Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18)

by Calle J. Brookes

  There were a few reports Max needed to go over, and then he was putting his foot down. Jac was going home with him tonight, and they were going to sleep. Period. They’d connect the dots between Paul Sturvin and Andy’s murder first thing in the morning.

  There was a connection there—Max was almost certain of it.

  He was beyond exhausted, and Jac wasn’t doing any better.

  Max was taking her home.

  They could deal with everything else in the morning.

  She didn’t even protest when he led her to his SUV. “You’re camping at my place tonight. I arranged with Julie Cooper to take Emery home with her after basketball practice. She’s going to spend the night with Kacey.”

  “Am I? Taking charge, Max?” she asked around a yawn.

  “You’d better believe it. If nothing else this case has taught me one thing.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Time is short. I’m not going to waste it again. Especially with you.”

  She didn’t say anything as he drove, as they got out of the car, as he unlocked the front door.

  “Come on, inside.” He practically guided her into his living room. Jac just docilely did what he wanted.

  “They have no one,” Jac said in a quiet tone. “Paul, Philip, whoever he actually was, had no living family, Rachel only had Debbie. The girls…social services is going to take them and Bentley, and they’ll be put into foster care. Their entire lives are going to be destroyed. Were destroyed.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t let that happen, Max. I just can’t.”

  He’d never forget the look in those green eyes he loved so much in that moment.

  Then his arms were open. Jac threw herself into his arms, and he just held her.

  While she cried.

  They’d found Rachel’s daughters.

  Now, they had to figure out what happened next.

  99

  She fell asleep. Right there, curled up on Max’s chest like a damned cat, Jac fell asleep on him. When she woke, it was at least a few hours later, and he was sleeping beneath her.

  Jac could feel his heartbeat beneath her cheek. Strong, sure, steady. Real.

  She stared at him for the longest time. Sleeping in a chair on top of a man’s lap was not something she had ever done before. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as she’d always imagined it would be.

  For one thing, Max’s chair was oversized and he’d kicked out the foot. She’d been snuggled up against his side as if she’d slept there a million times before. Her head had been pillowed on his hard chest and his arm had been holding her tightly to him.

  As if he wanted her right there.

  Jac sat up and ran a hand over her eyes. She was sitting on his lap. And he was moving beneath her.

  Her gaze flew to his face.

  To meet heat-filled eyes. His hand tightened on her hip. Holding her in place. “Don’t move. I am not ready for you to move yet. I need to hold you for a while. Do you know how many nights I have dreamed of having you right here? I can tell you. Every damned night since we kissed.”

  “I...shouldn’t be on your lap.” But she made no further move to get away. Somehow while she’d slept his hand had slipped under her FBI polo. His fingers spread, right on her skin. Over the ridges of scars she’d always wanted to hide.

  But instead of immediately stiffening like she normally did whenever a man had touched her there, she didn’t.

  Because she trusted him? Max wouldn’t look at her with pity in his eyes once he learned of just how the colonel had liked to punish his willful daughters. Far from it.

  He’d be angry for her. And proud of how far she had come.

  Because he was Max. Max loved her. For exactly who and how she was.

  That punched her gut like a fist.

  Max loved her. Exactly how she was.

  Jac relaxed against him, her head fitting on his shoulder as if he was made for her.

  Her hair was loose, and he was actually almost playing with it. As if he couldn’t get enough of touching her.

  Jac wasn’t ready to ruin the moment.

  She probably never would be.

  The last thing Max wanted was for Jac to move off of him. He’d been awake for the last hour, just enjoying having her pressed against him. Tangling his fingers in her braid, running his fingers up her spine. Just holding her, touching her, being so damned thankful that he finally could.

  He’d listened to the sounds she made in her sleep. They had driven him crazy, tempting him.

  He’d wanted to kiss her awake. He’d wanted to somehow get out of the chair and carry her to his bed.

  Where she belonged.

  This was nothing like what it had been with his ex. This felt like it had far more depth and meaning. Like he was an entirely different person than he was then, messing around with Pamela.

  He and his ex had started off as casual lovers. There had been no love between them at the start. He wasn’t certain there ever had been love on Pamela’s part. Not deep down.

  But the desire he felt now went deeper than anything he’d ever felt for a woman before. And he hadn’t even truly touched Jac yet.

  This was what he’d been afraid of. That, once they were together, he’d never be able to stop wanting her.

  Hell. They weren’t even together yet, and he couldn’t stop wanting her.

  She was already his life. Her and Emery. He could give up anything else in the world—his house, his career, anything.

  But to lose Jac and Emery...would be to lose his everything. Max wasn’t going to be stupid anymore. He pulled her closer. His fingers cupped the back of her head. She gasped. He caught the sound with his mouth.

  Then he was kissing her. The way he had wanted to for a long, long time.

  100

  This felt different than it had that night. This...there was no hesitation in his embrace. Not now. Now, it was hungry man with the woman he wanted. Jac knew more than enough about human nature to sense that.

