Burning (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 11)

by Calle J. Brookes

  He’d once accused her of using tinted contacts, but that was back when they were young and stupid. And like every other female he knew she’d been concerned with vanity.

  She’d snarked at him, then poked herself in the eye to show the color was real. Stubborn and always having to prove him wrong. So many times she’d have to do that when they were younger. Why? Why had she felt such a need to prove herself to him?

  That was the Merrick he was used to. Not this sad woman who had turned incredibly serious in the years since she’d been married to his brother.

  Where was the fire that usually burned around her?

  She’d always drawn him, burned him. Angered him. It was inevitable whenever they got too close.

  For Sebastian’s sake he’d stayed away from her and out of her life as much as possible. He hadn’t wanted to make problems between his brother and his wife back then.

  But Merrick wasn’t his brother’s wife anymore.

  She had changed, hadn’t she? Quiet, subdued, looked worried every time he saw her. What was going on with her?

  He took a moment to study her. He did the math—she had to be thirty-three or thirty-four now, didn’t she?

  She’d lost a little weight in the last few years, but she was still gloriously curvy in all the right, feminine places. Places that made his hands itch just thinking about.

  But it was the eyes that had changed the most. Always blue, but lately?

  Tired and sad.

  He hated seeing her that way, but he didn’t know why it bothered him so much.

  Still, he said nothing. Just watched her unlock her filing cabinet and pull out a file in the front of the drawer.

  “Here?” She barely had to look to locate it.

  He took it when she handed it to him. “Thank you. I’ll have Jaspreet make a copy and return this to you first thing in the morning.” All of the data was digital, but he wanted as close to the original as possible. And that meant the originating departments.

  “I have copies of that.” Her tone was flat, and when she eyed the file there was a wild look in her eyes.

  He didn’t know what made him do it, but Sin stepped closer. He wrapped a hand around her arm before he thought not to.

  She looked at him, but said nothing.

  “Tell me what upsets you so much about this case?” Tell me what’s hurting you? That was what he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the guts to say it.

  ***

  Cody couldn’t even begin to put into words what that file represented to her. She stared at him for a moment, cataloging all the minute differences between him and Sebastian.

  She’d always thought Sebastian was so beautiful. From the moment she’d met the brothers, she’d thought the middle brother was the most perfectly formed. At least when she was younger, she had.

  And then she had met Luc. That man had a beautiful face that was perfection.

  But since they’d aged a bit, Sin’s face was becoming more interesting than either of his brothers’. Sebastian was all sophistication and sleek attitude. Seth was rogue pirate handsome all-the-way and devil-may-care, complete with shaggy hair and gold earring. Her first crush had been on Sebastian—and had lasted for years.

  Sin was the brother she knew the least about. And she’d like to keep it that way, if at all possible. He wasn’t exactly known as the nice one. No, that was Sebastian. “Hugh Schild targeted my friends and colleagues. And he killed one of them. It upsets me every time I think of it.” He’d find out her role in that case soon enough, wouldn’t he? No need for her to go into the details. “If that’s all you need, I have a few things I need to take care of before I’m free to clock out.”

  “Of course.” He dropped his hand from her back, and she immediately felt the burn of his touch fade away. “I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He turned and walked out of her office before she could say anything else.

  Sin Lorcan had always been great at exits, hadn’t he? He got what he wanted from someone and then he was just gone. Like nothing else mattered but what he wanted.

  She sank into her chair and grabbed the first file off the stack. They’d require her signature, and there were far more of them than she wanted to think about. And she had less than twenty minutes to get them done.

  And she wouldn’t let herself think of what the Schild file had contained. Wouldn’t let herself think of the photos Sin would see…

  Chapter 16

  Merrick remained on his mind as he walked across the PAVAD parking lot. The Schild file was clutched in his hand, instead of shoved into his bag with the other files he’d need. He had gotten originals from every department had her shaking and vulnerable.

  It had bothered her. Truly upset her. Just at the mention of Schild.

  He needed the specifics.

  Sin climbed into his car, and flipped open the file quickly. His sister-in-law Al’s face stared back at him. Sin hadn’t expected that. He kept flipping through the statements—and the photographic evidence. Every injury from Schild was documented with photos.

  Al’s face was scratched and bruised. Her partner, Paige Daviess, now married to Mick Brockman, was a bit more beat up. One particular image showed Al, Paige, and Payton Asher coming out of the building. It was a gut-punching image, with the blood in Al’s blonde hair evident in the photo.

  Payton Asher’s injuries were far worse. As were those dealt to Kelly Reynolds and her supervisor. Those three women were lucky to be alive.

  That was just those injured during the bomb attacks.

  Sin continued reading the details of the case. Schild hadn’t just planned one assault. He’d attacked his victims on multiple occasions. No one had put it together in time to stop him.

  The man had eventually attacked the director of PAVAD in his own home, after taking the man’s future step-son hostage. The boy had been barely sixteen according to the file.

  He flipped over the last crime scene photo of that night showing Schild’s dead body.

  Another battered face looked at him.

