Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) Page 4

  Max wasn’t certain how he was supposed to make his feelings known. Without making a complete and utter ass out of himself. He couldn’t just say, “Hey, it took me five years to figure out how I feel about you.”

  That would go over well. It was more of an insult than anything else.

  His only answer was that after Pamela, any woman had terrified him.

  He pulled in a deep breath. He had waited long enough. He opened his mouth to send Emery into the living room to watch cartoons. He and Jac had some things to say to one another. To finally repair their relationship somehow.

  Before he could, the cell phone he’d plugged in on her kitchen island buzzed.

  The ringtone of PAVAD.

  He swore. He knew what it meant. He had hoped he’d have an extra hour to spend with his family before he had to go in and face what had happened to Andy. The first of the forensics from the explosion were going to start rolling in soon.

  Max needed to be there for that.

  “Go. I’ll keep her today. I’m off until Tuesday, built up comp time. We’ll go shopping at the mall. Have a girls’ day. Looks like she’s about to outgrow her shoes. Again.”

  He almost flinched. Shoes. Little girls’ shoes. Andy had bought his little girls shoes just a few days ago. He’d told Max all about the sale at the mall.

  He pushed that aside and tuned back in to Jac.

  She’d shopped with Emery before, saving him from that torture, just giving him receipts when she was finished. He’d give her cash in return—and his eternal gratitude. “All of them, heaven help me. Why she needs more than a few pairs of shoes is beyond me.”

  Then, just because he wanted to, he wrapped his arms around her and just breathed her in. Her hair was silky against his cheek. He ignored how she stiffened briefly. “We’re going to talk, Jac. And very, very soon. There is a lot I want to say to you. Need to say to you. I’ve put it off long enough.”

  Wary green eyes looked into his.

  “Go. PAVAD is waiting.”

  He went, leaving his daughter behind with the woman he loved more than any other woman he ever had before.

  9

  Lytel heard the rumors the instant he stepped into the PAVAD building. So they were finally letting it leak that Anderson had been ambushed and the bomb hadn’t been the result of a gas leak like the news was reporting.

  No doubt, the director’s little media liaison teams had been hard at work since it had happened over a week ago.

  The director was back after his little “health scare,” too. Rumor had it Dennis had needed some medical tests done; but Lytel had known the truth. There wasn’t much in PAVAD that he didn’t know about.

  Hell, he even knew a secret about good old Ed he doubted Ed himself knew about.

  There were a handful of men who had been there that night and had been injured. He’d seen them for himself.

  Sin Lorcan, for one. He’d seen that icy sonofabitch getting shrapnel removed in the ambulance at the Anderson scene himself. Lytel doubted they’d even numbed the bastard first.

  His wife had been hovering around behind him. She hadn’t been allowed to touch the evidence because of her connection to one of the injured, but she’d watched everything her people had done.

  Not that Lytel gave a fuck. If he’d left any evidence behind, he’d blown that evidence to the moon.

  PAVAD had taught him a lot of neat little tricks, after all.

  No one had given any explanation for why Sin Lorcan or his brother Sebastian had been there. Nothing more than the idea that Anderson was a friend.

  No one questioned Sin Lorcan. No one.

  He’d seen what the bastard had done to Saul Hernandez. As far as Lytel knew, Hernandez was still in prison, awaiting trial.

  Hernandez had been a good guy. He and Eric Brady both.

  Sin Lorcan had nearly ripped Brady to shreds for getting too close to that wife of his.

  Lytel had seen that for himself that day. He’d seen the director and Lorcan running through the halls and had followed.

  Just to see what was happening. He’d ended up escorting Brady to an interrogation room himself.

  Always a part of the action, never a part of the limelight.

  PAVAD was all about not taking the glory for any one agent or team. It was the whole organization who deserved the credit, as the great team that it was.

  Well, Lytel called bullshit on that. Ed Dennis was getting his glory somehow; he had no doubt about that.

