The Trapped Girls Collection: Detective Grant Abduction Mysteries Read online

  The Trapped Girls: Detective Grant Abduction Mysteries

  James Hunt

  Contents

  The Silent Ones Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  The Silent Ones Book 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  The Silent Ones Book 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Missing Person: The Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Missing Person: Book 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Missing Person: Book 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Three Months Later

  About the Author

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  The Silent Ones Book 1

  1

  Music pumped through Kelly Sears’s earbuds, the heels of her purple running shoes striking against the pavement in the same rhythm of the Pink song that propelled her the last quarter-mile of her run.

  Up since four, she had already caught up on emails, scheduled three more conference calls with potential clients, and had one more quickie with the banker she brought home from last night before putting him in a cab and sending him home.

  Alone on the running trail, Kelly glanced up at the early morning Seattle sky. A fusion of dark blues bled down to a muddy purple that streaked across the horizon. With sweat glistening off her toned muscles and snow-white complexion, she’d already done more this morning than most people would accomplish before the sun came up.

  Sprinting the last leg of her run and with her muscles and lungs on fire, Kelly broke through the imaginary finish line.

  Breathless, Kelly checked her pulse and paced a tight circle until it slowed. She paused her music and checked her time. A minute slower than yesterday.

  Wiping the sweat from her face with the front of her shirt, Kelly walked through the early morning mist that blanketed the running trail around Interlaken Park, which backed up to the apartment complex where she owned a top-floor unit with a west-facing balcony. She loved to watch the sunset.

  Walking back to her apartment, Kelly scanned her email for replies from her clients in Europe. “C’mon, Harry, you’re busting my balls on this one.” She cracked her neck, still tense even after the run, but her boss had been riding her to close the new deal with Heller Communications.

  It was the biggest fish she’d ever gone after, but if she landed them as clients, then it would guarantee her promotion into the vacant Vice President for Global Sales position. It’d taken her five years, but she was so close that she could taste it.

  Eyes glued to her phone, her thumbs were a blur across the screen as she quickly replied to the latest round of questions. They were nervous. They’d been with the same advertising agency for the past twenty years. But Kelly had provided too good of a deal for them to pass up. All that was required now was to soothe the worries.

  But with her head down, she didn’t see the man in the hoodie who had been watching her from the cover of bushes and the early morning haze.

  By the time she heard the scuffled sound of hurried sneakers on concrete, the rag was already over her mouth. Hands and arms clamped around her body, Kelly squirmed but quickly lost consciousness, dropping the phone from her hand, the world fading to black as she was slung over her captor’s shoulder and quickly whisked away into the dense fog.

  Mary Sullivan dropped the half-eaten bowl of mushy oatmeal into the sink, which rattled against the growing pile of dirty dishes that her husband had said he would take care of the night before.

  “Charlotte! Evan! C’mon, we’re going to be late!” Mary opened the fridge and grabbed a container of leftover spaghetti from Sunday. She cracked open the lid and sniffed. It was probably still good. She shoved the container into her purse, checked her reflection in the fridge door, and ruffled her blonde hair. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to put on make-up. “Kids! Car! Now!”

  Tiny footsteps thundered above from the second floor, and her six-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son hurried down the staircase, backpacks already on.

  Using the hurried momentum from their run down the stairs, Mary shuttled them out the door and into the van.

  Evan clicked on his seatbelt, and then helped his sister with hers. Mary started the van and then did another quick mirror check, deciding that she’d put on some concealer when she got to the parking lot at work.

  “Mom, what about our lunches?” Evan asked.

  “Shit,” Mary muttered under her breath, and then dove into her purse, fishing out a ten, which she handed to Evan. “Here. That’s for both of you.” She reversed out of the driveway and then sped through the neighborhood, praying that they wouldn’t be late.

  “Mommy, are you coming to my recital tonight?” Charlotte asked.

  “Of course, baby,” Mary answered, smiling.

  Charlotte clapped her hands together excitedly.

  Evan rolled his head back and forth on his shoulders until he finally rested his chin on his chest. “Mom?”

  Mary flicked on the blinker. “Uh-huh?”

  “Do you think Dad
would want to play catch with me tomorrow?” Evan kept his head down, twisting his fingers into knots.

  Mary caught the downtrodden expression in the rearview, and the sight broke her heart. “Of course he would.”

  “It’s just that I know he works a lot on weekends, so I didn’t know…” Evan finally lifted his eyes, meeting Mary’s in the mirror.

  “He would love to make some time for you,” Mary said, hoping that she wasn’t making promises that she couldn’t keep.

  Evan shrugged. “Yeah. Okay.”

  Elton wasn’t a bad father or husband. He didn’t cheat, he didn’t drink, and he never raised a hand to Mary or their children. But he was absent. His mission to provide for the family had cost him birthdays, holidays, recitals, and sporting games.

  “Hey,” Mary said, prompting Evan to look up. “What if I can guarantee that your dad plays ball with you this weekend?”

  “Really?” Evan asked, his smile stretching from ear to ear.

  “Really,” Mary answered.

  “Thanks, Mom!” The smile never left his face the rest of the ride.

  Mary pulled into the school drop-off lane and Evan slid the van door open. She leaned back between the front seats, giving them each a kiss before they jumped out onto the sidewalk, joining the horde of other children.

  “Love you,” Mary said.

  “Love you too!” Evan and Charlotte shouted in unison, and the van door slid shut with a heavy thud.

  Mary lingered in the drop-off lane and watched her kids disappear into the school’s building. Once they were gone, she had the sudden urge to play hooky. To run back inside, check them out of class, and call into work sick. Because she knew how fast life moved, and it wouldn’t be long until they were grown and gone.

