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She would always remain standing.
“I’ll leave you to run the investigation as you see fit.” Brook figured doing so would keep Agent Houser busy while she tried to put together some of the pieces that Jacob was obviously putting in front of her. “My team and I are in the midst of our own case, and I won’t let Jacob’s antics interfere with giving those families the closure that they’ve waited on for three years.”
Brook nodded when Theo finally made his way across the marble tile to stand in front of her door. He quickly entered, leaving the door open behind him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Brook replied as she nodded toward the leather-bound book that Agent Houser had yet to cover. “Jacob took time out of his visit to the city in order to stop by our condo building to leave me a gift. I’ve handed it off to Agent Houser. He’ll see that it gets to the FBI forensics lab.”
Brook stood, giving Agent Houser no choice but to do the same. There was no need for them to carry on a conversation that would only have them chasing their tails in a circle. It would merely be a waste of time.
Unfortunately, Jacob’s hidden message within such a gift wouldn’t come to light unless she managed to get one step ahead of him or he decided to give her another clue.
In the past, she would have obsessed over the book.
Now?
Exhaustion seemed to have settled deep inside her soul.
It wasn’t that she would give up the hunt. She didn’t have it inside of her to quit, and she would fight until her last breath to see that those families that Jacob had destroyed received some semblance of justice. Peace. It’s what they all longed for, and she’d made it her mission to do so the moment she’d set eyes on what had remained of Sally Pearson’s teenage body.
No, Brook wouldn’t give up the hunt.
But shehadchanged in the last couple of years. She’d attempted to take control of her life, and while she might not have fully succeeded in that endeavor, it was a step-by-step process.
“This book—this gift—is proof that something went wrong in Jacob’s quest to locate Sarah Evanston.” Brook was confident in her statement. “Agent Houser, I suggest you start back at the beginning. The answer to whatever barrier my brother might have encountered had to have developed after he was spotted in Idaho at a gas station but before the security breach at the branch office of the U.S. Marshals Service in North Dakota.”
Agent Houser muttered something along the lines that looking for a specific needle in a stack of needles might have a better outcome, and she didn’t disagree with him.
Theo kept his gaze trained on her, but she was to blame for his concern. She’d brought the team members into her life, which meant that she’d brought her brother into their lives.
And once again, she was faced with a vicious circle.
“Jacob went years without making contact with you,” Theo pointed out as he monitored Agent Houser pick up the evidence after he’d shrugged back into his dress coat. “It’s clear that your father’s death has had an impact on him. Does that in any way change your profile?”
“No.” Brook took one last look at the blue bow before turning away. She walked back to her desk, although she didn’t set her coffee down. “Our father’s death in no way prompted Jacob to return to the city. He would have sent a sympathy card regardless to simply belabor the point that I hadn’t been able to give my father closure. The fact that he’s here in the city tells me that something went wrong in his search for Sarah Evanston. He’s regrouping, and I can only assume that the book is a distraction.”
“A distraction from what?” Agent Houser asked as he walked toward the door.
Theo had shifted his stance so that the agent had a clear path, but Agent Houser stopped short of the exit.
“Knowing my brother like I do, we’ll know soon enough.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Brooklyn Sloane
February 2023
Thursday — 12:59pm
ElizabethElliottwasnoone’s fool.
She had an air of elegance about her that immediately captured one’s attention.
Dressed in a pair of black tailored pants, a gold silk blouse with a perfectly tied large bow at the neck, and genuine diamonds on her ring fingers, she was the epitome of sophisticated wealth. It was only when a person chose to look beyond her carefully cultivated persona and stare deep into her dark brown eyes that one caught a glimpse of the woman inside.
It was obvious that she preferred for others to underestimate her, leaving them at a natural disadvantage.
