High-Risk Affair Read online

  "They don't even know us," she spoke her thoughts aloud. "Where are they all coming from?"

  Agent Davis removed his sunglasses. Their gazes met and for an instant she almost thought she saw a slight softening of his hard edges. It disappeared so quickly she wondered if she had imagined it.

  "A missing child usually rallies the troops," he answered. "I should warn you that all indicators are predicting this will be one of those high-profile, media circus kind of cases, especially given your late husband's military record and the urgency of Cameron's medical condition."

  The very idea turned her stomach. She had faced enough cameras after Rick's death to last a lifetime. The San Diego media had jumped on the story of a hometown hero dying in a secret rescue mission in Afghanistan. News vans had been parked on her street for a good two weeks after his funeral, and she and the children had been virtually cloistered inside her house.

  Though she had tried to be a good example of a strong, resilient military wife, the newspaper photographs had plainly showed the ravaging grief she hadn't been able to hide.

  "Don't be surprised when more searchers and more media representatives show up as the day goes on," Agent Davis continued. "Unfortunately, people around here have had probably too much experience with this sort of thing. Seems like every summer a Boy Scout gets separated from his troop and disappears in the Uintas."

  "Are they all eventually found?"

  A muscle flexed in his jaw but he didn't answer her. She was suddenly chilled from more than just the cool morning air. She gripped the railing so hard the wood dug into her flesh. "1 want to search. I need to do something."

  Again, she thought she saw a flicker of compassion in his eyes, quickly veiled.

  Why was he so hesitant to show any emotion? she wondered, then pushed the thought away. She didn't care. He could be made up of nothing but granite as long as he helped find her son.

  "It would be best if you stayed close to the house in case we have more questions for you."

  "Would you stay put if your child were out there somewhere?"

  She didn't wait for an answer, just hurried down the porch steps toward the bustling activity, driven only by this raging need inside her to act.

  As she hurried across her property, she was aware of Caleb Davis dogging her steps. Was he suddenly her designated handler? she wondered. She wanted nothing more than to escape those piercing blue eyes, but she had a feeling he wasn't an easy man to evade.

  At least she had managed to lose Molly for now. Her sister had returned to her house down the road to check on Hailey and make sure she was comfortably settled with Molly's four kids and her husband, Scott. They would shower her daughter with attention, Megan knew, and keep Hailey busy and distracted so she wouldn't spend all her time worrying about the brother she adored.

  She only wished she could be so lucky, but she knew nothing would distract her from this grinding fear inside her.

  With no real plan in mind, only this urgency to act, she hurried up the metal steps to the command trailer. As soon as she opened the door, she realized this had been a mistake.

  A group of men and women filled every available space inside the trailer and they were all listening to Sheriff Galvez give instructions. He broke off when he caught sight of her, his dark eyes suddenly filling with a compassion she saw mirrored on the faces of everyone else inside the trailer.

  She shouldn't have interrupted them. All she had done was distract them from the search effort.

  Painfully aware of Agent Davis behind her, no doubt watching her out of those sharp, piercing eyes, she cleared her throat. "Hello. I'm sorry. I...I didn't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to tell you all thank-you for what you're doing. Please find my son."

  "We'll do the best we can." A round, balding man she thought she had met at church spoke up.

  "Just hang in there, Megan," said Wayne Shumway, one of her clients at her CPA firm. She had a vague memory of him asking her if the Internal Revenue Service would let him write off his training expenses for the time he contributed to the county's volunteer search and rescue team.

  Their sympathy was suddenly more than she could bear. She wouldn't have believed it, but she almost thought she preferred the FBI agent's cool impassivity to this cloying, smothering compassion.

  She mustered a smile, murmured another thank-you, then hurried from the command center.

  Her emotions were thick and close to the surface as she hurried out of the trailer, so heavy inside her she staggered under the weight of them. An overwhelming, helpless fear was foremost_among them, and she had to stop a few dozen yards from the trailer and close her eyes, whispering another hurried prayer for her son's safe return.

  When she opened her eyes, she found the FBI agent beside her, watching her with that same carefully neutral expression. She wanted to lash out at something and Caleb Davis happened to be the most convenient target just now.

  "Don't you have anything better to do than follow me around?" she snapped. "I don't need a watchdog."

  He raised a dark, slashing eyebrow. "How about a friend?"

  "You're not my friend. We both know that." To hei horror, her voice trembled on the last word and suddenly her anger disappeared as quickly as it had erupted. All her emotions bubbled closer to the surface, threatening to spill over.

  She blinked them back fiercely, aware of the FBI agent studying her. After a moment, he made a sighing kind of sound and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, an old-fashioned white one like her father used to carry. It took her by surprise and also sent a few of those tears leaking out.

  She sniffled for a moment into his handkerchief but regained control quickly. She couldn't afford to break down, not when Cameron needed her. She lifted her face to the warm summer sun, wondering how such a horrible thing could happen on a day that looked so beautiful.

  The heavy rains of the night before left the morning fresh and clean and gorgeous, the kind of day she had come to love in the few months she had been in Utah.

