Amber Alert Read online

  Prologue

  PART I - Grassroots

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  PART II – The Missing

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  PART III – My Fair Maiden

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Epilogue

  END

  [CM1]

  Amber Alert

  A Chase Adams FBI Thriller

  Book 4

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  “Go on, kids, wash your hands and get ready for dinner. We’re going to have a special guest tonight.”

  Chase Adams shook her head side to side, trying to loosen the blindfold that shrouded her in darkness. She also tried to speak, but the foul rag that was wrapped across her mouth was so tight that she couldn’t do anything but mumble incoherently.

  There was noise all around her then and she whipped her head about, trying, and failing, to measure her surroundings. Something brushed against her leg — a tiny hand, maybe? A feather? — but when she twisted in that direction and tried to reach, she fell to one knee.

  Your hands are bound, Chase. Don’t forget that your hands are bound.

  The ground beneath her was soft, like dirt, and when she inhaled deeply, the sweet smell of earth filled her nostrils.

  But that was the only thing that made sense to her at that moment, that seemed real.

  None of the preceding hours before the accident were at all cogent; she had lost the ability to determine what was real and what was imagined.

  Stitts’s words echoed in her head.

  I’m sorry I lied to you, Chase… I wanted to tell you when I first met you, but I just couldn’t do it.

  “Help her to her feet,” the man instructed.

  Small hands grabbed at her waist, at her bound hands. With a heave, Chase managed to rise to her feet and as she did, she focused on the voice.

  That was real. That was something that meant something.

  But what? Who is this man that has taken me captive?

  It was harsh and gruff, the voice of someone who had smoked not for years, but for decades, while it also maintained the gravely quality of someone who had lived into their sixties, maybe even longer. There was also something strangely familiar about it, even though Chase couldn’t for the life of her pinpoint when she’d heard it before.

  “It’ll be okay,” a tiny voice whispered in her ear. Eyes wide now beneath the blindfold, Chase whipped her head in that direction, but the person who’d spoken — a small girl, she presumed — was now gone.

  “It’s only scary for the first little while,” another voice whispered. Chase instinctively turned in that direction, but they too seemed to have vanished.

  “Eventually, you’ll become part of the family. Like us.”

  This time the voice came from behind her. It was all so disorienting, what with her eyes covered and the constant movement of people and voices around her, that Chase felt nauseous. She stumbled again, but this time thick fingers wrapped around her shoulder and hoisted her to her feet.

  “Take a seat,” the male voice ordered. The reek of sweat and cigarette smoke emanated from the man in waves, which did nothing but increased Chase’s visceral response.

  She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat and the sensation seemed to pass.

  Chase was led to a chair, and then spun around and pushed down into it before she knew what was happening. Still trying to catch his bearings, her chair was shoved from behind, and the underside of a table bit into the top of her thighs.

  Another odor filled the damp air; this time it was the smell of strong cheese. Her tongue inadvertently snaked out of her mouth and brushed up against the foul rag.

  The taste and the smell combined was more than Chase could handle.

  She turned her head to the side and vomited. Dual streams of hot fluid sprayed from either side of the gag, and blood churned in her ears.

  After a second and third bout, completely voiding her stomach of alcohol and coffee, she felt hands grip the back of her head.

  “Take the gag off! Take it off before she chokes!”

  Fingers struggled with the gag knots, but the person eventually gave up and yanked it painfully over her chin.

  Finally liberated of the dirty cloth, Chase took a deep breath and then promptly puked again.

  When there was nothing left to bring up, Chase raised her head and realized that in the throes of regurgitation the blindfold had moved up her forehead.

  It took several blinks to clear her vision, but when she could finally see, confusion washed over her.

  The last thing she remembered was being in her car, driving with her hands off the wheel, her eyes closed.

  Now, she found herself at the head of a large table, with four tables on either side.

  Part of her realized that the chairs to her left were occupied, but she didn’t even glance in their direction.

  Her eyes were locked on the man at the other end of the table.

