Without A Trace

Rae Cavanaugh would do anything to find her kin.

Even join forces with Tom Brannon.

The disappearance of Rae Cavanaugh’s sister rocked the community of Echo Lake. So when Rae’s niece mysteriously goes missing fifteen years later, county sheriff Tom Brannon is determined to find her. But as the electricity between the two sparks, Rae soon discovers—despite her misgivings—that Tom is the only one she can trust…

AMANDA STEVENS is an award-winning author of over fifty novels, including the modern gothic series The Graveyard Queen. Her books have been described as eerie and atmospheric, and “a new take on the classic ghost story.” Born and raised in the rural South, she now resides in Houston, Texas, where she enjoys binge-watching, bike riding and the occasional margarita.

Also by Amanda Stevens

Criminal Behaviour

Incriminating Evidence

Killer Investigation

Pine Lake

Whispering Springs

Bishop’s Rock (ebook novella)

The Restorer

The Kingdom

The Prophet

The Visitor

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Without a Trace

Amanda Stevens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90535-4

WITHOUT A TRACE

© 2020 Marilyn Medlock Amann

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Publisher

Chapter One

On the night of the disappearances, a blood moon had hovered over the piney woods in East Texas. The old-timers called it an omen. Tom Brannon had considered it just plain bad luck. He’d forgotten his flashlight when he rushed out of the house and the lunar eclipse provided weak illumination as he’d traipsed along the banks of the lake, hoping against hope that by the time he got back home, he’d find the girls safe and sound in his sister’s bedroom.

Fifteen years had passed since that fateful night, but Tom still got a chill when the moon turned ruddy and a pine-scented breeze blew in from the lake. He stood outside the sheriff’s station gazing up at the sky, telling himself to get back to work and forget about that moon. He had more important things to worry about at the moment, like budget cuts and rising crime rates, not to mention the mountain of complaints that seemed to grow exponentially higher with each passing day. On and on it went. The job of a rural county sheriff never ended.

He thought about his sister, Ellie, out there alone on Echo Lake. Miles from town. Miles from anyone. He’d asked her once if she ever got lonely, but she’d scoffed at the notion, insisting that the isolation kept her sane. Besides, it was only a twenty-minute drive into town, where she could find all the company she wanted. She seemed content these days, but Tom had to wonder if the nightmares ever came back. If she hid under the bed or at the back of her closet until the monsters went away. He didn’t ask. He and his sister were close, but there were things they didn’t talk about. Of the three girls who had entered the old hospital ruins on the night of the blood moon, Ellie was the only one who had come out whole. Survivor’s guilt could be a powerful thing. Tom understood only too well.

Maybe it was the moon or maybe he was being overly protective, but he felt the need to check in with her tonight, hear her voice to calm his disquiet. He should have called earlier. She’d already be on the air by this time. She produced and hosted a syndicated radio program called Midnight on Echo Lake, which she broadcast from a small studio behind her house. She wouldn’t answer her cell right now, but he could call in to the program. Talk about space aliens or the Bigfoot creature that some of the locals claimed to have seen in the woods near the lake. She’d get a kick out of that, though she’d later scold him for mocking her callers.

Things happen that can’t be explained, she would tell him. People need someone they can talk to about their experiences without fear of ridicule.

Yeah, and some people are just plain nuts, Tom would retort.

Maybe he was one of them. He couldn’t seem to shake the uneasiness that had gripped him all evening. He didn’t believe in premonitions, but he knew enough to pay attention to his instincts. Something was brewing. He could feel it in the wind. He hoped it was nothing more than a summer storm.

“Evening, Sheriff.”

He turned to find his newest recruit striding across the parking lot toward him. He checked his watch out of habit. The department ran on a six, two and ten schedule. Tom had been there since six that morning. He’d worked straight through two watches.

“You’re early,” he noted. “That’s a good habit to get into.”

“Yes, sir,” the young officer replied with a solemn nod. A recent graduate of the East Texas Police Academy, Billy Navarro was a young, eager rookie who reminded Tom a bit of himself ten years ago. His father had been winding down his nearly thirty-year career as the Nance County sheriff when Tom had come on board. He’d served under his dad for only a year before a heart attack had claimed Porter Brannon in his sleep. Tom had then served under his father’s replacement for another nine years, going from patrolman to criminal investigator to the deputy sheriff in less than a decade before running for office two years ago.

