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All he cared about was getting Dylan back.
CHAPTER THREE (#u1cda32a7-428c-5674-a338-a4a643e28692)
THE AUTHORITIES WERE convinced that the young boy, Dylan Evans, had been abducted. Despite there being no ransom demand. No contact. At least not yet.
When the possibility had first occurred to Shannon, dread had washed over her. Telling the father, Sawyer Evans, what they suspected had broken her heart.
Afterward, she’d gone to Sawyer’s home with Logan, and then back to the division for the briefing of the Special Response Team. Richard Bigelow was the lead detective assigned to the case, and she was glad of it. She didn’t know him well, but he was said to be the best on his team.
The SDPD had called in the FBI to assist, standard operating procedure with children presumed to have been abducted. The FBI had assigned a special agent in charge to work with the SDPD, Gavin Leary, and another special agent, Anne Wilson, to assist.
Shannon didn’t know if her help would be required again, but took comfort in the fact that they had the top resources available on the case.
Back at her desk, she scooped kibble into Darwin’s bowl. She watched him scarf down his food. Shannon might not be hungry, but the events of the day didn’t seem to have hurt her dog’s appetite.
After he finished his meal, he ambled over and rested his head on her lap. She stroked him as she thought back to the meeting.
They’d considered all the possibilities and narrowed it down to two. Either Dylan had wandered off and someone had seized him opportunistically, or it had been planned and he’d been taken from the campsite and to the vehicle.
Everyone present had agreed that the second scenario was more probable, since the former would’ve been too coincidental and highly improbable in the middle of the night. Also, as Shannon had concluded, it would’ve been too long and arduous a trek for Dylan to walk from the campsite to the service road on his own.
But how could someone have gotten Dylan out of the tent without waking his father? The only plausible scenario they could come up with was that the boy had gone outside to relieve himself and been taken then. But that would’ve meant someone had been watching and waiting, possibly all night, for Dylan to appear. She returned to the fact that it had been hours and there was still no ransom demand.
Shannon got her laptop, put her feet up on a chair and opened a picture of Charlie.
She was fourteen when her little brother died and the events that had led up to it still haunted her.
All through her childhood, people had called her a tomboy. When she’d first heard the term, she hadn’t known what it meant. Curious, she’d looked it up online, where it said something about how the way she was didn’t follow the “female gender norm.” That hadn’t bothered her. She’d seen it as fact. When other girls her age were playing with dolls or going to tea parties, she’d been engaged in sports or building mechanical things.
Her best friend since the first grade was a boy. Kenny had been her only friend for most of her life. When her parents had another child and that child turned out to be a boy, she’d been relieved. Shannon would’ve loved her sibling no matter what, but she’d secretly worried about how she’d handle having a sister. She was okay with being a tomboy, maybe even pleased by it, but what sort of influence would she have been on a little sister? So, she’d been glad when her mother had given birth to Charlie.
There was a ten-year age gap between them, but she’d loved Charlie completely and unreservedly.
And Charlie had loved her unconditionally in return. Their mother had said he idolized her. That put a lot of pressure on Shannon to be a good role model. Charlie wanted to do everything Shannon did; in fact, their father called him her shadow. As Charlie had grown, he’d also developed an open adoration for Kenny. Shannon had worried about how Kenny would respond to a young child hanging around them. She’d been delighted when Kenny, an only child, treated Charlie as if he was his kid brother, too.
Shannon’s parents started calling them the Three Musketeers. Shannon had Googled that, and she liked the sound of it. Yeah, the three of them against the world!
Shortly after Shannon turned fourteen, something had changed between her and Kenny. At first it was subtle; with time, it became more pronounced. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but their relationship just wasn’t the same. She worried that because Kenny was sixteen, two years older than her, he now thought of her as a kid. Her idea was reinforced when he’d insisted that she—and everyone else—start calling him Ken. He considered himself too old to be called Kenny. But she concluded she couldn’t have been correct about how he felt because they still saw each other as much as they used to, if not more. Then she’d fretted that it was Charlie, since Ken no longer wanted to have him around.