  A honk from the car behind Mary snapped her from the daydream, and she waved an apology as she pulled away.

  Traffic clogged up when Mary hopped on the I-5, but she pulled into the parking garage next to her office building with a few minutes to spare.

  The third floor of the garage was packed with cars but empty of people, and Mary rifled through the infinite chaos that was her purse to find her spare make-up brush.

  Working quickly with the small mirror in the visor, Mary tried to cover up the dark circles beneath her eyes to avoid the usual midweek comments of, “Wow, you look tired.”

  Of course she was tired. Twelve years of marriage, two kids, and a full-time job tended to stretch your limits.

  Finished and more presentable than she was before the concealer, Mary tossed the make-up brush back into the black hole of her purse and stepped out of the van.

  Mary checked her watch, finding that she was already a minute late, and double-timed it to the staircase, which she had resigned to take for the past month in lieu of the elevator to help keep her in shape. So far she’d lost a grand total of one fucking pound.

  With her concentration focused on the work day, the conversation she needed to have with Elton, and the clack of her heels that echoed in the open parking garage, she was too distracted to hear the quiet footsteps coming from behind.

  Susie Mullins adjusted the straps of her backpack and pushed back the hairband that kept sliding forward onto her forehead. Her mother had given it to her to keep the hair out of her face, but the tiny teeth only irritated her scalp.

  It was hot in her raincoat, another fashion choice forced on her by her mother. The weatherman had forecasted rain, but with a clear morning sky and the sun peeking out, the heavy plastic was only making her sweat.

  Unable to bear the heat anymore, Susie stopped, removed her backpack, and then ripped the rain slicker off. She shoved aside her books and folders, and then crammed the slicker into the backpack’s main compartment, unable to zip it all the way closed with a portion of the rain coat sticking out of the top.

  But the relief from the heat and sweat trumped the ridicule of having a yellow plastic sheet sticking up out of her backpack. “Stupid raincoat,” she muttered, grunting, but finally managed to maneuver the straps over her shoulders, which were very tight against her chest and back.

  She trudged forward, feeling like a turtle with a fat shell on her back, and then again readjusted her headband.

  It was a long walk from her house to school, but short enough to avoid the bus, which she didn’t mind. The walk was a quiet reprieve from the chaos of school and home.

  Her parents were always screaming at one another about something. She used to keep track of what they were mad about, but it changed faster than the weather.

  Money, food, where they lived, their cars, neighbors, work, her parents always found something wrong. And that was just when they were sober.

  After polishing off a bottle of alcohol was when the real fights started, and that’s when she’d lock her bedroom door. Sometimes she went to the park, but most of the time she just stayed in her room. It wasn’t safe at the park, especially at night.

  But this little stretch of land between home and school provided a pleasant escape to let herself think, mostly about how she couldn’t wait to leave this place, but also about what life might be like when she was older.

  She wasn’t getting married. That was for sure. Not after the way she’d seen her parents treat one another. And she was getting out of Seattle. It was wet and miserable, and the neighborhood she lived in was riddled with crime and drugs.

  Last year when she had a geography assignment, which had turned into her favorite subject, she learned how many wonderful places existed in the world. Paris, with their art and culture, the countries of Africa with their tradition and dance, Australia with all those cool animals. She had already determined that when she could afford it, she’d buy a koala bear.

  The world was a big place, and it gave her hope and comfort knowing that there was something more than the crappy little corner where she had been born. She was going to get out of here, and that day couldn’t happen soon enough.

  Nearly to the intersection where Susie would take her final left that would lead her to school, she heard the rumble of a car behind her.

  Normally she wouldn’t have noticed. Cars passed her on the road all the time. But this car didn’t pass.

  Slowly, Susie glanced back and got a look at a rusted sedan. The morning sun gleamed off the windshield and kept the driver hidden. She faced forward again, growing nervous. She had a few troublesome encounters on her way to and from school, but most of it was from the teenagers that liked to hang out by the turnoff to the highway.

  She walked a little faster, her heart pounding and her breathing quick, the car still following. She glanced around at the houses, trying to see if there was anyone on their front porch or yards. No one.

  Susie wanted to look behind her again, but she couldn’t crane her neck around, haunted by the rumble of that engine.

  Five more houses to the intersection and its busy traffic. Lots of people were up there, too many eyes for someone to do something bad. Then she’d be fine. Just five more.

  But when she was parallel to the fourth house, the car engine revved, and Susie’s heart skipped a beat. She sprinted ahead, focused on the intersection. She was so close.

  The rusted sedan sped past and then mounted the curb onto the sidewalk. The passenger door flung open, and Susie screamed, spinning around, but was yanked back by her hair and forced into the car as the engine revved and drowned out Susie’s screams.

  Susan Mullocks stepped out of the shower, the water so hot that the steam rose from her pale freckled skin before she covered herself with a towel. She dried off quickly, then tussled her brown hair, which she had finally let grow long at her husband’s persistence. She had natural curls, which became more prevalent the longer she let it grow. But it was a decision that she was slowly beginning to regret. It would be another three hours before her hair was fully dry.

  Once dry, she dropped the towel and exposed a petite but wiry physique. She’d had to work harder to stay in shape after her son was born, but the
work showed. She picked out black slacks, a green blouse, and a gray jacket, then reached for the most comfortable pair of her two-inch heels, taking whatever height advantage she could give herself, and slipped them on.

  She grabbed her brush from the dresser and ran it through her hair a few times to work out the knots and performed a final check in the mirror.

  The green shirt accentuated the green of her eyes, framed by freckle-covered cheeks. She had never been one for lathering on cosmetics, but after turning thirty-five this year and rearing a two-year-old, time was starting catch up with her.