Fourth Day

by Lisa Phillips

  Chapter 2

  Allyson gripped the phone. She listened to the short breaths on the other end of the line, hearing the fear in her friend’s voice. Was it really Vanessa? After all these years, how could she be on the other end of the line?

  Allyson shivered as the sweat from earlier chilled against her skin. “Can you hear me?”

  Nothing but crackles answered across the connection. She hadn’t seen Vanessa in years—since college, in fact. Because she’d disappeared from their college dorm one night. No sign of her. No explanation. No answers as to what had happened. The frustration, and the mystery were what made Allyson become a federal agent in the first place. She’d wanted to find lost people, protect innocents and take down bad guys.

  She gripped the phone. “Vanessa, are you okay?”

  Sal shifted into view. He touched her elbow and frowned.

  She could hardly explain right now. Vanessa needed to answer. Her long lost friend had asked for help, frightened and upset. It had been years. Was she still being held against her will?

  How had she gotten Allyson’s work number?

  Where was she?

  There were so many questions swirling in Ally’s brain that she could hardly even think through what to say. What to do.

  She wanted to reach for Sal. She was exhausted, and now she was handed this on top of everything else? She had to force her brain to function. She only had enough energy to say, “Vanessa, can you hear me? Can you answer me?”

  Sal gave her elbow a squeeze. She shifted closer, but that was all. She wanted to lean into him, only her team was probably watching. She sort of cared. Not totally. What they thought wasn’t the point right now. She knew they’d probably rib her for whatever this was between her and Sal. It had been brewing for so long they should be used to it by now, but every time it was like they were realizing it anew all over again. When they weren’t making cracks about him already being her boyfriend.

  But whatever their reaction, it wasn’t her priority. Right now she needed to figure out what was going on with Vanessa.

  She needed to know Vanessa was safe.

  At least her boss was here. She might need his help in a minute and would definitely need his authorization to break from what she was doing to go to Vanessa if needed.

  “Vanessa.”

  She wasn’t going to stop trying to get her to respond. Not until the line went dead.

  “Vaness—”

  “Ally.” Her voice was breathy. Different than it had been years ago, and yet achingly similar. She could even picture her friend’s face. “I need your help.”

  “Are you hurt?” The only image she had of Vanessa in her mind was from age nineteen. They’d been roommates at the University of Seattle.

  Allyson was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister. Vanessa’s father had been in construction, working long days all year round. Their mothers hadn’t been there, but for entirely different reasons. An immediate bond, but then Vanessa had disappeared.

  Most of the other students—including the boyfriend Allyson hadn’t even known Vanessa had—figured she just took off on a whim. Like she’d gone to California or something. A few of them had even thought Allyson killed her and covered it up.

  Allyson had talked it over for hours on end with Vanessa’s father, never able to figure out what had happened to her. In the end, the police labeled it a cold case. There had even been a documentary on the local news about it in the years since.

  “I think…someone is after me.”

  Allyson’s whole gut clenched. This was her chance to get answers about what had really happened. She’d be able to help her friend, finally. “Can you tell me where you are? I’ll meet you.”

  “I’m coming to Seattle.”

  So she wasn’t here already but on her way? “You’re coming right now? Where are you?”

  “I think I’m being followed, and I don’t want them to catch up to me.” Allyson heard her suck in a breath. “You’re the only one who can help. The only one I trust.”

  Her chest tightened. “Who are you running from?”

  Had her friend been a captive all this time? That was a horrifying thought. It meant Allyson was the worst friend ever, never finding Vanessa. Allowing her to stay in that situation forever.

  “I don’t want them to catch—” The line crackled. “…help.”

  “I’ll help you, of course I will.” Allyson paused so she could try to get a hold of herself. “Can you still hear me?”

  “…help.”

  “Vanessa?” Allyson thought she might be able to hear her friend crying. “It’s going to be okay, I’m going to help you.”

  “I knew I could trust you. I knew you’d help me.” Her voice cracked. “But I’m not Van anymore, and I haven’t been for a long time. I’m Bridget McNamara.”

  “I’m a cop.” She had to know that. “Tell me where to meet you, and I’ll do everything I can.”

  The line crackled again. “…where I am.”

  “Vanessa, can you hear me?” Allyson turned to Sal. “I need a trace on this line. So I can get her location.” Why hadn’t she thought of that before? The call could end any second, and then she would have nothing.

  “I can call Talia.” He reached to pull out his phone.

  She turned back around and tried to figure out how to get the location faster than that before Van was gone. There was no way to do it, considering she was out in the field and not at the office. No one else was available without calling the FBI. And it would take too long to explain everything to them.

  “Vanessa?” There was nothing on the line but dead air. She looked at her phone screen. “She’s gone.”

  Sal lowered his phone before he’d even dialed. “What’s going on?”

  Allyson blew out a breath. “A friend of mine needs help.” Her pointer finger traced across the keys, and a second later he got a text.

  “What’s this?”

  “Seattle PD case number.” Allyson barely managed to get the words out before she had to bend forward and suck in a few breaths.

