Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18) by Calle Brookes (100 books to read in a lifetime txt) 📕

cases overlapped. Sometimes, you felt split in half, trying to devote everything you could to each.

She had fifteen open cases on her own desk, just waiting for her to have some sort of down time to work on them. Some cases were just more immediate than others.

Miranda had left already. She was taking the little boy to a safe house, along with that guy who’d followed her back from Indiana.

Miranda had a habit of collecting guys, it seemed. Not anything overt that her friend did, they just seemed to be attracted to her vivacious love of life. Most of the time, they ended up friends. Miranda had her own hang-ups where relationships were concerned that she’d have to deal with before she could have anything serious.

Then again, that could be said for just about everybody.

She read Max’s text, including the address of a pharmacy just over the Illinois border.

The Illinois border.

Something clicked.

Jac turned and almost jogged back to the conference room. She almost collided with Agent Lytel.

He caught her, wrapping strong hands around her elbows. “Best slow down, Agent Jones. There’s plenty of time to get to where you’re going.”

“Sorry. I just…something’s tickling the back of my mind with the Sturvin case.”

“Walk; don’t run. Keep your hands inside the vehicle. No running in the halls. And anything else I’ve told my own daughters.” He gave her a quick smile, then stepped back to let her pass.

“Thanks, Eugene.” She’d worked with him time and time again before. A bit arrogant, but he was good at what he did.

Of course, he was—he was PAVAD.

She found Dani in the conference room, sitting in her chair, in front of the whiteboard just staring at it.

That was a habit Jac had herself. Sometimes, she just had to see things in front of her to get the connections. “Dani, that list of properties owned by Philip Sullivan and his adoptive parents? Do you have it?”

“Green file, I think. You’re on to something.” Dani turned the chair to watch Jac instead; that’s when Jac saw the little dog sound asleep on her friend’s lap. “Talk it out with me.”

“See you’ve made a friend.”

“Sadie’s not afraid of the chair. Edith had surgery last year, was wheelchair bound for a while. Sadie took one look at me and hopped right up. Seemed to settle easier. She’s been a nervous wreck since Shayna finished with her. She had to be checked out to one of our team. I volunteered.” She had a leash tied to the arm of the chair to keep the dog from getting loose. Not that the dog seemed inclined. She was settled on Dani’s lap, and now watching Jac unconcernedly.

“They’re going to send her to the humane society.”

“No, they aren’t. Sadie and I understand each other. She’s coming home with me.”

Jac smiled. At least, there was one happy ending in the works for someone involved in this case. Even if it was just the dog.

“So what are you thinking?” Dani asked.

“I think we can narrow it down. Paul Sturvin was possibly seen at a pharmacy buying cold medicine two hours ago. Considering that most pharmacies are within half an hour of a person’s home…”

“Whichever property is the closest to the pharmacy is the one where he’s most likely holed up,” Dani said, turning toward the digital board next to the whiteboard. With a few clicks of the remote, she had a satellite image on the screen.

“What’s the address of the pharmacy?”

Jac relayed that information quickly.

80

“We’ve cracked the code,” Ed Dennis said. He shot a grim look at Max. “Take a seat. This won’t take long. Where are you with the Sturvin case?”

“We’re getting closer to narrowing down where he went. I just sent Barnes and Whitman to check surveillance tapes at a pharmacy where Paul was most likely spotted. But he’s not Paul.”

With as few words as possible, he brought the director up to speed, ending with “He’s both a family annihilator and a serial killer. That changes the profile drastically. But it means we have more to go on.”

Maybe. Now, they had to profile both Paul Sturvin—a man who had access to the resources the original Paul had created—and Philip Sullivan. Everything that Sullivan and Sturvin both were connected to would have to be checked. That was going to take time. “But we feel like we have a good handle on who we are looking for now. It’s just a matter of time before we narrow in on him.”

“I have a wrench to throw in, Jones. Take a look at this. It’s the print-out of the decrypted files found on Andy’s memory cards. Look at the name highlighted.”

Max flipped through the fifteen or so sheets of data. “Phone numbers?”

“Yes. From a set of fourteen burner phones. The last page is where you’ll find the information that’s relevant.”

Max turned the page one more time.

There it was. In bright-yellow highlighter.

“Paul Sturvin.”

“Andy somehow found these fourteen phone numbers. And he was running everything down that he could. Checking call logs for those numbers. Sturvin’s number came up early on the list. Then this number here was activated. Seth didn’t know about it. But we have exonerated Andy from being involved with the leak. My thought is that he stumbled on to information somehow and was trying to verify it before he was killed.”

Max’s gut twisted as memories of that night surfaced. “Which is most likely the reason he was killed in the first place.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Sturvin’s listed a few more times.”

“Once a month, since July.”

Max ran over the dates again. “These calls coincide with some data we found.”

He opened his phone and brought up copies of Sturvin’s financial recorders. “Here.”

He held his phone out for the director to see.

“What is this I’m looking at?” Ed asked, taking the phone.

“These calls coincide with fifteen-thousand-dollar deposits, made once a month, into Paul Sturvin’s bank account.” Max thought about what they knew about the man so far. “We have profiled him as an anomic family annihilator, motivated by financial failure