  Men like that always did.

  No matter who they had to bury to do it.

  He waited until the end of the day. Then he did some more digging. He needed to see what was going on.

  And he had a payoff to make.

  He wasn’t the only one on a secondary payroll around here, after all.

  Even the subcontractors wandering around the building—not all of them were on the up-and-up, either.

  Lytel had a five-forty meeting with one of them right there in his office.

  Wonder what the director would do if he ever found out some of the shit designed to bring him down was happening right there under his damned fucking nose?

  Lytel didn’t intend to be around to see that.

  He was almost fifty-six now. He was going to take his cash from this and retire.

  He wanted to find an island somewhere and just relax. He’d divorce the wife, keep in touch with the kids by email if he chose to, and then he’d live his life for himself for a change.

  After all these years, he deserved it.

  But first, he had a few meetings lined up for the day. Todd Barnes would be there in fifteen minutes, and he still had that damned IT contractor to talk to about the latest security updates for his department. He personally couldn’t stand the two sonsofbitches, but they all played for the same side now, after all.

  He had to remember that. At least for the time being. PAVAD meant being a part of the team, after all. Lytel always had been a team player.

  10

  Todd left Director Dennis’s office a week after he’d visited St. Louis to make the delivery, forcing himself to keep a smirk off his face. The guy was such a stupid prick. Todd couldn’t wait until Edward Perfect Dennis got what was coming to him. He’d get exactly what he deserved. It was just a matter of time until that happened.

  In the meantime, Todd was going to do what he was told. At least on the surface. He was ready to move up the ladder. It was about time.

  There were people in the waiting area of Dennis’s office. Todd forced himself to nod politely. Agent Len-Royal, the director’s prissy little assistant, was watching him. It was obvious she didn’t like him, even though her face was blank when she looked at him.

  Her and that beefcake husband of hers who was running around in the CHILDS department one floor down from the Complex Crimes floor.

  They didn’t just have areas for each division of PAVAD now. They had entire floors.

  Fucking ridiculous. No division of the bureau, or of any federal agency that he knew of, had grown so quickly. Everyone was saying there had to be some sort of corruption within it somewhere.

  The bureau just didn’t work the way PAVAD did.

  It was bound to destroy itself from within. Soon.

  Very, very soon.

  One of the men waiting in the outer office was the envelope guy. That had Todd flinching a bit.

  Sturvin wasn’t an agent. The prick was an independent contractor hired to service the human resources and benefits and accounting departments of PAVAD. Their servers.

  Sturvin wasn’t PAVAD. He was an outsider.

  From what Todd’s contact had told him, that was something Dennis had been shot down about too. He’d wanted to keep everything IT within PAVAD itself. Dennis had wanted actual agents from the computer departments to handle everything within the sanctified walls of PAVAD. Barring that, he’d wanted Lucas Tech involved.

  The moneymen had told Dennis differently. Lucas Tech was too damned expensiv
e, apparently.

  And Dennis was pissed.

  Todd had to admit, he would have felt the same thing.

  Although he understood why Sturvin was there now.

  Outside eyes and ears for the ones who wanted Todd in St. Louis, too.

  The destruction of PAVAD was a massive scheme.

  It wasn’t something just one man could do. Nor was it something that was going to be easy. Sturvin was a plant.

  A plant they thought Ed Dennis would eventually trust. Sturvin’s kids went to the same school as the director’s. Just like every damned big name in PAVAD who had a kid now. Keep them all safe and sound at Brynlock Academy with its five figure a semester tuition and its armed guards—paid for by Lucas Technologies.

  Whoever was orchestrating this shit was very, very good.

  This infiltration of PAVAD had taken years to build. Years to plan. Someone had been planning this from before PAVAD was realized fully.

  It wasn’t likely to fail.

  Todd’s eyes met Sturvin’s, and he nodded. Just once.

