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

  Max had finally put it together why last week.

  Jac.

  It came down to Jac. The days she’d spent with Jac while he’d combed over the evidence in Andy’s case had triggered this separation anxiety now. His daughter feared she’d not see Jac again for weeks.

  That and Emery had heard somewhere what had happened to Annie Anderson’s father. She knew Andy had been with the FBI.

  Just like Max. Just like Jac.

  Every adult Emery loved and was significantly bonded with was FBI. His daughter was at the age when she was figuring out that people didn’t live forever. It terrified her—she was afraid she was going to lose her father or Jac.

  Emery missed Jac. His daughter was subconsciously afraid that Jac was going to leave her, just like her own mother had.

  Or that Max was going to suddenly be even less available, like she felt Jac was.

  That was entirely Max’s fault.

  Today would hopefully go a long way to helping his daughter heal from that blow he had unintentionally dealt her. Max would find a chance to speak with Jac, see if she would be willing to keep being the most important woman in Emery’s life.

  Like she had been since his daughter was three years old.

  Ed nodded as one of his younger sons tugged on his hand. “I can understand that. I’ve been in your position, myself. If my sister hadn’t been able to help with Georgia, I would have had a more difficult time than I did. This is a promotion for you, and the travel will be the same as now.”

  “She’s having a tough time. Our former housekeeper retired six months ago. We’ve had trouble finding a replacement that Emery is bonding with.” Max nodded. He understood all of that. He wanted to stay with PAVAD, but his career had to come second to the needs of his daughter. She needed a more on-site parent right now. He had meant to talk to Ed and Hellbrook about that after they found Andy’s killer. Found the traitor in PAVAD.

  The director and Hellbrook were both fathers themselves, with their children running around them now. They would at least understand where he was coming from—even if they couldn’t help him work it out.

  PAVAD was a large organization now, with over four hundred employees. Even if it meant a lateral move into some type of administrative position, Max was open to that.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could handle the traveling and being away from Emery for two or three, sometimes as many as five nights a week. That was a lot to ask of a nearly nine-year-old with a single father.

  Emery worried. About everything lately. Mostly, she worried about him disappearing and leaving her all alone.

  He would never let her be all alone. Ever. He had a will with very clear instructions for her care, if anything should ever happen to him. He’d updated it three years ago to make sure that very thing didn’t happen.

  If anything happened to him, his daughter would be provided for. Loved.

  “I’m honored you think I can handle running a team, Director. But my first priority will always have to be Emery.” Max looked for his daughter as he spoke. And then he found her.

  Talking animatedly to a familiar redhead.

  One he had been waiting to see. He hadn’t known if she’d make it when he’d given her the brightly colored construction paper invitation Emery had made for Jac specifically.

  Jac had made it to the school on time, even though he’d heard she’d driven to Wyoming to get Miranda a week ago. He’d kept one eye on the Wyoming weather report for the last week. He’d asked her teammates if they’d heard from her. Probably been a bit obvious about it, too.

  Jac had made it. For his daughter.

  Relief filled him. It was important to Emery that it wasn’t just him there today. She was so hungry for family; his own mother and sisters were in central Illinois. Emery didn’t get to visit with them as often as he would like, and she didn’t know them.

  As the holidays approached, it just made it tough on all of them. PAVAD came with sacrifices.

  They’d spent the last two Thanksgivings and Christmases and New Years with Jac. Just the three of them. He and Jac had always ended up on call for the CCU, and they’d spent the holidays together. They’d been determined to give Emery as wonderful a holiday as they could.

  It had taken Max a few days after their argument to put it together—he’d been building a family with Jac all along.

  Stupid of him not to see that.

  He didn’t know what he and Emery would do this year. Thanksgiving was next week. “I’m away from her enough as it is, if I add extra paperwork and more time on call, I don’t know if that will be the healthiest option for her. I need time to think about it.”

  “Take a few days to think about it. But you should know Washington has transferred another agent in. They are pushing for him to have his own team within the CCU, starting after the new year. At least for six months. He’s nowhere near qualified. But I don’t know how much I can push back.” And there was fury in the man’s brown eyes at that thought. “It’s a dangerous line I walk sometimes.”

  Someone pissing off Ed Dennis was pretty damned stupid. A smart man thought twice before willingly stepping in the middle of that.

  Max wasn’t stupid.

  “May I ask who?” Max respected Ed, probably more than he did many other people—especially within the bureau itself. Through the last five years of working for the man, first for the St. Louis field office, and then at PAVAD once it was officially up and running, Max liked to think the man respected him in return.

  Max trusted Ed to be a straight shooter.

  “Todd Barnes.” Ed practically snarled. Max winced. He recognized the name. The man had shown up occasionally in St. Louis before PAVAD had been created. He’d cropped up in a few other cases over the last five years. Never in good ways. “With…what else we are working on, I don’t want him anywhere near PAVAD. But I’ve been overruled. I don’t take that lightly.”

  No one had liked Todd Barnes much back then, having him running a team in the CCU would guarantee problems. Of the extreme sort.