Shannon’s mother had sat her down and had a talk with her about Ken and their relationship now that they were teenagers, but Shannon had assured her that Kenny—Ken—was just a friend.
When Ken had asked Shannon to go for a hike in Torrey Pines State Reserve north of San Diego, Charlie had wanted desperately accompany them. Kenny had insisted that it would be a long hike, too strenuous for Charlie. Tears had coursed down her brother’s cheeks when she’d told him he couldn’t come with them.
If only Charlie had listened...
* * *
SHANNON CLOSED HER eyes and the memories came rushing back.
It was shortly after Kenny had gotten his driver’s license and he was so proud to be able to drive them to the park in his mother’s car.
As they walked side by side along a forest path, Kenny bumped Shannon’s shoulder. Shannon had been watching the shifting patchwork of light and shade on the sun-dappled forest floor, her thoughts so focused on how to broach the subject of what had caused the change between them, that the movement made her lose her footing.
He caught her with one hand on her arm, the other at her waist.
“Thanks, Kenny.” Noting his annoyance, she quickly amended her words. “Sorry... Ken.” Steady on her feet again, she tried to step away, but he kept an arm around her waist. “Um... I’m okay now. Thanks.”
Instead of releasing her, he closed the gap between them. Shannon saw his mouth open and his eyes close as he lowered his head toward hers. With an appalled jolt, she understood that he intended to kiss her. Letting out a squeal that sounded girlish to her own ears, she placed her palms on his chest and shoved. She must’ve taken him by surprise because he staggered and landed ingloriously on his butt.
“What did you do that for?” he demanded, his irritation obvious.
“You...you were going to kiss me!” Shannon swiped her forearm across her mouth, almost as if he’d managed to accomplish what he’d set out to do.
Leaning back, he continued to stare up at her. “Yeah. What’s wrong with that?”
“What’s wrong with it?” she heard herself sputter. “You’re my friend. You’re like a brother.”
He rose and dusted off his jeans. “Is that so? Is that how you think of me?”
“Well, yeah. How else?”
She and Kenny—Ken—couldn’t reach any kind of agreement, but at least she had her answer to the question she’d been grappling with.
Something had changed between them.
Kenny no longer thought of her as a friend or a sister. He confessed that he wanted her as his girlfriend.
Shannon couldn’t think of him that way. Her mother’s warning, and how readily she’d dismissed it, came to mind.
Kenny suggested she take some time to decide. She knew she didn’t need time, since her feelings for Kenny weren’t going to change.
Kenny drove her home. He didn’t bother to get out of the car. They said a terse goodbye and, with a heavy heart, she walked into her house.
When Shannon entered the kitchen, her mother glanced over her shoulder from where she was standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot. “Oh, thank goodness you’re back,” Victoria said. “Your father has a charter booked to go fishing and wants to take Charlie with him.”
“Charlie?” Maybe it was because Shannon was still in a daze from what had happened with Kenny, but she didn’t understand what her mother was talking about.
“Yes, Charlie.” Victoria turned, a wooden spoon in her hand. “Where is he?”
Shannon felt cold tentacles of dread slithering through her. “Why are you asking me? I was with Kenny. Charlie wasn’t with us.”
The spoon slipped out of Victoria’s hand and clattered to the tile floor. “Then where is he? When we couldn’t find him, we...we assumed he must’ve gone with you.”
The tentacles were constricting, and she imagined her ribs would snap at any moment. It was nearly impossible for her to breathe. “No...” Shannon’s voice was a disembodied whisper. “He wasn’t with us.”
Victoria rushed to the hallway. “Paul! Paul... Charlie wasn’t with Shannon!”
The rest of the day was a nightmare for Shannon.
The police were in and out of their home as if it had a revolving door. They visited Kenny and found Charlie’s stuffed dog on the floor of his car. They’d speculated that Charlie had followed Shannon out of the house and that while she and Kenny had gone into the garage to get her hiking boots, he’d hidden on the floor in the backseat of the car and sneaked after them when they went on their hike.
A police officer and his search-and-rescue dog were brought in to find Charlie.
They discovered his body the next day.
