"I can't imagine how he would hear I'm in town, unless you're going to tell him?"
"I haven't seen him since that day he beat me up. I left the neighborhood as soon as I got out of the hospital. I took Josie as far across the city as I could get. And I have never been back there."
"Well, I'm going to be in and out of this city, a couple of days, maybe a week at most. And even if he did find out, I can protect myself now. I'm not that scared girl anymore. I'm a trained federal agent. I don't run from bad guys; I take them down."
A reluctant smile crossed his lips. "Well, I must say this is a new side of you."
"I grew up, Nathan. So did you. Can we move forward?"
"I'd like to say yes, but I just have this sick feeling in my gut."
"I've had the same sick feeling since I found out I was needed in Chicago. But I am here to do a job. That's it. So, what's it going to be, Nathan? Are we going to be friends? Enemies? People who once knew each other but really don't want to have anything to do with each other now?" She paused, waiting for him to immediately choose the last choice, but he dug his hands into his pockets, his gaze running across her face, down her body, and the air between them seemed ridiculously tense. "Well?" she prodded.
"When I figure it out, I'll let you know." He turned and walked away.
As she watched him leave, she was filled with mixed emotions. But one thing was very clear. Nathan was a complication she didn't need. A very sexy, attractive complication, her brain couldn't help pointing out.
She frowned. Maybe she'd had a teeny, tiny little crush on Nathan a hundred years ago, when they were young teens, when they were friends. But then they didn't see each other for a few years and when they reconnected in the last two years of high school, Nathan had become harder, moodier, angrier. He'd been so critical of all her choices that they'd ended up closer to enemies.
What they were now was anyone's guess. But hopefully, she wouldn't be staying in Chicago long enough to find out.
Four
Bree returned to the FBI office a little past three, determined to put Nathan out of her mind.
After briefing her fellow agents on her interviews with Grace and Kyle Roberts, as well as the disturbing phone calls she'd received, she grabbed a salad from the on-site cafeteria and sat down at an empty desk. As she ate, she got onto her computer, reading through the reports being posted by the numerous teams working on the case.
They had agents and analysts tracking down locally known child predators, surfing the dark web for chatter about a kidnapping for ransom or any other motivation, running computer patterns to compare Hayley's case with the three other known child abductions involving a white rose, coordinating with volunteer and police-led neighborhood searches, and continuing to interview and re-interview everyone who had been at the concert the night before. There were also numerous personnel dedicated to tracking down every lead that came in from the public, no matter how incredible it might appear.
Despite the massive manpower at work, they were unfortunately no closer to finding Hayley now than they had been the night before, and everyone was acutely aware that in cases like these, every minute counted.
After finishing her salad, she typed up her own notes, thinking again about her conversations with the Jansens, Grace Roberts, and Kyle Roberts. Aside from the ring, she hadn't gained a lot of new information, but the ring could still be significant. One of the Chicago team members had already volunteered to contact the Cubs and get a list of those lucky people who had received rings. It was a long list and a long-shot lead, but it was something and right now all they had to go on.
Thinking about the Cubs reminded her of the baseball chat forum she and her tight-knit group of friends from Quantico had set up during their training in order to coordinate assignments. Later, it had become a place to ask for help outside the usual professional channels, a place that was all theirs.
They'd adopted monikers from the 1986 World Series Mets, which had been Jamie Rowland's favorite team. Jamie had been their leader until he had died in a tragic accident during a training mission. She still missed his smiling face. They'd dated for a few weeks during their time at Quantico. He was the first man in a long time she'd been able to trust. She didn't know if she would have loved him forever, but his death had torn away another piece of her heart.
It would be five years tomorrow that he'd died. Jamie's father Vincent and sister Cassie had invited her to attend a small gathering at their house to celebrate Jamie's life, and she'd planned to attend, but now she doubted she'd make it back to New York by then. She'd been looking forward to it and hoping to catch up with at least one or two of her friends. It had been too long.
On impulse, she pulled out her phone and opened up the forum. It had gone unused since June when Damon and Wyatt had been running for their lives and had needed her help.
It was a good thing that no one had needed a lifeline since then, but she missed her buddies. They were spread out all over the world and most of the time she had no idea where anyone was, but she still felt connected to them. They had saved each other's lives. They had gone through tragedy together. And when there was no one else to trust, they knew they could trust each other. In her world, trust was a rare commodity, proven even more rare this past summer when they'd found a traitor among them.
Pushing that thought out of her mind, she started a new thread, speaking in the baseball code they used. Looks like Cubs are on their way to another pennant. Can't make tomorrow's celebration. Anyone close enough to catch a game with me?
She signed off with her moniker Knight, in honor of Ray Knight, a third baseman for the Mets the year they won the World Series. She'd picked his name because she fancied herself a knight. And since there weren't any females on the team, she and Parisa had been stuck with male names. Parisa had chosen Dwight Gooden, because she liked what a star he was and how much money he made.
Smiling to herself, she clicked out of the forum. She'd check it later to see if anyone responded. She wouldn't mind seeing a friendly face. The Chicago team had their own way of working, and while they were polite and professional, she'd felt a distinct tension when she'd told them about the ring on the kidnapper's finger.
No one, especially Tracy Cox, had liked that she'd broken the only lead. They also hadn't reacted well to her mention of the threatening phone calls, questioning whether they were really about this case. Tracy seemed to feel she was trying to make the case about her, which was ridiculous; she just wanted to find Hayley and catch the kidnapper and put him away for good.
Speaking of Tracy, she inwardly sighed as the assertive and critical agent in her late twenties sat down in the chair adjacent to her desk. Tracy had short blonde hair that was straight and angled and steel-blue eyes. Despite her attractive face, there was a hardness and a coldness to Tracy. She was smart, but she was also sharp, prickly, easily angered, and obsessed with protocol and policy.
"You should have called me regarding the information on Mr. Roberts before you went to his office," Tracy said. "We could have interviewed him together."
She could have done that, maybe should have done that, but she was used to tracking down leads on her own. And she and Tracy had never worked well together. "I wanted to catch him before his wife gave him the heads-up," she said. They hadn't talked about their past relationship, and she was hoping to avoid that by sticking to the case.
"But that didn't happen."
"Unfortunately, not," she admitted.