  Max thought of his friends and teammates and what having Barnes for a team leader would mean for all of them. At best, the man was incompetent.

  In PAVAD, that could be dangerous. Lives could literally be at stake. “He’s had no PAVAD experience.”

  “Certain people seem to think he’ll be successful as a leader in the Complex Crimes Unit. As if the CCU was just any other unit, in any other division.” Ed lowered his voice as the crowd shifted closer. “They think he’s seasoned enough now.”

  “Ignorance can be highly dangerous,” Max said.

  The director nodded, his expression smoothing as he handed two of his children some money. When they hurried off to join their friends, he turned back to Max. “So can politics. And this has the stink of that. Manipulation. I don’t play those games very well. I never have.”

  Max checked on Emery again. She had Jac by the hand, leading her to the nearest game booth, chattering away. His eyes met Jac’s. She nodded, wordlessly letting him know she’d watch over his daughter while he spoke with Ed. He turned back to the director.

  “To be honest, if you agree to take the position, even for six months, it will help me out a great deal.”

  “Why me?” There were other agents within the CCU who could do exactly what Ed was asking. They both knew that.

  Hell, Jac could do it—probably much better than Max.

  That would free Max up to work with Sin Lorcan, who ran an unofficial internal corruption unit within PAVAD now. Sin had called Max in to his own office once a day since Andy’s death.

  Sin was determined. Max’s respect for the man and what he did for the bureau was growing. He wouldn’t mind switching to that department full-time. Sin’s team didn’t just keep an eye on corruption within the bureau, they were branching out to other governmental organizations—both on the state levels and federal.

  But no one was to know that. Sin’s unit wasn’t even going to exis
t officially, anywhere. Max wanted to be a part of that.

  It would mean far less travel, for one thing. For another, it would mean keeping the people he worked with and cared about from ending up like Andy. Keep them from getting shot in the damned babysitter’s driveway like had happened to Sin’s wife.

  Cody was laughing with Jac right now, her son tugging on her shirt for attention. He looked just like his father, and his uncles.

  Everywhere he turned were families that he knew. People he worked with and their children. They deserved to be kept safe while they did the jobs they had sworn to do.

  “Because you have experience, education, and a proven PAVAD track record. There is nothing anyone can object to in your personnel jacket. Your dependable, too. I need you, Jones. If I am going to keep Barnes out. They’ve sent him here already. He’ll be shadowing PAVAD for the next three weeks to see if he wants the position. Team Three.”

  Team Three—the team Jac most often worked with, when she wasn’t assigned to the CPED. His skin crawled just thinking about it.

  “He does.” The sanctimonious asshole Barnes wanted nothing but a PAVAD position. Everyone who had ever encountered him since PAVAD began knew that. PAVAD appointments were golden in the bureau now since the fourth year had passed, and it had proven itself time and time again. “He’s wanted PAVAD for years.”

  “I’m hoping we can find something on him in that time to put an end to this. Barnes will not be in my division. Not even as a file clerk. Not if I can help it.”

  Todd Barnes wasn’t just sloppy and ingratiating. He thought his every breath should be gilded with gold. He was so arrogant and sure that he was a god amongst agents that he was going to prove dangerous one day. He was going to get someone hurt.

  As a familiar redhead passed in his field of vision again, Max made a decision. Todd Barnes wasn’t getting close to her.

  Jac had his daughter in her arms, celebrating. A big blue stuffed dolphin was clutched in Emery’s hands. She’d most likely wheedled a few extra tickets out of Jac.

  Or Jac had won the toy for her. It was a shooting game, even if the weapon of choice was a water banana gun. Jac was the best markswoman he had ever seen. Carnival games were barely a challenge for that woman. The last thing anyone expected when they looked at her was her skill.

  Jac was often assigned to team three, as the computer liaison, when needed. He’d be damned if he was going to leave her to work for Todd Barnes.

  No way in hell. If he could do something to protect Jac then Max would do it. Max made a decision, one he hoped he wouldn’t regret. “Six months?”

  “Six months. Then we’ll talk about something more grounded in the St. Louis area. Dan is talking about retiring soon to take care of his twins before they get school aged. He wants time with them. His position as coordinator will be open then. It’ll be yours if you want it. No questions asked. Or we can work something else out somewhere.”

  “I want on Sin Lorcan’s team. I…don’t want what happened to Andy to happen to anyone else.”

  “Noted. And I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, I think there are a few beautiful redheads waiting for you.” Ed nodded in Emery and Jac’s direction.

  Six months. He could juggle this for six months. He’d make a point of doubling the time he spent with Emery when he wasn’t on the road for those six months. And he’d talk to Jac, see if she would mind keeping Emery sometimes.

  He’d talk to Emery. Explain to her that if they did this for half a year, he’d be able to take a position where he would be home every night by six. She’d been wanting him home every night since she first realized that was how other families lived.

  It would thrill her.

  Six months was a small trade-off for that. It sounded like a pretty fair deal to Max. “I’ll do it. Six months. Then I want in with Lorcan.”

