“Every minute we are here, putting this together, is another minute we get farther from doing just that. But I don’t know what else we can do,” Jac said, knowing her friend would understand what she meant. Jac looked at the rest of the people at the table. “You should know—Max and I both know the Sturvin family. I took these photos—in Max’s house ten days ago. This…is very personal for me.”
“For us,” Max added. “Both.”
“Then we follow our training. We’re good at what we do. We have to trust that. We have protocols for a reason,” Miranda said quietly. Barnes was there, just watching them. Jac had already almost forgotten him. “Because they’ve been proven to work as much as anything else can in this business. We have no reason to believe anything has happened to Olivia and Ava.”
“Livy, she likes to go by Livy. All her friends’ names end in -y or -ie, she told me. And she wanted to be different than her sister, and like her friends instead. Rachel...Rachel was humoring her. But it angered Paul, so she would only do it when he wasn’t around.”
“You met him. Tell me about him,” Miranda said softly. “Initial impressions.”
Jac thought back to Emery’s party.
It had been such a beautiful day. A good memory.
Now, it would forever be tainted by this.
“He is just your ordinary man in his early forties. He’s not particularly fit—nor unfit, not overly handsome, not even particularly well-groomed. He’s around your height, I think. About thirty pounds overweight. I remember him sweating. Which was crazy; Max’s place wasn’t hot that day. He seemed anxious about everything. He watched every move the children made. He was a nervous guy. He was the man that stuck out as just not fitting well with the rest of the group.”
“How did he act with his wife and children?” someone asked from behind her. Whit, she thought, though she didn’t turn.
“I just saw him with the girls in passing. I spent more time with Rachel. Even more time with the girls. The little one...she was competing with her older sister for attention amongst all the older kids in the room. She was one of the few not elementary-school aged. She recognized me from her sister’s sporting events; so I gave her some extra attention while her mother was busy helping with drinks. I held her, played with her, for about ten minutes. Paul was around, watching. Until he joined the other fathers in the media room that day. Rachel made a joke about him wanting to hobnob with the really important people in the room—especially Ken Chalmers. He was following Ken around. It stood out. She was embarrassed by it. She’d just asked him to take the younger girl to the restroom, and he cut her down. Refused to do it. I ended up taking her myself.”
“Signs of abuse?” Miranda asked.
Jac shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see any overt signs. And I never have. No bruises on either girl. Both are bright, happy, outgoing, and extremely confident. Rachel was a quiet, timid woman, but I got the impression that was more personality than anything. Maybe there was abuse, and I missed it, but my instinct says not of the girls. Maybe if I had seen something—”
“Maybe you could have done something to stop this?” Max’s voice came from somewhere behind her. Then a strong hand landed on her free shoulder. Miranda on her left, Max on her right. Jac pulled in a deep breath. “Maybe we both could have. I interacted with the Sturvins just as much as you did, Jac. This could have been random. Maybe someone thought the house was empty. Broke in and surprised her.”
Random would make it so much more difficult to find the answers. Jac hoped it wasn’t random, hoped there was an explanation stronger than just simple bad luck. But if it had been random, there was a greater chance the girls had been nowhere near that house last night.
“It doesn’t feel random.”
“The neighbors say Edith Lindsay took her dog out every night at 12:05 on the dot. After her favorite show ended. They said they tried to talk her into going out a little earlier, maybe getting a DVR or something, but she insisted that the dog had a set routine. She loved that dog,” Max said. “She...she’s as good as a liver temp for time of death.”
“Who could bludgeon an eighty-two-year-old woman to death for any reason?” Miranda asked. Jac silently echoed that question.
“After attacking a stay-at-home mother inside her home.” Jac thought for a moment. “Rachel was targeted, most likely. Mrs. Lindsay was simply to cover the crime. Or buy the killer time to escape, I mean. There is no way to cover this.”
Max’s hand squeezed her shoulder in comfort, then fell away. “I have Rachel’s contacts from her phone. I’m getting auxiliary agents to start calling around. See if someone can find out where Rachel and Paul might have sent the girls for the evening. But we shouldn’t just jump to zebras from horses. It’s possible Paul took his daughters somewhere. Or maybe they have separated, and he had the girls for the night. There could easily be a simple explanation for their location. Has anyone contacted Brynlock for more specifics? I know the director spoke with them earlier. They might have an insight to the girls and their home life. Other than her husband, we’re still trying to run down the closest next of kin.”
Jac looked at Max and pulled in a steadying breath. “I called the school. Spoke with the principal, Jayda Hewitt, actually. No signs of Livy. Ava only attends preschool three times a week. She would most likely have been with her mother today. Does Paul have employees?”
“No call on the attendance line?” Max asked. “It’s automated.”
Jac shook her head. “Nothing. Jayda said Livy hasn’t missed a single day of school since original enrollment in preschool
