Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18)

by Calle J. Brookes

  She flinched at the line before Olivia’s.

  Timothy Dennis’s name was listed above Olivia’s in super neat block printing. One of Ed Dennis’s twins had used the textbook before.

  Olivia’s handwriting was far neater and more precise than Emery’s left-handed scrawl would probably ever be.

  But there were horses doodled into the margin of the open notebook.

  There were horse paintings on Olivia’s wall, too. Tasteful reproductions of popular prints. The lamp base was an elegantly carved horse.

  Olivia’s bed hadn’t been slept in, either.

  Jac had one more stop to make.

  The Sturvins’ bedroom.

  Rachel had apparently been alone in the house. The girls hadn’t been in their beds. Most likely, they hadn’t even been home.

  Jac prayed they hadn’t been home to see their mother like this.

  Their father was on a business trip, setting up an IT consult two states away. That had been confirmed with some of the neighbors before Jac had even gotten to the scene.

  Someone had those girls.

  Or knew exactly where they were. It was possible Rachel had been killed and her daughters taken.

  Or Ava and Olivia had been killed elsewhere. Or the girls had been the targets and had been whisked away to be trafficked hundreds or thousands of miles away.

  Jac had seen that very thing time and time again with the CEPD.

  “I’m going to find them, Rachel. I promise.”

  Rachel and Paul’s bedroom was just as neat as the girls’.

  It had a cold feeling to it that Jac couldn’t put her finger on.

  Everything was lined up exactly. It was orderly. Perfect. As if it was on a home-decor website. A showpiece. Absolutely nothing was out of place. An elegantly staged home ready to be shown by only the most successful real estate agents.

  Jac liked her own home neat, but this…this was almost extreme. The couch in the living room barely looked like it had been sat on.

  It had been white leather. White leather—in a house with two small girls. That was an odd choice. You’d have to be rigidly set on cleaning to have a house look like this.

  Unlike Max’s house, which was of a similar size, there had been no toys out of place, no signs of children in the house, other than a playroom on the first floor and the two bedrooms on the second.

  Rachel hadn’t seemed all that rigid to Jac. She’d been very laid-back. Quiet, but laid-back and calm. Warm.

  The colors weren’t exactly feminine; they leaned far more in a masculine direction. As if Rachel was a footnote?

  Jac checked the nightstand. In most cases, the more dominant spouse would sleep closest to any potential threat. Or entry point.

  Most likely, Paul’s side of the bed was the one closest to the large French doors leading to a third-floor balcony that overlooked the backyard of the Sturvin property. The backyard was surrounded by wooded acreage. Potential threats. Paul would have slept between his wife and those threats.

  She confirmed that with one look into the nightstand drawers.

  Rachel’s side of the bed was mussed. Paul’s nightstand drawer was precisely organized. Rigidly so.

  Jac made note of that.

  Rachel’s side of the bed was the only sign in the house anywhere that someone had been in the house at all.

  That the house was lived in at all. That was what it was—the house seemed empty.

  Rachel’s bed wouldn’t have been slept in if her children’s hadn’t. Unless she had known exactly where her daughters were and hadn’t been the least bit concerned.

  Maybe Rachel had been having a rare mom’s night to herself. Maybe Paul had taken the girls with him on his trip.

  No. That didn’t make sense. Olivia had school today. She wouldn’t have been too far from Brynlock on a school day.

  A middle of the week sleepover with a friend or relative was a possibility. She’d kept Emery on weeknights before. There had even been a few times when Miranda had kept Emery, when both Jac and Max were out on cases.

  Jac sent up a quick prayer that the girls were somewhere safe now. A relative or family friend. Or their father.

  Someone who had protected them by taking them away from all of this.

  31

  Ed stopped speaking to the local law enforcement officer when Max Jones pulled in.

  Ed had been on scene for a good twenty minutes, but suspected that Max had had to drop his own child off at Brynlock. He remembered the days when juggling Georgia’s needs and the bureau had damned near torn him apart.

