“I don’t know anything about her. You just called out her name and now I’m curious.”
He held her gaze for a long moment and reached a hand up to rub the back of his neck. He broke eye contact with her and stared down at the coffee table, but before he did so she saw what appeared to be stark grief sweep over his features.
He released an audible sigh. “Maria is...was my younger sister.”
She looked at him in stunned surprise. She’d met his mother on a trip they had taken to New York, but in the two years they had dated Evan had never mentioned he had a sister. She’d always thought it was just he and his mother.
“You never told me about her,” she said.
“There’s not much to tell. I don’t know if she’s dead or alive. She disappeared when she was five years old.”
Annalise gasped. “Disappeared? What do you mean? What exactly happened?” She got up from the desk and sank down next to him on the sofa.
He immediately stood and began to pace back and forth in front of her. The grief she’d seen momentarily before now captured his features once again, along with something else...some emotion she couldn’t quite identify. “Tell me, Evan,” she said softly.
“It was an early evening on a Tuesday. My mom had worked all day cleaning a couple of really nasty apartments for our landlord. She was hot and exhausted by the time she got home. All she asked was that I take Maria outside for about an hour or so to let her take a quick shower and catch a nap.”
Annalise could feel the tension that wafted from him as he continued to pace back and forth. “How old were you at the time?” she asked.
“Eight. I was eight years old and she was five. I loved my little sister so much.” His voice cracked slightly. “Even though I was older than her, she was like my best friend. She could be a pest, but I loved her anyway.”
He paused and drew in a deep breath, then released it on a shuddering sigh. “So, I took Maria outside. I remember it was a hot summer evening. Maria had a piece of sidewalk chalk. It was purple, and she sat on the stoop and was drawing pictures of me while I made goofy poses.”
His dark eyes grew distant, and for just a moment a faint smile curved his lips. “I’d act goofy all the time just to make her laugh. She had such a wonderful giggle.”
The smile faded and his eyes grew darker. “We were outside for probably half an hour or so when some of my buddies came walking up the sidewalk. I went to talk to them, and at the same time Maria chased a butterfly into the alley.”
He stopped pacing and stood in front of her. A deep, raw pain emanated from his eyes. “I greeted my friends and then I went to get Maria. I went into the alley...and...and a man was there. He had Maria and he had a big knife.”
He drew in another deep breath. “I wanted to save her. I needed to save her, but I didn’t. The man ran away with her and...and we never saw her again.”
She couldn’t stand to see his anguish any longer. She got up from the sofa and took his hand in hers, then pulled him down to sit next to her.
She held his hand tightly. “My God, Evan. Why have you never told me about this before?”
His dark gaze held hers and then looked away. “Why would I have told you that I was responsible for the kidnapping of my little sister? Why would I share that with the woman I loved?”
“Evan, you were just a little boy. You should have never had that kind of responsibility on you in the first place.”
“But I took on the responsibility and I screwed up,” he replied. “I should have never stopped to say hi to my friends. I should have never taken my attention off her. I definitely should have never allowed Maria to chase a damned butterfly into the alley.”
“What did the police do?” She continued to hold his hand as she watched the emotions playing on his handsome features. Loss...grief...guilt, they were all there.
He released a deep bitter laugh. “They found nothing in the alley, no evidence, no leads to find her. All they had was my description of the man, and all I could tell them was that the kidnapper was a tall, white man with shaggy brown hair.”
“So, they never caught him?”
He shook his head. “Even though my mother called the police station every day, if felt like nobody really cared. My mother thought they didn’t do a real investigation because we were poor and Latino.”
“I certainly hope that wasn’t true,” she replied, appalled by the mere notion.
“The idea that it might be was what drove me into the law enforcement field.” He released a deep sigh. “I’ve never stopped looking for Maria. I check the internet to this day hoping to find her out there somewhere.”
“I’m sorry, Evan. I’m so sorry for your loss,” she replied softly. She knew her words were inadequate, but she meant them to the depths of her soul.
She couldn’t believe he’d had something so catastrophic happen to him when he’d been so young and impressionable, and during the two years they’d dated he’d never told her anything about it.
She gazed at him and he looked at her at the same time. His face was so near to hers. His lips were achingly close. He leaned forward and her breath caught in her throat as she anticipated a kiss.
His lips almost grazed hers, and then he jerked upright and off the sofa. “I need to check in with some people.”
The night hours passed slowly. Evan was on his phone a lot, and when he wasn’t, he was quiet and closed off. Annalise suspected the memories he’d shared with her still had him by the throat.
The tragic event in his life explained a lot...like his affinity for saving children in dangerous hostage situations. It also explained his occasional moodiness when they had been together as a couple.
She wanted to wrap her arms around Evan and somehow comfort him from the bad memories she’d stirred by asking him about Maria. She wanted to somehow take away the guilt she now knew he carried about that tragic loss in his life.
