The Girl Who Disappeared Twice (3 page)

There was a long silence when Hope and Edward were alone.

“The FBI should be here any minute,” he said at last.

“I’m sure they will. They’ll set up Command Central, waiting for a ransom call, while they grill us. They’ll start with our relationship, since we’re Krissy’s parents and the primary suspects. Then, they’ll move on to every human being who holds a grudge against us—which will take days, given our careers. Meanwhile, Krissy’s out there somewhere. Scared. Alone. And God knows what else.” Hope’s hand was shaking as she whipped out her cell phone. “So, yes, I’m glad we have the police and the FBI on board. But it’s not enough.” She punched in directory assistance.

“Who are you calling?”

“Forensic Instincts.”

Edward blinked. “The profilers?”

“Yes,” Hope confirmed. “You know their track record. It’s unbelievable. Five cases. Five successes. They find criminals. Serial killers. Rapists. And kidnappers. They’re on the fast track. And they don’t have a dozen other cases they have to work at the same time.”

A scowl. “We should check with the FBI first. What if the involvement of an independent organization puts Krissy in more danger?”

“It won’t.” Hope was talking so fast she was tripping on her words. “I’ve followed their work. They know just how to handle things. Your friends at the FBI might not like it, but I don’t give a damn.” A hard look at Edward as her index finger hovered over the send button. “I’ve been through this nightmare before. I’m not losing Krissy.”

“I know what you went through. But you can’t compare the two traumas. It’s over three decades. Law enforcement’s capabilities have grown by leaps and bounds.”

“I don’t care. I can’t survive this again. Especially not when it comes to my daughter.”

“I understand. But—”

“Look, Edward, three decades ago or not, some things haven’t changed. Like the fact that an investigation can remain active for only so long. The last time the case went cold after two years. I’m not chancing that again. Not with my baby. Don’t bother arguing with me. I’m doing this. I’ll get them to drop anything they’re doing. I’ll pay them whatever fee they ask for.” Hope was finished waiting. She punched the green button and put the call through.

“In Manhattan, I need the number for Forensic Instincts, LLC.” Hope reached for a pad and pen.

“Fine. If you feel that strongly about it, go ahead,” Edward reluctantly conceded. “But I want them working with law enforcement. Not independently.”

“If that’s possible, great. If not—” Hope shrugged, scribbling down the number. Having gotten what she wanted, she disconnected the call, and began furiously punching in the telephone number. “The truth is, I don’t give a damn about the cops’ or the FBI’s internal politics. I don’t give a damn about
anything
—except getting Krissy home safe and sound. So if Forensic Instincts’ methods are too unconventional to suit you—hello?” Hope put her lips to the mouthpiece, her throat working as she spoke. “Is this Casey Woods?”

“Speaking,” a weary voice answered. “And this is…?”

“My name is Hope Willis. Judge Hope Willis. I live in Armonk. An hour and a half ago, my five-year-old daughter was kidnapped from her elementary school. The police are here. So is the FBI. But the minutes are ticking by. And the suspect list is way too long for them to tackle alone.”

“Really. And why is that?”

“Because I’m a family court judge, and my husband is a criminal defense attorney. We’ve racked up more grudge-holders and enemies than we can recall. We’ll try to compile a list, but it’ll be long. Plus, there are special circumstances involved that make this even more unbearable. I need to hire Forensic Instincts. Now. On an exclusive basis.”

There was a prolonged silence at the other end of the phone.

Special circumstances. An interesting and succinct choice of words. Plus, Casey could hear the repressed note in Judge Willis’s tone. The woman might be going through hell, but she was clearly holding something back. Half-assed candor didn’t fly for her—no matter how dire the circumstances.

“I’m terribly sorry about your daughter,” Casey responded. “But my team and I are just coming off a very intense, draining investigation, and we have other cases that have been back-burnered because of that, and now require our attention. I’m sure the FBI and the police will be on top of—”

“They’re not enough,” Hope interrupted. “I need more than conventional methods. We can’t afford to waste a second. Please. You know how crucial these first three hours are.”

“Yes,” Casey replied soberly. “I do.”
And they’re slipping away,
she mentally noted.

“Then will you come? I’ll do anything. Pay anything. Follow your instructions to a tee.” The last semblance of Hope’s facade cracked. “Please, Ms. Woods. I’m begging you. Find my baby.”

