Jac hadn’t. Jac had stepped up that first time three years ago, when Pamela had cancelled last minute. Jac probably knew some of the Brynlock parents better than he did.
“Are you going to be able to handle this case on a personal level, Jaclyn?” Ed asked quietly. “I had them call you when I saw your name in the kitchen. If you can’t…can you give Team Two what you know about the family, and formally recuse yourself? I’m not going to push you to do this case, if you don’t feel you can be objective. If it is too painful. I’ll be telling the others connected to Brynlock the same. There’s no shame in not being able to handle this. Seeing a…friend…like this, it is not something I ever want my people to have to go through.”
Jac pulled in a deep breath. “Yes. I can do this. More, I want to do this. For her. I think she deserves my help. She wasn’t a good friend, Director, but she could have been eventually. I have the skills to find her killer. More than that, I want to. She didn’t deserve this.”
“No. That she most certainly didn’t.”
Max followed the director’s gaze. To the bloodstains so garishly red on the white concrete drive that were washing away with the rain. The forensics teams were moving as fast as they could, but they were only human.
There was only so much any of them could do.
There was nothing to be done for Rachel now—other than to find her family, and the answers. “No one does.”
Jac looked at him, finally. He could see the pain in her eyes she thought she was hiding. “Max? Where are the girls? Where are Rachel’s daughters?”
Max couldn’t answer.
Because he just didn’t know.
34
Paul had spent five and a half years getting to this point. But Rachel…Rachel had destroyed it, destroyed him.
Paul felt devastated.
There was a lot of work involved in what would come next.
Paul pulled in a deep breath and tried to reassure himself.
He’d done it before. He had done it before and healed.
He hadn’t meant for this to happen to Rachel. He had loved her for the years they’d been together. Had protected and provided to the best that he could.
Sadness threatened; Paul pushed it aside.
He opened his phone. He needed to see, to remind himself of what he was supposed to be doing now.
Jaclyn Jones was in the first photo he opened. He’d meant to open one of the girls. He lived for his daughters now.
But it was Jaclyn Jones he stared at now.
She was beautiful. Paul touched the screen lightly.
He had taken the first photo at the Brynlock carnival. The lighting had been perfect. He had captured this first image while she had been half turned, next to that ex-jock buddy of hers. Max Jones hadn’t been that far from her the entire night.
Her lips were parted in a half smile. The red of her hair shown beautifully in the light of the gym.
At the angle the photo was taken, she was looking right at him. At Paul.
Which made sense; she most likely was looking right at Paul. That had been confirmed when she had first noticed him at the birthday party.
Their eyes had met, right there in that damned Max Jones’s foyer. He had been so angry that day, angry that Rachel had defied him. Watching Jaclyn that day had soothed him so that he was not nearly as angry with Rachel as he could have been.
He needed that right now, needed it after what Rachel had made him do. Rachel just hadn’t understood what he had been working for all this time.
Nothing he had done or said had made her understand. Had erased that look of disappointment from her eyes.
He’d failed her. Paul had had no choice but to finally make it right. He had. Now, he had to make it right for their daughters. If nothing else, he owed Rachel that one thing.
Paul was going to find his daughters. Find his girls, tell them about their mother, put St. Louis behind them, and move on.
He couldn’t do that if he was fantasizing about a woman he barely knew at all.
The girls. He had to focus on them. He couldn’t fail his children again.
35
Today was going to be his day. Todd just knew it. He’d heard the reports on the radio as he’d driven in to PAVAD. Something horrific had happened somewhere in Old Jamestown. Something that was drawing the news vans there like vultures. The radio had reported that PAVAD was already on scene.
The PAVAD: FBI teams were already being called in.
He was going to be on one of those teams.
It didn’t matter where he was in PAVAD. He just wanted PAVAD. For the time being anyway.
He was here now. Time to do his thing. Earn his spot, move on, and then watch as the damned division completely imploded. When he entered conference room 6B, there were three women inside. Sweat slicked his palms when they looked at him.
Hot. The three of them were hot. He straightened his shoulders and smirked at them. He recognized two of them.
He’d had a thing for Jaclyn Jones long before he’d known who her father was. But now that he knew who her father was, that was just icing on the cake.
He’d hook up with her eventually. Todd tended to get every woman he wanted. He was in no hurry. He had too much to do right now to worry about chasing a woman.
The hunt was part of the fun. Especially since rumors said she’d just recently ended things with her longtime lover, that other Agent Jones.
There were two other women on each side of her. He couldn’t remember the one’s name, a computer tech who he thought had once worked in the same Texas field office he had.
