Seeking PAVAD

by Calle J. Brookes

No doubt she’d be forced to talk to one of the PAVAD psychiatrists before she was deemed field-ready again.

  What was she supposed to say? Yeah, my co-hostage and colleague—the guy I’ve always professed to despise—and I spent hours screwing around in a hotel room, even though we both knew we couldn’t stand each other. I’m so in my right mind. Right?

  Yeah, right. That would go over well.

  Well, maybe with Lara, but they were friendly. Lara wouldn’t think she was completely crazy. Maybe.

  Shannon showered quickly. It wouldn’t take long for Leina and Ken to be checking on her. She was surprised the two had let her sleep alone as it was.

  If they hadn’t, last night wouldn’t have happened.

  She still wasn’t certain why he’d come by her room to begin with.

  He’d never said.

  Of course, they hadn’t done much talking. When they weren’t having sex—she winced at the thought—they’d been sleeping.

  Wrapped in each other’s arms. As close to one another as they could get.

  She hadn’t done something that stupid in a very, very long time.

  When she finally stepped out of her hotel room, Leina met her in the hallway—her big, burly, ridiculously handsome husband right behind her—and concern on her face. “How are you this morning?”

  “I’m ok.”

  Ken touched her shoulder lightly with one big paw. She’d always loved how he looked. He could have been frog ugly, and she’d still have thought there was something beautiful about Ken.

  Mostly because he was the kindest man she’d ever known.

  “No nightmares?” Ken asked, giving her the look.

  No. She hadn’t had time for nightmares, though. Every time she’d wakened, there’d been hot male hands there to hold her. Right when she’d needed held.

  She shook her head. “I’m ok, Ken.”

  “Counseling. You know it’ll be mandatory, anyway. Probably better to get started on it on your own. It’ll look better in your file that way.”

  “I know. Already been thinking about making an appointment with Lara.” Of course, she’d been planning to talk to the other woman about her stupidity with Ezra Hahn, not the three-day hostage situation.

  But she wasn’t ready to think about that yet.

  Just...not yet.

  She wasn’t even ready to see him right at the moment.

  Luckily, she got her wish. Leina delivered the news. “Paige came two hours ago. She and Kyra took Ez up to St. Louis to begin interviews with IA. Ken and I waited for you. Mia and Evan are riding back with...the bodies.”

  Of the men who had taken her. She understood what Leina wasn’t saying.

  Ken hesitated before going on. “The fifth man we arrested hung himself in his cell, Shan. We never even got his name. But we’re not going to stop until we have our answers.”

  Those men would have to be identified. They’d have to figure out the why and the how of everything. There would be so many questions.

  She didn’t have a clue how to answer them all.

  TWENTY-NINE

  SHE COULDN’T LIVE in her apartment any longer. Shannon had tried that first night. But it wasn’t going to happen.

  Thankfully, Kyra understood. She was already looking for a renter for her townhouse, and Shannon could easily afford the cost. Cam and Ken and Evan handled it all for her before she could even blink.

  Within a week of the abduction, she had a new place to live and a new routine. She was damned well going to get a new routine.

  Something to keep her from having to think about what had happened.

  She’d received a commendation from the director of PAVAD for her quick thinking.

  She hadn’t been thinking quickly. She’d been following protocol. But no one really wanted to hear that. They just liked how she looked on paper. Shannon understood it.

  Not that it really mattered. Everyone she knew in St. Louis, everyone she worked with and cared about, could have been killed in that bomb.

  She had nightmares of exactly that happening.

  The nightmares were coming more often than not.

  Shannon knew the importance of counseling and she’d been going. But...everything had changed. Everything.

  Her home, her sense of safety. Even the aftermath.

  Every time she thought of Ezra Hahn she got confused.

  They never should have slept together. It had just been one more thing to confuse her.

  But...she’d needed what had happened that night, too.

  After three weeks of combined vacation and medical leave—a mandatory break Ken had insisted on—she was back on the clock.

  Hopefully, she could get things figured out. Get back to what she did best.

  First, she had to meet with her supervisors and IA to discuss everything she’d learned about the protocols when they’d been implemented.

  A conversation she didn’t even want to think about. But one that was going to change PAVAD protocol from that day forward.

  EZRA WAS running late. He’d been back at work with REY for three days now. He’d drawn the short straw to testify in an appeal on an older case. The sonofabitch was guilty; he hoped his testimony made that clear again. But he hated courtrooms. So damned hot and monotonous.

  He hit the bank of elevators just as Shannon reached for the up button. He’d heard through the grapevine that she was coming back. “Hey.”

  “Ezra—Agent Hahn. How are you?” A touch of embarrassment came through her words.

  He fought a smirk. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to make her look at him again. “I’m fine. You?”

  “As right as rain. I...need to talk to Carrie Lorcan in five minutes. Follow up on our abduction.”

  He nodded. They’d had discussion after discussion on his end, too. It was the way of things. PAVAD was extremely thorough, and IA was no doubt reworking every divisions’ protocols.

  They stepped into the elevator. It surprised him that no one stepped in behind them.