Casey had to cave. And not just because this case would mean big bucks for the company. But because instinct told her that the honesty and trust would come when they met in person. If not, the team would walk.

For now, a five-year-old child was missing.

“Okay. Stay calm. We’ll do everything we can,” she assured Hope, her entire demeanor softening. “Hang on.” A rustle as she snatched up a Post-it and pen. “Give me your address. Then give us an hour.”

CHAPTER THREE

Forensic Instincts showed up at the Willis house at the same time as the FBI. Watching them pull into the driveway, Casey immediately recognized the four special agents who’d been contacted and deployed by the Crimes Against Children Unit at FBI Headquarters in D.C. They were one of the two Child Abduction Rapid Deployment teams in the Northeast, and consisted of specially trained agents from several different field offices, each of whom had dropped everything and taken off the instant they’d been contacted. Aware of how crucial these first post-abduction hours were, the CARD team was here to assist C-20, the New York Field Office’s CAC squad, in tracking down Krissy Willis and bringing her home.

The team members now jumping out of their car consisted of Supervisory Special Agent Don Owens, and Special Agents Will Dugan, Guy Adams and Jack McHale. And Casey knew exactly which of them would be smiling at the sight of her team’s arrival, and which of them would be exceedingly pissed off to see them.

“Hey, Don.” As she climbed out of the driver’s seat, Casey waved at the seasoned agent who had to be nearing fifty-seven and mandatory retirement. He was hard-core, married to the Bureau, and yet he was more open-minded about Casey’s team than some of the younger squad members. Go figure.

“Casey Woods. Why am I not surprised to see you here?” Owens acknowledged her with a slight smile, his trim gray mustache curving with his lips. “I’m lucky I sped to Logan, and that my shuttle flight from Boston arrived early. Otherwise, you would have already set up the FBI’s Command Post and canvassed half the neighborhood.”

“Damn straight,” Ryan muttered under his breath.

Casey rolled her eyes. Ryan was cranky. He hadn’t gotten any of the sleep he’d anticipated after closing the last case. Functioning on zero rest was Casey’s specialty. She could operate on empty and make it seem full. She was able to push past her fatigue and get the job done. And Marc was a Navy SEAL to the core. He could run on sheer adrenaline. So Ryan was the cheese who stood alone. He was a royal pain in the ass when he went without sleep. At times like this, barring essential needs to communicate, Casey and Marc avoided him like the plague.

“This place is going to be a circus,” Ryan continued to mumble. “The CARD team. The Feds. The county police. The locals. Can’t we send them all back to their desks?” A grunt. “You know, leave us alone…. I’ll hack into the little girl’s computer. Casey, you can run down the list of suspects, interrogate the right ones. Marc can beat the crap out of the scumbag who did this. Then you’ll size up his reactions until we figure out where he hid the poor kid. And Krissy Willis will be safe in her own bed before the miserable prick who took her can do his worst. After that, we can all go home and crash.”

Before Casey could reply, Ryan spied the tall, slender woman who was squatting down just outside the Willises’ garage. Her brow was furrowed in intense concentration, and her delicate fingers were gliding over the streamers that dangled from the handlebars of what was clearly a little girl’s bicycle.

“Oh, great,” Ryan complained more loudly. “Look who’s here. It’s Claire-voyant—the cops’ favorite psychic, doing her thing. Now, we’ll be grilling suspects, and she’ll be clutching Krissy Willis’s dirty socks trying to get up in her head. I can hardly wait.”

Casey stifled a smile. Claire Hedgleigh—Claire-voyant, as Ryan insisted on calling her—was a noted, self-described intuitive who consulted with several police departments, using her special skills to help solve cases. Casey and her team had crossed paths with her on a couple of cases. And Casey was more than impressed. She’d done extensive background research on Claire, both educationally and professionally.

Academically, Claire held a master’s degree in Human Development and another in Transformative Theory and Practices. In addition, she had teaching accreditation from schools in the U.S., England and Australia in everything from psychic development to metaphysical sciences. And professionally, she had an A+ reputation and a three-year track record with the police. She was so good, in fact, that Casey was determined to lure her over to Forensic Instincts. She’d be a great addition to the team—once Casey broke the news to Ryan and pried the chip off his scientific shoulder. Instinct told her it wouldn’t be as hard a sell as Ryan pretended. He and Claire interacted in a way that only masqueraded as combat. But both Marc and Casey recognized it as a smoke screen for something more.

