Seeking PAVAD

by Calle J. Brookes

  He shot a look around. Leina and Cam were just entering the bullpen from the elevators. Kyra was coming in from the lower level. People were where they were supposed to be.

  He pulled Shannon more in front of him to make room for the people coming up behind them.

  “What’s this about?”

  He shook his head. He didn’t have a clue.

  But Ed Dennis was up there, ready to say something.

  SHANNON TURNED toward the man who had started PAVAD. He was like a demigod in the PAVAD sphere. She’d always liked and respected him. Not just for what he’d done for the bureau, but because he was genuinely a kind, caring man who greatly loved his family.

  The crowd hushed.

  “Fifteen minutes ago, Agent Sin Lorcan and his wife were dropping their children off at the sitter’s when they were ambushed in the driveway.”

  Shannon gasped at the director’s words. The Lorcans had two small children, a girl and a boy. She said a quick mental prayer for those kids and their parents.

  The director held up a hand. “Cody Lorcan was hit in the leg, but it was superficial—a ricochet, we think. She’s being treated now. Sin Lorcan was not injured, though it is believed he was the intended target. His sister-in-law Alessandra was inside and was able to render aid quickly. None of the children or anyone else was harmed. However, with the recent events involving Agent Jaynice Miller, all PAVAD agents are to be on high alert—even when not on the clock. We do not know what this attack was about. And we will be proceeding with extra caution until the shooter is apprehended. Remember, watch yourselves out there. Keep safe.”

  EIGHTY-TWO

  THE MEN WHO had taken him and Shannon, who they were still trying to identify, had hinted that it wasn’t the end of what was to come. Ezra didn’t want to speculate on the cause of any of it without more proof or evidence. The idea that a random attack could happen at any time had his instincts flaring.

  Had him wondering how what had happened to him and Shannon all those weeks ago played into what was happening now. If it was connected at all.

  Unfortunately, Team Five hadn’t found anything definitive to identify any of the abductors yet.

  Max Jones had hit him up with more questions just an hour after he’d clocked in. Team Five wasn’t stopping until they all had the answers they needed.

  He stuck at Shannon’s side until Chalmers called the team into one of the more private conference rooms. They still had a case of their own to solve.

  Jaynice Miller had taken a turn for the worse at around the same time that her fiancé had been upgraded. Everyone was pulling for the two of them to fully recover, but Ezra knew it was a long shot that either would.

  It wasn’t right.

  And they still hadn’t figured out if it was deliberate or random.

  Chalmers looked around as the crowd started to thin. “We’re getting this case, too. We need to figure out if there is any connection between what happened to Jaynice and what happened today. Everyone make your calls. Grab your ready bags. We’re not going anywhere until we have that connection figured out.”

  Ezra got it. It was time to pull out all the stops. “Chalmers, you heading over to the scene now?”

  Chalmers nodded. “You’re coming with. Shan, see if you can find us any surveillance videos in the area to go on. I’m talking—”

  “Traffic lights, private businesses, cell phones, whatever I can find.”

  “The rest of us are going to canvas the area. Talk to the Lorcans’ sitter, talk to Al. Whatever we can find. Shan, you’ll be the central relay point on all information. Take whatever auxiliary agents you need to see that done.”

  “Gotcha, boss.” She shot Ezra a look. “You all...be careful, ok? With a shooter like this...well... We all know we can’t ever see it coming. Take care of yourselves out there.”

  Ezra had two minutes to meet Chalmers at the car. But his weapon and gear were stashed in Shannon’s desk. He followed her there first. He leaned down. “I’ll be ok out there. I’m coming back for you as soon as I can. You can trust that.”

  Dark eyes looked up at him. “I know. Just...watch your back. I...”

  “I know.”

  EIGHTY-THREE

  THE HOUSE THEY were going to was a nice, older colonial in a good part of town. Ezra had been there before, he thought. For his first Thanksgiving with REY. His boss Paige had dragged him somewhere to meet her family.

