Proof of Life Page 7

  “At the very least.” He came around to help her out of the car. “I thought you were considering a security system?”

  “I have to admit, that idea is sounding better and better.” She went in through the side door this time, walking into the kitchen. He followed her inside, glanced around curiously. The interior of her house was neat, tidy.

  “Give me a few minutes to look around and then pack my things,” she said, moving down the hall, flipping lights on as she went, making her way toward the bedrooms.

  Quinn stood in the kitchen, glancing around curiously. Had the intruder waited for her in here? Only to be disappointed when she came in the front door instead?

  There weren’t a lot of hiding places, though. The kitchen table was tucked into a corner, and the rest of the kitchen area was wide open, with the white cabinets mounted on two walls across from the entryway.

  He walked over behind the door to mimic what the intruder might have done. The assailant had waited right here for her to come in, holding his weapon—a bat, or a club of some sort—ready in his hand.

  How long had he waited? Ten minutes? Thirty? A couple of hours? The assailant had chosen to lie in wait for her, rather than to follow her.

  Next time you’ll be alone.

  The last note she’d received mocked him, and he battled a wave of guilt. Next time, she wouldn’t be alone.

  Standing with his back against the wall, he imagined how the assailant must have heard Shanna come in through the front door. Waiting in the dark, having tripped the breakers in the fuse box, meant he must have felt along the wall, moving toward the opening to make his way into the living room.

  Quinn took the path that made the most sense, and right at the entryway into the living area, a floorboard creaked under his weight.

  Bingo.

  The satisfaction was bittersweet. Thankfully, Shanna had come in through the front door. Because if she’d come in through the kitchen, her assailant might have killed her.

  But because he’d had to move through the house, she’d heard him and smelled him, which caused her to run for the door. Maybe in the dark, the assailant had misjudged the distance and hadn’t hit her as hard as he’d intended. And then Quinn had called her cell phone several times, one call right after the other, scaring the guy off.

  The scenario he’d created fit. Only too well.

  Grimly, Quinn turned and headed for the basement. Rawlings had told him the guy had come in through a broken window. The least he could do while he waited was secure the house.

  But when he flipped on the basement light, he was surprised to discover one of the officers on scene had already done the work. A board was nailed securely over the broken window, and the shards of glass had been swept into a neat pile.

  Thoughtfully, he walked back upstairs. Glancing at his watch, he wondered what was taking her so long. “Shanna? Do you have everything you need?”

  “Not yet,” came her muffled reply. From where he stood, at the beginning of the hallway, he could tell her voice came from the bedroom closer to him, not the master bedroom, which was further down the hall.

  He didn’t think this was the right time to go through her stuff to make sure nothing was stolen. Rawlings was crazy if he thought this was the work of a burglar. He’d bet his entire pension that the stalker who’d left the threatening notes was the guy who’d waited patiently for her in the kitchen.

  He headed down the hallway. “Shanna, we need to leave,” he said, pausing in the doorway of the first bedroom. She used it as an office, judging by the rolltop desk and computer taking up one wall. He found her half-buried inside the closet. “What are you looking for?”

  She didn’t answer, but he could hear her mumbling to herself. “It’s here somewhere. I know it is.”

  What was there somewhere? “Let me help you look,” he offered, venturing farther into the room.

  “You can’t help me. I’m the one who put it somewhere safe. Or so I thought.” After another few minutes, she finally exclaimed, “I found it!”

  He watched as she pulled a large box down from a shelf in the back of the closet, staggering a little beneath the weight. Before he could take it from her, she set it on the floor and dropped to her knees. Gently, she pried off the lid, and the first item he saw was a pink stuffed elephant.

  This was what she was searching for? His stomach twisted. Maybe her head injury was worse than they’d thought. “Shanna, come on, we really need to get you to a motel room. I think you need to get some rest.”

  She lifted her gaze to his, and the tortured expression in her luminous blue eyes tugged at his heart. “I couldn’t leave without making sure everything was still here.”

  Everything? A pink stuffed animal? And then he understood. “These are Skylar’s personal belongings, aren’t they?”

  “Yes.” Shanna rifled through the box. “Most of it is Skylar’s—a few of her stuffed animals, her baby ring, her favorite blanket. But I also have my research notes in here from the investigation.”

  “Investigation?” His curiosity piqued, he came over to kneel beside her. He wished Rawlings had never given her the idea this could be the work of a burglar. “The police investigation?”

  “Not exactly.” She rocked back on her heels. “My own investigation. Skylar’s kidnapping is what made me decide to go into CSI work in the first place, and I never gave up hope that we’d eventually find out what happened to her. I’ve continued to work on her case, on and off, for the past eight years.”

  Shanna knew Quinn was looking at her as if she’d lost her marbles. But what did he expect? Of course she hadn’t given up on the cold-case investigation.

  “Did you really think the person who broke into your house was here to steal this stuff?” he asked.

  “Maybe.” How could she explain her convoluted feelings? “Probably not, but I wanted to be sure.”

