And it was all controlled by Yoda, who unwaveringly responded to requests made by team members. Behind the “shock and awe” of Yoda was a server farm located in the office’s secure data center downstairs. Like a proud papa, Ryan had named their custom-built servers: Lumen, Equitas and Intueri, from the Latin words for light, justice and intuition. The names had become so much a part of Forensic Instincts that they’d incorporated them into the company logo.
Casey still found herself awed by the sophistication, power and pervasiveness of the technology. Truthfully, she didn’t understand the half of how it worked. But Ryan did. And that was all that mattered.
Heading across the hardwood floor, Casey paused at the edge of the rug, then pulled back a chair and sat down at the long, oval conference table.
Leaning back, she called out, “Yoda, please show me TV news.”
“Would you like world news, national news or local news?” Yoda inquired pleasantly. “Local.”
“CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC or all?” Yoda asked.
“All.”
Yoda carried out her command by simultaneously showing all four channels, each occupying one-fourth of the wall.
Casey pivoted her chair around so she had a direct view. Staring intently, she tugged off the hair band she’d worn tonight, shook out her long red mane and combed her fingers through the tangled strands. When Glen Fisher appeared on the Fox News screen, she instructed, “Yoda, Fox News full screen.”
Instantly, Glen Fisher filled the entire wall. He was sweating and agitated, and quickly bent forward to hide his face as the cameras zoomed in on him being hauled out of the alley and into the squad car.
It was a media feeding frenzy. The female newscaster on the scene was superanimated, as excited about delivering the story as she was upset by its occurrence. Casey read the signs on her face, heard them in her voice, saw them in her body language. Acute energy—but mixed reasons for it. Chin held high, back ramrod straight, eyes bright with pride, but flickering away every now and then—she was already executing the steps necessary for her next promotion. But she felt guilty with her methods. She was a woman. Capitalizing on the violations and murders of other women wasn’t sitting well with her.
She was talking way too quickly, rambling on about Fisher’s shocking crimes, being sure to exaggerate all the colorful details—like the fact that he had a twisted, obsessive mind despite having had a stable childhood and an equally stable adult life. A decent job in a difficult economy. A wife who was devoted to him, though oblivious to the monster she was married to. And a lovely apartment in Manhattan, with neighbors who had no idea of the danger and depravity living among them. Even worse, he’d somehow found a way to elude the NYPD for months, staying so invisible that he wasn’t even a blip on their radar, much less a suspect. Astonishing that it had taken the uncanny initiative of a young private organization like Forensic Instincts to zero in on Glen Fisher, and to set things in motion so this day of reckoning could come.
Irked by the melodramatic presentation and the digs at the NYPD, Casey cursed out loud and curled her hands into fists, making her nails bite into her palms. She was taking this whole case way too personally, which was unusual for her. But there were reasons for her lack of objectivity—what Fisher had done brought back memories that made her sick.
“Like the proverbial fly in the spider’s web,” said a masculine voice, interrupting her thoughts. “Clearly, you made the ideal bait.”
Glancing over her shoulder, Casey watched as her trusty backup and fellow team member Marc Deveraux strolled into the room, eyeing the newscast and making a quick mental assessment. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face, just an icy satisfaction in his eyes. Marc was Special Ops to the core.
He was also Casey’s most heavily credentialed recruit—former FBI, former Behavioral Analysis Unit, former Navy SEAL. His heritage was diverse: Asian grandparents on his mother’s side, and an extensive French lineage on his father’s. As a result, he spoke three additional languages fluently: Mandarin, French and Spanish. With such a desirable, multifaceted background, Marc had been snatched up by the Bureau. At thirty-nine, he’d done it all and he’d done it fast. He was the sexy, brooding type—single and happy to stay that way. Most of all, when it came to the job, he was the real deal.
“I had an endless cosmetic makeover to become that ideal bait,” Casey informed him. “You have no idea.”
