Page 11 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Nine

H erron chuckled, and it didn’t sound convincing. In fact, she sounded nervous. And apparently, she didn’t even know he’d seen that whole interplay with Special Agent Farlan.

“You’re probably wondering how I’m doing after I was caught in a drive-by shooting earlier today.” He shifted his stance, trying to appear casual. As if he hadn’t been surveilling an FBI bar and witnessed her heated conversation with Farlan.

“A drive-by. When?”

Jax frowned. “I went to lunch. Someone shot up the whole place. You didn’t hear?”

“Maybe local police took it.” She looked confused. “You were there?”

Considering he’d fled the scene, probably that was about all they needed to say about it. When the local police investigating the crime caught up to him first—because it was harder to find the rest of Kenna’s friends—he’d have to explain. At which point the funk would really hit the fan.

But whichever cops came around asking questions he wasn’t going to want to answer, they probably would have no clue there was more going on here than one drive-by. Or so he presumed. What Jax needed was hard evidence someone had directly targeted him.

Or evidence it was about someone else entirely.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand. “Andrette, I need you to answer some questions with straight answers. Not the runaround you’ve been giving me for weeks. My wife is gone . And apart from her associate, you’re the last person who saw her. You let them take her.”

He’d said the same to Ramon, but as far as Jax was concerned, there was blame enough to go around. And that included him. Piling shame on all of them achieved nothing, he figured. So, what was the point shoveling on more?

It wouldn’t help them find her.

She shifted, defensiveness infusing her movements—in the way she rolled her shoulders, and her hands. As if she needed to grab onto something. But there was nothing out here in the semidark of the back step and the parking lot.

“I need you to tell me if those men at the silo said anything about where they were taking her,” he pressed.

“If they gave you any impression whatsoever that they had evil intentions. Even just the tiniest thing. You saw them. You spoke to them.” He took a breath, knowing he needed to stop, but also had to understand how big this was for him. “She’s my whole life. I need her back.”

She swiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help more. I put everything I could remember in my report as soon as I realized she was gone. Hadley and I talked about it, and he agreed we should send an agent to look for her.”

“One guy?” Far as Jax was concerned, she should’ve gone herself if she thought there was a chance someone had posed as a team of agents and taken Kenna.

“Hadley said we couldn’t spare anyone else. Special Agent Adams was supposed to check in with me, but he never did.”

“So you raised a stink that he was missing as well? Two people kidnapped, maybe murdered, and you say nothing?”

“Hadley—”

He took a step toward her. “Eventually you’re going to have to take responsibility for this yourself.”

She flinched and backed up. “I filed reports. I went to Hadley. He was covering your position while you were in the hospital. I went to him so many times. He told me that Adams requested a transfer and he was gone.”

“And you bought that?”

“You don’t…” Her voice thickened. “You don’t understand, Oliver.” It was so rare for someone to call him by his first name that it sounded jarring. Maybe even insincere.

“Andrette, she’s gone,” he said, “and an agent is missing as well. Elliot Adams would never have left his sister. Not without calling. Something happened to him.”

“Because I sent him after her.” She drew in a choppy breath.

“And you didn’t push hard enough to find out what happened.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You could have,” Jax corrected. “You didn’t.”

“I couldn’t .”

There it was. “Why not? Why couldn’t you push and push until you got to the truth.”

“Don’t ask. I can’t tell you.” She moved to step away.

Jax caught her elbow but held it gently. “This is my wife.”

“And my children.”

He sucked in a breath. “They were taken?”

She shook her head.

“Then you should’ve shouted to anyone who would listen. Something is wrong in the office. Someone is covering up crimes.”

“I can’t help that. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Why not?” He let go of her arm. Neither moved. “What’s going on with your kids?”

“I got a text. A threat.” She gasped. “If I made a fuss about Kenna, or about Special Agent Adams, my children would die.”

“Did you trace the number?”

“It came through unregistered. I ran a trace on it at work, and it came up as a payphone in New York City, probably what the number used to go to.” She blew out a quick breath.

