Searching (PAVAD- FBI Romantic Suspense Book 18)

by Calle J. Brookes

  The older man looked up at Todd. There was a light of madness, of sheer enjoyment, in the man’s blue eyes. “You’ll need to change your shirt before getting back with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Barnes. You have high-velocity spatter on your collar. One of them is likely to notice.”

  Todd just nodded, biting back the bile.

  Paul Sturvin’s fake blond hair was now blood red. Todd held in the puke with everything he had.

  “Barnes?” Lytel asked quietly. “Is this going to be a problem for you? Better pick your team now before you ride the pine bench from here on out.”

  Todd shook his head, immediately. He just had to play it cool with Lytel.

  Or he’d be lying there right next to Paul Sturvin, bleeding into the muddy Missouri ground.

  And his mother and sisters would be fed a full pack of lies about him, destroying their perception of him forever.

  He didn’t want that.

  Todd wanted a chance to have a damned family of his own.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We leave him and hightail our asses back to St. Louis. We’ll have to check in with the Mr. and Mrs. in a few hours. We should just be able to manage it.”

  “What about him?” Todd asked as dismissively as he could. Sturvin’s lifeless eyes were staring right at him.

  “We leave him. Jones and Jones are on the right trail. They’ll find their way to him, as soon as I give them the message about the partial license plate I intercepted. If not, an anonymous tip might be in our future. Let’s go. You follow me, but not too close. Don’t want any of the locals to see our vehicles on the road together. Haven’t you ever played undercover, Barnes? This is just one big game we’re playing, you know.”

  Todd just looked at him.

  “See you in a few hours, pal. And watch out. Fire response will be on their way soon.”

  Todd waited until the other man and his buddies drove off. He dutifully turned the SUV he’d rented over a week ago around and made it look like he was following Lytel and his dirty team.

  They disgusted him. Those bastards had betrayed everything the bureau stood for.

  They had taken the same damned oath to protect that Todd had.

  That mattered.

  He’d made it three miles down the highway before he remembered. The girl.

  Paul Sturvin’s daughter would have been in that house. Somewhere.

  And Todd could smell the rising smoke in the distance.

  95

  Jac knew they were close. She could just feel it. Max had called the entire team back. Miranda was there. Jac looked at her friend quickly. “Bentley?”

  “Agent Taggart has been reassigned to protective duty for Bentley. Dan Reynolds cleared it with his supervisor in Indianapolis.”

  Jac nodded. “Nat and two agents are going to stay with Ava until she’s released. She’ll be brought back here when the physicians release her.”

  She studied the people around the digital conference table, where all the evidence they had so far was now displayed. Whit, Miranda, Dani, Max. Barnes slipped in, and took the far seat. She studied him for a moment.

  The toll the case was taking on them was most noticeable on Barnes. He looked horrible. Pale. Disheveled, though she thought the shirt was clean, at least. The man looked almost sick.

  He wasn’t holding up for this. She hoped he realized that and would leave PAVAD and never look back. Not that he’d been horrible, actually. He’d been adequate as an investigator, at least. Not great, but she’d seen worse. He had a file in his hand.

  The file she needed. Things clicked into place. “Adoption records.”

  “What?” Max asked. Everyone turned toward her.

  Jac went to the old-school whiteboard. She grabbed a marker. “Philip and Paul were adopted when they were four. They found new families then. But a four-year-old, they are capable of retaining some memories. And these were open adoptions. How could they not be? Paul and Philip were identical, and they went to two relatives, one maternal set, one paternal. People knew the story. But…why? Why would two boys be split up and adopted to separate, but connected families? It had to be a traumatic event. Had to have shaped them.”

  “Bentley went to a maternal relative,” Miranda said. “She was the sister of the woman who adopted Philip.”

  “What relatives does she have remaining?”

  “I’m already on it. She passed away six months ago. Ronalda Sullivan Carionni. Cervical cancer. No listed next of kin.”

  “Where did she live?” Max asked.