He must’ve gotten lost in the forest and had drowned in a creek. The K-9 officer had tears in his eyes when he told them. Shannon hadn’t blamed the police. She could tell they’d done everything possible to find Charlie. The K-9 officer had just been brought in too late, as he’d been deployed on another assignment. She’d concluded that if there were more police officers with dogs, they could’ve found Charlie in time. She knew her parents felt the same way, because they made a donation in Charlie’s memory to the San Diego Police Department Foundation to acquire and train a police service dog in search and rescue. Shannon had asked that the dog be named after Charlie. The foundation had agreed.
It was back then that Shannon had resolved to become a police officer working in the K-9 Unit. If she could save one little boy like Charlie, dedicating her life to policing would all be worth it...
Now, here she was, and she’d had that chance. And she’d failed.
* * *
IT WAS WELL past eight when Logan finished the last of his paperwork and turned off his computer. He said silent thanks that Ariana was so understanding about the odd hours he had to work. He smiled, thinking that she’d soon be his wife. Logan wouldn’t have imagined it six months ago, when he’d first met the cool and competent head of security and loss prevention for San Diego International Airport.
Logan retrieved his duffel, whistled for Boomer, his explosives-detection dog, and left his office.
He’d thought that he’d been alone in the squad room, but he was wrong. Shannon was leaning back in her chair, her feet propped up on another one, her legs crossed at the ankles. She had her laptop on her lap, but she was completely still. He couldn’t tell if she’d dozed off or not, but the computer screen was dark. He knew she’d been working long hours since Cal had left on vacation, and this should’ve been her day off.
“Hey, Shannon,” he said quietly as he approached her.
She dropped her feet to the floor and nearly knocked the laptop off her thighs as she bolted up. The jostling had the screen coming out of hibernation. “Logan. Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”
He smiled. “Obviously.”
She hurriedly shut down her laptop, but not before he saw the smiling, freckle-faced kid’s picture.
He pulled the chair she’d had her feet on forward and sat. What would another fifteen or twenty minutes matter when he suspected he knew what was going on. He signaled for Boomer to lie down. The beautiful near-black Dutch Malinois/shepherd mix did, right next to Darwin.
“Shannon, the boy in that picture is your brother?” He searched his memory for the child’s name. “It’s Charlie?”
Shannon nodded.
“You want to talk about it?”
She took a deep breath, then blew it out. “I just relived it in my mind. I’d prefer not to go through it again. At least not now.” She placed a finger on her touch pad, fiddled with it a bit and clicked. She turned the screen toward Logan. “And that’s Dylan.”
Logan noted the similarities in age, coloring and the wide, gap-toothed grins.
“I don’t want what happened to Charlie to happen to Dylan.” She raised her hand. “Oh, I know the situations are entirely different, but I don’t want a cop—me or someone else—to have to tell Sawyer Evans that his little boy is...is gone. I don’t want Sawyer to have to go through what my parents did. To live with having lost a child.” She reached down and stroked the top of Darwin’s head, then shook her own. “No parent should have to endure that. I know what it felt like to lose my brother and to carry the blame—”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Blame?”
With a resigned sigh, she gave him the highlights.
“You’re not to blame,” Logan said vehemently when she’d finished, but he understood her better now.
“Maybe not. However, it doesn’t mean I don’t still carry the guilt. Reason is one thing. Emotion, something else altogether.” She paused for a long moment. “Is it worse knowing someone took him? That it wasn’t an accident?”
Logan understood that the question was rhetorical, but irrespective, he didn’t have the answer. He and Ariana had discussed having children, and the idea of anything like that happening to one of them petrified him. “At least we have a chance of getting Dylan back safe and sound,” he said gently.
Logan still had to address with Shannon the fact that she’d withheld material information about herself, information that could’ve impacted the specialization he’d assigned her. Especially considering the particulars she’d just shared. But looking at her and how fragile she seemed he knew that now was not the appropriate time.