  A light wind poured off the mountains, sweet with pine and sage from the acres of national forest land bordering her property. After growing up in Boston and spending all her married life in the hustle of San Diego, she found she loved living out here on the edge of the wilderness, watching mule deer forage in her garden, listening to the shrill cry of hawks overhead and the distant yip of coyotes in the evening.

  Now she hated it. Cameron could be anywhere out in that vast tract of land—and that was the best-case scenario. She couldn't bear thinking that someone might have broken into her house and taken him under her very nose.

  She drew a shuddering breath, feeling again the watchful gaze of Caleb Davis. She knew she was at the top of the suspect list right now, as far as the FBI agent was concerned. The knowledge burned, but she knew she couldn't let it get to her.

  "Tell me, Agent Davis. How many missing child cases have you investigated?"

  If she hadn't been looking closely at him, she might have missed the slight twitch of a muscle in his jaw before his expression returned to impassivity.

  "A few," he answered.

  Some demon compelled her to push him. "Too many to count?"

  "Seventy-nine, in the eight years I've been with the FBI's Crimes Against Children unit."

  Seventy-nine. She shivered at the number, at the pain she knew it must represent, and at his precise-ness in remembering it. All that heartache. She couldn't bear it.

  "How many of those have been resolved in a way you would deem successful ?"

  She didn't want to ask but couldn't seem to help herself.

  Not enough.

  He didn't say the words, but she could see them in the sudden flare of darkness in the clear depths of his eyes. The unsaid message hovered between them, dank and ugly, and then he veiled his expression again.

  "I know it's an impossible thing to ask, Mrs. Vance, but you can't think about those other children. All your energy right now should be focused on your own
son."

  Before she could answer, the door of the command center trailer opened and the rescuers emerged into the sunlight. Daniel Galvez was the last to leave. He caught sight of them standing near the fence and walked to them. Megan was aware of the careful way he looked at her, as if he were afraid she would break apart right in front of him.

  She felt like it, but she managed to hold on to whatever remnants of control she had left.

  She was more surprised when he gave the same concerned scrutiny to Caleb Davis.

  "Don't even ask. I'm fine," the FBI agent growled. She gazed between the two men, baffled at their byplay. "I'm sure you are," the sheriff said. "McKinnon wouldn't have brought you back for this one if you weren't." Davis said nothing. He just put his sunglasses back on. Megan finally broke the awkward silence. "I'm sorry I interrupted you back there," she said again.

  The sheriff turned his attention to her. "Don't worry about it. You should be included tn the loop—I promise I'll do my best to keep you informed of the search logistics. The first wave of searchers is already out there combing the grid, and another wave is receiving instructions so they can leave shortly. Search dogs will be here in the next hour or so, though the rain of last night and the wind that's predicted to pick up in a couple hours may hamper their efforts."

  She was aware of Caleb Davis standing beside her, ever watchful. She found a strange comfort in his presence, though it made absolutely no sense, given his hour-long interrogation of her.

  "Thank you," she said to Daniel. "I do appreciate knowing what's happening. Please, Sheriff, what can I do?"

  He sighed and gestured to the news vans jockeying for position down the road. "I hate to burden you with this right now, but the media is already clamoring for some kind of statement from the family. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. But we do need to get the word out that Cameron's missing, in case someone might have seen something. Do you feel up to talking to the press?"

  She pressed a hand to her stomach at the instinctive recoil there. How could she possibly stand before the harsh glare of cameras and strip her soul bare? Could she endure that sense of invasion again, that emotional purge? Her nails dug into her palms. She would hate it. But for Cameron she would endure anything.

  "Mrs. Vance, may I make a suggestion?"

  She turned to Agent Davis. "Of course."

  "Quite often in cases like tins, the immediate family of a missing child appoints a spokesperson to handle the media, to make public statements, address media requests, that sort of thing. Perhaps your sister or brother-in-law would be willing to take care of that burden for you until you feel up to the challenge of facing the media."

  She seized on the idea. "I'll talk to Molly when she returns from checking on Hailey."

  "I believe I saw her Expedition pull up a few minutes ago." Daniel gestured to the row of vehicles in the driveway.

  She followed his gaze and saw with mixed emotions that her sister had indeed returned. She must be inside the house.

  As much as she needed Molly right now, she dreaded seeing her own fear reflected in her sister's eyes.

  "Thank you. I'll go talk to her now," she said.

  She walked away from the two men, painfully aware of them watching her every step of the way.

  Did the sheriff suspect her of harming her son, as well? She had met him a few times in town, and he had always been friendly and approachable. She hated that he might suspect her of something terrible.

  Oh, she couldn't bear this. She just wanted Cameron in her arms again and for all these people to be gone so she and her family could get back to the business of life.

  Cale watched Megan Vance climb the redwood steps of the back deck leading to her house. She paused for a moment on the steps, her head angled toward a lone soccer ball rolled into a corner of the deck. Even from here he could see her shoulders slump, fear and tension in every line of her slender form.

