by J. E. Taylor
Chris’s eyes softened, shifting shades again, and he took a seat on the moss. “Yes.”
“Have you seen her?” The shake of his head squeezed her heart and tremors started in her chin. She clenched her teeth against the quiver.
He lifted his hand. “Don’t cry. It’s just that I haven’t seen much of heaven, that’s all. But I’m told she’s there and her grandparents are taking good care of her.”
“When am I going to see her?” They had skirted death so many times; she couldn’t help but ask the question.
“It won’t be for a really long time.”
The answer hurt more than Jennifer expected and tears slipped over her lashes like the beginning breach of a crack in a dam. She wanted to see her baby girl.
Chris sighed. “I know how you feel.”
“No, you don’t,” Jennifer answered.
“Maybe I don’t know exactly how you feel, but I’ve lost kids, and one of them was because I had to choose which one died. Try and live with that sacrifice.”
“Still,” Jennifer started and her voice cracked with emotion. “Still, were they your only child? The only one you’d ever have?”
Chris offered a sad smile. “No.”
“Then don’t tell me you know how I feel.” She wiped the tears off her face and stared at Chris. “I got your wife’s memories,” she said, moving the conversation away to something less painful.
“Really. Isn’t that interesting.”
The sarcasm lacing his voice made her smile. “Extremely interesting. In her eyes, you’re quite something.”
“What about in your eyes?” His wings ruffled and he leaned back on his palms.
Jennifer slowly swung her head back and forth, her eyes traveling the distance between his eyes and his toes and back. She exhaled and shrugged. The memories Jessica fed her contradicted everything she’d dug up about the man. Articles said he was a psychopath, a natural born killer, but that’s not what Jessica had seen.
Jessica saw the man beneath the hard impenetrable exterior and because of that; she had lived through the ordeal with his stepbrother. She thought her past was bad, but the shit that woman went through in that hellhole was astounding. “I don’t know what to think. Her memories paint you as a flawed saint, and I don’t think you’re anywhere near the realm of saint.”
His laughter echoed off the water. “You’re right on the money there.” He pointed in her direction. “I am not even in the vicinity of saint, despite these pristine wings in my back.” He flexed spreading them wide, showing off and then they folded neatly away. “Flawed saint. That really is funny.”
“So, with you as a guardian angel, my husband is truly screwed.” Her lips formed a genuine smile. Despite her misgivings, she was beginning to like this man.
A belly laugh was the best way to describe the sound coming from Chris as he nodded. “Pretty much.” After the laughter wound down, he glanced at her and sighed. “You know, you’re not half bad when you relax.”
“And you’re not such an asshole when you’re not giving ultimatums.”
“Touché.” He hopped to his feet, his expression turning serious. “How was she today?” He dug his hands into his pockets, looking more like his boy, CJ, than an angel.
Jennifer stood and approached him. “It was very tough on her. She’s trying to be strong for the boys, but she misses you.” She pressed her lips together in a slight smile of support.
He nodded, lowering his head.
“She knows you love her.” She reached out, touching his chest with her hand. Surprisingly solid and warm.
Chris covered her hand with his. Just for a second he felt the essence of his wife and he breathed a sigh that disturbed the silent reverie of the cove, bowing flowers and rustling the leaves.
When his eyes met hers, she felt the connection, the heat, the magnificent power surging through her veins and gasped, yanking her hand off his chest. The bond between Jennifer and Chris was severed but the effects were hauntingly familiar. The only man who ever made her feel that way was Steve.
Without thought she stepped closer, placing her hand back on his chest, her gaze locked with his. His wings fluttered and his lips formed a playful smile when the connection ignited.
“You are playing with fire, little girl.” His hand ensnared her wrist, pulling it away from his skin.
Jennifer blinked and stepped back. His rebuff stinging in a way she couldn’t explain.
“Look, you’re a beautiful woman but I haven’t strayed from Jessica since the complex and I don’t intend to start now.” He raised an eyebrow. “You need to work out those feelings with your husband. Remember him?”
“Y-yes,” she stuttered, still trying to get her arms around her behavior. It made no sense. Whenever Steve touched her, she cringed because the memory of Kyle clouded her mind, but here, with this dark angel, she had wanted to be taken—wanted to feel the moss on her back and his majestic form on top of her.
“Jessica said I had that effect on women,” he laughed and took a step back.
The distance was like a slap of sanity and Jennifer felt her cheeks heat up.
“Maybe a change of scenery will tear down that mental block where Steve is concerned.” Chris stepped back, uncurling his wings and taking flight.
Jennifer watched him flee, wondering just how long it would be before she would feel that same spark again with her husband.
Chapter 14
Steve arrived at the airport with his badge fully displayed and his gun case in the carry-on luggage. With travel permit papers in order, he slipped through security and met up with Sarah on the concourse.
“Do you have the file?”
Sarah pulled a folder out of her attaché case handing it to Steve. “Son of a bitch is targeting kids.”
