Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) by Calle Brookes (guided reading books txt) 📗

There had been a huge picnic—right before they’d rescued her friend Shannon from another case gone bad—at a local park.

It was the last time she’d done anything with Emery and Max before the argument. They’d attended together, with Miranda. She shoved thoughts of Emery ruthlessly away.

Now was definitely not the time to think about Max’s daughter. About the fact that Olivia showed natural aptitude at basketball, just like Emery. Or that little Ava had wanted Jac to give her extra birthday cake when her parents weren’t looking.

Jac turned her face up to the rain, hoping the chill would wash the terror for the girls away. Enough for her to somehow forget her last sight of Rachel and focus on doing her job so Jac could find those sweet little girls.

Before anything else could happen to them. She had to focus on the girls first, then finding Rachel’s killer.

Rachel would want her daughters safe and protected. She would want that more than anything else, and that was something Jac could make happen.

She zipped up her FBI-issue jacket and started toward the closest cluster of people determinedly.

Answers. They needed answers.

And that meant the people who had a front-row seat to the Sturvins’ lives.

Neighbors were always watching.

Always.

It was time for Jac to go digging. She scanned the crowd for a moment. Until she found someone she suspected would talk the most readily. The one Rachel, a stay-at-home mother, would have connected with the most.

There was a woman a few years or so older than Jac near the edge of the crowd, white-faced and nervous. She had one hand on the preteen next to her, clutching his shoulder. Clutching him close.

Jac walked straight to her. “Hello, I’m Agent Jaclyn Jones. With PAVAD: FBI. May I ask you a few questions? About the Sturvins?”

“Are the kids ok? I saw...them...a body bag...” The woman’s lips trembled. “Someone said it was Edith, from down the street. Is it?”

Jac nodded. They wouldn’t be able to keep the IDs quiet. Not with so many people watching, including the news stations. “What can you tell me about Edith and the Sturvins?”

The woman blanched. Her hand tightened on the boy. “I...”

“Can we go inside?” Jac asked softly, as her teammate Whitman came up next to her. She looked at him. He was a few years older than she was and had started off with PAVAD around the same time. He was a good agent, in an understated way. He touched her shoulder and nodded. He’d accompany them, per PAVAD protocol. Whit had a calming, dependable air about him that victims and witnesses tended to respond well to.

He looked like everyone’s favorite older brother. He made people feel safe. “Out of this cold rain?”

The woman pulled in a deep breath, then looked at her son. She turned back to Jac. “The girls, Ava and Livy?”

Jac shook her head. “We don’t know the location of the Sturvin girls at this time. But I’m going to find them. I know the Sturvins personally. How well did you know them?”

Jac and Whitman followed the woman into her home. It was very similar to the Sturvins, down to the same paint color on the exterior trim.

No doubt because of homeowners’ association regulations. A neighborhood like this one would have some. “Is there a homeowner’s association here?”

The woman shook her head. She quickly took off her quilted coat and hung it on a peg by her kitchen door. The home was immaculate—and cost a good ten times what Jac made in a year.

But it felt warm. Lived in. Not like the designer showpiece the Sturvins’ home was.

There wasn’t an inch of white leather anywhere. There were…toys. Photos of children. An elderly beagle wearing a pink harness and two hair ribbons clipped by her ears watching them from behind a baby gate to the hallway.

Jac far preferred this place to the one across the street. The Sturvins’ home felt sterile.

That was one thing that had stood out.

The neighbor sent her son to his room with a soft order to get his backpack for school. There were two other children inside the house. The woman hugged them quickly.

Jac tried to ignore how the little girl reminded her of Emery. She was just as tall as Max’s daughter, with blond hair in two braids. Emery had the same sweatshirt, but in purple.

Jac had bought it for her the last time they’d gone shopping together.

“The school bus will arrive in a few moments. If...if it can get through the police cars.”

Her husband came in. He studied Jac and Whitman closely. “You’re with the FBI. Or do you work with Paul?”

“FBI. PAVAD, actually. Paul Sturvin was a contractor with the local field office, but I never worked with him. I did know his wife through the girls’ school, somewhat.”

The husband nodded. He had a pinched look on his handsome face. “Bethy, I’ll drive the kids in. I don’t think they need to be here for this. I’ll have my mother pick them up at three and take them home with her for the night. You...call me if you need me.”

He brushed a hand over her hair. The gesture shouted love to Jac. The woman looked at her husband for reassurance. Just for a moment. He touched her—like he didn’t want to leave her. He loved her. How she felt was written on her own face.

They were lucky to be loved like that.

“I’ll be ok,” she said shakily. Once the husband and children were gone, she turned back to Jac and Whitman. “I’m sorry. I’m Beth Ann Watson. That’s my husband Henry. Edith...I check on her every morning. Rachel would check on her of the evening. How could someone do this to Edith? And Rachel...is she ok? She’s a nice woman. Always volunteering at her children’s school.”

“Your children don’t go to Brynlock?” She hadn’t thought they had. Brynlock students wore distinctive uniforms; her children had been dressed in street clothes.

“No. Too expensive. They go to Worthingstone Christian. It’s not nearly as expensive as Brynlock. Still a great school. We