The colonel’s wife had stepped out on him—just in time to make the younger daughter.
He’d watched the elder the years she was in St. Louis, to see if the colonel ever had influence over her life.
The bastard hadn’t visited Jaclyn even once.
Jaclyn—she was very much like her mother had been twenty something years ago.
It had led Eugene to seeing her in a different light, made him feel almost paternal toward her at times. She’d been very young to have no family.
He’d hate to see something happen to her.
But the younger girl…
Boyd had told everyone she was his; that she was his blood.
Blood was what mattered to that sick son-of-a-bitch. Even if Boyd had deluded himself. Girl didn’t look a thing like him.
But that dark-brown hair—it sure looked like the other sister’s she didn’t know she had.
Eugene knew that woman, too, after all.
As the girl loaded those damned dogs of hers into her four-door Wrangler, Eugene just watched her and waited.
When she left the driveway of the home that was far too large for one lone woman, he pulled out…and followed.
103
She hadn’t wanted to leave him. But Miranda had to file her reports and help wrap up the case against Philip Sullivan/Paul Sturvin. She couldn’t stay with Bentley forever.
No matter how much she had wanted just that.
Bentley had cried, terrified she’d not come back for him, no matter how much she had promised. She hadn’t wanted to leave him with strangers, but she hadn’t known what else to do.
Marilyn Brockman was the only choice she had. A retired child psychologist who had three children, two daughters-in-law, and a son-in-law working at PAVAD, she had volunteered to babysit the foster children Miranda had had before.
Leaving those children had not felt like this.
But Marilyn would take care of Bentley. Miranda knew that. The woman had written most of the textbooks out there on dealing with traumatized children. She would be able to help him, Miranda had to keep telling herself that. Marilyn’s daughter had been there as well. Spending the day with Marilyn and all the children Marilyn watched.
Bentley would be just fine. He was safe. He was with children his own age. Marilyn and her husband were experienced in dealing with traumatized children.
Bentley would be ok.
That didn’t help Miranda fight the urge to cry herself.
That little boy had stolen her heart from that first moment she had seen him in that group home. That wasn’t something she was ever going to deny.
When he had lifted his arms to her and asked her if she would just hold him for a minute, please, because he missed being held he had wormed right into her soul.
He’d spent six months in that place of hell, after losing the woman who had been raising him. His security and safety. She would probably never fully know what had happened to him there.
Miranda knew what it was like to lose your mother. Even though she’d had her sisters, and her father, and her cousins, and her grandmother and aunt, she would never forget that pain.
Bentley didn’t have anyone. Except for a four-year-old half sister he had never met.
And her. Someone had to advocate for him.
As she pulled into the PAVAD parking garage, Miranda tried to figure out exactly what it was she wanted to do.
She couldn’t just let him go, disappear into the foster system to be forgotten. She just couldn’t. He needed someone to stand up and say “Hey, he matters.”
She was the only one in line to do that. What that meant for her future, she didn’t have a clue.
When she stepped inside, the first person she saw was none other than Knight. Her stomach clenched; the last thing she needed right now was to deal with him.
Not when she already felt so shaken.
Miranda just kept walking. Even though she could feel him watching her.
She’d find Max and Jac, find out what was happening with the two little girls. Then she was going to put in for some more comp time. Spend it with Bentley.
She had a lot of soul-searching to do.
Because one thing was clear—she’d made a promise to that little boy. One she fully intended to keep.
Jac was nowhere to be seen. Miranda had been hoping to find her, to spill how she was feeling to Jac. See if her friend could help her figure out an answer.
But Max was right there, big, strong, and beautiful.
With a smile twitching at his lips.
Well. Something good had happened to him.
She would bet it had entirely everything to do with her best friend.
104
Max met the director and Sin Lorcan in the director’s office less than five minutes after he signed off on his final report regarding the Sturvin girls’ case.
They had opened an additional case into the murder of Philip Sullivan—but that case was being redirected to team two, under Sebastian Lorcan—and Jac.
To free Max up to devote his time to finding the ones responsible for Andy’s death.
With Andy’s code broken, they finally had something to go on.
“The leak is originating in the auxiliary department,” the other man in the room said.
Sin Lorcan looked as somber as the soberest of judges. Immaculately put together, there was a hardness in his eyes that would terrify those who didn’t know him well.
Max just saw it as the determination that it was.
The woman Sin adored had nearly died because of this leak. Max wouldn’t have been any less determined if had been Jac. Or less pissed.
“Do we have a name yet?”
“That’s what I want you to find. You finished the wrap-up on the Sturvin case?”
“Yes. I have Dani and Whit finishing indexing the forensics and confirming the loose ends. We’ll have one of the support teams for the CCU investigate the other deaths associated with Philip Sullivan. But the man is dead—we’ll never be able to charge him.”
“No. But we’ll have the answers. It’s a wonder no one knew the difference between the two men,” Ed said. “That’s just insane.”
“No kidding,” Sin said. “Cody has never confused me with one of my brothers. Neither have my sisters-in-law, that I know