Steve nodded. “They confirmed the age of the last victim.” He shook his head. All the victims were under 12, and sex didn’t seem to matter, but race was consistent. They were all white and all of them had signs of torture before death. Steve flipped the file closed and pushed the heels of his palms to his eyes. He wasn’t ready to deal with this yet, but he had no choice, not if he wanted to remain in the FBI. He lowered his hands and glanced at Sarah. “We need to catch this bastard fast, before he has a chance to hurt another child.”
“I agree. But where do we start looking?”
Steve leaned back in the chair and sighed. There was no consistent pattern of where he grabbed the kids. The mall, an arcade, a bowling alley, a flea market. As he listed off the places in his mind, it strove for patterns, and one came through. They were all crowded places where a little chaos was overlooked.
He flipped the file open again and pulled up a map on his laptop, marking the addresses where the abductions took place with numbered red dots, and then he marked the addresses where the bodies were found with numbered white dots. Turning the computer toward Sarah, he said, “Not much of a consistent pattern. At least not much more than the police reports show. He’s hitting in crowded areas where the abduction might not be noticed right away.” He turned the screen back and stared at it. “There’s definitely a pattern in here, but I just can’t make it out yet.” He bit his lower lip, reading the statements of the parents. “In all cases, the kid is out of view of the adult they were with.” The vision of the girl he found in the woods in Brooksfield surfaced. “Damn it.” He slammed the folder closed and handed the case file to Sarah.
“What’s wrong?”
Steve just shook his head. “There’s nothing that sets me off more than a monster going after children.” He stood and walked to the window, staring out at the planes on the tarmac. His arms crossed and his feet planted firmly, the anger biting at the underside of his skin, itching to get loose. His gaze shifted to his reflection. Chris’s words about watching his temper came creeping back and he inhaled.
The boarding announcement came over the loud speaker and he collected his things, heading toward the plane without saying a word to Sarah.
The fuel in his veins was pumping and he had to concentrate on securing the hatches so it didn’t escape.
The plane ride was quiet. Sarah studied the file while Steve closed his eyes, giving the impression of sleeping but he actually used the time to scan her mind, absorbing her ideas, her strategies to crack the case. He sighed and opened his eyes. “You’re not that far off. He’s picking off easy targets but I’m still wondering how he’s getting them out of the buildings without notice. No one heard any screaming or saw anything out of the ordinary. They mentioned surveillance tapes, but again, nothing. We’ll have to take a look at those when we get to the station.” He glanced in her direction. “I’ll tell you one thing, if this guy’s thoughts are linear and I come across him, I’ve got him nailed.”
Sarah just nodded, sending a glance sideways. “You were in my head that whole time?”
Hot skin flushed over his cheeks and he smiled, offering a shrug. “Sorry.”
Sarah chuckled. “Talk about violations of privacy.”
Steve joined her, chuckling low and leaning back in the seat. “Better watch those thoughts, Agent Connelly, I’m a married man.”
Chapter 15
CJ lay in bed, studying the ceiling.
“What’d Dad say?” Tommy asked from the bed across the room.
“He said I shouldn’t blame Agent Williams.”
Tommy snorted a laugh. “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”
CJ turned toward his brother and sat up, glaring and willing Tommy’s blankets to fly across the room. “What does that mean?”
Tommy slid out of the bed and stomped across the room, gathering his sheets in his arms. He threw them to the foot of his bed and turned toward his brother. “You. You have to blame someone, anyone but Dad. He knew he wasn’t coming back.” Tommy’s voice rose, the decibels filling the room as the anger finally burst through the sadness. “He left us!”
CJ leaned back, his breath locking in his throat in surprise. Tommy never yelled, not like this, not in anger, not filled with raw fury raging in his skin.
“Dad left us!” Tommy began to tremble in the middle of the floor, his hands clenched in small tight fists. “He left us!”
“He had no choice.”
Both boys turned to the doorway, where their mother stood with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Your father had no choice.” Her calico eyes drifted from Tommy to CJ and back. “He didn’t want to leave us, but he had no choice.” Tears glittered on her cheeks and she turned away, leaving them both gaping at the empty doorway.
Tommy threw himself on his bed, hugging his pillow with the back of his head toward CJ.
CJ stared at Tommy and shivered. That annoying nibbling on the edges of his conscience was back, like a mouse determined to escape from the recesses of a trap. It shrouded them in blackness, forecasting doom.
Chapter 16
The plane touched down and Steve and Sarah retrieved their bags, getting in the flashy car he rented.
“The bureau won’t pay for this, you know,” Sarah said, sliding into the passenger seat of the little red Jaguar.
“I don’t give a shit,” Steve replied. “I’ve got money to burn and this is what I’m in the mood for.” He hit the gas, shifting the gears and speeding out of the parking lot, leaving slack jaws in his wake.
The police station was no different. When he pulled in with the coup, all eyes turned, checking out the car and the two getting out. Shock registered when they saw the FBI badge hanging from Steve’s pocket. Usually the FBI showed up in a black SUV like the one the little red Jaguar slid next to. He flipped off his sunglasses offering a curt nod and stepped into the building.
A tall, intense looking man with sandy gray hair and his mouth turned into a scowl approached him. “What the hell are you doing?” Assistant Director Cleary snapped, pulling Steve aside and pointing to the flashy car in the parking lot.
