As Angie spoke, he put her on speaker and left his phone on the table while he searched for his jeans and shirt. When the blonde still didn’t move, he leaned close and listened for any sign of breathing. She smelled of expensive perfume and high-octane vodka. Her soft purrs confirmed she had survived whatever the hell they’d done last night.
“We wanted her to come home for spring break,” his sister went on, “but she had other plans. She wouldn’t say what or with whom. Said it was none of our business and that we’d hear from her when she got back. So we thought maybe she had a boyfriend. Maybe a serious one. But ever since spring break she’s been distant. I called her every day last week and she never answered or called me back.” More of those heart-twisting sobs resonated in the room.
Tony hopped on one foot and then the other to tug on his jeans. “Is she showing up for class?”
“She was in class on Friday, but she didn’t show up for any of her classes yesterday or this morning.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.” The room spun a little so Tony sat down on the bed. The blonde moaned but didn’t move. He picked up the phone and took it off speaker. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It’s not even noon, Ang. Maybe she’s just late. She could be on her way back from a weekend trip right now.” His niece had hardly been out of pocket long enough to overreact. Ang did that sometimes. She was particularly emotional when it came to her only child.
“No. No, I spoke to her roommate. Tiffany didn’t—”
“Ang, listen.” He rubbed at the back of his skull. Damn, his head hurt. The taste of bile and vodka climbed up his throat. He swallowed it back. “She’s nineteen and trying out her wings. Wait and see... She’ll show up sometime today. Just try to stay calm.”
“You don’t understand!”
His sister’s raised voice was like a bullet to his brain; he flinched. He needed something for this headache. Angie was older—only by fifteen months—and she never let Tony forget it. As calmly as he could, he said, “Explain it to me then.”
“None of her clothes are missing. Nothing. If she went on a weekend trip, wouldn’t she take something? A change of clothes? Her purse?”
That drop of fear he’d felt earlier widened into a distinct trickle. “She didn’t take her purse? What about her driver’s license and cell phone?”
“No. Nothing. Tony,” Ang said somberly, “she didn’t even take her makeup or her Jeep.”
A flood of uncertainty crowded into his chest now, making his next breath difficult. “Okay. Have you alerted campus security?”
His niece was a beautiful girl and certainly didn’t need cosmetics to enhance her natural beauty but she refused to step out the door without the works. If she didn’t take her makeup, she hadn’t left willingly. Not to mention her cell phone and driver’s license. If they possessed one or both, no teenager left without them.
“Yes, of course. We’re headed to Milledgeville now. I need you, Tony. I don’t care what’s going on with you and the Bureau—I need you. Tiffany needs you.”
With Ang and Steve in Dahlonega, the drive down to Milledgeville would take between two and three hours. They would arrive well ahead of Tony, which meant he had to get moving.
He leaned forward, fighting back the urge to vomit, and gathered his sneakers. “Call the Dean and ask him to put campus security on high alert. As soon as you get to Milledgeville, go straight to the security office. I’ll call the Milledgeville chief of police and explain our concerns so he’ll see the urgency in the situation.”
“Thank you.” His sister made a keening sound. “What if—”
“Ang, stop. Don’t even go there right now.” She started to cry and the sound was like daggers twisting in his chest. In the background her husband, Steve, offered quiet reassurances. When silence filled the air between them, Tony said, “Listen to me, sis, we’ll find her.”
“Promise me, Tony. Promise me you’ll find our baby.”
“I promise.”
The call dropped off. Tony blew out a heavy breath. Now sure as hell wasn’t the time to tell his sister that he wasn’t simply having trouble with the Bureau—he had resigned from his position at BAU-2. He’d been keeping that secret from his ex-wife and his sister for more than a month. He glanced back at the blonde. He’d filled his nights with booze and women whose names he couldn’t remember the next morning. Like a vampire, he spent his days sleeping.
He grabbed his shirt and headed for the bathroom. A better man would shave and shower before hitting the road, but Tony wasn’t a better man anymore. He’d stopped being that man more than a year ago.
Bitter bile rushed into his throat and he barely made it to the toilet. He heaved until there was nothing left to exorcise from his gut.
The path of self-destruction. His new boss had said those words to him in the final weeks before Tony gave the hard-nosed asshole and the Bureau the middle finger. He flushed the toilet and, with effort, pushed to his feet. He ducked his head under the faucet and rinsed his mouth. Swiping his face with his forearm, he stared at his reflection. He definitely needed to shave. Needed a haircut. Looked like death warmed over.
No time to fix his broken image.
He bumped into the wall on his way to the walk-in closet. The idea that his blood alcohol level might still be lingering above the legal limit filtered through his mind. No time to fix that either. He’d take food and water with him and work on that particular issue en route. He grabbed the leather overnight bag he’d used for the eleven years of service he’d given the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He ignored the row of suits and crisply pressed shirts and stuffed a couple of polo shirts and another pair of jeans, socks and underwear into the bag. A pair of loafers went in next. Should have gone in first. Before his fall from grace he’d packed this damned bag so meticulously that even his shirts came out as smooth as when they’d gone in. Not anymore. On second thought he shoved a suit jacket into the bag. If he halfway looked the part maybe Angie wouldn’t have too many questions.
At the door to the bedroom he remembered his Dopp kit. He might not want to shave now but he’d have to eventually if he expected the local cops to listen to what he had to say. He added the toiletry kit to his bag.
As a profiler for the Bureau he’d spent a lot of years learning how to manipulate the locals to accomplish his goal. In fact, he’d become a master manipulator. Maybe all that bad Karma he’d left in his wake had finally caught up to him.
He glanced at the blonde in his bed. This was the part he always dreaded.
Chelsea or Chanel wasn’t happy about being roused. She called him every foul name in her vast repertoire while he helped her dress. When he’d called a cab, he gave her a bottle of water and maneuvered her out of the building. As the car pulled away from the curb she shouted asshole and flipped her middle finger at him.
Nothing he didn’t deserve. He climbed into his BMW and collapsed against the seat. Anthony LeDoux, this is your life.
Somehow, until he figured out where the hell Tiffany was, he’d have to find a way to pull himself together and at least pretend his world hadn’t gone to shit and that he could help rescue his niece from whatever trouble she had gotten herself into.
Too bad he’d lost his hero credentials months ago.
4
Milledgeville, Georgia
8:30 p.m.
It was late, but the tension in the chief of police’s office was motivated by far more than the hour. Tony sensed the animosity the moment he walked through the entrance doors of the Public Safety building. Obviously, the man already had Tony’s number. Not surprising. Any cop worth his salt would do his homework.
There was a time when Tony had been damned good at prompting all the right reactions. Not anymore.
Since it was well past business hours, a uniformed officer had been waiting to allow him into the one-story building and then to escort him to the office of the town’s top cop. A tall, fit man, Chief Arlan Phelps had no doubt spent the last thirty or so years in law enforcement and possessed no tolerance for those who used evasion and innuendo to manipulate events.