Page 54 of The Grave Between Us
Cole kissed his palm again, then folded Noah’s fingers over his hand. “Are you ready to go in?”
They walked in hand in hand. Cole kept his head on a swivel, searching every corner, every bush, every micron of the lot. His breath was shaking when they got into the elevator, and Noah pulled him close, pressed his forehead to Cole’s, and squeezed his hand.
The office had organized a welcome-back party for Noah and Jacob, who’d arrived back to work himself a few minutes before. There was a banner strung across the bullpen, and Sophie had picked up doughnuts and pastries on her way in. Everyone was on their feet applauding as Cole and Noah walked into the room. Jacob already had a doughnut in his mouth, but he pulled Noah and Cole into a big bear hug, giving Noah a crumb-filled kiss on the forehead.
The group spent over an hour together, reconnecting, talking about their respective families and weekend fun and the work they’d done while Noah and Jacob were recuperating. By unspoken agreement, they didn’t discuss the shooting or the investigation that the BAU had ripped out of Des Moines’ hands.
Cole stayed by Noah’s side, and Noah leaned into him, their fingers tangling as they leaned against the lateral filing cabinets. Physically, at least, they could say what they couldn’t in the car. Eventually, Noah said he had to at least step inside his office and check his emails, put in an appearance for Omaha. Everyone grumbled good-naturedly but got back to work. Cole walked Noah to his office and gave him a kiss at the door before veering to his own cubicle.
From his desk, he could see into Noah’s office, and he watched his lover power on his computer, start riffling through the pile of mail that had stacked up in his absence. The late-February light slanted in through the windows behind him, hitting Noah’s face and making him narrow his eyes. It brought out the shimmering strands of gray starting to highlight Noah’s temples. A little frown appeared, a vertical line between his eyebrows, a moue to his lips as he started reading emails. He was beautiful, so breathtakingly alive it stopped Cole’s heart. Noah had a thousand different aspects, cast a million refractions of light on the world. Father, lover, FBI agent. Quietly confident in so many ways, uncertain of his own worth in others. He wanted the best for everyone around him and wanted to be the best man he could be.
Cole couldn’t imagine any life for himself that didn’t include Noah, include the two of them growing old together. He’d protect that future with everything he had.
Cole blazed through his emails, deleting the junk, delaying the case updates and court notifications, and scanning for anything from the BAU or Michael. Nothing. His palms itched, restlessness coursing through him. Ian was out there, somewhere. Virginia, Mountain Pass Road, and then Iowa 141, eight years later. Fifty states and hundreds and hundreds of potential victims later.
He pulled up the local crime reports, sifting through the sheriff’s offices and police departments across the state, searching for missing persons reports. He found the usual: mostly missing kids, reported as being taken by one divorced parent from the other. Teenagers who stayed out past curfew and then showed up the next morning, much to their parents’ and the police’s relief. Three missing women, two of the files noted aslikely missing voluntarily/ran away. He paged through to the next county—
Dallas County. West of Des Moines, along Interstate 80. On the way to Anita, where he and Noah had dropped Katie off with Lilly.
Missing: Brett Kerrigan, male, twenty-nine years old.
His eyes skipped over the report, leaping ahead and jumping back as if he couldn’t take it all in at once. A pit opened inside him as he read, darkness reaching out and grabbing hold of his heart.
Kerrigan reported missing by his fiancé, Kari Wenger, at 2200 hrs, after Kerrigan failed to show for a planned dinner with friends and family. Kerrigan was last seen with Wenger as they looked at wedding venues and had lunch at the Oak Haven Meadows bed and breakfast—
Paper cranes soaring through the twinkling dust of the barn. Orange and blue and yellow, bright against the muted leathers and worn woods, held aloft in the hands of children.
Paper cranes. He’d known as soon as he’d seen them. He’d known, damn it, he’d known.
Cole pulled up the photo of Brett Kerrigan. He was an all-American man, sun-tanned Iowan, with a corn-fed solidity and a square jaw, freckles dotting his broad face. He was smiling in his driver’s license photo, and there was an open, easy friendliness to him. He would lend a hand to little old ladies loading their groceries. He was probably marrying his college sweetheart, and they already had a small house, were dreaming about starting a family. Hope burst from his eyes, a simple happiness that said life had been good to Brett Kerrigan. He was happy.
He was exactly the kind of man Ian would go for. He’d want to mess up that happiness, wipe that smile off his face, turn those bright, joyous eyes into pools of terror.
Cole’s hands shook as he called up the detailed report from the interagency database. He closed his eyes before he read, whispering a prayer to a God he didn’t believe in that this was a coincidence. That it wouldn’t fit the pattern, wouldn’t match Ian’s MO. That the paper cranes had really been a school field trip’s arts and crafts project.
Kerrigan last seen leaving Oak Haven Meadows B&B in his own vehicle, a Nissan Maxima, returning to the home he shared with Wenger to feed his dogs before meeting Wenger and friends for dinner. There is no indication Kerrigan ever made it home. The dogs were not fed when Wenger returned home, nor had the home’s alarm system been deactivated since the couple left that morning. Kerrigan’s vehicle has not been located. His cell phone is powered off and is not transmitting a GPS signal. There has been no activity on any debit or credit cards since 1300 on Saturday at Oak Haven Meadows.
He dialed Michael’s number with trembling fingers. Michael picked up before the first ring had finished, barking Cole’s name. Cole spoke with a calmness he didn’t feel, relaying the details of Brett Kerrigan’s disappearance and the paper cranes at the bed and breakfast where he was last seen.
“How do you know about the cranes?”
“Because I was there, too.”
Jesus, had he seen Kerrigan? The times overlapped. Kerrigan had to have been there, he and Kari, either in the barn eating or at the bar. Or maybe they had stepped out to look at the different ceremony sites. Maybe they had wandered down to the oak grove, where Noah wanted to—
Cole cleared his throat. “Noah and I were there at the same time. We were looking at wedding sites on Saturday. I saw a couple kids playing with paper cranes while we were there.”
He felt Michael’s sigh over the phone line.
“We’re on our way,” Michael growled. “We’ll be there in two hours. Go out there, scour the scene. See if you can find anything he left behind. Try and find the intersection point.” The intersection, where victim and abductor crossed paths and the abductor made the choice to take the victim. “Try and determine how he abducted Brett and where he might have taken him. Ingram likes to play with his victims, and there’s a chance, albeit a slim one, that Kerrigan is still alive. If we can get a lead, any lead, we might be able to save Kerrigan’s life.”
“I’m on it. I’ll talk to his fiancé, too. And the police.”
“Focus on Ingram. We don’t need to muddy the waters with theories from the locals that Brett ran away or got cold feet about his wedding. Maybe that’s the case, and in a few days, that might be the investigative angle. But right now, we run this like it’s Ingram and we throw everything at tracking him. They don’t know what we know.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll call you when we land.”
