Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) Read online

  He had never believed in ghosts before—he wasn’t going to start now.

  A pink bicycle almost identical to the one he’d bought Emery for her birthday rested on its side next to the slide. It looked shiny and brand new. Pink streamers blew in the freezing late November wind.

  “No sign of the children,” Ed said. “The mother—they’re bringing her out now. It wasn’t easy. Rachel Sturvin, thirty-one. She’s in the hallway.”

  Max flinched inwardly. He knew exactly what the woman looked like. Warmly pretty, friendly, blond and blue-eyed with a classic appeal. She had had a clever sense of humor that came out when she felt comfortable, but she was a very reserved woman.

  She had felt comfortable in his kitchen with Jac. Rachel had practically stuck to Jac’s side for the entire party. Just helping where she could; she and Jac had laughed together and teased him, so comfortable with one another.

  Friends. She and Jac had been friends. Damn it.

  Rachel and Max had served on the damned PTA together.

  The last time he had seen her, she had been laughing with Jac over something her youngest daughter had said. While Jac held that four-year-old close. The little girl had hugged Jac before she’d left the party. Jac didn’t connect very often with people outside of PAVAD. He swore as he thought about what this would mean to Jac, once she learned what happened.

  This case was going to turn personal fast.

  Hell, it had been personal before it had even started.

  This shouldn’t have been a PAVAD case. Murder was a state crime, not federal. PAVAD shouldn’t be there right now.

  Ed knew the family, too. Several agents at PAVAD most likely did. No doubt, Ed had called in favors to get it.

  Neighbors stood in clusters in front of half the houses. Watching.

  There were always people watching. Max was used to it.

  PAVAD agents were the best of the best, too. Max wasn’t arrogant. He knew his own skills. He would use every one of those skills if it meant finding the answers to this. “You know much about the Sturvins? I spoke with them both at Emery’s birthday party. I know…knew her better than him. I’d just met him once or twice.”

  Ed shook his head. “Not much. Of course, I have all boys, and they’re a bit older than the Sturvins. My view might be a bit skewed, considering that.”

  “The Sturvins have two girls.” Emery was around two years or so older than the eldest Sturvin daughter. “Seven and four. Olivia and Ava. I probably have recent photos of them from the party on my personal phone. If I don’t, Jac Jones does. She…knew the mother better than I.”

  Ed nodded.

  Brynlock Academy was small, exclusive, and pricey. He and Emery’s mother agreed fully on one thing—Emery deserved the best education they could provide. Pamela had enough income to make that happen. Max would handle everything else, but Pamela paid for Emery’s education.

  Brynlock had some seriously tight security, thanks to a few extremely wealthy families—including Ed Dennis’s children and grandchild as well as the teenage brother of one of the wealthiest men in the world.

  The school would be in turmoil over what had happened to the Sturvins.

  Emery was there now; he’d dropped her off on his way to the scene. Max wished he’d kept her home with the housekeeper today.

  Worry for what was happening at Brynlock now snuck in.

  Personnel at the school might have heard about this by now. The news vans would have ensured that. Even some of the older kids would have heard. Brynlock was a small school. Rumors would spread fast.

  Max forced himself to focus on what he had to do. Brynlock had two licensed psychiatrists on staff. Personnel at the school were excellent. He knew that. Emery would be fine until he could get to her tonight. She was safe.

  “Anyone call the school to see if the children were there?” Max asked. “It’s a wild shot, but…”

  Ed nodded. “I did so myself. No signs of them. The school is going to play it by ear. They are already getting phone calls from worried parents. They don’t want older kids spreading rumors and scaring the lower grades. That’s inevitable. I’m sure my own boys will be talking about it.”

  Max shoved his own worry for his daughter aside. He had a duty here—to catch the bastard who’d done this. And find the Sturvins’ daughters. Those girls had been in Max’s house. They’d played with his daughter, laughed with her, and eaten food Max had prepared himself. He was going to find those little girls. So that he could look at his daughter and tell her honestly that he had done his best to do just that.

  “I met the father at Emery’s party,” Max said. He hadn’t been impressed. Paul Sturvin was the type of man who grated on other men’s nerves. The man was older than Max’s own thirty-six and had come across as believing he was superior to most of the other guests that day. Except for Max—and Ken Chalmers, former-pro NFLer turned PAVAD: CCU team leader.

  Paul had obviously wanted Ken’s attention.

  Max hadn’t forgotten that initial impression. Attention-seeking. External validation.

  But Paul had been involved with his daughters, and he and his wife had seemed happy together. That Max hadn’t cared for him personally didn’t mean the man had done this.

  No. He couldn’t jump to conclusions here.

  Paul Sturvin could be out there somewhere, hurt. Or somewhere completely innocent with his daughters. Or Paul and the girls could be out there, all of them injured. Dying. At this point, he couldn’t make any definitive predictions.

  Max tried to force those images out of his head now. He had to follow the evidence. Not speculation. “I know the mother better.”

  “Rachel Mills Sturvin. Her thirty-first birthday was last month. I gave her a card,” someone said quietly behind him. “I…just saw what happened to her.”

