Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) Page 25

  His son.

  A man should have a son, after all. To pass on his legacy. Had Bentley died that day, all that was left of Philip Sullivan would have died, too. He would have been forgotten, invisible forever.

  He just hadn’t been able to stomach that thought, so he’d carried his son outside.

  A month later, Philip Sullivan had died, and he’d assumed the identity of the more successful twin. Become a man that he wasn’t, but that he had always known he was destined to be. Had he gone with the Sturvins when he’d been Ava’s age, who were far wealthier, perhaps he wouldn’t have become the man he had.

  “Daddy, I want Mr. Bird. I want Mommy. Where is Mommy?”

  She was what kept him breathing. Ava.

  If he hadn’t made the choices he had, Ava wouldn’t be here today. He could forgive himself his mistakes, because of her. The daughter he and Rachel had created was his most perfect child yet.

  Or she would be. After she had been trained.

  Paul just tightened his hold on his daughter and rocked until she fell into a fitful sleep. Olivia was already out, cuddled up on the run-down army cot in the corner. She was a far more biddable child in every way than his Ava. Biddable, tidier, easier to handle, far less demanding.

  But she would always be a poor second.

  This cabin…it had been his and his twin’s during the few times a year they were together again. They’d camped and fished and played. Enjoyed the short days they had together.

  No one had ever seen into his soul like his brother.

  And Paul…he had somehow figured out what Philip had done. Paul had confronted him. Threatened him. Threatened to take Bentley away, too. To take Bentley and give him to Paul’s own wife. To Rachel.

  While Philip rotted in a cage for what he had done to Holly and their daughters.

  He hadn’t been able to let that happen.

  So he had become Paul.

  He’d become Paul. For years, he had lived as his brother.

  But he’d failed at being Paul, too.

  He looked at his ill daughters—even though Olivia had been fathered by his twin, she was still the daughter of his heart—and he knew.

  He couldn’t keep failing his children. Not like he had before.

  It was time.

  Paul had to do something.

  Before it was too late for all of them.

  78

  Kalani, one of the PAVAD tip-line supervisors, came into the conference room two hours after Jac had come up with her theory. Max knew with one look at the older woman’s face that she had found something. He’d sent all of the team to follow up on various leads. In a few moments, he’d be slipping off to meet with the director about the latest find in the Anderson case. “Kal?”

  “Hello, Dr. Jones, I have something that might be relevant to your missing children case.” She handed him the standard tip-line report. “It was pretty specific. The clerk recalled seeing him on the news in the breakroom just ten minutes earlier. She’s a bit of a crime buff and pays attention. Especially when it’s missing kids.”

  “Did this clerk see the girls?” Max asked, taking the report. They’d already taken hundreds of tips. None had been relevant.

  One had even said they’d seen the ghost of Rachel Sturvin in their own dining room. On the table.

  In the midst of a séance.

  Then they’d claimed they were ancient vampires from Dardanos, Colorado. Rachel’s ghost was haunting a castle there, or something.

  That had been one of the better tips they’d received so far.

  “No. But the man she swears was Paul Sturvin, even right down to the birthmark on his neck—that’s what made this stand out to me—was buying children’s cold medicine and pediatric electrolytes and vapor rub. And two stuffed animals.”

  “Everything a father would buy when his kids suddenly come down with colds.”

  “Exactly. I must buy that stuff forty times a year with my kids. Seems like they bring everything possible home from school.”

  “No kidding. Emery is just now getting over a virus herself.”

  A virus she might very well have shared with the Sturvin girls. The autopsy reports had indicated that both Debbie Miller and Rachel Sturvin were in the early stages of having cold viruses. It wasn’t far out of the possibility that the girls were ill.

  The neighbor had said the little one was feeling ill and wanting her mother.

  Paul Sturvin/Philip Sullivan was out there now, with two sick little girls. Which could drastically slow him down.

  Or send him toppling over the edge.

  “We need to get someone out there to get the security camera footage of that pharmacy,” he said to the agent next to him. Barnes.

  Damn it. Still the man was superfluous now. He should be able to pick up some damned security videos without screwing up. “Barnes, go. Take someone from auxiliary, if you need to. Or Whit. Get the footage, confirm it was him.”

  “Got it. Jones…”

  Max looked at him more fully. Barnes was far more disheveled than he’d been earlier. There was a tightness around the man’s eyes, a good deal of the cocky arrogance was somehow gone. Max’s phone buzzed. A text from the director, demanding Max get to his office. He didn’t have time to figure out why. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. Just…thanks for not pushing me aside. I appreciate it. And…I’m sorry about Anderson. I heard about what happened and that he was a friend. I knew him a bit, too. If I don’t get a chance to say it, I wanted to now. I’m really sorry.”

  “Thanks. Andy was a good friend. And we’re going to find who killed him. We’ll never stop looking.”

  79

  Max texted her the tip. Jac knew he had been summoned to the director’s office. At the worst possible time.

  But that was the way it worked. Sometimes, cases overlapped. Sometimes, you felt split in half, trying to devote everything you could to each.

