“It means I’ll make a call first,” Brantley said, breaking eye contact with Reese and glancing her way. “In the meantime, I need you to see what information you can dig up. Start from the top.”
She frowned as her brain instantly hit rewind, returning to the first thing she knew about this guy they were looking for. A name wasn’t much to go on, and they’d already managed to nail a few details, so why the top? And where did she start? His residence? The more she thought about it, the more confused she became.
With a sigh, she decided to see if they could help her along. “And how do you propose I do that?”
“You’ve got skills; I’m sure you’ll think of somethin’.”
Skills, yes. A workable starting point, no. JJ didn’t have anything to go on other than a name, which meant her skills were moot, but she didn’t tell Brantley that. She doubted he wanted to hear her complaining right now.
“He has a computer,” Reese noted, his shoulders near his ears as his tension seemed to escalate.
That was good news. “Did you get it?”
Reese shook his head. “Either he’s got it, or someone else took it from his house.”
The answer was precisely what she’d expected. It would’ve been too easy if they had whipped out Uncle Toby’s laptop.
However, just because they didn’t have the computer didn’t mean she wouldn’t find something. People logged into sites every day; they stored information in the cloud. There were log-ins and passwords, sites they liked to frequent. She simply needed to do a little research, find out what he was interested in, and tug on the strings until she found something that might lead them to where Toby was hiding.
“Maybe we can work this from two angles since we’re scheduled for our monthly training at the end of the week,” Baz said, his hand gently squeezing JJ’s shoulder as he spoke to Brantley and Reese. “We could go up to Dallas early, see what we can find.”
“Maybe one of us should talk to Cindy,” JJ offered, glancing at Reese. When she saw him blanch, she added, “And no, I don’t mean that in a creepy, perverted way. It’s just that you’re her son. I doubt she wants to regale you with her love life.”
“No, no,” Reese said, his nostrils flaring. “She didn’t have a problem with that.”
JJ grinned. “So you think. I bet there’s a lot she’s holdin’ back from you. It’s possible she has some information about Toby that she doesn’t realize might help.”
Reese’s expression smoothed out as Brantley said, “That’s a good point.”
“I don’t mind talkin’ to her,” she added. She didn’t have to mention that she’d developed a quick friendship with Reese’s mother in the past couple of weeks. JJ was working with Cindy and Iris on the preparations for Reese and Brantley’s wedding, so it had been easy to do so.
Granted, she wasn’t sure it would be appropriate to broach a subject that seemed so sensitive for her son, but JJ was up for the challenge. If it meant they might find this man who was obviously important to Reese in some way, she’d make the sacrifice.
Oh, who was she kidding? JJ was mentally rubbing her hands together with anticipation.
“Why don’t we give y’all some time to figure out your next steps,” Baz said, getting to his feet. “We’ll head over to the barn, get set up for the day.”
“Fine.” JJ sighed in resignation, letting them hear her disappointment. It earned her the exact reaction she’d hoped for, settling Reese a little and getting Brantley’s shoulders to unknot.
She allowed Baz to lead her out of the house and onto the back porch. He grabbed the umbrella he’d produced earlier and lifted it, shielding them from the downpour that was currently soaking the Austin area.
They made it to the barn without being swept away by a current, Tesha close on their heels, yipping gleefully at the colorful umbrella until Baz closed it before carrying it to the small kitchenette.
“You up to goin’ to Dallas?” he called as she started up the stairs.
“Yep.” She’d actually been looking forward to it. While most of the team spent their time at the training facility, JJ got to hang out at the Sniper 1 Security offices. More accurately, she got to use their fancy tools and see the cool new spy toys they were working with. She’d learned a few tips and tricks from those who worked in a similar position as she did as the “researcher” of the team. It had opened her eyes to new things, and she looked forward to seeing what they would teach her next.
Not that she cared to share that with anyone. She’d never hear the end of it if they learned of a way to get under her skin by teasing her relentlessly.
“You think that’s the route they’re gonna take?” she hollered down to Baz.
“If it’ll accomplish the goal, yeah.” Baz appeared at the top of the stairs. “Plus, if there’s any chance Reese’s mom’ll get caught up in this, I know they’ll put the past behind them.”
The past being that Reese had dated Madison Adorite, one of Max’s sisters. Not only had they dated, there’d been an impromptu proposal. And since Madison was the woman Reese had been with the night he was shot—because he’d been protecting her, of course—JJ knew there would be some friction between Reese and Brantley, no matter how hard they tried to pretend otherwise.
She just hoped they could avoid another epic meltdown.
***
