Vendetta (6 page)

She nodded her thanks. “About today . . . again. I know I've already said it, but I really am sorry. Nothing went the way we planned.”

“And I've already said you have nothing to be sorry about. I wanted to spend the day with you—someone who cared about Katie as much as I did. You were her best friend. I told you before, I wouldn't have made it through this last year without you, and I meant it.”

The day Katie married Tyler, she'd told Nikki she was the luckiest girl in the world. They'd experienced the normal ups and downs of typical newlyweds, but even through their first years of marriage, Katie had never stopped teasing Nikki about how she needed to find someone like Tyler. Because he made her happy, protected, and complete. For Katie, a girl who'd grown up in a broken home, Tyler had become her knight in shining armor.

Nikki massaged her neck. The tension headache was back and now settling into the muscles of her back. “I'll let you drive us home, if you let me treat you and Liam to dinner.”

At least she'd be closer if her family needed her. And at the same time be there for Tyler.

“I'll be okay, Nikki.”

She knew he was right, but when she looked into his eyes, she didn't miss the flicker of pain. Grief pressed against her chest. He might be okay, but she also knew how he still slept
in the guest bedroom. How he hadn't finished remodeling the master bathroom. She knew about Liam's nightmares. His fear of water, even taking a bath. Neither of them had set foot on the
Isabella
since the accident. A couple of months ago, she'd finally convinced him to start turning the baby's nursery into a playroom for Liam. They stripped off the pink wallpaper and packed away the unused baby gifts before painting the room in bright yellow and lime green, adding bookshelves, and setting up a tepee she'd found online.

For a man who'd spent so much time defending his country, he hadn't been able to escape the scars Katie's and their baby's deaths had left behind. Sometimes pain stacked up, its weight crushing. Lifting it off to put life back together felt impossible.

“Nikki?”

She nodded, the decision made. “Let me go speak to the other officers, then as soon as Jack and Gwen get here, I'll be ready to go.”

Tyler squeezed her hand. “We'll leave as soon as you're ready.”

She slipped quickly back into her professional mode. Organizing. Directing. Trying to ensure everything that could be done was being done. Once volunteers started to trickle in, they'd need to be briefed. Tasks would be assigned in order of importance, then added to as new leads were uncovered. They needed to move quickly, but if Bridget was in the park, they were going to be up against thousands of acres of daunting wilderness.

“Agent Boyd?” Ranger Anderson was walking toward her. “You're going to want to see this. One of the rangers found this in the women's restroom.”

“What is it?” Tyler asked.

Nikki felt her heart stop as she picked up the photo in the evidence bag. She didn't have to ask that question. It was a Polaroid photo of Bridget.

“Someone must have dropped it.”

She shook her head. It wasn't dropped. It was
his
signature. One she hadn't seen at a crime scene for ten years.

“Nikki, what's wrong?” Tyler asked.

Nikki turned around slowly, the photograph in her hands. No one used Polaroid cameras anymore. But he had.

Her mind flashed to another crime scene, the last time she'd seen his signature. Yellow tape surrounding the forested area. Officers working, cameras flashing. The crunch of the pinecones under her shoes. The smell of decaying flesh in the distance, the rain against her cheek . . . Each and every nuance of that afternoon had been embedded into her brain. None of those memories had completely faded away.

“Nikki?” Tyler asked.

“I know who's behind this.”

“Who?”

She'd been hired by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation because she'd memorized each and every abductor's signature. She'd studied every detail and pattern. Anything that might one day help her discover the identity of her sister's abductor. Anything she could do to stop the same thing from happening to someone else's daughter.

They were all looking at her. Waiting for her answer. Waiting for her to tell them what she knew about the significance of the photo.

Instead she stood there, the photo frozen in her hand. Terrified. Terrified he was out there, mocking her. Stalking her. Except that couldn't be true.
He
didn't know her. Didn't know she'd been looking for him for the past decade. Didn't know she'd dedicated her life to saving girls like the one he'd stolen from her family.

“I'm sorry, I need some air.”

Nikki escaped through the front door of the visitor center.
Officers were interviewing tourists and handing out flyers with Bridget's photo. She had to find a way to get ahold of her emotions. Calm down and stay focused. Six hours had passed since Bridget had gone missing, and she knew if it was
him
, the chances of her being alive continued to diminish. Because she had no name, no current description . . . nothing. She slowly inhaled and counted to four while holding her breath. When they'd agreed to hire her for their newly expanded missing persons task force, she'd assured herself she could keep her professional and personal worlds separate.

One, two, three, four.

She slowly breathed out. Until now, she'd managed to find a way to remove herself from her cases. But she'd feared it would come to this one day. The day when the past collided with the present. She leaned against the stone wall of the building and stared out across the manicured flower beds and wooded area beyond them. But all she could see was Bridget's photo.

Sarah's abductor was back.

“Nikki?”

Nikki heard Tyler's voice and realized he was standing beside her.

“What's going on? You froze back there.”

She looked up and caught his gaze, battling to come up with an explanation she could give him. “I know. I'm sorry.”