The campaign had gotten nasty and personal, fueled by a hostile opponent and an onslaught of negative commentary from the editorial pages of the Echo Lake Star. Everything from Tom’s age to his integrity had been called into question, and there had been times when he wondered why he had ever thought it a good idea to try to follow in his father’s footsteps. In the end, he’d won in a near landslide, no doubt a bitter pill to swallow for the Cavanaugh clan, who had spearheaded the campaign against him. He suspected the animosity between the two families would only worsen as the next election approached.

“Beware the blood moon,” Billy muttered beside him.

Tom slanted him a frowning glance. “What did you say?”

“That’s what my grandmother told me before I left the house tonight.” He shifted uneasily. “What kind of goodbye is that for a guy going out on patrol?”

“It’s just an old wives’ tale. Keep your eyes open and your mind on the job. You’ll be fine.”

Tom would never point out to a rookie that patrolling the town of Belle Pointe and the outlying country roads was hardly the same as taking on the mean streets of a crime-ridden city. He wanted Billy aware and on guard. Nance County was rural, but their home turf had more than its fair share of drug-related crime. Meth dealers had taken to scoping out abandoned houses in the country where they could cook their product in mass quantities. Then they used the nearby interstate to transport the drugs to points north and south. Big business. Big money. Synthetic weed was becoming a problem, too, along with fentanyl and the old standbys of crack cocaine and heroin.

Beside him, Billy searched the sky. “I know it’s just a superstition, but there’s something in the air tonight. Can you feel it?”

Yes, he felt it, but Tom didn’t want to spook the rookie any more than he already seemed to be. He shrugged off his foreboding as he turned to go back inside. “Static electricity,” he said. “Storm front moving in.”

“There’s not a cloud in the sky,” Billy said.

“Not yet,” Tom allowed. “Who’s riding with you tonight?”

“Naomi Clutter.”

“Tough as nails. Nobody better in three counties. You run into trouble, she’ll have your back. You just make sure you have hers.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tom went back inside and crossed the nearly empty squad room to his glassed-in office at the front of the building. Long windows looked out on the street. He kept the blinds open so that he could see all around him, both within and without. The space hadn’t changed much since his dad’s time. The desk was the same. The vinyl chairs that faced him had been there for decades. Even the pictures and citations on the walls brought back memories. Tom had been meaning to change things up, bring in a few personal touches, but he never seemed to have the time. Never enough time for anything these days. He couldn’t remember when he’d last asked a woman to dinner or a movie. He lived in town with neighbors all around him and yet in recent months he’d become as isolated as his sister.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then his temples. A headache nagged and exhaustion had set in, but paperwork kept him chained to his desk. Settling in with a fresh cup of coffee, he opened the latest budget report. The hours passed by quietly. He didn’t take a break until right around midnight when he got up to stretch his legs.

When the call came in about the missing girl, he was standing at the window staring up at the moon.

RAE CAVANAUGH FINISHED loading the dishwasher and then wiped down the counters and set the timer on the coffee maker. She hated doing kitchen chores so late, but she’d fallen asleep after dinner in front of the TV. The house was so quiet and peaceful tonight. A welcome respite. She’d been burning the candle at both ends for as long as she could remember. A little downtime was just what she’d needed.

Her niece, Sophie, had roused her when she came in a few minutes ago. The girl had muttered a good-night and then gone straight upstairs to her room. Normally, music would be blasting through her closed door, but Sophie had seemed a bit subdued. Maybe she was coming down with something. Or maybe she’d had a fight with her boyfriend. Hard to tell with a sullen teenager.

Rae wondered if she should go up and try to talk to her, but she discarded the notion almost immediately. One, she was too tired to cope with the girl’s moods, and two, she wanted to give Sophie her space. Wasn’t that the whole point of this prolonged visit? To allow Sophie and her parents a much-needed breather?