  Sin cursed. Why hadn’t anyone ever told him Merrick had been one of Schild’s victims? He forced his eyes away from the photos, from the sight of her unconscious in a hospital bed. From the photos of her multiple injuries.

  They landed on the medical forensics report. He forced himself to check—no signs of sexual assault. Thank God.

  Thank God.

  Sin tried to control his breathing. He closed his eyes, trying to erase the sight of those photos from his mind. Sin knew it was futile; how could it not be? He would never be able to remove those images from his memory.

  Instead he turned to the black and white paperwork.

  Paperwork was better. It was neutral. It wasn’t something that could sear into a man’s soul. Not like those photos of her injured and helpless. Vulnerable.

  The cold facts of the file, he scanned quickly. First on scene reports stated that Schild had run her car off the road, pulled her from the vehicle and attacked her. Most likely with his fists and another blunt object she hadn’t ever identified. But she had fought back, hard. It just hadn’t been enough.

  He’d stopped when Davis Lucas and his two bodyguards ran him off. One bodyguard had chased Schild but lost him in the inclement weather.

  Davis Lucas had taken her straight to the hospital.

  She’d spent several days in a coma. Had been lucky to survive.

  Neither of his brothers had bothered to call him.

  That had him pausing—why would Seth or Sebastian have called him? The instant the divorce papers were final, Merrick stopped being a part of his family.

  She wasn’t a part of his family anymore.

  That thought didn’t sit well with him.

  She had always been in his life, it seemed. Since she was a little girl and he wasn’t much older.

  That something so monumental had happened to her and he hadn’t known both angered him and left him feeling…raw and vulnerable.

&nbs
p; Confused.

  He must have sat in his car for twenty minutes just thinking about it, and about her. And their history together.

  They had always bickered, hadn’t they?

  From the time they had met. On the rare occasions they’d been together after his father had been killed line-of-duty he would argue and fight with her more than he would his brothers, or his sister Sarah, who was a year or so younger than Merrick. It had taken him a while to figure it out. He could argue with her, because it wouldn’t risk damaging his relationships with the brother and sister he didn’t see that often.

  Unfair to Merrick, most assuredly. As his sister had often told him.

  The two of them had been good friends for years.

  Everyone in his family loved Merrick—except him.

  Had he ever paused to ask why? To wonder what it was about her that had set him against her from the moment they had met?

  She’d been very young, maybe eight or nine? Tall for her age, and pudgy. But her hair had been a beautiful color and her eyes extremely blue. She’d clung to her own father’s hand, while telling him she was sorry about his. Something about her words had made him terribly angry, cutting through his grief like a razor.

  He’d picked a fight with her an hour after the funeral. Until she’d run off to her own father, crying.

  It had taken him a few years to realize that he’d argued with her because he resented the fact that he’d lost the most important part of his world—and she still had hers.

  He’d been unfair to her from the very beginning.

  After she’d married Sebastian he’d vowed to give her another shot. When that hadn’t worked he’d just stayed away. For years. Now he regretted that.

  He looked in the mirror when someone passed the rear of his vehicle.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him. Karma had done things like that to him before. Merrick was parked three cars down from him.

  And the way she carried herself told him she was still just as sad and upset as she had been in her office. And that pissed him off more than words could say. The Merrick he remembered was always laughing about something. Beautiful and welcoming. Kind…loving. A beacon pulling him no matter how much he resisted. But this woman…had it been Schild that had changed her so drastically? He didn’t like seeing her that hurt.

  But he was too much of a coward to get out of his car and tell her that. And that he was sorry that he’d been so much of an ass to her over the years that she hadn’t been able to tell him why the Schild file had obviously bothered her so damned much.

  Instead he just watched her walk away.

  Chapter 17

  “Daddy!” A warm, wiggling little body hit him hard, and it took a moment to get himself righted.

  Ed lifted Bobby up and laughed at the delight that his son showed when he walked in the door. He was greeted that way every single night and he loved it.

  Some of the boys had been slow to warm up to Ed over the past year or so, but now they had found a decent rhythm for all of them.

  But Bobby…the little boy had a special place in his heart and always would. Of course, they all did. But Bobby was the first to call him Daddy.

  Ed hadn’t realized how lonely he had been until Marianna and the boys.

  He’d kept his grandson Matthew when his daughter was out on a case—and he still did, when Georgia and her husband were both out—but there had been many days that he would spend alone. Georgia was home more often now, her new position as a supervisor of the CCU keeping her in the PAVAD office, rather than out in the field. Not to mention her infant daughter.

  He had the kids at his house often, though.

  Now there wasn’t a chance of being alone.

  Thank God.

  The house was big enough and built for exactly what it was doing now—sheltering the ones that he loved.

  His daughter and granddaughter were in the kitchen with his wife when he walked in. He scooped the baby into his arms and held her on the opposite hip from Bobby. She looked so much like Georgia had. Beautiful. Drool slid down his tie, but he didn’t mind.

  Marianna was at the stove, as it was his housekeeper’s night off.

  The tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed woman was the absolute love of his life. And when she beat him home she always greeted him with a kiss. Like they hadn’t just seen each other at the PAVAD building.

