, at least. Maybe they would get a second chance at solving the case.
There was still hope.
Sixteen
When Olivia drove over to the B&B to pick Brock up, she had a smile on her face. She couldn’t help herself. A random bystander might consider her crazy in the circumstances for looking so pleased with herself, but they wouldn’t understand. The new kidnapping had blown the case wide open. There might be witnesses for the first time. There might be some evidence left at the scene this time. There might be a second chance to save Sophia that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise.
It was all good news, even if the thought of another girl being snatched from her home in the middle of the night was unthinkable. But sometimes things had to get worse before they got better. She’d hit rock bottom only hours before, but she was slowly climbing out of the hole she’d dug herself. She was going to solve the case this time. She was determined that she would.
Brock was already standing outside the B&B when she turned the corner. Olivia was pleased to see that she wasn’t the only one with a huge grin on her face. Brock climbed into the car with a spring in his step and a sparkle in his eye.
“Onward, taxi driver,” he declared. “We have a case to solve.”
They didn’t say another word to one another as they drove to the station, but they didn’t need to. There was an energy between them that made Olivia feel like she’d had one too many cups of coffee. She was a little manic with excitement, but she was ready for anything. And with Brock beside her once more, she felt unstoppab
le.
However, as she arrived at the station, she wiped the smile from her face and got serious. They’d need to talk to Hayleigh’s family, and she knew that was going to be hard. It was never easy talking to the family when they were so distraught. Still, she felt positive that someone would be able to tell them something of use. This new incident was different from the others. It was a bolder strike, but that also meant there was more room for the kidnapper to have messed up. And if they’d made even one tiny slip up, she would catch it.
She knew she would.
“Let’s do this,” Brock stated, getting out of the car and striding toward the station. Olivia followed behind him, feeling the adrenaline surging through her veins. She was ready for this. She was going to make up for lost time. She was going to make herself proud.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” Maggie told the pair as they entered the police station. “The family are here already to talk to you. The girls from the sleepover are going to come later and give statements once they’ve calmed down.”
“Thanks, Maggie. We can take it from here. Do you have crime scene techs at the house?”
“As we speak. Fingers crossed that there might be some evidence this time. It was a much riskier kidnapping.” She pauses. “What do y’all think? Do you think that the kidnapper is losing control?”
“It’s possible,” Olivia acknowledged. “It was a very bold move, taking a child from a sleepover when so many other people were around. I guess we’ll just need to take some statements and try to piece it all together.”
“Good luck. I’ll be around if you need anything.”
Olivia and Brock made their way through the station to speak to Hayleigh’s family. They found a couple huddled up together, both of them crying as they waited for Olivia and Brock. Olivia offered them tissues from her pocket.
“Olivia Knight and Brock Tanner with the FBI. I’m so sorry about what you’re going through,” she said as the pair of them clutched one another. “We are here to find out as much as we can about what happened last night, and then we can find your daughter.”
“We just don’t understand how something like this could happen,” the woman sobbed. She was in her late forties and had bleached blonde hair. Her foundation was too orange for her pale skin, and her tears had left tracks through her makeup. “Our poor baby girl…”
“I know it’s terrible, but the sooner we find out details, the sooner we can start searching for her,” Brock told the woman. “Why don’t you start by telling us your names and a few key details about last night?”
The woman sniffed. “I’m Andrea Roberts, and this is my husband, Richard.”
“I’m Hayleigh’s stepdad,” Richard added. “But I love Hayleigh like she’s my own. What do you want to know? We’ll try and give you everything that we can.”
“Well, we’ll start with when you noticed that your daughter was missing. Did one of the girls wake up and realize she wasn’t there?”
“Yes. Cassie did. They thought she must have just gone upstairs to her bedroom. They were camping out downstairs in the living room,” Richard said. “We thought there was nothing to worry about. We of course checked that the house was locked up before we went to bed, as we do every night. But when the girls came upstairs and told us they couldn’t find Hayleigh, I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe it. I heard about Sophia Edwards going missing. She used to spend time with Hayleigh, but she’s gone off the rails a little in the past few years, so we figured that she had just run away from home. Now, we feel like someone must have taken her and then snatched Hayleigh too.”
Richard began to sob and Andrea held him close, her face also creased in the agony of facing their reality in that moment. Olivia pushed the box of tissues on the table toward them and they thanked her graciously.
“Whenever you’re ready, can tell us about what time the girls woke you up?”
Andrea cleared her throat, managing to compose herself first. “It was about ten past eight this morning. The girls had stayed up late, so they slept in a little, I think. We were tired too. You know how girls can get at sleepovers, they kept us up with all the noise. So by the time they figured out that Hayleigh was gone... well, who knows how long she’d been gone.”
“Do you have any idea what time the girls went to sleep?”
“I think it was around four A.M. I remember looking at the clock at around ten to four and then the next thing I knew, I was awake and the girls were telling me Hayleigh was gone.”
