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

He should have taken his daughters and headed for Canada hours ago.

Lytel had ordered Todd to accompany him here. Now, Todd stood back as the two men argued.

Sturvin wanted money—and a guaranteed way out of the country.

Or he was going to call Jaclyn Jones and spill everything.

Todd flinched inwardly at what that meant. Jaclyn would have to be told, have to be warned.

The last thing she needed was Lytel.

With one shot, Lytel ended the search for Paul Sturvin forever. Todd dropped his hand to his own weapon. It would be stupid to think Lytel wasn’t thinking of doing the exact same thing right now.

The older man looked up at Todd. There was a light of madness, of sheer enjoyment, in the man’s blue eyes. “You’ll need to change your shirt before getting back with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Barnes. You have high-velocity spatter on your collar. One of them is likely to notice.”

Todd just nodded, biting back the bile.

Paul Sturvin’s fake blond hair was now blood red. Todd held in the puke with everything he had.

“Barnes?” Lytel asked quietly. “Is this going to be a problem for you? Better pick your team now before you ride the pine bench from here on out.”

Todd shook his head, immediately. He just had to play it cool with Lytel.

Or he’d be lying there right next to Paul Sturvin, bleeding into the muddy Missouri ground.

And his mother and sisters would be fed a full pack of lies about him, destroying their perception of him forever.

He didn’t want that.

Todd wanted a chance to have a damned family of his own.

“So what do we do now?”

“We leave him and hightail our asses back to St. Louis. We’ll have to check in with the Mr. and Mrs. in a few hours. We should just be able to manage it.”

“What about him?” Todd asked as dismissively as he could. Sturvin’s lifeless eyes were staring right at him.

“We leave him. Jones and Jones are on the right trail. They’ll find their way to him, as soon as I give them the message about the partial license plate I intercepted. If not, an anonymous tip might be in our future. Let’s go. You follow me, but not too close. Don’t want any of the locals to see our vehicles on the road together. Haven’t you ever played undercover, Barnes? This is just one big game we’re playing, you know.”

Todd just looked at him.

“See you in a few hours, pal. And watch out. Fire response will be on their way soon.”

Todd waited until the other man and his buddies drove off. He dutifully turned the SUV he’d rented over a week ago around and made it look like he was following Lytel and his dirty team.

They disgusted him. Those bastards had betrayed everything the bureau stood for.

They had taken the same damned oath to protect that Todd had.

That mattered.

He’d made it three miles down the highway before he remembered. The girl.

Paul Sturvin’s daughter would have been in that house. Somewhere.

And Todd could smell the rising smoke in the distance.

95

Jac knew they were close. She could just feel it. Max had called the entire team back. Miranda was there. Jac looked at her friend quickly. “Bentley?”

“Agent Taggart has been reassigned to protective duty for Bentley. Dan Reynolds cleared it with his supervisor in Indianapolis.”

Jac nodded. “Nat and two agents are going to stay with Ava until she’s released. She’ll be brought back here when the physicians release her.”

She studied the people around the digital conference table, where all the evidence they had so far was now displayed. Whit, Miranda, Dani, Max. Barnes slipped in, and took the far seat. She studied him for a moment.

The toll the case was taking on them was most noticeable on Barnes. He looked horrible. Pale. Disheveled, though she thought the shirt was clean, at least. The man looked almost sick.

He wasn’t holding up for this. She hoped he realized that and would leave PAVAD and never look back. Not that he’d been horrible, actually. He’d been adequate as an investigator, at least. Not great, but she’d seen worse. He had a file in his hand.

The file she needed. Things clicked into place. “Adoption records.”

“What?” Max asked. Everyone turned toward her.

Jac went to the old-school whiteboard. She grabbed a marker. “Philip and Paul were adopted when they were four. They found new families then. But a four-year-old, they are capable of retaining some memories. And these were open adoptions. How could they not be? Paul and Philip were identical, and they went to two relatives, one maternal set, one paternal. People knew the story. But…why? Why would two boys be split up and adopted to separate, but connected families? It had to be a traumatic event. Had to have shaped them.”

“Bentley went to a maternal relative,” Miranda said. “She was the sister of the woman who adopted Philip.”

“What relatives does she have remaining?”

“I’m already on it. She passed away six months ago. Ronalda Sullivan Carionni. Cervical cancer. No listed next of kin.”

“Where did she live?” Max asked.

“A few miles south of New London, Missouri,” Dani said. “It’s sat vacant ever since. But…there’s a trust attached to it. It’s been left to…Bentley Sullivan. Which makes sense; she was raising him, after all.”

Jac was flipping through the adoption records. “Paul and Philip were born Paul and Philip Koehler in Columbia. To…Ronalda Sullivan. She was sixteen at the time. Four years later…we have court records. Prostitution in St. Louis, drug charges in Kansas City a few years later. Looks like she signed the boys over for adoption a few weeks after the first arrest.”

“She obviously still had contact with Philip. She took in his son.”

“He’s been visiting Bentley weekly. There is no indication he wasn’t visiting Bentley before Ronalda’s death as well,” Miranda pointed out. “Bentley said his dad was teaching him all about the stars before his grandmother’s death. I asked; he said Grandma liked telescopes. That