Yuletide Abduction. Virginia Vaughan

was in town and wanted to find out why?

      Either way, she needed to replace her missing files.

      She reached for her phone and called Lin Wildwood, her partner in the FBI for the past three years. “Elise, where are you?” His voice was full of concern. “I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

      “I’m in Westhaven, Mississippi, looking into the disappearance of a teenage girl.”

      He sighed wearily. “When are you going to give up on this futile quest and come back to work?”

      Elise had been expecting this reaction. Three months ago, she’d taken a leave of absence from the Bureau to pursue evidence of a possible human trafficking ring operating in the Southeast. She didn’t yet have enough proof to support an official FBI investigation, and many of her colleagues believed she was chasing at shadows, but Elise was certain something was going on. She just had to gather enough facts to support it.

      “I can’t, Lin. I’m close to uncovering this ring. This missing girl might be the key.” But she wouldn’t know if she didn’t have her files. “I need a favor.” She filled him in about the break-in, being careful to downplay the seriousness of this morning’s events. “I have backup copies of all my most recent files on a flash drive in my apartment. Can you send it to me?”

      “Fine, but only on the condition that you’ll come back to work if this investigation doesn’t turn up anything. I have a stack of cases—actual reported missing persons cases—that need to be investigated.”

      She was hesitant to make such an agreement, but if it would get her the files... “I’ll consider it,” she told him. “If I don’t turn up anything here.”

      He seemed to take what he could get. “I’ll swing by your apartment on my way to work.”

      She gave him instructions for where she’d hidden both the spare key to her apartment and the flash drive, and he promised to have it sent first thing in the morning.

      She hung up then lowered herself into a chair by the window. She had a long night ahead of her before she was supposed to meet Josh and get started with the probe into his missing niece.

      How weird was it that the girl she’d come to town to investigate was Max’s daughter? But then, the University of Southern Mississippi, where she’d gone to college, was less than an hour’s drive from Westhaven. Elise knew many people from these small Mississippi towns lining the highway made that drive to attend classes. She thought back to that terrible night ten years earlier when she’d been walking to her dorm room and had been greeted by a man with a gun. Max Adams, a complete stranger, had stepped between her and the assailant, taking the fatal blow. As the attacker had run off, she’d held the dying man in her arms, thanking him and assuring him that everything would be fine. She would never forget his face or his bright blue eyes.

      She got goose bumps remembering seeing those same blue eyes staring at her this morning on the street. But it hadn’t been Max. It had been Josh Adams.

      If she believed in God, she might believe in some sort of spiritual connection and feel as if God had allowed her to live so she could someday help Max’s daughter. But how could she believe in a God that allowed such terrible things like Max’s death and the abduction and trafficking of young girls to happen?

      Her mother had been a believer and had taken Elise to church regularly, but a car accident when Elise was fourteen had taken her mother from her. She had been sent to live with her father and the new family he’d started after her parents’ divorce. She’d been an outsider there throughout her teenage years, offered food and shelter but never love. In fact, Elise’s stepmother had made a point of reminding her daily that she didn’t truly belong. Elise had worked hard to make the good grades required to earn a scholarship to college and had fled that house, never once looking back. In fact, the only contact she had with them now was the yearly Christmas card she received complete with holiday family photos proving how happy they were without her.

      She had never been able to mesh her mother’s idea of a loving God with her own experiences. Where had God been during her teen years? And why had He allowed a lonely girl to suffer alone? The painful truth was that because of her, Max’s daughter had grown up without a father and his wife had gone ten years without a husband, and Josh had lost a brother.

      If there was a God, He obviously didn’t care enough to intervene.

      But Elise cared.

      She turned her focus back to the investigation and dug through her purse for a pen and paper. She needed to get the names of everyone in the restaurant that night Bobby had spilled the secret of her arrival. Someone had known she was here, and she was determined to discover who had tried to run her down and had stolen her files.

      Her cell phone rang, startling her. She didn’t recognize the number but saw it was local, so she answered it.

      “Agent Richardson, this is Nurse Stringer from the Westhaven Hospital. Just calling to check on you.”

      “I’m fine, Nurse Stringer.”

      “Any dizziness or blurred vision?”

      “I said I’m fine.” Her tone was a bit harsher than she’d intended, but Nurse Stringer either didn’t notice or didn’t let it bother her.

      “Very good, then. I’ll give you a call again in another few hours. Have a blessed night.”

      Elise hit the off button and threw down her phone. That woman sounded way too chipper for it to be so late. She knew she’d been abrupt with her, but the truth was she was feeling dizzy and her eyes were blurring. But she wasn’t about to admit it and be hauled back into the hospital. She had a job to do, and she wasn’t going to allow a little thing like a mild concussion slow her down.