  As the door closed behind them, he looked at her. “You doing ok? Seriously?”

  She looked at him, those doe eyes of hers big and beautiful like always. She nodded. “I’m fine. Getting there. Counseling and everything. It’s part of the job risk, right? We both knew that going in.”

  He nodded. The elevator dinged for the floor beneath the CCU’s. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

  She sighed. “No, it doesn’t. I’m going to try to put it behind me, Ezra. All of it. I need to.”

  He understood. “I’m here. You ever want to talk, to yell and scream over it, I’ll listen.”

  “You mean that?”

  “No reason we can’t be friends, is there?” He leaned down until they were almost eye to eye. Just as the door opened on her floor. “I’ll see you around, Toliver. Might as well get along when we do. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  THIRTY

  THE FIRST TIME Chas followed Agent Shannon Toliver it was mostly by accident. He’d gotten caught up in the crowd waiting for the bus near the FBI buildings. It had been easier—and safer—for him to join those heading to the slightly pricey apartment complex via the bus than to stick around and double back.

  Chas was counting on his normal invisibility keeping him off her radar.

  It didn’t disappoint, even though he sat less than four feet away from her.

  Shannon smelled nice. And she had a beautiful smile. He watched her as she continued her conversation.

  It was stupid of him, perhaps. To get so close. But he had his camera. No doubt she would just overlook him. Like so many others had. The way so many did every single day.

  She was beautiful. Understated, petite, delicate. Alone. Invisible to all but him.

  It was so simple to just follow her off the bus and almost to her front door. When she veered off toward a back building in the complex, he kept walking.

  Half of blending in was simply making yourself look like you belonged.

&nbs
p; Becoming invisible.

  Chas was an expert at being invisible.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “I’m not certain she’s coping well,” Leina said. “Shannon’s playing it all fine, but...she’s jumpier than she used to be. And I’m not certain she’s sleeping all that well. She refuses to go to Smokey’s now, too.”

  Ezra tuned in when he heard the name he’d tried to forget for a while.

  He hadn’t seen her in two weeks and four days. Not since the day in the elevator.

  And he’d counted. Dreamed about her. Wondered about her. Worried about her.

  He knew the hell a trauma like what they’d gone through could do to a woman. Or a man. He wasn’t sexist.

  But he’d been combat trained to deal with shit when he saw it—or when it happened to him. She hadn’t. She was a damned computer tech at heart, for hell’s sake. One of the nerds his partner Lake was always teasing.

  Much like the woman Leina was talking to. Dani wasn’t a close friend of Shannon’s, but they were friendly enough. Friendly enough for Dani to be expressing concern.

  He refused to let himself worry about Shannon. He wouldn’t.

  So what if he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head? They’d been abducted together, after all. He was bound to feel...concern. To feel a connection to her. A responsibility.

  And he wasn’t supposed to be awake, let alone listening to Leina and Dani and Cam discussing the woman they were all good friends with. He shifted under his blanket and faced the jet’s window, feigning sleep while he listened.

  “Shannon’s stubborn,” Dani said. Ezra bit back a snort. That didn’t even begin to describe her. “And I don’t think she’s going to ask for help until she absolutely has to.”

  “No, she won’t. We’re going to have to gang up on her. She’s renting Kyra’s condo now. Since those men had found their way inside her apartment. No wonder she doesn’t feel safe. How can she?”

  He didn’t miss the worry in Leina’s words. And he hadn’t thought about how that would affect her. But those sonsofabitches had been in her apartment. Several times.

  They’d brought her a blanket from her own damned bed.

  He had to admit, as a psychological tool, it had been one hell of a weapon.

  One that showed they had deliberately chosen her. Not one of the other forensic specialists, but her.

  It could have just as easily been Dani.

  She would probably have been a bit easier to handle than Shannon.

  Shannon had fought since the moment they’d been taken.

  He hated the knowledge that she was still fighting. That he had added to the strain.

  He never should have touched her.

  His body tightened when he thought of that night that he had not been able to forget.

  “She’ll heal,” Dani said. “Shannon’s strong. She’ll figure it out. And she won’t have to do it alone. She has her friends. And her family.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  IT WAS GOOD to be back in the field. It had been a hard six weeks since the abduction. Shannon had completed the mandatory counseling sessions, taken the mandatory two weeks off, done countless talks with her superiors, and had finally been deemed fit for full duty rather than the modified she’d been on.

  Fortunately, most of her job was easily done remotely. She’d still been able to be an asset to her team. She’d just done it all from the PAVAD building, rather than out there with Ken, Evan, and the rest.

  It would seriously suck if she died her first case back out in the field.

  Thank God she’d had on her vest.

  If she hadn’t...

  Male hands pulled her from the ground and she accept the help. “Damn it, Shannon! What were you thinking?”

  “Easy. You weren’t wearing a vest.” She pulled in a deep breath. Big mistake.

  Her ribs felt like they were on fire. Like they were pressing on her lungs from all sides. One hand rose. The round was still stuck in the edge of her vest.

  If she’d been any shorter, it would have hit her wrong and gone straight up. It would have killed her.

