Seeking

by Calle J. Brookes

  It wasn’t that late. There was a good chance she might still be up.

  If not, he’d just keep dialing until she woke.

  She could rip him a new one after she told him how badly she was hurt.

  Ezra needed to know.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  SHANNON GRABBED THE phone off the nightstand, mostly out of habit. When a cell rang, PAVAD answered. Period. That it was twenty minutes after midnight didn’t really matter. Or that she was off the clock for the next three days.

  She did have a guest who needed her sleep. Shannon’s godkid needed his or her mother to rest.

  Kyra was newly pregnant and sound asleep in Shannon’s guestroom. She wasn’t entirely certain who was babysitting whom tonight. She was going to have lots of godkids soon.

  Mia had delivered a beautiful little girl two days ago.

  She’d dive at Ken all over again. She had no one waiting for her in her apartment, but Ken had three children, a wife, and—if what she suspected was true—another child on the way. Leina just hadn’t fully admitted it yet.

  He was needed.

  She hit the answer button quickly and identified herself.

  “Toliver.”

  The lead fell right to the center of her stomach. Ironically, it felt just as hard as the .45 that had slammed into her that afternoon. “Ha—Ezra. Is something wrong?”

  She knew exactly where he was. He was in a hotel room somewhere west of Milwaukee with Cam. Leina and Dani were in the room next to his. There was no reason he should be calling her now. “What’s...wrong?”

  “Nothing with me. I’m calling to check on you.”

  “At midnight?” She had no clue what to say or what to think. She done her best to avoid even thinking about that one night with Ezra Hahn. Maybe she’d not done too great of a job at that, but she’d certainly tried. “Why?”

  “Why the hell do you think? How badly are you hurt?”

  Shannon covered her aching ribs with one hand. She wouldn’t lie—the ribs hurt. And the shot the ER doctor had given her had worn off a while ago. “Feels like a master kickboxer got ahold of me. But I’ll live. We weren’t that close to the shooter. He was up out of our sight.”

  “You got damned lucky. I think you’re part cat. Abductions, bullets. What the hell next? Shouldn’t Chalmers be keeping you inside somewhere? Send Djorn and Stephenson out instead of you.”

  “Don’t be sexist, Hahn. And Evan’s still out on paternity leave right now. No reason I shouldn’t be out in the field, too.”

  ‘You’re too damned small. You and Leina both. Hell, Kyra, too.”

  “So? Bullets are a heck of a lot smaller and do far more damage than I ever could alone. It’s my job. And not your place to tell me what to do.” She ignored his cursing reply. Ezra Hahn liked to run his mouth—to her. He always had. It was almost reassuring to see they were getting back to where they’d used to be with each other. Before the abduction. “So why did you really call?”

  His sigh surprised her. “Damn it. Cam told me what happened. And I...just needed to know. Are you ok?”

  “If I wasn’t? What would you do?” Rush to her side to check on her himself? Hold her and make things seem a little bit better? Offer to go out and slay all her dragons?

  Not likely.

  “What do you mean, ‘what would I do’? Hell. I don’t know what I’d do. Just tell me the truth. How bad?”

  “You want me to take off my shirt and send a picture? I’m pretty certain that’s sexting. With bureau phones, I think we’d be in some trouble.”

  “Don’t be sassy. Sorry I was so concerned.”

  The line went dead in her hand. Shannon stared at the stupid phone for the longest time.

  He’d called because he was worried. He might have been a total butt about it, but...his concern mattered. She texted him quickly. Thanks for your concern. Two cracked ribs on my right side and a few bruises. Nothing major. Good night.

  He never texted her back, but it didn’t matter. In this case, it really was the thought that counted.

  THIRTY-SIX

  SHANNON SHOULD HAVE known when her car refused to start that the rest of the week was going to be just as bad. It worked that way for Shannon. One bad thing on a Monday and everything seemed to go bad. Just bad.

  She was so late she completely missed the Monday morning briefing. Her team had apparently been singled out for a special assignment.

  With Runaway & Endangered Youth.

  Cam, Leina, Dani, their supervisor Paige, and Ezra were all waiting with Ken and Evan and the rest of her team when she finally made it into Conference room B3.

  There was only one empty seat.

  Right between Dani and...Ezra. Shannon’s breath caught. She forced herself not to do anything idiotic.

  She had done her best to avoid him for the weeks since that night they’d spent together. And she liked to think she’d made a good showing of herself at it. Maybe.

  Shannon slipped into the chair after grimacing at her team leader. There was concern in Ken’s eyes, more than censure. But still... Shannon was the only woman on her team—she didn’t want to seem like the weak one—especially after everything that had happened to her lately. If had just been CCU4 in the room, it would have no doubt immediately devolved into the men teasing her about her serious lack of mechanical skills.

  Not that she couldn’t take care of her car herself—she had a million brothers who had taught her well, after all—she just hadn’t expected to have to that morning. Especially in a pantsuit and heels.

  The most recent case was serious enough to have the teams moving fast.

