Vanished (3 page)

“Do you think there will be a ransom?” Lilian whispered.

Ava shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Lilian touched her screen again.

“Can I see the photo on your phone?” Ava asked, holding out her hand. Lilian gave her the phone.

Ava studied the little girl splashing in vibrant blue water. That wasn’t a Pacific Northwest ocean. “Hawaii?” she asked, choosing the closest tropical vacation site.

Lilian nodded.

The child in the photo still had that thin layer of baby fat that kept her from being mistaken for a middle-school student. This was a child who still reveled in being a little girl. Her bathing suit was Minnie Mouse, and her long white-blond hair hung in braids to her waist.

“Beautiful.” Ava handed back the phone. “Does Henley have a cell phone?”

“Yes, but she leaves it at home.” Lilian stood up. “Will you excuse me for a minute?”

Ava nodded and watched Lilian leave the room. The birth mom was a slim, athletic-looking woman. Ava knew she was unmarried, but did she have a boyfriend? She heard a door close down the hall from the direction Lilian had gone. Probably a bathroom.

Ava turned her gaze to the couple across the table. Lucas had Robin’s hand in a death grip on the table, and the woman briefly rested her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed. Lucas met Ava’s gaze, his expression grim.

“The three of you seem to get along fairly well for a divorced situation,” Ava prodded.

Robin lifted her head and nodded. “I’d call their divorce rather amicable.” She looked at Lucas, who grimaced and nodded.

“For the most part,” Lucas agreed. “We put Henley first. That was our agreement from the beginning. When Robin and I started dating, Lilian was already in a serious relationship, so it made it easier to handle.”

“Is she still seeing him?” Ava asked.

Robin and Lucas glanced at each other. “No,” Robin answered. “That was two boyfriends ago. She’s not seeing anyone right now.”

“You sound quite certain.”

Robin gave a half smile. “Surprisingly, Lilian and I are pretty close. We both love Henley, and we have a lot in common. It wasn’t hard to become good friends. She keeps me updated on her love life.”

Lucas gave a short nod.

Okay. That has to be odd for him.
Ava raised a brow at Lucas. “Worlds colliding?”

He snorted. “It’s really all right. It was a bit weird at first, but Lilian and I have evolved into just friends. Our marriage seems like a lifetime ago. It was such a short period in my life.”

Ava looked to Robin. “You have two daughters together?”

“Yes, Kindy and Kylie are three and five. I had my parents pick them up this morning. And then there’s Jake, who I had with Mason, the state detective I told you about. Jake is a freshman in college.”

“Is he away at school?” Ava asked as Lilian rejoined their group.

“Jake’s upstairs. He’s home for winter break and is absolutely devastated,” Lucas answered. “He’s tight with all his sisters, but he and Henley have a special bond, I’d say.” He glanced at Lilian, who nodded, and fresh tears rolled down her face.

“That’s true,” Lilian agreed. “Even with the seven-year age difference, those two will talk and goof off for hours. Before he left for college, he’d come babysit, and I think he enjoyed it as much as Henley did. Those two geek out over some of the same video games.”

“But there’s no blood relation there,” Ava added for her own benefit, mentally trying to get the correct parents assigned to the correct kid.
Lucas and Lilian’s daughter and Robin’s son.

“It’s never mattered. Perhaps they’re closer because there is no relation,” added Robin.

“Jake gets along with his dad?” Ava asked. “He spends time with him?”

Lucas and Robin nodded.

Ava waited for more.

“Mason’s a good dad. He just never had the time for a kid. Before Jake went to college, Mason had him every other weekend,” Lucas offered.

Stepdad has positive things to say about cop dad.
Ava thought that spoke well of the detective. “Everyone seems to get along pretty well here,” she said. “You’re not the screaming divorced family from TV.”
Almost too good to be true . . .

“We’re relatively sane people,” Lucas said after exchanging a look with Robin and Lilian. “No crazies here. The kids come first. As long as everyone has that priority, it works.”

