Logan grabbed his brother’s hand, and they ran back inside.
“You okay?” Logan asked.
He sucked back his tears and said yes.
“Don’t tell Mom,” his brother said. “If you do, we won’t get ice cream.”
He awoke from his fever dream drenched in sweat. Over the course of his life, he’d been in plenty of tight spots, but none of those situations had stayed with him like that day in the mall. He realized that a loud and persistent knocking on his hotel room door had woken him, so he slipped on yesterday’s clothes and strode across the room to stare through the peephole. Daniels stood outside, holding a bag from Panera. He pulled back the security chain, and she entered.
“Why didn’t you answer your phone? I was worried about you,” she said.
“I never heard it ring.”
“Check it, if you don’t believe me.”
His Droid sat on the night table. A notification bar on the screen said that she’d called six times. She was being truthful, and he felt like an idiot.
“I must have muted the volume. How did you find me?”
From the bag she removed a steak-and-egg bagel and a large cup of coffee. “The FBI has access to every hotel’s registration in the country. It makes tracking down suspects a lot easier. You like your coffee with artificial sweetener, right?”
“Good memory. Did you get anything for yourself?”
“I did, and ate it in the car. Sorry, but I was starving. Where did you go last night? I got worried when I saw you’d left, but your car was still there.”
She sat down on the bed, and he pulled up the room’s only chair and dug in. The food was still warm, and he could feel it healing his insides as it reached his stomach. “I took an Uber to a bar and closed the place down. Then I Ubered it here. What time is it, anyway?”
“Eight thirty.”
“Have you been up all night?”
“Afraid so.” Her hand touched the sheets, and she pulled it away in alarm. “These are soaking wet.”
“I was having a bad dream.”
“You have nightmares?” she asked.
He said nothing and continued to eat.
“Do you suffer from PTSD?” she asked.
Daniels was not the type to let up, and he decided to answer her.
“Yes. This was something that happened to me as a kid.”
“It must have been traumatic. Was your brother in the dream?”
He stared at her. “How did you know that?”
“Your brother was murdered last night. It’s only natural that it would spark a memory from when you were kids. I’m sorry it was a bad one.”
“So am I.”
She pushed herself off the bed and came over to him. Her palm touched his forehead, and she frowned. “You’re really warm. Do you feel okay?”
“I’m hungover. It was a bad night.” He offered her the last bite, and when it was declined, popped it into his mouth. Done, he wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “So what can I do for you, Special Agent Daniels?”
“You’re still angry at me, aren’t you?”
“A favor of a reply would be appreciated.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That’s the line that junk mail companies print on the outside of envelopes they send out. I texted and called, and you didn’t reply. Do you have any idea how crummy that made me feel?”
“I’m sorry. I should have called you back.”
“But you didn’t. Your niece said it was standard behavior.”
“When did you talk to Nicki?”
“Why don’t you call your niece and ask her yourself?” He got out of the chair, went to the bathroom, and took a cold shower to get his heart racing. She was still standing in the middle of the room when he came out. His open suitcase sat on the dresser, and he dressed in a pair of cargo fishing shorts and a T-shirt that said JIMMY BUFFETT FOR PRESIDENT while she turned her back and stared out the window.
“All done,” he said.
Turning around, she eyed his wardrobe. “I thought you said you were on a job.”
“I was going to Key West for some R&R when I heard about Elsie Tanner’s murder and her granddaughter’s abduction,” he said. “It struck a nerve, and I asked the director of Team Adam if I could handle it. He agreed, and sent me the file, which I printed off my computer. Then, I drove up here.”
“What do you mean, it struck a nerve?”
“I was nearly abducted as a kid, and I screamed my head off. The file said the granddaughter’s scream was heard all over the neighborhood. That nerve.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
Their relationship hadn’t progressed enough for him to feel comfortable talking about his first brush with evil, or its aftermath, and he slipped on his Top-Siders.
“How about a lift to my car?” he asked.
“Sure, Jon,” she said. “Whatever you’d like.”
Chapter 13
Florida was bursting at the seams. Every day, the state added a thousand new residents, not including newborns. The population growth wasn’t expected to stop until it reached thirty million residents. By then, all the desirable places to live would be taken, and hopefully the out-of-staters would stop coming.
Living in the Sunshine State wasn’t paradise, not with monster hurricanes and man-eating alligators that appeared on golf courses and front lawns. But it was nicer than anywhere else on the East Coast, so the people kept on moving down.
Because of the growth, traffic was a nightmare, and the major roadways often resembled parking lots. Tampa was no exception, and they crawled down the four-lane Veterans Expressway with Daniels manning the wheel.
“We need to talk about what happened at the Jayhawk,” she said. “I know it’s painful, but I’ve got to do it.”
“No such thing as a free meal, huh?” he said.
“Jon, please let me do my job.”
“Did you get in hot water for letting me walk away last night?”
She nodded stiffly. “My boss chewed me out pretty good.”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay there.”
“There’s no need to apologize.”
“Instead of grilling me, may I suggest another approach?”
“What would that be?”
“Let me tell you what I think is going on. When I’m finished, you can ask me all the questions you want. Okay?”
“Sure.”
He spent a moment collecting his thoughts. He had worked cases with the FBI before, and knew how their agents operated. There was a voice-activated tape recorder in Daniels’s purse, and everything he was about to say would be recorded, and later analyzed. He couldn’t blame Beth for this; Logan was an accomplice to a murder and a kidnapping, and he’d been the last person to talk to Logan before he’d died.
“Let’s start with the facts. A dozen women have been abducted, and there are no clues to their whereabouts. That’s hard to fathom, considering the resources the state uses to find missing people. There are high-resolution surveillance cameras embedded in light poles on every highway, and in traffic lights at major intersections. The images are fed into computers with facial recognition software programs, which lets law enforcement capture bad guys on the run. It’s also a handy tool when looking for missing people, because the only way to get around in the state is by car. Yet, so far, there have been no hits.” He paused. “Sound about right?”
“You’re on fire. Keep talking,” she said.
“You were brought in to run the investigation because you’re an expert in human trafficking. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Now, I’m going to go out on a limb, but I’m pretty sure that you started working the case from the start. Am I right?”
“How did you know that?”