  She looked more breakable with each passing moment. He could only hope she had a good support system, that her sister could help pull her through. She was going to need all the help she could get. He hated this part of his job, dealing with the tumult of emotions in those left behind.

  An image of Amanda Decker's wild rage two weeks earlier lashed him. Why couldn't you save them? she had half sobbed, half screamed. You were right there! Why couldn't you help them?

  He knew she had only been speaking out of grief and shock, but her words had been like hydrochloric acid on his already raw emotions. Later she had visited him in the hospital to apologize for her outburst and to thank him for his efforts, but it didn't take away the searing guilt.

  Cale mentally kicked himself. He couldn't afford to think about Mirabel and Soshi Decker right now. He hadn't been able to help them, but his complete and abject failure in that case didn't mean he couldn't help Cameron Vance and his pale, fragile mother.

  "What's your gut telling you on this one?" Daniel Galvez asked him. "In my book, Megan Vance is either one hell of an actress or she had nothing whatsoever to do with her son's disappearance. You think we're looking at some kind of stranger abduction?"

  He jerked his mind away from the image of two little coffins being lowered into the ground and made himself focus on this case. "We've got to consider every option here. The window was open. Even though it's a second story, someone determined enough could find a way to get in and take the boy."

  "But why bother to stage things with the old pillow-under-the-blankets gag to fake out the mother?" Galvez asked. "That's the-kind of thing a kid would do on his own, don't you think?"

  He pondered the details he had learned from his interview with Megan Vance. "If someone knew the mother was a light sleeper and that she made it a habit to check on the children in the night—especially the boy with his medical condition—they might have been trying to buy a little more time."

  "How would a stranger know that?"

  "Damn good question." One he unfortunately couldn't answer at this point in the investigation. "Where do things stand with the state crime scene unit?"

  "They're still working the boy's room. Mrs. Vance just cleaned the room two days ago. Because the kid has allergies, too, she's a pretty thorough housekeeper in there. Preliminary reports showed no sign of forced entry and no fingerprints but family members'. Megan's and Cameron's are the only ones we can find on the window or the windowsill. I think CSU is still working the scene if you want to hear the details from them."

  "I'll do that. Thanks."

  At that moment, someone came out of the command center and called for the sheriff's attention. Galvez sighed and turned away. "Let me know if you need any other information," he said to Cale before he headed back the way he had come.

  Cale paused for a moment, looking at the bustle of activity. Then on impulse, he walked around the house to check the perimeter of the building for more clues. He was pleased to find a state crime scene detective he had worked with before, Wilhelmina Carson, taking pictures of the outside of the two-story log home.

  "Hey, Willy. What have you got out here?"

  "Hang on," she ordered in a distracted voice, still clicking away. After a few more shots, she dropped the camera and he saw surprise register in her eyes when she recognized him.

  "Davis! I hadn't heard you were back on the job."

  How long would it take before people stopped looking at him as if he were going to go freaking mental at any minute?

  "You know me. I can't stay away."

  She cleared her throat and he braced himself for what he knew was coming. "I'm really sorry about what happened to you, Cale," she said quietly. "I worked the Decker scene. I know you did everything you could."

  He wasn't sure he would ever be as convinced about that as everyone else seemed to be, but this wasn't the place to argue the point. Instead, he gestured to the home's exterior. "Have you seen any sign at all of forced entry?"

  After a moment, she turned back to the case, though he could still se
e concern in her eyes. "Not much. The screen was in backward, with the tabs on the outside, indicating whoever put it back did it from out here. I don't know if that's significant at all."

  "No ladder impressions or anything like that?"

  "Nothing. But keep in mind we had a solid rain for two hours between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. That's a sure way to screw up a crime scene."

  Which meant someone could have used a ladder or driven up to the house with a damn cherry picker, for all the evidence they could find.

  He studied the exterior of the building. It was a straight shot from the boy's second story window to the ground. He supposed it was possible Cameron could have jumped, but that was a mighty long way down for a nine-year-old kid.

  When he was nine, he used to escape the hell of home by climbing out a conveniently situated tree out his bedroom window whenever he could. The only tree near Cameron Vance's bedroom was a sycamore a dozen feet from the house. Though the trunk was thick and sturdy, no branches extended anywhere near the kid's room.

  He studied the distance. No way. The tree was too far from the house to provide any kind of useful escape route.

  So how would he climb out the window to the ground if he were trying to sneak out in the night? If his shoulder didn't have a bullet hole in it, he probably would extend out the window, grab hold of the roof line and move hand over hand to the corner of the house, where he could use the gutter spout to climb down, praying the whole way down it would hold his weight.

  But he had two feet in height over the kid and years of climbing experience.

  He looked at the log exterior of the house again and this time caught sight of something he'd missed before.

  "Son of a bitch," he exclaimed, moving closer for a better look.

  Chapter 3

  "What have you got?" Willy hurried toward him, her gaze sharp and intent.

  He was always glad to work a case with the detective. She had a quick, analytical mind and always took a second or third look at the facts to make sure she wasn't missing anything.