“Tell me about Henley,” Ava asked gently, looking Lilian in the eye. “What does she love to do?” Ava settled in to the interview, turning up her listening skills as the mother spoke and studying her body language, listening for the words the mother didn’t say. Beside her, Wells continued with his notes.

In her mind, the image of the little girl grew piece by piece, gathering life as Henley’s mother described her daughter’s sunny nature. Ava tuned out the other conversations in the room as she concentrated on Lilian’s stories. With each word, Henley Fairbanks became more to Ava than just a picture on her mom’s phone.

3

Mason paused at his son’s closed bedroom door. He knew his way around the house, but it still felt wrong to be wandering on his own. He’d passed a little girl’s bedroom with two suited agents combing through it and stood aside in the hallway as three agents walked past with their arms full of computer equipment. The FBI wasn’t wasting any time.

He wondered if Lucas’s accounting business would be affected by the sudden loss of equipment. He knew Lucas had an office in Lake Oswego, where agents were probably knocking on the door, questioning coworkers and requesting hard drives. How much work did Lucas bring home with him? Mason figured the accountant had his files backed up somewhere in a database, but it was going to be a pain in the ass to get his work done if the hardware was missing. At least it was December, not April.

He knocked on Jake’s door and waited.

Silence.

He knocked harder, and the door finally opened. His son had a headset with a microphone around his neck and a gaming controller in his hand.

“Hey, Dad.” Jake stood back, holding the door open as an invitation into his room. Mason sniffed. Jake’s room faintly smelled of pizza, and he spotted a few crusts left on a plate on his son’s desk. Mason felt a small wave of familiarity; his son still didn’t eat his pizza crusts.

Some days Mason felt he didn’t know his son. Jake lived primarily with his mom, and Mason had been an every-other-weekend dad for a decade. But right now, he saw the small boy he’d always known. Jake’s eyes were red from crying. He’d always been an empathetic kid.

Mason gestured to the headset. “You gaming with someone?”

Jake pulled it off. “Not anymore. I thought it’d be a good way to take my mind off of Henley, but all my friends are asking questions, and I don’t want to talk about it.” He tossed the headset on his bed, avoiding his father’s eyes. The sag in his shoulders broke Mason’s heart.

“They’ll find her, Jake. The FBI has opened the floodgates. Nearly every agent in Portland is pounding the pavement to search.”

His son turned toward him, and Mason wanted to brush the shaggy hair out of Jake’s wet eyes. “She’s just a kid. A little girl. Do you know what kind of sick fucks take little girls?” His voice cracked.

“Don’t swear,” Mason automatically corrected. “I do know who those assholes are.
No one
knows better than me the sort of sick people who are out there. But you can’t let your mind accelerate to the worst situation. It’ll only pull you down.”

“No one will let me do anything.” Jake dropped the controller next to the laptop on his bed. “I wanted to go talk to the kids at her school, but the cops said I have to stay here.”

“They’re exactly right. They’re taking care of that. They don’t need you in their way. Have the police or FBI talked to you yet? They’ll want to interview every family member in depth. Probably more than once.”

Jake shook his head. “Not really. One guy talked to me for about ten minutes, asking if I had any idea where she might have gone, or if I’d seen anyone hanging around the house in the last few days. I wasn’t even up when she left for school. I didn’t know anything was wrong until Mom came up to ask if I’d heard from Henley.” He sat on the end of his bed, his hands clenched together between his thighs.

Mason had flashbacks of his father when he looked at Jake. Tall, lean, huge hands, and wide shoulders. At eighteen, Jake hadn’t grown into his body. His collarbones protruded through his T-shirt, and he didn’t know what to do with his long arms. He looked like he needed another twenty pounds to fill out properly.

Jake gestured at his laptop. “I looked it up. Seventy-five percent of kids that go missing are killed in the first three hours. By seven days that’s increased to ninety-seven percent.” His eyes pleaded with his father. “You’ve got to help them find her. Can’t you call someone? Like an elite tracker sort of guy? Do you know someone, like a mercenary, who can cut through all the red-tape bullshit? I know Lucas would pay whatever it takes.”

