THE CASE DRAGGED. They got twisted and backtracked and diverted at least fourteen times. Shannon knew everyone was feeling the frustration. It had been her job to help deal with the parents of the missing boys.

Ken and Paige were doing their best to hold everything together, but it wasn’t going easily.

Three missing fourteen-year-old boys were getting farther and farther away from them. As each hour passed and turned into days, the odds of finding those kids—honor roll kids at a local private academy, who were as low risk as it was possible to be—diminished.

They’d lost half of Paige Brockman’s team that morning. Paige, Leina, and Dani had had to leave for Pennsylvania an hour after everyone had made it back to the PAVAD conference room. A missing eleven-year-old suspected of being the victim of human trafficking had held more immediacy.

She understood it. They had to weigh the angles on every PAVAD case to see if it warranted PAVAD resources. And everyone knew the odds. They had a greater chance of finding the eleven-year-old than they did these missing boys.

Time had worked against them all.

They weren’t giving up hope. Chances were high these boys were runaways. Most children in their age group who were missing, and weren’t taken by family members, returned. She didn’t know the exact statistic, but she knew it was over ninety percent.

A very small fraction of children missing were actually taken in what the television and media called stranger abductions. Around one in ten thousand missing children were victims of those types of crimes. Of those, more than half returned home safely.

There was still hope for those boys out there.

The smallest of the three missing boys reminded her of her brother Damien when he’d been that age. He’d been small and weak compared to the rest of their family back then, too. He’d been barely bigger than Shannon for most of her childhood—until puberty shot him up to almost six-six. Her other brothers had enjoyed teasing him at first—until he’d outgrown them all.

The two boys missing with him were the only friends that boy seemed to have in the world. Darrell, the boy she couldn’t forget, hadn’t had as great a home life as Marious and Joey. But his friends had made him feel welcome and loved with them.

If something had happened to one of those boys, the other two would have been right there.

It was beginning to look more and more like foul play.

She was the first one back to the conference after the lunch break Ken had insisted they all take. Cam had offered to buy her lunch, her and Alec, but Shannon had turned the offer down. She’d needed to call a mechanic about her car and get an estimate. Public transportation sucked on her schedule.

She’d needed a few moments of quiet. To get herself back into agent mode.

Darrell had a slightly crooked grin, just like her brother’s. Damien had struggled so much during junior high. Shannon had been only a year behind him in age but had been in the same grade for half the year, then a year ahead by the end of that year. Her brother had ended up with some serious self-esteem issues back then.

Thank God he’d made it through. Damien had grown up strong and beautiful and nearly the size of her former pro-football player team leader.

Her brother had called her that morning, worried. Damien had always known when something was wrong with her.

Damien had even taken a week off from his job as sheriff in a small town in Ohio to come help her move into Kyra’s old townhouse. To check on her.

To protect her the only way he could.

The only family member she had in law enforcement at all, Damien had understood. Even though she hadn’t been able to say much about the particulars, her brother had given her his version of a verbal hug and told she’d get through.

All Darrell had in the world was an aging grandmother and those two boys out there with them.

The door to the conference room swung open. Shannon turned quickly from where she stood by the window, looking out over the parking garage that PAVAD shared with the FBI field office one block up.

To see dark eyes staring at her.

“Ezra... You’re back early.” The first non-case related words she’d spoken to him since the last time they’d had sex in her hotel room.

“Chalmers called. We have a body...East St. Louis morgue. Grab your coat. He was pulled in with Hellbrook and Dennis five minutes ago on an unrelated case. He needs us there ASAP.”

And none of the others were back yet. She checked her watch. They had another ten minutes, at least, before anyone would be expected back.

If it was Marious, Darrell, or Joey, they needed to know quickly. For the other two boys’ sakes.

If it wasn’t...then some other family was about to be devastated.

Shannon wanted to run and puke.

There was no way she could ever do REY full-time like Ezra and Cam did.

Every kid would look like her brothers, or Leina’s children, or any other kid out there that she cared about.

“I’m ready. I didn’t bring a coat.”

“It’s pouring down out.”

She shrugged. It was August. “I’ll survive.”

“I’m driving.”

She’d expected no less. Ezra was the kind of guy who needed to be in control. She didn’t want to drive at the moment, anyway.