Chapter 1 #3
“But the task force is here.” A situation room full of agents, a lab full of everything he could possibly need, and a file cabinet full of his research on Dr. Fear.
“The senator’s daughter is missing, and we haven’t caught any breaks.” Beverley pushed the note toward him. “Until this.”
“This may not be one either.” He was sure the note was from Dr. Fear, and he was ninety percent sure the killer had driven out to Roanoke to mail the letter there and throw them off course. Until this letter, there had been no evidence to the contrary.
“It’s all we’ve got,” Oliver said softly.
“You know how much Ruby hates the water. I can’t imagine her drowning.
” He swallowed hard, struggling to clear his throat and start again.
“Whether it’s a copycat or Dr. Fear who has them, if past pattern dictates, we have forty hours left to find them.
You are the best person in the Bureau to help us. I need you to do what I couldn’t.”
How was he supposed to say no to that? “Fine,” he conceded, with one caveat. “But I’m driving. It’ll be faster than dealing with the airports. And I don’t do puddle jumpers.”
Another watery chuckle from Oliver, a smidge of relief underlying the misery. Lincoln would take that. Pissy house cat for the win.
“Are you sure you want to drive?” Gabby’s voice crackled out of the phone speaker. The connection was shit but not so bad she couldn’t add her two cents from whatever embassy she was in this week. “It’s January.”
Before Lincoln could counter his ex-wife, their daughter added her two cents as well. “January in the Blue Ridge Mountains.” More like three cents, a whole shiny nickel’s worth of grief for him.
He reemerged from his closet, winter boots in hand, rescued from beneath a pile of yellowing sheet music.
He glared across the room at Elena, who sat at his desk behind his laptop.
“I’ll be fine,” he told the crown of her head, a frequent recipient of his discourse these days, her attention always on some piece of tech in her hands.
At least today it was at his request. His assistant back at Quantico was scanning and uploading his Dr. Fear research as fast as she could, and as soon as each file hit the shared server, Elena downloaded it and made it accessible on his laptop.
“You’re from Los Angeles, L,” Gabby said, and he redirected his glare at the phone on the corner of the desk. “Snow is a foreign concept.”
He shoved the boots into his suitcase and zipped it up with more force than the poor underused thing deserved. “I’m taking the Wrangler. It’s four-wheel drive.”
“Doesn’t mean you know how to go in snow,” Elena commented.
Lincoln considered throwing a pillow at her, but he didn’t want to interrupt her techno-speed-demon groove. “And you do?”
“Mom lived in the Alps for a while.”
“You visited twice,” Gabby said. “You’re no more a natural at it than L.”
Lincoln chuckled. Mother and daughter sassing each other was one of his favorite things. His laughter died, though, when Gabby swung the conversation back to him.
“You should at least wait until morning,” Gabby said.
“It’s four here. Apex is only three and a half hours away. I’ll be fine.” He didn’t have time to waste, not with Ruby and Chase missing, the clock ticking, and his partner already on the scene.
“Ms. Parker, they’re ready for you,” someone said in German on the other end of the line.
“Danke schon,” Gabby returned, then said to them, “Gotta go, babes. L, shoot me a text when you get to Apex. Elena, behave for Katrina.”
“Love you, Mom,” Elena said between mouse clicks.
“Ditto,” Lincoln replied. “And will do.” At her scoff, he added an on-our-daughter’s-head promise that earned him the warm, uninhibited laughter he’d fallen for decades ago.
It wasn’t the same kind of love anymore, but the sound still filled his chest with joy and made him look fondly on their daughter.
“ETA for Trina?” he asked Elena once Gabby had hung up.
“I’m old enough to stay by myself.”
“For a few hours, yes. For an indeterminate number of days, no. Plus, you’ve got your second tournament of the season in Baltimore this weekend. How you gonna get there?”
“Metro. Train.”
World of no. “Where’s Trina?”
