Page 9 of Storm and Tempest (Brand of Justice #13)

Chapter Seven

“ I shouldn’t leave the scene of a crime,” Jax said. He’d checked that no one in the restaurant had been shot at least. One older man had bumped his head, diving for cover, but that was the extent of the injuries in the room.

Ramon shoved him toward the passenger side of his own car. He’d already swiped the keys as soon as Jax had pulled them from his pocket.

“Is this how you deal with Kenna?” Jax wasn’t sure he liked that.

“Goes both ways.” Ramon unlocked the door. “You aren’t thinking straight.”

“I’m not thinking like a mercenary, that’s all.”

“All of us need to think like a mercenary from time to time. And what’s that saying? ‘Rescuer safety first,’ isn’t it? You want Kenna back, get in the car.”

“I’m trusting you.” Jax slid in.

Ramon jogged around to the driver’s side. Jax thought about making a run for it, but what would that prove? He’d be without wheels and without backup if he left on his own.

“Shut your door.” Ramon fired up the engine and pulled out fast enough Jax had to grab the handle at the top of the door.

“I thought Dominatus was being subtle. Undermining me.” Jax shook his head.

“They want you dead, apparently. Nothing subtle about what just happened. We’re lucky no one got killed.”

Jax didn’t count that as luck. Thank You. “That’s exactly what will happen if I leave. They’ll find more ways to discredit me and put my job on shaky ground.”

“We have a case to solve.” Ramon steered with both hands, turning corners like this was a tactical driving course.

“You get a slap on the wrist, and everything that would’ve happened if you’d hung around back there still happens.

It’s just that you gave yourself time to work this case for real without getting delayed by the people we’re hunting. ”

“You’re looking to take down Dominatus ?”

“That’s the case, isn’t it?”

“So you follow where Kenna leads?”

“You need to focus up.” Ramon squeezed the steering wheel. “This should have been over already.”

“You think I’ve been slacking on finding her?”

“Everything the Bureau does takes too long. Why do you think Kenna and I quit?”

“I know why you quit, and I know why she did. Neither was about procedure or how much time things take, so don’t try to fool me with that argument.”

“Are you done? Because we have a case to work.”

Jax glanced over, staring at Ramon’s profile. “When Kenna does it, I usually end up laughing.”

“But both of us are a poor substitute for her.”

“That’s the truth.” Not just because Kenna could shake anyone out of their funk and get them to laugh. She did it with each of them when things were serious and they all needed a moment to breathe. Some way to bleed off some of the stress, like a pressure cooker release valve.

Ramon said, “Let’s figure out how to make do—and get her back.”

“Agreed.” Jax needed an answer to one more question, though. “Why do you have such an issue with me being a fed?”

“The issue isn’t with you being a fed. It’s with you still being one.” Ramon shook his head. “You should’ve already quit.”

“I need their reach, and their resources.”

“Has it helped? Is there any sign it’s helping?”

Jax needed them. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I understand the Bureau never did me any favors. Kenna Banbury is the only person who ever stuck up for me. So I’m not going to quit until I find her.”

“Good.” Jax swallowed. “I didn’t want to say it in front of Maizie, but I’m getting really worried that finding Kenna will take everything we’ve got and then some. That it might destroy all of us, and we may never find her.”

“So? They want it, let’s give it. But we don’t stop until we get her back.”

Jax could respect that. “Okay.”

Chances were, he and Ramon would always be at odds.

For a lot of reasons, they would butt heads, and most of it had nothing to do with how Jax had thought for a while that Ramon had been in love with Kenna.

Maybe he wasn’t now. It didn’t really matter.

If this was about repaying a debt to Kenna and the guy was all-in with finding her, then Jax would deal with it.

He wasn’t going to get jealous when he had help to find her, and that help happened to be almost as motivated as he was.

Ramon turned another fast corner. “Reason number twelve why you shouldn’t trust the FBI, let alone work for them.” He reached over and tapped the file on the dash, up by the window. “Someone in your agency is working for Dominatus , and they’re covering up what happened to Kenna.”

“At the least,” Jax said. “At most they’re also responsible for the murder of an agent who worked for me. And that might not be the first time.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s your fault. Guilt isn’t a good look.”

“I’m not going to go off the rails just because I feel like crap that someone disappeared and I didn’t even notice the cover-up because I was in the hospital.”

