Max was coming for her.
And all PAVAD had to do was bring up the security system she had discussed with fellow agents from the computer forensics analysis department. She and Carrie and Shannon and the rest—they knew every aspect of this system. Inside and out.
Carrie had her security information. She’d designed the system; Carrie could log into it at any time.
Most likely, the other woman already had.
Cameras were probably pointed right at Eugene now. With audio.
No matter what happened, he wasn’t getting away today. Every word they spoke would be immortalized forever.
Jac knew what he would expect to see from her. With him having her only family at gunpoint. With her being younger and female and not as strong. As experienced.
Weakness.
He’d expect her to waver, to be weak. Unsure. Nervous and afraid.
“N-nat, you j-just stay real still, ok?” She infused her tone with just that. Fear.
It wasn’t hard to do—she was feeling all of those things.
Her sister’s eyes were burning into her now.
But years of training kept Jac from showing it. Until she wanted to.
She deliberately let her hand on the gun shake. She lowered her left hand and wiped sweat off her palm.
Lytel’s gaze followed the movement.
He smirked.
Jac pulled in a deep breath, so he could see.
“Just let her go. You can leave, Eugene. I won’t stop you.”
“Like that would happen. Don’t try to negotiate with me, Jaclyn. I’ve been rewriting the hostage negation manuals since you were preparing for the prom.”
“I didn’t go to the prom. I couldn’t. I’d already left home by then. I graduated school early; easy to do when we’d grown up with tutors. The colonel kicked me out two days after my sixteenth birthday party when we hit stateside. Gave me a thousand dollars and told me to go—he didn’t know at the time that my mother had set up trust funds for me that provided interest starting on my sixteenth birthday. Clever of her, wasn’t it? He feared I was having too much of a rebellious influence on Nat. I was teaching her to think for herself, you see. So that he couldn’t own either of us.”
Jac kept her eyes on his hand. His hand would be where the betrayal would be. It would show her exactly what was going on in his head.
Maybe he thought he’d been rewriting those so-called manuals, but she had been living them, with a monster.
And there was one lesson he had beaten into her and her sister both. Time and time again—until they had learned it.
She and Nat had been good students back then.
“Why did you betray PAVAD? Your friends?”
“I have no friends, not any longer. Not in twenty-three years. I have colleagues. I have moderate success. And in a year, honey, I’m going to be shoved out the door into mandatory retirement.”
“That’s the way it works with the bureau. We know that when we sign on. And what other job lets us retire early, except for the military and local law enforcement? I thought it sounded like a pretty decent deal. Plenty of time after fifty-seven to do things.”
“I, like so many others, am tired of being invisible,” the man said. “Third tier under the great Ed Dennis, and under Nutless Wonder, Boyd Jones. I have always hated him. There are plenty who feel the same. And they are working together to bring that bastard down where he belongs.”
Jac didn’t believe him.
There were other reasons motivating Lytel.
“You hate the colonel,” she said flatly. She needed to keep him focused entirely on her. Even with all the possible distractions. “Tell me why.”
Kudos was barking viciously, throwing himself bodily against the patio door, desperate to reach Nat.
That dog would die for her, die to protect her in an instant.
Jac wasn’t about to let that be today.
She looked into Lytel’s eyes. There was nothing there.
Nothing. Except excitement.
He was enjoying this. He could die at any moment, or kill at any moment. And the sick bastard was getting off on it. She’d come up against sociopaths before. This man was no different. Her gaze dropped to his weapon hand.
“PAVAD is a family. My family. I have people there who care about me—and Nat. I’d do anything for my sister. And for my family. My friends. Especially those friends at PAVAD.”
“Likewise,” Nat said. “Anything at all.”
“How sweet,” Lytel said. “I know you are stalling. Who did you contact?”
“Who do you think?” Jac wasn’t going to lie to him, unless necessary. He was trained to see right through that. But…she let her hand wobble again.
She wanted him thinking he had her off guard. That she wasn’t fully in control.
“The great Dr. Jones.”
“I contacted PAVAD.”
“Your family,” he said, smirking. “That jackass Anderson begged me not to kill him—he wanted to stay with his family. Those girls of his. Pathetic.”
“You killed Andy.” She wanted that confession on video. Angie and the girls deserved to know one hundred percent who had killed the man they had all loved.
“Yes. Dumb schmuck actually called me, can you believe that? Invited me to his place to talk. Thought there was a dirty agent in my department and I could help him flush the rogue out. Well, I took care of that problem.”
Jac bit back the bile. Max had said the killer was someone Andy had known. Had trusted. Eugene fit the bill.
“There is one lesson the colonel beat into me that I have never forgotten, Eugene,” Jac said softly. Very softly. It was time.
“And what is that?”
“The most important rule of family.” Her next words were for her sister, only. There was one more sentence her father had made them both repeat over and over again. The signal. “You always protect your sister.”
The word protect was the signal for her sister to drop to the floor. Like it always had been.
They’d rehearsed that scenario more than they’d ever rehearsed the piano.
Jac pulled the trigger, knowing her sister would drop as best as she could—giving Jac an even bigger target.
It didn’t matter.
Lytel was just so much bigger than Nat, the target was right