“A makeover?” Marc repeated with dry humor. “I’d sooner guess an acting coach. The thought of you as a socially inept wallflower…that’s a reach.”
“Very funny, smart-ass. But I haven’t been eighteen in a long time. I needed a professional makeup artist to wind back the clock.”
“Nope.” Marc was never one to mince words. “For authenticity, all you needed to do was put on some teenage face gunk, and pull your hair back with a rubber band. Trust me, the rest of you worked. Just ask the horny frat boys ogling you. I saw them. I know the drill. If you hadn’t been playing the scared virgin, they would have been on line to score.”
“Sounds like you had a front-row seat.”
“I did.”
Casey shook her head in amazement. “I never even saw you.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m good at making myself invisible. And at making sure no one’s invisible to me. Including horny frat boys who—”
“Okay, enough on that subject,” Case interrupted, bringing the topic to a quick close. She was in no mood to be razzed. Actually, she was more interested in giving Marc the praise he deserved. “Let’s get to you. However you pulled it off, your timing was perfect. The delivery was terrifying. Even I almost lost it when you charged into that alley with murder in your eyes. And I have to admit I enjoyed watching Fisher freak out and humiliate himself—wetting his pants while he spilled his guts. It doesn’t get any better than that, catching the psycho and extracting a full confession. Kudos.”
Marc pulled back the chair beside Casey and dropped into it, folding his hands behind his head. “Sorry things got so ugly before I got everything I needed.”
“No apology necessary. It’s what the cops ‘unofficially’ asked us to do.”
“Yeah, but they’re not the ones who had Fisher’s knife at their throats and his hands ripping off their jeans.”
“Let’s drop it, okay?”
Marc shot her a quick sideways look. Then he pivoted toward the TV, watching and listening to the details he already knew firsthand. Three redheaded college girls, all reported missing, now found raped and murdered. Three seedy pickup bars with alleys half a block away. Girls who hung out at bars hoping for normal college experiences, but who always left solo.
Through Fisher’s confession, additional unknown victims had been identified and their bodies recovered. They were all kids new to Manhattan, either visitors or transfer students. Girls Fisher had done just enough research on to know that they had no friends or families to report them missing, but all of whom matched the descriptions of the known victims.
Marc blew out his breath. He was glad this case was solved. He hoped Fisher rotted in his cell. Now it was time to move on.
To Marc, moving on meant getting a few hours’ sleep, and then—before the next case descended on the team—enjoying some recreation time. And that meant recapturing the adrenaline rush of his days as a SEAL by taking on extreme sports that other people would consider insane. His current favorite was BASE jumping—the acronym of which said it all. Buildings, antennae, spans and earth—all the wildly dangerous fixed objects that Marc would plummet from, not just for the thrills, but for the knowledge that he could master the precarious free fall before opening his parachute and floating to the ground.
Eager to get going, Marc shifted restlessly in his chair. “Where’s Ryan?” he asked. “Down in his lair?”
“Nope. Upstairs. Right behind you. Ready to wrap things up so we can call it a day.” With that announcement, Ryan McKay strode into the room. The complete antithesis of every compute
r geek stereotype, he was not only a technical genius, he was also a gym rat, who worked out two hours each morning and whose athletic prowess included being a mountain biking pro and running ultramarathons—his preferred ones being in Death Valley and the Moroccan desert. Thanks to Marc, he’d recently earned his skydiving certification and was enthusiastically starting to join him for several of his sports.
Besides his six-pack abs, Ryan was tall and broad shouldered and boasted those smoldering Black Irish looks that made women drool. The ironic part was that the gushing types and the lavish attention-givers irked the crap out of him. In fact, the very few women Ryan found the time for, and cared to pursue, were strong, independent and unimpressed with his physical attributes and accomplishments.
“Good,” Casey greeted him. “Does that mean you’ve left your precious robots long enough to deliver our visual wrap-up?”