“Just checking.”

“You’re telling me you have no vices?” Jax shifted in his seat, wondering how Ramon knew where to go. Or was he just driving around in circles? “What do you do to blow off steam, or relieve the stress?”

“It isn’t stress. It’s night terrors, waking up in a cold sweat with the taste of blood in my mouth.”

“How do you deal?”

“I find a bar, and I pick a fight with someone.”

Jax paused. “Does Kenna know about this?”

“I’ve got it under control.”

Whether he did or not, Jax felt a little like he was on more even footing now with Ramon than he’d been before.

They knew each other’s weaknesses, so they could work together to avoid them, but it was also about being vulnerable enough to admit you couldn’t do it all on your own.

Which only made him wonder why he was currently thinking of working with Ramon at all.

Yet here they were, together.

For Kenna.

“I’m still gonna get fired,” Jax said. He didn’t like how this was playing out. “My boss showed up at the office. He’s going to use what happened at the restaurant to undermine me and put me on leave.”

“Good.” Ramon shrugged. “You’ll be able to work this case for real.”

Jax wouldn’t see eye to eye with him on everything.

“Better that you’re free than they get you committed, or put you in jail. Or kill you. You need to leave on your terms so they don’t have the upper hand.”

“They already have it,” Jax said. “They’re waiting for me to make a misstep so they can hang me.”

“Bruce has Maizie covered so you and I can work this case. Someone is going to talk, and we’re going to find out what happened to this missing agent.”

“Which means I couldn’t hang back and oversee that scene because…” Jax began. They could’ve at least asked witnesses outside for descriptions of the shooters, and license plate numbers.

“Because I’ll bet you a hundred bucks the investigation will turn up someone who says you paid them to do that and make it look good,” Ramon finished.

“Or they’ll ‘discover’ evidence that money changed hands.

We need Maizie away from these people as much as we need you out of the Bureau. Before she ends up in cuffs.”

Ramon clearly didn’t like that Jax had brought Maizie on as a consultant, but hopefully that was all they were going to say about that. He hadn’t liked seeing her in an interrogation room even if it was only about her being questioned.

Ramon pulled into a condo complex and headed for the farthest building.

Jax looked around at the manicured bushes and white-washed siding. “Who lives here?”

“The missing agent. Where did you think I was going?” Ramon navigated to a space, avoiding the rented moving truck blocking several spaces at the end. He frowned at the open door to the condo at the end, first floor. “Let’s go find out what’s going on.”

Jax opened the file, reading it while he got out and shut the car door.

Special Agent Elliot Adams, twenty-eight.

He’d only been an agent for just over a year.

Originally from Chicago, he had a sister, but the parents were deceased.

Nothing much in savings and only the basic government retirement fund account, which he’d been putting hardly anything into since he started with the Bureau.

His superiors found him to be competent and said he had promise.

“Seems like a solid guy.” Jax stepped up onto the sidewalk.

Up ahead, Ramon jogged up the stairs, meeting a woman at the top carrying a heavy box. As Jax approached, Ramon said, “…just a minute of your time. It’s about your brother.”

Jax didn’t like feeling as if everyone around him was a step ahead, but in this case, it was efficient. “I’m Special Agent in Charge Oliver Jaxton,” he told her. “We’d like to speak with you about Elliot.”

The woman had blond highlights in her light-brown hair, and a round figure. She wore denim shorts, canvas shoes, and a gray T-shirt with flowers on it. “Not sure I wanna speak with the FBI since they’re the ones who killed him.”

“You know for sure that Elliot is dead?” Jax confirmed.

“If he was alive, he’d have come home already.” She set the box by her feet and brushed hair back from her face. “But he hasn’t, so he’s got to be dead. He would never stop calling me or let me wonder if he was all right. Never.”

“I’m sorry.” Jax knew exactly how that felt. “My wife is missing. She’s the one Elliot was trying to find, so he could follow up on the transfer. What’s your name?”

“Sandra.” She shook her head. “Is that normal? I mean sending one agent to find another, when she was being transported by officials with the Bureau.”

“There’s nothing normal about what is going on,” Jax replied. Then he needed to ask, “How did you know that’s what Elliot was working on?”

“He told me everything.” Sandra shrugged. “He called me the day he went missing, told me what he was working on. Said he might be late for dinner.”

And he’d never shown up.

