Scream for Me (2 page)

He settled back in his seat and waited for the plane to come to a stop.

Cadence hated Alabama summers. Hated them. Once upon a time in a life very far away, she’d grown up on the Alabama coast. Growing up here meant it was impossible to forget the heat that hit like a blanket when you walked outside. The sweat could drip and drip from your body because there was no relief in sight.

No, you didn’t forget. But you sure tried to.

She’d tried hard enough to put those memories away.

Cadence lifted the hair from the back of her neck, attempting to fan her skin. Like that was going to help. The sun glared down on her as she and Kyle stood in the middle of a deserted, two-lane highway.

The middle of nowhere
. She’d seen plenty of spots like this before. Perfect killing spots.

“Her gas tank was empty.” The slightly drawling voice drew her attention. The local police captain had escorted them out to the old highway. The road wasn’t
exactly
deserted.

“Why hasn’t the vehicle been moved?” Cadence asked, frowning. The sedan, with its faded blue color and taped back taillight, sat on the edge of the road.

“You folks told me to leave it where it was,” Captain James Anniston told her with a frown. “Don’t worry, I had a guard on it at all times. It’s been secure. When I called Quantico, McKenzie here told me—”

“I told him we wanted the scene as protected as we could get it,” Kyle interrupted. He’d taken off his suit jacket. The heat had gotten to him, too. Kyle and his suits. The guy never seemed to dress right for fieldwork. Always too fancy. That was a rich boy for you.

He shouldn’t have wound up chasing killers with the FBI. His family business and the family’s big stack of money should have kept the guy busy living the country club life.

His gaze slid to her. A bright, glittering blue stare. The stare that always looked a bit haunted.

I know why you joined the bureau. Why you turned your back on everything waiting for you in Maine
.

Guilt could sometimes eat a man from the inside out. From what she could tell, guilt had consumed Kyle for years.

If he wasn’t careful, the guilt might destroy him one day.

Or send him back down to Alabama permanently, chasing ghosts
.

But she was the one who’d agreed to travel with him, so she’d do her job. Even if the job turned out to be nothing.
Only missing twelve hours
.

She let her gaze shift back to the captain. A fit guy, maybe in his late forties, tanned, with faint lines near his eyes. Laugh lines? Or worry lines? “You put out the report on Lily very fast. Usually a missing-persons case waits for—”

“I wasn’t waiting for forty-eight hours, ma’am. Not with Lily.” His jaw locked and the sun gleamed off his bald head. “I’m not
some backward hick, Agent Hollow. I know when I got suspicious circumstances staring me right in the face.”

Cadence blinked. “I never said you were.” If he only knew about her own roots…but few people did.

That life was over.

She cleared her throat and reassessed the captain. Something had set the guy off.
Handle carefully
.

He pointed to the car. “Lily Adams has a daughter. A nine-year-old girl who is her absolute life. There is no way—
no way
—Lily would wander off without her.”

Cadence’s heart beat faster. She’d only had time to learn the barest of details about Lily Adams before she’d jumped on the plane. Kyle had been insistent that they take the case, almost desperate, and she hadn’t been able to turn him down.

It was his eyes
. The echo of pain in his gaze pierced through her every time.

Kyle McKenzie was a good agent. A little reckless too often, and too prone to going with his gut, but he was dedicated to the job. Dedicated to saving lives.

He wasn’t her first partner. She’d had several over the years. Some hadn’t been able to handle the darkness of the job. One had been killed in the line of duty by one of the monsters they hunted.

When she’d first been paired with Kyle, Cadence had been less than impressed. Kyle was handsome, wickedly so with his flashing eyes and chiseled jaw. He’d come to her with a bit of a playboy reputation.

She hadn’t been interested in joining his group of admirers. Cadence hadn’t ever been swayed by a handsome face. Handsome was boring, easy. Not for her.

She’d soon learned there were plenty of layers to Kyle McKenzie. What you saw with him was
not
what you got.

Until recently, Kyle had been almost too perfect with his classic features. But on their last big case, he’d gotten into a vicious hand-to-hand fight with a killer. The result? A broken nose that now gave the agent a rougher, more dangerous appearance.

That dangerous edge of his had been coming out more and more lately. She was too aware of it—and of the growing attraction she felt for him.

They were supposed to be just partners, but lately—
I want more
.

She wanted him. And if the way he looked at her was any indication, the desire was mutual.

“Lily’s kid has to be frantic about now,” Anniston continued. “She’s probably at home, crying her eyes out.”

Because the girl just wanted her mother back. Cadence swallowed. Goose bumps rose on her overheated flesh.

Back home in Alabama
.

The cases involving kids were always the hardest for her to handle.

She kept the emotion out of her voice as she asked, “Just what scenario do you think happened here last night?”

Kyle was walking around the vehicle, studying it carefully. He’d put on gloves as he bent near the driver’s side. Sweat dampened the hair near his temples. His blond hair was so thick and heavy, no wonder he was sweating.

They were all baking out there.

“Lily’s car ran out of gas. She probably started walking.” Captain Anniston turned and pointed north. “Her house is that way. She must’ve started walking and some SOB picked her up. Took her.”

Cadence glanced down at the road.