“No robots. Not this time. I was testing our new digitally encrypted wireless communication system. So far, so good.” Ryan was already setting himself up at the touch-screen. His presentation would highlight the case details and emphasize areas that could impact future investigations, something he did at the conclusion of every case.
He lowered himself into a chair, shooting Casey a quick glance.
Like Marc, Ryan knew about their boss’s past. And, like Marc, Ryan knew that, whether or not she admitted it, this was exactly the kind of case that would bother her.
The room had grown deathly silent. There was nothing to say, and Ryan wouldn’t insult Casey by trying.
Casey jerked awake from a fitful sleep filled with violence and nightmares, startled by the ring tone of her cell phone. Her gaze fell on the clock. Four-thirty in the afternoon. A perfectly normal time to call someone—assuming that someone hadn’t been awake for over fifty hours. She wished she’d turned off the damned phone before going to bed.
Well, she hadn’t. And now she was awake so she might as well answer.
She leaned over and picked up the phone.
The last thing Casey Woods wanted right then was another gut-wrenching case.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she got.
CHAPTER TWO
White Plains, New York
Day One
Family Court Judge Hope Willis had finished up the last case on her docket, made her ruling and dismissed the court. She was in and out of her chambers in minutes, pausing only long enough to shrug out of her judicial robe, gather some files and say a few words to her court clerk. Then, having made the transition from judge to mom, she blew out of the office and exited the building in record time.
She hurried through the parking garage, delighted to be on her way home earlier than usual. She’d actually get to spend some time with Krissy—hearing about her day at kindergarten, helping her with her homework and just seizing the opportunity to be silly together.
That was a rarity these days. Since Sophia Wolfe, the other family court judge in White Plains, had transferred, Hope’s caseload had increased. So had her hours, thanks to the fact that Claudia, her former court clerk, had broken up with her fiancé. She’d then weirded out on Hope, becoming difficult and snappish, and so out of it that she kept screwing up the docket. Because of their long history together, Hope had given her scads more chances until, finally, she’d had to let her go. Training a new clerk was brutal, and taking up far too much time and effort. There was only so much of Hope to go around.
Which meant that her hours with Krissy were limited.
And Edward? Talk about a strained marriage, and an equally strained family unit. Hope’s husband was almost never home. A defense attorney for a large, prestigious law firm with offices in both Midtown Manhattan and in White Plains, he worked obscene hours. In fact, other than an occasional and unplanned meeting in the courthouse, Hope seldom saw her husband, and Krissy saw him even less.
There was a definite void there. So today was about Hope spending quality time with her five-year-old.
She’d hurried through the parking lot, slid behind the wheel of her GMC Acadia and driven off toward Route 287 and their Armonk home.
Naturally, there was traffic. These days, getting out of White Plains was almost as bad as getting out of Manhattan.
Hope crawled along, finally reaching the highway, where she took advantage of the opportunity to rapidly accelerate. Eager to get home, she exited 287 and cruised onto Route 684 North.
It was at that precise moment that Hope’s life changed forever.
Everything might have been different.
If Hope had glanced out her window. If she’d spotted the other SUV passing by, headed in the opposite direction. If she’d seen the small passenger in the backseat, slapping and yanking at the door handle in an attempt to escape—and failing, the door secured with a childproof lock.
If…
But Hope did none of these. Her mind was on getting home to Krissy.
So, like two ships passing in the night, the two SUVs went their separate ways. Hope never saw the other driver. And the other driver never saw her.
Focused on the road, Hope had no way of knowing what she’d missed, or how close she’d come to averting the hell that was about to begin.
She was almost at the Armonk exit when her cell phone rang. A quick glance at the navigation system display told her that it was Liza Bock calling. Hope frowned. Liza’s daughter, Olivia, was in Krissy’s kindergarten class. And it had been Liza’s turn to drive the afternoon car pool that day.
