The white kitchen trash bag stood out among the larger black bags used for concessions and public areas. She grabbed a cardboard box from the side of the dumpster and set it on the ground as a makeshift evidence table. “Video record while I search?”

  The other agent pulled out her tablet.

  Emma removed her coat, rolled up her sleeves, and crouched to begin the dirty work.

  Mia narrated as Emma dug through the trash. “Agent Emma Last investigating the contents of a white garbage bag deposited into a public dumpster by Ruby Red Spectacle Circus ringmaster and owner, Reginald O’Rourke.”

  Emma began pulling items out one by one and setting them inside the cardboard box.

  “Contents include approximately fifteen aluminum drink cans. Crumpled paper towels with smears of what appear to be condiments. Candy-bar wrappers. Empty popcorn bags.” Mia huffed. “Guy clearly doesn’t believe in recycling or healthy eating.”

  Emma pawed through the bag’s contents, opening the bag as wide as she could. She found no bills, no paperwork…

  Nothing to explain why the man was so intent on getting rid of this, as if he were a dog ferreting away a bone. Didn’t even smell like garbage, really, beyond the stale sugar of emptied soda cans.

  “Maybe just dump it out?” Mia tapped the toe of one boot on the ground, patience slipping. Emma didn’t blame her. This was starting to feel like a waste of time, even to her.

  Emma grabbed another cardboard box as the first had become full. She reached in for two more cans when a splash of dark red on bright yellow caught her eye. She pushed her gloved hand between junk food wrappers and napkins, snagging what looked to be a bathing suit.

  “Agent Last has removed what appears to be a yellow swimsuit or leotard from the bag. The crotch area appears to be stained.”

  It was a leotard. Emma pulled the discarded fabric out and held it up for Mia to capture a clear image.

  “Can you hold this while I get another box?”

  Mia took the leotard, holding it in front of her tablet’s camera, while Emma retrieved a new box from beside the dumpster. She took a moment to find the cleanest one she could.

  With Mia still recording, Emma laid the evidence inside the box before stooping back to the bag, just in case O’Rourke had tried to hide something else. She propped the bag open with her elbow and dug into the contents, gasping when she pulled out a pair of little girls’ underwear. The fabric was decorated with unicorns and rainbows. Blood stained the crotch of the panties as well. Anger welled in her throat as Emma stood, holding the garment in front of Mia’s tablet.

  “Agent Last has removed a pair of child-sized undergarments from the bag, and the crotch area is likewise stained with what appears to be blood.”

  Emma didn’t need to say anything. Mia’s usual smile had fallen away entirely, her mouth agape.

  Goose bumps raised Emma’s flesh—maybe from the cold, or maybe from what they’d found. No ghosts seemed to be present, so her physical reaction wasn’t supernatural. As Mia kept recording, Emma fumbled through her equipment for evidence bags.

  “I really hope this isn’t what it looks like, Mia.”

  “You mean you think there’s a reasonable explanation for why a fifty-something man has a child’s bloody underwear in his trash?”

  “I mean, Bunny Weaver is old enough to have her period. It doesn’t make sense for her clothes to be in his trash, but maybe she just started her cycle and was afraid, so she put the clothes in there without him knowing it.”

  “You’re being awfully generous about a guy we know has a thing for younger girls.”

  “I know. That’s why I said, ‘I hope.’”

  A quickly approaching figure caught Emma’s eye as she sealed the bag with the leotard in it. Leo was striding up with his normal friendly smile. His curls bounced from his quick pace, but he slowed as he came within a few feet and saw the trash strewn about. Then he saw what they were bagging.

  Leo’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is that?”

  Emma slid the panties into another bag while Mia recorded the entire process. “O’Rourke’s trash.”

  She remembered Leo’s face during their midnight adventure. He’d come all the way out here in the middle of the night to make sure a little girl wasn’t being hurt. And now all his suspicions appeared confirmed. A bright red flush began at his collar and spread to his jawline.

