Hostage Negotiation

Had that been the agent’s intent all along when he’d asked that outrageous question? Was it part of his strategy? To make her angry so her fears would fade? Zack glanced at Cole, whose brows were raised as he, too, studied the agent.

“It’s just a question,” Willow said, his voice neutral, with none of the accusatory tone he’d used before.

Kaylee blew out an impatient breath. “Her name is Sandy Gonzalez. She works for Aventuras Travel Agency based out of Miami. She’s handled my family’s travel plans for years, decades.”

“And the reason you decided to vacation alone?”

“How are these questions going to help you find those missing women?” She sounded more perplexed than angry this time.

“Could you answer the question, please?”

She jerked her robe tighter over her hospital gown. “No. I can’t. I just spent ninety-three days of my life being controlled by a monster. Everything I ate, drank, every move I made, was dictated by him. I’ve done nothing wrong, Agent Willow. And in spite of what you’re implying, I didn’t bring any of this on myself.” She waved her hand in the air. “Somewhere out there is a monster who’s holding Mary Watkins and doing unspeakable things to her. Instead of thinly veiled accusations posed as questions, blaming me for what that man did to me, why aren’t you out in the swamp right now searching for her? And that other woman you said was missing?”

He straightened in his chair. “Miss Brighton, my apologies if I sound accusatory. And I know that my questions might seem like a waste of time to you, but this is how we figure things out. We gather as much information as we can about a crime, no matter how trivial, because you never know what the one thing will be that points us in the direction we need to go. As for searching for the missing women, we have teams out in the swamp right now looking for them. They’ve been out there every day since Chief Scott found you. So I assure you, any time we spend with you isn’t taking away from the search. It’s my hope that if I ask enough questions, then something you know—that you don’t even realize you know—will help us figure out how the man who hurt you targeted you and the others, and where he may be right now. Again, my apologies if I offended you in any way.”

Son of a... Zack shook his head. He’d completely misjudged Special Agent Willow. The man’s bedside manner might suck, and he was treating Kaylee far more harshly than Zack was comfortable with, but he’d gotten exactly what he wanted. He’d shaken Kaylee out of her stupor and stopped her from retreating into herself and ending the interview like she had always done before. Which must have been his intention all along.

The decision to engage the feds had been Zack’s. And he’d been regretting that decision since the minute he’d met Special Agent Willow and took an instant, instinctual dislike to the man. But now, well, he had a renewed respect for him, even if he didn’t agree with his methods.

Relaxing his stance, Zack settled in a nearby chair to listen to Willow resume his questioning.

Chapter Six

Three weeks.

It had been three weeks—twenty-one long, tortuous days—since Kaylee had fled the never-ending questions of the task force in Naples and had gone home. Or, rather, she’d gone back to her parents’ home, in Miami Beach. And since she still couldn’t deal with the thought of being alone and vulnerable in her apartment in downtown Miami, she was here to stay, for the foreseeable future.

Thinking back to the barrage of questions, day after day, from Special Agent Willow and detectives from both Broward and Collier County, she shivered and rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. The only one not to pepper her with endless questions was the man who’d become something of a guardian angel the whole time she’d been in the hospital—Police Chief Zack Scott.

He’d made no secret of his disgust over what had amounted to daily interrogations, where she was treated more like a criminal than an innocent victim. Zack had taken up for her, pushing back against all the pressure and siding with the therapist who insisted that Kaylee needed time to heal. The more they questioned her, the more her mind had shut down, muddying her memories.

It wasn’t long before the only thing she could remember about her ordeal was being rescued by Zack. The therapist said it was her mind’s way of protecting itself from the trauma that she’d suffered, and that if the police didn’t stop their questions, they might permanently destroy the very memories they were trying to recover. Which meant that any potential Kaylee might have for helping them find Mary would be lost. That was the only reason she’d agreed to do what her parents, and her doctors, kept begging her to do—go home.

So here she was, starting day twenty-two standing in the kitchen watching her mother put a pork roast and seasonings into a slow cooker for tonight’s dinner. Later her mother would combine black beans, onions, garlic and green peppers in a pressure cooker. And once the roast and beans were ready, she would dish them over white rice with plantains and warm, crusty bread on the side. It was a traditional Cuban dish that Kaylee loved.

Her mother had made a point of cooking one of Kaylee’s favorite dishes every single night since Kaylee had come home. Which only served to remind her why her mother was treating her so extra special these days, and why her father kept his nose buried in his old-fashioned print newspapers in the family room, afraid to say more than a few words to her.

Because of what that monster had done to her in the Everglades.

She shivered in spite of the overheated kitchen. Her decision months ago to call Sandy, her family’s long-time travel agent, and book a vacation touring the Glades and Naples had been an ill-fated one. A week off from her job had turned into a nightmare on a path through the marsh when she’d been tackled from behind then gagged, blindfolded and thrown into the trunk of the devil’s car.

Her hands clenched into fists on top of the marble countertop. In the family room opposite the kitchen, her father peered at her over this morning’s copy of the Miami Herald, his gaze dropping to her fists. She forced her hands to relax and faked a smile for his benefit. Relief flickered in his eyes and he lifted the paper again, no doubt feeling that he’d done his duty. He’d checked on her. Never mind that he so easily accepted the front that she put on.

Resentment twisted inside her. This was nothing new—her father avoiding any kind of conflict or show of emotion, her mother busying herself with domestic chores, desperately trying to pretend that everything was okay. Because that was what her parents did, what they had always done. They avoided anything remotely painful, even if that meant pretending their only child had never been abducted and that nothing all that bad had happened to her.

But could Kaylee really blame them? They’d suffered so much loss in their lives, so much heartache in their decades-long attempts to have a child. After four miscarriages they’d finally managed one successful pregnancy. But during the delivery, the cord had wrapped around the baby’s throat. The emergency C-section had come too late.

Years passed before they decided to try again for a child, this time through adoption. They’d welcomed Kaylee into their family and loved her as their own, even though she wasn’t the infant they’d originally planned on and was instead a troubled girl of five with a habit of throwing tantrums. Under their patient, loving care, she’d blossomed into a confident, happy child, overcoming the abusive past that had landed her in foster care to begin with. And she owed them a tremendous debt for that. So even though her heart ached with the need to talk to them about her ordeal, she held it back, knowing it could very well destroy them.

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