Chapter Five
He’d been here a dozen times. Maybe more.
The tire treads from Lauren’s vehicle were gone now.
Police had given up protecting the scene where his sister’s car had been found within a couple of weeks of her disappearance.
It hadn’t mattered much to him at the time.
Forensic units had scoured the area for any sign of her and photographed the weeds, sand, river and rocks to within an inch of their lives by the time they were finished.
Lauren had disappeared right before Thanksgiving last year, right before winter storms tore through with winds and snow to erase any trace of her presence.
It hadn’t been practical to keep a unit here just to preserve evidence they couldn’t collect.
But there was nothing to suggest she’d ever been here now, and a part of Callen felt…empty as he tracked the white crests.
The river itself wasn’t deep, but it spanned at least twenty feet across at this point.
The currents had slowed over the past few weeks as most of the rock bed drained, and the snow kept its hold on the cliffs rising up behind the opposite shore.
Come spring, he wouldn’t even be able to see the smooth rocks that’d taken years of beatings.
Nothing but dirt and weeds choked this side of the bank.
The section of the river curled along the south side of Springdale but was never meant to act as a parking lot.
He wasn’t sure what Lauren had been doing here the night she’d vanished.
Whether she’d been meeting someone. Her phone had been left in the passenger seat, along with her notebook, and hadn’t given any indication she’d had an appointment or a date.
Staring at the damn thing for hours on end after Springdale PD had finished processing it hadn’t produced any significant realizations either. His sister was simply gone.
Maeve broke into his peripheral vision, setting him right back in the present.
He didn’t understand whatever sense he’d developed that cued him in on her proximity, but he could feel it now.
That innate pull he couldn’t deny. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t seen each other in over a year—that draw hadn’t lessened as she walked the scene end to end.
He hadn’t ever seen her like this. He’d gotten the Maeve he’d first put up with as his sister’s best friend, then slowly fallen in love with by being drawn into her optimism and sunshine smile.
The girl who’d run headfirst into a criminology and criminal justice degree had become the FBI agent who’d brought down a handful of serial killers and faced the violence people inflicted on each other day after day seemingly overnight.
But she’d never let that world touch him or their relationship.
No matter how many dead ends she and her team encountered, no matter how hard a day or how exhausted she’d gotten from physically chasing a suspect, Maeve had always made an effort to be that sunshine for him.
But the woman crouching in the middle of a long-forgotten crime scene now? She looked nothing like his ex-fiancée. Her eyes had grown colder, the angles of her cheekbones sharper. Rings of black were smudged beneath her eyes, and he caught the first glimpse of how thin she’d let herself become.
Callen’s first instinct after hearing the news of his sister’s disappearance had been to fix it.
To find her. He hadn’t been enough to protect Lauren from vanishing in the first place, even with his experience in private security, and so he’d dedicated the past year to getting stronger, faster, more lethal in every way that mattered.
Training, honing his nutrition and knife skills, putting in hours at the range, calling in every favor he had with law enforcement friends for details on the case.
But all too soon, he’d run out of leads, evidence had been misplaced and the case had gone cold.
He had nowhere to focus that training, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
He needed to be Lauren’s best option. He needed to bring her home.
And Maeve? She’d just let herself go to waste.
She’d moved on to the next case and the next, putting nearly an entire lifetime of memories with his family behind her as though they’d never happened.
Never reaching out to his parents or his brother, never taking responsibility for breaking their hearts.
Now she was here, not searching for Lauren but a missing forensic analyst who’d disappeared under the same circumstances.
Though he couldn’t help but be impressed by her assessment of the skeletal remains.
All this time, he’d had an idea of what her job looked like, but witnessing her at work firsthand had shot a spike of pride through him.
What that meant for his sister, Callen had no idea, but he wouldn’t be forced to sit out this investigation a second time.
He cleared his throat. “Don’t most special agents carry their sidearms during an investigation?”
“The National Park Service tends to look down on firearms on federal land, even carried by another Fed.” Still crouching, Maeve twisted on her toes, putting her back to him. “And considering your buddy Simpson is going out of his way to help me find Iliana, I figured I should play nice.”
Made sense, but he’d seen plenty of Feds carry their weapons into Zion since signing on with the rangers last year.
As she’d mentioned, the national park had drawn in an array of violent criminals, each bringing a force of investigators into these lands.
Simpson wouldn’t have asked her not to carry.
“You staying on top of your range hours?”
“Why?” Shoving to stand, Maeve followed a weeded path parallel to the riverbank, picking apart the scene as though she hadn’t been here before. But a fresh perspective wasn’t going to change Lauren’s circumstances. “Worried I might outshoot you?”
His laugh took him by surprise, and some of the tension along his ribs loosened. “That’s never been a worry of mine. You forget I’m the one who taught you how to shoot your first gun?”
“No. I haven’t, but I can’t imagine trail rangers have much need for logging range hours or handling any kind of firearm out here in the middle of nowhere, even with an increase in criminal activity.
” She pulled up short, sinking to her haunches a second time to move a section of weeds out of the way, and Callen couldn’t stop himself from appreciating the perfect fit of her jeans.
A familiar, low coil of tension wound him tight from the inside out.
