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Still, something else was at play other than the loss of their father.
Something big enough to draw Brook’s brother away from the mission of finishing what he’d started by tracking Sarah Evanston’s location.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Brooklyn Sloane
February 2023
Thursday — 11:11am
“Whatdoesitmean?”
“I don’t know.” Brook wished that she had something to tell Agent Houser that would help him in his hunt for Jacob Walsh. Unfortunately, she was as much in the dark as was the federal agent. “Jacob has always left me print variations of the first Harry Potter book. Never the second book in the series. I don’t want to read anything specific into the gift that could lead us down a trail of dead ends.”
Brook was in desperate need of coffee, but she’d come directly to the office from her condo building. Hell, she wouldn’t be opposed to something a bit stronger, but she’d reserve the right to lose herself in a bottle of wine when she didn’t need all her faculties.
Agent Houser had been in town since Tuesday.
He’d left several messages for her, but she’d been too caught up with the firm’s current case to give the agent much thought. She hadn’t even had a chance to speak with him about Martin Sinnett, which she needed to do before Agent Houser departed the premises.
After speaking with Beau Willow, she’d driven back to her condo so that she could stop in at the front desk to pick up the package. Charlie had been waiting for her, a bright smile on his face as usual.
He’d seen her through the glass entrance, so he’d already retrieved her package and set it on the counter. Not knowing what it could be, but sensing that it was something important, she’d picked up the box that had been decorated with a blue ribbon and taken it over to one of the benches in the lobby.
Charlie being Charlie, he’d given her the privacy that she’d silently asked for in order to open her gift. The sight of the second book in the Harry Potter series encased in leather binding had her stomach wanting to revolt against the coffee that she had savored before tracking down Beau Willow.
Truthfully, she was still a bit nauseous.
“I’ll have Bit obtain the security footage from my building, though it doesn’t really matter. Jacob knows the city well enough that he would never allow himself to be trailed by street cameras.” Brook was in her usual chair. Agent Houser hadn’t removed his winter dress coat upon his arrival, but he took time to do so now. “The death of our father might have affected him in a way that I hadn’t anticipated in the grand scheme of things.”
“Were the two of them close?” Agent Houser asked as he leaned forward to get a better look at the leather-bound book. Brook had removed the lid off the box, but she hadn’t taken out the gift from its container. “Do you think your brother is having trouble reconciling his feelings? Psychopaths have been known to have breakdowns over less traumatic events.”
“Not Jacob.”
Brook didn’t bother to elaborate.
There was no need, because Agent Houser was finally coming to accept that she really did know her brother better than anyone else on the planet.
“Do you have a pair of latex gloves?”
Brook could have told him that it wouldn’t matter, because Jacob didn’t care about leaving behind DNA. He was well aware that every crime that he’d committed throughout the years had been contaminated, but he was narcissistic enough not to give a damn and intelligent enough to know it didn’t matter after the fact.
Agent Houser wouldn’t care about anything other than following the letter of the law.
“I’ll go retrieve a pair for you.”
Brook stood, grateful to have something to do other than sit in silence while they both attempted to determine what Jacob’s next move could be after all but waltzing himself into her building. The Bureau had initially been monitoring the foot traffic in that area, but that had been before the attack on Sarah Evanston.
Brook attempted to appease her guilt over allowing such a massive opportunity to slide past them with the knowledge that Jacob never would have done something so brash had there been even the slightest hint of surveillance in place.
He was too smart.
Too cunning.
Always three to five steps ahead.
“Is everything okay?” Kate asked as she quickly stood from Bit’s chair. She was still monitoring the results from all the search applications that he’d programmed and most likely still tweaking from his laptop. “I mean, you came rushing into the office and—“