At this point, Claire was rising to her feet. Tall and willowy, with pale blond hair and light gray eyes, Claire had a gentle, ethereal quality about her that suited her calling. Now, she released the bicycle handlebars, brushed a strand of hair off her cheek and spotted them. An exasperated expression crossed her face when she saw Ryan. Clearly, she was not in the mood for a verbal sparring match. And Ryan was practically vibrating to start one.

Casey’s grin widened. An electrically charged tête-à-tête was definitely on the horizon. And Casey and Marc had already placed their bets on a timeline—and an outcome—for that.

For now, some barbed banter would be fine with her. The moments of levity would feel good. More than good. It would be like Novocain before a root canal. Because the latter was what they were about to walk into. Child abductions were among the toughest crimes to swallow.

“Play nice, Ryan,” she said drily as they approached the garage. “Claire knows what she’s doing. So don’t give her too much crap.”

“Who? Me?” he replied with mock innocence.

“Yeah. You look like a lion who’s been prodded with a sharp stick. Relax. You can go back and hole up in your lair as soon as we get the lay of the land here.” Casey reached Claire and stopped. “Hi, Claire. You’re working this case?”

A friendly nod. “And, obviously, so are you. Anything I can do to help out, let me know.”

Ryan made a derisive sound. “I think we’ll rely on science. Messages from inanimate objects just don’t cut it, at least not for me. But thanks anyway, Claire-voyant.”

“Ah, Ryan. More obnoxious than usual, I see. What happened? Did you forget your Batman lunch box?”

“Ignore him,” Casey advised. “He hasn’t slept in a few days.”

“Well, that explains it.” Claire looked more amused than bothered—which pissed Ryan off even more. “Thanks for the news flash. I’ll consider myself forewarned.”

With that, she headed into the house. “Time to commune with inanimate objects,” she called over her shoulder. “You’d be surprised how much talking they do—in a world that’s realer than cyberspace.”

Ryan definitely had an answer for that one, but he pressed his lips together and refrained from spouting it, as he, Casey and Marc reached the CARD team.

“So, the Willises hired you already.” Special Agent Guy Adams looked even more unhappy than Ryan about the prospect of working together. Adams was a trained hostage negotiator, in his mid-thirties, sharp, and as competitive as Ryan and Marc. And he had little regard for approaches other than those he’d learned through the Bureau—least of all Forensic Instincts and their out-of-the-box methods.

“Is that a problem?” Marc asked in a cool, probing tone.

“Not as long as you don’t overstep.”

“We’re here to work with you, Guy. You and C-20.” Casey nipped the tension in the bud. “We all want the same thing—to bring Krissy Willis home, safe and with as little trauma as possible. So let’s not turn this into a pissing match.”

“Our special agents are already inside,” Guy informed her, purposely sidestepping her attempt at detente. “The New York Field Office sent Harrington and Barkley. They’re with the parents now, working on the Child Victim Background Questionnaire. The rest of the New York team is at Krissy’s school, along with a couple of agents from the White Plains RA. Harrington and Barkley are about to debrief us. Harrington is lead case agent on this one.”

“Good choices,” Casey replied.

“Glad you approve.”

“I do.” Casey ignored his sarcasm. She was mulling over the agents she was about to deal with in the Willis home. Peg Harrington and Ken Barkley were both seasoned agents who’d been working CAC cases for over a decade. They were intelligent, and they were self-assured—which meant they didn’t trip over fragile egos. That made working with them tenable. And having Peg at the helm would be great. She was cool under pressure and effective as hell.

“Did your clients supply you with all the facts?” Guy was asking Casey.

She wiggled her hand in an ambivalent gesture. “I checked in with Hope Willis from my car. I got the basics. Anyone happen to catch the license plate on the Acadia the kidnapper was driving?”

“Just a letter or two. Nothing solid to go on. The cops put out an APB. So far, nothing’s turned up. They also notified the Westchester hotline, issued an Amber Alert and entered the case into the NCIC. Officers are at both scenes—here and at the child’s school, along with the county police and CSI.”

It dawned on Casey that Guy was being unusually chatty and informative, given his preliminary hostility. She glanced past him, and spotted McHale and Dugan head into the house. So that was Guy’s plan. To keep her talking while the rest of the CARD team agents joined their C-20 counterparts and got a jump start on the case.

