“Holy shit. He’s here.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s here for Brantley. Just means he’shere.”
“Don’t poop on my parade, Detective.”
When he laughed and shook his head, JJ couldn’t help but smile. She still couldn’t believe how well things were going between the two of them. Ever since Baz learned that Molly Ryan had lied to him about the baby she was carrying being his, they’d been back together. Or, she figured,reallytogether. She couldn’t say that they’d been much of a real couple back in the beginning, since before JJ was attacked and before Baz had met Molly. But that wasn’t the case now. JJ was giving this relationship everything she had because she’d found real happiness for the first time in her life.
“Do not give him a rash of shit,” Baz warned, meeting her at the front of his truck as they walked toward the barn behind the house.
“You’re just tryin’ to takeallthe fun outta my day, aren’t you?” she groused.
“I’m sure you’ll get over it.” Baz took her hand, lifted it to his lips, and kissed the backs of her knuckles.
JJ let him, walking steadily at his side. “I’m more curious to know what happened between them. How long’s he stayin’? Did they work things out last night?”
Baz punched in the code to unlock the barn doors and gave her a sideways glance. “Behave yourself.”
She pouted, ensuring he saw it, before stepping into the barn ahead of him, her gaze swinging around to find Reese. He was nowhere in sight, but he was suddenly the last thing on her mind when her eyes came to an abrupt stop on Brantley. He looked like the man she knew, the clean-cut Navy SEAL who’d been her best friend since they were kids. No longer did he look like he’d be searching for his next meal in a dumpster behind a building.
She whistled. “Lookin’ good, military man.”
Brantley flipped her off.
JJ smiled, holding his gaze. She managed to refrain from giving him shit, but only because she knew he would be legit pissed off, and she didn’t want to start a fight while they were working.
However, she did silently appreciate the fact that her best friend had cleaned himself up because the man he loved had returned. And if anyone wanted to dispute that theory, they were welcome to, but they would be wrong.
She knew Brantley, and this was his way of making an effort.
*
WHENJJSTROLLED INTO THE BARN,TREYmanaged to keep from barking orders at her. Barely.
He’d been not so patiently waiting for her to arrive so she could start doing a deep dive into what was going on with Magnus. They’d attempted to get Luca Switzer’s help, but the OTB Task Force’s other hacker extraordinaire was out of town for the weekend, which meant they’d had to wait.
Trey looked at his brother, willed Brantley to get on with it. For the past hour, they’d been sitting in the tricked-out barn they used as their base of operations waiting for the rest of the team to get there. Brantley hadn’t called everyone in, but he had reached out to the heavy hitters. Evan Vaughn and Slade Elliott, two of their more recent hires, had been more than willing to pop over to help out. The rest of the team was enjoying their day off. For now, Brantley had assured him. If and when the case called for it, he would reach out and get all hands on deck.
Only because he was playing down his feelings for Magnus did Trey resist the urge to smack his brother. He wanted every damn person he knew to help out, to figure this shit out. The thought of Magnus sitting in an interrogation room pissed him off to no end, but he wasn’t ready to out his relationship with Magnus just yet, if at all.
“JJ, I need to know everything you can find about Ava March,” Brantley finally said when Reese returned from the kitchen, carrying a single cup of coffee and looking as though he wasn’t sure he belonged.
“On it,” she said, grabbing the iPad docked on one of the desks.
“Could you run through the gist of it for me?” Evan requested.
“Sure.” Brantley’s gaze skimmed each person as he spoke. “Reese took Tesha for her training session this morning. When he arrived, Magnus was being escorted down to RRPD for questioning. Evidently, he’s got a relationship with Ava March, who was reported missing this morning.”
JJ’s head never lifted from what she was doing, but she asked, “Does that mean Reese spent the night last night?”
Brantley continued as though she hadn’t said a word, looking at Reese, “You wanna tell them what you learned?”
Reese stepped forward, glanced around, still looking out of place. “I spoke to the detective—”
“Mind if I ask who?” Evan prompted.
“Ron Weatherby.”
“You know him?” Brantley asked.