“The next day my kids said a man came up to them while they were waiting for the school bus. He gave them a note to give to me.”

“Did you keep it?” Testing it for trace evidence was a longshot, but they had to try.

She shook her head. “Burned it.”

Jax sighed, shaking his head. “They got to you.”

“They knew I wasn’t going to work for them. So they threatened to hurt my children, which means they’re the most horrible kind of people you can imagine. But they know I would never betray my oath.”

Until it became personal, and she risked the life of her family. “I understand.”

“But you still think I should’ve said something.”

“I understand,” he repeated. After all, she’d taken the risk of telling him now. “Take some time off, take your kids, and go out of town. Somewhere safe.”

“Henry already took them to his brother’s house. They’re as safe as I can make them.” She touched her forehead and winced. “I want to help you find your wife. I really do. But I can’t do anything that’ll jeopardize my family.”

Jax relaxed a fraction. He would’ve done the same.

“Andrette, you said yourself they’re as safe as you can make them. There’s a sister out there who needs to know what happened to her brother. I want my wife back. But this is bigger than just me.” Meanwhile, his heart was about to burst out of his chest. “And it’s bigger than you.”

He wanted to scream or start a fight. Run hard and fast, sprinting toward Kenna. But he would just be running. A bullet fired with no aim. A rocket with no course plotted.

How can I find her?

Herron studied him. “It’s not Hadley, if that’s what you’re thinking. The ADIC is a selfish turd. But he isn’t dirty, he believes in the FBI. He just believes more in what the FBI can do for him long term, especially when he runs for governor.”

Jax didn’t disagree. In fact, it pretty much lined up with his thoughts about Hadley. “Is there any chance someone leaned on him to squash it?”

The boss could be under someone’s thumb the same way Andrette was. Or he was the one calling the shots.

But would a shot caller keep Jax around?

“Makes sense that Hadley might have been given orders from someone else, a person we’d never suspect.” She shook her head. “But he never gave me the impression he was under duress.”

Given the man’s skills as a politician, Jax wasn’t entirely surprised that Hadley might be a skilled actor. Someone who played his cards close to the vest. “He might be, and you’d never know.”

“And yet I cracked.”

“Because it’s me.”

She didn’t argue with him. They had become friends as well as colleagues, or as close as two FBI agents became without hanging outside of work. He’d never met her family, but she’d met Kenna. Andrette knew how much he cared for his wife.

She lifted her chin. “You were really shot at earlier?”

“I have no idea why, or whether it’s even connected.”

“Or you’re closer to answers than you realize.”

He shrugged.

“Elliot Adams didn’t transfer?”

“No one has seen him since you sent him to follow up.”

She sniffed. “I knew there was something not right about it.”

Jax squeezed her shoulder. “What was that about with Farlan earlier? You two were having a pretty heated conversation.”

“We knew each other at a previous posting. He isn’t a bad guy, but he takes risks. He knows something is off at this office. I told him to leave it alone.”

That meant Jax might actually be able to trust the guy. “I need to know if Elliot found anything, as well as what happened to him. Did you hear from him at all after he left?”

Amara had told him the retired guys had been at an airfield. They could’ve flown Kenna anywhere after that. She could be in Mongolia for all he knew.

But he couldn’t lose his cool, freaking out that he’d lost her for good.

He couldn’t .

The second Jax lost it, anything was liable to happen. He knew what self-destructing felt like all too well. He was banking on the prayers of the other men at his Bible study and a lot of other things to help him hold it together.

“He called me later that night. Said he’d caught up to them on the highway, but he’d been having car trouble and stopped at a gas station.”

“And you couldn’t follow up?”

She nodded. “I probably owe it to him now to find out what happened.”

“There are people, Kenna’s people, who can find Elliot. You don’t have to risk your children.”

“They’ll realize you’re interfering. That you’re uncovering things that they don’t want uncovered. Someone in the office works for whoever took Kenna.”