Jax’s chest ached. “If you can help us figure out what happened to him, we may be able to find him and my wife. I’m going to keep hoping they’re both alive until I know otherwise.”

She didn’t seem convinced. “How am I supposed to help you?”

Ramon hung back, leaning against the railing and keeping an eye on their surroundings.

Watching for more gunmen? They’d both shaken off the adrenaline of being shot at quickly.

There were many ways they were similar, and Jax could see why Kenna liked the guy.

Not just because he hung back and let Jax be the one to take the lead questioning Sandra Adams.

Jax waited a beat. “Did Elliot seem different, like he was worried about anything?”

“He was confused.” She glanced aside, thinking. “Didn’t know why he’d been ordered to follow up on a custody transfer. Considering the men who took her worked for an Assistant Director in Charge.”

The ADIC on scene after the silo operation had been one of the men from the retirement home pretending to be a bureau employee. Fake name, excellent cover story. Impeccable credentials.

Which made Jax wonder if his real ADIC, Hadley, had something to do with it. Not many people could fake that. Enough people kept up on who the FBI had as current ADIC’s that someone should’ve called them on it. But in the heat of the moment, who would question a superior?

Special Agent Herron hadn’t, which meant she had to be on the list of people who could be the Dominatus mole, assuming there was one. Even if he didn’t think she was dirty, it was something he’d need to consider.

“What about the agent who assigned him the task?” Jax asked. “Did Elliot say who it was that told him to follow up on the transfer?”

She shook her head. “He seemed shaken, and he told me a little of what you all found in that silo. The research that crazy doctor had been doing. That he had people in there who were captives. Even children. He said the private investigator shouldn’t have been arrested.

But he did his job. He wanted to be part of the Bureau forever, not just for a few years. He believed in it.”

Ramon glanced at Jax, the implication clear.

Elliot had believed in the FBI, and it probably got him killed.

Sandra sniffed. “I called and called, but no one at the office ever called me back. No one would tell me what happened to Elliot, and after a few weeks, they told me to stop calling. That they didn’t know who Elliot Adams even was—and they didn’t think he’d ever worked there.”

Jax nodded. “Do you have the information for anyone he worked with directly, like a partner?”

The man couldn’t have interacted with no one. Agents often teamed up to work on cases, and Elliot had been at the silo. It was impossible to completely erase someone in this day and age.

She shook her head. “He didn’t mention anyone, and he only hung out with me.

He had a few friends from college he kept up with on socials but hadn’t found friends locally.

We both moved here when he was assigned to the Phoenix office.

He rented this place, and my apartment is a couple of miles away.

” She sniffed. “Now the owner wants to sell the condo, and I have to clear his stuff out.”

“I’m going to find out what happened.” Jax couldn’t promise that he would find Elliot, but a man’s professional life had been erased because of a case Kenna and all of them had taken. “I promise I won’t quit until I get to the bottom of this.”

Sandra nodded, biting her lip. “Thank you.”

Ramon pushed off the railing. “Does Elliot have a personal computer, or a personal phone that was left behind?”

“He has a laptop.” She thumbed over her shoulder. “I don’t know his password.”

“Could we have it?” Jax asked.

“It’s of no use to me.” Sandra wandered into the condo.

Jax spoke in a low voice. “I don’t get how a man is erased from FBI records.”

Ramon’s expression darkened. “They don’t get to just delete a person’s life.” He might’ve been talking about Kenna as much as about Elliot, but the sentiment was the same either way.

“We need to find those guys,” Jax said. “Two, Four, and Five.”

“Those are stupid names.”

“So find out who they really are. And then find them .”

“Don’t tell me what to do just because you’re frustrated you have no answers.”

Jax folded his arms right as the sister walked out of the condo. She held out the laptop to Jax, but Ramon took it.

“Thank you for talking to us.” Jax took a business card from his wallet. “I’ll be in touch, so save my number. And call if you remember anything, or if Elliot contacts you.”

She took the card. “Do you really think he could still be alive?”

“Don’t ever give up hope. Not until you know for sure.”

Ramon shifted, holding the laptop. “We’ll call if we find anything.”

She glanced between them. “Thank you for trying.”

Maybe she’d already given up hope. It kind of sounded like it. But that didn’t mean Jax was going to. Because if Kenna had taught him anything, it was that when you gave up hope was when the bad guys won.