Evelyn shifted her heavy bag on her shoulder as she looked up at Carly, who had a solid eight inches on her own five foot two.
Carly’s lips twisted and Evelyn read frustration there, but not defeat. There were ten Bureau CARD teams, spread across the country, ready to leave at a moment’s notice to assist local law enforcement whenever a child went missing. If it was a parental abduction, chances of recovering the child were good. But for nonparental abductions, the statistics were a lot grimmer. Anyone who chose to work on a CARD team had to be either unrealistically optimistic or impossibly hardened.
Probably the same could be said about BAU. And Evelyn knew on which end of the spectrum she fell.
“We don’t have much,” Carly answered. “Brittany lived on High Street. You remember it?”
Evelyn nodded. It was a few blocks over from where she’d lived with her grandparents from the time she was ten until she was seventeen. If it was like it had been thirteen years ago, the houses were big and far apart, neighbors were cordial but not close, and landscaping was designed for privacy.
“Then it probably won’t surprise you that we had no witnesses. I’ve got a team of seven here and they’re all paired up with officers. One of my agents is running down the nearby sex offenders and five are conducting interviews with neighbors. We’re hoping to get lucky on a vehicle description, but so far, nothing.”
“What about forensics?”
Carly shrugged, shoving back the sleeves on her pinstriped blazer. “Unlikely. The note was taped to Brittany’s bike, and we dusted it, but we only got Brittany’s mom’s prints on the note. We’re running the prints from the bike, but I doubt we’ll get a hit.”
Evelyn tried not to feel disappointed. She’d expected that. She’d been too young eighteen years ago to be told much about the investigation, but she’d understood what was going on from her grandparents’ expressions. Evidence had been slim. And as the days turned into years, hope had become even slimmer.
She vowed that this time would be different. “Where’s my spot?” She raised her voice to be heard over the chatter that had picked up in volume at the front of the station. When a child went missing, people often assumed that a police station would be empty, but it was usually packed. With officers manning tip lines and coordinating with specialized resources. With civilians reporting suspicions, demanding answers and volunteering to join search parties. “I’d like to get to work.”
Carly pointed to a place at the end of one of the tables, stacked with boxes. “Right over there. Brittany’s file is on top. And the boxes contain copies of the evidence from eighteen years ago. You’ve seen those already?” Carly asked, eyebrows raised, telling Evelyn she knew her history here.
Evelyn shook her head, then walked toward the case files. A sharp whistle brought her up short, made her spin around.
The bloodhound shot to his feet and followed his handler out of the room as a pair of cops pushed their way in to give Carly updates.
Dumping her FBI bag on the floor, Evelyn squeezed around the table to get a better look inside the boxes. She tried to ignore the increasing level of noise as officers walked in and out of the room, but it was a sharp contrast to the morgue-like quiet that usually pervaded the BAU office.
Folding back the cardboard top, Evelyn looked inside one of the boxes and saw a stack of photographs. The first photo showed a well-loved and dirt-caked doll lying on the grass, an evidence marker next to it.
Matilda. The name of Cassie’s doll came back to her as soon as she saw it.
Evelyn slapped the lid shut. She felt Carly looking at her, but didn’t lift her gaze. She could do this. Dan wasn’t right about her being too close to the case to properly profile it.
She just hadn’t expected to see Cassie’s toy. She’d gotten a copy of the case file two months earlier, but she’d mainly wanted to read the note left on Cassie’s bed. She hadn’t read through the list of cataloged evidence. She didn’t know they’d found Cassie’s doll. She’d only known they hadn’t found Cassie.
Fortifying herself, she tried to open the box again, but her hands trembled. She needed to do this in private, not surrounded by the chaos of the station.
Hefting the boxes in her arms, she went back the way she’d come. She tried to make her voice sound normal as she told Carly, “I’m going to find a quiet corner to work.”
She glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’ll be back in three hours with a profile.” It wasn’t enough time, not really, but Brittany had already been missing for thirteen hours, and after twenty-four her chances decreased even more. They all had to hurry.
Evelyn clutched three boxes of case details, carrying them as low as she could to see over the top. Her duffel bag swung toward them with every step and her briefcase dangled precariously from her right hand. Her thighs bumped the boxes as she hurried toward the hotel.
Normally, the files wouldn’t have left the station, since it was no longer a cold case. But they were only copies and she’d promised Tomas she wouldn’t let them out of her sight until she got them back to the station in three hours.
The chain hotel was a few miles from the police station, on the outskirts of town. It was well back from the road, hidden by a canopy of live oaks draped with clumps of Spanish moss. A hundred and fifty years ago, a plantation had claimed this spot. When she’d lived in Rose Bay, it’d been the location of a little bed-and-breakfast. But the town had grown, both the permanent and tourist populations booming in the past decade. The results of that, at least the ones she’d seen so far, were more bars, restaurants and hotels.
It felt surreal to be back. She kept expecting to turn a corner and see her grandparents. To see Cassie.
But her grandpa had been gone for fifteen years and her grandma now lived in Virginia, in an old-age home near Evelyn. And Cassie... Whether Cassie was dead or alive, maybe Evelyn would finally learn where she’d been all these years.
Greg had booked the hotel for her. He’d made all her reservations while she’d rushed straight to the airport and hopped on the first flight to South Carolina. The nature of her job meant her FBI “Go Bag,” currently weighing down her left shoulder, had already been in the trunk of her car.
As she held the boxes higher, blocking her sight, then grabbed the door and pushed through, the bag slipped off her shoulder. The strap dropped to her elbow with enough force to jar her hand from the boxes. “Shit!”
Evelyn yanked her hand back up, bag swinging, trying to catch the boxes before confidential case information spilled all over the hotel floor.
A pair of hands grasped the boxes from the other side. “Got them!”
She knew that deep, drawling voice. As the boxes were lifted away from her, Evelyn stuttered, “M-Mac. What are you doing here?”
Heat rushed up her face as Kyle McKenzie’s eyes locked on hers. “I figured you’d be staying on-site.” She’d known HRT was in the area, but they were working a case a few towns over, so she’d assumed they would have set up a command post there.
She’d thought
