Burning (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 11)

  Other Titles by Calle J. Brookes

  Paranormal

  The Blood King

  Awakening the Demon’s Queen

  The Healer’s Heart

  Once Wolf Bitten

  Live or Die

  The Seer’s Strength

  The Warrior’s Woman

  The Wolf’s Redemption

  A Warrior’s Quest

  The Wolf God & His Mate

  Out of the Darkness

  Warrior Blind

  The Witch

  Balance of the Worlds

  The Outcast

  The Forlorn

  Romantic Suspense

  Watching

  Wanting

  Second Chances

  Hunting

  Running

  Redeeming

  Revealing

  Stalking

  Beginning

  Waiting

  Burning

  Coming Soon

  The Healer’s Soul

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

  For my grandfather, the best man I have ever known. You will be missed. 10/2/2015

  BURNING

  Calle J. Brookes

  Springs Valley, Indiana

  The Lost River Lit Publishing, L.L.C. name and imprint are the sole properties of independent publishers Calle J. Brookes and B.G. Lashbrooks. They cannot be reproduced or used in any manner; nor can any of their publications or designs be used without expressed written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, or locations, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2015 Calle J. Brookes

  Cover by CJ Brookes

  All rights reserved.

  BURNING

  A PAVAD NOVEL

  Chapter 1

  Merrick Cody knew how blessed she was to have a child. There was nothing she would not do for the little girl curled around her. But that didn’t mean Lucy was an easy child.

  Grief made that inevitable.

  She’d never thought she’d be lucky enough to have the five year old, but she would never forget that the only reason the little girl had her was because of horrors no small child should ever experience.

  Her grief was manifesting in sleepless nights, bed-wetting and extreme separation anxiety.

  Cody wasn’t certain she was the best person to help Lucy through it. She still wasn’t certain she’d finished grieving for those she’d lost in her own past. Lucy’s arms slipped around her neck as Lucy finally settled into a fitful sleep. Cody continued to rock in the wooden chair that she had found at a yard sale back when secondhand furniture was all that she could afford.

  Sometimes she thought she needed the feel of the little warm body just as much as Lucy needed comforted, too.

  But…she had at least an hour’s worth of paperwork to go over before the next day, and the dishwasher—that she’d been meaning to fix when she had time—had quit completely four hours earlier.

  It would be a few hours, at least, before she found her own bed.

  And by then Lucy would be awake and screaming from the night terrors that continued to plague her.

  Would they ever get past this part? How long would the nightmares last? She’d spoken to three different child psychiatrists in the past eighteen months, and they had all given her basically the same answer.

  Time. Lucy would heal with time, as much as it was possible. The little girl would always have nightmares, but they would lessen. Post-traumatic stress disorder was a serious condition that would plague Lucy for the rest of her life.

  It was up to Cody to help her deal with it. Accept it, and learn to live with it.

  If she was able, that was.

  Sometimes she wondered what her friend Luc had been thinking the night he’d shown up on her doorstep, holding Lucy close to his chest.

  He’d begged Cody to take the little girl, though they’d known nothing about her at the time. Luc, one of the richest guys in Missouri, had promised her that he’d ensure the legalities were taken care of.

  And he had.

  Though she hadn’t been Lucy all those months ago.

  She’d been the younger daughter of an illegal Russian couple, who’d lost their older daughter to human traffickers.

  They had had no one in the States when they’d been murdered, and Luc said they’d had no one in their home village, either.

  Lucy had been all alone.

  And Luc had found her.

  Together she and Luc had made a plan for the little girl, to protect her from the people who had taken her sister and murdered her parents when they’d fought for their daughter.

  And now Lucy had her.

  Sometimes the fear was overwhelming to her, too.

  They had never caught the men responsible for killing Lucy’s parents. Luc hadn’t stopped looking. They had never found her sister’s body, either. Cody prayed the girl was still out there, somewhere. If she was, Luc would find her. Cody had absolute faith in that man.

  She rocked for a moment longer, then shifted Lucy’s weight, hoping she wouldn’t wake. It was a crap-shoot. Sometimes Lucy slept deeply and could be easily moved from rocker to bed.

  Sometimes the faintest touch was all it took to have her screaming again.

  Tonight she was lucky. Lucy snuggled her face into her My Little Ponies pillow and sighed. Cody just stood and watched her for a moment.

  Lucy was an absolutely beautiful child. And Cody loved her beyond measure.

  She truly was a gift from God, all problems aside. And Cody knew it.

  The paperwork in the hallway was the exact opposite. They had fourteen people out of the lab with a virus, and every supervisor—no matter what department in the lab—was doing triple duty to make up for it.

  And that included her.

