by Marci Bolden
“When the department found out this was personal, they limited my access to the case and put the biggest asshole they could find as the lead detective, knowing he’d never give me information. I can’t work on this through the force, but I can’t not work on this, either. The woman is my mom’s friend.”
Tarek gestured to a file on the table that she hadn’t noticed. He must have put it there before she dropped him. She opened the folder and scanned the eight-by-ten photo inside. Just to confirm what she already knew, Holly glanced over her shoulder at the image of Julia—a petite forty-three-year-old blonde with blue eyes and a perfect smile. She took the picture from the file and held it next to Julia’s. “They could be sisters.”
Tarek joined her at the whiteboard. Through her peripheral vision, Holly noticed him looking over her face. “You look like her. Like them. Only younger.”
Holly frowned at his observation. “There are a lot of blue-eyed blond women out there, Detective. I’m one of many.”
He didn’t seem dissuaded by her explanation. “Her husband hired you, knowing that you look like a younger version of his missing wife?”
She cocked a brow as she faced him. “Her husband hired my team. I took the lead by choice. My choice. The fact that I look similar to his wife has nothing to do with why he hired this agency, nor does it impact my ability to work this case.”
He opened his mouth as if to object but then seemed to think better of it and pointed to the photo she was holding. “That’s Penelope. She disappeared from outside a strip mall yesterday. We pulled the surveillance, of course. A man approached her as she was putting bags in her car. He talked to her for exactly eighty-three seconds before she followed him and got into a car. She hasn’t been seen since. I looked into recent missing persons cases and came across Julia’s. These cases have way too many similarities.” Tarek scanned the pictures taped to the wall. “Are all these cases related?”
“No. These are from various things we’re working on now. We like to bounce ideas off each other, but I’m the lead on the Fredrickson case. Julia disappeared six weeks ago from a grocery-store parking lot on MLK. Just like Penelope, she vanished in the middle of the morning from a high-traffic area, but nobody noticed a thing. The manager of the grocery store where Julia disappeared gave me a copy of the surveillance recording.” She gestured to a fuzzy screenshot she’d printed. “The quality isn’t clear enough to make an identification, but the man she left with was Caucasian, approximately six feet tall. She appeared to go with him willingly. We suspect she knew him or his cover story was convincing enough to get her to trust him.”
“Or he had a weapon,” he said.
“He didn’t appear to be holding one in the video. Of course, the quality wasn’t that great.”
“Any evidence she had a lover? Maybe she ran off with him.”
Holly shook her head. “Her life was about as perfect as it could get. I’ve looked in every dark corner I can find. There is no evidence of an affair, let alone one serious enough for her to leave her husband.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I’m running into with Penelope, too.” He pointed to another printed still from the low-quality security footage. “That his car?”
“The cops are stonewalling me—”
“Don’t take it personally. They can’t compromise their case.”
She pressed her lips together, taking a moment to temper her immediate response. “Yes. I know that. I may not be a detective, Detective, but I understand procedure and would never risk compromising a case or losing a suspect to protect my pride.” She let her words sink in before continuing. “Julia’s husband has been feeding me information. From what he says, this car was reported stolen earlier that morning and found outside town the next day. They found a print inside that matched Julia’s. This was likely the vehicle used to abduct her. And I say abduct because despite what looks like her seeming to willingly go with this man, I don’t believe she did.” She eyed Tarek. “Unfortunately, I don’t have much more to go on than that. Mr. Fredrickson has been an open book, but we just can’t find any leads. The evidence is starting to point to her being a victim of opportunity. Which means she could be anywhere.”
Tarek shook his head. “I would have thought that as well, but look at them. Two women, almost identical in appearance and age, taken in almost identical circumstances. He chose Julia, just like he chose Penelope.” He faced Holly. “You know, if by chance Fredrickson did this—”
“He didn’t.”
“He may have you in his sights,” he finished as if she hadn’t spoken.
“He doesn’t. And if he did, I’d knock the wind out of him and pin his ass to the ground before he knew what was happening.”
Tarek laughed. “Gotcha.”
“He told the police she thought she was being followed.”
“And what do the police think?”
Holly stared at him. He was a cop. He knew exactly what the police thought. That Fredrickson was throwing false leads to distract them. “He suspects they don’t believe him. And we both know why. The first suspect is always the husband.”
“Is he a suspect?”
“Aren’t the spouses always a suspect? That doesn’t make them guilty.”
Tarek responded by giving her the same flat stare she’d given him. When she didn’t budge, he lifted his hands in a show of surrender. “Look, my boss told me to butt out, but I can’t. I don’t know Penelope well, but she means something to my mother, so I’m going to do my damnedest to find her. Besides.” He shrugged. “I never was very good at following orders.”
Holly lifted her brows. “Well, that’s good to know before we get into bed together.” Her eyes widened—she didn’t mean for them to; they just did—as she realized what she’d said. What the fuck, Austin?
Tarek smirked.
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” he said. “I’d like for us to work together unofficially if we can.”
“Unofficially?”
“Unofficially. Because I’m not officially on this case.”
