Page 5

Z eke London tried her number again. Straight to voicemail. Like the others today. Every unanswered call sent his concern into overdrive.

“Is she still not taking your calls?” Cooper Delaney, his BAU partner and his sister’s husband, caught him checking his phone for messages.

“No.” He and Cooper were working late. Not on a case. It seemed since Sierra decided to take off, serial killers were taking a break. A smile quirked his lips. She was a force to be reckoned with.

“Here, let me try.” Cooper scrolled through his contacts and brought up Sierra’s number. He tried calling. “Voicemail.” He typed a message. Waited for a reply.

“Do you have any idea where she is?” Hannah came over to where her husband and brother worked.

Zeke shook his head. “She didn’t tell me.”

“But you know,” Hannah correctly guessed.

He blew out his breath. “Yes. She’s in Pinedale, Wyoming.”

He stared at the screensaver on his phone that was a photo he and Sierra had taken while on a trip to the beach last summer. Both were smiling at the camera.

He was such an idiot. He should never have let her go.

“Brother, you screwed up.” Hannah’s comment drove the truth home. He had screwed up.

“Wait, where did you say she was?” Jack Montgomery, the team’s commander, had overheard their conversation. He and his wife, Megan, exchanged a strange look.

“Pinedale, Wyoming. Why?” Zeke had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer. He ran his hand through his hair.

Hannah placed her hand on his shoulder. Zeke looked up at green eyes flecked with gold, matching his and filled with sympathy.

“I received an alert earlier from the sheriff’s office in Pinedale. Sounds like they have a missing woman there.”

Zeke jumped to his feet. “You have a photo?”

“I do, and it’s not Sierra,” Jack told him. He turned the phone around so that they could see the young woman’s features. “Her name is Dawn Collins. She went missing about a week ago.”

“Why is the sheriff reaching out to us?” Zeke tried to glean something from Jack’s expression.

Jack turned to Megan.

“Dawn’s disappearance matches another set of disappearances from twenty-five years earlier.” Megan brought something up on her laptop while Zeke’s bad feeling doubled.

“There were six women who disappeared from the area in 2000. None were from Pinedale. All were climbers who came to the area for the challenge the Wind River Mountain Range offers.”

“That’s where Sierra is. She’s climbing those mountains. And she’s not answering her phone. Something’s wrong.”

Megan’s frown deepened. “We don’t know that for certain.” She hesitated as if choosing her next words carefully. “Sierra told Jack and me she wanted to take a break. She’s had a tough year with her mother’s death and the case that almost destroyed her.”

And Zeke’s own dumb mistakes. Yet he couldn’t accept that Sierra would turn her phone off as the straight to voicemail seemed to indicate.

“Call her. She may not be taking my call, but she sure will yours.”

Megan set her laptop down and tried Sierra’s number. “Straight to voicemail.” She turned to her husband. “He’s right. That isn’t usual.”

“Let me give the sheriff a call.” Jack headed back to his office with Zeke on his heels.

Zeke almost slammed into him before Jack could close the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Coming with you. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Zeke . . .”

“Jack, I need to know what’s going on.”

“Alright, but let me handle the call.”

Zeke held up his hands. “I won’t say a word.”

“Yeah, right.” Jack pulled up the message from the sheriff and hit the number. Two rings and Sheriff Taylor answered.

“This is Jack Montgomery from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. I got your message about Dawn Collins.” Jack put the call on speaker.

“Yes. I’m guessing you know the reason why I’m reaching out to your unit.”

Jack confirmed he did. “You’re talking about the women’s disappearances from twenty-five years earlier.”

“Yes. Dawn’s disappearance matches those women’s abductor’s MO. I think our kidnapper,” he hesitated over the words as if not wanting to voice something much darker than kidnapping, “is back again.”

“We have an additional problem, Sheriff Taylor. One of our female agents has been climbing in your area and hasn’t been heard from in a while.”

“You’re kidding?” The sheriff’s shock was clear. “Any idea where she’s staying?”

Jack looked at Zeke who shook his head.

“No, but what about Dawn? Where was she staying?”

“The Wind River Cabins. You think your person is staying there?”

“I don’t have any idea.” Jack drummed his fingers on the desk.

“I can find out for you. There are only a few motels around the area. The cabins are the nicest and seem popular with climbers. I’ll give you a call back once I know.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait to hear from you.” Jack ended the call.