Elena flicked her eyes at him, then to the phone. She tapped at the screen left-handed while her right one continued to manipulate the laptop mouse. “She’s almost here, and you forgot your toiletry kit.”
“Fuck!” He scurried back to the bathroom and grabbed it off the vanity.
It wasn’t like he never traveled. Elena often had this or that sporting event, this or that quiz bowl competition, but he never needed more than a duffel and toothbrush for those trips.
And they were always on the schedule, well in advance.
He thrived on planning, not so much on uprooting his life. That was Gabby’s deal, not his.
“Do you even remember how to be a field agent?” Elena asked.
He returned her earlier scowl.
“What?” she said, a finger yanking at one of her red-dyed ringlet curls. “When’s the last time you were in the field?”
“Before you were born.” No sense hiding the truth; she knew that much.
When Gabby’s maternity leave was over, then her local stint with State was up and she was transferred to The Hague, Lincoln had happily stayed home on dad duty.
He had likewise happily traded in his awkward field duty years in which he’d fumbled at interviewing subjects, fumbled at partnerships, fumbled at the whole Special Agent gig, for the lecture hall, the lab, and a nice townhome in Dumfries with his daughter.
“What are you going to be doing?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
He made one last trip to his closet, removed his service weapon from the safe, and tucked it and two clips of ammunition into the gun case he broke out once a year when he had to carry his firearm into Quantico for his annual range recertification.
“When’s the last time you fired that thing?” Elena asked.
He laid the hard-sided case atop his suitcase and glanced up.
He cut off his flippant “Range Day” answer at seeing the worry on his daughter’s face—lines creasing her light brown forehead, dark brows pinched over narrowed honey-colored eyes, her top teeth digging into her bottom lip.
It wasn’t an expression he saw often there—he’d worked damn hard to make sure of that—and now he’d gone and put it there.
“Hey,” he said, gentling his voice as he crossed the room and knelt beside her.
“I’ll be fine, and I’ll have a partner.” Who was surely better at all the field agent stuff than him.
Hopefully his new partner would still have Lincoln’s back once Lincoln made clear he was the expert on all things genealogy.
“It’s a little college town in the Blue Ridge Mountains. How much trouble can I get into?”
Despite her still serious expression, Elena began humming, and after a few notes, Lincoln recognized the theme song from Deliverance.
Hands over his face, he groaned dramatically. “Fuck me, where did I go so wrong?”
“Would you like a list?”
“Shut it.” He stood and ruffled her springy dyed coils. “Seriously, I’m going undercover as Apex U’s new librarian. The town is smaller than Chapel Hill. I can’t get into that much trouble, and I’ll have backup.”
“Who’s your partner?”
“Don’t know yet.” He hadn’t asked. Beverley had gotten drawn into jurisdictional infighting, and Lincoln had fled the battle, more concerned with how he was going to access all his Dr. Fear research from afar.
“You done there?” he said as he reached behind her to grab his Martin off the corner guitar stand. He couldn’t go more than a few days without playing a tune, and he didn’t want to resort to playing spoons.
“That’s the last one done,” Elena replied with a victorious click.
“Thanks, sweetie.” He gave her a sideways hug before hauling his guitar case out from under the bed and tucking the acoustic inside. “And I promise, I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe you’ll get a sexy partner . . . the two of you in the mountains . . . snowed in . . .”
“How many hours of Hallmark movies did you watch over Christmas break?”
He feared the answer and was saved from it by two sharp raps on the front door. Their visitor didn’t wait to be let in, using her key and throwing open the door with a booming, “Yo, Monroes!”
His sister Katrina at her loudest, and with impeccable timing in this instance.
Except Elena wasn’t ready to let him off the hook yet. “I want pictures.” She looked and sounded so much like her mother that Lincoln had to laugh.
He dropped a kiss on her crown. “I want pictures too when you win that tourney.”
She beamed up at him. “Count on it.”