LITMIR.BIZ

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it, but he understood. “Okay. So, now you can read them all. And after you go through the files, you’ll be able to tell me if this is a copycat?”

      Please, please, let it be a copycat, Tomas silently prayed. Having a child abduction was bad enough. But the Nursery Rhyme Killer hadn’t left a single piece of useful forensic evidence eighteen years ago. Tomas had reviewed the old file enough to know they’d never caught one promising lead on the perp. He’d been like a ghost.

      If he was back, Tomas was terrified this time wouldn’t be any different. No matter how many FBI agents with their databases and manpower and specialized experience showed up in Rose Bay.

      “Yes,” Evelyn promised. “Give me a couple of hours and I should be able to tell you if it’s the same person.”

      A few more hours. The weight pressing on Tomas’s chest seemed to double. It made him wish he hadn’t asked the lead agent from the FBI CARD team earlier in the day what Brittany’s odds were. Made him wish she hadn’t told him that most abducted children who were later found dead had been killed in the first three hours.

      Were they already too late?

      * * *

      The FBI CARD team’s command post at the back of the station was the size of Evelyn’s study. Tables had been crammed into the room and covered in laptops, files and photographs. Briefcases and FBI duffel bags were shoved under tables and littered the small aisles. There was even a bloodhound asleep in the corner—from the FBI’s Forensic Canine Unit, Evelyn assumed.

      At one point, the room must have been crowded with agents and officers, but now it was mostly abandoned. Only one agent remained, trying to ignore the frantic buzz from the front of the station. She spun her chair around and jumped up as Evelyn stepped into the room. Everything from the lines on her forehead to her no-nonsense stride as she met Evelyn in the center of the room, hand already out, screamed in charge.

      Evelyn put her hand in the agent’s, who shook it vigorously, her mass of curls bouncing in a high ponytail. Words burst from her mouth in an overcaffeinated frenzy. “I’m Carly Sanchez, the lead agent here. We got the call about ten hours ago and we’ve been on-site for seven.”

      “I’m Evelyn Baine. Tomas told you I was on my way?”

      “Yep. We’ll need the help.”

      “How far have you gotten?” Evelyn asked, feeling overheated in the tiny room. Despite the air-conditioning pumping through the vents on the ceiling, between the South Carolina early-summer heat and the number of computers running, the room was stifling.

      “We’ve taken statements from the parents. Gotten our basics on Brittany’s routine, possible grudges against the family, that kind of thing. Most of my team’s out canvassing and conducting interviews. We’ll reconvene here as soon as you’re ready to present your profile.”

      “Okay.”

      “In the corner there is Cody.” She pointed to the bloodhound. “He arrived just before you. His handler will be back in a minute and they’ll be heading over to Brittany Douglas’s house. They’re from the Human Scent Team.”

      Well, Evelyn would hope so, since the other Canine Unit was for victim recovery and trained to scent on human decomposition. “Any promising leads?” Evelyn shifted her heavy bag on her shoulder as she looked up at Carly, who had a solid eight inches on her own five foot two.

      Carly’s lips twisted and Evelyn read frustration there, but not defeat. There were ten Bureau CARD teams, spread across the country, ready to leave at a moment’s notice to assist local law enforcement whenever a child went missing. If it was a parental abduction, chances of recovering the child were good. But for nonparental abductions, the statistics were a lot grimmer. Anyone who chose to work on a CARD team had to be either unrealistically optimistic or impossibly hardened.

      Probably the same could be said about BAU. And Evelyn knew on which end of the spectrum she fell.

      “We don’t have much,” Carly answered. “Brittany lived on High Street. You remember it?”

      Evelyn nodded. It was a few blocks over from where she’d lived with her grandparents from the time she was ten until she was seventeen. If it was like it had been thirteen years ago, the houses were big and far apart, neighbors were cordial but not close, and landscaping was designed for privacy.

      “Then it probably won’t surprise you that we had no witnesses. I’ve got a team of seven here and they’re all paired up with officers. One of my agents is running down the nearby sex offenders and five are conducting interviews with neighbors. We’re hoping to get lucky on a vehicle description, but so far, nothing.”

      “What about forensics?”

      Carly shrugged, shoving back the sleeves on her pinstriped blazer. “Unlikely. The note was taped to Brittany’s bike, and we dusted it, but we only got Brittany’s mom’s prints on the note. We’re running the prints from the bike, but I doubt we’ll get a hit.”

      Evelyn tried not to feel disappointed. She’d expected that. She’d been too young eighteen years ago to be told much about the investigation, but she’d understood what was going on from her grandparents’ expressions. Evidence had been slim. And as the days turned into years, hope had become even slimmer.

      She vowed that this time would be different. “Where’s my spot?” She raised her voice to be heard over the chatter that had picked up in volume at the front of the station. When a child went missing, people often assumed that a police station would be empty, but it was usually packed. With officers manning tip lines and coordinating with specialized resources. With civilians reporting suspicions, demanding answers and volunteering to join search parties. “I’d like to get to work.”

      Carly pointed to a place at the end of one of the tables, stacked with boxes. “Right over there. Brittany’s file is on top. And the boxes contain copies of the evidence from eighteen years ago. You’ve seen those already?” Carly asked, eyebrows raised, telling Evelyn she knew her history here.

      Evelyn shook her head, then walked toward the case files. A sharp whistle brought her up short, made her spin around.

      The bloodhound shot to his feet and followed his handler out of the room as a pair of cops pushed their way in to give Carly updates.

      Dumping her FBI bag on the floor, Evelyn squeezed around the table to get a better look inside the boxes. She tried to ignore the increasing level of noise as officers walked in and out of the room, but it was a sharp contrast to the morgue-like quiet that usually pervaded the BAU office.

      Folding back the cardboard top, Evelyn looked inside one of the boxes and saw a stack of photographs. The first photo showed a well-loved and dirt-caked doll lying on the grass, an evidence marker next to it.

      Matilda. The name of Cassie’s doll came back to her as soon as she saw it.

      Evelyn slapped the lid shut. She felt Carly looking at her, but didn’t lift her gaze. She could do this. Dan wasn’t right about her being too close to the case to properly profile it.

      She just hadn’t expected to see Cassie’s toy. She’d gotten a copy of the case file two months earlier, but she’d mainly wanted to read the note left on Cassie’s bed. She hadn’t read through the list of cataloged evidence. She didn’t know they’d found Cassie’s doll. She’d only known they hadn’t found Cassie.

      Fortifying herself, she tried to open the box again, but her hands trembled. She needed to do this in private, not surrounded by the chaos of the station.

      Hefting the boxes in her arms, she went back the way she’d come. She tried to make her voice sound normal as she told Carly, “I’m going to find a quiet corner to work.”

      She glanced at her watch and frowned. “I’ll be back in three hours with a profile.” It wasn’t enough time, not really, but Brittany had already been missing for thirteen hours, and after twenty-four her chances decreased even more. They all

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