Quitting isn’t an option. I owe it to Cameron and myself to keep searching, though I will admit that I’m growing weary. After traveling the country and reviewing a vast amount of evidence, it’s as if Cameron vanished from the face of the earth.
She’s out there, somewhere. She has to be. I just need to work harder and dedicate myself to her investigation, as I have with many other cases I’ve solved over the last fourteen years.
Renewed, I sit back at my desk and pull out the file for Cameron’s case. Despite having read these reports a thousand times, I scan them again, hoping I might find something I overlooked. Perhaps I will discover the answers I’m seeking somewhere in these pages.
I spend several hours reviewing the file and Cameron’s fear when she was forcibly dragged into the van. Then, recalling my first mentor’s advice, I approach the situation with the innovative, analytical thinking of a seasoned agent.
Eventually, I slouch back in my chair and rub my eyes. Exhaustion is setting in. A glance at the clock reveals it’s shortly after 3 a.m. Although returning home to rest is advisable, I won’t sleep with Cameron’s tear-stained face haunting my dreams. Instead, I pull out a piece of paper and jot down everything I remember from that night—the sounds, the smells, and the lingering despair I felt before Cameron was abducted. I capture every detail.
As dawn breaks, a renewed sense of purpose trickles through my veins. The information I’ve gathered could thrust Cameron’s case back under the spotlight of the agents investigating her disappearance.
After collecting my coat from the rack in my office, I dial a contact in the New York office, then squash my phone to my ear.
“Agent O’Neill.”
“Hey, it’s Grayson.” My tone doesn’t allude to my stomach’s somersault routine. “I’m forwarding you an updated witness recount of the alleged gang-affiliated abduction of Cameron June.” I insert the pages into the feeder of a dated fax machine before hitting the button for the New York subsidiary office. “Can you make sure it’s delivered to the proper people?”
My colleague’s reply proves he’s reached prime retirement age. He isn’t old. He’s just not suitable for this line of work anymore. “What’s the case file number? I never remember the victims’ names. I’m all about the digits on their file.”
I rattle off Cameron’s case file number, which I know by heart, before repeating my request for him to make sure it gets into the right hands.
“And Malcolm…” I let him swallow before I continue, my temper rising. “Learn their names. They’re fucking people, not case file numbers.”
I press the end call button as if it’s an old relic like the fax machine I know will keep my name off Cameron’s file and out of my father’s mouth before I store my phone in my pocket.
As I put on my coat, ready for another eight hours of work in my home office, a familiar voice calls my name. Thankfully, it isn’t my father.
He’s no longer the FBI’s beloved son. He runs the entire show, and if he even suspects I’m working on Cameron’s case, he’ll put me on desk duty indefinitely.
Alex, my brother, wordlessly invites me into his office. Since he’s as anal about the rules as our father is, he began leapfrogging me in the bureau rankings nearly three years ago. I’d care if his new position didn’t limit his fieldwork. All good agents know that the real magic happens outside the office.
Alex is stuck behind a desk for twelve hours a day, and he spends his free time cozying up to his wife, who looksso much like Cameron that being in the same room with her always makes me return to headquarters to update Cameron’s composite sketch.
It doesn’t help that Regan is as feisty as Cameron once was.
The smashing of my back molars reverberates down the now somewhat bustling corridor. I’ve never spoken of Cameron in the past tense before, and I shouldn’t have today, considering it is the anniversary of her abduction.
A wish to forget causes me to speak before thinking. “Can it wait? I’m coming off a double.”
“No,” Alex snaps out. “Because self-appointed double shifts don’t count.” The irritation in his following sentence makes it clear he dislikes his new role. “And I have enough budget cuts to contend with without you cooking the books.” He enters his office, confident I will follow him. I’d push against the shackles as I have multiple times in the past twenty years if he didn’t mutter, “We’ve unearthed a new baby-making syndicate on the West Coast,” before disappearing from view. “I was hoping you might take a look at the files.”
I almost trip over my feet while stumbling into his office. I’ve heard suspicions that a New York sex-trafficking ring, active during Cameron’s abduction, might not be to blame for her kidnapping. Girls in that industry are usually discarded within a year or two, but this new business can exploit victims into their late thirties.
Cameron is a year older than me, so her age brings her close to the cusp of no longer being required by men in the baby-making industry.
Inside his office, Alex stares out the window, deep in thought. I don’t need him to speak to update me on his findings. The graphic images on his desk reveal everything. They show a female victim in her mid-thirties, dumped in an industrial bin behind a warehouse. Her strawberry-blonde hair is stained withblood, and although the perpetrators tried to hide her identity, DNA testing reveals her name.
It isn’t Cameron June.Thank fuck.
“That’s the third body in the past six months.” Despite the manic tic of his jaw, Alex’s expression is impassive. “They are faceless and fingerless?—”
“But showing clear signs of multiple gravidities,” I interrupt, hurrying him along. When he agrees, I redirect my focus back to the blonde who never stood a chance. “How old was she?”
He hesitates, aware of Cameron’s abduction, before he puts on his supervisor’s cap. “At death… thirty-eight.”
I swallow the burn scorching my throat before forcing words through the carnage. “I meant her age at abduction.”
This reply takes Alex a lot longer to issue. “Eighteen.”