  It was like her body had just now caught up with what was happening. She stared at the phone in her hand, then straightened. “She said her name is Bridget McNamara now.”

  Would she call again? Allyson half expected it to ring. For her considered-dead, old friend to call again, and continue hauling the past right back to center stage. After all these years. Once could have been a trick. A mind flip, like the premise of some awful practical joke, or a horror movie.

  Maybe this wasn’t even real. Maybe she was at home having a nightmare, a phone call from a woman she’d assumed for years to be dead.

  “Tell me.” There was so much compassion in his gaze, she just wanted to fall into it. Get lost. Maybe drown. All those lame romance novel expressions. But they were all true. She was at the end of her strength, and he was everything she needed.

  She opened her mouth to ask for help.

  “Sanchez!”

  . . .

  Daulton strode over. “You’re done for the day. Go get some sleep, look for your friend tomorrow. Let us know if you need anything.” He glanced at Sal. “You’ll make sure she gets home?”

  Trusting Sal with that responsibility was new. Sal didn’t seem to think it unusual, though. “And I’ll help find your friend.”

  Allyson pressed her lips together. “I wish I knew where she was right now.”

  “She’ll call back. As soon as she does, you can go to her. Right?” He squeezed her shoulder. “And we’ll run the name she gave you.”

  She glanced between her boss and Sal. “I’d like to head to the hospital and check on Max.”

  Daulton nodded. “Do that. Fill me in, and then go home.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As soon as the boss walked away, Sal drew her to the side so they could talk. “Tell me about that call.”

  He hadn’t gotten ahold of Talia yet. His teammate, a computer genius, was at dinner. Probably with no elec
tronics in the restaurant but her phone. Still, he hadn’t had the chance to dial.

  Allyson faced off with him, their gazes almost level because of her height. “You find people, right?”

  He could tell she was barely holding herself together. “You need a ride to the hospital?” They could talk about all this in the car.

  “I’m good.” She stepped back. Always walking away from him.

  “Your boss just asked me to drive you.”

  “I’ll call for an Uber.” Still walking away from him. “Let me know if you come up with anything.”

  That was a heck of an assumption. Probably a whole bunch of them.

  He’d help her.

  He’d find her friend.

  He’d call her when he did.

  She’d handed him a case number and a name. Her history with this person caused that phone call to shake her. Did he want to get involved?

  Sal had to face the fact that the same part of him who saw his team all paired off with their significant others, knowing they didn’t need him the way they used to…also saw Allyson and her need.

  This wasn’t something she wanted her own team to help her with? No, she’d asked him. She’d leaned on him.

  He’d been feeling superfluous. Now, not so much. He had something to sink his teeth into.

  Sal stood outside the gun store and watched her walk away. The ship had probably sailed. He’d waited too long, not sure about pursuing a relationship with her. Then he’d just gotten busy with work. Distracted. He’d seen her once in a while.

  Sal had to wonder—again—how he was going to work her out from under his skin.

  Was it really just a case of quitting and finding a small town in need of a sheriff? Or he could be a PI. Maybe a bounty hunter, even. Could be he just needed to take that open marshal position in Cheyenne. Though, probably if he was going to do that then he should have emailed back the senior US Marshal there weeks ago when he’d seen the position post.

  Or he could go home. Clean out his dad’s cabin. Sell it, and figure out what to do next.

  Maybe that position in Cheyenne was just like what could have been with Allyson. Another “too little, too late” situation. A missed opportunity. He didn’t want to consider that he might be sabotaging his own intention to move on with his life by thinking about her instead of moving on.

  That infernal war raged in him constantly. The opposing armies fought a battle between the part of him that wanted to have something good in his life and the part that wanted to stay right here.

  Inertia.

  Allyson.

  The team.

  A life in the mountains.

  Didn’t matter what the reason was, he hadn’t gone yet. Maybe it was straight fear. Could be he hadn’t made the decision simply because he didn’t want to fail.

  At least he knew he could help her friend. That was what he did. And if he wasn’t going to make headway doing anything else, then he could at least do that. Find an innocent. Put something to rights.

  Sal got one of the uniformed police officers to drop him at the office. He rode the elevator up to the floor where the task force offices were. He used his key code to get in the door and flipped on enough lights to see where he was going.

  Even while her mouth challenged him to find her friend, she was pleading with him with those eyes. All this while she’d been visibly exhausted. He couldn’t say she was the only reason he was helping, though she was a big reason. Sal sighed and jabbed the button to fire up his computer. He waited while his computer finished some update or another, and then looked up the case number Allyson had given him.

  Missing persons cold case. A young woman, Vanessa Freethey, had gone missing one night, a student at the University of Seattle. Her roommate? Allyson Sanchez.

  That was the connection.

  A friend gone. Did Allyson blame herself? He could only imagine how it must’ve felt to never know what happened to someone she cared about.

  Sal looked up the name she’d mentioned to him. Bridget McNamara. A few hits showed up, so he dug into each. Only one was a woman whose history didn’t go back past five years. A created identity? The woman lived and worked in San Francisco, for what looked like a pharmaceutical company, an executive assistant.

