Chapter Two

O livia Knight focused on the constant whir of the tires on the ground as her fiancé and partner, Brock Tanner, drove their car back to Belle Grove. The monotony of listening to the engine roar aided the feeling of being trapped behind the windshield, making her feel more tired than she actually was. Some conversation might do the trick to break up the hypnotic sound of time crawling by before they were home.

“That sure didn’t take long.”

Brock gave her that signature grin she loved so much while keeping his eyes on the road. “It was almost too easy if you ask me.” The job had taken them all the way to Warrenton, Virginia, where a local business was tied up in money laundering. It wasn’t a stimulating case, but it was something to do. They had it cracked before lunch, but as they drove back home, the lack of satisfaction from putting another case to bed was obvious.

Brock nodded. “These people didn’t really know what they were doing, but they kept it so well hidden that the locals had to call us in. How does that even work?”

“Still,” Olivia asked. “Aren’t you glad to be working on lighter cases for a while?”

It was still that unspoken topic between them. Her thoughts turned back to the events of a few months ago when the Gamemaster had taxed their emotions and abilities to their limits. Dealing with Adeline Clarke and the constant sick, twisted games she played with them had taken every ounce of energy that she and Brock had, wringing their emotions out and putting them both into a state of reflection. During that time, Yara’s betrayal and suicide had brought Brock down into a dark place. She was glad to see him out of that. Olivia was grateful to not be constantly on the run, dealing with tragedy after tragedy—but part of her hated to admit that, well… she was bored.

“I don’t know.” Brock shook his head, eyes still on the road. “I guess I’m kind of missing part of the fieldwork. It was not anything like what we went through, but just getting out, traveling, and solving the cases. It’s stimulating, you know.”

Oh, she knew. Despite what they went through, Olivia still had that craving to get back out in the field again and work a real case. She wasn’t sure if she was ready emotionally, but she wanted to. Not that the ones they’d been working on weren’t real, but they were, well, for lack of a better term, dull.

“It can be.” She didn’t miss the hesitation in Brock’s voice. “So long as they’re not wracking our emotions to their limits. I am ready to start doing a lot more fieldwork, though.”

“We will, one of these days.” They couldn’t stay like this forever. They were some of the top agents, especially working together, and sooner, rather than later, they were probably going to be needed out in the field again. Olivia secretly hoped so. Now that she’d had some time to settle down, she had a strong urge to sink her teeth into a good, involved case again. Solving a case in a day or two was nothing like the work of digging into a project, putting two and two together until they could string together the end goal. There was nothing like doing that with Brock. She loved that; the two of them working together, tossing out ideas to untangle what was often a mess of clues. That was just one of many things she loved about him and being with him.

Thoughts of her love for Brock brought her attention down to her left hand, her engagement ring glittering in the late afternoon light that spilled across her lap through the windshield. She lifted her fingers as if to see it better and a smile touched her face. She remembered what it had been like that day in Barcelona. Brock had asked her to dress up nicely, so she had gone all out, and her happiness had been overwhelming. Each time she thought about that moment, she couldn’t help herself but feel the same rush of happiness. How could one person be this happy?

Brock broke into her thoughts with a sigh. “We’re almost there. I can’t wait to be back home again. These road trips get to me after a while.”

“This is nothing.” Olivia laughed, lightly. “Hey, on that note. What do you say to stopping by the diner for a late lunch before heading back to the apartment?”

The eager smile on his face reminded her of a kid at Christmastime. “You don’t have to ask me twice!”

The next morning, as Olivia and Brock were settling down to breakfast—granola cereal for her, and eggs, bacon, pancakes, and also granola cereal for him—her cell phone rang. She picked it up, reading the contact that came up on the screen. “It’s Calvin.”

“Oh, boy.” Brock set his spoon down. “A new assignment. ”

Olivia swiped her screen and answered on the first ring. “Agent Knight.”

“Morning, Olivia.”

Hearing a greeting come from her and Brock’s boss was something that Olivia had to adjust to, along with being called by her first name on occasion. Their last boss, Jonathan James, had always been gruff and to the point, always giving them their assignments with neither greeting nor goodbye and never using anything but her last name. She missed him, angered over his untimely death, but Hugh Calvin wasn’t doing too bad of a job taking his place. Even if he was practically Jonathan’s complete opposite—chatty, conversational, actually very pleasant and personable, it was an adjustment, for sure.

“Morning. What can I do for you?”

“Great job on the Warranton case. I was reading your report, and I have to say that I’m still impressed that you got that done so quickly. I don’t know what it is you two have that gives you such great chemistry but I’m glad to have it in the Bureau.”

Olivia tightened her lips in an awkward smile. “Um. Thanks.”

“Anyway, sorry to be brief, but I have a new assignment for you and Tanner.”