Olivia nodded, making several notes as Brock picked up the line of questioning.
“Did you notice that anything else went missing from the scene? Do you still have her cellphone?”
“Yes, we handed it over to Maggie when we got here,” Richard sniffed. “She’s glued to that thing. She won’t go anywhere without it. We don’t think she left the house. She wouldn’t even go into the garden during the night, I don’t think. She’s never liked the dark.”
“And just to confirm—no broken locks or windows? No signs of forced entry.”
Andrea shook her head, her lip quivering. “No. There’s nothing. We have a few people in the neighborhood with keys, but of course, we trust all of them. We have a cleaner who has a key…”
“A cleaner?” That pricked up Olivia’s ears. “That’s interesting.”
“A cleaner might have more clue of how to cover up their tracks if they broke into the house using a key,” Brock pointed out, finishing Olivia’s thoughts. “Can you tell us a little about the cleaner?”
“She’s a lovely woman,” Andrea said, sounding almost defensive. “We’ve been hiring her for a long time; I’d say we’re friends at this point. She’s always been a big help to us around the house. Her daughter is in some of Hayleigh’s classes. I don’t know why she would have any reason to come here.”
“We just have to explore all avenues. We don’t want to leave any stones unturned,” Olivia explained. For sure that this time, she was going to up her game. She wanted every single minute detail that she could turn up. The kidnapper was good at covering their tracks, but they would slip up at some point. They had to. Olivia could only hope this was the time it happened. “We can come back to the keyholders, though it would be useful if you could make a list of them for us when we’re done here. Now, did anyone see or hear anything during the night that might have indicated that someone was in the house?”
Andrea shook her head. “The girls didn’t mention anything. That’s why they seemed so shocked when they couldn’t find Hayleigh the next morning. They couldn’t fathom how she’d just... disappeared. And honestly, I didn’t hear anything. I was so tired by the time we got to sleep that I didn’t even wake up in the night.”
“Even if we’d heard someone moving around, I don’t think we would’ve thought anything of it,” Richard said miserably. “We would’ve assumed it was one of the girls. They stay over every few weeks and they make a lot of noise. We’ve just kind of become used to it.”
Olivia nodded. “It’s possible the kidnapper used that to their advantage. But it’s highly unusual. It was a high-risk thing to do. It’s one thing to go into a child’s bedroom and snatch them from their bed, but to take a girl from a group of possible eyewitnesses? Whoever did it must have been very lucky, or they premeditated their actions. Did you tell anyone about the girls coming over?”
“No. The only people who would’ve known were the parents of the other girls and possibly the neighbors. I didn’t tell them directly, but they know the girls come over every few weeks. We’ve had a few noise complaints from next door a few times in the past, so I guess they’re aware of the girls coming over even when we don’t mention it…”
By then, Olivia had a scribbled page of notes that were messily scrawled everywhere. Once again, she was finding the details to be hazy. The kidnapper really had a knack for being elusive. She knew that the interview was crucial, though. So far, the kidnapper had managed to get away without leaving a si
ngle fingerprint, hair, or footprint behind at any of the crime scenes. They were clearly going to keep up with their stealth act, so whatever Olivia and Brock could glean from the interview would be vital.
“Alright. Do you think there’s anyone in town that would have some kind of a personal vendetta against you? And if so, can you think of anyone that might have similar issues with Sophia or her family?”
Andrea sucked in a breath. “That’s such a huge question. I mean, they’re kids. I’m sure they have high school drama to deal with all the time. And I know I said that Sophia has gone off the rails, but she’s a good kid. When she and Hayleigh grew apart, Hayleigh never said that Sophia had fallen out with her friends or anything. She just started hanging out with older boys, and Hayleigh wasn’t ready for all that. She’s still just a kid. Just a kid…”
Andrea flapped her hand in front of her face as she tried to hold back tears once again. Richard held her close, looking at Olivia to pick up where his wife had left off.
“Hayleigh has a lot of friends at school, but she’s a quiet kid. She doesn’t get into drama and arguments. I can’t imagine that she has a single enemy in this world. And as for us, as a family... I think we get along well with everyone in town. It’s a very tight-knit community. I can’t think of a single person in this neighborhood or beyond who would want to do something this terrible. I just can’t understand it.” He shook his head, overcome with emotion again. “I just want her to be found as soon as possible…”
“We all do,” Brock told him. “Is there anything else you want to tell us? Anything that you think might help?”
Andrea shrugged helplessly. “This is all a blur. We don’t remember as much as we hoped. I’m sorry. I feel so useless.”
“It’s okay,” Olivia said kindly. “Situations like these can make things hazy. It can be difficult to remember details. But please, give us a call if you think of anything else that’s useful? You’ll need to stay a while anyway while the police take evidence at the house, but we’ll give you some time. We’re hoping to interview the girls too and find out what they know.”