“Look, I can afford it; the bureau doesn’t need to worry about the rental expense.”
Arrogant little shit. Cleary’s lips went white.
“And please, stop referring to me as arrogant,” Steve said, slipping his sunglasses into his front pocket. “That is just irritating.” He turned, leaving his shocked boss staring after him. Steve walked into the crowded police station, scanning with both his eyes and his mind.
Sarah already stood before the information board in the situation room, studying it. Victims’ pictures lined the corkboard next to the map of Atlanta and the surrounding counties. They even mimicked what he had done on the computer, putting a connecting line from the abduction site to the place where the body was found, but this view left an interesting pattern that hadn’t shown up on his computer screen. One that Steve recognized and a chill slithered down his spine. Why the hell did the pattern have to be a pentagram?
He turned to the officer in charge of the investigation, his eyes dropping from the man’s cherub-shaped face to the badge hanging out of his pocket. “Lieutenant Danforth, these dots,” he said, pointing to the ones without lines. “They’re all reports of missing kids?”
Lieutenant Danforth nodded. “Yes, and you are?”
“Special Agent Steve Williams.” Handshakes were exchanged and they turned toward the map, shoulder to shoulder.
Cleary stepped next to Steve. “What do you think?”
Steve sighed, scanning the map. He tapped the missing group of photos that didn’t have connecting lines. “We need to find out where these kids were last seen. This UNSUB targets specific locations, crowded and chaotic. But he gets the kids out without any struggle, so I’m thinking the person is dressed as someone these kids trust. A priest, a cop, a fireman, an EMT, a nurse, a security guard. Those are all people kids have been programmed to trust.” He paused, looking at the victims. “Are they in the same school system?”
“No, different districts.”
“Then a teacher wouldn’t make sense.” He chewed on his bottom lip and glanced at Lieutenant Danforth. “But I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already thought of.”
Lieutenant Danforth smiled and shrugged. “You actually threw out a couple of vocations I hadn’t thought of. But we did run down the teacher lead and it’s a dead end.”
Steve returned his gaze to the board. “Do you have the surveillance videos I can look at?”
“Sure.” Danforth led Steve into a small computer room and pointed to the discs and folders sitting beside the console. “Have at it.”
Steve nodded and plopped the first disc in, scanning to the proper date and time scribbled on the CD holder. He rewound thirty minutes and leaned back to watch, nothing unusual until a few minutes before the timestamp in the folder. Jody Reece pointed and pulled away from her mother, running down the aisle and out of view of the camera. That was the last time her mother saw her.
Smart bastard, knows where the fucking cameras are and how to stay just out of range.
Steve paused the tape and rewound, zooming in on the girl’s face. It lit up like a football stadium at night and she pointed, mouthing the words, Mom look.
“Huh.” Steve grunted.
There were precious few things that could jump-start a kid like that. The first thing that came to mind was a clown, and on the heels of that, a Disney character, neither of which fit the bill. Especially since the parents reported nothing out of the ordinary and both those examples would have been deemed well out of the territory of ordinary in Atlanta.
Another thought popped into his head.
A dog.
“Shit.” That was another sure thing that would excite a kid.
Steve scribbled on his notepad all three ideas and popped the disc. The next four victims reacted in the same manner, the excitement and then bolting away, toward something. In all cases, the parents smiled at whatever was just out of camera range and moved on.
Steve sat back.
All the parents smiled.
What would a parent allow a kid to run toward?
&n
bsp; What would he allow his kid to run toward?
He stopped and rewound the tape a little further, studying all glances in the direction the kids went. Everyone that glanced the way the children went looked either at eye level and then down or the exact opposite.
Steve thought about the first time he saw Chris Ryan with his guide dog. The difference in height between the shepherd and the man’s face was almost the same as the difference in each glance.
That narrowed the field down to one thing and one thing only. A dog—and with the abduction locations, he could narrow it further—to a guide dog.
He raised an eyebrow and stood, crossing into the room where his boss sat. “I think I found something.” The statement created a wake of silence and all the cops gathered around the desk.
“I believe the UNSUB is using a dog to lure the kids in.” He let that hang in the air and from the thoughts radiating from the group, he wasn’t telling them anything new.
The nearest officer smirked and glanced away.
“You’ve got something to say, Officer Gagnon?”
Gagnon shrugged. “No shit, it’s noted in the file.”
Steve glared at the officer and bit down the reaction to his thoughts, turning to Danforth instead. “Why wasn’t that in the notes delivered to us?”
“It should have been,” he said, glancing over Steve’s shoulder at the officer.
“What else is missing?”
“I’ll have to take a look at what was sent and get back to you,” Danforth said.
Between his glare and the angry thoughts pervading his mind, Steve knew he was less than thrilled with his subordinates.
“Fine, in the meantime, I’d like to talk to each of the parent’s again.”
Gagnon exchanged a glance with Danforth and got a nod in return. “I’ll take you.”
Steve followed Gagnon out of the precinct, slipping into the front passenger seat of the squad car, covering a yawn.