Midnight Abduction (Tactical Crime Division Book 3)

drifted across the windshield. January temperatures tunneled through his shirt, but the memories of what he’d found—evidence of what a killer had done—generated enough heat to haunt him for the rest of his life. Someone had kidnapped his twins and taken a shot at Ana through the window of his daughter’s hospital room. Because of him. He couldn’t keep the truth to himself any longer. “A woman approached me two weeks ago on the site of one of the buildings I was inspecting. She offered me fifty thousand dollars to give a residential project the go-ahead, but the crew had cut too many corners. There were sections of framing missing. The plumbing wasn’t up to code.” Benning smoothed his palms down his jeans, blood crusted on the underside of his fingers. Olivia’s. Glancing toward his daughter in the back seat, he studied the perfect curve of her mouth as she slept—anything to distract him from the fact he’d almost lost her less than six hours ago. And that her brother had been taken. “I couldn’t ignore any of that, so I said no. Told her I suggested she hire a new crew to do the job right before the city came in with a lawsuit.”

Ana’s uniquely enthralling eyes—the ones he’d dreamed about for years—softened. “What happened after you gave her your answer?”

“I couldn’t get past the thought that she’d bribed inspectors before. She seemed...comfortable with the approach, so I started looking into the company’s past projects.” He shook his head. “I found settlement paperwork between Britland Construction and tenants who’d been injured or left homeless because their buildings weren’t up to code. Years’ worth, with millions of dollars at stake, but the problems were only getting worse, and somehow their projects kept getting approved by the city. I wanted to know why.”

“You started investigating on your own.” Ana leaned back in her seat, her expression smooth. How was that possible? How could she pretend nothing had happened between them—that she hadn’t torn his life apart—and keep herself so...detached?

“I went to the police. They brought the woman in for questioning, but there wasn’t enough evidence to prove Britland had sent her to bribe me. Her lawyer threw around so much weight, the investigating officers couldn’t even verify she worked for them. Dozens of families were being hurt every year because of this company’s negligence and greed, and I couldn’t let them get away with it. I’m the only inspector the city has, so when Britland needed another project across town inspected, I added the job to my afterhours schedule last night. I ripped open one of the main walls to check the electrical.” He dug his phone out from his pocket and swiped to a photo he’d hidden in the cloud. “That’s when I found this.”

Ana took the phone from him, her fingers brushing against his, and everything inside him fired in a heated chain reaction. She’d always had that effect on him; had always been able to take total control of his body with a single touch, but despite the fact he’d been the one to bring her back into his life, he couldn’t give in to those feelings now. Now he had to get his family back. That was all that mattered. “That’s most definitely a skull.” She brought the screen closer to her face. “We won’t be able to narrow time or cause of death without my forensics team getting their hands on it, but that hole in the frontal bone looks like a gunshot wound.”

He’d thought so, too.

“I called the police as soon as I found it, but before my call connected, someone shouted at me from behind. I turned around to find a gun and a flashlight pointed at my face. I thought the guy was site security, so I explained who I was, and why I was there and offered to show my work order, but when my eyes adjusted, I noticed the ski mask.” His heart rate picked up as a fresh wave of adrenaline dumped into his veins. “He said he’d wished I hadn’t found the skull, and that he was sorry. He had his finger on the trigger, and I knew then he was going to shoot me for what I’d seen, but then an actual security guard ordered him to lower his weapon. The shooting started, and I just grabbed the skull and ran.”

“You said he was wearing a mask. Did you pick up on any other characteristics? Anything we can use to identify him?” she said. “An accent, tattoos, scars, clothing, the color of his eyes?”

“No, none of that.” He shook his head.

She handed the phone back, seemingly determined to avoid physical contact this time. “Where’s the skull now?”

“Safe.” He hit the sleep button on the side of his phone. “At first, I didn’t think Britland could be responsible. It’d be too obvious. There was a paper trail linking the payoffs to the victims, and the skull I found had been drywalled inside their own building, but as soon as I left the site, I knew I couldn’t go home. At least not right away, in case the guy in the mask decided to follow me.” Rage burned through him. He should’ve been more careful. Should’ve taken the skull straight to the police. He cleared his throat as his eyes burned. “My nanny—Jo West—was supposed to drop the kids off for a sleepover at a friend’s house, but she called me saying Owen had been sick for the past few hours, and he wanted me to come home.” Now his nanny was missing. “When I got to my house, I hid the skull in an old, unfinished brick fireplace my dad had started building when I was a kid, but when I got inside the bastard was already in my house. I fought him off as long as I could, but I couldn’t stop him. He hit me from behind almost the second I walked through the front door. When