Chapter 2
GRAYSON
The jet touches down with a jolt, adding to the flips my stomach hasn’t been without for the past five hours.
I went over the case files a dozen times during the flight, and the details have made a mess of my stomach.
It is usually ironclad, except for cases like this.
I often picture Cameron as the victim I’m searching for, even when I know it isn’t her.
Take Katie Bryne’s abduction and eventual extraction as a prime example. I told myself repeatedly that Katie wasn’t Cameron, but I never believed it until she walked straight back into the arms of the man who had purchased her when she was barely eighteen.
While shaking my head in disbelief, I shift my attention back to stacking the files into a soft leather briefcase.
The lead agent on this case kept thorough and meticulous records.
Her notes are detailed and demonstrate her top-notch investigative skills.
But this case feels different, more personal.
It feels like I am finally close to bringing Cameron home, but also about to lose her entirely—like that makes any fucking sense.
After shaking hands with the pilot, I step off the plane and make my way through the airport of a small coastal community not far from San Diego.
The salty air that hits me when I wave down a cab is refreshing and rejuvenating—unlike the stale air that greets me upon arriving at the headquarters for this region of the bureau.
The town is quaint, with colorful beachfront houses and a laid-back atmosphere, but HQ is full of overworked employees.
I guess that’s expected. The agents assigned here aren’t on vacation.
I flash my badge at the receptionist, who is making gaga eyes at me, before I veer my steps toward a door marked Supervisor.
I rarely “play,” but on the odd occasion years ago, it is never close enough to home to smell the putrid scent of guilt when I can’t hold back an itch for companionship a moment more.
While talking on the phone, Special Supervisory Agent Markwell gestures for me to come in.
After dumping my bag at the door, I do as asked.
Markwell’s office is modest, blending with the blandness of the rest of the building, but it teems with a sense of urgency.
Multiple case files are stacked on his bulky desk, and the top three relate to my deployment to his division.
That is a clear sign he wants this case off his desk as fast as I desire to find Cameron.
Once his call ends, I introduce myself. “Special Supervisory Agent Grayson Rogers. I’m here to relieve Agent…
” My words fade when I recall how the files Alex delivered to the jet didn’t have an agent’s name attached to them.
They were blank, much like the many reports I’ve lodged about Cameron’s case over the last fourteen years.
Against my better judgment, I say, “I am here regarding case file number 152-SD-54371.”
Not looking up, Markwell continues rifling through papers while saying, “They called earlier to announce you were coming.” After jotting down an address on a Post-it note, he hands it to me with a set of keys.
“I had new keys cut for you. If she’s already called in a locksmith, you’re on your own.
” Now he looks up. “You’ll find all the files you need at that address”—he eyes the Post-it note—“if you’re lucky, she may allow you to view them. ”
When my eyes stray to the files stacked on his desk, confused, he huffs out a breathy chuckle. “That’s the information she wants me to think she’s unearthed on this assignment. They are useless, but you can have them if you want them.”
I gather up the files, adding to his breathlessness.
After dipping my chin, I leave his office, happy our meeting was brief. Some supervisory agents drone on for hours. I will never become one of them.
Partway out, Markwell dampens my eagerness with a gruff tone. “Please be discreet with your investigations. Waters are murky, and we don’t need more mud sullying the rivers.”
I want to say killers don’t deserve diplomacy, but I stay quiet because Alex went out on a limb to assign me this case.
The apartment block Markwell jotted down is a short drive from headquarters. It is nestled right on the beach. While the sound of waves meeting the shore is calming, my irritation prevents me from fully appreciating it.
Alex was right when he said it shouldn’t matter where these women were housed and killed. They’re American citizens. That should make them our utmost priority.
As I near the resort-like building, my eyes scan the surrounding structures, seeking any signs of trouble. It appears postcard perfect. Quiet and sleepy, yet also a replica of a town where secrets go to die.
Small coastal communities are the top pick, alongside mountain ranges, when an agent needs to re-home someone who was once a witness. I’ve used towns like this many times during my career.
I check that I have the correct apartment number before stuffing a new key into the third-floor apartment’s door and twisting it.
The key doesn’t budge the locking mechanism, so I remove it, cover the peephole with my thumb, and then knock. My face is generally recognizable, though more so among fellow agents. I am a younger version of my father, and regretfully, now just as anal.
My request for entry goes unanswered for several lengthy seconds, so I add words into the mix. “I am Special Supervisory Agent Grayson Rogers.” I flash my credentials at a window that has the slightest flapping curtain before saying, “I am here to relieve you—”
The Ha! that barrels through the door is female, as expected, but also extremely telling. It sends a cool bead of sweat rolling down my back and picks up my pulse.
“Macy?”
Agent Macy Machini grunts as if annoyed that I recognized her voice. I don’t know why. She’s one of the lifelong friends I mentioned yesterday, and the one person I could be honest with about my private investigation if I ever needed an ear, since I know she’s undertaking similar investigations.
Macy’s baby sister’s disappearance was one of my first cases after graduating from the academy.
Despite a thorough investigation, we were unable to locate Kendall.
Macy joined the bureau a year after the trail went cold.
Although her cheeks were streak-free, and she’d put on a bit of muscle during her months at the academy, I recognized her face in an instant.
Since my supervisor acted clueless, I followed his lead.
Tobias never ratted on his understudies, and he often encouraged us to think outside the box.
He was also the first to caution me about keeping my investigations into Cameron’s disappearance on the down-low.
Alex was the second.
After a brief stint of silence and the removal of my thumb from the peephole, I ask, “Are you going to let me in, freckles?”