  But it was better than the alternative.

  She was going to have a hellacious bruise, but Ken was alive.

  If she hadn’t seen the second shooter at the last minute, he wouldn’t be.

  And four kids—well, three point five, for now—would be facing the world without their father to raise them. And her best friend would be a widow.

  Not something Shannon wanted to think about.

  She coughed.

  “Sit her down. Get an ambulance here. That slug hit her hard.” Ken’s voice was harsh in her mic, echoing right above her.

  Shannon had trouble focusing on the dual Ken sounds. Her chest...burned.

  She checked again, looking for blood. She had almost been convinced the bullet had hit flesh. From the burn.

  But it hadn’t.

  “I’m ok. Just got the wind...”

  “Quit talking, Shan,” Alec said. “You’re a trouble magnet lately, aren’t you, kid?”

  “Apparently. Anyone got...an...ice pack?” Ken and Alec didn’t wait for the paramedics. Before she knew it, Shannon was scooped off the sidewalk and the two men crab-carried her to the newly arrived ambulance.

  Damn it.

  This was starting to become a habit.

  THIRTY-THREE

  IN EVERY WAR there were collateral losses. Those who were innocent victims caught in the crossfire. Amelia had been just that. Collateral in a war no one fully understood any longer. Chas certainly hadn’t.

  His job in St. Louis was taking longer than he’d thought, which, in this case, was a good thing.

  Repeat work always was.

  And he simply wasn’t ready to leave St. Louis yet.

  The FBI agent that was next on his list was remarkably hard to find. He’d learned the man had been sent out on temporary assignment somewhere that no one knew about yet.

  He was going to have to wait.

  Chas hadn’t ever waited well. But a training mission—that would help obfuscate his real purpose.

  It was never a good idea to lead authorities to his true targets too early.

  That was a good way for someone in his profession to get caught.

  Unfortunately for those in that pavilion, it was going to be them that were the collateral.

  He took aim.

  Fired.

  None were fatal shots. They would recover. This time.

  The last three targets he’d taken out had been fatal and had all been within a day’s drive of St. Louis. To prime the pump for when he went after his real targets.

  But he would confuse the issue for a while longer. For now, he was just going to enjoy the city. Chas settled back on the bus and planned.

  Waited for a woman he hoped to see.

  She was starting to become an obsession. He’d have to think about that. Decide what he wanted to do.

  Almost every day for six weeks, he’d followed her home now.

  But today...Shannon was nowhere to be seen. He had to wonder why. Chas shoved the worry away.

  He had a job to do; he couldn’t afford to make mistakes over a woman who had never even noticed he existed.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  LEINA AND DANI’S conversation echoed in his head after they’d returned to St. Louis. For days after. Ezra didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he’d looked for her every time he’d walked into the building. Every single damned time.

  When he saw her, he felt like a tongue-tied idiot.

  She barely looked at him straight on. Her eyes had never met his once when they passed each other in the hall.

  Shannon was definitely avoiding him.

  Easy for her to do—they were called in two different directions for the next month.

  It gave him a long time to think.

  And worry. In the near seven weeks since the abduction had happened, he had wondered and worried about her.

  He sprawled
out over his bed in the hotel room he was sharing with his idiot partner, Cam, and wondered about her. Cam was on the phone, making idiotic cooing noises at his wife.

  More than annoying, but since the two had been through some serious shit, Ezra ignored it. For the most part.

  Until Cam asked how Shannon was doing. Apparently, she was on downtime and spending it with Cam’s wife.

  “Give her a hug for me,” Cam said, a serious quality to his tone that told Ezra whatever Kyra had said about Shannon, it had Cam concerned. Cam usually joked about Shannon—even with his Kyra.

  When Cam disconnected, Ezra tried not to look like a stupid, overeager thirteen-year-old. “What’s up?”

  “Rough case for CCU4. Shannon took a hard hit in the vest from a .45.”

  Ezra’s breath caught and he jerked up. He knew exactly how shit-punched that would make a man his size feel. To think of the force of a damned .45 round striking someone as small as Shannon sickened him. Broken ribs, internal bleeding, bruises the size of Ohio—that was just the tip of the iceberg. And if she’d been close to the shooter, it would have been ten times worse. “She doing ok? Hurt badly?”

  Cam shrugged. “Kyra is staying with her tonight. Two cracked ribs. If she was any shorter than what she is, it would have missed the damned vest. Fatal.”

  Ezra swore. “What the hell did Chalmers let happen to her out there?”

  Cam winced, then sprawled out on his own mattress. “Apparently, Shannon pushed his ass out of the way just in time. Chalmers had given his vest to the victim. It came damned close. Kyra said Leina’s giving Ken an earful on his cell right now.”

  It was par for the course. Just a facet of the damned job.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t tempted to grab his phone and call her. He didn’t have a clue what he’d say, other than to demand to know how she was feeling.

  If she was safe.

  How badly she hurt.

  He wasn’t getting past what they’d done. Ezra had long ago admitted that to himself.

  He waited until Cam was out, snoring like he always did—he wondered how Kyra could deal with it—and grabbed his phone.