  Her fingers tightened on his shirt. Her other hand was trapped between them. She shifted, just enough so she could work her hand to the buttons on his chest.

  Come to think of it, she wanted his clothes out of the way too. And her own.

  She wanted to feel alive with him.

  Even if just for tonight. She made a sound in her throat when he pulled back. One of frustration and demand—on some level she was aware the sound was one that would have embarrassed her if she’d been with anyone else. But she wasn’t. Jac was far too focused on Max to care.

  She was with Max now. Was going to be with him in every way that really mattered.

  His hand slipped around her side, his fingers spread out over her stomach. “I want to take these off of you, Jaclyn Jones.”

  She almost thought he emphasized her last name, but she didn’t stop to wonder why. “I think I would like that very much.”

  It didn’t matter about the scars he would no doubt see. What mattered was that she wanted to feel that connection to him.

  To him.

  Because with Max, that mattered.

  No man had ever mattered to her more than the one she was with now.

  No man ever would.

  Jac stopped hesitating. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt.

  She popped the first one through the opening.

  Then the next. And the next. To reveal the plain white T-shirt beneath. Because Max was a creature of order. Nice and neat and well put together in everything.

  That was oddly comforting.

  She’d have to figure out why later, but tonight was for this. Not analyzing or anything else. Tonight was about connecting and feeling alive.

  Because tomorrow would come soon enough for them both.

  101

  Ed stared at the paperwork in front of him, trying to make sense of it. There was no real explanation for the pattern he was seeing. Burner phones.

  Andy Anderson had died because of a con
nection between fourteen burner phones.

  The next step was to locate those phones. Try to figure out who had purchased them and how they connected to PAVAD.

  Paul Sturvin had had one of those burner phones. He had been that close to Ed’s family. Ed hadn’t even seen the snake in their midst. Fury from that had his hands almost shaking.

  He couldn’t continue to live like this. He was five years past mandatory retirement age. He wouldn’t be working another five.

  Ed stepped out of his office and walked the halls of the very building he had been instrumental in designing. His heart was in this building. His soul.

  But his world—his world was a beautiful blue-eyed woman currently in the basement lab, their seven children, his daughter, her two children. Ana McLaughlin and the child who was his granddaughter by choice. Jasmine, his assistant who had worked just as hard as he had over the last five years to make PAVAD happen. She was another daughter of his heart, and he’d freely admit it.

  Julia, down in the morgue, he’d loved her for almost a decade now. Yet another child of his heart.

  Ed Dennis was a very rich man. And he knew that. He didn’t mean the fortune he had amassed from investments. Investments made from the money he had inherited from his parents so long ago. That money mattered very little.

  It wasn’t how much gold or silver a man had that mattered.

  Wealth was measured in love. In family.

  The friends he’d made over the last ten years were in this building. The agents he had taught, and trained. Guided.

  Ed walked down every hallway, on every floor. Just making note of the people who were there because of him.

  He had a destination in mind. Marianna. She would always be his direction. He loved that woman more than words could ever say.

  His daughter’s department was his next-to-last stop. He just wanted to look at her for a moment. She had been through so much—much of it because of him. No parent could ever accept that easily.

  Ed leaned over the rail next to the open stairs and looked down into the bullpen, right there outside his son-in-law’s office. Hell was inside, his desk phone to his ear, in an intense conversation by the looks of it.

  They had had a rocky relationship for fifteen years. Until Hell had fallen for Ed’s only daughter.

  Now…Ed would kill to protect that man. For his daughter, for his grandchildren. For the baby they would have in a few months.

  Ed turned back toward the CCU bullpen. Someone below him laughed.

  One of the Lorcan brothers, though he was too far away to see if it was Seth or Sebastian. It wasn’t Sin. Sin was busy at the moment, digging into Sturvin’s connections and contracts and those damned burner phones.

  Sin…Sin could run PAVAD someday. So could Georgia, though he knew she didn’t want that. Not with the children so young.

  There were many in PAVAD who could run it someday. It would be in good hands when Ed stepped down.

  He could rest assured with that.

  His legacy for the bureau would live on.

  There. He saw her. Georgia was coming out of her office—waddling out of her office. Ed smiled, not surprised one bit at the love that immediately rushed him. His baby girl. He hadn’t done too bad of a job raising her by himself.

  He just watched her as she met up with Carrie Lorcan. They had a discussion about something, as Paige Brockman joined them. He studied the people present beneath him. Georgia, Carrie, Paige.

  Josh Compton and his wife were discussing something heatedly near a back desk, a file flapping in her hands, heatedly.

  Dan Reynolds, Ed’s closest friend and Compton’s father-in-law, was heading in their direction.

  Dan would be retiring in one week. He’d wanted to be completely retired before the beginning of the year.

  Dan’s biggest plans were to join the Brynlock PTA. His young twins would be old enough for preschool in a year or so. Ed smiled, thrilled that his friend had the second chance he’d so deserved. Dan’s wife Allison was in the basement lab, most likely. The elevators dinged—Cody Lorcan, Sin’s wife, stepped out.