  Leo’s lips flattened into a scowl that would’ve scared her if she hadn’t known the man. His expression only confirmed what Emma had suspected, that she always wanted to stay on his good side.

  He whirled around and was off at a sprint before she could say that or anything else.

  “Shit.” Emma’s stomach tightened as Mia and she recorded, labeled, and stowed away the evidence, both their fingers fumbling as they rushed to finish the chore. They needed to call Jacinda, and more than that, they had to catch up with Leo before mistakes were made.

  He was going after O’Rourke.

  21

  Damn the circumstances. I should’ve gone after him last night.

  Leo banged on O’Rourke’s camper door again, but this knock had no more effect than the first. “FBI, Mr. O’Rourke. Open up!”

  After a four count, Leo gave up on anyone getting inside and jumped down from the stoop, hitting the ground at a run. If the man wasn’t home, maybe he was looking for some afternoon delight with his most recent arm candy, Calliope Langley.

  Swerving around the corner of the camper, Leo nearly mowed down a middle-aged couple. He didn’t bother stopping. “Sorry!”

  The image of the bloodied yellow leotard haunted his vision like a nightmare, pushing his steps faster. And those little panties…

  Calliope’s cotton-candy-pink camper was lit up, bright light shining through the blinds. His fist hit the door before he’d come to a full stop.

  “Agent Leo Ambrose, FBI. Open the door now!”

  The over-rouged makeup artist opened the door a moment later. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and wide, maybe from a lack of sleep or maybe from crying, but Leo’s focus was already beyond her.

  Over her shoulder, leaned back against an old dresser, the white-haired ringmaster was all but trembling.

  Good.

  Clearly, the old man knew what was coming. He’d barely opened his mouth when Leo lunged past Calliope.

  Gripping O’Rourke’s arm, Leo swung him around to face the counter, leaning into him hard and speaking under his breath as he did.

  “Reggie O’Rourke, we found what you were hiding in your trash. I’m going to see to it that you pay for whatever evil you’ve done to that little girl.” He pushed him harder into the dresser, enjoying the “ooph” the ringmaster let out as the shove stole the breath from him. “And anyone else.”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Calliope threw on a V-necked sweater over her crop top. Her voice filled the small space, proof that Leo had already gone too far. But there was no erasing the visual of that leotard and underwear from his mind.

  Especially not now, when he finally had O’Rourke dead to rights.

  Calm down, Leo, my man.

  “I’m Special Agent Leo Ambrose.” He breathed out, forcing himself to at least sound calm. “I’m going to search you for weapons.”

  He kicked apart O’Rourke’s feet and leaned one elbow and forearm into the man, forcing him to lean over the dresser. “Do you have any weapons on you? Anything that could be used as a weapon?”

  “No. No, there’s nothing on me!” O’Rourke’s whimper suggested he spoke the truth. But Leo ignored the ringmaster as he kept blubbering. “Agent, Agent, I haven’t done anything. I swear. Please, my stomach…”

  It was all Leo could do to hold back from punching the ringmaster’s face in. He patted O’Rourke down while Calliope shrieked at him.

  “You’ve crossed the line, Agent. Stop it!”

  He blocked out her shrill voice, keeping his focus on the ringmaster. There was only one little girl in the circus small enough to fit into that yellow leotard. Only one.

  And this rat bastard has a record.

  Leo had just finished running his hands over the man’s hips when a bustle of commotion behind them signaled the rest of the team had arrived.

  Before he could turn, Calliope turned her anger to the incoming agents. “This is an abuse of power. We have rights!”

  O’Rourke heightened his sobs, giving weight to Calliope’s accusations.

  Leo cringed as he pulled the man’s shirt back into place. Had he left a bruise on his ribs by pushing the man into the dresser? Maybe.

  “I was just detaining Mr. Reginald O’Rourke under suspicion—”

  O’Rourke howled, bringing thirty years of ringside experience to bear.

  “Agent Ambrose, step away!” SSA Hollingsworth’s command rang through the chaos of the trailer.

