It had been white leather. White leather—in a house with two small girls. That was an odd choice. You’d have to be rigidly set on cleaning to have a house look like this.
Unlike Max’s house, which was of a similar size, there had been no toys out of place, no signs of children in the house, other than a playroom on the first floor and the two bedrooms on the second.
Rachel hadn’t seemed all that rigid to Jac. She’d been very laid-back. Quiet, but laid-back and calm. Warm.
The colors weren’t exactly feminine; they leaned far more in a masculine direction. As if Rachel was a footnote?
Jac checked the nightstand. In most cases, the more dominant spouse would sleep closest to any potential threat. Or entry point.
Most likely, Paul’s side of the bed was the one closest to the large French doors leading to a third-floor balcony that overlooked the backyard of the Sturvin property. The backyard was surrounded by wooded acreage. Potential threats. Paul would have slept between his wife and those threats.
She confirmed that with one look into the nightstand drawers.
Rachel’s side of the bed was mussed. Paul’s nightstand drawer was precisely organized. Rigidly so.
Jac made note of that.
Rachel’s side of the bed was the only sign in the house anywhere that someone had been in the house at all.
That the house was lived in at all. That was what it was—the house seemed empty.
Rachel’s bed wouldn’t have been slept in if her children’s hadn’t. Unless she had known exactly where her daughters were and hadn’t been the least bit concerned.
Maybe Rachel had been having a rare mom’s night to herself. Maybe Paul had taken the girls with him on his trip.
No. That didn’t make sense. Olivia had school today. She wouldn’t have been too far from Brynlock on a school day.
A middle of the week sleepover with a friend or relative was a possibility. She’d kept Emery on weeknights before. There had even been a few times when Miranda had kept Emery, when both Jac and Max were out on cases.
Jac sent up a quick prayer that the girls were somewhere safe now. A relative or family friend. Or their father.
Someone who had protected them by taking them away from all of this.
31
Ed stopped speaking to the local law enforcement officer when Max Jones pulled in.
Ed had been on scene for a good twenty minutes, but suspected that Max had had to drop his own child off at Brynlock. He remembered the days when juggling Georgia’s needs and the bureau had damned near torn him apart.
The bureau hadn’t exactly been all that friendly to single parents when Georgia had been young. He’d argued himself blue in the face to get some much needed policy changes made through the years.
Marianna was in the bureau-issue vehicle directly behind Max. Marianna had probably followed Max to the Old Jamestown area, eighteen miles north of the PAVAD building. Marianna had only been in the city of St. Louis for a little over three years now. She didn’t always know the quickest routes to the various crime scenes.
Of course, she rarely ventured out into the field any longer. As the wife of the director of PAVAD, she should be behind guarded doors right now, too.
If anyone were to go after Marianna again, it would devastate him. It had happened before. That had been one of the darkest days of his life.
Ed had made enough enemies in his years with the FBI that that was a distinct possibility. One they had discussed numerous times.
She didn’t care. She loved him, she said. And wanted to be with him.
But this case...it was one that would have the very best PAVAD had to offer. And that meant Marianna. And him.
The CCU.
The PAVAD: FBI security guard that was their compromise was visible next to the forensic van. His sole purpose was to guard Marianna while on scene. Ed nodded at him quickly.
Ed crossed the end of the drive and met Max before he went inside, just as Eugene Lytel and an auxiliary team of agents Ed had requested pulled up behind Marianna’s forensics van. “Jones.”
Ed had spent the last twenty minutes with the police chief, making deals to get this case moved to the CCU. All he’d known was that he had a team coming.
“Director, what do we have here?” Max asked. His team was pulling in behind him.
“We’re not sure yet. But we have two dead. It was brutal. And...Todd Barnes will be assisting.”
Ed didn’t miss the scowl. No one wanted Barnes anywhere near PAVAD at all. Ed was no exception to that.
But someone somewhere was pulling strings.
Ed couldn’t find the marionette to cut the cords.
That didn’t matter now—they had more important things to worry about right now.
Like who had killed Rachel Sturvin in the second-floor hallway.
32
Jac had to get off scene somehow. She pulled in a breath and fought a panic attack. She looked around. There were people gathering. She assumed they were some of the Sturvins’ neighbors. She pulled off her gloves and bagged them quickly in the bag Cody Lorcan held out for her.
Ed had called out all the forensics supervisors. Even automotive, apparently.
The same pain was in Cody’s eyes that was in Jac’s heart. Her daughter Lucy was a Brynlock student, too. Cody had met Rachel before. “Did you know her well, Cody?”
“A little. Parents’ organization meetings mostly. Rachel...she always volunteered to help with snacks. We worked concessions a few times. Sin jumped her car once when it wouldn’t start. And…Lucy…same grade as the older girl. Same class.”
Jac just nodded. Periphery. People didn’t realize who was on the periphery of their lives sometimes. “Let me know as soon as forensics finds something. I... Rachel was a friend, too.”
“I’ll do that. And Jac? We’re not going to stop until we have the answers.”
Of course, they wouldn’t. Jac thought about all she had seen PAVAD accomplish since it began. The four-year anniversary had been four months ago.
