Chapter 1
GRAYSON
Current day…
My father didn’t keep his promise.
At my desk in a dim, cramped office, shadows dance across cubicles that agents vacated hours ago. The buzz of city nightlife outside is a constant reminder of how the world keeps moving, even when my life is stuck in a never-ending loop.
I’ve been an agent almost as long as I have been legally allowed to drink, and during that time, I’ve solved countless cases and brought thousands of criminals to justice, earning me a place among some of the bureau’s finest. Yet one case continues to haunt me: Cameron June.
Seventeen years ago, a known gang affiliation kidnapped Cameron, but I still feel her hand in mine in the minutes before her abduction. We were kids getting into mischief, but that night changed everything, and I’ve been fighting my way out of hell ever since.
I’m surrounded by case files chronicling the journeys of those seeking justice. Despite my success, I can’t dispel the thought that I failed Cameron.
My father’s hesitation was understandable, but I should have trusted my instincts and stayed at the scene. An extra set of eyes would have been more helpful than worrying about potential charges for damaged property worth millions.
I saw Cameron’s kidnappers’ faces, studied the evilness in their eyes while I fought to save her.
Although I could have identified them in a lineup, the bureau never gave me that opportunity.
I had to sit on my hands until I aced the academy, then gather information about her case from my colleagues without disclosing a conflict of interest.
Everyone thinks I’m here because the hours I spent cleaning up the mess I made to the sports fields at St. Eugene’s put me on the straight and narrow. They have no clue I wouldn’t be here if my position didn’t allow me to work day and night.
While my time in the bureau has led to lifelong friendships and personal growth, a private agenda has truly driven my career aspirations.
I need to find Cameron, and I won’t stop until I do.
After checking that the coast is clear, I pull my wallet from my trousers and slide out a faded photograph of Cameron and me, taken three weeks before her abduction. We’re smiling, appearing carefree, even though the owner of the car we “borrowed” was tracking it.
As I trace my finger over Cameron’s heart-shaped face, my chest aches with a memory of that day. I remember it vividly. I was grounded for a month for taking my father’s car without asking, but the gift Cameron gave me in his government-plated vehicle made it worth it.
Needing to stretch, I stand and pace my office. The walls close in on me, the weight of my failure drawing them closer. The wick is almost too short to grip.
For years, I’ve chased shadows, regardless of how insignificant they seemed. Yet there have been no sightings of Cameron in almost seventeen years.
Quitting isn’t an option. I owe it to Cameron and myself to keep searching, though I will admit that I’m growing weary. After traveling the country and reviewing a vast amount of evidence, it’s as if Cameron vanished from the face of the earth.
She’s out there, somewhere. She has to be. I just need to work harder and dedicate myself to her investigation, as I have with many other cases I’ve solved over the last fourteen years.
Renewed, I sit back at my desk and pull out the file for Cameron’s case. Despite having read these reports a thousand times, I scan them again, hoping I might find something I overlooked. Perhaps I will discover the answers I’m seeking somewhere in these pages.
I spend several hours reviewing the file and Cameron’s fear when she was forcibly dragged into the van. Then, recalling my first mentor’s advice, I approach the situation with the innovative, analytical thinking of a seasoned agent.
Eventually, I slouch back in my chair and rub my eyes.
Exhaustion is setting in. A glance at the clock reveals it’s shortly after 3 a.m. Although returning home to rest is advisable, I won’t sleep with Cameron’s tear-stained face haunting my dreams. Instead, I pull out a piece of paper and jot down everything I remember from that night—the sounds, the smells, and the lingering despair I felt before Cameron was abducted. I capture every detail.
As dawn breaks, a renewed sense of purpose trickles through my veins. The information I’ve gathered could thrust Cameron’s case back under the spotlight of the agents investigating her disappearance.
After collecting my coat from the rack in my office, I dial a contact in the New York office, then squash my phone to my ear.
“Agent O’Neill.”
“Hey, it’s Grayson.” My tone doesn’t allude to my stomach’s somersault routine.
“I’m forwarding you an updated witness recount of the alleged gang-affiliated abduction of Cameron June.
” I insert the pages into the feeder of a dated fax machine before hitting the button for the New York subsidiary office.
“Can you make sure it’s delivered to the proper people? ”
My colleague’s reply proves he’s reached prime retirement age. He isn’t old. He’s just not suitable for this line of work anymore. “What’s the case file number? I never remember the victims’ names. I’m all about the digits on their file.”
I rattle off Cameron’s case file number, which I know by heart, before repeating my request for him to make sure it gets into the right hands.
“And Malcolm…” I let him swallow before I continue, my temper rising. “Learn their names. They’re fucking people, not case file numbers.”
I press the end call button as if it’s an old relic like the fax machine I know will keep my name off Cameron’s file and out of my father’s mouth before I store my phone in my pocket.
As I put on my coat, ready for another eight hours of work in my home office, a familiar voice calls my name. Thankfully, it isn’t my father.
He’s no longer the FBI’s beloved son. He runs the entire show, and if he even suspects I’m working on Cameron’s case, he’ll put me on desk duty indefinitely.
