24

December 15
6:53 a.m.
TBI Headquarters

Garrett strode across the parking lot of the TBI headquarters for the first time in years, hoping he wasn’t going to regret his decision to show up. Sam had always been persuasive, and in many ways while Garrett had been on the force, Sam was the father figure he’d never really had. But even that hadn’t been enough to get him here. What had clinched the decision to come was the possibility of a second chance to right a wrong.

For years he’d gone over different scenarios in his head. If he’d followed the lead Sam had given him, if he hadn’t put as much manpower into investigating Fisher, maybe things would have turned out differently. On the other hand, maybe it hadn’t mattered which lead he’d decided to follow. Maybe the outcome would have still been the same. But all of that was something they’d never know. Marissa was dead, and in real life that ending would never change.

He stepped through the glass doors of the bureau and into the open atrium nestled between the two wings. A sense of familiarity washed over him as he paused in the lobby in front of the central security checkpoint. But it wasn’t the familiar building or even the sunlight streaming through the long row of windows above him that held his attention.

She was standing in front of the security checkpoint, looking even more beautiful than he remembered, if that was possible, in her black jeans, boots, and a dark-red scarf to ward off the chill of the holiday season.

I should be over you by now, Jordan Lambert, but I’m not sure I ever will be.

“Jordan.” He walked up to her, trying to ignore the intense feelings sweeping through him that seeing her again brought on. “I guess you weren’t expecting a trip here today either, were you?”

“No, but I was hoping I’d run into you before you went in.” She shoved a wayward curl behind her ear and shot him a smile. “I thought it would be less awkward to see each other for the first time out here before we met with everyone else and dove into the case.”

“That wasn’t a bad idea, though I hope there isn’t any reason for there to be anything awkward between us.”

“I hope not too, it’s just that it’s been so long.”

She looked relieved, but all he could think about was the last time he’d seen her. The last time he’d kissed her. And how he couldn’t for the life of him remember at that moment why he’d said goodbye without telling her how he’d always felt.

He shoved back the memories. “When did you get into Nashville?”

“I drove in last night and am staying with my sister. What about you? You’re still working as a lawyer?”

“Yeah.” They took the passes from the uniformed officer and headed into the secured building. “I think I’m far better suited for what I’m doing now.”

“I can’t help but wonder what your parents think,” she said.

He let out a low laugh. “Nothing’s changed there. They still think I’ve gone off the deep end. It’s pretty much a topic that is completely avoided. I bet your dad, on the other hand, is thrilled you’re in town.”

“He is.” She stopped in the middle of the atrium. “And I understand you probably see him more than I do. You never told me the two of you took up chess and watch ball games together once a month.”

“After your mom died, I told you I’d look in on him. Turns out, we enjoy hanging out. There’s nothing like a close ball game on the big screen with him and a couple of his old army buddies.”

“I’m not even going to ask what the two of you talk about.” She laughed as they started walking through the open office space. “But thank you.”

And he wasn’t going to tell her that her dad had been his source of updates on how she was doing. Her father had tried over the years to get him to come over when Jordan was home visiting, but he’d always managed to find an excuse. At the time it seemed enough knowing she was okay. But seeing her now made him wonder if he’d been wrong.

“I just can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve seen you,” Garrett said. “It’s as if time has stood still for you. You look exactly the same.”

Beautiful.

She avoided his gaze. “I don’t think you’ve aged much either.”

“A few gray hairs maybe.”

“Are you still running?” she asked.

“I ran the Nashville Marathon a couple weeks ago. Trying to stay fit.”

“Congratulations. Maybe I’ll see you one day in Boston.”

“Maybe.”

He smiled as they approached the conference room, but he wasn’t interested in shallow pleasantries. Instead, he had this sudden urge to push aside the past decade, along with any regrets, and pick up where they’d left off.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

He glanced at his watch. “I suppose we should go in. They’re waiting for us.”

She nodded, then slipped inside the room ahead of him.

The rest of the team was already sitting at the long table in the room, and the sight brought with it a surge of memories. While Jordan might have barely aged in the past decade, that wasn’t true for everyone. Michaels had gone completely bald and put on a pound or two. Sam, as he’d noted last night, had a headful of gray hairs, but still seemed as fit as he’d been a decade ago. Nikki Boyd, Sarah Boyd’s sister, stood in the back of the room talking with Sam. She looked completely at ease in her law enforcement role.

“It’s good to see you, Agent Boyd,” Garrett said, shaking her hand.

“It’s Agent Grant now, actually,” she said, holding up her left hand. “I got married eight months ago. But I’m Nikki to you, Garrett.”

“Well, congratulations, Nikki. It’s nice to hear some good news in the middle of all this.”

“I appreciate your agreeing to come,” she said, turning to Jordan. “Both of you.”

“Me too,” Sam said.

Garrett didn’t tell them he had yet to make up his mind whether he was in or not.

“We’ll go ahead and get started now that everyone’s here,” Nikki said.

Garrett greeted Michaels, then took a seat next to Jordan at the table as Nikki moved to the front of the room and sat down next to a man he didn’t recognize.

“It’s good to see you all here, though as we know, the circumstances could be better,” Nikki said, scooting her chair forward. “For the past two years, I’ve been a part of TBI’s Missing Persons Task Force along with my partner, Agent Jack Spencer.” Nikki nodded toward the man sitting next to Garrett. “Two days ago, we received a call from the sheriff in Rutherford County. They found the body of a young girl, half buried in a grave. Her name is Chloe Middleton, and everything about the case points to our Angel Abductor being back, including the Polaroid photo taken right before she was killed. Which is why we’ve asked to bring the four of you on board. We need to close this case.”