Mason didn’t correct the curse word. He stared at his son. Who did Jake think his father was? Some sort of covert-ops team leader who worked for the state police as his cover? Was Jake’s brain so warped by movies and video games that he truly thought that was possible? Mason slowly shook his head and watched the misery deepen in Jake’s eyes.

Mason sat down next to Jake, feeling like his legs were made of rubber and his heart was about to split open. “I’m sorry, son. That’s not the real world. Our best bet is to let the FBI do what they do best. They know how to look under every rock. I know it feels like nothing is happening, but while we’re sitting here talking, there are a hundred agents out there, beating on doors and searching high and low.”

“But they never found that one Portland boy. The kid who went missing when his stepmom dropped him off at school. It’s been four years!”

“You can’t compare Henley to other cases, Jake. Every situation is different. Those guys downstairs won’t give up, and they have the best resources for this kind of investigation. For your own mental health, you need to stay positive. It hasn’t even been one day. Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

“How can someone stay positive for years?”

“Look at those three girls in Cleveland who were imprisoned for a decade. Or Elizabeth Smart, who was missing for nine months. There’s always still hope as long as they don’t find . . .” Mason swallowed hard. He’d been about to say “a body.”

Jake stared at him with the eyes of a child who’d just been told Santa wasn’t real.

His son was near adulthood, but he still had the soul of a child. He’d always been ruled by his emotions. “Next week is Christmas,” Jake whispered. “I bought her one of those pillow pet things. You know, a stuffed animal that folds up into a pillow. She already has five, but she wants more.”

“We’ll find Henley. I promise you. We’ll get her back in time for Christmas,” Mason swore to his son. He never made promises he couldn’t keep. Never. But he’d just made a promise where he had no control over the outcome.

He felt like a liar.

Jake slumped into Mason’s arms and sucked in deep breaths, his chest heaving, and Mason felt the boy’s hot tears soak through his shirt to his shoulder. He blinked back his own tears, kicking himself for underestimating his son’s attachment to his stepsister. Mason wished he’d paid better attention the few times his path had crossed Henley’s. But she’d been a small child, invisible to him, and he’d overlooked her.

Now she had his full attention.

Mason stopped in the downstairs hallway to catch his breath before rejoining the group in the dining room. His talk with Jake had ripped open in him a deep place he hadn’t known existed. Jake had always been a likable kid and hadn’t struggled with bullies or sports, and Mason had never needed to protect his son; it was a new experience for him. Jake had weathered the divorce well. But five minutes ago, the emotions Mason saw in his son had destroyed him like nothing else. Part of him wanted to find Henley just to mend his son’s broken heart.

Family portraits lined the hall. Mason found the most recent-looking one and stepped closer to study it, his gaze going to his son. Jake looked tall and strong, and pride flowed through Mason which was immediately replaced by a familiar sense of dishonesty. Who’d made Jake the almost-man he was today? Lucas? Mason knew the man deserved some credit, but how much?

The two small dark-haired girls in the happy family picture were mini-Robins. They were painfully young in Mason’s eyes, one about three and the other around five. Mason could never remember which one was Kylie and which one was Kindy.

My Lord, he was an ass.

He couldn’t keep the girls straight, because it’d been weird to see Robin pregnant with another man’s child. So he’d blocked it out, never fully listening when Jake talked about his younger sisters. This morning Robin’s parents had taken the girls to their home for as long as was needed, and Mason had asked if Clackamas County was giving protection. If one daughter had been targeted, the others might be, too.

The county had already parked a deputy in front of the grandparents’ home.

Is Jake safe?

Mason had told him not to leave the house. A person who kidnapped an eleven-year-old girl probably wasn’t interested in an eighteen-year-old gangly man-boy, but Mason wasn’t taking chances or making assumptions. No one knew the motive behind the kidnapping.

If Lucas Fairbanks had pissed off a client who was now seeking revenge, no one in the family was safe.

Mason couldn’t see Lucas making anyone angry. The guy was too nice. But until the FBI knew why Henley was missing, law enforcement would stay close to all family members.