  Sin Lorcan waited inside the home, his two children playing quietly nearby. His niece and nephew were also present. His sister-in-law, Alessandra—leader of Team Five—was at his side.

  There was anger in the beautiful blonde’s blue eyes that Ezra understood.

  Her infant was cradled in Al’s mother’s arms. Her parents watched several of the children of PAVAD agents, mostly their grandchildren and a few others.

  Who in the hell would ambush people in front of what was essentially a small, private day care?

  Ezra picked up a beautiful little girl when she toddled over to him. He had a vague idea that she was one of the Lorcans, most likely the daughter of Shannon’s supervisor, Carrie. She had her mother’s slightly crooked smile.

  She wasn’t more than two, he didn’t think. Her baby brother slept in a playpen nearby.

  His hand tightened gently as he looked at the little girl’s aunt. “Give me what you’ve got.”

  “Heard you were moved to this one,” her husband said. He’d met Ezra and Chalmers at the door. “Sniper experience?”

  Ezra nodded. “Former Army.”

  There was another baby in the room, currently chewing on his toes and cooing. One Ezra knew well.

  Mikey Brockman, son of his supervisor, Paige. He’d held that kid hours after he’d been born.

  He had been inside the house today, too.

  A stray bullet could have hurt one of these kids.

  Fire burned in his gut.

  He handed the baby back to her uncle Seth. He had to get away from all the kids before his anger that they’d been endangered overwhelmed him. “I’m going to walk the perimeter. See if I can find anything.”

  Ezra stopped off and lifted Mikey from the playpen and cuddled him close for a moment. Paige was no doubt on her way—she’d been in court today, he’d heard.

  Her husband would be coming soon, too.

  Hell, this place was about to become a hotbed of PAVAD targets.

  Someone would need to make certain the security was tight around this place. Ezra would do that himself. He kissed Mikey’s black hair absently, then put the kid back down.

  He was going to find the sonofabitch as soon as he could.

  EIGHTY-FOUR

  SHANNON HATED WAITING. Hated knowing that Ezra and Ken were out there somewhere, searching for someone who had targeted PAVAD.

  That seemed like it was just asking for trouble. More rumors were filtering their way.

  The Lorcans had just taken their son and daughter into the house. Thankfully, the kids hadn’t been out there at all. But the house had been filled with kids.

  PAVAD kids. Toddlers and babies, mostly, though a few were school-aged. Young, vulnerable, and easy targets.

  Sin Lorcan had turned at the last minute to look at his wife.

  She’d pulled him out of the line of fire and caught a bullet in her upper thigh doing it when the shooter had shot again.

  Shannon knew Cody Lorcan slightly. She often got stuck with the job of communicating with the various forensics departments within PAVAD, and Cody was the head of automotive.

  She could only imagine the fear Cody had felt, seeing her husband in danger like that.

  It was probably what Shannon was feeling at the moment, magnified.

  It took everything she had not to text him and just check.

  Exactly how she didn’t want to feel about the man she cared about.

  She didn’t want the fear loving someone in PAVAD was going to bring.

  But...whoever loved her would feel that fear, too
.

  Why hadn’t she realized that before? It gave her a lot to think about.

  EIGHTY-FIVE

  ONE MAJOR REQUIREMENT for this job was making certain nothing he did was connected to the client in any way.

  Chas understood that.

  After he’d targeted Sinclair Lorcan and that unbelievably stacked wife of his, Chas had taken off toward downtown.

  He was supposed to meet one of his former teammates. It was time they had a heart-to-heart about what had happened that day with Amelia. Her ghost was telling him he needed to tie up some ends. Find the answers. Then he could move on.

  Seeing Ezra so often had brought it all up. And he couldn’t truly begin with Shannon until he finished being haunted by Amelia.

  It wasn’t fair to Shannon that he be so consumed with another woman.

  He wanted to start things off on a good footing.

