Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(53)

He kissed the corner of her lips, nipped at her jaw, and worked his way down her throat. She groaned and tightened her arms around his shoulders. A ringing sounded from the living room, interrupting his plans to show her just how hungry she made him.

Lifting her head, Raegan looked past him toward the couch and in a breathless voice said, “That’s not my cell. It must be yours.”

He didn’t care who was calling. Sliding a hand around her neck, he pulled her mouth back to his. “Whoever it is can wait.”

She opened to his kiss again. The ringing stopped. Pushing the shirt up to her waist, he slipped his hand beneath the soft cotton and palmed her breast. Her groan deepened, and she kissed him deeper.

His cell phone rang again, causing her to jerk back from his mouth.

“Dammit.” He didn’t want to answer it, but he didn’t want it to keep going off and distracting her from what he was about to do either. Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand, letting the cotton fall to her thighs. “Don’t you dare move.”

A wicked smile pulled at her lips. “Turn that thing off, and I won’t.”

Spotting his cell on the coffee table, he grasped it, flipped it over, and was just about to power it down when he read Jack Bickam’s name across the screen.

His chest tightened. Wide-eyed, he glanced toward Raegan. “It’s Bickam.”

Her cheeks paled, and she immediately climbed off the counter, crossing quickly to his side. “Answer it. He wouldn’t be calling in the middle of the night unless it was important.”

That was exactly what Alec was thinking. Swallowing hard, he pressed the phone to his ear. “McClane.”

“Alec, it’s Jack Bickam with the FBI. Sorry to bother you so late, but something came up down here at the crime lab that I wanted to run by you.”

The words “crime lab” didn’t do a thing to ease the knot suddenly twisting in Alec’s gut. “Yeah, okay. What is it?”

“Two days ago, a two-year-old boy was abducted from his yard in North Portland. He showed up the following morning in the backseat of an abandoned car we found out on Highway 26.”

“Yeah, Raegan told me about him. What does that have to do with me?”

“I’m not sure it has anything to do with you, but . . .” Bickam paused, and the hairs on Alec’s nape stood straight as he looked toward Raegan’s expectant face.

“Well?” Raegan mouthed.

“A forensics team’s been going through the car, looking for hair, skin, any kind of evidence they can use to identify the driver. So far we’ve got the lab running analysis, but the team found a bag in the trunk that led to my call.”

Alec’s heart pounded hard, and against the phone, his fingers shook. Part of him didn’t want to know, but he had to ask. “What was in the bag, Bickam?”

“Oh. Damn. Not what you think. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It was filled with stuffed animals. Nothing more.”

Alec breathed easier and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. Nothing more than stuffed animals. The pressure building in his chest eased.

“The forensics team cataloged the items, but I didn’t take a look at them until tonight. I was going to wait and call you in the morning but thought you might want to know now. In the bottom of the bag we found a stuffed white rabbit with a red collar. And it isn’t new. It’s worn, as if it’s been held. A lot.”

Alec’s heart felt as if it came to a stuttering stop, right in the center of his chest. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna text you a photo. I wasn’t sure if I should show this to Raegan. She looked pretty shaken the other day at the ER. If—”

“She’s standing right next to me.”

“Oh.” Surprise echoed in Bickam’s voice. Since he kept up with them periodically about Emma’s case, he knew they’d divorced not long after she went missing. “Well, good. It should be coming through now. Have her take a look at it too.”

Alec’s phone buzzed, indicating he’d received a text. “Hold on.”

Pulling the phone away from his face, he paged to his text messages.

“What is it?” Raegan asked at his side. “What’s going on?”

Alec opened the picture message. And felt the room sway under his feet.

“Oh my God.” Raegan’s hand covered her mouth. Wide-eyed, she lowered her hand and looked up at him. “That’s Emma’s bunny. Where did they find it? Where—”

“McClane?” Bickam’s voice sounded from the phone.

Dazed, Alec lifted it back to his ear. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“I heard her,” Bickam said. “Any chance you two can come down to the lab tomorrow morning and take a look at this thing for me?”

“No.” Alec stared down at Raegan. “There’s no way we can wait until the morning. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”



Raegan couldn’t take her eyes off the stuffed white bunny in her gloved hands, with matted fur and dirt streaking across one whole side. “It’s Emma’s. I know it is.”

Beside her in the FBI’s crime lab, Alec shifted his weight, jangling the keys in the front pocket of his jeans. “It might be. We don’t know for sure that it is. Let’s not get carried away just yet.”