Then again, physical attraction had never been their problem.
“I wouldn’t blame you for being out of practice. ”
He couldn’t help but respond to the challenge in her voice, lowering his into a warning. “I might be a trail ranger now, but I can still put you on your ass, Maeve.”
“You’re welcome to test that theory at your earliest convenience.
” Maeve dipped her chin, setting those melted-caramel eyes on him.
The promise of a year’s worth of frustration, anger and pain flashed in the depths.
Then it was gone as she focused on sifting through the weeds again.
As though he’d imagined that flare of emotion in the first place. “Why a ranger?”
He snapped himself back from the idea of sweeping her feet out from under her and pinning her into the dirt right here, right now to prove his point. All that lean muscle and soft skin at his mercy. “What?”
“Private security paid well enough. Back home you didn’t have to shack up in affordable housing that hasn’t seen renovations in thirty years or live with a roommate to survive off your salary.
You chose your own hours and worked for yourself.
” She kicked a rock, overturning it beneath her hiking boots, but kept her gaze firmly down.
Callen didn’t catch her slip right away.
But everything she’d just said pointed to one conclusion: She’d researched him.
Knew he’d come to Zion before showing up at the scene that morning.
Knew where he lived and about his roommate.
Probably more than Callen knew about the man himself, considering they hadn’t had more than a handful of conversations since moving in together last year.
“Why join NPS as a trail ranger? Was it the uniform? Because I have to admit, I don’t hate the view. ”
Another laugh threatened to escape his control, and for an instant, he was right back there in the days before his life had turned upside down.
Smiling at the dirty memes she texted him through the day and teasing her for the terrible jokes during date night.
But Callen caught himself. His smile slipped.
That had been a long time ago, and this wasn’t a reunion.
Damn. It’d been almost entirely too easy to pick up where they’d left off, before things had gone to hell and he’d planned on spending the rest of his life with this woman.
The barrier he’d established between them slammed back into place.
“I’m sure if you think hard enough, you’ll figure it out. ”
“Oh, we’re back to being low-blood-sugar Callen, then, huh?” Maeve moved on to the next section of weeds, and Callen bit back the petulant urge to shove her into the river just to see her reaction. “I think I have a melted granola bar in the car. Happy to let you have it, Mr. Hyde.”
Another one of her little reminders that she knew him, that she, out of everyone else in his life, had come to anticipate his needs before he did.
But this had nothing to do with his blood sugar.
“What exactly are you looking for out here? Police and law enforcement rangers have already been through the area. They photographed and cataloged everything that had to do with Lauren’s disappearance. ”
“I’m not sure yet.” She walked another few feet along the bank, then crouched a second time.
The weeds were thicker here. It took more force for her to sweep them aside and see through to the cracked, sandy ground hidden in the depths.
“Similarities between the two scenes, I guess. Evidence that might not have made it into the initial reports. Remnants investigators might have missed the first time around.”
Investigators? The way she said that hit something Callen couldn’t identify.
Hadn’t she been one of them in both Lauren’s and the forensic analyst’s cases?
She would’ve already been through here. Several times.
“You said Iliana Meyer disappeared under the same circumstances as Lauren. Where was your forensic analyst’s vehicle recovered? ”
“About ten feet to your left.”
Callen pulled up short. “Both vehicles were found along this bank, abandoned by their owners, and police didn’t think the cases were related?”
How hadn’t he heard about Iliana Meyer’s disappearance this close to the park?
How hadn’t Simpson and his law enforcement rangers connected the two cases together after what Callen had revealed about his sister’s disappearance?
Was it the time between incidents? A year could change everything in an investigation.
Or had the victimology strayed too far to establish a pattern?
“The cars weren’t abandoned. The victims were forced to leave them behind.
” Maeve straightened, turning that intense gaze on him all over again.
The humor had drained from her expression.
This was the woman who faced serial offenders over and over, and somehow came up for air on the other side.
Who’d put herself in a position to face inexplicable grief tying back to her father’s murder in her dedication to protect others.
And part of him was intrigued by this other side of her, wanted to know more.
“Crime scene photos and reports indicate only a single set of footprints was found around both vehicles. Same size, different tread patterns. I’m inclined to believe they belonged to the same perpetrator, but that will be hard to prove unless we have something to identify a suspect.
DNA, fingerprints or a note that says, ‘Hey, I’m the guy. ’”
The police—and Maeve—had kept him at arm’s length during Lauren’s investigation.
This was the first time he’d heard about a detail as small as a single set of footprints.
A wave of frustration crested, and Callen found himself closing the distance between them.
“You have a working theory as to who’s responsible for Lauren’s disappearance. ”
“It’s just a theory.” Maeve held her ground, but she always had when it came to him.
It was one of the things he’d admired about her the most. “But considering there were no signs of either victim being run off the road, a single set of footprints at both scenes and no signs of a struggle, I can’t ignore the possibility Lauren and Iliana willingly allowed their attackers to get close. ”
Callen couldn’t breathe. “You think they pulled over.”
“Yeah.” She brought her gloved hand up between them, holding what looked like a plastic gun with neon yellow accents. “And I think I know why.”