Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) Page 9

  It was probably for the best.

  Because she did love her daughter, she’d chosen not to be an active part of Emery’s life. Pamela paid child support and for Emery’s tuition to the best school in the city, and that was about it.

  Pamela visited from Chicago a few times a year. Sometimes. Following through on her promises to Emery was not something Pamela considered important. At all. Jac had always known that, from the moment she had first met the statuesque blonde who worked in corporate law in Chicago.

  Pamela and Max had been divorced for two years by the time Jac had transferred to St. Louis. That the other woman had wanted to reconcile with Max shocked Jac to her toes. Pamela had barely seemed interested in him at all.

  She’d mostly treated him like a slightly dimwitted younger brother.

  It had infuriated Jac every time.

  It had most likely been a spur-of-the-moment thing for Pamela. She was rather mercurial. Most likely, she’d seen what she’d given up and was feeling broken that day.

  Max’s second post after coming out of the academy was St. Louis. He’d been stationed in Illinois before. He’d gotten a later start at the academy than Jac had. He’d finished a PhD degree in sociology before entering law school, where he’d met Pamela.

  Max was as brilliant as they came, and a phenomenal profiler—but when it came to interactions with women, he was completely clueless. Jac had observed that a time or million herself.

  He’d dated other women since Jac had met him, quite a few. There had been one woman named LeeAnn who had taken a particular dislike to Jac and had tried to poison Emery against her repeatedly.

  Who they were sleeping with—if anyone—was very high on that do-not-discuss list for both of them.

  She hadn’t given much thought to Max’s love life before. Those were just details they hadn’t ever shared. She hadn’t exactly lived chastely over the past five years. There had been two men that she’d felt comfortable enough to have slept with since coming to St. Louis.

  She hadn’t known he’d been having trouble with Pamela again. Usually, he talked to her about his ex. They tried to figure out what was motivating Pamela together. It wasn’t easy. Pamela was one of the most complicated women Jac had ever met, and profiling her had never been easy.

  It was going to take time for her to think her way through that.

  Time she just didn’t have now.

  21

  Something had definitely happened between the warring Jones and Jones. Miranda had been waiting for that since about the moment Jac and Max had met. Miranda had been there that day—she’d practically been singed by the sparks.

  She wasn’t certain she believed in the idea of soul mates. Miranda liked to think she was more a woman of study and science, but there were some people who just seemed to fit together.

  Max and Jac were two of those people. Something about the way they looked at each other, and the way they almost seemed to breathe for each other. The way they had unconsciously just made each other more whole.

  The way they just seemed to fit together. They had acted like an old married couple almost from the first week they’d met. It wasn’t the common last name that made strangers assume Jac and Max were together—though the two both misunderstood that. It was far more than that. It was the way they were attuned to each other. She doubted anyone had missed it.

  Except Max and Jac, that was.

  It was obvious when someone saw them together.

  Miranda had been trying to think of a way to get the two of them to stop being so stubborn and admit it to themselves.

  Before they kept hurting each other.

  The two of them belonged together. She just had no idea how to make them see that.

  The briefing started. The director did a rundown of everything that had happened over the last week, including introducing Max as the head of team two.

  As everyone clapped, some just politely, she looked up.

  Her eyes met washed out blue ones from almost clear across the conference room.

  Todd Barnes sat at a table all by himself, a scowl on his face. He wasn’t even making an attempt to hide how he felt. Several people were shooting glances his way.

  None of them happy. She certainly wasn’t; she knew a few things about him from friends who’d unfortunately run up against him before. Todd Barnes was trouble. For everyone who got anywhere near him. He had no business anywhere near PAVAD. None at all.

  This wasn’t going to be good. She just knew it.

  22

  Paul had screwed up. Again.

  Ruined everything.

  Paul had screwed up. He never should have confronted Rachel after the carnival that night. Never should have let it slip what he was doing. She had never looked at him with quite that look of disappointment in her eyes. He still remembered that look even now, weeks later.

  To his surprise, it still mattered what Rachel thought of him. He hadn’t realized that was still true.

  Perhaps he had gotten too caught up in trying to build his empire that he had overlooked how his choices would appear to her.

  It had stung, seeing her disappointment.

  Knowing he had failed her. She had looked up to him for what he had accomplished for her and the girls.

  Paul shouldn’t have failed. He was too good for that.

  She was to see him as the perfect man, the provider, the protector. Everything that a good husband was supposed to be.

  Instead, she’d looked at him like that.

  He had reassured her that what he was doing wasn’t illegal. Paul knew she hadn’t believed him, though.

  That had been reaffirmed when he’d asked if she’d told anyone, any of her friends from Brynlock, what he had been doing. He hadn’t mentioned anyone from the bureau specifically, but Rachel had known who Paul had meant.

  Suspicion had been written all over her. Suspicion and mistrust.

  There had to be a way to fix that, because there was no way in hell she was going to ruin this for him. For them.

  The girls’ futures depended on what he could do for them now.