  Geoff had canceled on him last minute, though.

  For a date.

  Damn it.

  It would serve Geoff right if Chas showed him exactly what it was like to be so unimportant.

  So...invisible all the time.

  EIGHTY-SIX

  MAX HAD ALWAYS liked Shannon. The woman had a snarky sense of humor under her quiet exterior that always had him laughing.

  Today, she was worried.

  He understood it. They all were. “Hey, Toliver. Any news today?”

  “Nothing yet. Ken and Ezra are on-scene. As are a few others.”

  Max suspected it was more than a few. When PAVAD was targeted, everyone came running. It just was. “I’m here to ask you some questions. I know it’s not a good time, but we’re still trying to figure out who those idiots were who took you.”

  She looked at him, then at her watch. “I’m waiting for a runner from the St. Louis traffic division to bring me the recent traffic cam footage in the area surrounding where this morning’s shooting took place. I have maybe half an hour. Shoot.”

  Max understood. While some cases had to take priority, every single PAVAD team had more than a dozen open cases on their desks at one time. Some were just more immediate than others. “Can I ask you to start at the beginning? Tell me what the leader, Supreme Asshole said about this company.”

  Shannon sighed, and the area around her eyes pinched. He hated bringing it back up. But it had been two months now. And they were no closer to identifying any of the four men responsible. Five, counting the one who had given false identification then killed himself in custody. In today’s technical age, it was phenomenal that those five men hadn’t been identified yet. He wouldn’t have thought it possible.

  “I don’t know. Part of me thought that the company was just a front. And with the fifth guy out there—was it just him? Did they just have a beef with the bureau in general? St. Louis in particular? I’ve gone over it in my head probably a million times now, Max. I can’t find the answers. There had to be a reason why they took us. But what was it?”

  She glanced back at the laptop in front of her, at the footage of the courtyard where Jaynice had been hit less than a week ago. “A beef with the FBI. Sin Lorcan was one of the names he wanted information on. One of the first. I think his real target was buried in the list of names he asked me about. Hellbrook, Sin Lorcan, Ken, a few others. Even some names I didn’t recognize. I think they were from the St. Louis office, maybe even Springfield. I haven’t been able to remember all of them, though. He basically interrogated me for days.”

  And the memory of it was still there in her pretty eyes. Max fought back the anger he still felt when he thought about what this woman he considered a friend had gone through.

  “You think this is connected to that?” he asked her quietly.

  “I don’t know. What if it is? What if there’s more than just those five out there, and they have a real problem with the bureau? Enough to coordinate these attacks? It’s just speculation, but something is going on out there. Today just proves that. But what?”

  Max thought about it. It made sense. But it also made just as much sense that it be pure coincidence. Sin Lorcan had pissed off a lot of people. Not just in St. Louis, but all over the country from what he’d heard. It could be just coincidence that someone had wanted to get back at him while all this other shit was going on.

  Sin and Jaynice had never worked together, that he knew of. Sin had transferred into PAVAD long after it had been established. Jaynice had never worked PAVAD, and he seriously doubted their paths had crossed at all.

  The only thing connecting them was that they were both FBI, and both had been shot at recently.

  They didn’t even have forensics to compare to today yet.

  No doubt they would soon. Until then, he had to assume they were separate cases.

  And he was supposed to be working on finding who had abducted Shannon. His trafficking case with Allan was mostly in the wrap-up stages. They just had a couple of people left to apprehend—they’d already been identified—and then this stage of the case would be complete.

  He’d work Shannon’s case as long as he could, then once Jac returned from her personal leave, they’d be moving on to the next one on their docket. It literally never ended. “Come on. You still have twenty minutes, right? I’ll buy you lunch downstairs. Without Jac, I’m lonely. I don’t think Hahn will mind if I borrow his lady for a while.”

