Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
I almost trip over my feet while stumbling into his office. I’ve heard suspicions that a New York sex-trafficking ring, active during Cameron’s abduction, might not be to blame for her kidnapping. Girls in that industry are usually discarded within a year or two, but this new business can exploit victims into their late thirties.
Cameron is a year older than me, so her age brings her close to the cusp of no longer being required by men in the baby-making industry.
Inside his office, Alex stares out the window, deep in thought. I don’t need him to speak to update me on his findings. The graphic images on his desk reveal everything. They show a female victim in her mid-thirties, dumped in an industrial bin behind a warehouse. Her strawberry-blonde hair is stained with blood, and although the perpetrators tried to hide her identity, DNA testing reveals her name.
It isn’t Cameron June. Thank fuck.
“That’s the third body in the past six months.” Despite the manic tic of his jaw, Alex’s expression is impassive. “They are faceless and fingerless—”
“But showing clear signs of multiple gravidities,” I interrupt, hurrying him along. When he agrees, I redirect my focus back to the blonde who never stood a chance. “How old was she?”
He hesitates, aware of Cameron’s abduction, before he puts on his supervisor’s cap. “At death… thirty-eight.”
I swallow the burn scorching my throat before forcing words through the carnage. “I meant her age at abduction.”
This reply takes Alex a lot longer to issue. “Eighteen.”
My eyes snap up to him so fast that I grow dizzy. Maintaining an impassive tone, I ask, “Was this the first sighting since her abduction?” I shouldn’t have bothered attempting to alter my tone. I sound pissed. Rightfully so. No one sighted Melissa. They dumped her like a discarded toy. She made them millions, yet they threw her out with the trash.
“Yes.” Alex joins me at his desk. “But that doesn’t mean—”
I cut him off with a growl. The numerous marks on Melissa’s stomach and exposed uterus show she has given birth to many children. He can’t tell me this isn’t a sign that her kidnappers held her captive for two decades, only disposing of her once her womanly clock expired.
I realize the rumblings of my outside-of-hours investigation are reaching the top tier of the bureau when Alex sighs heavily before saying, “I was told to keep you off this case.”
“But you didn’t, because you know the same as I do. I am the best agent to close this case.”
His chin veers toward his chest, and it swells my chest with pride. I’ve straddled the line of lawful and unlawful for years, confident it would get me closer to the men responsible for Cameron’s disappearance. This flexibility lets me play on any team, though it often disappoints men like Alex and our father.
“When are wheels up?”
Alex checks his watch—the watch I was supposed to inherit. “Around an hour.”
I jerk up my chin, wordlessly assuring him that I will be on that jet, before I spin on my heel.
I’m halfway out of his office when he calls my name.
He doesn’t speak until I turn to face him. “The primary investigator on this case is reluctant to leave. I need you to make her departure a priority.” Suspicion runs rife through my veins when he reveals that this isn’t just a covert operation. It is off the hierarchy’s radar entirely. “You will have a team at your disposal, but for the most part, you will be on your own. I was told not to waste resources on this since they’re not confident the bodies aren’t being dumped stateside after being killed abroad.”
Confirmation of his first request blazes through my eyes before I give him the respect he’s given me. “What’s your gut telling you?”
He scrubs a hand over his bushy jaw before replying, “More is happening in this sleepy coastal community than people believe, and it shouldn’t matter where they were killed. They’re American citizens under our protection, whether on our soil or not.”
“Then I guess this is a good time to tell you that intuition doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. It tells you—”
“What you need to hear,” Alex says with me.
His smirk mimics mine, and one thirty years older than me, as he says, “Get this case wrapped up and then come home. Kailany turns one next month, and she wants all her uncles and aunts in attendance.”
As images of the little green-eyed devil coexisting as his daughter flash before my eyes, I dip my chin before leaving his office with more spring in my step than I entered it with.
2
GRAYSON
The jet touches down with a jolt, adding to the flips my stomach hasn’t been without for the past five hours. I went over the case files a dozen times during the flight, and the details have made a mess of my stomach. It is usually ironclad, except for cases like this. I often picture Cameron as the victim I’m searching for, even when I know it isn’t her.