Page 17 of Be Courageous

“…cell phone, before it stopped working, pinged several towers in southeast Virginia and just over the border in North Carolina. State police have launched an AMBER Alert and sent over their report. I’ll forward it to you now. Keep me apprised.”

The phone clicked in Fitz’s ear. What a nightmare. His past rushed back to him. Rory, his son, had been Grayson’s age when he’d been killed.Please, God, not again.

Guilt clamped down on Fitz for ignoring Faith’s frantic call the previous day. In his defense, he’d thought Grayson had been skipping school like most teens did at least once. But his failure to return after twenty-four hours without a word suggested there was more to his disappearance than first met the eye.

Needing to pull a team together, Fitz tapped out his favorite subordinate’s extension, gratified when Charlotte answered right away.

“Patterson-Strong.”

Fitz had hand-picked her when she was just Charlotte Patterson. She’d married Navy SEAL Lucas Strong six months after the couple helped Fitz round up a group of extremists entrenched in the government and the military. The six-foot tall beauty with short auburn hair had been heading to CIA training when Fitz lured her to the Bureau instead—though her husband probably had more to do with her decision than Fitz did.

“It’s me. Grab Lowe and meet me up in the command center. We’ve got an abduction case.”

“Uh, slight problem. Lowe just called in to say he’s too sick to come to work.”

Fitz blinked several times as destiny interfered with his plans, leaving him just two choices: He could either find another pair of special agents, or he could step in for Lowe, roll his sleeves up, and get thoroughly involved. His battered heart quailed. Faith’s vulnerability was going to suck him right back into having feelings for her.

“No worries,” he heard himself say. “I’ll stand in for Lowe.”

“Yes!”

Fitz could picture Charlotte’s grin. “Do me a favor,” he requested, not quite ready to jump in feetfirst. “Give the boy’s mother a call. You met her at a Labor Day party last year. She’s Grace McLeod’s twin sister.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yes. Ask her every question you can think of. I’ll see you upstairs in twenty minutes. Here’s her number.” He recited it from memory, then hung up.

A real man would have called her himself.Fitz acknowledged as much, but he could feel Faith’s pull on him already. Bittersweet memories of their three short months together saturated his mind. It was easier to feel nothing at all than to fluctuate between mountain-top moments and bottomless abysses.

He blew out a breath.Please help me find the kid alive.All he wanted was to send the kid safely home to his mother. Anything more than that—like asking for Grayson to accept him so he could marry Faith and be fulfilled—would just be greedy.

If you didn’t want too much, you could never end up disappointed.

* * *

Faith knew how law enforcement worked. She’d been the wife of a state policeman for thirteen years. They didn’t want civilians in the way. They wouldn’t let her join them in their search for her son. It was only after pleading relentlessly that Seth agreed to take her with him as he liaised with the FBI team now handling the case.

She’d had a much easier time of convincing Grace to take over for Sonja after work that afternoon. The fact that it was Friday was proof of God’s mercy, since Grace was a teacher and could watch Faith’s daughters tomorrow morning without having to find a sub. Amos, her husband, would probably come over with their two boys for a fun day in the country.

On the other hand, the odds of finding Grayson, now that his cell phone had gone silent, weren’t great. And the longer they looked for him, the less chance they would find him at all.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten, let alone slept, in the past twenty-four hours. Tired and overwrought, she kept silent as Seth drove them along the route Grayson had been taken yesterday according to the pings his phone had sent to nearby cell towers. The sky was overcast and dismal. A January chill pervaded the rural landscape.

As they passed the Great Dismal Swamp, the black-as-ink water lapping at the roots of cypress trees made Faith shudder.Grayson’s not here,she assured herself. The route traced by her cell phone company suggested he’d been taken southeast, about one hour from their home.

Seth glanced over at her as he turned onto a narrow road that would cut east across the lower half of Virginia. “Would you believe we police this area, too?”

She eyed the relentlessly flat farmland surrounding them. “I remember. Jerry did an undercover job out this way about ten years ago, well before he joined the tactical team.”

“That was before I joined the force.”

The scenario returned to Faith. “Some guy with a gun shop was suspected of selling firearms without background checks. Jerry befriended him to find out. Sure enough, he sold a semiautomatic to a felon, and Jerry got him arrested.” That memory jogged another. Hadn’t a child been killed in a subsequent shootout? Jerry had been distraught for months afterward. “Hmm.”

“What?” Seth prompted.

“Oh, I was just remembering what happened at the gun dealer’s arrest. One of the arresting troopers was young and nervous about walking into a gun shop. The dealer’s little boy popped up over the sales counter holding a water gun, and the trooper shot him dead.”

Seth gaped at her. “No way. That’s awful.”

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