Page 30 of Storm and Tempest

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.

Hecouldn’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.”