In reality, she handled all her cases on her own even though Nathan told her time and again to pull back and wait for help. But she simply wasn’t wired that way. Charging ahead and doing what was right regardless of if it meant going it alone had always been her thing.
“Why did you become an FBI agent?” Zane asked.
The question caught her off guard. She’d expected him to keep pushing on the subject of working alone, especially when the rest of the Bureau was a team-focused, rule-obsessed bureaucracy.
“Did you always want to be a fed, or did you just end up there?” he prompted when she didn’t answer right away. “Kind of like me and the Dallas SWAT team.”
Alyssa smiled, wanting to point out it was unlikely anyone in the world had a career path quite as convoluted as his. But then she remembered exactly why she’d gone into the bureau and the smile faded from her face.
“When I was seventeen, my friend Amanda and I were kidnapped on our way to see a movie,” she said softly, her face mostly hidden by her mug as she slowly inhaled the aroma of her coffee, letting it soothe her. She very carefully avoided looking in Zane’s direction, not wanting to see the expression on his face.
“It was in Tampa, where I grew up, and it was during summer break between our junior and senior years in high school. We were young, naive, and just plain stupid when it came to protecting ourselves. We foolishly parked in the darkest part of the lot at the movie theater and didn’t even notice the van following us as Amanda looked for a space. Hell, we wouldn’t have thought twice even if we had.”
“They grabbed you when you got out of the car?” Zane asked, his voice tight.
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard, reliving that moment as if it had been yesterday. “They pulled up beside us as we were walking toward the movie theater and rolled down the window like they wanted to ask us a question. Amanda and I walked right up to them without even thinking about it. Before we knew what was happening, two guys jumped out, dragged us into the back, and the van sped away. We tried to fight, but there were four of the assholes, and they’d done this enough times to be good at it.”
She set down her mug and finally looked at Zane to see him sitting there with a stunned expression on his face. “They’d grabbed several other girls over the previous few weeks, including the daughter of a foreign diplomat who’d been in town on vacation. That’s why the FBI got involved so fast.”
Alyssa fell silent, dark thoughts and memories overtaking her. She gave herself a little mental shake.
“They chloroformed Amanda and me, but for some reason, it wore off faster on me than it did on her. When they stopped the van, they left us alone for a few seconds and I was able to escape. I tried to take Amanda, but she was completely out of it and I knew I could never carry her. So I bolted, praying I could get away and find help.”
She popped open the box of frosted brown sugar Pop-Tarts to give herself something to do with her hands, hating the way they were shaking all of a sudden. Opening the silver wrapper, she offered one of the pastries to Zane. He took it without comment.
“It was dark, and we were way out in the swamps.” She set down her Pop-Tart and broke off a piece but didn’t eat it. “The kidnappers realized fairly quickly that I’d escaped and came after me. All I remember is a lot of falling and running into tree branches and thickets. They shot at me a few times and I’m pretty sure there was a gator in there somewhere, but after running for what felt like forever, I finally made it to the highway, where someone stopped for me.”
It seemed as if Zane was right there in her nightmare with her, his chest rising and falling so fast it seemed like he was almost hyperventilating—kind of like what she was doing. She abruptly realized how similar what had happened to her was to the twins she and Zane had rescued the other night. The kidnapping part of the story anyway. Maybe that’s why she was so concerned about them.
“Unfortunately, I ran for hours through the swamps without a clue where I was going, so when the FBI tried to talk to me, I was a complete mess,” she said. “The agent in charge of the case decided I was a lost cause and that I didn’t have any information to help find Amanda and the other girls they’d kidnapped. I overheard him saying to the other agents that my escape almost certainly meant Amanda and the other girls were dead.”
The guilt she’d felt at that moment was something she’d never forget.
Zane cursed. “What happened?”
She gave him a small smile. “Christine happened. She came into my room and asked me bizarre questions, like what movie Amanda and I had been going to see, whether we were going to get popcorn or candy, even if we liked to sit in the center of the row at the movie theater or on the end. I didn’t have a clue why she was asking me all that stuff, but I answered her anyway. So she kept it up. For hours. Then when I thought she couldn’t possibly ask me anything else, she wanted to know what the van smelled like, whether I remembered driving over any bridges or gravel roads, what the kidnappers had said while they were chasing me, whether the moon was in front of me or behind me as I ran. And even though I couldn’t recall any of those things before the two of us talked, I started to.”
Alyssa nibbled on the piece of pastry she was still holding. She remembered thinking that all of those questions had been a waste of time—or maybe simply a way to distract her from the fact that Amanda and the other girls were already dead and it was her fault. But at the same time, Alyssa remembered latching on to Christine’s sure, confident style, believing her when she’d said that it was all going to be okay.
“The next morning, Christine brought me out to the swamps, believing I should be able to work my way backward along the path I’d taken to escape. I thought she was absolutely insane, but…”
“But?”
“But we did,” Alyssa said. “We found this ugly, little cabin in the middle of the swamp with the van parked beside it covered with a military-style camo net. Christine called in for backup, and when the cavalry arrived, she led the way in and saved Amanda and three other girls. They’re all alive today because one junior FBI agent figured out how to get that information out of me.”
“And that’s when you decided you wanted to be just like her.” Zane grinned. “That’s why you went into the FBI.”
“Pretty much,” Alyssa admitted. “But I couldn’t have done it without Christine’s help. She’s the one who helped me figure out the best college to go to and what degrees to get. My poor parents weren’t thrilled with my career choice. They wanted me to do something less dangerous, like become an accountant. Even after getting a bachelor’s in criminology and a master’s in criminal psychology, they still thought I’d change my mind. It wasn’t until after I completed my training at Quantico that they realized I was serious about becoming an FBI agent.”
“They’re okay with it now then?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh. I mean, they still worry about me, but they’re cool with it. They just want me to be happy.”
“Are you?” he asked. “Happy being an FBI agent, I mean.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “The pay isn’t the greatest and I practically live in hotels, but I love what I do.”
“That’s what’s important.” Zane leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “I am curious how you find time for anything resembling a social life since you’re never in one place very long.”