  Leo took a step away from O’Rourke. But he didn’t want to. “Ma’am, I was just—”

  “Outside. Now.”

  He followed her to the door, past an open-mouthed Emma.

  Back in the trailer, in a much calmer tone than Leo had used, Vance explained to O’Rourke and Calliope that the ringmaster was being detained—not arrested, not yet—and would be taken to the nearest police station for questioning.

  Jacinda stalked out of range of the camper. She stopped beside one of the rare oaks decorating the fairgrounds and leaned one arm against its trunk as if to anchor herself.

  At first, she didn’t look at him, although Leo had stayed right behind her, more than aware of the seething anger radiating from her every frosty breath.

  “What the hell did you think you were doing? No.” She raised a hand, stopping whatever he was going to say. “Never mind. Don’t you dare answer that, because you know better. Agent Ambrose, I know you, and you know better.”

  Leo’s heart pounded with adrenaline, but he kept quiet.

  Jacinda had brought him with her from Miami, and he’d just embarrassed her—in front of her new team, no less. He could see her fair skin turning bright red beneath her collar.

  “Agent Ambrose, you are going to pull your shit together.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This case is complicated enough without you roughing up suspects. Do you want a potential perpetrator to walk?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then I expect you to be at the top of your game. If you persist in harassing suspects, you’ll be suspended immediately. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, SSA Hollingsworth, I do.”

  “But?”

  So she’d heard the hedge in his terse answers after all.

  “But there’s a reason I went to his camper to begin with. Reggie O’Rourke has to answer for what he’s done. Someone has to protect that little girl…” He broke off, anger building pressure in his chest. There was no reason to say the unthinkable when his supervisor had to be thinking the same.

  “We all want to protect innocents and children, Leo. It goes without saying, or it should. And, yes, I agree that man has to answer for whatever he’s done. Of course. But that’s what the law and the courts are for, if the man is proven guilty of anything. You remember that part of the law, Agent Ambrose? Innocent until proven guilty? Or did I miss the jury trial on his crimes today?”

  That bloodied yellow leotard and underwear were so clear in Leo’s mind, as if they were hanging on a laundry line between them.

  It killed him that she was right. But she was. “Sorry, SSA Hollingsworth. It won’t happen again.”

  She sighed, and he watched the tension in her shoulders release. “Leo, you’re an amazing agent. That’s why I brought you with me from Miami, so that I’d have someone I knew and could trust. And you have great instincts to go with that drive of yours. But I need you to stay in control. You can’t go rushing off like a bull seeing red whenever your savior complex kicks into high gear, not if you want to remain with this team. Tell me you understand.”

  Leo made himself nod, acknowledging the responsibility he had to both of them. He’d do better. He had to.

  “All right, then. Vance and Denae are going to drive O’Rourke to the nearest station for questioning. You may come, but you will not be participating in the interrogation.”

  Without giving him time to reply, Hollingsworth finger-combed her red hair and turned on her heel, heading toward the staging area.

  Leo remained ramrod straight for a few breaths more. He should’ve been berating himself for stepping over the line with O’Rourke. He’d endangered his standing with the team. Instead, the ringmaster’s whimpered protests and nonsensical sobs rang on repeat like an obnoxious earworm.

  So what if he’d scared the man? No doubt, O’Rourke deserved it.

  Still, Leo promised himself he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He needed to get control of himself if he wanted to remain in a position to help people, to protect them.

  This was the Violent Crimes Unit. Bad shit happened…and it happened to good people. Sometimes, he’d be too late to save innocents.

  That was the reality of the world they lived in, and he knew it only too well.

  He fingered his Saint Jude pendant, given to him by his grandmother after he’d been hired on at the FBI. Patron saint of lost causes. “That won’t be me.”

  Leo pressed the pendant back beneath his button-down, shaking off the thought. Maybe his team would get called in after good people got hurt, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t save some.

  He could still save Bunny.

