Page 10 of Night Hawk
Clay owed Sam a lot. Likely his life. Toni’s life. He would hate to put Sam in a difficult situation, and maybe he’d been too hasty in calling her and shouldn’t involve her in this investigation.
Griff kept going, and she stopped by Clay. “Griff’ll check the place out.”
Clay thanked her for her help. “But I’ve been thinking. Having you do the forensics could be a problem for you with the sheriff.”
“How’s that?” Sam asked.
“A crime was committed here, and we should report it to him, but we’re not going to. If you do the forensics and he finds out, he might not use your agency in the future.”
“True, but—”
“I don’t want to do that to you or Gage. Not when my sister will be glad to do it and not worry about offending the sheriff.”
She looked disappointed. “If you didn’t have anyone else, I’d do it no questions asked, but I don’t want to cause an issue between Gage and Trent. So it’s probably the right thing to do. Thanks for thinking of that.”
“Besides,” he said. “You can go home and have a nice night with Griff instead of digging around in a dirty closet.”
“Don’t tell him this, but I live for dirty closets.” She laughed. “I’ll go tell him we’ll be going home earlier than we’d planned.”
She strode off, her long legs carrying her quickly across the parking lot.
Clay looked at Toni. “I’ll call Sierra. She’ll head right out, as will my other brothers. My family has a beach house in the area, and we can stay there and set up our command center.”
He waited for her to argue about staying under the same roof with him, but she gave a firm nod.
Maybe being with him wasn’t an issue for her. Maybe she’d forgotten all about her interest in him that had been obvious from the first day they’d met.
Good. It would make things easier.
Right, like he believed that.
3
Toni held a notepad and sketched the school layout as she circled the exterior with Clay, looking into windows to get a feel for the place. They would divide up the structure into quadrants so that, after his family arrived in a few minutes and Sierra took interior photos, they could thoroughly search the building.
Toni was already cold and damp and a bit cranky from waiting the past few hours for the Byrd family, but even if they didn’t involve law enforcement in their incident, a crime had occurred here, and they needed to treat this place as a crime scene.
Lights from oncoming vehicles flashed down the driveway. Clay took her arm and pulled in behind a stand of maple trees.
She glanced at him.
“Can’t be too careful,” he said, but his attention was on the drive.
Two SUVs, and a van entered the lot and parked near her car.
“It’s them.” Clay sounded proud even though they hadn’t done anything yet but get there. “Let’s go.”
Toni had heard a lot about his family, but she’d never expected to meet them. Especially in a situation like this. Clay had told them that she’d frozen in the closet. What would they think about an FBI agent who should be strong and resilient, freezing like a little girl at the sight of a snake?
The guys got out and stretched. All of them were dressed like Clay in tactical pants and polo shirts covered with dark windbreakers. The only woman had to be Sierra. Wearing jeans and a green turtleneck, she moved to the back of her van and slipped into a white Tyvek suit.
Toni blinked a few times then strained to get a better look at Sierra. A baby bump. She had a baby bump. A small one, but it was obvious. Her husband, Reed Rice, was an agent in Toni’s office, and he worked in violent crimes just like she did. She hadn’t heard him mention the pregnancy, but he was a very private guy.
“Sierra’s expecting,” she said to Clay as they strode across the lot.
“Due in June. It’s a boy. I’m gonna be an uncle. I can’t wait to teach him all kinds of things Sierra won’t be happy he learned.” He grinned.
Toni caught his mood and wondered what it would be like to be part of a big family like the Byrds. As an only child and having just her dad after her mom died, she had no idea, but Clay had spoken fondly of his siblings. She just figured having them all together would be loud and messy and likely overwhelming for her.