“We need to get there now.” Zeke paced the room, unable to stay seated any longer.

“We’re going to assist, but I need you to calm down.”

Zeke stopped.

“Whatever is going on with you and Sierra can’t be a part of this. You hear me?”

Zeke dropped to his seat again. “I hear you.”

Megan knocked once and came in. “Anything yet?”

Jack updated her on what Sheriff Taylor said. “He should be calling back soon.”

Megan sighed. “I’m worried too, Jack. You know Sierra always has her phone with her. She’s not answering my texts, and I tried pinging her phone. It’s turned off. Her watch isn’t responding either.”

Jack’s brows knitted together. “Get the team ready to leave soon. Have them all meet us at the plane.” His attention landed on Zeke. “Go home and pack. We leave in an hour.”

Zeke practically ran from the office. “Let’s go.” He told his sister and brother-in-law.

“Where are we going?” Hannah asked as she and Cooper followed Zeke from BAU Headquarters in Quantico, Virginia.

“To Wyoming. We’re leaving in an hour.”

“Jack agreed to this?” Cooper seemed to hold doubts.

“He did. We’re going after Sierra.”

Cooper’s phone beeped through a message. “Hannah, Zeke’s right. We leave in an hour.”

“Okay. You can ride with us, Zeke. We’ll drop you off at your place and then pick you up on our way back.” Hannah caught up with him. “Take a breath, brother.”

Zeke stopped and turned to her. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not. You’re doing what you normally do and plowing forward without thinking things through.”

Guilty as charged.

“I’m thinking clearly, Sis. I just want her to be okay.” Hannah wrapped her arms around him.

He slowly accepted her hug and let go of the tension coiled tight inside his body.

“I know you do. We’ll get her back.”

Zeke prayed it would turn out true.

He climbed into the back seat of Cooper’s truck and tried to control his emotions. Hannah was right. He needed to keep it together for Sierra.

Cooper maneuvered through the light traffic around Quantico.

“I’m pulling up details I can find on the old case now,” Hannah told them as she studied her cell phone. “The women’s vehicles were never located. That’s strange, don’t you think?”

Zeke leaned forward. “It is. Where’d they go? The town isn’t all that big from what I can tell.”

“It isn’t,” Hannah confirmed.

“Someone got rid of them,” Cooper concluded.

“But how? Those disappearances happened over one summer. How do you make six vehicles disappear?”

“Bury them?” Zeke said. “Either in a lake or underground. But you’d have to have a big spot to make it happen underground.”

Hannah typed something into her phone. “There are several decent-sized lakes around the area. “It’s possible. Or maybe have them crushed. I’m sure the sheriff checked with the local wrecking yards.”

“Probably. We can go over all of that with his team when we arrive.” Cooper brought the truck to a halt in front of Zeke’s home in Alexandria.

Zeke got out. “See you in half an hour?”

“We’ll be here.” Hannah assured him.

He closed the door. Cooper pulled away from the curb.

Zeke unlocked the door and went inside. The quiet of the place was another reminder of what was lacking in his life. He ran a hand over his eyes. What had been his problem anyway? He loved her. She loved him. Why couldn’t he commit? His father deserting them had cast a long shadow over both his and Hannah’s lives. It had prevented him from being able to fully commit to a relationship. But Sierra was different. He loved her.

Zeke went through to his bedroom and retrieved his duffle bag from the closet. Even though he rushed, time slipped into excruciating slow motion as he packed. All he wanted was to be in Wyoming.

He zipped his bag shut and carried it to the front door.

Everywhere he looked Sierra had left her touches. She had a keen eye for design and had helped him redecorate the place. Zeke went over to the sofa and picked up the fake fur throw and lifted it up to his nose. It smelled of her favorite scent. Obsession. Sierra told him she liked the classics.

He remembered them huddling under the blanket and watching scary movies. She’d pretend to be scared so they could cuddle. Sierra was every bit as tough as he was. She’d faced down some of the worst killers around. The last one had been her breaking point, though. The betrayal she felt at learning her psychiatrist was using information gleaned from her counseling sessions to commit murders had been the hardest. Sierra had gone to him after her mother died. She’d been vulnerable. He’d been a predator.

A horn honked outside. He looked out the window and spotted Cooper’s truck.

Shutting out how much he’d let her down in the past was hard. But he had to because she needed him and he wasn’t about to let her down now.