  Max turned at the familiar voice. He winced. He’d hoped he would be able to break the news to her himself, back at PAVAD. He’d wanted to protect her from seeing…this. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “They just called me in. My…address and phone number are on a note stuck to the fridge. We had made plans to meet Saturday. She was going to help me plan my landscaping for the new house. Rachel offered to help me get my yard in order. She worked as a landscaper before she met her husband. She was planning to get back into it once Ava was in school all day. I was going to help her out, be her first client. She wanted to turn my whole yard into a sample brochure this summer. She was planning it in great detail.” Jac was shaken. He could tell that with one look at her green eyes, though her outward appearance showed nothing but cool professionalism.

  And wouldn’t until the case was over and they’d found their answers. Everything was bottled up now. Compartmentalized. Zipped up inside so she could face what she had to do.

  It was how she dealt with things. Work first; fall apart later. He’d seen it dozens of times before. Max had always been there to help her put herself back together again. He made a vow that he would do just that this time, too.

  “You were friends?” Ed asked quietly. “Close?”

  “No, not close. More casual than anything. I spent a good deal of time with her at Emery’s party, at sporting events, Brynlock field trips, that sort of thing. We worked snacks at Brynlock together several times, supervised field trips, she helped with sports events that I attended. She seemed lonely, and very shy with the crowd. Intimidated by people. She’d mentioned her closest friend moved away about six months ago. I think she was looking for connections. Outside of the girls. We’ve run into each other before, at Brynlock. Helped in the group A events.” Brynlock grouped different grades and classes into larger groups for assemblies and celebrations so the children could mingle outside of their classes and grades. Emery was group A. She’d asked Jac to help so many times before because it was usually mothers that helped with the classes.

  Max had many times before, but his daughter was all about fitting in with the other girls now. Apparently, Max tended t
o stand out like a sore thumb among eight- and nine-year-old kids.

  Jac hadn’t. Jac had stepped up that first time three years ago, when Pamela had cancelled last minute. Jac probably knew some of the Brynlock parents better than he did.

  “Are you going to be able to handle this case on a personal level, Jaclyn?” Ed asked quietly. “I had them call you when I saw your name in the kitchen. If you can’t…can you give Team Two what you know about the family, and formally recuse yourself? I’m not going to push you to do this case, if you don’t feel you can be objective. If it is too painful. I’ll be telling the others connected to Brynlock the same. There’s no shame in not being able to handle this. Seeing a…friend…like this, it is not something I ever want my people to have to go through.”

  Jac pulled in a deep breath. “Yes. I can do this. More, I want to do this. For her. I think she deserves my help. She wasn’t a good friend, Director, but she could have been eventually. I have the skills to find her killer. More than that, I want to. She didn’t deserve this.”

  “No. That she most certainly didn’t.”

  Max followed the director’s gaze. To the bloodstains so garishly red on the white concrete drive that were washing away with the rain. The forensics teams were moving as fast as they could, but they were only human.

  There was only so much any of them could do.

  There was nothing to be done for Rachel now—other than to find her family, and the answers. “No one does.”

  Jac looked at him, finally. He could see the pain in her eyes she thought she was hiding. “Max? Where are the girls? Where are Rachel’s daughters?”

  Max couldn’t answer.

  Because he just didn’t know.

  34

  Paul had spent five and a half years getting to this point. But Rachel…Rachel had destroyed it, destroyed him.

  Paul felt devastated.

  There was a lot of work involved in what would come next.

  Paul pulled in a deep breath and tried to reassure himself.

  He’d done it before. He had done it before and healed.

  He hadn’t meant for this to happen to Rachel. He had loved her for the years they’d been together. Had protected and provided to the best that he could.

  Sadness threatened; Paul pushed it aside.

  He opened his phone. He needed to see, to remind himself of what he was supposed to be doing now.

  Jaclyn Jones was in the first photo he opened. He’d meant to open one of the girls. He lived for his daughters now.

  But it was Jaclyn Jones he stared at now.

  She was beautiful. Paul touched the screen lightly.

  He had taken the first photo at the Brynlock carnival. The lighting had been perfect. He had captured this first image while she had been half turned, next to that ex-jock buddy of hers. Max Jones hadn’t been that far from her the entire night.

  Her lips were parted in a half smile. The red of her hair shown beautifully in the light of the gym.

  At the angle the photo was taken, she was looking right at him. At Paul.

  Which made sense; she most likely was looking right at Paul. That had been confirmed when she had first noticed him at the birthday party.

  Their eyes had met, right there in that damned Max Jones’s foyer. He had been so angry that day, angry that Rachel had defied him. Watching Jaclyn that day had soothed him so that he was not nearly as angry with Rachel as he could have been.

  He needed that right now, needed it after what Rachel had made him do. Rachel just hadn’t understood what he had been working for all this time.

  Nothing he had done or said had made her understand. Had erased that look of disappointment from her eyes.

  He’d failed her. Paul had had no choice but to finally make it right. He had. Now, he had to make it right for their daughters. If nothing else, he owed Rachel that one thing.

  Paul was going to find his daughters. Find his girls, tell them about their mother, put St. Louis behind them, and move on.

