A Covert Affair (Deadly Ops #5)(16)
Amelia’s eyes widened as she scanned the names. “There’s got to be at least forty names—”
“Fifty. So far.”
“You’re telling me these women are all missing?” Nausea swirled in her stomach.
“Yeah.”
Amelia’s temper spiked, sharp and fast. “And you haven’t called the cops yet?” She practically shouted it, then forced herself to rein herself in. She needed to hear all the facts first.
Reaching out, Maria flipped one of the pages. “Keep reading. The women all left jobs or school or both. All of them turned in notice at work, some more abruptly than others. They’ve all stated that they found work elsewhere. All of them had their phones turned off within days of leaving for their ‘new job.’ The main thing they have in common with each other is that they’re virtually alone in the world. Yes, they’ve got friends, but no family, no significant others, and no real estate ownership. Nothing to tie them to one place. They’re all over eighteen, but none of them are over twenty-eight. It’s a pretty tight age range.”
That sick feeling intensified as Amelia continued flipping through the pages. Sure enough, she recognized twelve of them. She flipped back to the first page and twisted the binder so Maria could see it. “These women,” she said, indicating seven of them, “all told me they found new jobs. They were all part-time anyway, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary. Though . . . three of them never picked up their last check.” Which wasn’t all that strange. Waitresses made well below minimum wage because their money came from tips. Their checks were nominal. Still, now it made Amelia wonder if there was something more going on.
She pinned Maria with her gaze. “We need to go to the cops. As in tomorrow morning.” She would go now, but she wanted to set up a meeting with a detective friend of hers so they got someone who would listen. Not just some random person. “They’ve got resources we don’t. They could look at, I don’t know, like, credit card records or something. Maybe—”
“The ones who had credit cards haven’t used them since they’ve gone missing, and all of them have closed their bank accounts. They’ve also deleted their social media accounts—the ones who had them anyway.”
As Amelia digested what her friend had just laid out, a few things became crystal clear. “You’re already working with the police.” Otherwise how would she know all this stuff? Finding out about social media accounts was one thing, but knowing about freaking bank account information was something else entirely.
“Sort of.” Maria shifted almost nervously in her seat. She paused, as if waiting for something, then continued. “Cade is in law enforcement.”
Amelia blinked once, but she wasn’t exactly surprised. The man moved with a military sort of bearing. “What branch?”
Another very slight pause as she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “FBI.”
Maria was lying. Amelia saw it in her gaze. She didn’t think the law enforcement part was a lie, but she didn’t buy the FBI part. Maria’s cheeks tinged just a shade darker as she’d said “FBI.” That, combined with the nervous hair thing . . . Amelia forced her expression to remain concerned, which wasn’t hard, considering that she was. She was also slightly terrified now.
Maria had given her all this information freely, then told her that her husband was FBI—and was lying. Amelia was alone in the community center and no one knew where she was other than the two people here. Why was Maria lying to her? What if he wasn’t law enforcement? He looked like a scary biker, not a federal agent. Oh God, what if they were somehow involved in this? It wouldn’t make sense for Maria to show her all this, but maybe she’d just wanted to see Amelia’s reaction, to see if she suspected something . . . Amelia needed to get some space so she could think, but for now she made herself respond. “That’s good, then,” she said, glad her voice sounded normal. “What do you want me to do? I’ll do it. If Danita is missing we need to find her.”
Maria seemed to relax at her words. “Cade will want to interview you, go over everything you know about the missing twelve women. It won’t be tonight, but as soon as possible.”
“I’ll make time in my schedule,” she said quickly, then wanted to wince. She didn’t want to sound too eager, but the truth was, she was eager to get the hell out of here and call her detective friend. “Tomorrow, if you’d like?”
Maria nodded. “I think that will work. He would have been in here, but I thought it might be less overwhelming if it was just the two of us.”
Amelia nodded, as if grateful. “I appreciate it.” She let out a short laugh, but she didn’t buy any of this. The FBI had let one of their agents bring his wife in to talk to Amelia? No freaking way. Something more was going on here, she knew. Hoping she didn’t seem too eager, she set the binder on the edge of the desk and stood. “I’m exhausted and you’re right, this is overwhelming. Unless you have anything else to show me, I want to get home and start making a list of things I remember about each woman’s time of employment. Friends, stuff like that. That would help, right?” God, she just wanted to get out of here.
Maria smiled, looking relieved. “That would be great. Cade will probably contact you in the morning. Do you work tomorrow?”