As for the abduction, if they talked it through, they might come up with something they’d missed. If not, it would at least serve to get her mind off her own loss. “Okay, let’s go over what we have.” Logan looked up when he heard the squad room door open. Seeing Ariana stride in—with her confident, no-nonsense gait, and carrying a large bag of Chinese takeout—he appreciated again how fortunate he was to have her in his life. The more he got to know her, the more he respected her intelligence and agile mind. He couldn’t ignore her beauty, either, with all that long, dark hair and her exotic features.
She dealt with many significant issues in her job. Having her perspective on this situation could help.
“I guess we won’t be going hungry while we do it,” Logan added. “Let’s move this into the conference room,” he said as he rose to give Ariana a kiss.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u1cda32a7-428c-5674-a338-a4a643e28692)
SHANNON WAS BACK in the squad room early the next morning. She watched the flurry of activity around her and knew most of it had to do with Dylan Evans.
The boy was still missing.
She, Logan and Ariana hadn’t come up with any great revelations the evening before. Judging by the bustle around her, neither had the investigative team.
She recognized the two FBI special agents who’d been assigned to the case—Leary and Wilson. Bigelow from the Special Response Team was there too, and she knew most of the other officers, who were from the SDPD. They were filing into the conference room.
When she saw Logan enter the squad room, she hurried over to him.
“I know I’m not needed actively on the case right now, but is it okay if I sit in on the briefing?”
He looked at her sympathetically. “You have a heavy workload with Cal gone. Are you sure you have the time?”
“It matters,” she said softly.
Logan held her gaze, then slowly nodded. “Okay. Good training for you,” he said, making her feel less awkward about her personal interest in the case.
She started toward the conference room, but he forestalled her with a hand on her arm.
“If you need to leave anytime during the briefing, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
She felt his comment was a discreet reference to her emotional state the evening before. It told Shannon that Logan realized she wanted in, not just because of Dylan but also because of Charlie. She was fortunate to have such an understanding boss. “Thanks,” she said with a grateful smile.
She took a seat along the back wall, near the door rather than at the table. She was an observer, not a participant. And it would make for an unobtrusive exit should she need to leave.
“First, to recap,” Bigelow began. “The missing boy is four-year-old Dylan Evans. Dylan’s been missing for over a day, and there’s been no ransom demand. No contact with his family or the police. Dylan’s father, Sawyer Evans, is a former high-profile prosecutor with the San Diego County District Attorney’s office and is now a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. Evans says he stopped practicing law and became a professor shortly after a challenging case involving a young man, Stewart Rankin, from a rich and privileged family.” He swept his gaze around the room. “Many of you will remember that Rankin killed five people in a motor-vehicle accident while driving under the influence.”
A hand went up and Bigelow pointed at the uniform.
“That’s the guy who’d been out partying with his buddies. A stag before his wedding. Drove a high-end Porsche Carrera, right?”
Bigelow nodded. “Yeah, that’s Rankin. Evans was the prosecutor. He won the case. Rankin was sentenced to twelve years in prison. His family has money and they threw a considerable amount at his defense team. Evans says the trial was brutal and his involvement, the effort and energy required, took a toll on his personal life. His wife, Jeannette Evans, left him and their one-year-old son shortly afterward, without discussion or warning. She didn’t return home from her fitness club one day. His workload had been an issue between them ever since Dylan’s arrival. Although the case was technically still open, since there was no indication of foul play, the assumption was that she’d had enough and left. There was some speculation that post-partum depression might have been a factor, but nothing conclusive was known in that regard.”
That was news to Shannon. Sawyer must have been heartbroken and reeling from his wife’s desertion. She raised her hand. “Is Jeannette a possible suspect?” she asked when Bigelow signaled to her to speak.
“I was just getting to that. I checked the case file. She simply disappeared. Vanished without a trace. Her car was in the club’s parking lot. There was nothing captured on the facility’s security cameras. Subsequent to her disappearance, there was no use of credit cards, accessing of bank accounts or contact with anyone she’d known. Ultimately and on that basis, the detectives concluded she was more than likely deceased. This is where the question of post-partum depression arose. As I said, the case remains open, but since there was no evidence of a struggle or any indication to the contrary, foul play was ruled out.”
