“Two. Closer to two weeks.” Jac shook her head, after checking the gas tank. They had a while to go, and there was a gas station up ahead. “I’ve barely passed Max in the halls since then. He’s been busy with the director and a special project.”
Andy Anderson. Max was quietly working that case with the director and Sin Lorcan, but no one was supposed to know that. Jac hadn’t said a word. Even to her best friend.
She’d worried about Max the entire time she was in Masterson with Miranda. He and Andy had been good friends. Not as close as she was with the woman next to her, but enough that Andy’s death hurt him. Haunted him.
She knew how Max’s mind worked, after all. She had seen his face at Andy’s funeral, too.
That day wasn’t one she was easily going to forget.
Miranda said something. Jac focused back in on her friend.
Jac was still frozen through to her undies, after leaving the small Wyoming town where she’d driven up to fetch her best friend. Masterson had been under more than two feet of snow.
Miranda had been up in Wyoming visiting with her family for the past three weeks, following the final surgery she’d had in Masterson to repair the nasty break in her arm from a case gone bad back in September.
Had Jac not delayed her travel plans that particular day, having decided to stay and visit with Miranda’s family, Miranda would have been killed, right there in the Talley Inn’s kitchen.
Miranda had been very lucky. Just how fleeting a friend could be lost had sunk in for Jac that day, too. It wasn’t a lesson she wanted to forget—or repeat.
Jac truly hadn’t minded the drive to Masterson last week. It had given her time to think about the CPED’s last case. It had been a tough one, too.
One that had her seriously considering switching to the CCU full-time instead of floating between the two divisions.
She didn’t know how much longer she could handle cases involving child victims. It was getting too hard.
Just as she’d arrived in Masterson, a nasty snowstorm had hit, trapping her and Miranda in the county for a few more days than planned.
They’d spent that time with Miranda’s grandmother Flo and Miranda’s two sisters and her cousins, who all lived at the family inn right in the midst of downtown Masterson. Miranda had one cousin who lived down in Texas, near Wichita Falls, who had also been visiting. It had been a wild family reunion—or as wild as the Talleys got. Jac had loved it.
The Talleys acted as if Jac was one of them, as if she’d always been a part of their family. They’d even given her a suite in the family wing of their inn.
That mattered more than anything Jac had ever experienced.
They were as close to a real family as Jac was ever going to get, except for her own little sister Nat. Worry flooded her mind when she thought of the hell her sister had gone through, losing the man she loved in a nasty explosion a year or so ago.
It seemed like all Jac did was worry lately.
Nat was struggling, but she would make it through. Her sister was one of the strongest woman Jac knew.
Jac had seen photos of another bomb scene. One that had happened a lot more recently. Max and the rest of the men out there that day could have been killed.
It had been three weeks since Andy Anderson’s death.
Company rumors said that it was the director, Max, Malachi Brockman, and at least two of the Lorcan brothers who had been there that night. But no one was supposed to know who.
Jac had seen the files by accident, then put it together quickly.
Max had reeked of smoke, after all. It had been the night Andy died.
She wasn’t an idiot.
They had all been lucky to survive. Family men, all of them.
PAVAD really wasn’t all that great for families, in her opinion. There were far too many risks.
Those involved in this case were of so high a security clearance they got nosebleeds when they were all together on company time.
Worry for Max hit her again. She was seriously worried about that man.
From what she had been able to see of him, and what other friends had told her, he was working himself practically ragged to find out who had killed Andy Anderson.
That was another reason she was heading home today. She had four hours left to get home, shower, change, and get over to Brynlock Academy. Emery was counting on her to be there. Jac wanted to check on Max herself. Just to make certain he was ok.
He was obstinate enough to be a real dog with a bone when he felt it was important enough.
Andy was important enough.
Jac had attended the funeral, staying near Max, surrounded by the rest of Andy’s team. Angie had been devastated. The girls had been little ghosts. It was obvious they didn’t understand what had happened.
They’d buried Andy next to his son. That had stuck out to Jac for hours after. Life…was so fleeting.
How could Andy’s kids understand this?
Jac barely understood it herself.
Jac had made a vow a long time ago to never let down the people she cared about. Not the ones she considered her family. Afraid-of-a-little-kiss Max was definitely on that list. She was going to find him, check on him, and read him the riot act if needed.
“I can drive for a while,” Miranda said next to her after a few hours on the road. “If you need a break. Or want to sit over here and send sexy texts to the hot Dr. Jones—just no pics. I don’t need to see you take them.”
“I’m good. Maybe in half an hour. We need to find food.” Miranda terrified her when she drove. The woman had no fear whatsoever—it would be even worse if Miranda was driving one-handed. “And that’s a