  The bureau hadn’t exactly been all that friendly to single parents when Georgia had been young. He’d argued himself blue in the face to get some much needed policy changes made through the years.

  Marianna was in the bureau-issue vehicle directly behind Max. Marianna had probably followed Max to the Old Jamestown area, eighteen miles north of the PAVAD building. Marianna had only been in the city of St. Louis for a little over three years now. She didn’t always know the quickest routes to the various crime scenes.

  Of course, she rarely ventured out into the field any longer. As the wife of the director of PAVAD, she should be behind guarded doors right now, too.

  If anyone were to go after Marianna again, it would devastate him. It had happened before. That had been one of the darkest days of his life.

  Ed had made enough enemies in his years with the FBI that that was a distinct possibility. One they had discussed numerous times.

  She didn’t care. She loved him, she said. And wanted to be with him.

  But this case...it was one that would have the very best PAVAD had to offer. And that meant Marianna. And him.

  The CCU.

  The PAVAD: FBI security guard that was their compromise was visible next to the forensic van. His sole purpose was to guard Marianna while on scene. Ed nodded at him quickly.

  Ed crossed the end of the drive and met Max before he went inside, just as Eugene Lytel and an auxiliary team of agents Ed had requested pulled up behind Marianna’s forensics van. “Jones.”

  Ed had spent the last twenty minutes with the police chief, making deals to get this case moved to the CCU. All he’d known was that he had a team coming.

  “Director, what do we have here?” Max asked. His team was pulling in behind him.

  “We’re not sure yet. But we have two dead. It was brutal. And...Todd Barnes will be assisting.”

  Ed didn’t miss the scowl. No one wanted Barnes anywhere near PAVAD at all. Ed was no exception to that.

  But someone somewhere was pulling strings.

  Ed couldn’t find the marionette to cut the cords.

  That didn’t matter now—they had more important things to worry about right now.

  Like who had killed Rachel Sturvin in the second-floor hallway.

  32

  Jac had to get off scene somehow. She pulled in a breath and fought a panic attack. She looked around. There were people gathering. She assumed they were some of the Sturvins’ neighbors. She pulled off her gloves and bagged them quickly in the bag Cody Lorcan held out for her.

  Ed had called out all the forensics supervisors. Even automotive, apparently.

  The same pain was in Cody’s eyes that was in Jac’s heart. Her daughter Lucy was a Brynlock student, too. Cody had met Rachel before. “Did you know her well, Cody?”

  “A little. Parents’ organization meetings mostly. Rachel...she always volunteered to help with snacks. We worked concessions a few times. Sin jumped her car once when it wouldn’t start. And…Lucy…same grade as the older girl. Same class.”

  Jac just nodded. Periphery. People didn’t realize who was on the periphery of their lives sometimes. “Let me know as soon as forensics finds something. I... Rachel was a friend, too.”

  “I’ll do that. And Jac? We’re not going to stop until we have the answers.”

  Of course, they wouldn’t. Jac thought about all she had seen PAVAD accomplish since it began. The
four-year anniversary had been four months ago. There had been a huge picnic—right before they’d rescued her friend Shannon from another case gone bad—at a local park.

  It was the last time she’d done anything with Emery and Max before the argument. They’d attended together, with Miranda. She shoved thoughts of Emery ruthlessly away.

  Now was definitely not the time to think about Max’s daughter. About the fact that Olivia showed natural aptitude at basketball, just like Emery. Or that little Ava had wanted Jac to give her extra birthday cake when her parents weren’t looking.

  Jac turned her face up to the rain, hoping the chill would wash the terror for the girls away. Enough for her to somehow forget her last sight of Rachel and focus on doing her job so Jac could find those sweet little girls.

  Before anything else could happen to them. She had to focus on the girls first, then finding Rachel’s killer.

  Rachel would want her daughters safe and protected. She would want that more than anything else, and that was something Jac could make happen.

