Seeking

by Calle J. Brookes

  He’d worn himself to the bone doing things he still wouldn’t—or couldn’t—talk about; but more than that—her mother had needed him. With six kids to raise, her mother had been forced to burn both ends of the candle until it had just worn her out.

  Things were better now, and when her father had retired from the army, it had gotten a little easier for all of them. But he’d still had to travel for his next job.

  He’d been home less than seventy-five nights the year Shannon had turned sixteen. She’d counted.

  He was her hero, but she wasn’t lost to the cost of loving a man like her father. So consumed by his job there was little room left for anything else.

  She had no illusions where Ez was concerned. He wasn’t the kind of man a smart woman even tried to pin down. “It’s not an excuse. I know exactly what it’s like to be tied to a man who was never there when he was needed. I lived the child version of it. I’m not interested in making my mother’s mistakes.”

  “Oh, harsh. I’m not asking for a lifetime commitment, Toliver. Just that you give us a chance to figure this thing out between us. But, hey, if that’s not your thing, then tell me to just buzz off. After you feed me first.”

  She’d forgotten the steaks. She tried to step back, but his hands tightened on her.

  Shannon hadn’t forgotten how those hands had felt on her that night. Sometimes, in her dreams, she imagined those hands were on her again. That mouth.

  Everywhere.

  And then, just like they had that night in her hotel room, they snuggled up against each other and he held her. That was what she dreamed about the most.

  The way he had held her. The way he had been there when she’d needed exactly that.

  And the way he’d been gone in the morning.

  “Hands off, Hahn.” She wiggled, then decided that was an even stupider decision when her front brushed against his. Her head may have been going in one direction where he was concerned, but her hormones were pointed right at him. “Come on, you can’t be seriously saying you want to be with me, can you? You’ve made it perfectly clear from the moment we met that you can’t stand me.”

  And she’d dealt with that.

  “Couldn’t stand how you make me feel. Damn it, Shannon, don’t you get it?”

  “Get what? Spell it out, Ez. I can’t do hints and games and don’t-you-get-its. If you want something from me, say so.”

  “I want you. For as long as you’ll let me have you.”

  His mouth crushed down on hers. Shannon gasped, then wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He was dewy from sweat, naked from the waist up, and absolutely perfect. It was no wonder she’d lost her head for a while. Again.

  Then she pulled away. It was a mistake. And she knew it.

  “I can’t do temporary, and I can’t do this with someone I work with, Ez. We’ve talked about it before. This is not something I ever planned for.”

  “That’s just a damned excuse. Fear. You’re letting fear guide you.” He leaned down until his face was next to hers. “Keep this in mind, Toliver. When you’re done being a damned coward, you know where to find me. I’ll be waiting.”

  She watched him gather his things and go inside her apartment. “Where are you going?”

  “You at least owe me dinner. I’m going inside to eat it. You coming?” He held out a hand to her, beckoning her to her own apartment. The challenge in his eyes was unmistakable.

  She just gawked at him for a moment, feeling like a total idiot. Was he serious? She’d just rejected him. He should be cursing at her, calling her every name in the book. She’d had it happen before—with a heck of a lot less provocation than this.

  Yet he just looked at her from the center of her own sidewalk.

  Looking like absolute male perfection from head to toe.

  “Just dinner. And then you get gone. Stay far away from me. You’re... I just don’t know what you are. You are seriously dangerous.”

  He smiled. “You compliment me. I knew you loved me, Toliver.”

  “Bite me, Hahn.”

  His eyes darkened. “Any time. Because if you’re offering, I’m taking you up on it.”

  SIXTY-TWO

  TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars. That’s how much he was being paid to remove Jaynice Belinda Matthews Miller from the world. A paltry sum, really.

  Three times or so what the woman made working for the FBI. Three years of her life.

  That job was about to cost her that life.

  His client had made no attempt to hide his contempt for the FBI. Chas didn’t care. What he cared about was the deposit sitting in his offshore account, waiting for the remaining one hundred grand once the job was complete.

  Chas sited the woman in his scope. It was just a matter of time.

  He’d tracked her for well over a month now. She wasn’t a bad woman—rather quiet and almost mediocre for an FBI agent. She reminded him of the woman who’d taught him to play piano when he’d been twelve. He could barely remember what she’d looked like. Hell, she probably didn’t even remember his name.

  Another of the invisible world so many didn’t ever see.

  He prepped himself to do what he’d been paid to do. Whether she reminded him of someone or not was neither here nor there. It just was.

  She surprised him this time. For the first time since he’d begun following her, she wasn’t alone. There was a tall, fifty-something man who met her at the open-air cafe. From the look in his eyes, he’d been waiting for Jaynice.

  From the way he touched her, kissed her for everyone around to see, the man loved her.

  The way he held her hand. Played with her fingers.

  The way he sat so close.

  It burned him. Made him remember...

  Amelia smiled, held her hand out to him. “Charlie, I missed you.”

