Chapter Three
Fifteen Years Ago
Rhys Callaghan stepped from the back of the blacked-out Suburban to bitter cold and blinding light and adjusted his aviator sunglasses.
His boots crunched on the frozen road as he ducked in with the FBI hostage rescue team.
Their convoy, hidden behind the overgrowth that had eaten its way over a long-forgotten fence, angled against the tree break that separated house from field.
Nineteen-year-old Jules Lowry was out there, survival unlikely. Though unlikely wasn’t a sure thing, and Rhys had worked nonstop to give her a fighting chance.
Their team split, surrounding the old clapboard house, which hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint in fifty years.
Breachers positioned at the front and back.
His pulse pounded as he waited, hoping, believing without a shadow of a doubt that they’d found the guy who’d abducted the up-and-coming actress two weeks ago.
“Go,” the on-scene commander ordered through their earpieces.
The door crumbled. Dry-rotted wood gave way and crushed under their boots as they moved in.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
Voice after voice locked down the house. This run-down place was their best chance to find Jules.
“Clear,” Rhys bit out.
“Down,” someone barked. “Get your face on the ground.”
Hope flamed.
“Target acquired.”
Rhys hustled toward the takedown location. Questions and answers roared through his comms. None of the chatter told him what he wanted to hear, that Jules had been found.
The last of the house was cleared. No Jules.
Rhys backed against the barren wall. Paint flaked onto his shoulders. He’d led them to this location, to her abductor. But he’d been too late. She wasn’t there.
He was never emotionally invested in his assignments. He couldn’t be. If he slowed down to process the ugly side of humanity that he saw day in, day out, he’d lose his mind.
Except this case, this woman… The details were burned into his brain, as usual, but he couldn’t push them away. No one else could have pulled this jigsaw puzzle of an investigation together the way he had. He just hadn’t done it fast enough.
Menendez stopped in front of him. “You good?”
Rhys shrugged, offering an unconvincing, “Yeah.”
“You did good,” Menendez said. “You got us here.”
“Lot of good that did.” Rhys dropped his chin and stared at the floorboards. Voices carried through them on a cold winter draft. “She has to be here.”
“He’ll tell us where she is.” Menendez clapped Rhys on the shoulder then headed downstairs.
The evidence response team had been called from their standby location. Rhys needed to vacate the house. How had they come all the way here only for him to miss a key detail?
Threading his hand through his hair, he sifted through what he knew for a singular puzzle piece that had eluded him.
He could see it all—the months of text messages between Jules Lowry and Jordan Everett; their emails; the photographs; videos that had been exchanged between Jules and the person she’d thought she knew.
The fucker who’d stolen her away when no one even thought she was gone.
God, they’d lost so much time.
Rhys crossed his arms. They’d find her. Maybe they didn’t have the correct property schematic. Did the house have an old root cellar? An unmarked storm shelter? They’d find it.
At the top of the stairs, he stopped at the dusty window and took in the expanse. A pristine snow-covered field lay behind the house. The horse pastures hadn’t seen an animal in years. The fences lay in disrepair. Posts and boards splintered and rotted away like the house.
His heart stopped. He took a step back, narrowing his attention on the dusty window, which had several smudges that might have been left by an oily forehead and greasy nose repeatedly pressed against the glass.
An ERT forensics guy stopped at the base of the stairs. “Hey, you gotta get out of here. HRT’s regrouping with Herring.”
Drone footage didn’t show much except for dilapidated outbuildings that were unaccessed and surrounded by untouched snow.
Herring would have the hostage-rescue team search the property anyway, despite the run-down shed and an old barn turning up zero heat signatures.
If Jules were out there, the job would be nothing more than recovery.
Except why did the windows have the same pattern of smudges? It was as though someone had pressed their face against it time and time again. What had held Jordan Everett’s attention? He squinted and barely saw the old barn.
Shit. He pounded down the stairs and over the remains of the crumbled door.
“Callaghan,” Special Agent in Charge Herring yelled then called into the comms.
Rhys didn’t stop. His boots sank into the snow.
“Get your ass over here,” Herring snapped. “What the hell—Callaghan. That’s an order.”
If Jules was alive, they had seconds. Literally, every breath of a moment counted. He sank into the deep snow with every stride. The last snowstorm could have covered tracks. The white field reached out ahead of him. Getting to the barn seemed hours away.
Something glinted in the rising sun. Something shiny. Something that didn’t fit on this dingy, rust bucket farm, and adrenaline surged through him.
“Menendez, go after him,” Herring ordered.
Snow packed in the top of Rhys’s boots. The cold stung his shins as he raced for the reflective metal that shouldn’t have been on the barn. “There’s a padlock,” he panted. “On the barn door.”
His heart slammed in his throat. The padlock secured a door pulled across an aisle of no more than ten stalls. It didn’t make sense. There were ways to crawl in and out. The barn leaned. The wood rotted. She could kick her way out. She couldn’t be in there.
“Jules?” He shook the padlock, which was new and attached to recently replaced wood planks. “Jules. You in there?”
Nothing. Just the bitterly cold wind whipping against his face.
Rhys skirted the building. Empty stalls lined the far side. A strong storm might knock the whole thing over. “FBI. Jules Lowry. Show yourself.”
Still nothing but the wind responded.