  It was local. Which was both a plus and terrifying. If an unsub was working in her own backyard, that kind of creeped her out. It always would.

  Ken handed her a folder. “Guess what? You and Dani get...social media accounts. Lots of reading.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” She could handle that. It would keep her right in the PAVAD building instead of out there—with Ezra.

  She hadn’t forgotten that he was sitting right next to her. And they’d crammed twice as many seats around the conference table as they usually had.

  She could feel the heat of him where they were almost pressed hip to hip. Every time he moved, she could smell that hint of man and spice that still snuck into her dreams.

  Talk about a lousy start to her week.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  EZRA HADN’T WANTED to admit it, but he’d been getting worried. Especially when he’d watched Leina send a text to Shannon just minutes after the morning briefing had started.

  It hadn’t helped that Cam and Leina had both mentioned over the past several weeks that Shannon was still struggling. They had chocked it up to the hell she and Ezra had been through—and were watching him closer than he’d have liked because of it.

  He suspected it wasn’t just the abduction that was still hurting her. He had no doubt what had happened between them was partially responsible.

  She was tense next to him. Like she had been when they’d been in Texas together saving Cam and Kyra’s asses.

  He could smell her shampoo. Honeysuckle. He would always associate Shannon with honeysuckle. He closed his eyes for a moment, desperately needing to shift his focus to the case.

  He’d never had this much trouble focusing on a case before. Damn it. He could no doubt lay that fact right at Shannon’s little feet.

  “So, what do we know so far?” Shannon asked, her words quieter than usual. More subdued.

  He hadn’t worked any cases with her directly—not since Cam and Kyra and the trouble they’d had in Texas earlier—and rarely before that.

  To be honest, he wasn’t entirely certain how she worked.

  He’d done his damnedest to avoid any mention of the woman at all.

  It had been far safer for him that way.

  She shifted, spreading the parts of her file out in front of her neatly. Everything arranged in almost perfectly spaced rows. In what appe
ared to be chronological order. Not a one was even a hair out of line.

  The little neat freak.

  Ezra forced his attention away from her and to his own case file.

  It was time he got his ass back where it belonged. She’d destroyed his world enough as it was—and she didn’t have a clue.

  It was going to take more than just proclaiming what had happened a mistake and him moving on.

  He somehow got the impression that moving on from her was going to be harder than he’d originally thought.

  The last seven weeks since their abduction had made that abundantly clear.

  Chalmers got to work, and Ezra shoved all thoughts of the woman next to him aside. It was time to focus on finding three missing teenage boys. They deserved his full attention, and he was going to give it to them.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THE CASE DRAGGED. They got twisted and backtracked and diverted at least fourteen times. Shannon knew everyone was feeling the frustration. It had been her job to help deal with the parents of the missing boys.

  Ken and Paige were doing their best to hold everything together, but it wasn’t going easily.

  Three missing fourteen-year-old boys were getting farther and farther away from them. As each hour passed and turned into days, the odds of finding those kids—honor roll kids at a local private academy, who were as low risk as it was possible to be—diminished.

  They’d lost half of Paige Brockman’s team that morning. Paige, Leina, and Dani had had to leave for Pennsylvania an hour after everyone had made it back to the PAVAD conference room. A missing eleven-year-old suspected of being the victim of human trafficking had held more immediacy.

  She understood it. They had to weigh the angles on every PAVAD case to see if it warranted PAVAD resources. And everyone knew the odds. They had a greater chance of finding the eleven-year-old than they did these missing boys.

  Time had worked against them all.

  They weren’t giving up hope. Chances were high these boys were runaways. Most children in their age group who were missing, and weren’t taken by family members, returned. She didn’t know the exact statistic, but she knew it was over ninety percent.

  A very small fraction of children missing were actually taken in what the television and media called stranger abductions. Around one in ten thousand missing children were victims of those types of crimes. Of those, more than half returned home safely.

  There was still hope for those boys out there.

  The smallest of the three missing boys reminded her of her brother Damien when he’d been that age. He’d been small and weak compared to the rest of their family back then, too. He’d been barely bigger than Shannon for most of her childhood—until puberty shot him up to almost six-six. Her other brothers had enjoyed teasing him at first—until he’d outgrown them all.

  The two boys missing with him were the only friends that boy seemed to have in the world. Darrell, the boy she couldn’t forget, hadn’t had as great a home life as Marious and Joey. But his friends had made him feel welcome and loved with them.

  If something had happened to one of those boys, the other two would have been right there.

  It was beginning to look more and more like foul play.

  She was the first one back to the conference after the lunch break Ken had insisted they all take. Cam had offered to buy her lunch, her and Alec, but Shannon had turned the offer down. She’d needed to call a mechanic about her car and get an estimate. Public transportation sucked on her schedule.

  She’d needed a few moments of quiet. To get herself back into agent mode.

  Darrell had a slightly crooked grin, just like her brother’s. Damien had struggled so much during junior high. Shannon had been only a year behind him in age but had been in the same grade for half the year, then a year ahead by the end of that year. Her brother had ended up with some serious self-esteem issues back then.

