Maybe he’d lost his mind last night. And maybe he’d come back around to his old self, given time. But for now, the desire to resist what she was proposing just wasn’t there.
Still, Jackson felt he had to put at least some restrictions in place.
“In slow doses,” he warned Brianna. “So that I wind up with a sugar rush, not experiencing a diabetic coma.”
Having grown up in what amounted to a crowd, she’d learned the advantages of compromise early. She could apply the lesson here.
“We did it my way first. Now we can do it your way,” she agreed.
As Jackson pulled into the rear parking lot, she quickly scanned the area.
Brianna drew in her breath. “Okay,” she told him as he parked. “Brace yourself.”
“For what?” Jackson asked, turning off the engine.
Brianna got out of the vehicle. Rather than look at Jackson, she never took her eyes off the woman who was coming toward them.
“For that,” Brianna said, indicating a far-from-happy-looking Valri. Because they needed her help, Brianna had called the indispensable computer lab tech before they had left Jackson’s apartment.
The look of harassed displeasure on Valri’s face did not lessen as she drew closer to them.
“Flattered as I am to be woken up before sunrise on a Sunday and dragged out of bed to come to a place where I spend twice the amount of waking hours I should,” Valri said, “couldn’t this have waited until Monday?”
“I don’t know,” Brianna told her cousin in all honesty as she, Jackson and Valri turned to walk into the precinct. “Maybe,” she allowed, surprising Jackson. “But I’ve got this feeling.”
Valri rolled her eyes. “God help us, the almighty Cavanaugh gut feeling.”
Joining the two women in the empty lobby, Jackson asked, “The what?”
“If you don’t know,” Valri told him, jabbing at the elevator down button, “it’s not too late. Run. Save yourself.”
Not paying attention to the advice, Jackson turned toward Brianna. “What’s the Cavanaugh gut feeling?” he asked as they all got in the elevator.
Valri pressed the button for the basement and the door slowly closed. “Something that supersedes common sense and all the rules,” she told him.
“And is usually right,” Brianna interjected with finality.
Valri frowned. “That’s beside the point.” The elevator door opened, and she led the way toward the computer lab. “Hear that?” Valri asked, opening the door to the lab. “That’s the sound of people not working—because it’s Sunday.”
Brianna decided to appeal to her cousin’s sense of family. No matter what the price, they were always there for one another.
“Valri, the Aurora family is putting pressure on Uncle Brian and Uncle Sean—and who knows who else—to just drop the case, or barring that, just sweep it under the rug and call it an unsolved cold case. Uncle Brian told me they made it clear that they didn’t want an investigation, and if there was one, there’d be consequences.”
Valri sighed. “This may still wind up being a cold case,” she warned.
“But not until all the other possible open avenues have been explored,” Jackson stressed.
“Ah, another county heard from,” Valri quipped, turning on her computer. “Okay,” she said, shifting her chair and moving it closer to the computer, “because it’s for Uncle Brian and Uncle Sean—and the new guy,” she added, her eyes sweeping over Jackson, “I’m giving this my best shot. But I’m obligated to warn you, two hours without coffee and I completely run out of steam.”
“I’ll make a coffee run and bring you back a gallon of coffee if you want,” Jackson promised.
“In the meantime,” Brianna interjected, “what can we do to help?”
Eyes narrowed, her visibly tired cousin gave her a look. “Other than lose my home phone number?”
“Yes, other than that.”
Valri thought a moment, then said, “I’ll power up two of the unrestricted computers and send a third of the names on those missing-persons lists I’m going to start pulling up to each of you. You can start reading through them, too. That should cut down the amount of time I have to spend here.”
Valri began to bundle the first batch of missing-persons reports to send to Brianna, her fingers flying over the keyboard as names and dates whizzed by on her monitor. “By the way,” she said, never looking up, “you owe me. Big-time.”
“I’m good for it,” Brianna assured the other woman.
“No, you’re not,” Valri replied. “But this time, you won’t be able to wiggle out of it.” She glanced toward Jackson. “I have a witness.”
Jackson thought it in his best interest to keep his head down.
Chapter 20
“I don’t know about you, but my eyes feel like they’re totally tread worn,” Brianna declared.
Pushing her chair back a little from the computer she’d been using, she leaned back in the seat and moved her head from side to side, trying to work out the kinks in her neck. She’d lost track of time as she, Jackson and Valri pulled up and read through scores of missing-persons reports for the better part of Sunday.
Following Brianna’s lead, Jackson shifted his shoulders and stretched.
“Why don’t we call it a day?” Jackson suggested, looking at his partner. His body felt as if it had been glued into place. In his estimation, spending a whole day working at a desk was nothing short of punishment.
Valri didn’t need any more than that. “I will if you will,” she told them, sounding livelier than she had in hours.
Brianna sighed as she assessed the large stack of papers on missing women that had been printed up as a direct result of their search. “I had no idea that there were this many lost people out there.”
Jackson glanced over at the pile. There was no other word for it than daunting. “You don’t mean that literally, do you?”
Brianna raised her eyes to his. She thought of her own life and how lucky she was. “No, I don’t.”
Jackson saw the look in her eyes and guessed what was going through her mind. That comment about being lost was meant