With a mother’s sense of unease, Hope pressed the button that connected the call. “Liza?”
“Oh, Hope, thank goodness I reached you. I was afraid you’d still be at work.” Liza’s agitated tone did nothing to calm the growing distress knotting Hope’s gut.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
“Is Krissy with you?”
“With me?” Waves of panic. “Of course not. I assumed you’d picked her up after school today, and dropped her home with Ashley.” Ashley was the Willises’ nanny, and had been since Krissy was born.
“She’s not.” Liza’s voice was trembling now. “I just spoke to Ashley. She was very worried, so she called me. Krissy’s not there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I got to school, the kids all said you’d picked her up,” Liza explained. “I double-checked with the faculty members on bus duty, and they confirmed. Everyone saw Krissy leave the school, and everyone heard her call out, ‘My mommy’s here!’ and run to your car. They recognized your silver Acadia. It never occurred to them…or to me…”
“Are you saying Krissy’s gone?” Hope could hardly breathe.
“I don’t know. I called all the other kids’ houses. No one’s seen her. I don’t understand.”
“Liza, hang up and call the police. Tell them what happened. I’m calling Edward.” Hope disconnected the call.
Twenty minutes later, she arrived home to mass pandemonium. Cops. Friends. Neighbors. Ashley, weeping when she ran up to Hope and announced that Mr. Willis had spoken with the U.S. Attorney, who’d contacted the FBI. As a result, specialized agents were on their way, both to the house and to Krissy’s school. Local police were already at the school, questioning everyone, including all the car pool parents, who’d been summoned back to the crime scene.
Hope barely heard her nanny’s words. She pushed past everyone—including the cops who were clearly waiting for her to show up so they could talk to her—and raced upstairs. She ignored the yellow tape that read “Do Not Cross,” ducked under it and burst into Krissy’s bedroom.
Pristine. Nothing disturbed. Nothing missing.
Nothing anyone else would notice. Only Krissy’s mother. She noticed.
Oreo, Krissy’s beloved stuffed panda, was gone. She slept with it every night, and left it on the center of the bed, covered by a tiny fleece blanket, while she was at school.
Hope raced over to the bed and flung the pillows aside. Then, she dropped to her knees, peering under th
e bed to see if the panda had toppled beneath it. She groped around, praying. When she found nothing, she tore off the comforter and sheets, shaking them out like a wild animal. Nothing. She began rummaging through the closet. She opened the bureau drawers and dumped clothes onto the rug.
“Judge Willis—stop it! We’ve sealed off this room.” Officer Krauss, a member of Armonk’s North Castle Police Department, hurried in. Having overheard the commotion coming from Krissy’s bedroom, he sized up the situation, stalked over to Hope and blocked her frantic motions with his forearm. “You’re contaminating personal items that could lead us to your daughter. We need her linens, her clothes—whatever we can use to find her. We also need you to provide us with a recent photo, a description of what she was wearing today, a full health history—and any information that might tell us who abducted her. We need you to focus and talk to us, not go ballistic.”
Hope shoved his arm away and whirled around, whipping her head back and forth. “Talk to you? You’re supposed to be finding my child. Why are you all here instead of combing the streets looking for Krissy? She’s only been gone an hour. Now is the time to find her—before it’s too late. You need her personal things? Take whatever you want. Photos, yesterday’s clothes, her toothbrush. Check her comforter for prints. I doubt there’ll be any. This SOB is too smart not to wear gloves. But try. And what about Krissy’s school? That’s where she was abducted. Did the outdoor cameras pick up anything? Do you know anything?”
“Nothing from the security cameras. But we have an entire team interviewing every member of the faculty.” Krauss narrowed his eyes and stared at Hope. “But I have to wonder why you’re tearing Krissy’s bedroom apart and insisting we check her comforter for fingerprints, when you yourself just said she was kidnapped from her school. What aren’t you telling us?”