Rae knew things must have gotten bad at her brother’s house if he’d come to her for help. At his wit’s end, he’d said. She’d never known Jackson to admit defeat, let alone to her. They’d been in bitter competition with one another since childhood. It didn’t help that she’d always been their dad’s favorite, but West Cavanaugh’s partiality toward his daughter hadn’t kept him from handing over the reins of Cavanaugh Industries to his only son. Rae was the chief financial officer—a glorified bookkeeper, she sometimes thought. Between the job and looking after their father, she had her hands full. And now Sophie. Poor kid. None of this was her fault. Rae blamed her brother and sister-in-law for letting things get so out of control. They’d lavished everything but attention on the girl without bothering to set boundaries. Now they were at loggerheads, with Sophie pushing for more independence and Jackson realizing a little too late that his princess might be headed for trouble.

Rae poured herself a glass of wine and took it out to the backyard, but she left the drink untouched as she gazed up at the moon. What a strange night. She felt unaccountably uneasy, and it wasn’t just the argument she’d had earlier with Jackson or the troubling discrepancies she’d found in the financials. Or even the lawsuit that had been brought against Cavanaugh Industries by a neighboring rancher. That would all be sorted out soon enough.

Nothing Rae could do about any of it tonight. Her father would handle the lawsuit. He had a way of coming out of these things smelling like a rose. He and Jackson had spent untold hours sequestered with their corporate attorneys, discussing possible witnesses and devising strategy. Rae, of course, had been kept out of the loop, which suited her fine. Plausible deniability in case things went south.

She glanced up at her niece’s window. The lights were out but she could see a muted glow from the laptop screen. Time for her to turn in as well, Rae decided. She carried the glass back into the kitchen and poured the wine down the drain before taking one last look at the eclipse through the window. Then, turning off the lights, she went upstairs, pausing on the landing to listen for any sign of life from Sophie’s room. She could hear music playing, softly this time, and the murmur of Sophie’s voice as she talked to someone on her cell. Rae didn’t bother knocking or calling out. Let the girl have her privacy.

In her own room, Rae collapsed on top of the bed fully dressed and threw an arm over her eyes. She’d get up in a minute, wash her face and brush her teeth, but right now she just wanted to drift. Forget about Sophie down the hallway and her brother off on a deep-sea fishing trip with his buddies. His wife, Lauren, had gone down to New Orleans to visit friends. Now that they didn’t have to worry about their daughter, they were footloose and fancy-free. Rae tried not to begrudge them a carefree weekend. She tried not to condemn their selfishness and poor parenting skills. God knows after Mother died, I certainly failed Riley.

Beautiful, smart, tenderhearted Riley. Rae’s younger sister by two years. The girl who had entered the old hospital ruins on that fateful night fifteen years ago and had never been seen or heard from again.

Riley and her best friend, Jenna Malloy, had spent the night at Ellie Brannon’s house. The parents had been called away on an emergency and Tom had been left in charge. He’d been sixteen when it happened. Same age as Rae. Old enough to know that you didn’t go out partying when you were supposed to be minding the store. Never mind that the girls had been fourteen, also old enough to know better. Tom had been the one left in charge. He should have kept them safe.

Over the years, Rae had come to accept that her feelings toward Tom Brannon were at best irrational and at worst malicious, but old grudges never really died. They just crawled off into some back corner of the mind and waited.

She rolled over in bed, hugging her pillow as she stared out the window. She could see the moon through the pine trees. A blood moon, just as it had been on that night fifteen years ago. Rae wouldn’t think about that now. She wouldn’t think about her sister, Riley, and how much she still missed her. How much she would always miss her.

But it was Riley’s smiling face she saw when she closed her eyes. It was Riley’s anguished cry for help that echoed in her dreams when she finally fell asleep.

SOPHIE WAS TEMPTED to use the flashlight app on her phone, but there were houses on the lake and she didn’t want to attract attention. The moon was up, dulled by a lunar eclipse, according to her science teacher. Sophie didn’t much care about the reason. She just wished she could see where she was going as she made her way along the bank toward the Ruins, a hollowed-out shell of a building that had once housed a psychiatric hospital. Or so rumor had it. That was long before Sophie’s time.

