AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Through Fisher’s confession, additional unknown victims had been identified and their bodies recovered. They were all kids new to Manhattan, either visitors or transfer students. Girls Fisher had done just enough research on to know that they had no friends or families to report them missing, but all of whom matched the descriptions of the known victims.
Marc blew out his breath. He was glad this case was solved. He hoped Fisher rotted in his cell. Now it was time to move on.
To Marc, moving on meant getting a few hours’ sleep, and then—before the next case descended on the team—enjoying some recreation time. And that meant recapturing the adrenaline rush of his days as a SEAL by taking on extreme sports that other people would consider insane. His current favorite was BASE jumping—the acronym of which said it all. Buildings, antennae, spans and earth—all the wildly dangerous fixed objects that Marc would plummet from, not just for the thrills, but for the knowledge that he could master the precarious free fall before opening his parachute and floating to the ground.
Eager to get going, Marc shifted restlessly in his chair. “Where’s Ryan?” he asked. “Down in his lair?”
“Nope. Upstairs. Right behind you. Ready to wrap things up so we can call it a day.” With that announcement, Ryan McKay strode into the room. The complete antithesis of every compute
r geek stereotype, he was not only a technical genius, he was also a gym rat, who worked out two hours each morning and whose athletic prowess included being a mountain biking pro and running ultramarathons—his preferred ones being in Death Valley and the Moroccan desert. Thanks to Marc, he’d recently earned his skydiving certification and was enthusiastically starting to join him for several of his sports.
Besides his six-pack abs, Ryan was tall and broad shouldered and boasted those smoldering Black Irish looks that made women drool. The ironic part was that the gushing types and the lavish attention-givers irked the crap out of him. In fact, the very few women Ryan found the time for, and cared to pursue, were strong, independent and unimpressed with his physical attributes and accomplishments.
“Good,” Casey greeted him. “Does that mean you’ve left your precious robots long enough to deliver our visual wrap-up?”
“No robots. Not this time. I was testing our new digitally encrypted wireless communication system. So far, so good.” Ryan was already setting himself up at the touch-screen. His presentation would highlight the case details and emphasize areas that could impact future investigations, something he did at the conclusion of every case.
He lowered himself into a chair, shooting Casey a quick glance.
Like Marc, Ryan knew about their boss’s past. And, like Marc, Ryan knew that, whether or not she admitted it, this was exactly the kind of case that would bother her.
The room had grown deathly silent. There was nothing to say, and Ryan wouldn’t insult Casey by trying.
Casey jerked awake from a fitful sleep filled with violence and nightmares, startled by the ring tone of her cell phone. Her gaze fell on the clock. Four-thirty in the afternoon. A perfectly normal time to call someone—assuming that someone hadn’t been awake for over fifty hours. She wished she’d turned off the damned phone before going to bed.
Well, she hadn’t. And now she was awake so she might as well answer.
She leaned over and picked up the phone.
The last thing Casey Woods wanted right then was another gut-wrenching case.
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what she got.
CHAPTER TWO
White Plains, New York
Day One
Family Court Judge Hope Willis had finished up the last case on her docket, made her ruling and dismissed the court. She was in and out of her chambers in minutes, pausing only long enough to shrug out of her judicial robe, gather some files and say a few words to her court clerk. Then, having made the transition from judge to mom, she blew out of the office and exited the building in record time.
She hurried through the parking garage, delighted to be on her way home earlier than usual. She’d actually get to spend some time with Krissy—hearing about her day at kindergarten, helping her with her homework and just seizing the opportunity to be silly together.
That was a rarity these days. Since Sophia Wolfe, the other family court judge in White Plains, had transferred, Hope’s caseload had increased. So had her hours, thanks to the fact that Claudia, her former court clerk, had broken up with her fiancé. She’d then weirded out on Hope, becoming difficult and snappish, and so out of it that she kept screwing up the docket. Because of their long history together, Hope had given her scads more chances until, finally, she’d had to let her go. Training a new clerk was brutal, and taking up far too much time and effort. There was only so much of Hope to go around.
Which meant that her hours with Krissy were limited.
And Edward? Talk about a strained marriage, and an equally strained family unit. Hope’s husband was almost never home. A defense attorney for a large, prestigious law firm with offices in both Midtown Manhattan and in White Plains, he worked obscene hours. In fact, other than an occasional and unplanned meeting in the courthouse, Hope seldom saw her husband, and Krissy saw him even less.
There was a definite void there. So today was about Hope spending quality time with her five-year-old.
She’d hurried through the parking lot, slid behind the wheel of her GMC Acadia and driven off toward Route 287 and their Armonk home.
Naturally, there was traffic. These days, getting out of White Plains was almost as bad as getting out of Manhattan.
Hope crawled along, finally reaching the highway, where she took advantage of the opportunity to rapidly accelerate. Eager to get home, she exited 287 and cruised onto Route 684 North.
It was at that precise moment that Hope’s life changed forever.