He entered a stall and crawled up the back wall. Wood slats groaned under his boots. He jumped onto the other side, landing on the dirt floor of a stall. What was left of wood shavings were piled into the corner like the wind had packed them tight before time had eroded them down.
“Jules.” Barn doors were closed on both sides, blocking the wind.
It was slightly warmer inside but still impossible temperatures to survive.
His eyes adjusted to the dim light as he searched one stall then the next before coming to two small rooms. The faint scent of cedar and musty grass hung in the cold air.
He toed open a door and found a dusty tack room.
Rhys checked the second one, which held empty feed bags and stairs to a space above the barn. It took seconds to clear the space.
Herring barked orders in his ear.
Rhys ignored him and returned to the stalls. Empty. Empty. Empty— not empty .
The ten-by-ten-foot stall was unlike the others. Hay bales wrapped its perimeter. Wood shavings thickly covered the floor. It smelled like a barn might. Flakes of hay had been separated and strewn over piles of horse blankets. A feed trough in the corner held a thermos and two mugs.
“Jules—” His gaze dropped to the pile of hay again, and his heart lurched.
Rhys dropped to his knees in the thick layer of fresh wood shavings.
The scent of cedar and musty hay flooded his nose.
He tore the hay back, unburying the blanket.
He ripped that away. “Be advised,” he called into his mic.
“One female recovered alive. Need medical now.”
Her forearms covered her face. Her small, terrified voice cried, “No.”
She wore a knit hat and a thick jacket. She tried to roll away. Her arms fell back from her pale face. Her chapped lips were tinged blue. And she fucking whimpered. God. She was alive.
“FBI,” he said quietly.
Jules bucked away and covered her face, pleading, “No.”
“You’re okay. I’m going to help. My name’s Rhys. I’m with the FBI. You’re going to be okay.”
The whimpering cry paused. She inched her hands from her face. Fear had been etched onto her famous face. Creases lined her forehead as though she didn’t understand what was in front of her.
“I want to go home,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
“I will get you there. Promise.” He tore off his coat and wrapped it around her chest. She might be wearing a heavy jacket and horse blankets, but it wasn’t nearly enough. “Can you stand up?”
“My foot.”
He eased the horse blanket away. Lengths of rope, like one might use to lead horses, were wrapped around her leg, tying her down. Her boot and pant leg looked like she’d spent hours tugging on the rope. Rhys pulled a knife out and released her.
Voices arrived outside the barn. “The people I work with are here. They’re going to help—”
“No.” She ducked her head behind her forearms again. “I don’t want to see anyone. Don’t let them see me.”
The barn door slid open. Light flooded the aisle behind him.
She buried herself against his chest. “I can’t. Don’t. No.”
“They’re going to help. I promise,” Rhys said.
“ No .”
“I’ve got Lowry,” Rhys said into his comms. “She needs a minute and will walk out on her own.”
“Copy that,” Herring acknowledged. “Medical’s on standby.”
“When you’re ready,” Rhys told her.
Gratitude flashed over her face, but her eyes skirted feverishly around the stall like danger might leap at them. “Where is he?”
He. Jordan Everett. “In custody.”
“He’s not with them? He can’t see me?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” Her voice cracked, and if she weren’t dehydrated, Rhys was certain she would be crying.
“He said… I thought…” Her gaze skirted around the stall as though there was no place safe for her eyes to land.
“I thought he was someone else. I thought he loved me.” She dropped her forehead to his chest. “I’m so stupid. I thought he loved me.”
He’d immersed himself in the investigation and had watched her fall in love with a man who wasn’t who he said he was.
She’d been conned, lied to, and tricked.
Rhys worried that the sadist prick who’d done this to her would use mental insanity as a defense, and holding her now, he would do anything to make sure the filth ended up behind bars. “Look at me, Jules.”
“I don’t want to see him again.”
“You won’t.” Hell, Rhys didn’t know why he’d lied, but she needed to know she was safe.
She rolled her head back and forth. “I thought I was going to die here.”
He had too. Damn. “But you didn’t. You need to go to the hospital. Get checked out.” Had she been assaulted? Physically hurt? Mentally, yeah, certainly. But how injured was she? “You’ll be home before you know it.”
“Callaghan, med evac is here,” Herring called. “Time’s up. Menendez, move in for an assist.”
“My team’s coming in to help you.” Rhys rubbed her back. “We’re all here to help.”
She inched back and raised her face to his. The bruises made him see red. Dehydration marred her smile and eyes. “Don’t leave me.”
“There are—”
“No.” She clung to his arm. “Don’t leave me.”
He’d pulled people out of worse. He’d never once had to remind himself it was just the job. “I’ll stay by your side.”
“Don’t tell anyone how you found me.”
“I won’t,” he lied again, instantly regretting what he’d said but knowing it was what she needed to hear.
Menendez stopped outside the stall.
Rhys gestured to his teammate. “I trust him. His name’s Ronaldo.”
She shrank into Rhys. Fear trembled through her body. “I trusted Jordan.”
“Look at me, Jules.” He touched her cheek. “Jules? Give me your eyes.”
She tipped her head back and met his gaze.
“You’re safe. And I’ll be with you until you tell me to go away.”
“Promise?”
Rhys nodded. “Promise.”