“Lily probably thought she could make it home. Just a few more miles, and she would have been safe.” Anger rumbled beneath the captain’s words.

Cadence walked to the edge of the road. The shoulder was covered by loose dirt. She glanced to the north, then back to the south before focusing on the captain. “No rain has come through here?”

Anniston shook his head. “Due for some later, but it’s been dry here for the last week.”

There were no signs of footprints, but Lily might have just stuck to walking on the road itself. Then there would have been no prints left behind.

Cadence headed around the car to take a look herself. She stopped at the gas tank. Frowned. There were scratches around the tank. As if someone had pried the lid open.

“You said the car ran out of gas?” She thought of how Lily must have felt as her car sputtered and coasted on this dark road.

Scared. So scared
.

“The tank was empty. I checked around the vehicle, trying to figure out why it had stopped. The battery was fine. Engine, oil…everything else was fine. It was the tank that was desert dry.”

“You said her purse was found in the car.” Kyle turned away from the vehicle. His broad shoulders were tense. “If she was walking, don’t you think she would have taken that with her?”

The captain didn’t reply.

Kyle cocked his head as he studied the captain. “What about her keys? Where were they?”

“Still in the ignition.”

Hell. Along with the purse, this put a different spin on things. Cadence put her hands on her hips. “She didn’t start walking anywhere, Captain.”

“But—”

“If she’d walked, she would have taken her purse. Her keys. Women don’t leave their purses behind.” Now she realized why Kyle had been so adamant about taking the case. An abduction like this…a fresh case…
we might even be able to find her alive
.

If
they acted quickly enough.

Kyle opened the driver’s side door and slid inside.

“My men already searched the vehicle,” Anniston called out. “We recovered everything.”

Kyle raised his hand. A cell phone was held in his gloved grip. “This had fallen between the seats.”

Turned out Anniston’s men hadn’t recovered everything.

Anniston hurried toward him. “You think Lily tried to call someone for help last night?”

I would have called for help
. On that long, dark road. The cell phone would have been the first thing Cadence reached for.

Some profilers tried to figure out the killers based on their actions and the clues killers themselves left behind.

Cadence didn’t work that way. When she tracked killers, she became their victims.

She had the nightmares to prove it.

“Who was keeping Lily’s daughter last night?” Someone must have been watching the girl.

“Lily’s mother. Lily and little Carrie…”

She saw Kyle tense at the girl’s name. She’d seen a similar reaction from him on other cases. He was always sensitive to the families.

She understood. Dealing with the families was often the hardest part for her.

“They live with Lily’s mother up on Miner’s Way.”

“The mother didn’t report receiving a call from her daughter?” Cadence asked.

“No.”

Cadence considered that for a moment. Maybe Lily wouldn’t have wanted her mother to rush out at night, no doubt dragging Carrie with her. So she wouldn’t have called her…
but someone else
.

Who?

Maybe Lily had called someone for help…only that person hadn’t been the savior Lily expected.

Tracking the last phone call Lily Adams made was an easy enough matter. A few touches on the phone and her most recent call list had appeared.

Curtis Adams
. Lily’s ex-husband.

Cadence and Kyle now stood on Curtis’s doorstep, the captain just a few feet away. According to her recent-call list, at 2:12 a.m., Lily had called Curtis.

When the captain had questioned him before calling the FBI, the guy had denied hearing from her. Anniston had said that after discovering Lily was missing, his first stop had been the ex. Only Lily’s ex-husband had sworn he hadn’t heard from Lily in weeks.

Guess someone lied
. Cadence knew far too well how often and easily people could lie.

It wouldn’t be the first time an ex had gone after a former lover. Cadence had seen plenty of cases play out that way—most with sad endings.

Had Curtis Adams found himself in the perfect position to get a little payback against Lily? According to Anniston, Lily had full custody of the couple’s daughter, and Curtis had been shut out in the cold by the court.

Did that make you want to punish her?
When he’d found himself on a dark, lonely road with Lily, was that just what Curtis had done?

Cadence knew they were about to find out.

Kyle lifted his hand and pounded his tanned fist against the door.

Cadence heard the pad of footsteps inside. Only those footsteps weren’t coming toward the front door.

They sounded like they were running
away
from the front of the house.

Kyle’s bright-blue gaze slid to her. He gave a curt nod, then he shouted, “FBI! Curtis Adams, we need you to open the door!”

In the distance, a door slammed.

“He’s running out the back,” Anniston snarled as he turned to jump from the narrow porch.

Innocent men weren’t supposed to run.

Cadence drew her own gun and raced after the captain. Kyle was right at her back.

She saw a blond male jump into a pickup truck, one that was painted fire-engine red. He revved the engine as Anniston pounded on the window and ordered him to stop and exit the vehicle.

“Get out, Curtis!” Anniston shouted. “
Now!
”

The guy wasn’t exiting.

The tires screeched and the vehicle lunged forward, heading right for Cadence.

“FBI!” she yelled. The guy was coming too fast, the pickup fishtailing.

He’s not stopping. Hell
.

She lunged to the right just as she felt strong hands wrap tightly around her. She was thrown through the air and landed in a heap of bushes, with Kyle’s hard body pressed tightly against hers. Cadence only had a moment to feel the hard thrust of his body. The ripple of muscles. The leashed strength.