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

He’d driven all the way from Dallas just to do this.

It would be worth it to see PAVAD destroyed.

4

Max and the rest of the men combed over Andy’s office. It felt wrong to violate a friend’s personal space like this, but the determination burning in his gut wasn’t going to be stopped. Not until he had the answers. There were cartoons on the walls, signed with Andy’s distinctive scrawl. Mixed with photos of Abbie, Alexis and little Audra. And Audra’s twin Ashton, who hadn’t made it to his first birthday.

Andy’s world.

Max took one three-by-five candid off the wall. Andy and his girls—at the last PAVAD picnic. Max’s daughter and his partner Jac were visible in the background, smiles on their beautiful faces.

Max had snapped the photo. It was shortly after Andy and his wife had separated.

Andy’s ex had called twice to see why he wasn’t at the basketball game right now, her voice ringing out on the old-fashioned answering machine. Andy always had been resistant to technology. Andy would only use his bureau phone when on the clock, and had complained about that many times.

Jac had set it up for Andy once or twice while Max watched. Not that Max was all that into technology, either. But he had had Andy beat by a mile.

Grief threatened again, but he shoved it away. He wasn’t going to do Andy a damned bit of good if he turned into a blustering idiot.

Max slipped the photo out of the frame and turned it over.

In an obsessively neat hand were the date the photo was taken and the ages of all the girls, including Emery. Andy had been extremely detail oriented and mathematically inclined. He’d calculated the girls’ ages right down to the number of days. Jac’s, too.

Andy had fit in well with the forensic accounting team he’d been on. He’d been happy on that team, and passionate about his work. He’d enjoyed it. He valued it. And Max would have bet his left arm that Andy wouldn’t have betrayed it.

Not without damned good reason.

Max was going to find that reason.

Ed came up behind where Max was videoing the office and the paperwork he’d seen there. “Sebastian has already grabbed all the computer equipment. He’s going to take it directly to his wife. She’ll process it…outside the PAVAD server, using her brother-in-law’s, instead. They’re both at Brynlock now. She’s going to ride out to Lucas’s place with his security team. Evidence won’t leave his place until we’re damned well ready for it to happen.”

Not exactly strictly by the books, but no one was going to say a word about it.

Not tonight. Not after…this. They all knew the consequences of what they were facing now.

Andy was one of their own.

Sebastian Lorcan’s wife was the head of the computer forensics team, and was also associated through family connections to two of the most advanced law enforcement tech companies in the world. That meant access to the best equipment out there—some that wasn’t even released to the market yet.

She was the best with a computer Max had ever seen. He just nodded. Of course, the director would be calling out the best for this.

It was PAVAD.

Andy had been one of them.

He switched over to still photo mode and kept snapping photos. He wasn’t forensics, but he was going to document everything he could. Everything. Without even thinking about it, he slipped the snapshot into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt.

He’d find the answers for those girls.

Then he’d return the photo to their mother.

This was going to tear Angie apart.

He was going to go through the rest of the house before the evidence techs got there as well.

There might be things that the general teams at PAVAD had no business seeing. He had already gotten clearance from the director and Mick to do just that.

Everyone knew this case was going to be outside the lines.

Andy would always cross those boundaries.

There were three memory cards taped to the back of a drawer in the small office that connected to Andy’s bedroom. Max photographed them, then removed the cards, in gloved hands. He handed them to the director.

Anything. Anything at all could turn a case in an instant. They all knew that.

The cards wouldn’t have been hidden if there wasn’t something important on them.

“We sure he was the one selling secrets?” one of the Lorcan brothers asked. They sounded very similar; Max looked over his shoulder to see just which one it was. It was Seth. The earring was a dead giveaway. The other two triplets were more severe in appearance, and often confused for one another even more. “I really can’t believe it of him. And I’ve seen where one teammate was framing another before.”

“I don’t know yet. I...he was a good guy. At least, he appeared to be. Hell, my daughter has spent the night with his a few times before.” Max had seen things on the job that he still didn’t understand, even with his experience as a profiler. Andy being a traitor to PAVAD—he wouldn’t believe until he had irrefutable evidence of it. He just couldn’t.

Seth nodded. “I thought so, too.”

“If that changes, if I find anything that says he was framed…whatever happened here...someone shot him. Took him away from his family. I will find them.” If nothing else, Max owed those children answers.

His phone beeped with a text, interrupting his next round of photos.

I have Emery at my new place. We have pizza. She can spend the night, no problem. Call me when you want me to bring her home. —Jac.

Some of his tension lessened. His daughter was safe and protected and with someone who loved her.

Now, Max could fully focus on what he needed to do.

5

Andy’s house appeared exactly as it always had. Max had picked him up there a few times. It had once belonged to Andy’s parents, before they’d died. Andy had moved in after the divorce.

It was close to where Andy’s ex-wife and girls lived. He wanted to be