  She’d accepted the promotion to automotive forensics supervisor two months ago. The work hadn’t stopped since.

  The files called out to her from the secondhand coffee table she’d taken with her after her divorce seven years ago.

  But she didn’t want to listen.

  Cody headed toward the kitchen just as someone knocked on her door.

  She checked the clock. Almost eleven p.m.

  The last time someone had knocked on her door that late, Luc had given her Lucy. And after ten, there was a doorman in the lobby. Whoever was knocking had to pass that doorman somehow.

  And Frank always made guests sign in. It had to be someone she knew, didn’t it?

  Was something wrong? Irrational fear rushed her as she thought of the people she loved.

  ***

  Sin Lorcan would rather eat nails than stand where he was in that moment. But he would never let that show.

  Someone opened their door a few apartments down from where he waited, but he doubted they’d step out this late. Doubted they would question him being there. He suspected his two brothers, identical to him in appearance, had been at Merrick’s apartment many times.

  Misidentification had been behind the ease he’d had in getting past the doorman. The guy had buzzed Sin right in
with just a wave.

  Almost too easily.

  How often had Seth or Seb been here?

  Had their wives accompanied them?

  Something tugged on his hand and he looked down. His four-year-old son should have been in bed hours ago. Instead, he’d had to accompany his father on this wild goose chase.

  Ed Dennis, Sin’s new boss in the PAVAD—Prevention & Analysis of Violent Acts Division of the FBI—needed to fucking hire more people. Funding or not. They just needed more bodies.

  Sin’s job was to analyze trends in data. To use the numbers to almost predict where the next crime spree of violence would happen. At least that was his cover story for being in the PAVAD division.

  In truth, he’d been brought in by the director personally to sniff out the traitors and leaks in PAVAD. Every weakness and trouble spot. And he knew there were more than one. He’d collared the first one that afternoon.

  The next to find would definitely be the one in forensics. There was a strong paper trail there. He just needed the help of the supervisor most directly affected.

  Her.

  He’d been in meeting after meeting today, and had just picked up Tyler at the sitter’s twenty minutes ago. It had been a traumatic one for the PAVAD division—Sin had arrested Saul Hernandez, an agent from his brother’s team, that afternoon and everyone involved was in an uproar.

  Including the director. It was with him and his brother Seb that Sin had spent most of the evening, determining how much of a cluster fuck Hernandez had left the division. The guy had been an integral part of CCU team three, one of the top teams in PAVAD. His arrest was going to make ripples. Bad ones.

  His son should be asleep. And it was Sin’s fault he wasn’t.

  As soon as he picked up the Elletson and Comprayo files from Merrick, they would head home. And he wouldn’t let this happen to Tyler again. He should have taken the sitter up on the offer to keep him for the night, but Tyler had needed his own bed. Period.

  No doubt the boy’s mother had kept him out to all hours before.

  Sin had made a vow to his son the day he’d shown up virtually on Sin’s doorstep. The little boy wouldn’t be neglected ever again.

  That vow hadn’t lasted six months, had it? Sometimes guilt ate a real hole in his gut when he thought of what his son had gone through. Tyler, the best part of his life, had gone through hell with his mother before she’d died. Sin had never understood why she’d done what she’d done. How was he ever going to explain it to Tyler?

  Merrick—he’d never been able to think of her by her last name—opened her door.

  And Sin once again forgot how to breathe, just looking at the woman who had once been married to his brother.

  Chapter 2

  Cody stared. The last person she’d ever expect to show up at her door was glaring at her. Why was he there? Had something… “Sebastian? Carrie? The baby? Are they all right? Al and Seth? What are you doing here?”

  “Daddy, I have to go potty!”

  Cody looked down into the green eyes of a miniature replica of the man. She’d met his son several times before, though he had kept the boy separated from her whenever he could. Tyler was quiet and serious and so much like his father it was uncanny. Although in a four year old it was adorable. The father—not so much. “I have a bathroom. Bring him in.”

  “Everyone is fine. I need some files. You have copies of them signed out, and you were closer. I didn’t want to take Tyler to PAVAD.”

  And she was on his way home, wasn’t she? Good old Sin, rude and abrupt and glaring at her. Like always. “My files are on the coffee table there, though I’m sure the PAVAD database would have what you need. Printer’s in my bedroom if you need to scan your own copy. Second door on the left. First door is Lucy’s room, and I just got her back to sleep. Try not to wake her. Tyler, baby, the bathroom’s in here, ok?”

  It was just Sin, after all. She could trust him in her house—she might not get along well with him, but she’d known him for twenty-five years. There was some trust there. But it was easier to deal with the most immediate issue. She’d much rather deal with the preschooler than his father.