  She had fifteen open cases on her own desk, just waiting for her to have some sort of down time to work on them. Some cases were just more immediate than others.

  Miranda had left already. She was taking the little boy to a safe house, along with that guy who’d followed her back from Indiana.

  Miranda had a habit of collecting guys, it seemed. Not anything overt that her friend did, they just seemed to be attracted to her vivacious love of life. Most of the time, they ended up friends. Miranda had her own hang-ups where relationships were concerned that she’d have to deal with before she could have anything serious.

  Then again, that could be said for just about everybody.

  She read Max’s text, including the address of a pharmacy just over the Illinois border.

  The Illinois border.

  Something clicked.

  Jac turned and almost jogged back to the conference room. She almost collided with Agent Lytel.

  He caught her, wrapping strong hands around her elbows. “Best slow down, Agent Jones. There’s plenty of time to get to where you’re going.”

  “Sorry. I just…something’s tickling the back of my mind with the Sturvin case.”

  “Walk; don’t run. Keep your hands inside the vehicle. No running in the halls. And anything else I’ve told my own daughters.” He gave her a quick smile, then stepped back to let her pass.

  “Thanks, Eugene.” She’d worked with him time and time again before. A bit arrogant, but he was good at what he did.

  Of course, he was—he was PAVAD.

  She found Dani in the conference room, sitting in her chair, in front of the whiteboard just staring at it.

  That was a habit Jac had herself. Sometimes, she just had to see things in front of her to get the connections. “Dani, that list of properties owned by Philip Sullivan and his adoptive parents? Do you have it?”

  “Green file, I think. You’re on to something.” Dani turned the chair to watch Jac instead; that’s when Jac saw the little dog sound asleep on her friend’s lap. “Talk it out with me.”
<
br />   “See you’ve made a friend.”

  “Sadie’s not afraid of the chair. Edith had surgery last year, was wheelchair bound for a while. Sadie took one look at me and hopped right up. Seemed to settle easier. She’s been a nervous wreck since Shayna finished with her. She had to be checked out to one of our team. I volunteered.” She had a leash tied to the arm of the chair to keep the dog from getting loose. Not that the dog seemed inclined. She was settled on Dani’s lap, and now watching Jac unconcernedly.

  “They’re going to send her to the humane society.”

  “No, they aren’t. Sadie and I understand each other. She’s coming home with me.”

  Jac smiled. At least, there was one happy ending in the works for someone involved in this case. Even if it was just the dog.

  “So what are you thinking?” Dani asked.

  “I think we can narrow it down. Paul Sturvin was possibly seen at a pharmacy buying cold medicine two hours ago. Considering that most pharmacies are within half an hour of a person’s home…”

  “Whichever property is the closest to the pharmacy is the one where he’s most likely holed up,” Dani said, turning toward the digital board next to the whiteboard. With a few clicks of the remote, she had a satellite image on the screen.

  “What’s the address of the pharmacy?”

  Jac relayed that information quickly.

  80

  “We’ve cracked the code,” Ed Dennis said. He shot a grim look at Max. “Take a seat. This won’t take long. Where are you with the Sturvin case?”

  “We’re getting closer to narrowing down where he went. I just sent Barnes and Whitman to check surveillance tapes at a pharmacy where Paul was most likely spotted. But he’s not Paul.”

  With as few words as possible, he brought the director up to speed, ending with “He’s both a family annihilator and a serial killer. That changes the profile drastically. But it means we have more to go on.”

  Maybe. Now, they had to profile both Paul Sturvin—a man who had access to the resources the original Paul had created—and Philip Sullivan. Everything that Sullivan and Sturvin both were connected to would have to be checked. That was going to take time. “But we feel like we have a good handle on who we are looking for now. It’s just a matter of time before we narrow in on him.”

  “I have a wrench to throw in, Jones. Take a look at this. It’s the print-out of the decrypted files found on Andy’s memory cards. Look at the name highlighted.”

  Max flipped through the fifteen or so sheets of data. “Phone numbers?”

  “Yes. From a set of fourteen burner phones. The last page is where you’ll find the information that’s relevant.”

  Max turned the page one more time.

  There it was. In bright-yellow highlighter.

  “Paul Sturvin.”

  “Andy somehow found these fourteen phone numbers. And he was running everything down that he could. Checking call logs for those numbers. Sturvin’s number came up early on the list. Then this number here was activated. Seth didn’t know about it. But we have exonerated Andy from being involved with the leak. My thought is that he stumbled on to information somehow and was trying to verify it before he was killed.”

  Max’s gut twisted as memories of that night surfaced. “Which is most likely the reason he was killed in the first place.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Sturvin’s listed a few more times.”

  “Once a month, since July.”

  Max ran over the dates again. “These calls coincide with some data we found.”

  He opened his phone and brought up copies of Sturvin’s financial recorders. “Here.”

  He held his phone out for the director to see.

  “What is this I’m looking at?” Ed asked, taking the phone.