Still, she knew he didn’t need her right now. What he really needed was for this case to come to a satisfactory conclusion. He desperately needed to be a hero.
* * *
EVAN LEANED BACK in the dining room chair and stretched with his arms overhead. It was just a few minutes after six. He glanced at Annalise, who was sleeping on the sofa.
Telling her about Maria had been one of the most difficult things he’d ever done. He’d spent most of his life trying not to access those painful memories. It had not only been a shameful secret he’d carried, but one that still had the capacity to bring him to his knees.
It had been an event that had forever changed who he was at the very core. It had stolen his belief that the world was a safe place and had created a self-hatred inside him that had never really gone away.
He’d only told one person about Maria, and that had been Hendrick. He and Hendrick had shared a few too many beers one evening at Evan’s house. Hendrick confessed to Evan about being raised in a cult, and Evan had shared his heartache of Maria.
But he needed to put those memories away now. He hated himself for showing Annalise his vulnerability. And in that vulnerable state he’d almost kissed her again.
There was no question there was still something between them, a chemistry...a desire that was difficult to ignore. But he couldn’t forget that she’d walked out on him before.
He got up and went into the kitchen to refill his coffee cup. He made a fresh pot of coffee and then poured himself a cup. He took a sip and leaned against the counter. Where was Sadie right now? Had they given her something to eat? Was she sleeping in a car parked on some mountain road? Or was she dead? He shook his head to dispel that particular thought.
Talking about, remembering what had happened to Maria had only made him more desperate than ever to find Sadie. One child at a time, he thought. All he could do was try to save one child at a time.
Part of what had
made him a hostage negotiator as an officer of the law before he’d been asked to join TCD was the number of domestic disputes that turned ugly.
Far too often a man locked himself inside a house or apartment with a gun and his children. Most of the time those situations ended with the children being safely released, but occasionally those kinds of hostage situations ended in tragedy.
If Evan could save a child, then it assuaged a tiny piece of the guilt that would forever haunt him, the guilt that he’d been unable to save Maria.
He stretched once again and then grabbed one of the homemade cinnamon rolls that Chief Cummings had given him before he’d left the station after the interviews. It was delicious. At least the chief was correct that his wife definitely knew how to bake.
When he went back into the living room, Annalise was awake. “There’s fresh coffee,” he said.
“Thanks.” She got up and disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with her cup of coffee and one of the cinnamon rolls on a saucer. She sat down next to him at the table.
As they drank their coffee, they talked about the elements of the crime they knew so far. He’d always liked bouncing things off her. Many a night when they were together they’d talk about his work and various crime scenarios.
They talked about his interview with Earl and other potential people at the school who might be involved. They tried to brainstorm where on earth the fugitives might have gone. He talked out all the various investigations that were taking place as she listened and commented.
It was just after eight when a ding sounded from her computer. They both jumped up from the table and hurried to the desk. The page now held another nonsensical sentence.
“It’s her,” Annalise said, her voice filled with excitement. “It’s from Sadie.”
“What does it say?”
“It says, ‘Miss Annalise, I’m okay.’”
Evan pulled out the desk chair. “Ask her where she is.”
Annalise sat and quickly typed out the question.
A moment later Sadie responded. “Cabin,” Annalise said. “She says she’s in a cabin.”
“A cabin where? Is there a name of the place that she can give us? Where is it located?” Evan asked urgently. This was what they’d been waiting for. Thank God the little girl was still alive. Hopefully she could tell them where she was so Evan’s team could move in and get her out of there and away from the couple who held her.
He and Annalise stared at the computer screen, waiting for a reply. A minute went by, then another and another. “She must have had to get off the page,” Annalise finally said. “I’m just grateful she’s still alive.”
Hendrick called on Evan’s computer. Evan hurried over and answered. “She said she’s in a cabin,” he told him.
“A cabin? There must be hundreds of cabins in those mountains,” Hendrick said. “I can’t do a search without more details. At this moment we don’t even know what state they might be in.”
“Have you managed to get anything on Winslow’s phone yet?”
“Damn, Evan, you know these things take time and a lot of red tape. You’ve got to have a little patience.”
“I’m running out of patience,” Evan replied. “If they’ve put Sadie in front of a computer, then time is running out for her.”
“Then let’s hope she can get you something more to narrow down a search area,” Hendrick replied.
“I’m so scared for her, Evan,” Annalise said once the two men had hung up.
He hesitated a moment and then pulled her into his embrace and stroked her hair. The last thing he wanted to do was let her know that he was scared, too.
* * *
“QUIT SCREWING AROUND and go to the page I told you to get on,” Gretchen said to Sadie.
