“I’ve heard that. How well did you know the family?” Jac asked. They settled into the woman’s living room. “We’re trying to find out what we can about them, see if we can find out who would want to focus on them. Or Rachel, specifically.”
“They stuck to themselves. Rachel would occasionally let the girls play with my youngest, but not often. Only when her husband was out of town.” Beth Ann looked around, as if she was ashamed of what she’d said.
“I met Paul a few times. He was a bit abrupt,” Jac said.
Whit was taking notes. He was very organized in his notes. One of his skills was looking at patterns, too.
“Social climbing. That’s what Edith had to say about him. Nobody in this neighborhood is good enough for him to associate with. Not enough disposable income. Edith had definite opinions about Paul. Several people in the neighborhood did. We wondered what Rachel saw in him. She is a very kind, compassionate woman. He…is not well liked.”
“Were the Sturvins more economically sound than the rest of the neighborhood?” All of the houses were in excellent repair and the neighborhood shouted upper-middle class. If not the wealthy upper class.
Jac could have afforded a place here, but it would have required her using interest payments from her mother’s legacy to do it.
To her, it hadn’t seemed worth it. That money was for later. For her future. After she retired from the bureau when she was in her fifties.
Beth shook her head. “No. That’s why we all thought Paul was so strange. They bought their house as a foreclosure. The lowest purchase price on the block. I’ve seen Rachel shopping for the girls’ clothing at secondhand stores and clearance sales. I got the impression money was a bit tight and they were hiding it. If we were living in the 1950s, people would say the Sturvins—at least Paul, anyway—were putting on airs. Paul, especially, thinks he’s better than everyone else.”
33
Max swore the instant he saw the name printed neatly on the mailbox of the three-story brownstone home in the Old Jamestown area of Florissant.
“They connected to Brynlock?” he asked, looking at his bosses as they stood quietly talking at the end of the drive. Away from the blood. “Is this those same Sturvins?”
Crime scene techs worked quickly to set up tents over the larger bloodstains and surrounding areas before the encroaching rain could wash away the evidence. There were four tech auxiliaries now setting up a fifty-by-twenty tent over the Sturvins’ drive. Lytel’s people were going door-to-door, getting as many witness statements as possible.
Lytel was visible near the command post van.
PAVAD teams were damned efficient at what they did.
Michael Hellbrook nodded. “Yes. We called your team in because of the Brynlock connection. You’ll see why, inside.”
Max looked the man next to him.
There was grief in Ed’s dark eyes. And anger. A great deal of boiling anger that had Max just knowing...this case...it was going to be a bad one.
And he knew the people inside. That was every agent’s nightmare. He prayed to God he wasn’t about to see the bodies of Emery’s friends inside.
Please God, not those girls.
The memory of Jac holding the little Sturvin girl at the party passed through his head. He doubled that prayer. And added another—he hoped Jac was nowhere near this scene today.
Max still saw Andy in his dreams at night.
He didn’t want similar nightmares for her. “What do we know so far?”
Max studied the Sturvins’ home.
There was a child’s playset in the immaculately manicured backyard. The swing blew in the wind, as if a ghost child rode it now. Max resisted the urge to flinch at that thought.
He had never believed in ghosts before—he wasn’t going to start now.
A pink bicycle almost identical to the one he’d bought Emery for her birthday rested on its side next to the slide. It looked shiny and brand new. Pink streamers blew in the freezing late November wind.
“No sign of the children,” Ed said. “The mother—they’re bringing her out now. It wasn’t easy. Rachel Sturvin, thirty-one. She’s in the hallway.”
Max flinched inwardly. He knew exactly what the woman looked like. Warmly pretty, friendly, blond and blue-eyed with a classic appeal. She had had a clever sense of humor that came out when she felt comfortable, but she was a very reserved woman.
She had felt comfortable in his kitchen with Jac. Rachel had practically stuck to Jac’s side for the entire party. Just helping where she could; she and Jac had laughed together and teased him, so comfortable with one another.
Friends. She and Jac had been friends. Damn it.
Rachel and Max had served on the damned PTA together.
The last time he had seen her, she had been laughing with Jac over something her youngest daughter had said. While Jac held that four-year-old close. The little girl had hugged Jac before she’d left the party. Jac didn’t connect very often with people outside of PAVAD. He swore as he thought about what this would mean to Jac, once she learned what happened.
This case was going to turn personal fast.
Hell, it had been personal before it had even started.
This shouldn’t have been a PAVAD case. Murder was a state crime, not federal. PAVAD shouldn’t be there right now.
Ed knew the family, too. Several agents at PAVAD most likely did. No doubt, Ed had called in favors to get it.
Neighbors stood in clusters in front of half the houses. Watching.
There were always people watching. Max was used to it.
PAVAD agents were the best of the best, too. Max wasn’t arrogant. He knew his own skills. He would use every one of those skills if it meant finding the answers to this. “You know much about the Sturvins? I spoke with them both at Emery’s birthday party. I know…knew her better than him.