  Quinn’s gaze was serious. “You told me the notes began to show up a couple of weeks ago, right?” When she nodded, he continued, “So I’m sure Brady’s murder and finding your sister’s fingerprints at the crime scene aren’t connected to the assailant.”

  Logically, she knew he was right. “I know.” She stared down at the box, the sick feeling in her stomach intensifying as she stared at Ellie, the elephant. Skylar’s elephant. From what she could see, everything was still there.

  “Unless…” Quinn frowned. “Have you been working on your sister’s case recently? Interviewing people? Stirring up the past in a way that you’re making someone nervous?”

  She let out a heavy sigh. “No, I haven’t done any investigating of my sister’s case in months.” And she was ashamed that she’d let her work cases sidetrack her from finding her sister.

  Quinn’s expression was full of disappointment. “Okay, then I really don’t see how they could possibly be related. Why don’t you put this stuff away for now? I think you need to get some rest.”

  Now that she had the box of her sister’s belongings in hand, she was loathe to let it go. Losing the contents of this box would be like losing her sister all over again.

  With a sigh, she picked up the folder containing her notes and a stack of newspaper clippings. Several items slid out onto the floor, and she reached over to gather them back together.

  “Wait a minute,” Quinn said, putting his hand on hers. He picked up the article closest to him and scanned the newspaper print. “This isn’t related to Skylar’s kidnapping. It’s about some other child.”

  “Yeah, I know.” When he still looked puzzled, she tried to explain. “There weren’t many clues about Skylar’s disappearance. I got a copy of the police report, and none of the people interviewed had seen anything. So I searched on the internet for other cases that were similar to Skylar’s.”

  “Other cases,” he repeated. “In the Chicago area?”

  “Not just in the Chicago area,” she explained. “But I did find about six other cases that all took place in an eighteen-month time frame and
within a hundred-mile radius.”

  Quinn looked totally shocked. “That’s incredible. I think you were clearly onto something, Shanna. But I can’t figure out why the feds weren’t involved?”

  “They were for a while. They interviewed my parents. But other than that, I don’t know that they found out much, probably because each case was slightly different.” She pulled out several of the articles showing what she meant. “See this child here? His father disappeared at the same time, and the parents were divorced, so the crime was considered to be the result of the custody battle.”

  “But they never found the father or the child?” Quinn persisted.

  “No.” At his skeptical gaze, she shrugged. “I know it’s odd, but they figured the guy must have gone to Mexico, or maybe Canada.”

  “Interesting.” He shuffled through the articles to pick up another one. “Wow, this child is just fourteen months old.”

  “Yeah, that one wasn’t exactly like the other children. Most of the ages were between two and a half and five. My sister was one of the oldest children taken.”

  “The FBI must have a file on this,” Quinn mused, his gaze sweeping over all the evidence she’d collected over the years. “Maybe now that we have Skylar’s prints at the crime scene we should call them.”

  “You’re probably right,” she agreed slowly. With the FBI’s resources, surely they’d have the ability to track down Skylar better than she could. If they were even willing to reopen the case. Surely finding Skylar’s fingerprints gave them a good reason.

  “I know I’m right.” Quinn sat down on the floor next to her box, making himself comfortable. She smiled, realizing his cop instincts had gotten the better of him. Now that he knew there might be other missing children related to Skylar’s case, he was intrigued by the information.

  “Hey, this kid was taken from a shopping mall,” Quinn said, a note of eagerness in his voice. “That’s pretty similar to being taken from a school.”

  “I know. That was the case I spent the most time on because the cases were so similar.” She leaned in to read over his shoulder, even though she had the details of the article memorized. “The only difference was that Kenny was a boy, and just a month shy of being four years old.”

  She remembered the case all too well. Kenny Larson was the child who’d been taken, nearly nine months before Skylar. The nearly four-year-old had been at the mall with his grandmother when they’d gotten separated. Thinking he was lost, his grandmother had frantically called the mall security, and they’d gone through every store. Finally, suspecting the worst, they reviewed every mall exit security tape but, despite their efforts, had not been able to capture a photo of the kidnapper.

  She remembered because there was a long article about how the police had an image they were working with, a large group of people leaving the mall at the same time with a small boy in the middle of the group. But the image was so blurry and the group so large, that even with skilled enhancements, they hadn’t been able to pinpoint the kidnapper.

  “You know, maybe we should take this stuff with us to the motel,” Quinn admitted. “If nothing else, we could spend some time reviewing the evidence, see if anything jumps out at us.”

  “We?” she echoed, pouncing on the pronoun. “Quinn, you’re not staying in the motel room with me.”

  He merely raised a brow. “Are you telling me I can’t check into a room right next to yours?” he asked carefully. “Because I’m pretty sure they’ll give out rooms to anyone willing to pay for one.”

  She bit her lip, forced to admit she’d love nothing more than to have Quinn be in a motel room right next door to her. But she was already leaning on him far too much.

  What would happen when Brady’s murder investigation was over? And they’d found her sister? Each of them would end up going their separate ways.

  Quinn was just being nice and supportive to her because he was a cop, and she happened to be in danger. He’d held her hand throughout her brief hospital stay because he was a nice guy and he felt responsible for the attack. He wasn’t attracted to her.