  She zipped up her FBI-issue jacket and started toward the closest cluster of people determinedly.

  Answers. They needed answers.

  And that meant the people who had a front-row seat to the Sturvins’ lives.

  Neighbors were always watching.

  Always.

  It was time for Jac to go digging. She scanned the crowd for a moment. Until she found someone she suspected would talk the most readily. The one Rachel, a stay-at-home mother, would have connected with the most.

  There was a woman a few years or so older than Jac near the edge of the crowd, white-faced and nervous. She had one hand on the preteen next to her, clutching his shoulder. Clutching him close.

  Jac walked straight to her. “Hello, I’m Agent Jaclyn Jones. With PAVAD: FBI. May I ask you a few questions? About the Sturvins?”

  “Are the kids ok? I saw...them...a body bag...” The woman’s lips trembled. “Someone said it was Edith, from down the street. Is it?”

  Jac nodded. They wouldn’t be able to keep the IDs quiet. Not with so many people watching, including the news stations. “What can you tell me about Edith and the Sturvins?”

  The woman blanched. Her hand tightened on the boy. “I...”

  “Can we go inside?” Jac asked softly, as her teammate Whitman came up next to her. She looked at him. He was a few years older than she was and had started off with PAVAD around the same time. He was a good agent, in an understated way. He touched her shoulder and nodded. He’d accompany them, per PAVAD protocol. Whit had a calming, dependable air about him that victims and witnesses tended to respond well to.

  He looked like everyone’s favorite older brother. He made people feel safe. “Out of this cold rain?”

  The woman pulled in a deep breath, then looked at her son. She turned back to Jac. “The girls, Ava and Livy?”

  Jac shook her head. “We don’t know the location of the Sturvin girls at this time. But I’m going to find them. I know the Sturvins personally. How well did you know them?”

  Jac and Whitman followed the woman into her home. It was very similar to the Sturvins, down to the same paint color on the exterior trim.

  No doubt because of homeowners’ association regulations. A neighborhood like this one would have some. “Is there a homeowner’s association here?”

  The woman shook her head. She quickly took off her quilted coat and hung it on a peg by her kitchen door. The home was immaculate—and cost a good ten times what Jac made in a year.

  But it felt warm. Lived in. Not like the designer showpiece the Sturvins’ home was.

  There wasn’t an inch of white leather anywhere. There were…toys. Photos of children. An elderly beagle wearing a pink harness and two hair ribbons clipped by her ears watching them from behind a baby gate to the hallway.

  Jac far preferred this place to the one across the street. The Sturvins’ home felt sterile.

  That was one thing that had stood out.

  The neighbor sent her son to his room with a soft order to get his backpack for school. There were two other children inside the house. The woman hugged them quickly.

  Jac tried to ignore how the little girl reminded her of Emery. She was just as tall as Max’s daughter, with blond hair in two braids. Emery had the same sweatshirt, but in purple.

  Jac had bought it for her the last time they’d gone shopping together.

  “The school bus will arrive in a few moments. If...if it can get through the police cars.”

  Her husband came in. He studied Jac and Whitman closely. “You’re with the FBI. Or do you work with Paul?”

  “FBI. PAVAD, actually. Paul Sturvin was a contractor with the local field office, but I never worked with him. I did know his wife through the girls’ school, somewhat.”

  The husband nodded. He had a pinched look on his handsome face. “Bethy, I’ll drive the kids in. I don’t think they need to be here for this. I’ll have my mother pick them up at three and take them home with her for the night. You...call me if you need me.”

  He brushed a hand over her hair. The gesture shouted love to Jac. The woman looked at her husband for reassurance. Just for a moment. He touched her—like he didn’t want to leave her. He loved her. How she felt was written on her own face.

  They were lucky to be loved like that.