  He hoped he’d gotten through to her; she knew finances were sometimes tight. Especially with tuition and her needing a new car.

  He’d been paid for his special services again just yesterday. He and Rachel were going to look at SUVs tomorrow; he’d driven through the Brynlock carpool lane yesterday to see what makes and models Brynlock parents seemed to prefer.

  Paul was doing his best.

  He was trying his best. Rachel needed to understand that.

  He was doing what he had to in order to succeed.

  She had no right to question him on those types of decisions. Providing was his job. However he chose to make that happen.

  23

  Ed Dennis stared at the files spread out in front of him. Andy Anderson’s face stared back. He had nothing. They’d found nothing, in weeks. Thanksgiving had come and gone. Christmas was right around the corner.

  Ed was starting to lose hope.

  Even the best he had hadn’t come up with anything. Nothing more than a code no one had broken yet.

  The hit on Andy was just too well organized. Professional. And with the destruction of evidence, almost impossible to trace. Ed was terrified Andy had been just the beginning.

  Even the memory cards they had had revealed nothing more than gibberish.

  Someone out there could damned well be hunting Ed’s people.

  “You’re worrying,” a soft, feminine voice said from behind him. Ed turned. There she was. The most beautiful woman in his world. “What is it?”

  “Rumors. Gossip. A few things I’ve heard from friends in Washington.”

  Marianna put her skinny arms around him. She was a tall woman, but thin. He ran a hand down her back absently as he pulled her into his lap for a moment. Sometimes, a touch from his wife was all it took to remind him of what he was doing.

  Why he hadn’t retired yet.

  Retiremen
t sounded damned good now. He could do what his friend Dan intended after his own upcoming retirement—be a stay-at-home dad. Enjoy the time with the boys, and his granddaughter. “What are you doing today?”

  “Taking the younger three and Matthew and Evalyn to Dr. Jones’s. Emery has invited them all to her party. I think Jamie wants to go. I’m not so sure about the other three. Except for the cake and ice cream.”

  James, one of their younger twins, was extremely sports oriented. He and Emery Jones had become good friends playing soccer recently. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  He had doubled the number of guards on his family since Andy’s murder.

  His children, those beautiful, wonderful boys he had been blessed to love after marrying their mother, would go to a birthday party guarded by four armed men.

  To the boys, that had become normal. To Ed, it would never be.

  To lose her or one of the boys or Georgia and her two children, even his pain-in-the-ass son-in-law, to lose one of them would devastate him. Completely.

  “Ed?” Marianna said, grabbing the four younger boys’ coats—they had Matthew and Evalyn for the weekend again. “Try to relax for the day. The rest of the boys are around. Try to forget that you have the entire PAVAD on your shoulders. At least for a few hours, ok?”

  Ed nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “Do more than try. You’re starting to worry me.” Marianna had the most intense blue eyes he had ever seen. Blue all seven of her boys had inherited. Blue that was now worried—for him.

  That worry hadn’t left her eyes since the explosion.

  “Once we have the people responsible for threatening the division, I will.” Ed kissed her one more time. When he pulled back, he looked into her eyes again. “You and me, we’ll take the boys and go away for a while. During school break. While we still have the older boys here. We’ll see about getting Georgia and the rest of them to go with us. We’ll just pretend PAVAD doesn’t exist for a while.”

  She touched the scar at his temple that was still fresh. The hair was just now starting to grow around it a fraction. Neither had missed how close he had come to serious injury.

  He hated the worry in those blue, blue eyes. The fear.

  Marianna had lived with enough fear to last a lifetime.

  Ed waited until his family was on their way and grabbed his phone. He had the printouts from those memory cards here. He needed someone else to take a look at them. From what he knew of his agents, the list of those who could crack such a code was slim. There was one name at the top of his list now.

  24

  Jac pulled into Max’s driveway ten minutes after the party had started. She’d just finished up a phone consult with Ed Dennis.

  The call had delayed her, and had her consumed with confusion.

  She’d been told to report to Max that the director wanted her on something Max had found. A code.

  No one but she and Max were to know she was working on it—and Sin Lorcan.

  She pulled into the spot closest to the road. Most of the vehicles far eclipsed her little SUV. No surprise. The properties Max owned and rented out provided a steady amount of passive income for him and his daughter.

  Max and Emery were perfectly at home in this neighborhood.

  It was an infinitely more comfortable home than the wealthy show palace where she and Nat had been forced to grow up.

  She had enough money in her bank account; she could have bought a house here, too. She’d considered it—until the kiss.

  The trust she’d inherited from her mother when she’d turned twenty-five ensured that she wouldn’t have to worry about living expenses. She made a good yearly salary from PAVAD. Her house had been a cash purchase, as had the upgrades she’d made.

  She probably could afford to have bought Max’s house, too. Outright. The kind of people her stepfather had forced her to interact with were far different from the upper-middle-class ones she would most likely find inside Max’s home.

  They were real people. Jac sometimes struggled to find ways to connect with real people.

  Awkward. That was the word.