Alex, my brother, wordlessly invites me into his office.
Since he’s as anal about the rules as our father is, he began leapfrogging me in the bureau rankings nearly three years ago.
I’d care if his new position didn’t limit his fieldwork.
All good agents know that the real magic happens outside the office.
Alex is stuck behind a desk for twelve hours a day, and he spends his free time cozying up to his wife, who looks so much like Cameron that being in the same room with her always makes me return to headquarters to update Cameron’s composite sketch.
It doesn’t help that Regan is as feisty as Cameron once was.
The smashing of my back molars reverberates down the now somewhat bustling corridor. I’ve never spoken of Cameron in the past tense before, and I shouldn’t have today, considering it is the anniversary of her abduction.
A wish to forget causes me to speak before thinking. “Can it wait? I’m coming off a double.”
“No,” Alex snaps out. “Because self-appointed double shifts don’t count.
” The irritation in his following sentence makes it clear he dislikes his new role.
“And I have enough budget cuts to contend with without you cooking the books.” He enters his office, confident I will follow him.
I’d push against the shackles as I have multiple times in the past twenty years if he didn’t mutter, “We’ve unearthed a new baby-making syndicate on the West Coast,” before disappearing from view.
“I was hoping you might take a look at the files.”
I almost trip over my feet while stumbling into his office.
I’ve heard suspicions that a New York sex-trafficking ring, active during Cameron’s abduction, might not be to blame for her kidnapping.
Girls in that industry are usually discarded within a year or two, but this new business can exploit victims into their late thirties.
Cameron is a year older than me, so her age brings her close to the cusp of no longer being required by men in the baby-making industry.
Inside his office, Alex stares out the window, deep in thought.
I don’t need him to speak to update me on his findings.
The graphic images on his desk reveal everything.
They show a female victim in her mid-thirties, dumped in an industrial bin behind a warehouse.
Her strawberry-blonde hair is stained with blood, and although the perpetrators tried to hide her identity, DNA testing reveals her name.
It isn’t Cameron June. Thank fuck.
“That’s the third body in the past six months.” Despite the manic tic of his jaw, Alex’s expression is impassive. “They are faceless and fingerless—”
“But showing clear signs of multiple gravidities,” I interrupt, hurrying him along. When he agrees, I redirect my focus back to the blonde who never stood a chance. “How old was she?”
He hesitates, aware of Cameron’s abduction, before he puts on his supervisor’s cap. “At death… thirty-eight.”
I swallow the burn scorching my throat before forcing words through the carnage. “I meant her age at abduction.”
This reply takes Alex a lot longer to issue. “Eighteen.”
My eyes snap up to him so fast that I grow dizzy.
Maintaining an impassive tone, I ask, “Was this the first sighting since her abduction?” I shouldn’t have bothered attempting to alter my tone.
I sound pissed. Rightfully so. No one sighted Melissa.
They dumped her like a discarded toy. She made them millions, yet they threw her out with the trash.
“Yes.” Alex joins me at his desk. “But that doesn’t mean—”
I cut him off with a growl. The numerous marks on Melissa’s stomach and exposed uterus show she has given birth to many children. He can’t tell me this isn’t a sign that her kidnappers held her captive for two decades, only disposing of her once her womanly clock expired.
I realize the rumblings of my outside-of-hours investigation are reaching the top tier of the bureau when Alex sighs heavily before saying, “I was told to keep you off this case.”
“But you didn’t, because you know the same as I do. I am the best agent to close this case.”
His chin veers toward his chest, and it swells my chest with pride.
I’ve straddled the line of lawful and unlawful for years, confident it would get me closer to the men responsible for Cameron’s disappearance.
This flexibility lets me play on any team, though it often disappoints men like Alex and our father.
“When are wheels up?”
Alex checks his watch—the watch I was supposed to inherit. “Around an hour.”
I jerk up my chin, wordlessly assuring him that I will be on that jet, before I spin on my heel.
I’m halfway out of his office when he calls my name.
He doesn’t speak until I turn to face him.
“The primary investigator on this case is reluctant to leave. I need you to make her departure a priority.” Suspicion runs rife through my veins when he reveals that this isn’t just a covert operation.
It is off the hierarchy’s radar entirely.
“You will have a team at your disposal, but for the most part, you will be on your own. I was told not to waste resources on this since they’re not confident the bodies aren’t being dumped stateside after being killed abroad. ”
Confirmation of his first request blazes through my eyes before I give him the respect he’s given me. “What’s your gut telling you?”
He scrubs a hand over his bushy jaw before replying, “More is happening in this sleepy coastal community than people believe, and it shouldn’t matter where they were killed. They’re American citizens under our protection, whether on our soil or not.”
“Then I guess this is a good time to tell you that intuition doesn’t tell you what you want to hear. It tells you—”
“What you need to hear,” Alex says with me.
His smirk mimics mine, and one thirty years older than me, as he says, “Get this case wrapped up and then come home. Kailany turns one next month, and she wants all her uncles and aunts in attendance.”
As images of the little green-eyed devil coexisting as his daughter flash before my eyes, I dip my chin before leaving his office with more spring in my step than I entered it with.