  Cody really needed easy right then. Sometimes it seemed like every challenge Lucy faced was going to break the both of them. Unless she found a way to keep everything together.

  She turned her back on the man and focused on the boy. And fell hard, once again. It was the eyes. Lorcans always had eyes that could melt your soul. Tyler was no exception.

  He clung to her hand, quiet and timid.

  His fear reminded her strongly of Lucy’s. She’d heard the little one’s history from Sebastian’s wife Carrie and Seth’s wife Alessandra—two women she counted among her best friends, despite her previous marriage to Sebastian.

  Sin, the great infallible Mr. Perfect who had hated Cody since she was a teenager, had fathered a child with a lover.

  And then that lover had moved away, taking Sin’s son with her, not telling him about the baby. When she’d been killed in a car accident, the woman’s mother had shown up on Sin’s door with Tyler, almost two years ago.

  He’d become a father overnight. Just like she had become a mother. Something odd for them to have in common, wasn’t it? And he was still struggling with it—at least according to Al.

  Cody could understand—and feel great empathy—for that struggle.

  If Sin was struggling, it was affecting this sweet little boy holding her hand. And Tyler didn’t deserve that.

  She waited patiently while he used the toilet, then she helped button his jeans and supervised him washing his hands. Then he solemnly lifted his arms to her and stole her heart.

  He looked so much like his father—which meant he looked so much like his uncles, two men that she loved dearly and always would.

  She held him a moment and pushed old, painful memories away. “Buddy, I bet it’s way past your bedtime, isn’t it? Why don’t you lay your head down right here on my shoulder while Daddy gets his papers, ok?”

  It surprised her when he did just that.

  She hummed a lullaby while she carried him down the short hall to the living room.

  His father was still in her bedroom. Cody wasn’t about to go in there with him. But there was a second rocking chair in the living room.

  It was perfect for rocking a sleepy child. She pulled a throw from the nearby couch. She wrapped it around the little body in her arms and settled them both in the chair.

  She continued to sing as she rocked. His eyes quickly drooped, and a bit of slobber slid out the side of his mouth. She wiped it with a tissue from the end table. Within seconds he slipped into sleep.

  She just kept rocking, kept singing. Kept holding and remembering.

  Chapter 3

  Merrick had always had the sweetest voice. Her father had called it the voice of a slightly mischievous angel. Sin had thought it more that of a siren, able to lure unsuspecting males to her side. It had always pulled at his gut.

  That the words she sang to his son were those to an old folk song mattered little. When she sang, he always had to stop and listen. Damn her.

  It had been seven years since she’d divorced his brother Sebastian. Yet she still pulled at Sin. She probably always would. It didn’t help that she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Which was saying a lot, as he had some damned gorgeous sisters-in-law.

  But Merrick? Maybe it was the blue of her eyes that drew him in, as well as her siren’s song? The curves he’d dreamed of so many damned times over the past fifteen years he couldn’t count anymore? The way his hands wanted to tangle in the dark brown mass of curls that she had yet to find a way to tame? There was just the tiniest bit of red in her hair, a trick of genetics that hinted at the fire the demon woman possessed.

  Tonight that red was highlighted by the low light burning in the corner of her small living room.

  Her arms held his son like it was the most natural thing in the world. She rocked. Tyler slept. Th
e little boy had never slept on Sin that way. Every time he’d tried to rock his son, Tyler had pulled away. Had Tyler just been that exhausted? Or was it just Merrick?

  She looked good holding a child. He had always thought so. The apartment held many signs of the little girl she’d adopted, too. He hadn’t seen them together often since he’d relocated to St. Louis, but his family mentioned her and the child all the time. Because they considered her family.

  She’d had the little girl about as long as he’d had Tyler, hadn’t she? Was it any easier for her than him?

  Sin almost slipped up and asked her. But he had never shown such vulnerability to Merrick—he wasn’t about to start now.

  “It’s past his bedtime.”

  She looked up at him. “Of course it is. I think mine is the only kid who is ever up this late.”

  “She’s sleeping now.” Of course the girl was. Why did Merrick always turn him into an idiot? A tongue-tied, internally drooling idiot.

  “Not for very long. Night time is hard for her. Did you find what you need?” She kept her words low as she rocked. One hand rested on his son’s hair, and she stroked Tyler’s head, absently. Easily.

  Like being a mother was the most natural thing in the world for her.

  Too bad Tyler’s own mother hadn’t felt the same. Sin was still trying to undo the damage she’d done to his son. “Yes. I’m not sure why the files were sent to your department, though. Not all are automotive forensics.”

  “No, they weren’t. I’m covering for Payton. That virus hit her hard. I’ve worked with her closely enough before to be able to sign off on the reviews for Questionable Documents.”