A new case? It had been so long she was starting to think her past mistakes had caught up with her and negatively impacted her profile with the team. Agent Ana Sofia Ramirez bit back her smile as exaggerated congratulations and clapping from two other agents on the team filled the conference room. Her leather chair groaned as she leaned back to study the main screen behind the director, her fingernails skimming the table’s surface. “What’s the case?”
“Abduction of a six-year-old boy,” the director said.
The room quieted, the silence almost a physical presence as the tendons between Ana’s shoulders and neck tightened. Drawing a deep breath, she focused on the monitor in front of her. This was what she’d been trained for—finding the missing—but not a single agent around this table would volunteer for an assignment like this. “Timeline?”
“We’ve been given twenty-four hours. The father is adamant no one but the agent he requested can get involved in the recovery, but the clock is already ticking, and we’re going to use all available resources we have whether he likes it or not. That’s where you come in.” Director Pembrook turned to the largest screen at the head of the conference room, pulling up a map pinpointing a small section of private property a little outside Sevierville, TN. The petite, graying woman with sharp features at the head of the room had been a force to be reckoned with within the Bureau for nearly forty years. She wasn’t a woman to disappoint, and Ana didn’t plan on testing that theory. The director tossed a manila envelope across the table. “You’ll go undercover as a former lover who’s in town visiting and has heard the devastating news his son has been taken. I want you to get close to the father and find out what he could possibly gain from this abduction by keeping us in the dark. Agents Cantrell and Duran will provide support from this location until you say otherwise.”
Maldicion. Damn it.
“If this is a targeted abduction, the kidnappers will have done their research. They might’ve already sifted through the people in the boy’s life.” Ana lifted her gaze to the men across the table from her. Agent JC Cantrell handled surveillance, Evan Duran worked hostage negotiations and Ana did whatever it took to find the missing. Together they made up only part of the Tactical Crime Division, and it looked like they were headed to Sevierville, TN, the last place she’d intended to set foot again. Too many memories. Too much pain. But the thought of passing on this case, when she’d battled so hard to make up for the past, built pressure behind her sternum. “What’s the guarantee my cover won’t be blown the instant I come into contact?”
“That won’t be a problem during this investigation,” Director Pembrook said.
While the FBI had massive resources and vast intelligence relating to criminal activity, they were headquartered in DC. The Bureau had regional field offices in major cities across the country to assist local police when needed, but that left smaller or rural towns with sparse populations without rapid support. More and more, agents and federal law agencies mobilized to remote locations to address large-scale crime scenes and criminal activity. Terrorism, hostage situations, kidnappings, shootings. But with the growing concern and need for ever-increasing response times to these criminal events, the Bureau saw the need for a specialized tech and tactical team, combining specialists from several active units. Together they made up Tactical Crime Division.
“How long has the boy been missing?” As one of the most successful hostage negotiators in Bureau history, Agent Evan Duran saved hundreds of lives over the course of his career by getting more information out of a suspect with as little commitment as possible on his part. If the kidnappers had made any kind of demand, Ana trusted him to mine for the intel she needed to find the victim. “Any demands?”
“Six hours.” Director Pembrook took her seat at the head of the table. “And, no.”
“There hasn’t been a ransom call?” Ana swiped through the file directly from the monitor in front of her. Every forty seconds a child went missing somewhere in the United States. More than 460,000 children were reported missing each year. Of those missing children, almost 1,500 of them had been kidnapped, with most of those reports narrowing the suspect list to a parent or close relative as the abductor. There was a chance the boy’s mother was responsible, which would account for the lack of demands or ransom. Or... Ana froze, paralyzed as she read the father’s name on the police report. “Benning Reeves.”
The boy who’d been kidnapped was Benning’s son, Owen.
“He asked for you specifically, Ramirez.” The weight of Director Pembrook’s attention crushed the air from her lungs. She was the agent Benning had requested. Was that why she’d been given the lead on this case? Not because of her experience in recovering the missing but because she’d actually been intimate with the man keeping the FBI at arm’s length during his son’s kidnapping investigation.
The director was right. Her cover wouldn’t be a problem during the investigation.
It was the truth.
Ana swiped her tongue between dry lips. “What about the girl? Olivia.”
“She was taken, too, but local police recovered her minutes after the abduction.” Relief coursed through her as the director’s gaze narrowed, but Ana didn’t have time to crumble under the pressure of Pembrook’s study. Someone out there had taken Benning’s son, and time was running out to get him back. The question was why. As far as she knew, Benning had kept his job as a building inspector for the city all these years, wasn’t in debt and wasn’t the kind of man to get himself mixed up in criminal activity. Assuming this was personal, why would someone target Benning through his children? “They believe she escaped her
