“How are they?”
“Getting checked out and questioned. We’ve pried parents’ names from a few more of them. We’ve got three holdouts still terrified to tell us who to call. We’ll run fingerprints and see what we can turn up. When the girls disappeared, crime scene techs probably processed their rooms and put the information into NCIC, so we’ll see if we can get a match that way. It’s going to be a long night for them. For all of us.”
“Lindsey,” Blake said. “Where’s Lindsey?”
Chloe frowned. “Who?”
“I was so focused on Rachel, I didn’t think to ask if you’d found Lindsey as well. She and Rachel are best friends and disappeared the same day. I’m sure they were together. Lindsey’s been all over the news. Her mother has been calling me every day, trying to talk to Rachel. I’ve had a beast of a time putting her off.”
“Wait a minute,” Chloe said. “She doesn’t know Rachel’s missing too? I’m confused.”
Blake fell silent and Linc shoved his hands into his front pockets. Chloe’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men. “What’s going on? Why are you being so mysterious?”
“Rachel’s disappearance is more than what it looks like on the surface,” Blake finally said.
“Okay.” She crossed her arms, ready to listen.
“I . . .” He shot a look at Linc, who shrugged. Blake seemed to come to a decision. He straightened and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Shortly after Rachel and Lindsey were taken, I got this text.” He tapped his screen and handed her the phone.
She looked at it and lifted her gaze to meet his. “Whoa.”
“Yes.”
“But, why?”
“I’m one of the marshals assigned to Ben Worthington. Before I even knew something was wrong, I received a text that they’d taken Rachel and more instructions would be forthcoming, but in the meantime, I was to wait. So I did—and then brought Linc in to help when I couldn’t wait any longer. I found out about Lindsey later that night. Then nothing for a week. I got the most recent text this morning. The gist of it is that they want me to kill the judge.”
She gasped. “Or they kill Rachel?”
“Yes.”
“Whoa.” As lethal as he looked at this moment, Chloe figured if he got his hands on whoever had taken Rachel, that person would sorely regret doing so. “So, what’s our next move?”
“Our?” Linc asked.
“I’m in this now.” She let a grim smile curve her lips. “And I have a dog that can track more than just drugs as long as I have a scent item.”
“True.” He crossed his arms and frowned. “All right, Chloe, you talk to Skye once she’s awake and see if she can add any details to Rachel’s account. And see if she knows why Rachel would disappear like she has.”
“On it. What are you guys going to do?”
“Talk to our supervisors and figure out a plan to nail some human traffickers.”
Rachel’s breath left her lungs when Carson finally pulled the Suburban to a stop. She curled tighter into herself. He’d been on the phone with someone most of the way, discussing the fact that she was missing and how he promised to find her. She shuddered and swallowed back the nausea that had lodged itself in her throat.
Please don’t come back here, please don’t come back here.
With her eyes squeezed shut, she waited. If he was going to find her, she didn’t want to see it coming.
His door slammed and she flinched. This was it. If he came to the back, she was done.
But nothing happened.
The back didn’t open.
No rough hands grabbed at her.
No harsh shouts filled the air.
A slow breath left her. Tremors shook her, and for a good five minutes, she simply stayed put trying to gather the nerve to climb out of the back of the vehicle.
Or maybe she should wait until dark.
No. There was always the chance he’d come back to get something. Slowly she slid out from underneath the tarp and edged to the tailgate. She shoved aside paint supplies and another tarp, along with several flyers advertising an art auction, and a box of protein bars. Hesitating for a brief second, she finally slid two of the bars into her pocket and slipped out the window.
Once her feet were on the ground, she stayed low behind the Suburban, shivering as a gust of wind blew her hair across her face. Pushing it aside, she drew in a deep breath and peered around the edge of the vehicle. All looked quiet. But what if someone was looking out a window? She shivered and looked across the distance to the ramshackle barn. A haven. Her escape.
But the open expanse between the vehicle and the building terrified her. No, she couldn’t chance it. Not in the light of day. If she got caught . . .
No, getting caught wasn’t an option. She needed to get out while the getting was good and find a place to hide. Unfortunately, there wasn’t one nearby. She’d have to risk being discovered by hiding in the only place available.
Without another thought, she scrambled under the Suburban and tucked her arms beneath her. It would be cold, but she’d wait until dark when no one would see her running across the field to the barn. Cold was better than trapped in a cage again.
Once in the barn, she’d see if she could figure out where she was, find a phone, and call Blake.
7
Blake shoved back from the conference table located in the FBI’s office on Westpark Boulevard and crossed his arms. This day had gone from worse to circling the drain. JoAnn sat to his left, and Chloe, who had just walked in with Hank, sat across from him. She raised a brow.
Linc tilted his head at Blake. “You okay?”
“No. It’ll be dark in less than thirty minutes and we’re no closer to finding Rachel than we were six hours ago.” He raked a hand through his already mussed hair for probably the thousandth time and stood to pace the office. “It’s supposed to snow, you know.”
“It’s Columbia, it’s not going to snow,” JoAnn said. She twirled a pen in her right hand.
“We’ll watch the weather, but I’m inclined to agree with JoAnn.” Linc sighed. “All right. We’ve all acquired a bit of information in the last few hours, let’s go over what we’ve got. Rachel was taken, along with her best friend, Lindsey, a little more than a week ago. You received a text the day of her disappearance, then nothing until today when they told you to kill the judge.”
“Right.” Blake rubbed a hand down his face. “And then today, Rachel shows up in a truckload of human trafficking victims.” He glanced at Chloe. “You spoke with Skye Harper, the girl Rachel was so concerned about?”
“Yes. I had to wait for her to wake up from the anesthesia, but she was able to talk a bit.”
“And she knew nothing?”
“Not much. Some little things that might add up to something. I asked her about anything she saw, overheard, et cetera. She said they could hear the men talking sometimes, but mostly, she said she just tried to keep her head down. She did mention the upcoming auction the girls were being taken to. Apparently, their kidnappers made no secret about that.”
“But she had no idea where they were kept before transporting them?”
“No,” she said. “I asked her all the questions I could think of that would trigger memories. The one thing she did mention was that she never heard traffic. She said they could hear when someone left or pulled up outside, but there wasn’t a busy road nearby.”
“So, they were held in a rural area,” Blake said.
“Most likely. If they were held in a neighborhood, seems like they would have heard the occasional car, but she said no. Never. She did say she heard an airplane occasionally.”
“Could they have been near an airport?” Jo asked.
“I didn’t get that impression. She said it wasn’t regular, just every so often and it sounded like a smaller engine. She said once they arrived at the house, everything was routine. Like the people who’d taken them had done this with so many girls, it was just a process and no one deviated from it. They were told up front that if they caused any trouble or tried to escape, they would be harshly dealt with.”