  He was much older than she remembered, and there were thick lines crisscrossing around his mouth and forming creases at the outer edges of his eyes. His skin was pale and his cheeks and chin were covered with the beginnings of a beard that was more salt than pepper.

  When the man realized that Chase could see him, his lips parted into a thin smile revealing nicotine stained teeth.

  “Welcome back Chase, it’s been a long time — it’s been a long, long time. And boy, have we missed you.”

  PART I - Grassroots

  TWO WEEKS AGO

  Chapter 1

  “You sure you want to go in there, Stitts?” FBI Special Agent Chase Adams asked as she turned to face her partner.

  Stitts ran a hand through his hair. When he brought his hand to the door handle, every strand fell into place exactly as it had been before.

  How does it do that? Chase wondered. I thought my particular ‘skill’ was strange, but that’s pure magic.

  Before she could ask, Stitts opened the door and a blast of damp air filled the car.

  “You don’t think I can handl
e a couple of junkies and a quack doctor?” he said with a grin as he stepped out in the cold. After taking a final drag from his cigarette and flicking the butt, he hurried across the parking lot.

  Chase followed him outside, making sure to lock her BMW behind her. It felt good not only to be the one driving now, but to have her own car, instead of having to deal with one of Stitts’s shitty rentals.

  And yet, she wasn’t sure that Virginia would ever feel like home.

  Home was in New York.

  She shook her head.

  No, that’s not right, she scolded herself. Home is where Brad and Felix are.

  Chase flexed her jaw.

  Which is fucking Sweden, of all places.

  “It’s not just that,” Chase said as she hurried to catch up to her partner. Usually the calmer of the two, Stitts was unusually excited today. “You might… you might hear stuff, stuff about me that might be, well, alarming. I just want you to be prepared.”

  Stitts stopped and turned to face her, his dark eyes leveling at hers.

  “Really? Something I’ve never heard before?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Even though Chase knew what was coming next, the words still came as a surprise out of the man’s mouth.

  “Like something that almost got me thrown in prison? Like breaking a man out of prison in Chicago?”

  “I mean—”

  “Like something that nearly got you killed in a high stakes poker game in Vegas? How about nearly getting both of us blown up before the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ first ever playoff game? You mean something like that?”

  Chase tried to fight the heat that rose into her cheeks.

  She failed.

  “How about hiding a heroin addiction while doing your training in Quantico when I vouched for you? How about that?”

  Chase ran up to Stitts and punched him hard in the shoulder. He winced and then backed away, raising his hands defensively, a smile still etched on his handsome face.

  “Just fucking with you, Chase. I think you know by now that anything I hear about you will, A, not be a surprise, and, B, will be kept between us. You can trust me, Chase.”

  Chase nodded, and together they started toward the entrance of Grassroots Recover. She knew that what Stitts was saying was true, that time and time again the man went out of his way to protect her, to do whatever he could to keep her sane. She had no fucking clue why he did this, but maybe that didn’t matter.

  Maybe it only mattered that he did it.

  So, trust him she could, but that wasn’t the problem.

  As Chase’s eyes drifted upward to the Grassroots Recovery sign, her mind flashed back to her short four-month stint here, while recovering from her when addiction. She recalled the incident in her dorm room, the one that involved her eating six methadone tabs before puking them back up again.

  No, she thought as she stared at Special Agent Jeremy Stitts’s head, it’s not that I can’t trust you.

  Stitts, still smiling, grabbed the front door and then held it open for her.

  “Enter at your own risk,” he said.

  Chase nodded and stepped inside the facility.

  It’s that I don’t trust myself.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m here to see Louisa,” Chase said to the first person she encountered inside Grassroots.

  The woman turned to face her, eyebrow raised. A moment later, recognition crossed over her features.

  “Chase? What are you doing here? Are you—”

  Chase shook her head before Nurse Whitfield could ask the question that was on the tip of her tongue.

  “No — I’m working. I’m looking for Louisa. Is she still around?”

  The nurse’s face changed again, the skin beneath her chin going slack.

  “No, she’s not here,” she said, lowering her eyes.

  Chase’s heart sank.