  His only prayer was that the leotard hadn’t been bloodied that morning, or any time after he and Emma had left O’Rourke last night. If that ended up being the case, Leo wasn’t sure what he’d do.

  Despite promises made to the contrary.

  22

  Mia leaned against the wall beside the one-way glass revealing the interrogation room.

  Inside, Reggie O’Rourke sat sweating at the little table. In baggy blue jeans held up by suspenders, a t-shirt sporting the Ruby Red’s logo, and a stiff-looking cardigan, the man appeared beaten and scared. Even his normally bushy hair hung limp. Mia doubted anyone who’d seen him perform would’ve been able to recognize him in his current state.

  Behind her, Vance posed the essential question. “You okay with heading in and playing the ingenue, Mia? Sounds like the best idea.”

  Why can’t Emma be the ingenue to this guy today?

  “Yeah, of course, that’s fine.”

  The team’s conclusion made sense on the surface. They’d determined she was the most similar to this man’s type—young, pretty, smart, and warm—so she should be the one to question him.

  Among the women, she was the one most likely to pass for someone in her early twenties. Even though she was a few years older than Emma, Mia’s dimples belied her to be the younger of the two.

  The irony of the situation was lost on everyone except Mia herself. No matter how warm and friendly she appeared, her insides were cold as ice these days.

  She hid the darkness that’d been percolating so well, though, that nobody noticed.

  And she’d hide the weight of her feelings from O’Rourke too. If being his type was what it took to drag the truth out of this scumbag, she’d welcome the chance to be the nail in his coffin. Bunny Weaver deserved no less.

  That little girl’s cherubic face was chained to the bloody underwear Emma had found. Both images lived in Mia’s mind as she considered the interrogation approach.

  She reapplied her cherry lipstick, slipped off her blazer so she was down to her long-sleeved button-down, and flashed her colleagues her sweetest smile. “Here I go.”

  Vance returned her grin. Denae high-fived her as she slipped out of the room.

  In the hallway, Mia added some extra sway to her hips and made sure to step lightly.

  When she entered the interrogation room to meet O’Rourke face-to-face over that table, he’d be hard-pressed to see her as FBI, despite the file folder she carried at her side.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. O’Rourke.”

  The man nodded, sweeping his hands up and through his hair as if to pat the strands into submission. It didn’t work. “And you are?”

  She smiled, sat down, and leaned forward. “Mr. O’Rourke, I’m Special Agent Mia Logan. I understand you believe this is all a misunderstanding. We’ll get all that figured out. You’ve been detained on suspicion of child endangerment and obstructing a federal investigation. But it’s the truth we’re after here, okay?”

  “O-okay.”

  Mia placed her hand on the table, almost close enough to touch him. “Just the truth, whatever that is. And I personally hope that means you’re innocent. In which case, I’m just here to help you.”

  The man blinked, taking her in.

  Mia remained silent to let her words sink in. She held her lips slightly open, a look engineered to show him she couldn’t wait to hear what he had to say. When he remained silent, she rested her hands loosely together and leaned forward farther.

  “I only need you to remain calm, cooperate, and be as helpful as possible. Can you do that, Mr. O’Rourke?”

  He squinted. Maybe concentrating, or maybe preparing to lie. “I understand.”

  “All right. Let’s start with the matter that brought the FBI to your circus to begin with.” She opened the file to glance inside for a few seconds, acting as if she didn’t have the victims’ names memorized. Nothing wrong with him thinking she was new to the case or unprepared, after all. “The murders of Penelope Dowe, Dennis Hamel, and Kyle Perkins. I understand everyone in your circus is pretty close, so I know this must be hard. Can you take your time and tell me about your relationship with the three victims?”

  O’Rourke coughed. Mia read the throat-clearing two ways. Some used it as a prompt to bring up false emotion. Others leaned on the technique to stall, giving them more time to come up with a lie. “I cared for them all like family, Agent Logan. Like family!” He paused, too theatrically. “May I call you Mia? That was it, correct? Mia?”