The girl quickly clicked off the secret page and did as Gretchen asked. The woman scared her. She’d already slapped Sadie twice, once the night before for complaining she was cold and then again this morning for dawdling over breakfast.
The slaps had been hard and when Sadie had cried, Gretchen had threatened to hit her as many times as it took for the girl to stop crying. Sadie had stopped crying on the outside, but she’d cried on the inside for a long time.
Jacob was a little bit nicer; he’d at least given her a pillow to use when she’d gone to bed on the little sofa in the room.
They had driven around on back roads for hours the day before. She’d been so scared, and she was still really scared. Jacob might be nice to her right now, but that didn’t mean anything. Gretchen wasn’t nice, and she seemed to be the boss. All she’d done since they got to the cabin was yell about how bad things had gone.
She knew they wanted her for a reason, and now she knew why. She understood what they wanted her to do was illegal, and she wasn’t even sure she could do it. Miss Annalise had never taught them how to break into places on the internet. Sadie knew if she couldn’t do it, then things were going to get bad...really, really bad.
She’d had bad things happen to her before. When she was living in an apartment with her mother before she’d come to the school, there had been many times when Sadie had believed she was going to die.
Sometimes her mother forgot to buy food, and Sadie thought she might starve to death. Other times her mother would beat her until Sadie almost wished she would die. But since being at the school, Sadie didn’t want to die. She wanted to go back to the school with her friends and the grown-ups who loved her.
The last thing she’d seen on the private page was Miss Annalise asking where she was and what the name of the cabin was, but she didn’t have the answers.
When they had left the school, they had driven to a place where they had gotten into another car and then they had driven around for a while. They had parked on a road in the middle of nowhere, and then the two grown-ups had taken naps.
She’d stayed awake, worried that a bear might come out of the woods or some other wild animal might attack the car. After they woke up, they started driving again.
Sadie had been asleep when they’d carried her into the small cabin. The curtains were drawn at all the windows, so she hadn’t even had a chance to look out.
The only way Miss Annalise and her friend would be able to come and save her was if she could somehow tell them something about the cabin.
What she was scared about was that she wouldn’t be able to get Miss Annalise the information before Jacob and Gretchen realized she might not be able to do what they wanted her to do. And once that happened...she truly believed she would be dead.
* * *
WHILE THEY WAITED for Sadie to get them more information, Evan was on the phone and checking in on all the progression of the investigation.
Nick was still conducting interviews of the kitchen and housekeeping staff from the school, and Davis and a few other men were at the compound interviewing the members of the Brotherhood of Jacob in an effort to glean more information.
He then contacted Chief Cummings to find out if the tails on Earl had reported anything during the night. So far they had nothing to report. Earl had driven straight home from the police station and hadn’t left his house since.
By the time he was finished with all the check-ins, Annalise had made them breakfast. They ate quickly, as if fighting against a ticking time bomb.
Evan had felt the tension before, but Sadie’s contact had definitely made him feel like everything was going to explode quickly.
“I still find it hard to believe that Earl is the inside person,” Annalise said as they cleared their dishes.
“Right now he’s the only one who looks halfway good. Why don’t you think he’s the one?” Evan asked.
“He is a little reserved, but to be honest,” she replied, “I don’t want to sound unkind, but I just don’t think he’s smart enough to put this all together.”
“I’m not sure it took a lot of brains to implement this plan. Somebody from the inside told Jacob and Gretchen when would be the best time to break into the school, and that same somebody lifted a key for the garage and one to steal the van.”
“I just think the insider is somebody else, somebody we’re missing altogether,” she replied. “Have you checked out Regina?”
“So far Hendrick hasn’t given me anything on her, but we’re checking everything,” he said.
“I know that.” She put their dishes in the dishwasher. “That wasn’t me being critical. I know you’re in control of everything.”
He realized he’d been curt. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
She smiled. “I think we’re both tense.”
He pulled her into his arms and hugged her. “I’m glad you’re here with me,” he said.
“Me, too,” she replied.
For several long moments they simply held each other, and he finally released her. Once again he realized she stirred all kinds of emotions inside him, but there was no way he wanted to examine exactly what they were as long as he was in the middle of this investigation. Right now Sadie needed and deserved all his attention and energy. He returned to his computer, and Annalise sank down at the desk in front of hers.
“Do you really believe Sadie could break into a banking system?” he asked Annalise.
She frowned. “I really don’t know. She’s brilliant, but I haven’t really taught the girls how to do anything like that. She’s never been challenged to get through all the security and firewalls that would entail.”
“Now that we know she’s working a computer, I’ve got Hendrick watching the banking systems for a breech.”
“I just want her to get back to us with more information about where she’s being held,” Annalise replied. “If she can’t do it for them, then she’ll be of no use, and that’s what scares me for her. She needs to help us find her.”
As if her wish was granted, her notification sounded. It was Sadie again.
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