The place had always been spooky, but more so after those girls had gone missing. Sophie hadn’t been born yet when her aunt had vanished from the Ruins. Ellie Brannon had come back. Jenna Malloy had eventually come back—at least physically—but Riley Cavanaugh had disappeared without a trace that night. And now here Sophie was, fifteen years later, headed for the same destination.

She wasn’t frightened. Not really. The lake looked eerie in the muted moonlight, with cypress stumps rising from the shallow water and the banks curtained with Spanish moss. But as far as Sophie was concerned, there were scarier things back in town. Still, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder now and then.

Her aunt Rae had been sound asleep when she’d slipped down the stairs and out of the house. Sophie couldn’t get her license for another few months, so she’d ridden her bike out to the lake bridge and abandoned it beneath the supports. She had to go the rest of the way on foot. She was almost there now. She could see the smokestack from the old boiler room rising above the treetops. That gave her pause. So creepy. She was starting to get a little nervous now. She always did when her turn came, but she would never admit her unease to the others.

A twig snapped behind her and she whirled, peering all along the edge of the lake and into the woods. Nothing stirred except for the sway of the moss in the breeze and the gentle lap of water against the bank. A mosquito buzzed her face and she waved a hand to shoo it away. She should have brought insect repellent, but too late now.

She remained motionless for another long moment before turning back to the path. Up the steep bank she climbed, clutching vines and roots to help propel her to the top. When she reached the summit, she stood with the lake at her back and the Ruins silhouetted before her. Three stories of crumbling brick and mortar and broken-out windows.

Drawing a resolved breath, she picked her way through the weeds and brambles and entered through one of the arched doorways. Taking out her phone, she used the flashlight to illuminate the interior. She’d been here many times before, always in daylight until lately. She knew about the gurneys and wheelchairs that had been abandoned at the back of the building. She knew about the open elevator shaft upstairs and the caged area on the third floor. She angled the light beam over the biblical graffiti on the walls and the mural with the demonic face that had been painted on the ceiling.

Preacher. That was the name given to the former psychiatric patient who had continued to sermonize from his makeshift pulpit long after the hospital had closed down and the patients without families or financial means had been left to their own devices. Some had assimilated into nearby towns, or so the story went, but Sophie thought that might be another urban legend.

Whatever. She was here now. Let the game begin.

She crept from room to room, playing the light over the walls as she searched for a symbol that would guide her to the next level. The roof was missing in places and she had an image of the whole structure toppling down upon her, burying her in an avalanche of dark secrets and old misery. Would her aunt Rae blame herself? Would her parents? Would they even care?

The softest of steps sounded behind her. Phantom footfalls that sent a shiver down her spine. She turned slowly, the light beam capturing a silhouette for one split second before the shadow darted away.

Rae tried to swallow away her fear as she drew a quick breath. “Preacher,” she said in a small voice. “Is that you?”

RAE AWAKENED WITH a start. She wasn’t sure what had roused her this time. In her dream, someone had been pounding on the front door. She lay still for a moment, listening to the dark house, but the only noise she heard was the scratch of a tree limb against her window.

She crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom, then paused in midstride as her gaze went to the bedroom door. She was certain she’d closed it earlier, but now it hung open, as if someone had stood in the hallway peering in at her.

Which was crazy. If Sophie had needed something, she would have barged right on in, turned on the light and called Rae’s name until she woke up. The girl could be as subtle as a sledgehammer at times. Still, Rae thought about her niece’s wan expression when she’d come home earlier. Something had obviously been bothering her, and now Rae regretted that she hadn’t been a little more curious.

She went down the hallway and listened at Sophie’s door. She could hear music inside. Maybe the girl was still up, still in need of a sympathetic ear. Rae knocked softly. When she didn’t get a response, she knocked a little harder and then tried the door. She expected to find it locked from the inside, but to her surprise, the door swung inward, revealing the usual mayhem and clutter. Music played from the laptop on Sophie’s bed. The window was open, allowing the night breeze to blow in. The lights were off except for a night-light that burned from the adjoining bathroom. Rae crossed the room and peeked inside, wincing at the mess. Damp towels had been tossed into a corner and the vanity was littered with cosmetics. But no Sophie.