  “I’ll be ok,” she said shakily. Once the husband and children were gone, she turned back to Jac and Whitman. “I’m sorry. I’m Beth Ann Watson. That’s my husband Henry. Edith...I check on her every morning. Rachel would check on her of the evening. How could someone do this to Edith? And Rachel...is she ok? She’s a nice woman. Always volunteering at her children’s school.”

  “Your children don’t go to Brynlock?” She hadn’t thought they had. Brynlock students wore distinctive uniforms; her children had been dressed in street clothes.

  “No. Too expensive. They go to Worthingstone Christian. It’s not nearly as expensive as Brynlock. Still a great school. We considered a public school, but our daughter has some special needs. Worthingstone has a great special education program, and tuition discounts for multiple children. It’s just much more affordable than Brynlock.”

  “I’ve heard that. How well did you know the family?” Jac asked. They settled into the woman’s living room. “We’re trying to find out what we can about them, see if we can find out who would want to focus on them. Or Rachel, specifically.”

  “They stuck to themselves. Rachel would occasionally let the girls play with my youngest, but not often. Only when her husband was out of town.” Beth Ann looked around, as if she was ashamed of what she’d said.

  “I met Paul a few times. He was a bit abrupt,” Jac said.

  Whit was taking notes. He was very organized in his notes. One of his skills was looking at patterns, too.

  “Social climbing. That’s what Edith had to say about him. Nobody in this neighborhood is good enough for him to associate with. Not enough disposable income. Edith had definite opinions about Paul. Several people in the neighborhood did. We wondered what Rachel saw in him. She is a very kind, compassionate woman. He…is not well liked.”

  “Were the Sturvins more economically sound than the rest of the neighborhood?” All of the houses were in excellent repair and the neighborhood shouted upper-middle class. If not the wealthy upper class.

  Jac could have afforded a place here, but it would have required her using interest payments from her mother’s legacy to do it.

  To her, it hadn’t seemed worth it. That money was for later. For her future. After she retired from the bureau when she was in her fifties.

  Beth shook her head. “No. That’s why we all thought Paul was so strange. They bought their house as a foreclosure. The lowest purchase price on the block. I’ve seen Rachel shopping for the girls’ clothing at secondhand stores and clearance sales. I got the impression money was a bit tight and they were hiding it. If we were living in the 1950s, people would say the Stur
vins—at least Paul, anyway—were putting on airs. Paul, especially, thinks he’s better than everyone else.”

  33

  Max swore the instant he saw the name printed neatly on the mailbox of the three-story brownstone home in the Old Jamestown area of Florissant.

  “They connected to Brynlock?” he asked, looking at his bosses as they stood quietly talking at the end of the drive. Away from the blood. “Is this those same Sturvins?”

  Crime scene techs worked quickly to set up tents over the larger bloodstains and surrounding areas before the encroaching rain could wash away the evidence. There were four tech auxiliaries now setting up a fifty-by-twenty tent over the Sturvins’ drive. Lytel’s people were going door-to-door, getting as many witness statements as possible.

  Lytel was visible near the command post van.

  PAVAD teams were damned efficient at what they did.

  Michael Hellbrook nodded. “Yes. We called your team in because of the Brynlock connection. You’ll see why, inside.”

  Max looked the man next to him.

  There was grief in Ed’s dark eyes. And anger. A great deal of boiling anger that had Max just knowing...this case...it was going to be a bad one.

  And he knew the people inside. That was every agent’s nightmare. He prayed to God he wasn’t about to see the bodies of Emery’s friends inside.

  Please God, not those girls.

  The memory of Jac holding the little Sturvin girl at the party passed through his head. He doubled that prayer. And added another—he hoped Jac was nowhere near this scene today.

  Max still saw Andy in his dreams at night.

  He didn’t want similar nightmares for her. “What do we know so far?”

  Max studied the Sturvins’ home.

  There was a child’s playset in the immaculately manicured backyard. The swing blew in the wind, as if a ghost child rode it now. Max resisted the urge to flinch at that thought.