“That girl is barely out of high school,” Julian muttered.
“What a perv,” stated Tori, when the man started kissing his arm candy. “I want to get out and beat the hell out of him for her parents, myself.”
Julian laughed. His wife was fiery and feisty, just the way he loved her. There were days where their jobs would be boring if it weren’t for the woman sitting beside him.
“He needs to find a woman his own age,” she muttered.
“Some men like younger women,” he stated as he tried not to laugh. He knew he was baiting her, but a man had to have some fun now and again.
“Really, Julian Trenton Littlemoon? You know that I’m carrying a gun, and yet you’re still going to say that to me?”
He started to grin. “I like them younger myself. Have you laid eyes on my sexy wife?”
She smirked, and then tucked a stray strand of hair behind his ear. “Nice save.”
Now, his grin was a laugh. He may only be a newlywed, but he knew how to keep his ass from the sling. As his phone began to ring, he answered it without looking at the caller ID.
“Littlemoon.”
“Sir? I need your help.”
Julian looked down at the screen to try and recognize the number. How the hell did anyone get it? He never gave his cell out, and there was a reason for that. It was for emergencies or family. “Yes?”
“I’m the mayor of the town that we live in, and my daughter has gone missing.”
“Okay.” Still, this didn't answer his initial question.
Now, Tori was looking over at him and the confused look on his face.
“I went to the police, and they don’t believe something nefarious happened. I need to hire your full agency to find my little girl.”
Again, Julian was at a loss for words. “I’m really busy right now with other cases,” he answered, feeling for the man but he couldn’t see them dropping everything for just his case.
That was piss poor business strategy.
“Please. She went missing Saturday, and she’s all I have left. I was told that you’re the best tracker that money can buy, and I’m willing to double your salary if you’ll take my case.”
Julian didn’t like this. Cases with little kids made him sick to his stomach. He’d found a few and none of them had ended the way the parents had hoped. “Sir, I really don’t have the time.”
Then, it dawned on the mayor. “The Blackhawks said that you would help me!”
That’s all it took. That explained how the man got his private number. In his book, Elizabeth, Ethan, and Callen were very important to his wife, and that meant it carried over to him too.
“Can you be at my office in three hours? I need to finish up this stakeout and I can clear my schedule.”
“I’ll be there. I’ll bring cash. I want this taken care of, and I don’t care what it costs me. I need everyone on your staff to handle this for me.”
Julian had that feeling in the pit of his stomach that this was going to be a colossal pain. He made a mental note to kick Elizabeth’s ass. Then reality hit, and he found that funny as hell. If he could take her, then Ethan or Callen would be finishing him off, for sure.
“We’ll see you in three hours,” he said, hanging up.
Tori sat there silently watching him. For her husband to bump priority over all his cases, it had to be big. Julian was big on ‘First come first served’ in business and each of their clients was just as important. They already had a backlog of cases that they were trying to work their way through. “What do you have now?”
“We have a missing daughter that was a referral from the Blackhawks.”
Well, that explained his willingness.
The three Feds had a special place in both of their hearts. They’d covered for Julian when he took someone’s life, and solved the two decade old case of who killed his father.
In her very honorable husband’s mind, that meant one thing. They were taking this case no matter what.
Tori opted to be positive. “I think we can swing it if we give the easy stuff to Kane and Christina. They can sit in a car and take pictures of some cheating husbands, or do all the paperwork that we need done.”
“Are you up for a Blackhawk referral?” he asked his partner. He couldn’t help but draw parallels with the ones they had both worked for them before. They were the most dangerous assignments that he ever had to deal with in his life.
It made him nervous.
Not for him, but for his wife beside him.
“I am. I love when they give us work. Those cases are the most fun.”
Yeah, they were definitely polar opposites. His wife liked to live a little too close to the edge, and Julian preferred to stay in the safety zone. It had to be part of their personalities, and the Army versus civilian rationale.
“Uh, do I have to remind you of the leeches or the crazy homicidal maniacs? Both of us almost lost our lives.”
She started laughing at the tone in his voice. “Jules, that’s how I met you. Without all that chaos, we would both be alone.”
Okay, so Tori had a very valid point.
And yet…
“Come on! Let’s wrap the perv up and head back to the office. Do you want me to call in the team?”
Julian took a few more pictures before glancing over at her. “Yeah, rendezvous at the office in two and a half hours. We need prep time before our new client rolls in.”
Tori sent out a text message to Kane and Justin. “See how easy that was?” she teased.
Somehow, he figured this assignment was going to be anything but easy. But then again, what did he know?
The third time might be a charm.
* * *
Littlemoon Agency
Tuesday Afternoon
The team converged on the office at about the same time. Everyone was there, with the exception of his brother, who liked to move at his own speed.
Which generally meant one thing; Justin was always pretty much late for everything.
Once inside the building, they found their administrative assistant packing up for the day. On most days, she cut out by three in the afternoon so that she could go home and get ready for her night job.