She had to admire their tenacious attempt to outmaneuver her, even if it had been feeble. She also had to admit she’d have done the same thing in their place. The fact was, C-20 had every right to run the show. They were law enforcement; she and her team weren’t.

Nonetheless, she was getting into the house and meeting the Willises. The FBI couldn’t deny her that—they were her clients. The truth was, she didn’t just want to meet them, she wanted to study them. She needed to know what Hope Willis was holding back. And she needed to get a firsthand look at how Hope and Edward Willis were coping—both individually and as a couple—with these initial hours after their five-year-old child’s abduction.

Body language was a powerful revealer.

The FBI and the police had already conducted official interviews with the Willises, and were about to turn their efforts toward debriefing the CARD team. The usual procedure. Eliciting the usual response from Forensic Instincts. While the doors were firmly shut in their faces, they’d take full advantage of the opportunity to get information from their surroundings and the people in them. Each of Casey’s team members would accomplish this in his or her unique way.

“Playtime’s over, Guy,” Casey stated bluntly. “You can shut us out of your debriefing sessions, but you can’t shut us out of the house. Hope Willis hired us. We’re going in to meet her and her husband. We’ll be discreet. And we won’t interfere with your investigation.”

“That’s fine,” Don said, though with a bit of a sigh. “Any insights you glean would be a welcome addition to our efforts. We’re talking about the life of a five-year-old little girl. I’ve got a granddaughter that age. Let’s pool our resources and solve this one—successfully.”

“Agreed.” Casey gestured for her group to follow Don and Guy inside. This was great. They’d made peace with the CARD team supervisor. Barkley and Harrington had worked with them a lot, and they respected them. Ditto for the Violent Crimes squad in White Plains, and the Westchester County Police.

“Sweet,” Marc murmured quietly. “Now we just have the locals to convince. Unfortunately, that’s the hardest part.”

There was no argument from his coworkers. The locals, especially the smaller precincts, were often skeptical of what and who they didn’t know. Some were also determined to prove themselves, which made them territorial and leery of Forensic Instincts’ independent status.

“We might get resistance, but we won’t get beginners,” Ryan said. He’d done a brief computer search on the North Castle P.D. “They’re pretty solid.”

Marc edged him an inquisitive look. “What did you find out?”

“They’re got a retention rate that’s sky-high. Their cops and detectives just stay on. They like their jobs. They’re well trained and dedicated. There’s not a lot of major criminal activity for them to deal with—mostly car and house break-ins. But they’re ready for big stuff, too. They’ve got an impressive Emergency Service Unit. It’s been around for over a dozen years. They’ve also got a strong community spirit. They take care of their own.”

“Sounds good,” Marc responded. “Unless they’re insular and uncooperative.”

“Only one way to find out.”

Casey nodded. Best possible scenario. Best investigators. Best police support.

Now if she only knew what Hope Willis was hiding.

Hope was in the living room of her sprawling house, pacing around and tucking strands of blond hair behind her ears in erratic, repetitive motions, when Casey first laid eyes on her.

It took about ten seconds for Casey to feel convinced. The woman with the haunted eyes and the inability to sit still had had nothing to do with her daughter’s disappearance.

Edward Willis was a little tougher to read. Stiff by nature, Willis was a polished attorney who was accustomed to hiding behind a well-established veneer. But beneath that veneer a fine tension rippled the surface. Just as there was obvious tension between him and his wife. Physical and emotional distance. Separate entities instead of one frantic unit. Edward was edgy, and way too knowledgeable about the law not to know he was a suspect.

Casey walked directly over to the couple. “Mr. and Mrs. Willis? I’m Casey Woods.”

Instantly, Hope stopped pacing. She closed the gap between herself and Casey. “There’s been no word,” she blurted out. “No ransom note. No phone call. Not even a threatening email.” Hope looked helplessly from Casey to the FBI agents she’d just spoken to, to the CARD team now moving in. “Does that mean he’s hurting her? Worse? If he doesn’t want money, what else could he want besides…oh God.” Hope drew a few sharp breaths, her features contorting with fear.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Judge Willis.” Don stepped in front of Casey and introduced himself, keeping his voice quiet and calm. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Don Owens. These are Special Agents Will Dugan, Guy Adams and Jack McHale. We’re part of a specially trained child recovery team. We’re here to help find your daughter. Have you given Special Agents Barkley and Harrington, as well as the police, a full description and photos of Krissy, along with clothing samples…?”