  Just an acknowledgment of their common purpose.

  Although…Todd doubted the other man had a philosophical or moral reason for doing this, not like Todd. Money drove that man.

  Todd had done his own digging into Sturvin, after all.

  As cash-strapped as that man was, Sturvin’s motivation was cold, hard cash. Had to keep that pretty wife of his in the lifestyle, after all.

  Todd finally made it into the hallway and let his smirk go free.

  Fuck PAVAD. It was finally going to happen.

  Todd was going to be a part of it. He checked his watch.

  He had fifteen minutes to go before he had to meet with his check-in point here in St. Louis.

  Plenty of time to take a few digs at Paul Sturvin.

  Just to see what the guy was made of.

  A team was only as good as the weakest link, after all.

  11

  “So it’s been a full week since he spent the night at your place?” Miranda asked from the passenger seat as Jac drove. Miranda wouldn’t stop talking about the last subject Jac wanted to think about: Max. Miranda was always asking Jac about Max. Questions Jac didn’t have the answers to. “And you still haven’t spoken to that man?”

  “Two. Closer to two weeks.” Jac shook her head, after checking the gas tank. They had a while to go, and there was a gas station up ahead. “I’ve barely passed Max in the halls since then. He’s been busy with the director and a special project.”

  Andy Anderson. Max was quietly working that case with the director and Sin Lorcan, but no one was supposed to know that. Jac hadn’t said a word. Even to her best friend.

  She’d worried about Max the entire time she was in Masterson with Miranda. He and Andy had been good friends. Not as close as she was with the woman next to her, but enough that Andy’s death hurt him. Haunted him.

  She knew how Max’s mind worked, after all. She had seen his face at Andy’s funeral, too.

  That day wasn’t one she was easily going to forget.

  Miranda said something. Jac focused back in on her friend.

  Jac was still frozen through to her undies, after leaving the small Wyoming town where she’d driven up to fetch her best friend. Masterson had been under more than two feet of snow.

  Miranda had been up in Wyoming visiting with her family for the past three weeks, following the final surgery she’d had in Masterson to repair the nasty break in her arm from a case gone bad back in September.

  Had Jac not delayed her travel plans that particular day, having decided to stay and visit with Miranda’s family, Miranda would have been killed, right there in the Talley Inn’s kitchen.

  Miranda had been very lucky. Just how fleeting a friend could be lost had sunk in for Jac that day, too. It wasn’t a lesson she wanted to forget—or repeat.

  Jac truly hadn’t minded the drive to Masterson last week. It had given her time to think about the CPED’s last case. It had been a tough one, too.

  One that had her seriously considering switching to the CCU full-time instead of floating between the two divisions.

  She didn’t know how much longer she could handle cases involving child victims. It was getting too hard.

  Just as she’d arrived in Masterson, a nasty snowstorm had hit, trapping her and Miranda in the county for a few more days than planned.

  They’d spent that time with Miranda’s grandmother Flo and Miranda’s two sisters and her cousins, who all lived at the family inn right in the midst of downtown Masterson. Miranda had one cousin who lived down in Texas, near Wichita Falls, who had also been visiting. It had been a wild family reunion—or as wild as the Talleys got. Jac had loved it.

  The Talleys acted as if Jac was one of them, as if she’d always been a part of their family. They’d even given her a suite in the family wing of their inn.

  That mattered more than anything Jac had ever experienced.

  They were as close to a real family as Jac was ever going to get, except for her own little sister Nat. Worry flooded her mind when she thought of the hell her sister had gone through, losing the man she loved in a nasty explosion a year or so ago.

  It seemed like all Jac did was worry lately.

  Nat was struggling, but she would make it through. Her sister was one of the strongest woman Jac knew.

  Jac had seen photos of another bomb scene. One that had happened a lot more recently. Max and the rest of the men out there that day could have been killed.

  It had been three weeks since Andy Anderson’s death.