“I understand you might have discovered the identity of the Angel Abductor?” Jordan asked.

Nikki nodded. “We thought we might have. About a year and a half ago, I was involved in a missing persons case involving a teenage girl. Long story short, our suspect, Randall Cooper, didn’t end up being the Angel Abductor like I thought he might be, but he claimed to know the man behind the abductions.”

“Who is he?” Garrett asked.

“Cooper told me they met in prison and that the other inmates called the man the Coyote. He kept Polaroid photos of the girls hidden away—photos that Cooper said he saw. He also said that the Coyote confessed that he had been the one behind the abductions. Then Cooper was transferred to another prison and lost track of the man. But it gave us a direction to go in.

“I spent weeks trying to track town the Coyote, until a friend of mine who works in the prison system came up with something. He researched the dates that the Coyote was in prison, talked to other inmates who knew him, and was finally able to come up with a name. Robert Wilcox.”

“What was he in prison for?” Jordan asked.

“Surprisingly enough, he was in prison for fraud. Not murder.” Nikki handed out the files sitting next to her. “I’ll give you the highlights now, but these files have everything we currently know about this man.”

Garrett opened up the file, then froze at the familiar photo staring up at him. His muscles tensed. Heart raced. How was this even possible?

“Wait a minute. This is Jason Fisher. I interviewed him a decade ago in connection to Marissa Dillinger’s disappearance.”

“That’s why we wanted you here, Garrett,” Jordan said. “When Nikki came to me about the case, I made the connection to Fisher from the photo of Wilcox.”

How had it taken all these years to make that connection? Now another girl was dead.

Garrett shook his head. “We decided he couldn’t be involved. In fact, he was at the police station when she was shot and when her body was found. With the medical examiner’s time-of-death, he had the perfect alibi.”

He stared at the familiar face on the photo. None of this made any sense. Unless . . .

“You think he was working with someone else?” he asked.

“It’s one of the things we’re exploring.” Jack Spencer tapped on the folder in front of him. “Here’s what we do know. Robert Wilcox—we believe that’s his real name—was wanted on a felony embezzlement charge in another state. He moved to Nashville back in 2002 and got a job at Raynott International Group, using the alias Jason Fisher. For almost a decade he somehow managed to get away with it.”

Anger simmered inside Garrett. “And during his free time he abducted and killed young girls.”

Jordan nodded. “When he was arrested in 2010, he was booked for federal mail and wire fraud crimes as Robert Wilcox, and for some reason, his alias was never discovered. We did recently find a missing persons report filed by an executive at Raynott for one of their employees—”

“Jason Fisher.” Garrett combed his hands through his hair. How had no one caught this?

“The file we have on him—for both names—is actually pretty sparse,” Nikki said. “Most of the information comes from the sister of a previous girlfriend, and a couple people he worked with. We know that his parents are deceased and that he had a stepbrother named Gregory Jennings, who’s also dead. He was hired by Raynott, as we know, where he worked as a financial analyst helping clients know when to buy and sell investments.”

“We looked into that being his connection with the girls’ families back when Marissa was murdered,” Garrett said.

“We were able to find connections with Raynott to four of the victims,” Jordan said.

Nikki nodded. “We’ve started interviewing his coworkers at Raynott, and we’re discovering that while everyone liked him, no one really knew him. He had a master’s in finance and was described as smart and funny, but most of the time he stayed to himself. In fact, so far we can’t find anyone who says they were close to him.”

“But here’s where things get interesting,” Jack said. “Just over two years ago, Wilcox escaped from prison during a transfer and disappeared.”

“So we don’t even know where he is?” Garrett asked.

“Here’s the clincher,” Nikki said. “The Coyote—Wilcox—Fisher—whatever you want to call him, is dead.”

“Dead?” Michaels said.

“His body was found in a back alley in Memphis just over a year ago. He was murdered—stabbed multiple times. His killer was never found.”

Garrett’s head spun at the implications. None of this made sense.

“So what are you implying?” he asked, trying to sort through the details. “That Cooper lied? Or maybe this Coyote, who turned out to be Wilcox, was simply spinning his own lies?”

“Both are possibilities,” Jack said. “Even though we don’t have a confession from Wilcox—just a statement from another convicted criminal—we believe both were telling the truth. In going through the timeline and the information you found on Fisher back then, Garrett, everything about him fits.”

“On top of that,” Nikki added, “Cooper had a Polaroid photo of my sister, which means that it’s almost certain he really had been in contact with our abductor.”

“But the piece that doesn’t fit is Marissa’s death,” Jordan said. “Hers doesn’t, and Chloe’s doesn’t. Who killed them?”

“That’s what we have to figure out,” Jack said. “Because either Fisher is our man, and he was working with someone, or we’re looking at a copycat. It’s always possible that after all these years, the specific details of our killer’s MO, like the Polaroid, leaked.”

Garrett stared at Fisher’s photo, hating even the possibility that the Angel Abductor had been in this building, and they’d let him walk out.

“If I decide that I’m in, what happens next?” he asked.

“We dig up everything we can to find out who he might have been working with,” Nikki said. “Thankfully, Garrett, your investigation into Fisher a decade ago has already given us a head start.”

Jordan reached out and squeezed his arm. “What do you say, Garrett? Are you in?”