On A Night Like This (Callaways #1)

inspector with the San Francisco Police Department. He located missing persons and solved crimes for a living. He was damn good at his job. He'd closed more cases than anyone else. But he couldn't close the one case that meant the most to him. And he was starting to think he might never find his daughter again.
    He didn't want to give up, but time kept marching on. He picked up the photograph that he kept on his desk. Stephanie's blue eyes stared back at him. The picture had been taken on her sixth birthday. They'd gone to the beach, barbecued hot dogs and roasted marshmallows. For that day they'd been happy. It made him feel marginally better now to see the smile on her lips as she waved her marshmallow at the camera, the color in her sunburned cheeks, the traces of sand in her hair left over from when they'd made sand angels. What a great afternoon that had been. He'd never imagined it might be the last they would have together.
    Stephanie had his eyes, the same direct, intense expression. Looking at her was like looking in a mirror, but she didn't have his dark hair, she was blonde like her mother.
    Her mother …
    Fury ripped through him as he thought of his ex-wife. It was Jennifer who had stolen Stephanie from him, who had violated the custody agreement, who had turned his life into a living hell. Crazy, messed up Jennifer, who had somehow believed their daughter was better off with her. The only thing that had kept him from losing his mind completely was the knowledge that Jennifer loved Stephanie. He had to hope that she was being a good mother, that she'd found a way to shake the drugs and the bad friends, but he couldn't count on that being true. And he would never be able to relax until he had Stephanie back in his arms.
    Most of his friends and family had given up. They tried to pretend otherwise, but he knew the truth. It had been two very long years of false leads, dead ends and crushing disappointment. Stephanie's disappearance had once triggered Amber alerts, search parties and news media coverage. For months they'd set a place for her at family dinners. His mother had bought presents for every occasion, stashing them in a closet for some day . But some day seemed to be getting further and further away. He set the photo down on his desk, silently promising his daughter that he would never give up, no matter how long it took.
    Even as he made the promise, his gaze tripped over the stack of file folders on his desk. There were other missing kids, other victims, other people who needed his attention. As much as he wanted to devote himself full time to the search for his daughter, he also had to make a living. He'd spent the first year of Stephanie's disappearance crisscrossing the country, following endless clues that had ultimately gone nowhere. Eventually, he'd had to go back to work, if for no other purpose than to make enough money to keep a private investigator working on the case. Unfortunately, that investigator had also come up with nothing and had moved on to other clients. Two years of work and he was back at square one, as lost as he'd been that very first afternoon.
    "Wyatt, I have something you should see," Josh Burton said, waving him over.
    He got up from his desk to see what his friend and former partner had to say. He'd met Josh in the police academy eleven years earlier, and they'd worked their way up the ranks together. They'd once been partners, but during his six-month leave, Josh had partnered with someone else. Once Wyatt had come back, he'd been assigned a new partner. He was always happy to collaborate though. He'd done some of his best work with Josh.
    "I was reviewing the security footage we picked up from cameras in the area around Vincenzo's restaurant," Josh said.
    He nodded. They'd all spent some time working on the robbery/homicide at the popular North Beach restaurant. "What did you find?"
    "Take a look." Josh hit a button on his computer and the grainy video of the outside of a liquor store appeared. Three kids walked out of the store, pausing on the sidewalk to open a box of candy. There was a boy and two girls, all of whom appeared to be under the age of twelve. A moment later, the smallest girl turned her face toward the camera. In a split second, a pair of familiar blue eyes met his. His breath caught in his throat, and his heart began to race. Then she looked away, and the kids ran out of range of the camera.
    "Play it again," he ordered, adrenaline racing through