  Company rumors said that it was the director, Max, Malachi Brockman, and at least two of the Lorcan brothers who had been there that night. But no one was supposed to know who.

  Jac had seen the files by accident, then put it together quickly.

  Max had reeked of smoke, after all. It had been the night Andy died.

  She wasn’t an idiot.

  They had all been lucky to survive. Family men, all of them.

  PAVAD really wasn’t all that great for families, in her opinion. There were far too many risks.

  Those involved in this case were of so high a security clearance they got nosebleeds when they were all together on company time.

  Worry for Max hit her again. She was seriously worried about that man.

  From what she had been able to see of him, and what other friends had told her, he was working himself practically ragged to find out who had killed Andy Anderson.

  That was another reason she was heading home today. She had four hours left to get home, shower, change, and get over to Brynlock Academy. Emery was counting on her to be there. Jac wanted to check on Max herself. Just to make certain he was ok.

  He was obstinate enough to be a real dog with a bone when he felt it was important enough.

  Andy was important enough.

  Jac had attended the funeral, staying near Max, surrounded by the rest of Andy’s team. Angie had been devastated. The girls had been little ghosts. It was obvious they didn’t understand what had happened.

  They’d buried Andy next to his son. That had stuck out to Jac for hours after. Life…was so fleeting.

  How could Andy’s kids understand this?

  Jac barely understood it herself.

  Jac had made a vow a long time ago to never let down the people she cared about. Not the ones she considered her family. Afraid-of-a-little-kiss Max was definitely on that list. She was going to find him, check on him, and read him the riot act if needed.

  “I can drive for a while,” Miranda said next to her after a few hours on the road. “If you need a break. Or want to sit over here and send sexy texts to the hot Dr. Jones—just no pics. I don’t need to see you take them.”

  “I’m good. Maybe in half an hour. We need to find food.” Miranda terrified her when she drove. The woman had no fear whatsoever—it would be even worse if Miranda was driving one-handed. “And that’s a no on the texts. He’d probably freak, and move him
self and Emery to the northernmost corners of Maine or something. Especially if the pics were of actual naked-Jac skin. A kiss was enough to send the man running for the hills, after all. I can only imagine what he’d do if I was naked in front of him.” She resisted the urge to shiver.

  Jac may have had a few moments of imagining what had happened if the kiss had gone deeper than it had.

  Until he’d skedaddled, anyway. Hard to miss that part.

  “I think he’d figure it out fast. Dear Max ran because you were too much woman for him. My grandmother did pack us sandwiches and brownies. And oatmeal-cranberry cookies.” Miranda shot her a grin. “Want me to crack open the tin?”

  Those cookies were Jac’s favorite in existence. “You’ve been holding out. Hand over the goods.”

  They shared the best cookies Jac had ever tasted on the drive, talking and laughing the whole way. Nat was her sister by birth, but Miranda was her sister by choice. She loved them both more than words could ever express.

  She dropped Miranda off at Miranda’s condo and booked it back across town to her own place.

  When she finally pulled into the Brynlock Academy parking lot at fifteen minutes past seven, she was relaxed but tired from the drive. Miranda had a way of breaking tension. It was one of her best friend’s strongest gifts. People relaxed with Miranda. That was a gift more prized than gold.

  She stepped inside the multipurpose room of the school as the sounds and sights rushed her. The private school was one of the more expensive private schools in the city, but it had a warmth about it that belied that fact. Not super-prestigious. Or pretentious. The focus was on the children as whole beings, not just students competing for test scores. They also had generous scholarship and financial-hardship packages funded by local business organizations.

  Jac had donated a thousand dollars last year to the financial-hardship fund.

  Emery did well here. She had friends among her classmates, she loved playing sports and Brynlock had plenty for her to try, and she did great academically. She struggled with math, but the school provided one-on-one sessions with her for that, when needed. Brynlock wanted their students to succeed.