Olivia switched her phone over to speaker and Brock leaned in closer to hear. “Go ahead.”

“I’ve been talking with some of the higher-ups, figuring out how to get you back in the game, so to speak, and I think I’ve got something for you,” he went on. “This one isn’t going to be like the last few cases I’ve sent you. Are you and Tanner up for a challenge?”

Olivia shot a glance up to Brock, who met her gaze. Olivia answered for both of them. “Yes, I think we are.”

“That’s what I like to hear! Ever heard of Cape Fremont, South Carolina?”

“No.”

“Yeah, there’s reasons for that. It’s a small town along the coast. For the past two years, there have been reports of teenagers going missing at different points of the year. No one knows why, and no bodies have ever been recovered, but there’s talk about either some kind of teen cult or worse, trafficking.”

“How many teens are we talking about here?” Brock threw in the question.

“Over the past two years, about twenty.”

Olivia sucked in a breath through her teeth. Twenty teens going missing in New York, although tragic, wasn’t a huge deal, but twenty from a small town from the way he was describing? Something was definitely up.

“The most recent case was Ellie Cline, a local. Her father called in a missing persons report after she didn’t come home from school, but she hasn’t been found. She, like the others, has vanished without a trace. That was the final straw for the local PD to request our assistance.”

“Do they have any leads?”

“It seems that most of the missing kids just vanished. No leads, no evidence, no trail of any kind. They’ve just never gotten close enough to get anywhere. There was some smoke about the school, possibly, given that all the kids went there. But it’s the kind of town with one school, so it never really panned out. Local PD wonders if there’s some sort of cult activity operating out of there.”

That raised Olivia’s eyebrows a little. Cult activity was something she was more than familiar with.

“Now, since this is a delicate situation that involves a possible cult or some trafficking, I would need you and Tanner to go undercover. We can’t risk blowing the whistle and scaring away the evidence if someone hears about two FBI agents sniffing around.”

Undercover. Now that was a word Olivia hadn’t heard in a long time. Those were usually the most thrilling cases, and the thought of going undercover with Brock excited her. “Okay.”

“Since this is a coastal town, I’m going to have you go undercover as two newlyweds on your honeymoon if you choose to take this assignment. ”

“Me and Olivia as newlyweds? I don’t know… that seems a little far-fetched.” Brock winked up at her, trapping her with that boyish grin of his and she couldn’t help but smile.

“You got it.” They were practically newlyweds already. That sparkling engagement ring on her left finger only added to that radiant bridal glow that would be more convincing than any performance she could have given without it.

“Now—please, I need you to be completely honest here. Are you up for this? I know I’ve been handing you some smaller cases given the circumstances, but if you’re ready to get back into the field and do some heavy-duty investigating, you get first crack at this one.”

“We’re ready,” Brock answered for them both this time, blurting it out without a thought. Seeing him eager to jump on the case brought a smile to her face. Olivia was more than excited about the opportunity to dig into a real case again. This would be a nice, easy entrance back into it, and she would be ready to get started. “When do we start?”

“I need you down there as early as Thursday night.”

“We can do that,” Brock assured Calvin.

“Good. I’ll make the arrangements and get some information together for you. We’ll keep in touch.” With that, Olivia’s phone returned to her home screen as Calvin hung up.

Olivia settled back in her chair, setting her arms on the table as if hugging her cereal bowl. “Hmm.” She waited until the conversation with Calvin was over before she sparked a teasing conversation. “A newlywed couple on a honeymoon, huh?” She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it a bad idea to have the honeymoon before the wedding?”

Brock laughed, a sound she loved, that somehow gave her comfort just by hearing it. It was so good to have him back, his mourning period for Yara having come to a close. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just a practice run for when we do get married.” He grinned right back at her .

They shared some laughter and picked up their breakfast again. Well, Olivia did. Brock just sat there, studying her until he couldn’t anymore. “Olivia?”

She looked up at him, not needing to ask what he wanted.

Brock signed and leaned forward. “Are you really ready to jump back into this?”

Was she? She knew she’d been missing it, she just hadn’t realized how much until Calvin called with an exciting announcement. “I’m very ready. I guess I haven’t realized how much I’ve missed it until now. Are you ready?” He’d better be. Because ready or not, they were going to South Carolina.

His quiet smile told her that he was in the same boat. “I think so. Like you said, this is a perfect case to ease us back into things again.”

Olivia nodded. “The way I see it? Someone’s got to find out what’s happening to those teens down there.” She gave a shrug. “Might as well be us.”

She and Brock finished their breakfast, but her mind was already spinning the case over and over in her head. She found herself plotting out ways to get to the core of the issue, maybe through some teens or some of the teachers in the area. In her mind, she was already there, working the case.

She could hardly wait to get to Cape Fremont.