  She could fake her way through a state function in Washington, DC, but a kid’s birthday party made her feel like a fish out of water sometimes. Like she was on the outside just looking in.

  Even Emery’s.

  Jac clutched the big box in her arms tightly, as she pushed open the door.

  In a child’s scrawl in dark-purple crayon on pink construction paper was a welcome sign bidding people to enter without the need to knock.

  Emery. That child had gone a bit overboard with glitter and what looked to be scratch-n-sniff stickers.

  Jac placed the gifts on the foyer table with all the others.

  Then she turned as someone yelled her name. Emery had spotted her. “Jac!”

  The little girl left her friends and came running. Jac laughed, all nerves instantly forgotten.

  It was about this kid. Always.

  Her arms wrapped around Emery. “You’ve gotten taller. I think you’ll be as tall as your dad by next month.”

  “Silly. Daddy says I can sign up for spring soccer this week!”

  “That’s great, sweetheart. I want a copy of your game schedule, ok?” She’d watched as many of Emery’s softball and soccer and swim meets and basketball games as she possibly could. No matter what happened between her and Max, Jac had no intention of not continuing that. Unless he flat out told her to stay away.

  But she didn’t see him doing that. Not to Emery.

  Or to her, for that matter.

  “Ok. I’ve missed you. You stayed away too long.”

  Jac went down to eye level with Emery. She didn’t have to go far. Emery had gotten taller. “I would have been here if I could. But your dad and I aren’t on the same team any longer. They sent me to Vermont for six days, kiddo. There was snow taller than me. I thought I was going to turn into a snow-woman before it was done.”

  A pout hit the pretty little face. “That’s what Daddy said, too. But maybe you can come over even when Daddy isn’t here? We can do things. Or you can be on Daddy’s team again.”

  “I’ll talk to your dad. See what he thinks about that. And if he says it’s ok, I have that purple room in my house ready for you anytime. You can help me decorate it. Give me another hug. I’ve missed you bunches this week. Then…I think your guests from school need you now.”

  “Promise you won’t leave?” There was uncertainty in the big blue eyes. Jac hugged her again.

  “I won’t leave until the last party guest is gone. I promise.” She had taken a vacation day for this, to ensure she didn’t get called in. One of Emery’s biggest struggles was people breaking promises to her.

  Pamela, unfortunately, had a horrible habit of doing that. She breezed in to visit Emery two or three times a year from neighboring Illinois. Always spouting off promises that she inevitably never kept.

  Jac had her theories why, but she had never discussed that with Max.

  Not yet. But Emery was getting older now—and Jac suspected she had somehow convinced herself her mother rejected her time and time again because of something Emery had done. Things the little girl had let slip the last time Jac had seen her had finally started to make sense.

  Jac was going to bring that up to Max as soon as she could.

  Speaking of Max…she pulled in a deep breath. Time to face her particular lion in his own den.

  She walked through to the large kitchen at the rear of the home. There was an enclosed garage that was easily big enough for three cars. A few years earlier, Max and Jac had turned it into a large recreation room, complete with pads on the floor. Emery was getting deeply involved in martial arts. She had plenty of room to practice now.

  Plus, with the mats rolled back, it made a great space for birthday parties, complete with a small half bath off to the left.

  She suspected that was where most of the guests were now.

  But first…<
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  The kitchen.

  And the man she could hear in there speaking.

  He looked up when she entered. “Jac, I’m glad you’re here. She was getting worried you wouldn’t make it. Pamela cancelled twenty minutes ago. She’s on her way to London with a client. Should be landing any minute. She promised to call—if she gets a chance.”

  Jac winced. This was the second year in a row that had Pamela had missed Emery’s birthday party. Most likely, an overly expensive present would arrive from London next week. Cold, pricey, and impersonal. Just like every time before. “I’m sorry. The director called. He wants me to take a look at that…code…for you. And he had questions about the Jason Evanton case from two years ago. I was almost out the door when he called, then I had to look up the case number on my laptop.”

  “Everything ok with Dennis?”

  Jac shook her head. “I need to go in tomorrow and show him my reports. What I did to try to find Jason. He said it ties into the new cold-case division Agent Knight will be heading up.”

  “Let me know if I can help with anything.”

  “I got it covered. You just need to get me a copy of the code before I leave. But that’s PAVAD. Today is for Em. It looks like you are having difficulties of your own. Anything I can do in here?” Jac was used to doing. Especially in Max’s home. And the poor man…he really was in over his head.

  He looked adorably flustered at the moment. The hair had gotten longer—usually, she scheduled reminders for him to get his and Emery’s hair cut on a regular basis.

  Before.

  The man was not good at scheduling details at all; she’d always handled that when they worked together. She took a quick look around the kitchen; at least, he was using the whiteboard calendar she’d installed when Emery had entered first grade.

  “Yes. Help me. There are just too many of them. There are little girls and a few boys everywhere. When you turn your back, they clone themselves. I’m pretty certain I saw doubles earlier—but the director’s wife was in there. That might be part of it.”