There was a bullet in Andy’s head. It hadn’t gotten there by accident.
Max was good at what he did. That he wouldn’t deny. And he worked hard to ensure that. But this...this spoke of dark secrets Max feared the answers to. The body of a friend was pretty damned proof positive of that.
“Who called it in?” he asked. There weren’t any lights on in the houses nearby. Andy had mentioned there were vacant places in his neighborhood and had suggested Max might want to check a few out for his rental business. Max hadn’t had the time to yet.
“We don’t know yet,” Ed said. “There was an anonymous phone call—to Sin. Gloating. Threats that they were getting closer. That a PAVAD family would hurt again tonight.”
Max looked at Sin, the man who had the reputation of being the absolute best at ferreting out internal corruption that the bureau had ever seen. They called him The Bloodhound.
Someone taunting Sin Lorcan like that was a damned foolish bastard. One who had opened the doors to hell tonight—and let a three-headed dog out.
You didn’t make it to PAVAD by accident, or by being mediocre. No. PAVAD pulled only the very best.
Whatever was going on in PAVAD—it was far bigger than him.
Max wanted a part of it. He wanted in on bringing down the bastards who had threatened what he and the others had worked for over the last four years.
PAVAD meant something to the people who worked there.
None of them took threats to it lightly. Max certainly didn’t.
Neither did the men surrounding him.
He didn’t take the murder of a friend sitting down, either.
He’d held Andy’s children in his own arms before, at their own brother’s funeral. He owed them answers.
Max would get them, too.
“We need to find this sonofabitch,” the third Lorcan brother said, coming from inside the house. There was grief for a lost teammate in his tone. “Andy has a family. He adored his kids. Was still in love with the ex-wife, too. Things just got tough after the baby died.”
Max had always thought so, too. He’d hoped the Andersons would have been able to work out their differences; they’d broken up after the death of their fourth child from a heart defect two years ago. They’d never get the chance to work things out now.
Damn it, Andy. What had he gotten in to? The guy had been goofy, playful, intelligent, and…dependable. A bit of a conspiracy nut, which was odd for an FBI agent, but half the time, Max thought Andy had just been goofing around.
Like he read the conspiracies for fun. Was saying things to get a rise out of the people around him.
“We’ll find the answers,” Ed promised.
“Well, we’ll need to find them fast. Because this is spiraling,” Sin said, putting one hand on the shoulders of each of his brothers. Three identical men with fire and anger in their matching green eyes, just like the three-headed dog of hell. Max wanted to see the Lorcans tear into the man who’d done this. Wanted that with every fiber of his being now. “That damned sniper nearly killed my wife, with my children and my brothers’ children inside one hundred feet away. I’m not going to wait much longer to have some names.”
“Neither will we,” his brothers said together in near unison. At any other time, it would have been humorous. Not tonight.
There was nothing humorous about tonight.
It was a sentiment they all agreed with.
Someone had a real ax to grind against PAVAD. They were making it known.
With one piece of collateral damage at a time. They’d had half a dozen agents targeted since Sin’s wife had been shot knocking him out of the way of a paid assassin. An inch higher and it would have struck her femoral artery. Cody Lorcan would have died with her two children watching from the babysitter’s front window. No wonder the Lorcan brothers were practically foaming at the mouth on this one.
Max would be too, if it had been Jac hurt.
Max looked at Sin. “I’ll do whatever it takes to catch this guy. You just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. Even if it just means signing my name to the damned paperwork.”
Max took another look at the dead man sprawled in front of them, a man he’d known well enough to sit with at their daughters’ sporting events and academic tournaments—a man he’d eaten lunch with at the cafeteria at PAVAD dozens of times. They’d shared a table not even two days ago, talking about their kids. About the best place to buy the girls shoes. Max hated shopping for shoes. Andy, too. But they had little girls who needed new shoes, and Andy had promised his ex-wife he’d take the girls that weekend to get them while she worked a double shift at the hospital.
It had been so damned normal.
He’d considered Andy Anderson a friend.
Andy’s three little girls deserved more than this.
Max made himself a vow—answers. He’d not stop until he could someday give those little girls answers about who and why this had happened.
He looked at Ed. “Let’s find this sonofabitch.”
2
Jac had missed this. She’d missed the sight of children enjoying themselves, missed the sight of families brimming with pride and love for their children.
Missed the normalcy of it all. Missed being a part of it. She hadn’t realized how much it mattered, until it had suddenly stopped weeks ago.
Agent Jaclyn Jones climbed the bleachers near the free throw line and watched a gaggle of little girls that she knew as they learned the game—she actually felt like she belonged there.
Jac waved at the assistant coach. Rachel was a friend. One of the few Jac had outside her work with the bureau. They’d met right there at Brynlock over a year ago.
Someone else called her name, and she turned. Angie Anderson sat holding her toddler. Angie looked a little frazzled. Jac took the seat next to her and smiled at
