Okay so I merged two chapters into one so it would be long enough to please those complaining. No guarantees about when I'll post the next one though because I'm going out of town for a wedding and by merging these two chapters I've caught up to a couple portions that aren't quite right yet. Please be patient and thanks for reading and for constructive feedback. :D
*****
One month later
"Reynolds! Where's your head? You're supposed to be looking at the case files, not staring off into space like a vacant idiot."
"Sorry sir," Alec muttered. Over the past couple of weeks, Alec had lost focus on work-oriented stuff. His boss had quickly noticed and had repeatedly berated him. But Alec had a hard time focusing on these mysteries when there was a far more confusing and intriguing one facing him.
He and Jake had gone to check out the address Carrie had given them. The place had been completely empty, with some signs that the previous occupant had been there recently. From there, they were lost. Jake had to return home once his business in the city was finished and at that point, Alec had only Ellie on his mind.
Jake had agreed to call a few of the friends he and Ellie had shared while Alec began searching online for people who had previously been connected to her. Something was fishy about the whole encounter with her. Why had she changed so much? Why did she look so afraid? Why had she been determined to convince them that she wasn't his old flame? Why would she leave rather than face him?
That last question hurt to ask. Jake had been right all those years. He had known immediately that Ellie was the right girl for Alec and had repeatedly invited both to any event he hosted in a subtle and unnoticed attempt to set them up with one another. Little had he known they'd get together on their own only a few months later. Shaking his head, Alec pulled himself out of his daydreams and forced himself to focus on the file in front of him.
There had recently been crimes in the hospitals of large cities and they had hit the metro's hospital just a couple miles from the station. While many believed the violence was all connected, no one had yet found the key.
"Hey boss, do we have access to the files from any of the other cities?"
"No the feds won't give up their data yet. Maybe if we stop wasting time daydreaming and find something..." he said that pointedly so Alec returned to the files in front of him. The patterns had been spotted but no one had figured out their meanings. Young females had been accosted each time. None had been injured. It looked like all the girls here had been doctors, residents fresh out of med school.
"They're searching for someone," he thought to himself before repeating the thought out loud. "Chief, they're looking for a specific woman. That's why they haven't hurt anybody. They haven't found her yet."
"Let's see your reasoning, Reynolds."
Alec walked him through his thought process and the chief quickly saw the same patterns he had. Young female residents, all between the ages of 24 and 29. Each had been cornered after leaving work, had their wallet stolen, and had been threatened but not injured. The few who had tried to resist had found their attempts futile. The thugs always had backup nearby.
"Good work, Reynolds. Keep your mind focused from now on and it won't take us so long to find these connections." The Chief raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Alec.
"Yes, sir." He accepted the chastisement with grace, fully aware of his somewhat erratic behavior over the previous weeks.
Now that he'd done his job, however, his mind wandered. It figured that he could find nothing regarding Ellie in weeks but when given a completely unrelated case, he could find a clue in all of two minutes. Forcing himself back to the file in front of him, he kept his focus for the remainder of the day.
*****
Rob Davidson was not a man to mess with, though few of his acquaintances were aware of it. His record was spotless, he was a part of the most elite social circles in the nation, and he masked his dangerous side with a handsome appearance and faux-subservient charm. Beneath the surface of his carefully preserved façade, however, he was also in charge of the most notorious crime syndicate in the U.S. Drug dealing and trafficking, illegal arms trades, and prostitution rings were just the tip of the iceberg for them.
Although the feds had long suspected that there was a corrupt government official helping the organization, they had never connected it to him; nor had they even suspected him as the ringleader of the entire thing. Since he was actually the co-founder and CEO of a multinational corporation rather than a politician, he had never been a serious suspect on any list. Of course, his deep pockets helped. He'd actually made charitable donations to several federal agencies and even had friends who'd mentioned the group in passing conversation, completely oblivious to the fact that he was the ever elusive ringleader.
It was a point of pride to him that he had never been linked to the group and that anybody who could testify to such a connection had always been eliminated. At least, they had always been eliminated until now.
Davidson was strolling along a path in the city park, outwardly seeming to enjoy the weather yet inwardly seething. In all his years, not one man had ever escaped after finding out just who exactly Rob Davidson was. The few men he did trust with his secrets had helped dispose of the bodies and make the disappearances seem random. There hadn't been many, of course; merely a handful. However, his current situation was far worse than all of the previous confrontations combined.
Not only does the bitch know everything, she's still alive and on the loose
, he fumed. He couldn't believe that none of his men—in either the gang or the government—had turned up a trace of her.
Of course, he'd always known she'd be a handful, but he'd liked that best in a woman. The more willful and stubborn they were at the beginning, the more he enjoyed cowing them to his own will. Ellie had been no exception: she'd come to him with full knowledge of her worth. He'd seen her reduce a man to nothing using only her razor sharp tongue. In fact, her pointed words were what had led him to her secret: she was vulnerable and had been hurt in the not-so-distant past.
Once he'd realized that the girl was longing for someone to want her, he'd had his ammunition. Within a few months, he'd gotten her to agree to date him. He'd wooed her into his trap and beaten her into submission.
That was the way with women, he'd found. They were all weak. He merely had to find the chink in their armor to bring them down and show them their true value. With Ellie, it had been almost too easy. Her desire to love and be loved had made her a practically eager victim.
He'd never felt as strongly about any of his other conquests. He'd showered the girl with affection, expensive gifts, and had even planned on marrying her eventually. She'd been on his arm at every event for two years; he loved showing her off to the glamorous capital crowd, something he'd never done for his previous whores.
Of course, none of them had flinched quite like she had. After giving her the perfect courtship for several months, they'd finally had their first fight. In the relationship timeline, the first fight was the moment when he decided whether or not a woman was worth any more effort. He knew how to twist their words to make the fight far nastier than it should have been, and they always ended with him finally getting to hit the woman.
With Ellie, the fight had been over something inconsequential. She'd wanted to visit her mother instead of attending a party hosted by some of his most elite clientele. Of course, he'd escalated it until she had snapped and screamed at him before turning away. He'd grabbed her, spun her around roughly, and backhanded her. He still remembered the way she'd flown backward into a wall with such a solid thump. Just thinking about it made him stiffen as pleasure coursed through his veins.