  He couldn’t do that if he was fantasizing about a woman he barely knew at all.

  The girls. He had to focus on them. He couldn’t fail his children again.

  35

  Today was going to be his day. Todd just knew it. He’d heard the reports on the radio as he’d driven in to PAVAD. Something horrific had happened somewhere in Old Jamestown. Something that was drawing the news vans there like vultures. The radio had reported that PAVAD was already on scene.

  The PAVAD: FBI teams were already being called in.

  He was going to be on one of those teams.

  It didn’t matter where he was in PAVAD. He just wanted PAVAD. For the time being anyway.

  He was here now. Time to do his thing. Earn his spot, move on, and then watch as the damned division completely imploded. When he entered conference room 6B, there were three women inside. Sweat slicked his palms when they looked at him.

  Hot. The three of them were hot. He straightened his shoulders and smirked at them. He recognized two of them.

  He’d had a thing for Jaclyn Jones long before he’d known who her father was. But now that he knew who her father was, that was just icing on the cake.

  He’d hook up with her eventually. Todd tended to get every woman he wanted. He was in no hurry. He had too much to do right now to worry about chasing a woman.

  The hunt was part of the fun. Especially since rumors said she’d just recently ended things with her longtime lover, that other Agent Jones.

  There were two other women on each side of her. He couldn’t remember the one’s name, a computer tech who he thought had once worked in the same Texas field office he had. A bit young for Todd’s taste. He’d worked a few places over the last five years.

  He hadn’t paid much attention to any of the techs back then.

  He still didn’t. But he remembered this one, mostly. Because of the wheelchair.

  She was usually in a wheelchair when he saw her. Today, she was on crutches.

  The other woman was long, tall, and hot. Arrogant bitch, though. She always had been. She had reddish-brown hair that curled down her back wildly. Untamed.

  That was a good word for her. Wild and uncontrollable when a guy got too close. She’d probably even bite, if given half a chance.

  And not in a good way.

  She always looked at him like he was a slug.

  Yeah, he remembered Dr. Miranda Talley well, too.

  “Dr. Talley, Agent Jones,” Todd said, then looked at the third woman, expectantly.

  He didn’t remember her name—and she knew that. She just smirked back at him, not saying a word.

  Dr. Talley stood. She was around five eleven or so. Only three inches or so separated them in height. That had always irritated him. No doubt, the bitch knew that. She liked being able to look men straight in the eye. Got off on it, he thought. Probably wished she was a dude or something, but was too chicken to make that happen.

  “Look who’s here. Shouldn’t you be down in Texas harassing people in the Dallas office?”

  “I’m here now. Trying out PAVAD for a case or two to decide if I like it, if it’s a good enough appointment for me. Got the paperwork last week. Dennis told me to find Agent Jones. She’s supposed to fill me in on what we know on this case so far.” Todd turned his attention to Jaclyn and sent her his winningest smile.

  The one that had always worked with women before.

  Well, most women, anyway.

  He waited, puzzled by her lack of reaction.

  Jaclyn didn’t say a thing. She barely looked at him.

  “Jaclyn? Can you tell me what we’re doing here today?”

  36

  Barnes was invading Jac’s space when Max made it in from the scene and into the conference room. She didn’t even seem aware of it.

  He took a quick look around the conference room at the people quietly speaking to one another. He had a team now. Miranda occupied the chair next to the whiteboard.

  Miranda want
ed to feel useful. She hated the cast. That was clear to see. His eyes met hers, and she nodded. She was back and would do what she could in spite of the cast on her arm.

  Whitman waited quietly for instructions. He’d started off as a young, enthusiastic agent around eight or nine years ago. He’d grown more solemn as he’d gained more experience in the bureau.

  He was good at what he did, but tended to blend into the background at times. Max had worked with him many times before. Jac always said he had the absent-minded professor thing going on. He was dependable. Steady and detail-oriented.

  On a case like this, it was going to be necessary. Jac stood, started walking around the room.

  Max watched her for a moment.

  Barnes was watching her, too.

  “What do we know so far?” Jac asked suddenly, looking straight at Max.

  “This is it? The team?” Barnes asked. “Shouldn’t there be like an entire squad? Go in with a major task force.”

  “We have more agents on standby with Agent Lytel, ready to do whatever we need. First, we need to figure out what we’re dealing with here,” Jac said.

  “Let’s go over what we’ve got,” Max said. He turned to the woman seated next to Miranda. “Dani, show us what you’ve got so far.”

  37

  Jac tried not to flinch when the crime scene photos sharpened on the screen. Rachel’s face dominated the first image. Followed by one of an innocent older woman who looked so much like Miranda’s grandmother Jac had to fight back nausea.

  What had been done to Edith Lindsay was the worst kind of crime imaginable, next to those against children. If someone had done that to Flo Talley…

  Edith wouldn’t have been able to fight back.

  Any more than Rachel had been able to.

  The next photos on the screen were of the Sturvin family. Individual snapshots taken from Jac’s own phone. Paul, unsmiling near the pile of presents. Olivia in Max’s kitchen, holding a red cup of punch and smiling. Ava in the garage of Max’s home.