I know she’s fine.
She sat silently and closed her eyes, mentally searching—feeling for anything out of sync as a sign that tragedy had struck her sister. Like a sudden physical pain in her heart. An overwhelming sense of emptiness and loss.
Nothing.
How many thousands of times have I done this over the years?
She didn’t fully believe she would feel anything, but the ritual settled her mind. A little.
Zander would continue to search for Jayne and do it ten times more efficiently than Ava. Computers and databases were his passion. With his speed and knowledge, he could do his regular work and search for a digital footprint left by Jayne at the same time. Ava didn’t even have to ask. He knew what she needed, and their friendship was important to both of them. Zander had watched as Ava’s relationship with Mason developed, and now she enjoyed watching Zander and Emily fall in love. Emily had recently moved in with him, and Ava was certain a wedding was in their future, but she wondered if the two of them knew it.
She hadn’t seen Zander this happy since . . . ever.
No one deserved happiness more than Zander. Eight years ago, his wife had died of cancer, their unborn daughter too young to survive outside the womb. Ava hadn’t known him then, and he’d told no one the story when he transferred to the Portland FBI office. She’d long suspected he had dark pain in his past—sorrow would flash in his eyes at times, but she’d never asked, not wanting to intrude on his privacy. In a bleak moment last fall, when Zander was at his lowest, she’d learned the heart-wrenching story.
Emily had eliminated most of the sorrow in his eyes.
Focused on her computer screen, Ava took a few moments to register that something had happened on her office floor. Brisk footsteps, anxious voices, people leaving. She moved to the doorway of her office and felt a nervous energy flow through the halls.
“What’s going on?” she asked an agent as he jogged by.
“Ask Ben,” the agent tossed over his shoulder.
“Thanks a lot,” she muttered, planning to do exactly that. She strode in the opposite direction, toward Ben’s office.
Her supervisor was on the phone, and the same uneasy energy hovered around him. Ben hung up as she entered, and his gaze met hers but then jumped away as he shuffled through some papers on his desk.
Uh-oh.
“What happened?” she asked.
Ben cleared his throat. “We’ve got a credible bomb threat at the Clackamas County Courthouse. It’s being evacuated at the moment and a perimeter established a few blocks out. I’m sending all the bodies I can.”
Ava’s breath caught as images of the bombed Oklahoma City federal building flooded her mind. Timothy McVeigh had killed well over a hundred people. It had happened more than twenty-five years ago, but she’d studied the bombing at the FBI Academy.
What’s today’s date?
“It’s June,” she blurted. The Oklahoma bombing had happened in April, and domestic terrorists sometimes used the date to launch their own illegal acts.
“My first thought too,” Ben said. A grim expression covered his face. “But it’s June eleventh. McVeigh was executed on this date.”
“Shit.” A martyr. Ava turned to go back to her office. “I’ll grab my bag.”
“No. Wait.”
She froze, one hand on the doorjamb of his office. Something else is wrong.
“Reuben Braswell,” Ben stated.
The man’s face appeared in her mind. A pain in the ass. Braswell was fascinated with law enforcement and saw himself as some sort of necessary source of information for the FBI. Ava placated him, even though his phone calls and visits seemed more about using up her time than providing information. “What about him?”
“When’s the last time you spoke with him?”
Ava touched a consistently numb spot on her shoulder. “Before the coast.” Before I was shot this spring at the coast.
“What did you talk about?”
She shrugged, still fingering her shoulder. “I’ll have to check the report. I don’t recall anything of use. Sometimes I think he simply likes to feel important.”
“He didn’t mention a bombing?”
“Hell no.” She straightened. “You can’t think Braswell knew something about today’s bomb threat. Wouldn’t he have told us?”
“He’s dead. He was murdered in his home at some point overnight.”
She blinked, unable to speak.
“They uncovered the plans for today’s bombing in his home. Intricate plans. I haven’t seen them yet, but there’s something in the plans that suggests he wanted to tell you about the bombing. Did he ever allude to something like that?”
Ava fought for breath as she strained to recall her last meeting with the man.
Did he hint at something?
She was positive Reuben hadn’t discussed anything of the sort. “He never said anything about a bomb or any other type of violent episode. He provided more of the ‘I heard a rumor that so-and-so isn’t paying his taxes because he’s a sovereign citizen’–type information.”
“I want you to stay here. Find all your notes on every meeting with Braswell.”
“I can go—”
“Stay here. Every law enforcement agency is lending help. They’ll have more than they need.”
She nodded dumbly, frustrated but knowing he was right. “Got it.” She turned to leave again.
“And Ava,” Ben said, “you’ll find out eventually, but Mason caught Braswell’s murder investigation this morning.” His gaze held hers as he waited for a reaction.
Her heart jumped, but she maintained her composure. “I see.”
Did Mason discover my name connected to the bombing?
She wanted to check her phone even though she knew he hadn’t called. Mason wouldn’t. He had a protocol to follow, and notifying his fiancée that her name had turned up at a murder scene wasn’t part of it.
What is going through his head?
Ava was certain she’d never mentioned Braswell’s name to Mason. At the most, she might have mentioned she had a meeting with an informant. The names and topics were confidential.
“I’ll get my notes.” She walked away, her mind racing.
He didn’t mention a bombing. I wouldn’t have missed that.
She sat in her chair and tapped her keys. According to her files, she’d met with Reuben Braswell four times and taken three phone calls over the last eighteen months. She had last spoken with him in January at the strip mall Starbucks down the street from her office.
He had originally contacted their office, stating he had information about an unsolved bank robbery. He’d been randomly assigned to Ava for a meeting, and his tip had panned out. One of the robbers had been a friend who’d bragged when he had too much to drink one night.
At least that was Reuben’s story. After a few meetings, she wondered if Reuben had known about the robbery all along. He didn’t like the FBI; he’d been clear about that. He had a big chip on his shoulder about all law enforcement, but she didn’t know why. He didn’t have a record.
She suspected he’d had a falling-out with his friend and turned him in as revenge even though it meant talking with law enforcement.