He moved into the dining room, the constant flow of uniforms and suits creating a comforting rhythm that returned him to work mode. Work was Mason’s comfort zone. Not soothing a teenage boy in his room. Upstairs with his son crying in his arms, he’d felt lost and helpless, uncertain if he was saying what Jake needed to hear. Down here, Mason could get something accomplished.

Lucas caught his eye and gestured to the chair next to him. Mason strode over and pulled out the chair, sizing up the two FBI agents at the table. In the far corner of the room, ASAC Ben Duncan, who was holding court with another agent, nodded at him. Mason knew Duncan from previous cases. He wondered if Lucas had already mentioned Mason’s request to be a liaison. If Lucas hadn’t, Mason figured Duncan had put two and two together. In his past experiences with the ASAC, Mason had recognized that they were cut from the same cloth. If Duncan were in Mason’s boots, he would do what Mason had planned. He was glad Duncan was the ASAC who’d been assigned the case.

Mason didn’t know the two agents at the table. The man was well dressed but lean, and his manner screamed
computer geek
even though he took notes on a legal pad. The woman was younger but emanated the authority at the table. Mason had been in the room long enough to realize she was asking the questions and guiding Lilian, Robin, and Lucas through their preliminary questioning. Her clear blue eyes studied him as he sat next to Lucas. She didn’t project any of the defensiveness Mason expected in response to his crashing her interview.

“This is Mason Callahan, the state police detective who’s offered to be our spokesperson,” Lucas said to the woman.

She stood a bit and leaned over the table, holding out her hand to Mason. “I’m Special Agent McLane. This is Special Agent Wells. Thank you for offering to help.”

Her voice was low and rich, making Mason nearly forget to take the offered hand. He stood, shook it, and then shook Wells’s hand. Mason watched Wells add his name to the notes in neat print.

“You’ve approved some time off with your commander, Detective Callahan?” McLane asked.

That voice.
Before this moment, only voices that sang country music had ever captured Mason’s attention. Special Agent McLane sounded like she should be singing some bluesy soul song in a dim bar with a fine whiskey in her glass. He eyed her pressed white blouse, straight posture, and sleek, dark ponytail, wondering if she could sing. Or if she’d ever even stepped foot in a smoky bar. McLane looked more like the type to visit the gym. Or the library.

Mason eased back into his chair and noticed everyone looking at him expectantly.

What had she asked?

“I emailed him. Haven’t heard back. I don’t think it’ll be an issue. Please continue.” He gestured at the family members. “Don’t let me interrupt your interview.”

“Actually I think we’re at a good stopping point for the moment. Lilian needs to go pack a bag—she’s going to stay here tonight.” Special Agent McLane smiled at the woman. “I’ll drive you to your place.”

Mason noticed Lilian and Robin seemed very receptive to McLane. He wondered what happened to the first agent who’d been questioning them when he arrived. Both mothers had looked ready to fly off the handle while talking with him. Now Lilian and Robin were calm and determined, mimicking Special Agent McLane’s attitude. A harmony thrummed among the three women. Somehow Agent McLane had worked a spell.

Mason glanced at his watch. Two o’clock. He should go pack, too. He couldn’t be a liaison from his home; he planned to set up camp at the Fairbankses’. Better to be prepared now than have to borrow something from Lucas later.

Wells made a few more rapid notes as McLane and Lilian stood. ASAC Duncan approached.

“You’re getting some things from home?” Duncan asked Lilian, who nodded. Duncan’s gaze swept the table. “Having you all in one place will make it easier for us. We’re setting up operations in a church not far from here, so most of the agents will be out from under your feet. We still have some forensics people in the home, and I’m assigning someone to stay here around the clock. They’ll basically be moving in. Is that going to be a problem?” He eyed Robin and Lucas.

The couple exchanged a glance, and Robin shrugged. “We have a guest room, and my mother will keep the younger girls, freeing up their rooms. As long as your person doesn’t mind Hello Kitty sheets.”

“I don’t think Agent McLane will mind,” answered Duncan.