  The same woman who had called Allyson? Maybe. There was no picture of Bridget on the company website.

  The search took him to a police department report. A coworker of Bridget McNamara hadn’t shown up for work yesterday. Was something going on at the pharmaceutical company, something that meant Bridget needed to flee to Seattle and seek out the help of a friend? A friend who’d thought she was dead.

  Talia would know better than him where to look for more information. For connections. He slid the phone closer, then figured it was a better idea to send both her and Haley an email. One of them should be able to help him. Halfway through typing out the email, the front door clicked.

  Victoria strode in on her signature heels, wearing her normal skirt suit and blouse. Her hair was straight and blonde. Mostly he’d refer to her age as “undetermined.” She could pass for anything from late thirties to early fifties, more with the use of makeup.

  He leaned back in his chair. “I thought you were at dinner.”

  “I ate fast. Now I’m headed to the hospital to check on Mark.”

  No time for a cup of coffee, then. So why had she stopped by?

  “He’s out of surgery?” The FBI assistant director, Mark Welvern, had been shot a few days ago.

  “They expect him to wake up at any time.”

  He nodded. “That’s good.”

  She didn’t seem convinced. Instead, she leaned over and looked at his screen. “That ATF agent has got you doing her research?”

  Victoria knew exactly what her name was. “What’s your problem with Allyson?”

  “Did I say I had a problem?”

  Sal shot her a look. Innocent wasn’t a state she could convince him of. “She’s a friend of mine. A colleague. I’m going to help find this missing person if I can.”

  “A female federal agent like that?” Victoria shook her head. “She’s not one of us, and she never will be.” She folded her arms. “It’s probably a trap.”

  Chapter 3

  Allyson held a paper cup of coffee loosely. Her favorite coffee shop had run out of sleeves, but she wasn’t going to let that stop her from getting her caffeine jolt. She headed into the Seattle office of the ATF, seriously dragging.

  She’d gotten a couple of hours of broken sleep. Tossing and turning, waiting for the phone to ring and praying that Vanessa would be on the line. Her friend hadn’t made contact again, but the prayer time had helped.

  She said, “Hi,” to the guys, and nodded to a couple of others.

  “How’s Max?”

  “Lynnie is there.” She got an eye roll at that, and nodded as she said, “He’ll pull through.” She wasn’t sure the same could be said of his marriage.

  Allyson sat at her desk and logged on to her computer. Four scenes, not including the call from her friend. There was so much paperwork to do, it would probably take a week. Not that she had much time to get it done. The safe house, the stadium, the warehouse, and the robbery. She had to write up her take on all of it when she’d rather be out knocking on doors. Maybe checking airports, train and bus stations for Vanessa on their surveillance.

  There was a difference between agents who went out and solved cases, and the ones who sat in an office, wanting to solve cases from their desks. She’d never been that type of cop. Probably never would be.

  Half an hour of focused typing later, Allyson stretched and looked around. Across the office, in the conference room, she spotted Sal through the windows. He had to be giving his statement.

  There was a recording device on the table between Sal and the undercover agent her team had brought on long-term to Yewell’s operation. Not a job they’d thought would lead to an opening for someone like Sal to get in with the group.


  Also present in the room were Daulton and two FBI agents. He had to be debriefing them all on the undercover operation. He’d managed to get into Yewell’s crew—thanks to their guy—and had been there when the man was finally taken down. When the Secret Service’s assistant director had been revealed as a traitor.

  Two men in custody, along with the rest of Yewell’s crew—those who weren’t dead.

  Allyson made her way to the door that had been left slightly ajar and hung there, close enough to hear what they were saying. The longer he talked, the more incredulous she became.

  It was incredibly reckless what he’d done. Hearing all about it didn’t make her feel better. Yes, Deputy Marshal Salvador Alvarez was good at his job. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t put his life in serious danger. And only a short time after he’d been previously injured.

  He’d been right there in the middle of it all, along with Drew North.

  She felt the reaction well up in her. Hot anger unfiltered due to her exhaustion. Her emotions were always closer to the surface when she was overtired.

  Ally didn’t want to know how it would feel if he was killed. He’d been hurt plenty of times, that was nothing new. Dead would be a whole different story.

  She blew out a breath and pushed aside those morose thoughts. Instead, she wondered if he’d found out anything about her friend.

  She realized he’d glanced at her. Along with a couple of the FBI agents. The undercover ATF agent had a slight grin on his face. Ally lifted her chin. Sal returned it with a nod. He had something.

  She wandered back to her computer and decided to run the number from which Vanessa had called her. It came up as unregistered, so a burner phone. What kind of person was Vanessa that she’d gotten her hands on a burner?

  Allyson sent an email to the agents who helped them find information—their variation of CSI, though most of it was electronic. Their version of Talia was actually a team of two agents. She asked them if they could try and track the closest cell towers. See where it pinged off previously, and whether it was still on. Find out if Vanessa was really in Seattle now, running for her life.