She stared into his eyes, gauging if she could trust him. Trust didn’t come easy for Holly. Life had thrown her a few curveballs, and her line of work tended to show her the ugly side of people. But something about Jakeem Tarek made her want to trust him. Finally she narrowed her eyes. “This goes both ways. You hear something, you let me know. Julia Fredrickson has been missing for six weeks. I need to find her.”
“Same for you.”
She weighed his offer. He would be able to find out more information on the official investigation than she could, and that could help her move the Fredrickson case forward. Julia’s husband was growing frustrated, but no more so than Holly. He’d given up on the police ever finding his wife and dumped a huge amount of money into HEARTS to see progress that wasn’t happening.
HEARTS had blanketed the area with posters, had gone door-to-door, and had come back empty-handed. Sam had worked her magic to gather traffic-cam and security footage. Holly had interviewed dozens of people over the last week. And she still had nothing.
Given how much time had passed since Julia had gone missing, a dark cloud hovered over the case. Holly wasn’t stupid. The likelihood of finding Julia now was even less than it had been a week ago when she took the case, but failure was not an option, most especially when a woman’s life was on the line.
“Was Julia’s case the only one that flagged in your search?” she asked.
“Yes. I only looked locally, but no other cases matched the victimology.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s widen the search to a fifty-mile radius. See if we can find other missing women who fit this description.”
“A hundred. Just to be safe.”
“I’ll get Sam on this right away. She does a lot of our research.” She started for the door and then stopped and turned toward him. “I’m guessing you do have information to share that we just haven’t gotten to yet?”
“Don’t worry. I have information to share.”
“Good.” She crossed the lobby to the reception desk.
Sam’s cocky smirk suggested she was still pleased with the outcome of her latest round of mischief. “You look mighty good on top, Hol.”
Holly deepened her frown. “Not funny. You shouldn’t have let him surprise me.”
“I tried to stop him.”
“Clearly you didn’t try hard enough.”
Sam leaned back and tapped her pencil on the desk. “I told him you didn’t want to be disturbed at the moment, and he got snippy with me. You know I hate that.”
“So you let me nearly break his arm?”
Sam shrugged as her grin reappeared. “The way you had him pinned was sexy as hell. I think he was turned on by it. He’s probably into S&M. Most of the cops I’ve dated have been. It’s an authority fetish.”
Holly lifted her hand to stop her. Once Sam got going on her sex life, ending the flow of information was nearly impossible. “I could not possibly care less about your fetishes, Sam. I need you to run a search for me. Any missing women in a hundred-mile radius who fit Julia Fredrickson’s description. Except Penelope Nelson. That’s the case Tarek brought in.” Holly started toward the conference room.
“Hey,” Sam called.
Holly turned back, knowing she’d regret it. Sam didn’t seem to take anything seriously. Probably because she’d never been in the field. She’d never seen someone die. She’d never pressed her hand to an open wound and promised someone they’d be okay, knowing damn well they wouldn’t. Holly envied Sam’s innocence sometimes, but most of the time the naiveté just annoyed the hell out of her.
“Check out his butt,” Sam whispered as she held up her hands and motioned as if she were cupping melons. “Very nice.”
Holly spun away without reacting. Any other of the HEARTS probably would have at least given Sam a thumbs-up, but Holly wasn’t amused.
Jack hadn’t stopped replaying the hour or so he had spent with Holly since he left the HEARTS office. After returning to the station, he sat at his desk and glanced around as if he were about to do something incredibly wrong. Which, to some extent, he was. The police databases should never be used to gain insight on someone for personal reasons, but there wasn’t a man or woman there who hadn’t done a little background check on someone for reasons other than solving a case.
He wasn’t surprised to find Holly Austin’s police record was clean. He let out a low whistle, however, when he brought up her family history. Mother deceased. Father lucky to still be alive, based on the number of DUIs and stints in the local jail. With a father like that, he didn’t have to think too hard about why she had such a tough outer appearance.
She’d likely had to work more than others to separate herself from whatever lifestyle she’d had growing up.
He had saved the link to HEARTS Investigative Services’ website when he’d first found out one of their agents was working a similar case. He’d researched all six of the private investigators, but now that he knew Holly was the one leading the search for Julia Fredrickson, he clicked on the About page and reread her bio. Two tours in Afghanistan, a black belt in jiujitsu, and a long list of marksmanship badges to prove her skill with a gun. Holly Austin was definitely not a woman to be crossed.
She was tough. She was sturdy. She was someone who had spent so much time looking out for herself that she didn’t seem capable of stopping, even for a moment. Women like that had history. Stories.
Baggage.
Jack sat back, wondering why that word had popped into his head. A subliminal warning? If so, it was one he intended to ignore. Even if he wanted to deny that he had been instantly enchanted with Holly Austin, he couldn’t. Not just her physical attractiveness, but her boldness, her dry humor, her dedication to her job. Everything about her spoke to him on some level no woman had ever reached before.