  Ed’s face relaxed, as he scooped his youngest into an affectionate hug. The little boy grinned at Max, a dead ringer for Ed’s wife. He was in the same class as Emery. “You sure about this?”

  “I am. But after that six months, I’m looking at moving into admin of some type, Ed. I have to do what’s best for my daughter. And she needs me here now.”

  14

  “Em’s glad you’re here.” Max stepped closer to Jac as the crowd pressed into him. He put a hand on her shoulder, wanting to protect her from the press of bodies. Jac was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, and he knew that. He’d seen evidence of it time and time again. But he liked doing it. Liked how it made him feel. He just liked touching the woman. Every chance he could.

  “I’m glad I’m here.”

  The sweater set she wore made her look soft and feminine. Deceptively so. He wanted to touch, see if the sweater, and the woman beneath it, were as soft as they looked.

  Jac sure as hell made him forget everything but her sometimes—just by breathing. “I wasn’t certain you’d be back from Masterson in time. I saw the weather report—and Miranda’s post about you two being polar bears in Masterson.”

  “We borrowed those coats from her sisters. I told Emery I’d be here today. And I meant it. I will always keep my promises to her. I know what that means to her.”

  “I know.” Max wanted to say more, but refrained. They were still on shaky ground between them. He didn’t want to screw things up. But he appreciated it; Emery was starting to struggle with the inevitable broken promises associated with his job. And the fact that her mother constantly broke every promise Pamela made to Emery. That hurt their daughter, each and every time.

  But Jac—Jac had never broken a promise to Emery.

  Or to Max. “I saw Miranda is back on the roster. How is she handling this latest?”

  “She’s ok. More frustrated and impatient with being on modified duty than anything. This broken arm is the first thing that’s ever slowed that woman down. She’s had two surgeries on it now. And I’m not sure she’s fully dealt with what happened in Masterson.”

  Emery demanded their attention. They both turned to her. Max slipped his fingers around Jac’s. Just for a moment.

  He just wanted to touch her.

  15

  He was scheming. That man was definitely plotting against her.

  Maddox James Jones was up to something, right up to his six-foot-four height.

  She enjoyed the carnival, but Max…that man was most certainly up to something where she was concerned. Half the night, Jac had to evade his hand.

  For some reason, he wanted to hold hands when they walked around.

  Hers, specifically.

  She wasn’t even certain the man was aware of what he was doing. Jac certainly was—and she was far too old to be holding a guy’s hand in a school gymnasium.

  Most of the times when he touched her, he wasn’t even focused on her. He was just there.

  It seemed to be instinctive.

  Seemed to be.

  Jac wasn’t putting anything past him. He was a master manipulator, after all. And there was something in those eyes of his that made her feel a little…hunted.

  That was a little disconcerting.

  At one point, she’d found herself between him and Emery, her hands trapped in theirs. They’d been laughing at her the whole time as they pretended to tug her in different directions. He’d teased his fingers up her inner wrist in a way that definitely wasn’t platonic.

  She’d looked up and seen Leina and Shannon smirking knowingly at her. But what did they know?

  They’d just fallen for men they worked with; that was all.

  He’d introduced her to other parents as Jac. That was it. Nothing about them not being related or anything, or them working together. Nothing. Just Jac.

  Half the people had assumed she was Emery’s mother. Max’s wife.

  When she’d looked at Max after the fourteenth time she’d been told she and Emery looked just alike—they didn’t—he’d just grinned wickedly.

  But she’d seen the shadows in his eyes. The director had
said something that had upset Max. In a way that had him going quieter than normal. More pensive.

  Max was a talker. He always had been. Talkative, outgoing, but reserved with personal information. He had friends, but he kept a bit of a wall between him and them, sometimes.

  Except with her. Max had once been so different with her.

  He bought her a funnel cake. Jac studied him as the powdered sugar got all over her mouth.

  Max reached out, brushed his thumb over her bottom lip.

  His eyes burned as he looked at her.

  For a moment, the world narrowed to just her and Max, even though they were in a sea of people. Her mouth instantly went dry. Her skin tingled.

  There was hunger in those eyes.

  And not for funnel cake.

  Jac just knew that.

  Emery pulled them out of it, demanding Jac’s attention.

  But his touch felt different. Far less casual and a whole lot less platonic.

  The next time he touched her, she knew the man was doing it deliberately.

  Jac spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out exactly what that man was up to now.

  16

  Paul had watched Jaclyn Jones, comparing her to Rachel all evening long. He would admit it: his wife hadn’t measured favorably. The redheaded woman was very attractive—and she knew her way around the elite.

  Those parents had finally arrived an hour after the carnival had begun. Even the mayor had been there. Jaclyn had spoken with him for several moments, perfectly comfortable with someone of the mayor’s stature.

  When he’d been given the name of the computer analyst for the Complex Crimes Unit that he was supposed to dig up dirt on for the corporation’s future use, two days after the carnival, he had just known.

  It was a sign. A given. Meant to be.

  He’d made love to Rachel that night while imagining Jaclyn in Rachel’s place. It had been the best sex he’d had in a long, long time. Paul always had enjoyed fantasizing.