  She remembered her last encounter with the woman, when Louisa had her bent over the sink, her fingers down Chase’s throat, forcing her to puke up the methadone tabs she’d just swallowed.

  And there was no way she could forget their final words when Louisa had told her that they had something in common.

  “She left shortly after you did,” Nurse Whitfield continued. “No one has… no one has heard from her since.”

  Louisa had been an addict, and Chase recognized the look on the nurse’s face. When dealing with addicts, the expression meant one of two things: either Louisa was just missing, or she was dead.

  Chase cast a glance over at Stitts who was taking in the scene with his usual silent deference.

  Or abject confusion, she could never tell which.

  Stitts caught her gaze and shrugged.

  It would be on her to figure out what to do next, Chase knew. After all, on the face of it, their case had nothing to do with Virginia or Grassroots Recovery — it had to do with the missing girls in Tennessee.

  Except it had everything to do with her. Her and Georgina.

  It was all connected.

  “Is Dr. Matteo around?” Chase asked, her expression hardening.

  The nurse nodded.

  “He’s in the office down the hall. But Chase, did you say that you were—”

  Chase shook her head, cutting off the woman’s question before she asked it. Then she subtly shot a glance at Stitts and Whitfield nodded.

  “I’m glad… I’m just glad to see that you’re doing better,” the woman said, offering a sheltered smile.

  Chase gently squeezed Nurse Whitfield’s shoulder as she passed her.

  “It’s nice to see you,” Chase said in a quiet voice.

  Whitfield’s smile grew.

  It was nice to see nurse Whitfield. The portly woman was one of the few people that Chase got the impression really cared about what happened to those who checked into Grassroots.

  Dr. Matteo cared, as did nurse Whitfield, but she wasn’t as certain about the others she’d encountered the first time around. One thing was clear, however; her initial fear that arriving here might set her into an instant relapse was unfounded.

  Sure, the place brought back horrible memories of uncontrollable shaking and night sweats, but Chase didn’t feel like using.

  Not yet, anyway.

  ***

  Dr. Matteo looked up at Chase as she entered, a warm smile on his face.

  “Chase Adams, so nice to have you back,” he said in a pleasant voice. “Please, if you would, pass your phones to the orderly outside the door.”

  Chase’s brow furrowed. She hadn’t seen any orderly and she wasn’t keen on giving up her cell phone to a near stranger.

  Dr. Matteo folded his hands on top of his desk.

  “You know the rules, Chase. In fact, I’m surprised that you got in here without having to hand them over.”

  Stitts’s hand came down on her shoulder and he gave her an affirming nod.

  With a shrug, Chase pulled out her cell phone and handed it to Stitts, who reached back and passed them on to an orderly who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. It wasn’t anyone she recognized, but didn’t put too much stock in this observation.

  Considering the shit they had to put up with, it was a surprise that the turnover wasn’t a daily occurrence.

  With this formality done with, Chase turned back to Dr. Matteo and then pulled out her FBI credentials and placed them on the desk for the man to see.

  Yet, while he glanced at it briefly, when he raised his eyes back to Chase, his expression remained unchanged.

  “It is nice to see you, Chase,” the man repeated, and Chase felt the corners of her lips twitch.

  She had no idea how to interpret the comment. Did Dr. Matteo mean that it was nice to have her back, as in he expected her to enter treatment again, or was it more benign; did the man mean that it was nice that she had recovered enough to resume working.

  Chase mulled this over for a second, before simply shrugging the question away.

  It didn’t matter what Dr. Matteo th
ought, she surmised.

  The truth was, even though she hadn’t completed the six months of treatment that Agent Stitts and Director Hampton had agreed upon, Chase was here, wasn’t she? She was here with her FBI badge. And that was enough… it had to be.

  “What can I do for you?” the doctor asked, still smiling.

  “Agent Jeremy Stitts,” Stitts said with a curt nod. “My partner and I are here on official business.”

  Chase shot Stitts a look, one that she hoped conveyed her inner thoughts: What’s wrong with you? Why the hell are you acting like a robot?

  Stitts blinked, then turned back to Dr. Matteo.