  She was the only one who called him Charlie. He loved it. He settled down next to her at the small table. Tried to ignore the fact that what they were doing was against regulations for his particular unit. And for hers. “I missed you, too.”

  “Come to me tonight... We need to talk. I have something to tell you...”

  Chas’s finger squeezed the trigger.

  Red bloomed. On Jaynice Miller and the man who had kissed her when she’d arrived.

  Three more shots ensured it would take the FBI a while to isolate who had been his target.

  A random killer was much harder to pinpoint than one who made his intentions known.

  It was what he was counting on.

  Chas packed up his gear and walked away.

  SIXTY-THREE

  EZRA HADN’T BEEN gone two hours before her phone rang. Her work cell. It had her initial idea of calling Kyra, Leina, and Mia and demanding a conference-to-figure-out-Ezra-call falling to the wayside.

  It was time to put away man-confused Shannon and bring out kick-ass FBI Shannon.

  She met Ken and the rest of the team in the conference room. Shannon grabbed her copy of the case files and flipped through them quickly. “This recent?”

  “Two dead. One wounded. It’s local. The wounded victim is Jaynice Miller. One of the agents on Allan Knight’s team. She was having coffee with her boyfriend when it happened. They are both critical.” Ken’s tone told them all exactly how serious this was going to be.

  Shannon winced. She’d met the fiftyish Jaynice Miller and had liked and respected her. Quiet, kind, and efficient, she’d worked the bureau back when it was one in twenty women on the roster. And she’d triumphed, even though she had never been the type to make waves. For something like this to happen—it defied explanation. “What’s her condition?”

  Ken shook his head. “It doesn’t look good, Shan. She was hit in the chest. Heavy bleeding. Extensive damage.”

  “The scene’s secure?” Evan asked from Shannon’s left.

  “Yes. Ed Dennis wants us on this quickly. So, let’s get rolling. Shannon, you’re with me. Djorn and Stephenson, take Allan Knight’s team for initial statement
s. Get a profile of Jaynice and one of each of our victims. We need to see if this was random or they were targeted.”

  Shannon knew what he was saying. If Jaynice had been targeted, there was a chance it was case-related. If she had been a random victim, then they had to form a different profile.

  Minutes counted. Especially now.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAS WATCHED THE drama down below his hotel room, evaluating where he could have improved his performance.

  Jaynice Miller and her lover had been supposed to die on impact.

  Neither had.

  The new FBI team were an efficient unit, Chas would give him that. The leader was taller than the rest. Commanding.

  Chas studied him through the scope of his rifle, getting a closer view than most realized was possible. The man was near his own age, with an element of pain in his eyes that Chas could relate to.

  There were scars on the man’s temple that were unmistakable to a man with Chas’s training. The man had taken a round to the forehead at some point.

  And survived.

  That was unbelievably lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how a man looked at it.

  Some of Chas’s rage had subsided over Ezra. Some. Not all.

  The scarred man was barking out orders over the courtyard where he’d struck Jaynice Miller. It was only coincidence that the hotel room he’d booked at the Pear Tree Inn overlooked that spot. Well, it was within watching distance, anyway.

  It had not been intentional, though being that close to the action was a nice change.

  He was able to watch the results of his handiwork easily. He was in a corner room; he could also see the front of the PAVAD building.

  When not watching Jaynice, he’d watched the rest. Watched and wondered. Put himself in their shoes, their lives.

  While he waited to see the ones he wanted.

  If he looked out his window to the right, he saw the original St. Louis field office building on Market and the little deli where Jaynice had been eating lunch with her lover when he’d found her.

  If he looked to the left, he saw PAVAD in all its glory.

  Yes, this inn was the perfect spot.

  And he took comfort in his invisibility. No one would think the hired gun would be so ballsy as he was, renting a room in the very hotel he’d used as his nest.

  It was beyond bold.

  But no one would see him. No one ever did.

  Now he wasn’t invisible. What he’d done would live on forever. Chas hated being so invisible all the time.

  Invisible. Impotent. They were the same damned thing.

  People out there were pissed. Angry at what he’d done to their teammate. Chas smiled.

  He remembered what it was like to think your team was golden.

  Before Amelia.

  Another team entered. This one was more of the same. Three men, all tall, took command of the place.

  There was a pretty black woman with them. Chas’s heart rate doubled.

  It had been a long time since he’d felt actual anticipation at seeing a woman. Since Amelia.

  He turned the scope toward Shannon.

  She was not with Ezra this time.

  Chas’s fingers twitched as he recalled how she’d looked kissing Ezra.

  She was right there.

  In the center of the parking lot, three blocks from the PAVAD building. Right where she was a possible easy target. He turned toward her teammates as memories of how he’d felt when he’d first realized Amelia was in a similar position all those years ago flooded his head. His heart.

  She’d been left in the center of the abandoned town like a damned sacrificial goat.

  Shannon’s teammates weren’t even looking at her. Just standing around with the forensics crews—talking. Pointing. Looking up and around, trying to figure out where he was.