Jax had explained that there was an international criminal organization so many times that people had started to roll their eyes. He didn’t know how else to make his point but to say, “They have reach. They’re a powerful group. You know that now.”

“They have the office in a chokehold, and it isn’t only me they’ve targeted.” She sniffed and looked down at the ground. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he ignored it. Ramon was inside the building, and the guy could take care of himself. A glance at his watch told him he had a message from Bruce. Jax focused back on the conversation.

“I’ll help you find her,” Andrette said.

Jax shook his head. “Don’t put your family at risk. I need someone in the FBI who can pass me information.”

“The person in the FBI is you , Jax.”

“Maybe not for much longer.” He needed the job to hold him together, but he could also see the writing on the wall.

The back door of the bar flung open and slammed against the siding before bouncing back. Two agents tossed Ramon out onto the ground, laughing their drunk butts off as he thumped onto the gravel. One of them muttered a curse about the guy, and the door shut again.

Andrette’s phone rang, and she answered, “Special Agent Herron.”

Jax rolled his friend to his back. “How did it go?”

Ramon groaned. “Better than you’d think. One of your agents is dealing. There are several alcoholics in the group. The alpha is some guy named Peterborough.”

“Interesting.” He had written the guy up a couple of times.

Jax held out his hand and helped Ramon to his feet.

Andrette had her gun pointed at them. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to do this.”

“What are you doing?” Jax held his hands up, not wanting to surprise her and wind up with her squeezing that trigger finger too hard.

“I have to do this. For my children.”

Ramon swung out, moving toward her at the same time he slammed his hand down. The gun went off, and the shot pinged off the ground. A piece of concrete slammed into Jax’s shin. He barely had time to yelp before Ramon shoved Andrette into him.

Jax held on to her.

Ramon had the gun.

“This never happened,” Jax said to Andrette.

Ramon didn’t like that idea. “I’m taking her gun.”

“No, you aren’t.” Jax didn’t let go of the agent in his arms. “This never happened, Special Agent Herron. My associate and I are leaving. You aren’t going to shoot us in the back.”

“She leaves first.” Ramon didn’t hold out her gun.

Andrette sobbed.

“I’m sorry your children are in danger, but nothing is going to stop me from finding Kenna.” He let go of her, Ramon handed over the weapon, and she raced away.

“Coercion?”

Jax nodded. “Let’s get out of here.”

As they walked to the car, periodically both glancing over their shoulders, Ramon said, “Are you going to accept that the FBI isn’t how you’re going to find her now?”

“I think I’m closer than ever to the truth. That’s why we got shot at earlier.”

“You stick around the Bureau and you’ll only get tangled up in a mess that’s designed to distract you.”

Jax wasn’t sure that was true.

“You want to find Kenna?” Ramon paused. “Maybe you should do this her way. Seemed to work just fine.”

“I don’t need to justify to you why I’m an agent, and I always will be.

” But saying that sounded hollow. Part of him had kind of assumed he would quit and go to work with Kenna if she wanted him to be by her side 24/7.

Some people lived and worked together, and others worked separate jobs in different fields.

He didn’t want to quit the Bureau if she wasn’t even here.

“Maybe not.” Ramon looked at him over the roof of the car. “But no one there is going to help you. You’re on your own. While out here in the PI world, you’ve got a whole team, and all they’re trying to do right now is find her. No other cases. No other priorities. Just finding Kenna.”

“You think I should jump on board with you guys when I’m just starting to get real leads.”

“I think Dominatus believes they can control you while you’re an agent. Once you walk out that door for good, they have no idea what you’ll be doing. So stick it to them and come work with us.”

It was probably the closest thing to an offer of friendship that he was going to get from Ramon. The man’s loyalty would always be to Kenna first and then Maizie. Considering Jax felt the same about the two women, this might actually work.

But did he really want to accept the offer when he could be throwing away the only chance he might have to figure out what happened to her?

“You have gravel in your hair.” Jax pulled the driver’s door open.

Ramon didn’t respond to that. He was looking at his phone. “Bruce found Elliot Adams.”