  Thank God he’d made it through. Damien had grown up strong and beautiful and nearly the size of her former pro-football player team leader.

  Her brother had called her that morning, worried. Damien had always known when something was wrong with her.

  Damien had even taken a week off from his job as sheriff in a small town in Ohio to come help her move into Kyra’s old townhouse. To check on her.

  To protect her the only way he could.

  The only family member she had in law enforcement at all, Damien had understood. Even though she hadn’t been able to say much about the particulars, her brother had given her his version of a verbal hug and told she’d get through.

  All Darrell had in the world was an aging grandmother and those two boys out there with them.

  The door to the conference room swung open. Shannon turned quickly from where she stood by the window, looking out over the parking garage that PAVAD shared with the FBI field office one block up.

  To see dark eyes staring at her.

  “Ezra... You’re back early.” The first non-case related words she’d spoken to him since the last time they’d had sex in her hotel room.

  “Chalmers called. We have a body...East St. Louis morgue. Grab your coat. He was pulled in with Hellbrook and Dennis five minutes ago on an unrelated case. He needs us there ASAP.”

  And none of the others were back yet. She checked her watch. They had another ten minutes, at least, before anyone would be expected back.

  If it was Marious, Darrell, or Joey, they needed to know quickly. For the other two boys’ sakes.

  If it wasn’t...then some other family was about to be devastated.

  Shannon wanted to run and puke.

  There was no way she could ever do REY full-time like Ezra and Cam did.

  Every kid would look like her brothers, or Leina’s children, or any other kid out there that she cared about.

  “I’m ready. I didn’t bring a coat.”

  “It’s pouring down out.”

  She shrugged. It was August. “I’ll survive.”

  “I’m driving.”

  She’d expected no less. Ezra was the kind of guy who needed to be in control. She didn’t want to drive at the moment, anyway.

  THIRTY-NINE

  THERE WAS A world of hurt on her face. Ezra tried not to look at her too much. This entire case had bothered her. He’d tried not to watch her too much the day before, too. It hadn’t been nearly as easy as it should have been.

  Damn it; he did not want to be drawn to her. Not like...this.

  “You ok?” The words slipped out almost against his will. There were bruises under those big doe eyes of hers. And the freckles he’d counted time and time again stood out sharper than they usually did.

  And if he wasn’t mistaken, Shannon had lost a few pounds. Pounds he knew intimately that she couldn’t afford to lose.

  “Of course I am. I’m on the way to the damned morgue to look at a kid. How ok should I be?”

  “Damn it, Toliver. Just answer the question. You don’t look good. Beyond the case.”

  “Gee, thanks.” The snark that she always shot at him was right there, but the tired expression told the real truth.

  Ezra jerked the car into the parking space and killed the engine quickly. “You know I don’t mean it like that. People are worried about you. Hell, I’m worried about you.”

  “And you’re not a person. I’m not even certain you’re human.”

  He ignored the twinge of hurt her words brought. Did she really see him that way?

  She climbed out of the SUV and stepped onto the sidewalk in front of the local M.E.’s office. If it was one of their missing boys, the body would be transferred to Jules Brockman’s staff. He knew the procedure.

  And he knew how every moment counted in instances like this. But... “Do you really think that? That I’m a...a machine or a monster, or something?”

  “I’ve seen monsters, Agent Hahn. You’re not one. But sometimes, I’m not so certain you feel.”

  Ezra acted before he thought, forgetting
for just one moment that they were on the clock.

  He wrapped his hand around her elbow, right there on the sidewalk in the downpour. He stopped her, and she stared up at him. He counted the freckles. Twelve, just like the last time, and just as off-center.

  He bet that bugged her.

  Shannon gasped but didn’t pull away. There really wasn’t much room for her to go anywhere in the push of the crowd trying to escape the rain.

  “Is that what you think? That I don’t feel? I feel every damned time I look at you.”

  And he didn’t think that was going to stop any time soon. Why, he still hadn’t figured out yet.

  It was just the damned honest truth.

  It was time he started being more honest with himself.

  FORTY

  SHANNON WALKED AT his side, silent, as they made their way down the long hallway to the coroner’s office. She hadn’t forgotten what they were there to do.

  His words would have to be filed away for later. She’d pick them apart then. One thing was certain, she was never going to understand Ezra Jackson Hahn.

  The man was just far too confusing for her.

  After the necessary paperwork and procedures were followed to get her and Ezra into the autopsy room, Shannon shoved everything but the kids they were trying to find out of her mind.

  It was easy to do. Ezra went in first. She wondered if he was somehow trying to control her, or if he was trying to act as a buffer.

  She discarded that thought as soon as she had it. Not him. If he thought she couldn’t cut it out there, he’d have been making that very known. Of that, she was certain.

  The ME was waiting for them.

  Shannon took a deep breath to steady herself then approached the body on the table.

  It was now or never.

  Ezra was right next to her as the sheet was lowered.

  Shannon looked at the body.