He wasn’t scared off by her or her past. He was intrigued. He wanted to pick her apart bit by bit to see what made her tick so he could better understand why he had felt such an immediate and intense connection to her. He was even more impressed now that he had experienced her skills firsthand. And there it was again—the memory of her pinning him down that was going to be permanently embedded in his mind. He expected his fantasies were going to get a lot of mileage out of the time he spent with her.
Staring at her professional headshot on the website, Jack was considering how the image didn’t do justice to the soft curve of her jaw or demanding blue eyes when his phone vibrated. He didn’t have to wonder who it was. His mother had been calling him about every three hours or so, checking to see if he had any new information on her friend.
He connected her call as he left his desk. The last thing he needed was someone at his office to overhear him reassuring her he was doing all he could to find Penelope Nelson. “Mom,” he said, putting the phone to his ear. “You okay?”
“Have you found her?” his mother asked, her heavy accent laden with worry.
He let his breath out slowly as he stepped into the bathroom and glanced under the stalls. He was alone. “Not yet, Mom. These things take time. I keep telling you—”
“She’s in trouble, Jakeem.”
“I know, Mama. I’m trying. I met with a private investigator today. She’s going to help me.”
His mother hesitated. “She?”
He let that fall. Her inquisitive tone could mean two things: she didn’t approve of a female private investigator or she was going to press to find out if this private investigator could possibly be the soulmate she’d been praying for so her son could settle down and give her grandchildren. Since she was becoming more and more accustomed to the role women played in American society, he’d guess it was the latter.
He didn’t want to get pulled into either conversation, so he said, “I can’t talk now. I’m at work.”
“This isn’t work?”
“Yes, but it’s not something I can discuss right now.” He closed his eyes when she sighed a long, slow breath. “I’ll find her. Are you okay otherwise? Need anything?”
“No. I’m okay. Will you come by for dinner, babba?”
He couldn’t say no, not when she was so upset, but he wasn’t a fool either. He was going get grilled on the PI he’d mentioned. Since his mother could read him like a book, he had no doubt Holly Austin was about to become as much of a fascination for his mother as she’d become for him.
Crap.
2
Holly frowned when Sam entered her office just after the workday started. Sam eased a cup of coffee onto the desk, but Holly kept her focus on the papers in front of her.
Holly hadn’t asked for coffee, and Sam didn’t act like the administrative assistant that she was hired to be unless it suited her. Oh no, Sam wanted something. And Holly knew exactly what that was, but she wasn’t about to delve into the gushy girl-talk Sam was hoping to get from her.
After a few moments of being ignored, Sam said, “That detective was here for a long time yesterday.”
“Yep.”
“Make any headway?”
“Nothing concrete. How’s that search going?”
“Scanning some databases now. I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
Sam didn’t take the hint Holly was giving with her short, clipped answers. Instead, she picked up the business card Jack had handed Holly before leaving and stared at the plain text on the front. Holly knew it was plain because she’d stared at it, too.
“Do police often come to PIs for help?” Sam asked.
“No.”
“So why did he?”
“His mother’s friend is missing. He told her he’d investigate it, but his department shut him out since the case is personal. He thinks our cases could be connected, so working with me is the next best thing to being on the other case.”
“Do you? Think the cases are connected, I mean.”
“Yes.” Leaning back, sh
e drew a deep breath as she nailed Sam with a hard stare. She didn’t intend to engage in the same topic Sam was hoping to discuss, but Holly did have a thing or two to say. “He heard you, Samantha.”
Sam widened her eyes and held her hands up to cup imaginary melons again. Holly nodded one decisive, unamused nod. She didn’t admit that Sam had been right. That Jack’s ass looked perfect in his slacks.
Sam started to grin but quickly cleared her throat and wiped the smirk from her lips. “Whoops.”
“Yeah. Whoops. Don’t do that again. HEARTS is just getting off the ground. You could get the entire agency in trouble, and I’ll be damned if one person sinks this ship over something stupid. Understand me?”
In a rare show of humility, Sam dropped her hands and bit off any attempt at sarcasm. “It won’t happen again, Holly. Promise.” The moment passed, and she smiled. “But he does have a great ass. Tell me you noticed, because if you didn’t, I’m going to have to start believing the rumors about you being dead inside.”
Holly drew a breath and let it out slowly as Jack’s face—and his perfect…everything—flashed through her mind.
“Oh my God! You’re blushing!” Sam clapped her hands together as she tossed her head back and laughed. “You did notice! I bet his ass looks fantastic in a tight pair of jeans.”
“Whoa!” Alexa called as she passed the doorway. Backtracking, she stuck her head in, her dark eyes practically dancing and her lips in a big smile. “Whose ass are we talking about?”
“Nobody’s,” Holly insisted, snatching Jack’s business card from Sam’s manicured fingers.
Sam’s bright gray eyes widened as she spun toward Alexa. Despite Holly’s warning, Sam dove right back into sexually objectifying Tarek all over again. Not that Holly hadn’t been doing the same in her mind since the moment she’d pulled him to his feet.
“This super-hot detective stopped by to see Holly—”
“About a case,” Holly clarified before Sam could deliberately taint the truth.