VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel) by Suzanne Ferrell Page B

though? His instinct told him they hadn’t crossed that boundary yet, but he wasn’t convinced they were long-term working partners, either. Sparks seemed to fly off them when they were within ten feet of each other. Edgars was going to be a lucky man if the pair ever crossed that line.
    Heaving a sigh, Aaron ran his hand over the slight stubble of his jaw.
    Edgars had the capability to work on this case outside the usual channels and without the restraints that tied his hands. And didn’t that just bite his ass?
    With any luck, the cocky agent would get some information about the missing woman’s associates or her whereabouts, or at least her phone’s location, then keep him informed. No use in both of them working that angle, at least not yet.
    Aaron glanced at his wall clock. Two hours until his appointment to meet with Ryan Baxter, Brianna Mathews’ boss at Hollister-Klein Exporters. Maybe the company’s CFO could fill him in on what the missing woman was working on for the company.
    With another heavy sigh, he wiped his hand over his face.
    Two hours to kill.
    Since his hands were tied on this case until the warrant came through, forensics came up with something useful or Edgars called him back, he could focus on his other case. Not that he was any closer to making a crack in it, either.
    Turning to his computer, he pulled up the last file he’d had open before catching the Brianna Matthews’ abduction.
    Five women missing over a period of three years. The case his captain had told him to drop because there was no real evidence. Only, his gut told him there was something.
    At first he thought Brianna Matthews might be the sixth. Now he wasn’t so sure. Pulling out a piece of paper, he made two columns, match and not a match then he began comparing the facts from both cases.
    All between the ages of eighteen and thirty. Check in the match column. He read over the interviews they’d done with associates, co-workers and acquaintances of the other women.
    None with family ties to the area. Flipping through the pages, he confirmed what Ms. Whitson had told him. Brianna had no blood relations in the area and her adoptive parents had both passed away in the past five years. Check.
    Low-level jobs . Brianna apparently was a high-level employee in Hollister-Klein. He marked an X in the not-a-match column.
    The other five were all shy, retiring, stay-at-home types. He pulled out an 8x10 glossy he’d taken from the myriad of photos at the crime scene last night for the case file. Brianna Matthews was a blue-eyed, blonde bombshell. Nothing shy or retiring about this girl. A stay-at-home night wasn’t her thing. Another X.
    The other women had all used some sort of on-line dating service. Another glance at Brianna. Nope. Pretty damn sure she didn’t need one. Which begged the question, why did she have a dating site open on her computer? And why were there only pictures of women on that site? Could she have been shopping for something different? Looking to play for the other team? This hottie and another woman?
    Damn, that wasn’t an image he needed to linger on. Not if he wanted to get any real work done today.
    He lifted another of the crime scene photos to study again.
    Then there was the violence of the Mathews disappearance. The in-your-face, blitzkrieg-type attack. These guys were looking for something. The chaos of the condo confirmed it. Five would get you ten that whoever had Brianna wouldn’t be finished with her until she gave up the location of what they wanted.
    That was nothing like the rather quiet, almost invisible disappearances of the other women. In fact, most of the leads in those cases were so cold they belonged in the Arctic Circle. Hell, no one even knew they were gone for weeks after their abduction. No one had reported anything. If his niece Stephanie hadn’t called him about the fifth girl—he pulled up the picture of the mousy-blonde-haired Casey Timmons—a friend of hers from work, they