Gone in a Flash by Lynette Eason Read Free Book Online

over.” Officer Ponder placed his radio back onto his clip. “The young man who tried to take your daughter, Drake Walker, was just apprehended by two of my staff.”
    Connor pulled Jenna into their hug. He looked down at the body of Simon Ellis, now covered with a sheet. “I would say it’s over.”
    Samantha raked a hand through her hair and hugged Andy even tighter. “Then can we take a vacation?”
    “On a deserted island?” Connor lifted a brow even as his lips quirked in a wry smile.
    “Exactly.”
    “I’ll call the travel agent in the morning.”

Acknowledgments
    I want to thank my parents, Lewis and Lou Jean Barker, for taking the whole family on an Eastern Caribbean cruise in July 2010. We had a wonderful and exciting adventure! (Thankfully not quite as exciting as the one Samantha and Connor just lived through!)
    I also want to give a huge thanks to Baker Publishing Group/Revell for stepping out of the box and trying something new with this short ebook. I appreciate your faith in me—and your marketing team! 
    I also want to say a big thanks to the people who helped with all of my law enforcement research. Wayne Smith, retired FBI agent, Officer Jim Hall, and my crimescenewriter yahoo group. You all are amazing and I thank God for you!

1
    “Wake up, partner,” the voice rumbled in his ear as Connor Wolfe’s sleep-drugged mind struggled to keep up. “We’ve found another body. In a dumpster behind the BI-LO off East Main.”
    He shifted the phone and glanced at the clock.
    The number 2:08 glared at him. Great. Just the way he wanted to start his Monday morning.
    “Be right there.” He hung up and closed his eyes for a brief moment before gathering the energy to swing his feet to the floor. Two hours of sleep. Well, he’d gone with less. However, at the age of forty-two, he seemed to feel the lack a lot more than he did ten years ago. Shaking his head to fling off the fog of interrupted sleep, he headed for the shower, wondering if he should wake up Jenna, his sixteen-year-old daughter, or just hope she slept through the rest of the night.
    He settled on leaving her a note. Fifteen minutes later, hair still damp, he directed his unmarked Ford toward the crime scene. His partner, Andrew West, would meet him there.
    First a cop, then a homicide detective with SLED, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Connor had seen a lot in relation to crime, but this case had him by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Six disappearances and now three dead bodies—and very limited evidence. The first girl disappeared sixteen months ago.When the second victim disappeared two months later, speculation ran rampant. Were the vanishings related?
    Then the third girl, Leslie Sanders, disappeared five weeks after that, and SLED had taken over the case. Connor had been the lead detective assigned to it, not only because it was his hometown, but because he’d also requested it. He had a lot of contacts—and he hoped he’d be able to spend more time with Jenna if they were living in the same city for an extended period of time. Since accepting the position as a detective for SLED in Columbia a year ago, Connor had lived there and Jenna had stayed behind with her grandparents against Connor’s better judgment. But he had to make a living, and SLED operatives were required to live within a fifty-mile radius of the state’s capital. However, as long as he was working the case, he could reside in the city where the investigation took place. And be near Jenna so he could work on repairing a relationship he was afraid was beyond help.
    On the plus side, he’d been paired up with Andrew West, a new detective working his first case with SLED, but Connor’s closest friend for many years. A man he considered the brother he’d never had. The match had been perfect.
    Connor knew in his gut the girls’ deaths were connected—he just couldn’t prove it. The first two crime scenes didn’t even connect the two girls