“Don't be sorry. I don't know of many officers who don't get at least somewhat personally involved in their cases, and for you, this hits even closer to home. Tell me what's going on.”

She shook her head, not knowing where to begin.

Not knowing how to process what she'd just seen. Because what she held in her hands had to be nothing more than a coincidence. Or at least that was what she wanted to believe. The alternative was too frightening.

“Remember what they taught you at the academy.” He braced his hands against her shoulders. “Take deep, slow breaths. Count to four. Hold it—”

“I'm trying.”

She was trying, but her mind couldn't focus. For ten years
she'd looked for the man who'd taken her sister, and somehow she'd stumbled upon him in the middle of the Smoky Mountains on a random case. How was that possible?

“Why did that photo spook you?”

“It proves Bridget was here,” she said finally. “And that she was abducted by a predator.”

“Okay, but that's not all, is it?”

“No.” She drew in another slow breath, waiting for her mind to clear. “I know who has Bridget.”

“How can you know that, Nikki?”

“There hasn't been any sign of him for years, but he's back, Tyler.” She took another deep breath, still trying desperately to control the panic mushrooming inside her. “The man who kidnapped Sarah.”

“Whoa . . .” Tyler took a step back and dropped his hands to his sides. “Don't you think you're jumping to conclusions?”

Nikki shook her head.

“Then tell me how that photo links this case to your sister's case,” he said.

“He left Polaroid photos of the girls at his crime scenes. Six times. Six girls from 2002 to 2006. Sarah was the fifth girl he took.”

“Does anything else about this case seem familiar?”

“He stalked them before he took them, which was why the police believe they weren't just random abductions of opportunity. In four out of the six disappearances, people gave similar descriptions of a man who became known as the Angel Abductor.”

She kneaded the back of her neck with her fingertips, her temples pounding as she spoke.

“Headache back?”

She nodded.

“Give me a second.” He returned with a bottle of water and
a couple of pain relievers. “I know the basic facts about your sister's disappearance, but you've never shared with me what happened that afternoon.”

Her hand shook as she took the bottle of water Tyler handed her and nodded her thanks. She'd met Tyler on a double date with Katie eighteen months after Sarah vanished. After weeks of immersing herself in every lead the police turned up, she'd learned to keep what she discovered to herself. Her parents, especially her mother, couldn't handle the emotional roller coaster. Most of it, she'd never even shared with Katie, let alone Tyler.

He leaned his shoulder against the stone wall beside her. “Tell me what happened the day Sarah disappeared, Nikki.”

The minutes and hours clicked automatically through her mind, frame by frame. Detail by detail. As many times as she'd wanted to, she'd never been able to erase them. “I was supposed to pick her up after school. I'd promised to take her out for ice cream to celebrate a good grade on an algebra test. She hated math and was determined to do everything possible to avoid going to summer school.

“I'd just gotten off work. It was my first year teaching at Oak School Elementary. On my way to pick her up, I decided to stop at the mall to buy some shoes I'd had my eye on. The store was having a sale, and I figured I'd have plenty of time to grab them on my way and pick her up on time.”

Days later, she'd found the shoes in the trunk of her car, still in the box with their tags and the receipt. She'd tossed them in the trash.

“I ended up getting to the school fifteen minutes late. I couldn't find her. I didn't think much about it at first. I thought she might have caught a ride home with a friend. But when I got to my parents' house, she wasn't there.”

It was at that point she'd begun to realize something was
wrong. Sarah would never have gone anywhere without telling someone.

“The police canvassed the neighborhoods, and we spoke to everyone at the school. Door-to-door in the surrounding neighborhoods, a grid search of the area. The police set up roadblocks, put out an AMBER Alert. The only clue we had was the Polaroid photo of Sarah found outside the school, left presumably by her abductor. No one we spoke to saw her get into a car. None of her friends or friends' parents. She'd just . . . vanished.”

Tyler stood quietly beside her while she worked to settle her emotions. “We finally got an eyewitness statement from a student who remembered seeing her get into a car with a man. The description matched a serial killer the police and FBI had been looking for over the past few years.”

“The Angel Abductor.”

Nikki nodded. Even ten years later, the media's name for the man still managed to send chills through her. “After that day, I spent weeks poring over every phone call and lead the police received.

“I was the one who ended up working with law enforcement to make a long-term plan. My parents paid for a private investigator to look into the case, but I still went over Sarah's file dozens of times, memorizing every detail, looking for anything crucial that might have been overlooked. I kept meticulous notes, studied serial abductor and killer cases, and made sure the media was kept involved. I was completely focused on finding that one clue that would lead us to Sarah.”

The missing persons file on Sarah had become extensive. Pages and pages of information containing medical information, personal descriptions, and coded dental characteristics, along with the initial entry report and categories and leads. She'd memorized them all, along with every fact they knew about the abductor.

“It didn't take long for me to realize that I—along with my entire family—had changed. My parents considered closing their restaurant, and at one point considered divorce. Thankfully, they had a lot of support in their church and eventually managed to slowly find their way out of the darkness. But I couldn't give up on the possibility that Sarah was still out there.”

Alive.