Lena Lexington was an interesting character to say the least.
She had been one of Tori’s hires from the start, and one of the only few disagreements that Julian and Tori had ever had regarding work.
Although he loved his wife, she really only had one major question when it came to hiring someone. It boggled his mind how she conducted the interview. Here, he did research, scanned social media, and ran a background check, and Tori did the exact opposite.
On the day she did the interview, Tori sat there silently and then asked only one thing. ‘Army or Marines’?
Lena had answered the correct way, along with the statement that Army babes were far sexier.
Yes, Julian not only had to worry about his brother hitting on his wife, but now, also their administrative assistant.
At first, he thought it was funny, because he never believed his wife was going to hire her. When she did, it stopped being amusing. How many men had to go to work and watch their wife being flirted with by both men and women?
It was like the Great Spirit liked a good joke, and his work space was the punch line.
Despite it all, Lena turned out to be nothing like the book’s cover. On the outside, she was goth and punk, but on the inside, she was sweet and gentle.
As long as you didn't piss her off.
Walking in, they all began to dump their gear on her desk, like they always did.
“Seriously? Do any of you have a watch? You know that I have to get out of here. We have a gig tonight down at the club. I can’t go there dressed like some straight!”
Tori had no choice but to laugh at that, because she was very into men and wouldn’t be caught dead dressed like Lena. The woman was wearing fishnets, and it wasn’t even Halloween.
Okay, maybe in th
e bedroom she would sport the bustier and slinky legwear, but at work?
No freaking way.
“I can upload the photos if you leave your computer unlocked,” Christina offered, trying to fit in. The Littlemoons were letting her work and stick with Kane, so it was the least she could do. They had s discussion about her exuberance in the truck, so Christina was trying to keep it low key.
It wasn’t easy, but for Kane she would try.
“Are you sure?” Lena asked, skeptically. “I don’t need you accidentally deleting all my files or jacking up my computer.”
Julian shook his head. “Lena, Christina had access to all the high security files at the FBI. I’m betting that she can drop and drag a few photo files into a folder.”
Christina started laughing. “I also can build a bomb out of popsicle sticks and some dental floss, have any?”
Justin took that moment to arrive, and only caught the tail end of the conversation.
Both Littlemoon men looked at Christina as if she was serious.
Without missing a beat, she continued, “Just so you know, Elizabeth warned me about you two. She told me to play dirty or I was screwed.”
Julian didn't have anything to say to that, because he was pretty sure that Elizabeth would have given Christina the heads up. That was more than fine, since Callen had reciprocated on that same front too.
“No bombs and no patting down any Natives that walk in,” Julian warned, trying not to laugh. Yeah, he’d heard the stories.
That brought a strangled objection from the biggest man in the room. “Over my dead body,” he answered, pointing at the little brunette.
When she blew him a kiss, he only grinned like a lost puppy.
“Let’s go prep,” Julian stated, before they all got out of hand. One of the hardest parts of his job was keeping the crew from imploding with hilarity and antics.
Kane followed him into the office, and he took a seat opposite Julian’s desk. Tori didn't want her own desk, so most of the time she stood at his side or leaned against the window. She wasn’t a paper jockey kind of girl, so unobtrusively observing was fine with her. She liked to blend and protect her flank at all times.
Old habits were hard to break.
“So, what do we have, Julian?” Kane asked.
He told them what he knew. “We have the mayor’s daughter as our new case. She’s gone missing, and he’s paying us a boatload of money to find her.”
Kane thought about it. “He doesn’t have kids, well, not young ones anyway. I think I saw one of his ads on TV. It’s him and some girl in her twenties, unless of course, that was his spiffy younger wife.”
Tori shook her head. “Ugh. Not another pervert.”
“Don’t get her started,” Julian warned. “Tori is on a roll today with older men and younger babes, despite the fact that I’m older than her too.”
“Jules, you’re a few years older than me. Not twenty four years. There is a big skeevy difference. That takes it into a whole new perverted world of ick.”
Julian wiggled his eyebrows lecherously at his wife.
“Anyway,” Kane continued, before they could say anything else that would be construed as too much information, “if that was his daughter, then she might just be out with some man getting…” he paused, trying to clean it up for the one lady in the room. “I mean, maybe she’s off on a romantic weekend with her love interest.”
Tori snorted. “Nice save there.”
Kane had sisters. He wasn’t anyone’s fool. Plus, Christina may look little and harmless, but she packed a powerful punch that could take him to his knees.
Julian wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but the bottom line was that he was referred personally, and had cash. “He’s paying up front. So, if it is love birds playing house, then it doesn’t really matter. We’re going to locate the woman, and then go from there.”
Kane got it. At least he wouldn’t be partnered up with Justin. The idea of working with Christina was that much more appealing. She smelled really good and giggled when he kissed her neck. Justin just talked about guns and beer.
At the knock at the door, Christina stood there with a distraught looking man. The older gentleman was wringing his hands and his eyes were bloodshot and swollen, obviously from crying.
