As the holidays approached, it just made it tough on all of them. PAVAD came with sacrifices.
They’d spent the last two Thanksgivings and Christmases and New Years with Jac. Just the three of them. He and Jac had always ended up on call for the CCU, and they’d spent the holidays together. They’d been determined to give Emery as wonderful a holiday as they could.
It had taken Max a few days after their argument to put it together—he’d been building a family with Jac all along.
Stupid of him not to see that.
He didn’t know what he and Emery would do this year. Thanksgiving was next week. “I’m away from her enough as it is, if I add extra paperwork and more time on call, I don’t know if that will be the healthiest option for her. I need time to think about it.”
“Take a few days to think about it. But you should know Washington has transferred another agent in. They are pushing for him to have his own team within the CCU, starting after the new year. At least for six months. He’s nowhere near qualified. But I don’t know how much I can push back.” And there was fury in the man’s brown eyes at that thought. “It’s a dangerous line I walk sometimes.”
Someone pissing off Ed Dennis was pretty damned stupid. A smart man thought twice before willingly stepping in the middle of that.
Max wasn’t stupid.
“May I ask who?” Max respected Ed, probably more than he did many other people—especially within the bureau itself. Through the last five years of working for the man, first for the St. Louis field office, and then at PAVAD once it was officially up and running, Max liked to think the man respected him in return.
Max trusted Ed to be a straight shooter.
“Todd Barnes.” Ed practically snarled. Max winced. He recognized the name. The man had shown up occasionally in St. Louis before PAVAD had been created. He’d cropped up in a few other cases over the last five years. Never in good ways. “With…what else we are working on, I don’t want him anywhere near PAVAD. But I’ve been overruled. I don’t take that lightly.”
No one had liked Todd Barnes much back then, having him running a team in the CCU would guarantee problems. Of the extreme sort.
Max thought of his friends and teammates and what having Barnes for a team leader would mean for all of them. At best, the man was incompetent.
In PAVAD, that could be dangerous. Lives could literally be at stake. “He’s had no PAVAD experience.”
“Certain people seem to think he’ll be successful as a leader in the Complex Crimes Unit. As if the CCU was just any other unit, in any other division.” Ed lowered his voice as the crowd shifted closer. “They think he’s seasoned enough now.”
“Ignorance can be highly dangerous,” Max said.
The director nodded, his expression smoothing as he handed two of his children some money. When they hurried off to join their friends, he turned back to Max. “So can politics. And this has the stink of that. Manipulation. I don’t play those games very well. I never have.”
Max checked on Emery again. She had Jac by the hand, leading her to the nearest game booth, chattering away. His eyes met Jac’s. She nodded, wordlessly letting him know she’d watch over his daughter while he spoke with Ed. He turned back to the director.
“To be honest, if you agree to take the position, even for six months, it will help me out a great deal.”
“Why me?” There were other agents within the CCU who could do exactly what Ed was asking. They both knew that.
Hell, Jac could do it—probably much better than Max.
That would free Max up to work with Sin Lorcan, who ran an unofficial internal corruption unit within PAVAD now. Sin had called Max in to his own office once a day since Andy’s death.
Sin was determined. Max’s respect for the man and what he did for the bureau was growing. He wouldn’t mind switching to that department full-time. Sin’s team didn’t just keep an eye on corruption within the bureau, they were branching out to other governmental organizations—both on the state levels and federal.
But no one was to know that. Sin’s unit wasn’t even going to exist officially, anywhere. Max wanted to be a part of that.
It would mean far less travel, for one thing. For another, it would mean keeping the people he worked with and cared about from ending up like Andy. Keep them from getting shot in the damned babysitter’s driveway like had happened to Sin’s wife.
Cody was laughing with Jac right now, her son tugging on her shirt for attention. He looked just like his father, and his uncles.
Everywhere he turned were families that he knew. People he worked with and their children. They deserved to be kept safe while they did the jobs they had sworn to do.
“Because you have experience, education, and a proven PAVAD track record. There is nothing anyone can object to in your personnel jacket. Your dependable, too. I need you, Jones. If I am going to keep Barnes out. They’ve sent him here already. He’ll be shadowing PAVAD for the next three weeks to see if he wants the position. Team Three.”
Team Three—the team Jac most often worked with, when she wasn’t assigned to the CPED. His skin crawled just thinking about it.
“He does.” The sanctimonious asshole Barnes wanted nothing but a PAVAD position. Everyone who had ever encountered him since PAVAD began knew that. PAVAD appointments were golden in the bureau now since the fourth year had passed, and it had proven itself time and time again. “He’s wanted PAVAD for years.”
“I’m hoping we can find something on him in that time to put an end to this. Barnes will not be in my division.