Nikki paused while Tyler gave her the space she needed to continue.

“I finished up my first year of teaching, turned in my resignation, and applied to the police academy. I figured it would not only help me continue searching for my sister, but maybe I could help someone else who was going through what our family had suffered. Not knowing what happened to someone you love is like not being able to wake up from some horrid nightmare. I wanted—needed—answers, and decided that the best way for me to find them was to be on the inside.”

“And all these years later you've continued to blame yourself for being late that day.”

Nikki nodded. “I should have been there. I could have stopped what happened to her if I'd been on time.”

Tyler's expression clouded. “Like I should have been there for Katie when she died?”

She stiffened at the question. “That's different.”

“Different? Not to me. Three tours of duty in special ops, and I couldn't save my own wife.”

Nikki looked up at him and caught the loss simmering in his eyes. Fifteen months ago, he'd returned from the Middle East with a bullet in his leg, a Purple Heart in his backpack, and six months of physical therapy ahead of him. Katie had begged him not to reenlist. What neither of them knew at the time was that three months later, she'd be the one lying in the morgue.

“Katie's death wasn't your fault,” she argued.

“Just like what happened to Sarah wasn't your fault.”

A stocky black starling landed on the pavement a few feet from them and grabbed the crust of a sandwich some tourist had dropped. She wanted to believe him, but after all these years, the numbing grief and guilt had yet to dissipate. She should have been there. Should have saved Sarah. But she hadn't. And that knowledge would haunt her until the day she died.

“And while you might not have been able to find Sarah, we can still find Bridget,” he continued.

She wanted so badly to believe him. Just like she wanted to believe that saving others might begin to redeem herself, but today she was drowning in a familiar tidal wave of emotion. Because today had hit way too close to home.

She pressed her back against the wall. “What if I can't? It's been ten years since he surfaced. I have no idea how to find this guy.”

“You can't do what? Save Bridget like you couldn't save Sarah?” Concern creased his forehead. “Isn't that what this is all about?”

“Yes . . . no . . . I don't know.”

He took her hand, rubbed his thumb across the back of it. “What happened to your sister changed your life. Your entire family's lives. Just like losing Katie has changed mine.”

“But you still feel guilty too.”

Tyler's frown deepened. “Yes, and trust me, it's easier for me to dole out advice than take it myself.”

“I think it's the not knowing that hurts the most. I don't know if she's alive or dead. Was she sold into sex trafficking? There's nothing I can do to help her. That moment when the unsolved case goes cold and is no longer active, your hope begins to strip away.”

“It's called complicated grief,” Tyler said. “Because added to the loss is the fact that there isn't any resolution to deal with when one goes through the grieving process.”

Complicated grief.

No resolution.

The words fit. Her grief hadn't ended, because the story hadn't ended. Nikki glanced back at the glass entrance to the visitor center. Officers were talking to tourists. Jack and Gwen would be here any moment, but all she could think about was Sarah and that photo. And the possibility that
he
was out there.

“I think it was hardest—and still is—on my mom.” Her mind was lost in the past. “I know she thinks about Sarah every single day. I just want so badly to be able to find her and bring her home. To make everything right again.”

“Except there's no turning back time when it comes to tragedy. I still wake up sometimes, convinced Katie's in the other room taking a shower or fixing me breakfast, and then reality hits and I remember that's not going to happen.” He paused, still holding her hand. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn't you ever share any of this with me before?”

“I don't know.” Nikki searched for an explanation. “We lost Sarah before I met you, and afterward . . . you and Katie were in love, you got married, then you went off to war. It never was the right time.”

And now all she could think of was that she had to be wrong. That the photo they'd brought to her was just some crazy coincidence. Or a copycat. Or maybe Jack was wrong about Sean Logan, and he and Bridget were just having fun. Taking innocent photos . . .

But she'd seen the fear in Bridget's eyes as she stared into the camera. That wasn't a photo of a girl taking a selfie. Or of a friend snapping a photo for fun. She'd been terrified. Betrayed.

Tyler took a step forward and pulled her into his arms. “I'm sorry you and your family have had to go through this. As much
as I miss Katie, and as difficult as the last year has been, at least I know what happened to her.”

Nikki relaxed for a moment in his embrace, needing to feel safe, and allowed herself to feel the warmth of his breath against her neck and the pulsing of his heart against hers. But Bridget was out there somewhere, and every second counted.

She pulled back and caught Tyler's gaze. “I need to find her.”

“That photo doesn't change anything, Nikki. You can't be responsible for every young girl that disappears. Your team can handle this one without you.”

“But everything has changed. If this is him, I know every detail of the case, every file on this man. If my team has to stop to go over the files, how much time will be wasted that could be spent looking for her?”

“What about Matt and Jamie?”

“I can't be in both places, but the photo . . . Tyler.” She tried to blink back the tears. “If there is any chance at all that this is somehow connected to Sarah's abductor, I need to stay.”

He ran his thumb across her cheek, wiping away a tear. “You're sure?”

“Yeah.” Nikki nodded. “We've got a lot of work to do.”

She had to do this—for Bridget and for Sarah—and for herself.