  People. PAVAD wasn’t just agents; it was people.

  And someone was threatening those people. People Ed loved.

  He would never rest easily while that was happening.

  Max Jones walked through the bullpen, stopping to talk to Agent Whitman. Ed smiled, remembering what the man had told him about the beautiful Agent Jones. Finally. He had been expecting those two to tie the knot for years. They belonged together—everyone had been able to see that. Except perhaps the two of them.

  Someone came up behind him. Put a hand on his shoulder. Ed knew who it was immediately. He would always know. She must have taken the back elevator. “Mari.”

  “You are up here, looking very serious. Anything I can help with?”

  “I’m ready to retire.” Four words he had never said to her. But four words that held power.

  Blue eyes widened. “Ed? What happened?”

  He took her into his arms, not caring who was watching them from below. “Nothing. I’m just…I’ve almost accomplished what I wanted here.”

  He had one more department to get off the ground. The one dearest to his heart. Cold cases. The forgotten.

  Then… “I’m ready for more. To let someone else take PAVAD to where it is meant to go. I…want to concentrate on being husband, father, and grandfather and friend now. This stage of my life is coming to an end. I want more.”

  He had three cases he needed to finish first. Andy Anderson, Darrin Hull, and one more. Hers. The one woman other than Marianna that he had once loved, truly loved. He owed it to her to answer the questions about her death.

  More. He owed it to her two daughters.

  And he had to find the people responsible for the leak in PAVAD.

  Ed was making that his final mission.

  He’d make certain PAVAD was safe for the ones who came after.

  102

  There was no way to fix this. Eugene bit back a curse.

  He still had that bastard Barnes’s blood on him. He’d have to find a place to change clothes. Burn the evidence.

  He knew enough about forensics to know what he needed to do. He hadn’t enjoyed that. The rush just hadn’t been the same.

  Maybe he was getting tired of it. The death and killing. He saw so much of it; it had been bound to twist his soul eventually. Or flat-out bore him to his teeth.

  How could it not? Nothing lasted forever, after all.

  Barnes had completely screwed everything up. Eugene had told the others that he was a bad choice. Barnes shouldn’t have been brought into this at all.

  Barnes was too stupid to have followed through.

  Two mistakes such as Sturvin and Barnes were something they couldn’t afford. Not on Eugene’s watch. He’d already been cussed at one time too many over Sturvin now.

  Fallow and Young and the others were watching him now. Mistrusting him.

  Once again, he had been ignored. And now Barnes had spilled his guts.

  He might have even named fucking names.

  Lower man on the hierarchy—Eugene’s words hadn’t mattered. Exactly like every time before.

  No matter where he turned, whichever way he looked at it, Eugene would always be the guy who did all the grunt work. Both inside PAVAD and out of it.

  Well, fuck that.

  He was finished. It was time to take all of his damned money and find a beach somewhere.

  As soon as he cleaned up a few things first, he was going to put in his papers. Claim he was having a mental breakdown or something, like Stephenson had years ago. He was just done.

  He’d seen that before.

  The PAVAD shrinks were all about mental wellness now, and taking time off if the ugliness of PAVAD got to be too difficult to handle.

  He’d put in for some extended comp time, find an island south of the equator, then fake his own death. Erase Eugene Lytel as if he’d never existed.

 
; Get out from under everything—everyone—who had ever dragged him down. Including the wife and kids.

  He would miss the grandkids, though. He liked most of them.

  But they were getting old enough now to be on the internet. Maybe he’d friend them under a fake name or something. Keep an eye on them that way.

  The more he thought about it the more he liked the idea.

  That was exactly what he was going to do.

  But first…he had a personal score to settle with Colonel Boyd Jones.

  He had always hated that sick son-of-a-bitch.

  And there were only two beings that bastard truly cared about. Two people, if the colonel was capable of caring about anyone.

  It was time to take one of those away from him.

  Eugene had been looking forward to it, for weeks.

  Ever since the girl had transferred to PAVAD.

  He’d discounted Jones’s older daughter—she wasn’t Jones’s by blood. Eugene snickered at that.

  The younger one wasn’t either, for that matter.

  But old Boyd didn’t acknowledge that.

  He’d discovered that for himself when he’d casually asked Jaclyn about her relation to the bastard from Washington, several years ago.

  She had made it very clear she despised her stepfather. And wanted no part of him. Her hatred had almost been tangible. Eugene had done some digging, checked some old dates in some old records and done a small bit of math.

  The colonel’s wife had stepped out on him—just in time to make the younger daughter.

  He’d watched the elder the years she was in St. Louis, to see if the colonel ever had influence over her life.

  The bastard hadn’t visited Jaclyn even once.

  Jaclyn—she was very much like her mother had been twenty something years ago.

  It had led Eugene to seeing her in a different light, made him feel almost paternal toward her at times. She’d been very young to have no family.