  “A few miles south of New London, Missouri,” Dani said. “It’s sat vacant ever since. But…there’s a trust attached to it. It’s been left to…Bentley Sullivan. Which makes sense; she was raising him, after all.”

  Jac was flipping through the adoption records. “Paul and Philip were born Paul and Philip Koehler in Columbia. To…Ronalda Sullivan. She was sixteen at the time. Four years later…we have court records. Prostitution in St. Louis, drug charges in Kansas City a few years later. Looks like she signed the boys over for adoption a few weeks after the first arrest.”

  “She obviously still had contact with Philip. She took in his son.”

  “He’s been visiting Bentley weekly. There is no indication he wasn’t visiting Bentley before Ronalda’s death as well,” Miranda pointed out. “Bentley said his dad was teaching him all about the stars before his grandmother’s death. I asked; he said Grandma liked telescopes. That his father had bought her one for her birthday and bought Bentley a toy one for his. I tried to get him to talk about his father as much as I could. He very clearly identifies the man visiting him as his father.” She stood and pointed to the address on the digital map. “There are a lot of fields around Ronalda’s place. Plenty of places to put a telescope.”

  “He still has a child with him, one who isn’t feeling well. The weather is about to turn bad. He’s going to drive someplace he feels safe, at home. He’s going there.” Jac was almost sure of it. “Ava said…he was taking Olivia where she could see the other stars.”

  Max jerked a bit. “He called them that. Said Olivia and Ava were his stars. At Emery’s party.”

  “Just an off comment?” Barnes asked.

  “I don’t think so. He said it a few times,” Max said. “To me, and to Chalmers.”

  “Rachel said he wanted to be with the stars of the show at all times. He had astronomy books in his home. And his office. It was a lifelong passion,” Jac said. “He was going to take the girls to a planetarium while she helped me with landscaping. She’d told me she had to wait until Paul was busy with the girls before she could come over.”

  “He kept in touch with Ronalda, as Philip,” Dani said quietly. She was clicking away at her laptop, doing a preliminary database search on the biological mother. Her screen was visible on the digital screen behind her. “Phone calls, emails. I’d say he had an active relationship with his biological mother. Not so for Paul Sturvin. The real Paul Sturvin, anyway. There are a few emails from Paul to Ronalda, about once a year. Stilted. Until after Philip Sullivan #1’s supposed death. Then the tone warms considerably.”

  “Is it possible she knew which twin was which?” Jac asked, looking up at Max. “I mean…the saying is a mother knows, right? Marianna Dennis certainly knows how to tell her twins apart. Maybe Ronalda confronted him about what he’d done to his brother and he gave her Bentley in exchange for her silence?”

  “I know what you did, P. A mother always knows. That is the first email she sent Paul after his brother’s death. I can only imagine where it went from there,” Dani said. “I’m cross-referencing everything I can find on her now. I’ll have addresses and license—whoot!”

  Jac stepped closer, to see the screen for herself. There it was: the license plate number of a maroon family sedan. It matched the partial Nat had gotten.

  “Is it possible he took Olivia back to his mother’s? To his actual birthplace?”

  “It might be the only place he ever trul
y felt safe,” Max said quietly. “Bring up the satellite images.”

  Dani worked quickly.

  “That place is within twenty minutes of the pharmacy,” Jac said. “And Ava said there was a barn. That could be it right there.”

  It felt right. Jac knew it.

  “We need to get up there,” Max said. “Meet up in fifteen. I’m calling in Lytel’s team. They can meet us there.”

  96

  Lytel’s team somehow ended up on the road ahead of them. Max followed. “This could be another dead end.”

  “Or a stepping stone to the finish line.” Jac rubbed one hand over her eyes. Any lethargy from only sleeping three hours since the case began was gone. All that was left was a sense of urgency she couldn’t explain, but was experienced enough to know not to resist. “Paul/Philip is going to run out of places to go soon. At least staying in this area. He has to realize this. And he’s not stupid. He’ll know exactly how hard it is to go on the run. He might just decide to cut his losses, kill Livy, and start all over again with a new family somewhere else.”