A smirk lifts the edge of my mouth when Macy replies with some of the gall I’m anticipating.
In case you’re wondering, it’s unrelated to my mention of the adorable freckles that sprinkle her nose.
They give her a youthful appearance that not even a decade in the trenches can diminish.
“Depends. Are you here to replace me as the principal investigator on this case?”
I scoff as if the thought never entered my head. “What gave you that idea?”
“Ah… you, two seconds ago when you said, I am here to relieve you…” Her impersonation of my voice is atrocious, but my smirk still shifts into a full smile. It’s always like this when we work together. Intense enough to make me feel guilty, yet light-hearted enough to remind me to breathe.
My grin radiates in my voice. “That was before I knew who they’d sent me to replace.
” When she doesn’t object, I coax her a bit more.
“Perhaps I’m here to remind you about how you said I couldn’t get rid of you that easily when I had to place you on paid leave for a disciplinary citation I know you didn’t do.
” I let the air get stale with remorse before saying, “That was over three years ago, Mace. I’ve not seen hide nor hair of you since then.
” I speak as if we haven’t kept in regular contact by email and occasional phone calls.
Macy is also an agent who straddles the boundary of morality. She proved that without fault three years ago when she took the murder charge of a convicted criminal because she blamed herself for his headspace that day.
Tobias’s regularly run “death of a victim” ruse went off without a hitch until Macy got her latest recruit in the witness protection program in the air three years ago.
Demi Petretti’s head flooded with blood on the plane.
Without Macy’s quick actions and a prolonged undercover stint as an ER nurse, Demi would have died.
Despite Macy saving Demi’s life, the bureau believed they had a rogue agent among them, so they let rumors circulate that Demi had passed away for real.
Agent Arrow Moses, a snake in tall grass, used the knowledge of Demi’s death to taunt Maddox Walsh into a psychotic rage.
Maddox killed Moses with a shank—the same shank Macy used to tear open her skirt so a man on the cusp of being swallowed whole wouldn’t go down for the murder of a known rapist—Macy’s rapist.
When Maddox killed Agent Moses, internal affairs kept knowledge of Moses’s crimes against his fellow agents under wraps.
But I knew Macy had been one of his victims. We’d been working a case together for over six months when she arrived at work one morning severely hungover and with grazed thighs and cut-up knees.
I asked her what had happened without making it seem like I was interrogating her.
The only thing she could recall was having a drink with Moses and another male agent.
Security footage at the club showed Agent Clarke leaving an hour before Moses assisted an inebriated Agent Machini, who had only had one glass of wine throughout the entire footage, outside.
Although Macy refused to take a drug test, I encouraged her to press charges, hoping it would inspire other female agents to do the same.
Macy refused. Point blank. She knew it would place too many eyes on her—eyes she didn’t want while running a secret investigation into her sister’s disappearance.
Although she didn’t lodge formal charges, since she had spoken to a supervisor, I could keep the investigation active. I was close to arresting Agent Moses when Maddox took out the trash on behalf of the bureau.
That afternoon was the last time I saw Macy in person. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dying to replace the image of her tear-stained face from my memory with one of her classically elegant smiles.
“Come on, freckles…” I croon, once again using her beloved nickname, which she only allows me to use. “I’m busting for a piss, and I ain’t using a public toilet. Haven’t been able to since we found out how unhygienic they are that time we did that traffic bust together.”
My fib is close to being honest when it takes Macy several long minutes to reply. “You just need to use the bathroom? That’s it?”
While staring at the shadow behind the peephole, I issue her the smirk that forever has her eating out of my palm.
It doesn’t hold the same steam it did previously; therefore, I switch tactics. “You know why Alex sent me. I can help you crack this case. You just need to quit being so stubborn and let me help you… for a change.”
My last words are only for me, but they get me over the line. A lock mechanism clicking out of place echoes as Macy’s girlie tone shimmers through the beachy wooden door. “I’m not leaving this assignment, Grayson.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. But we might need to keep that between us.” I imagine her beautiful smile stretching her cheeks as I announce, “If you wish to do that in a shabby chic apartment on a beachy shore, who am I to stop you?”
The gleam of white Hampton-inspired furniture bounces off my teeth when Macy slowly opens the door, exposing the freckles I’ve been longing to see since my brief mention of them.
Though the apartment is sparsely furnished, subtle clues reveal that Macy has been residing here for some time. White sheets cover multiple bulletin boards in the living room, and there are more stacks of files than there is seating.
My grin about our pact slips when an entryway table covered with surveillance images isn’t the sole item I need to veer past to enter the apartment. Macy’s extremely extended stomach also blocks my entrance. She doesn’t appear a couple of months along. She looks close to giving birth.
What the?
Realizing her plumped-out midsection is most likely a gimmick of her undercover gig, I poke her stomach, gasping when it doesn’t fold like the foam stomachs agents wear while undercover.
“Holy fucking shit, that’s real!” I attempt to smother my shock with humor. It is my go-to coping mechanism. “It’s not mine, is it?”
“Haha, real funny, Malfoy.” I gag upon hearing the horrible nickname she picked for me years ago. The only thing I have in common with that douche is my hair was snow white before I hacked it off. Then I follow her line of sight. “The bathroom is the second door on the left.”
I don’t need to use the facilities, but since I need a few minutes to wrap my head around Alex’s reason for pulling Macy off this case, and how I will need to tread lightly while reneging on my offer for her to stay on as the lead agent on this assignment, after flashing her a quick smirk, I head in the direction she nudged.