  “These calls coincide with fifteen-thousand-dollar deposits, made once a month, into Paul Sturvin’s bank account.” Max thought about what they knew about the man so far. “We have profiled him as an anomic family annihilator, motivated by financial failure or success. It’s possible that he has been selling PAVAD secrets. That is where these deposits came from.”

  “So if we find where those deposits come from, we’re this much closer to finding the ones responsible for Andy’s death,” the director said.

  Max looked at the data one more time. The final deposit into Sturvins’ account was for five times as much as the usual deposits.

  And was on the very day that Andy had been killed.

  “Is it possible Sturvin was hired to kill Andy? And this was the payout? Just what exactly did he have access to here at PAVAD?”

  81

  Jac studied the map as she listed the addresses of the Sullivan/Sturvin properties. There were five to isolate. “Mark the two to the east off.”

  “Ok, why?”

  “Too far away from the pharmacy. There is no way he would have left the girls that long, and I don’t think he’d have taken them in the car if they were that sick. The cabin owned by the Sullivans is at least three hours away by car. A road trip of three hours, with a sick child or two—that wouldn’t be something anyone would ever want to do. I’ve done it.” When Emery had been six, Max and Jac had taken her to the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, she’d come down with strep throat five hours from home on the trip back. Jac had ended up riding in the backseat with her, just to hold her and take care of her while Max had handled the driving. “That is not something any sane person ever wants to attempt again.”

  “The other here would have been about two and a half hours.” Dani removed it from the map. “That still leaves us three properties.”

  “Isolate the other pharmacies now.”

  “There is one other pharmacy, but it’s the same distance from the cabin here as the other pharmacy,” Dani said. “That’s not going to rule one property out over another.”

  “So how are we going to figure out which property he’s at?” Jac asked, almost to herself.

  “Do a massive sweep. Check them all,” Dani said. “It would split manpower, but it might be the only option.”

  “That’s probably exactly what we are needing to do. We just need enough bodies to do it.” Jac pulled out her phone. “I’m going to run down Max. Ball is in his court now. But one way or another, we’re going to search every cabin until we know where Paul Philip Sullivan Sturvin put his daughters. And then…we’re going to make him pay for what he’s done. For the people he’s hurt.”

  The dog barked, as if Sadie agreed one hundred percent.

  82

  Todd liked the pharmacist. She was smart, cute, and definitely no-nonsense. She knew exactly what she was talking about, and she wasn’t stupid about it. There weren’t any flirtatious games either. She knew they were there on important business. “It’s the guy from the television. I asked him how he was doing, if he had any questions about what he was buying. I got close enough to see the birthmark. It’s rather distinctive.” She pushed her glasses up on her little freckled nose and looked between him and Whitman.

  “What did he say? How did he act?” Whitman asked, his phone ever present as he took even more notes. He’d barely even looked at the pharmacist.

  The guy had some serious OCD tendencies, but Todd didn’t think he was too much of an ass. He half liked the guy.

  “He had a few questions about how much Pedialyte to give his kids. Said they were three and eight, weighing between thirty and sixty pounds. I helped him find that, handed him this bottle here.” She had a small bottle of pink pediatric electrolytes sitting on the counter next to her. “I put it in the zippered bag to keep any fingerprints on it from getting smudged after he left. I had on nitrile gloves already. So…he was the last one to touch that. He said his youngest was allergic to the food dye in it. He ended up going with the clear version instead.”

  Well, she couldn’t have made it any easier for them. All they had to do was take that bottle back to the forensics lab, along with the surveillance footage, and th
ey’d know for sure if that asshat Sturvin was in this area.

  They’d find him soon.

  Todd just prayed it was before the man hurt two innocent little girls.

  83

  By the time Max had three teams ready to hit the three different cabins Jac had isolated as the most likely locations, Whit and Barnes were back.

  With fingerprints and video evidence. Whit had watched it on his laptop on the drive back and had confirmed the man on the footage was most likely the man they were looking for.

  Max tamped down the excitement. He’d been in this game long enough to know not to rush to the finish line. That was how mistakes were made.

  He nodded at Lytel. He would be handling the third team. Max would take the first. Ezra Hahn from REY—Runaway & Endangered Youth—had been recruited to run the second team. He was one of their best at critical response, and Max was glad to have him. Jac could have run the team, but she’d chosen to coordinate at the command post. Eyes on everything.

  The rapid processing of details that she would be tasked with doing was where she excelled.

  Lytel asked for clarification, then took his team of four men. They were experienced; half had transferred in from tactical response.

  All knew what they were supposed to do.

  If those girls were out there at one of those locations, they’d find them.

  84

  Rachel had always handled things when the girls were ill. Holly as well. But he was going to have to figure it out himself. They had only him now. He was going to have to find a safe place for them to start over. After he made it clear to them that they were going to have to change their names, their entire way of life.

  He had only forty thousand dollars in cash. That would be a good start. Especially if he found a lower-cost-of-living area. He’d have to pick new names for them all. Build new backgrounds and histories.