  “We’ve heard of a lot of strange things, but killing your twin and assuming his life is probably at the top of the list,” Max said. “Maybe.”

  Jac checked over her shoulder, at the convoy of vehicles behind them, then looked at the one in the front. Lytel and his team were in one vehicle, Whit and a few other agents they’d recruited took the other.

  If Paul/Philip was at the house where he’d spent the first four years of his life, they would find him soon.

  She just hoped they found Olivia with him.

  The longer she was out there, the further away Olivia would slip. Jac wouldn’t give up hope. Not yet.

  Not yet.

  She wouldn’t stop looking until she found Rachel’s older daughter.

  Jac saw the flashing lights when they were approximately a quarter of a mile away from the property. “Max…the only house out this far on the satellite was Ronalda’s.”

  He pressed on the gas. “I know.”

  “No, no, no. Damn it!” Jac leaned forward in the passenger seat, trying to get a better look through the storm. “The house is on fire!”

  “I’m going as fast as I can. I’m not about run us off the road,” Max said. Jac grabbed her radio and relayed the information to the two SUVS behind them.

  Not that that was necessary.

  Max pulled in. There were six fire-response vehicles and a dozen firefighters combatting the fire consuming the house.

  The house was a total loss.

  Jac waited until he threw it into park then hopped out. She pulled her credentials out and flashed them at the local sheriff who had jogged up to meet them. “PAVAD, Jaclyn Jones. Can you tell me, was anyone inside?”

  “Not sure at this point,” he said. “Deke Colton. This is my scene for now. Give me one good reason I should turn it and the DB over to you, and it’s yours. I’m rather busy tonight.”

  “You said you didn’t know if someone was inside,” Max said, coming up behind Jac. “Hello, Colton, how have you been?”

  The man’s expression cleared. Jac gave thanks—Max having a connection to the sheriff would just speed things up. “Not bad, Jones. I take it this is related to something of yours?”

  “We’re looking for a man named Paul Sturvin, and his seven-old-daughter. He’s a fugitive, wanted for the deaths of at least ten that we know of, including three children under the age of eight.”

  “DB’s this way—”

  Jac saw her then. Saw the ambulance and the familiar blond head. “Olivia!”

  She didn’t wait, didn’t ask questions. Jac just ran. A deputy stepped into her path. She held up her credentials. “I’m here for Olivia.”

  It took a few minutes for him to sort everything out with Colton and the responders. Max knew where Jac’s full focus was going to be.

  Olivia.

  He looked at the sheriff, ignoring the yells and the sounds of an active fire scene. “Where’s the DB?”

  “Here. Dumped in the front yard. We almost ran over him with a damned fire truck. Missed him at the last minute. Thought smoke inhalation got him, but he’s clean. Except for the forty-caliber round between his eyes.”

  Max swore as he looked down at the remains of Paul Sturvin/Philip Sullivan. The man was sprawled out like trash.

  The storm was going to wash away evidence tonight, and it would be a few hours before forensics could get there.

  Damn it.

  They’d been after Sturvin, but now…who the hell had shot him?

  Another player in the game changed everything.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. What in the hell is going on here, Jones?”

  “I’ll have to fill you in later. Because I don’t have a damned clue what’s going on here.”

  “Found the girl over here. Wrapped in a blanket, propped up against that monstrosity.” There was a concrete birdbath with a three-foot stone dolphin weathering in the center of the front yard. “Thought she was under because of the smoke, but EMTs say she looks like she’s been sedated. Has a fever as well.”

  “How long has this been burning?”

  “A few hours at the most, as far as I know now. You want to tell me about this? This the guy on the news?”

  “Yes. Paul Sturvin. Killed his wife, abducted his two daughters.”

  “We got another kid in there?” Panic immediately hit the other man’s tone, and he stepped toward the flames.