“Mr. Lagerfeld?” Julian asked, standing.
“Yes, Mr. Littlemoon. I want to thank you for taking this case for me. I need your help, and right now, you’re my last chance at finding my Melissa.”
He reached into his pocket, and Tori and Kane both went for their sidearms. It was a definite sign that they had been cops for quite a while. The reaction to someone reaching for a hidden object had yet to wear off.
Justin nearly started laughing.
“I’m sorry, it’s just a picture,” he said, handing it to the Native man in front of him. Then, he placed the briefcase on the desk. “Inside is all the cash I had in my house. I can and will go to the bank first thing in the morning, if you need more.”
“What’s in there?” asked Justin.
“Ten thousand dollars.”
Julian shook his head. “You can hold off on the bank. If we find her immediately, you can come get your money back.” There was no way that he was going to use the man’s weakness to profit. That wasn’t how he ran his business. The word of mouth on good Karma would be a better reward in the long run.
“If you find her, it’s yours. I just want my Melissa back and alive. She’s priceless to me.”
“Okay, Mr. Lagerfeld. Why don’t you have a seat, and we’ll start to discuss Melissa and what exactly has happened?”
The man took a deep breath before he began, “Every Sunday morning, Melissa comes back to the house, and she and I have brunch together. It’s our father daughter thing, and has been since her mother had died. NEVER do we miss it. She’d been known to bring soup when I’ve been down with the flu, and sit there with me. So, when she didn't show up, I immediately began to panic. I called her phone. I drove to her house and on my way there, I saw her car on the side of the road. At first, I thought that she might have broken down and decided to walk home, but when I arrived at her house, Missy wasn’t there.”
Tori felt for the man. This had to be the worst kind of nightmare for any parent.
“She’s all I have left. You have to find her for me.” The man started to weep once more. He braced his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his hands, as the emotion began to overwhelm him.
No one in the room doubted his anxiety and stress over what was happening.
It was evident.
“Okay, sir, we’ll start working on it. How old is Melissa?” Julian asked, cautiously. He wanted to make sure he didn't make the mistake of using the past tense. As far as they were concerned, the woman was most likely shacked up with a man and very much alive.
“She’s twenty eight years old.”
“Is she seeing anyone at this time that we can interview and talk to?”
The man made a strangled sob as his body shook.
“We really need you to think hard on this one, sir,” Tori said.
“I don’t know! Shouldn’t I be able to answer that? What kind of father am I? I don’t really ask about her personal life, because no father wants to think of his child as a sexually active person.”
“Maybe she wasn’t dating,” Tori stated, as she tried to offer him some solace. Her years in the FBI taught her to offer comfort first. It helped the family member recall much better details, and that helped in the long run. “That’s why you don’t know, because there may not have been anyone.”
Again, he made some sort of strangled sob that was fraught with his emotion.
Tori felt horrible for the man. She’d lost her father and brother not that many years ago, and the pain was still very fresh in her heart too. When someone you loved died, you just never got over that.
It was the story of her life.
Julian ran his hand over hers on his shoulde
r, understanding the pain she was feeling. He could read his wife like a book.
“As soon as I found her house empty, I called the police, and they told me to call back after it had been forty eight hours. Then, they could do a missing person’s report.”
“That’s standard procedure,” Tori offered.
“My daughter wouldn’t just vanish. She was very responsible, and we checked in if we were traveling. She never allowed my calls to go to voicemail. I can tell that her phone is off, and I’ve left about fifty messages already. It’s to the point that it’s not letting me leave any more, due to a full mailbox.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Lagerfeld. Today, we’ll start looking for your daughter.” Julian took charge. “Kane, you and Christina are going to be working here at the office. I need the standard research done.” What he wasn’t saying out loud was someone had to call the neighboring hospitals to see if they had a Jane Doe in the morgue. Once they could eliminate that, they would start to hit the surrounding areas and canvas all the other likely locations.
“Sure thing, Julian.”
“Justin is going to head to Melissa’s house. He’s going to need you to go with him, Mr. Lagerfeld. We’re not the police, so we can’t access a private dwelling without someone there to give consent.”
“I own the house, so I give you permission to come and go as you please, but I completely understand. I don’t mind going with you. Anything that you need, I’ll get for you.”
Justin stood. “We just need to tread lightly, sir. Since you called the cops and filed a report, we don’t want to step on any toes.” If anything, keeping on the good side of the law was half the battle in their job. A mad cop could be a vengeful one.
The older man wasn’t worried. “I’m technically their boss, so if they try to stop you, it won’t be pretty.”
Julian offered him a sympathetic smile. “Don’t worry, Mr. Lagerfeld, you’re in good hands.”
“I don’t doubt that. When the FBI recommends someone, they must be good.”
Julian prayed that they could live up to Elizabeth’s accolades.
The man turned to follow Justin from the room, leaving the rest of the team to start working.
Blood Red Rage (LIttlemoon Investigations Book 1) Page 4
