Brantley continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “If we’re lucky, someone who knew Ava might still work there.”
“Was he not helpful?”
“He certainly pretended to be,” Brantley said, disappointment in his tone. “He talked us in circles, probably figured we didn’t notice.”
“He’s a politician. That’s his job.” JJ sighed. “What about Ava’s mother? You talk to her?”
“Negative,” Brantley replied. “She’s so zoned out, I doubt she even realizes her daughter’s missin’.”
JJ hated to think about what that meant. The fact Ava’s mother had tried to take her own life more than once told her something was very, very wrong with her situation.
“You think the husband’s hidin’ somethin’?”
“I think he’s deflectin’ for sure,” he replied. “Kept comin’ back around to Ava and Magnus havin’ a relationship.”
“Jealousy?”
“Without a doubt.”
“But you don’t think that’s true?”
“No. I talked to Magnus this mornin’,” Brantley explained. “I think he cares about her, but I don’t think they’re involved romantically.”
JJ remembered the article she’d read about the house fire that had killed Magnus’s family after Reese told her to look into it. His sister would’ve been the same age as Ava at the time, and the two girls had probably spent a lot of time together. She could see how Magnus would care about her.
“And he’s worried about her,” Brantley continued. “I think he’s convinced the husband did something to her.”
“You mean like…?” She couldn’t get the word out.
“Yeah. Which is why you’ve got to keep lookin’.”
“I know,” JJ said. “I’ll find it. I just need time.”
“We don’t have time, JJ,” Evan said, his tone hard. “She’s been missing too long as it is.”
Her first instinct was to argue, to tell him that wasn’t her fault, but Evan already knew that. She’d come to understand him over the past couple of months working with him, had picked up on the fact he took every case personally, and while it sounded like he was taking it out on her, she knew he wasn’t. He simply wanted to find Ava the same way the rest of them did.
“I’ll let you know when I have somethin’,” she told them before disconnecting the call and shifting her chair to the other desk that held her special computer.
There was always another way to dig. But for this, she needed one that could effectively hide what she was digging for.
Stretching her fingers, JJ smiled. And did what she did best.
*
“IDON’T MEAN TO PRY, BUT ISit safe to assume Reese is back with us?”
Brantley glanced over at Evan, behind the wheel, while Brantley rode shotgun. He fucking hated the passenger seat, but unlike the rest of the team, Brantley’d yet to force Evan to trade places so he could drive. Despite the fact he desperately wanted to.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. He’d yet to get that far in a conversation with Reese, but he had a feeling they would be tackling it in the very near future.
“I was glad to see he looks like his old self again,” Evan noted, focusing on the road.
Brantley would admit, at least to himself, that Reese did look good. Healthy and strong. He’d gotten tidbits of information from Z and RT over the months Reese had been in Dallas. Reese’s brother and brother-in-law had been worried at one point, mentioned that Reese had lost some weight. At six foot five, Reese had weighed somewhere in the low two hundreds before the bullet ripped through him. Even then, he’d been a little on the slim side, although he was solid muscle. If Brantley had to guess, he’d added more muscle during his recovery.
He looked good. So good, Brantley was having a damn hard time focusing on what he should’ve been, which was finding Ava March so he and Reese could finish the conversation that had includedmarriageas one of the topics. Although he’d put up a good front, letting his anger come between them, Brantley couldn’t deny he was already considering seducing the man just to ease some of the tension that had started to coil inside him the instant Reese showed up on his doorstep. No doubt about it, the desire to abstain had faded, and his libido was kicking into high gear. Only he knew once he gave in, that would be it for his resistance.
Thankfully, they were pulling into the grocery store Ava had previously worked at, forcing his thoughts off Reese and back to where they belonged.