  Max held up a hand. “No. We recovered the younger girl. She’s safe now. We are damned glad to find the older girl.”

  “Glad I could help, such that it is. And now…I’ve got a drug bust going on forty miles from here. And I don’t have time to fight for jurisdiction on this. Case and the DB is all yours.”

  “Anything to go on?” Max asked as the detective he’d known for years started toward his squad car.

  “Not a damned thing. Good luck, Jones. See you later.”

  “Thanks, Colton, I owe you one.”

  “Damned straight. I’ll collect on it someday.”

  97

  Todd had to get out of there. He’d seen the anger in Lytel’s eyes. It was only a matter of time before he figured out that it wasn’t Young or Harris who had carried Sturvin’s little girl out of the house.

  There would be only one man who could have done it, and Lytel would know that.

  Those three fuckers had left a drugged little girl to burn alive in that shack. She couldn’t identify them. She posed no threat to them. They could have done exactly what Todd had—he’d wrapped her up in her blanket and carried her outside, where she’d be safe. He’d been careful, there would be no way to tie him to her.

  They didn’t have to just leave her. They’d taken oaths to serve and protect.

  And they had just left her there.

  Todd wasn’t going to be a part of it any longer.

  He didn’t trust Lytel not to come after him next. Sturvin had become a liability. Anyone could see that.

  Todd wasn’t interested in playing that game any longer.

  He had to be able to look at himself in the mirror each day. Throwing his lot in with baby killers, especially baby killers wearing the same damned badge Todd wore every day, was never something he would be cool with.

  Todd opened his laptop. He had a confession to write, an email to send. Then he was getting his ass out of here. He had relatives in Canada. By the time he sent the email, his plane would have landed north of the border, and he’d disappear up there. He had some savings, and he was a hell of a lot smarter than Paul Sturvin ever could be.

  But he wanted the email to Ed Dennis written first. Then he’d hide his ass until Dennis told him it was safe for him to return. Just how that was going to happen, he didn’t know yet.

  It took him two hours to get the words just right. He was supposed to be sleeping.

  Max Jones had put everyone on stand down for the next ten hours, considering most had been up almost around
the clock since Rachel Sturvin’s body had been found.

  The girls had been found, were safe. They had time for people to get some damned sleep.

  Todd wasn’t going to be able to sleep until he got this shit off his conscience somehow.

  He signed his name and scheduled the identical emails for first thing in the morning. He duplicated one, then added a few more things, things of a more personal nature.

  Todd was going to tell Miranda even more. He didn’t know why, but he just…didn’t want her thinking he was seriously involved with the kind of men who would leave a seven-year-old to burn. Maybe he’d never see her again, but he wanted her to think he was a better man than that.

  He had just packed his belongings, emptying the hotel drawers quickly. He had forty-five minutes until his plane departed. And he left everything he’d ever cared about behind.

  98

  All they knew for certain was that Paul Sturvin had killed Debbie Miller.

  They didn’t have anything definitive—such as DNA or a murder weapon with his prints on it—that said he had been the one to bludgeon Rachel to death.

  Dani and Whit were going to handle the wrap-up and wait for the final forensics reports.

  They had a lot of speculation on him killing every victim involved. They would have to tie him to the rest of the deaths over the next few weeks or so. Things took time. They still had to find the actual murder weapon.

  And whoever had killed the man masquerading as Paul Sturvin.

  Max’s mind was running over everything as he and Jac walked back into the PAVAD building five minutes before midnight. It had taken hours to sort everything out and make it back. Then she’d wanted to stay with Olivia at the hospital.

  Eventually, Olivia had ended up in the same room as her sister. Nat had taken a few hours to sleep and shower that afternoon; she was now back at the hospital and would stay in the room with the girls for the night—with a two-agent PAVAD detail, consisting of Maria Angel and Lucas Armitage, agents that Max and Jac trusted. The two had volunteered when they’d learned it was two young girls needing protected.