  No, he wasn’t invisible now. Ezra was.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  SHANNON LOOKED AROUND. “Do we know where the shooter was located?”

  “In that general region over there,” one of the local agents she vaguely recognized motioned toward the east. He and Agent Knight stepped closer. “We’re still searching for his exact location. We think he was in the hotel there. We haven’t found any indication that he’s still in the building. But we’re almost certain he was on that roofline there.”

  He kept talking, filling them in on where the victims were located. Shannon looked at the blood and evidence markers. She bit back the nausea.

  No one deserved this. Jaynice hadn’t deserved this.

  They hadn’t taken the other victim’s body away yet. She didn’t know his name yet. She couldn’t get over Jaynice and her fiancé. They’d had everything going for them finally.

  Jaynice had been full of love for him. She had showed Shannon the ring he’d given her almost twenty-five years after he’d bought it the first time.

  They were second-chance lovers.

  It had been a beautiful story.

  That they’d known each other as teenagers and met again in their fifties. A real whirlwind romance. Jaynice had sounded so giddy with love and excitement. Shannon had actually envied her in that moment.

  Now this.

  It just wasn’t right. Or fair.

  Jaynice had been one of the nicest women Shannon knew. She turned, eyes cataloging the scene.

  Colby’s Deli was a popular place. She ate there frequently whenever her team was in town. It was smaller on the inside, with plenty of seating outside during the warmer days.

  But if someone was perched on top of that hotel, they had perfect vantage point to see everyone who entered.

  Getting on that roof would be hard, though. Someone had to choose that spot because they were looking for someone specifically.

  But why Jaynice? Her fiancé? The other two people who were hit today?

  It was going to take them time to figure out those answers.

  She took a step away, toward another set of markers. “What was here?”

  She turned toward the local agent, a man she’d shared coffee with two weeks ago when the table at Colby’s just down the street had been all that was left in the crowd. Agent Ward was a nice guy, too.

  And he and Jaynice had been partners. This had to be making him absolutely sick with worry. “Ian?”

  He and Agent Knight turned toward her. Ken stepped in her direction, no doubt to hear her over the wind.

  Shannon just wished she had the answers they all needed.

  SIXTY-SIX

  SHANNON RAISED ONE hand to shade her eyes from the blistering August sun. Through the scope of his rifle, Chas’s eyes met hers. Like they were actually connecting, even though hundreds of feet or so separated them.

  She looked right at him. Like she’d known he was there and she needed to see him for a moment.

  Chas’s breath caught.

  God, she had beautiful eyes that could see straight through a man’s soul.

  She looked so vulnerable down there.

  And none of those assholes with her even realized that the man they were looking for was still in a damned fine position to take her out. Just a squeeze of the trigger and she would fall. Dead. In a damned instant, changing the entire world around them. They could lose her in a damned instant, and they didn’t even seem to care.

  He had been told by the client that he’d get a bonus for every FBI agent he wounded or killed. Twenty thousand. He counted. He could make double his initial fee for Jaynice Miller just by taking out the agents down there right now.

  An idea tickled his mind.

  He’d get twenty grand for teaching those neglectful sonsofbitches to keep better care of the most vulnerable on their team. It would be so easy.

  It would make the client happy, would make his wallet happier, and it would teach them a damned fucking lesson about protecting what truly mattered.

  The vulnerable. The weak.

  And it would be a strike back against Ezra.

  Shannon kept looking right
at him. Like she understood.

  Like she knew. Like she wanted him to do just that.

  Chas looked around the room.

  He hadn’t registered under his real name.

  The bag that held his belongings was still on the bed. He hadn’t used the restroom or sat anywhere to leave his DNA. He’d just stood at the window, watching.

  Chas hadn’t even removed the skin-toned gloves that he always wore—no matter the heat—as an added precaution when working.

  He doubted the desk clerk he’d interacted with even remembered him. DNA would be minimal, if any. Chances were good it wouldn’t even be found for weeks. He’d be long gone by then.

  He had his rifle ready, always.

  It was a simple matter. And it would be a lesson to them all. He pulled another mag free from the bag and loaded quickly.

  Opened the window a crack.

  Sighted her down his scope. At first, he considered a kill shot. It would be that easy. One to the head.

  Then those beautiful eyes would close forever.

  Just like Amelia’s had. He would take her away from Ezra forever that way.

  Shannon wore a vest.

  So, it was either a kill shot or superficial. He could kill the men around her. Take them all out one by one. Around her.

  Leaving her to face the aftermath alone. The terror. The nightmares that never faded no matter how much he tried to force just that. What would it do to her if he killed them all but her right now?

  He did not want to kill this woman. Not his Shannon.

  But they all needed to learn.

  Chas pulled the trigger.

  Tears slipped down his cheeks as he watched the red bloom from so far away.

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  HE DIDN’T STOP to wait for the rest of his team. Ezra drove to the hospital where local PAVAD injuries somehow always ended up. Her supervisor waited in the ER. Ezra stalked over to him. “Where is she?”