  Not the same way she was attracted to him.

  Besides, she wasn’t in the market for a relationship. She wasn’t very good at them, anyway. At least, according to Garrett, the one relationship she’d had during college.

  “Obviously you can do whatever you’d like, Quinn,” she said finally, raising her gaze to his. “But be honest. I’m sure you have other things you’d rather be doing, like following up on more leads related to Brady’s murder.”

  He gave a careless shrug, but she could tell she’d hit a nerve. “In helping you find Skylar, I could also uncover a lead related to Brady’s murder. And besides,” he hesitated and then reached over to take her hand, “I need to know you’re safe.”

  His confession touched her in the deepest recesses of her soul. When was the last time she’d ever felt as if someone was on her side?

  Ducking her head to hide her blush, she quickly gathered the articles together. “Okay, then let’s go.”

  In her haste, she moved too quickly, and several documents slid out of the folder. Feeling even more foolish for the slightest betrayal of her nervousness, she quickly gathered them back together. Her gaze landed on Skylar’s birth certificate.

  She froze, staring down at the date in complete disbelief.

  “What’s wrong?” Quinn asked, reaching over to lightly grasp her arm. “Is your headache getting worse?”

  Slowly she shook her head. How could she have forgotten? The first of September was the day Skylar had disappeared. The date was burned into her brain, had haunted her ever since.

  “Shanna, please. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  She finally raised her tortured gaze to his. “I don’t know how I missed this, but today is October 19th. Skylar’s birthday.”

  SEVEN

  The tiny hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck stood on end as he stared at Shanna in shocked surprise. Today was Skylar’s birthday?

  They’d just decided Shanna’s stalker and Skylar’s kidnapping couldn’t possibly be related, but that was before this bit of news. Was it really a coincidence that Shanna was attacked by her stalker on the day of her missing sister’s birthday?

  Quinn didn’t believe in coincidences.

  “You’re sure you haven’t done any investigating related to your sister’s disappearance in the past few months?” he asked again. His gut was clamoring at him, but there had to be a connection somewhere. “Because now that we know today is Skylar’s birthday, I can’t help thinking there must be some connection between your stalker and your sister’s disappearance.” It was the only possibility that made sense, even though the timing was off.

  Her stalker had started sending notes a couple of weeks ago, and they’d just found her sister’s prints two days ago. But the attack on Shanna occurring on Skylar’s birthday seemed to be some sort of message.

  One they couldn’t afford to ignore.

  “I’m absolutely sure,” Shanna said firmly. “Honestly, Quinn, my job has been so busy over the past few months that I haven’t had time.” Her gaze dropped to the birth certificate in her hands and her mouth turned down at the corners. “No, that’s not quite true. The real answer is that I haven’t made time. I allowed my job to take precedence over my sister.”

  He hated the way she kept beating herself up over this. No matter what she thought, her sister’s kidnapping wasn’t her fault. “Without some new clue or piece of information to go on, what good would come from reviewing the same old evidence?” he asked reasonably. “Even the feds have pretty much given up the investigation, right?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Shanna murmured, sliding the birth certificate back into the folder with the rest of the paperwork. “But giving up on Skylar isn’t the answer, either.”

  He tried to ignore the twinge of guilt. Wasn’t he allowing Shanna to distract him from finding Brady’s killer? He could pretend that finding her sister might give him a clu
e to Brady’s murder, but he knew that wasn’t entirely true. For some odd reason, he wanted to help Shanna.

  He did his best to drag his attention back to the matter at hand. “Look, Shanna, you can’t change what happened in the past—all you can do is move forward from here. And now we have the best lead ever—your sister’s fingerprint at a crime scene, linked to a university.” And a stalker who’s watching you, he added silently.

  His words seemed to hit home as she straightened and nodded. “You’re right, Quinn. I’d like to take all this stuff with me to the hotel. Going through the evidence again may spark a new idea.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he agreed. “And I can look at the evidence too at some point. Maybe a new pair of eyes will pick up something you’ve missed.”

  “Ah, sure.” Again, she seemed flustered by his offer to assist. Because she thought he was becoming too friendly? During those hours at the hospital, she’d clung to his hand as if it were a lifeline. But now she avoided his gaze as she finally put all the items from Skylar’s childhood and her investigation into the box. “We’d better get going,” she said.

  He shouldn’t be surprised at how she pulled away. Hadn’t he learned his lesson about relationships after the fiasco with Leslie leaving him? Quinn rose to his feet, taking the box from her hands even though it wasn’t very heavy. “Do you have your overnight bag packed?”

  “Yes. Give me a minute to get it, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  He nodded and carried the box out to the kitchen where Shanna met him less than a minute later. He waited until she closed the door and locked it before storing the box and her overnight bag in the back of his SUV.

  The ride to the hotel didn’t take long, and he even took extra precautions, using a zigzag route to make sure they weren’t followed. When he was satisfied no one could possibly have tailed them, he pulled into the parking lot. The chain hotel wasn’t anything fancy, and at the last minute, he decided against staying there with her.