  But that’s the way it was—they were different with each other at home than they were on the clock.

  There were days he absolutely yearned to be at home. He kissed his wife, then sat his son down. He hugged his daughter quickly. “So, I wasn’t expecting you or the kids.”

  “The house seemed a little empty and Mattie wanted to sleep over with Bobby.” His grandson and his youngest were in the same class at school and were the best of friends. “And I was worried about you. There’ve been rumors.”

  “Of what?” He had an idea of what she’d heard, but it wasn’t something he wanted his daughter to have to deal with.

  “There’re rumors that some of the old cases are being dug up. Pre-PAVAD cases. Cases that may involve your earlier teams. And Hell’s.”

  He knew that information would get out sooner or later, but he hadn’t realized it would happen that quickly. Or that his son-in-law Hell would be involved. “It’s something I’ve been aware of for a while. There’s someone trying to discredit PAVAD, and they’ll use any means necessary.”

  “Any idea who it is?” The worry in the dark brown eyes of his daughter and the blue ones of his wife hurt him to see.

  “I have it handled. I can promise you that.” There was nothing Ed wouldn’t do to protect his family.

  Chapter 18

  Cody changed, then turned off the slow cooker where the night’s dinner waited. She had half an hour to herself. The Brockmans had kept Lucy a little later than usual to take Lucy and Ruthie to the mall.

  Cody hadn’t complained—time to herself was a real luxury now. When someone knocked on the door she tamped down the instinctive irritation she felt. When she opened the door the irritation returned full-force.

  Sin stood there.

  “What are you doing here?” She struggled to keep that irritation from doubling—then escaping. Twice in a single decade was far more Sin than she wanted.

  “I…” He glared his customary Sin-hates-her glare. “I came to apologize. For the Schild file. I flipped through it. No one told me you were a victim.”

  Victim. She’d hated that term ever since it had happened. “Why should they have? As far as anyone in PAVAD is concerned there is no connection between us. And there hasn’t been for almost seven years.” And before that? Well time told its own story, didn’t it?

  “Sebastian should have. Seth should have. You should have.”

  Great. The last thing she needed was this. “Sin, why would they? We aren’t family anymore, not that you and I ever truly were, so there would be no way to connect us at all. And professionally speaking, I’m not even sure what you do for PAVAD—so why would I tell you?”

  He pushed past her into the apartment. She thought about screaming just to shock him, but decided against it. She had elderly neighbors on either side of her. And with Lucy’s screaming fits in the middle of the night the last thing she wanted was to disturb them more than she had to. “Please, step inside said the black widow spider to the unsuspecting man.”

  “Sarcasm has never been all that beautiful coming from your lips.”

  “Yeah, well, big surprise.” She was usually only sarcastic with him. At least, he’d pushed her to sarcasm so often over the years she’d grown conditioned to fighting back immediately.

  She sighed. Was that really how she wanted to be?

  If he was going to stick around St. Louis for a while, they’d be crossing paths repeatedly. Heck, they even used the same babysitter now. She was bound to slip up in front of her daughter, wasn’t she? Was that really who she wanted Lucy to see? How she wanted Lucy to deal with problems?


  Still, Lucy wasn’t there at the moment, was she?

  “Make this fast. I need to pick up Lucy soon.”

  He stared for a moment.

  She’d always hated when he did that. “Come on, Sin. I really need to get going soon.”

  “I wanted to apologize.” So grumbly and rude; guess some things wouldn’t ever change, would they? He frowned. “To check on you.”

  Was that actual concern? From Sin? Her jaw didn’t drop but it was close. He hadn’t even checked up on her when her appendix had burst two years into her marriage and he was living ten minutes away. Seth had stayed with her at the hospital that night, until Seb had arrived from whatever case he’d been on. Sin had never been concerned for her—over anything. “Why?”

  “What do you mean, why? I upset you today.” He stepped closer, until he was practically looming in her space.

  At five-ten Cody didn’t often look up at men. But Sin and his brothers were six-six—at least her ex-husband was. Seth may have been a quarter of an inch shorter but it was hard to tell with the long, shaggy Seth-hair—and she’d not always liked that they were so much larger than she was.

  Tall, strong, handsome and perfect. The Lorcan triplets had whatever a woman could want—didn’t they?

  Well, Seth and Seb maybe. “Sin, it wouldn’t be the first time. I’m ok with it. And that file will always upset me. No matter who looks at it.”

  “I didn’t know he did that to you.”

  “One thing I can say for Director Dennis, he keeps gossip to a minimum in the division, doesn’t he?”

  “Seb should have told me. I know he was here when this happened.”

  “He was. And he sat with me at the hospital. He’s still listed as next of kin in my personnel file. He, Seth, and Sarah.” But not Sin, never Sin.

  “I see.”

  He probably didn’t. She had a half-sibling out there twelve years younger, but she hadn’t seen her sister in a decade or so. Seb and his siblings were all she had with any family connection at all. Her eyes landed on the picture of the little girl she loved more than anything. “And Lucy, of course. Now.”