  EIGHTY-SEVEN

  CHAS TOOK THE second shot. Watched it all happen. Watched his former friend, Geoff Morten, die through the scope of his rifle, almost like Amelia had died in Chas’s arms. There wasn’t a single moment of regret, of sadness, at the end of a human life, or a twinge of anything like there normally was with his contract killings. There was nothing other than satisfaction.

  Geoff Morten had been one of the men responsible for Amelia’s death. Chas had always known that.

  They’d had unfinished business between them. Business he’d meant to resolve today. That it had been verbal and changed to this, well, that was Geoff’s fault. Not his.

  He’d tried to get Geoff to meet him, but the other man had deliberately put him off. How was he supposed to resolve what had happened with Geoff if the man hadn’t been willing?

  Geoff had known he was guilty for Amelia’s death. Chas understood that.

  Amelia could rest a little easier now, knowing Geoff had been dealt with for what he had done to her.

  Now it was finished. Maybe now Chas could move on, as well.

  Move past the pain of losing Amelia and focus on the future with another woman. With Shannon.

  Eventually, he would have to speak to her. To make that first real contact so they could move on with their lives.

  Like he had with Amelia.

  He’d taken his time courting Amelia. Become the gentleman he’d thought the war had bled out of him. That had come out in him protecting her, trying to make the hell of Afghanistan better for her in any small way that he could.

  He’d even warned the other men away from her so they wouldn’t do anything to upset her.

  Except Geoff Morten had flirted with her just to screw with him.

  And when Amelia had needed them the most, Geoff had abandoned her. Just left her. Ignored her.

  Just like he had ignored Chas today. Left Chas feeling useless and unimportant. Invisible.

  No more. He was so damned tired of being invisible all the time.

  He didn’t bother shooting anyone else down there today except Geoff and the woman with him. Everyone deserved to know that Geoff Morten was the man he had been after.

  It was personal now.

  He forced the anger away and brought up the skilled, professional side of himself. It had kept him alive and out of prison for this long. He would fall back on it now, as well.

  Anger and jubilation ruled for supremacy. Chas forced both away.

  Chas grabbed his gear and left the scene before half the people down there even realized the blood was real. That it wasn’t some joke.

  Geoff Morten was just the fir
st, he decided. He’d find the rest of the men in his unit, do what needed to be done to erase the past, then he would move on, stepping out into the world. It was time. He had healed enough to finally live again.

  With Shannon.

  But only after he removed Ezra from her path completely. Ezra didn’t deserve to be anywhere near Shannon.

  Not after what he’d let happen to Amelia that day.

  Chas wouldn’t risk Shannon. Ezra couldn’t keep her safe. Both men knew that.

  But Chas would. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to keep her safe.

  He had to cut all ties between him and that world so long ago. Erase them all so they couldn’t come back to haunt him. Couldn’t bring Amelia back up to hurt Shannon someday.

  And it would hurt her to know what he had lost.

  He’d tell her, eventually. About Amelia and the baby. But not right away. A woman wouldn’t want to know she was second choice.

  Not that Shannon was his second choice. She was far more than that. She was his second chance. Exactly what a man like him had been seeking. And Chas hadn’t even known it.

  Now he needed to do some hunting. He needed to find out where the rest of them were.

  He would save Ezra for last.

  Chas had finally figured out just exactly how he was going to get the vengeance Amelia and her family deserved.

  Amelia would want him to do this then move on. Look toward the future. Be happy. She would want him to be happy.

  Yes, she would have loved Shannon.

  The rain stopped and the clouds shifted a bit. A ray of sunshine shown down into the courtyard.

  Chas lifted his face to the sky and smiled. It was exactly as if Amelia approved.

  He needed to find the others that were there that day. It might involve him having to leave St. Louis for a while. That would be hard for Shannon. Maybe he should put that off a bit.

  Take care of Ezra, then move on to the rest of the team who lived outside of Missouri. They’d scattered a bit. He’d finish this current consultation—the client had mentioned wanting to take a bit of a break to keep the bureau off his trail—and then he’d take care of those others.