Page 1 of Storm and Tempest
Chapter One
“My name is Oliver Jaxton, and I’m an addict.”
Jax gripped the sides of the podium, staring at the noticeboard and clock on the back wall rather than the men in the rows of folding chairs. “I used to think cops were heroes. When I became one, I realized we’re just as broken as everyone else.”
He took a breath. “It all started when I blew out my knee playing high school football. Then I blew it more when I got hooked on the pain meds they gave me. I should’ve cared, but I didn’t. Things got so much easier. I didn’t have to care how my shot at playing football had been flushed down the toilet. How my dad didn’t have a winner anymore, and my mom didn’t have a son she could brag about.
“So I checked out. I…” He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to face anything, but eventually my sister called me out. She knew what was happening. She made me flush the pills down the toilet. My dad offered to get me more, but I knew it wouldn’t work to live in that oblivion. I had to face the real world.
“But that place is still in me. That nothingness, where I don’t have to care about anything.
“I stayed clean for fifteen years, four months, and three days. Until I woke up in the hospital with an IV drip of that same feeling and a busted shoulder. For a few seconds I was seventeen again, lying in my bed staring at the ceiling. Not caring about anything. I wasn’t an FBI agent who’d been held hostage.
“I woke up at rock bottom with a friend there to tell me that my wife is missing.” He looked at the clock, fighting against the gathering lump in his throat. Determined to get it all out. “I’d been captured by these mafia guys out of Vegas because of a case I was working on.” He had to stop and swallow. “Because of my wife.
“She’s been gone for ten weeks now, and my shoulder is healed thanks to the surgery. I’ve been doing PT, trying to ignore how much I’d like to take a pill and forget about all of this.” He rubbed the left side of his ribs where they’d poked him with a cattle prod just for fun. “It’s not the first time I’ve been held captive, or beaten, and I’m not telling you all this so you’ll feel sorry for me. My shoulder was dislocated and torn pretty badly. I was prescribed more narcotics, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to care. I didn’t want to feel how much it hurts that I have no idea where she is.” He sniffed. “But that wasn’t going to help me get her back. I had to fight what I know, and what I want to do, so I can save her. The way she saves everyone.
“So I’ve been clean for forty-two days now. But I still can’t find her. I have no idea where she is, or what’s happening to her. This isn’t even close to being over. And getting that oblivion back won’t make it go away. I can’t escape into the nothing this time. Not if I want a shot at finding her.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “The pain doesn’t make me feel alive. What makes me feel alive is her.”
The Bible study leader, Ron Ward, got up from the front row and came to the podium. “Thank you for sharing. Let’s all be praying for Oliver and his wife, and the situation. In fact?—”
Jax’s phone rang in his pocket. He drew it out, left-handed because his right arm still ached all these weeks after surgery, and looked at the screen. “It’s my office.”
Ron nodded. “You take that. We’ll pray for you.”
“Thank you.” Jax looked at the men who attended the study, a Bible class for those in recovery that his sponsor had hooked him up with. “Thanks, all of you.” He skirted the edge of the chairs, and his shoes clipped the varnished wood floor as he retrieved his suit jacket.
He’d come here right from work, but that was no surprise. He spent most nights at the office now so he could be around if they got a lead. Maizie was staying at the townhouse with his cat, Jolene. The young woman he and Kenna had adopted was helping him at work and at home. He just wanted to find his wife—before his whole existence imploded.
Living on a knife edge wasn’t going to last long.
Jax drove to the office, the world awash in dark sky and bright lights from the other cars on the road. He’d probably been living in autopilot since he realized she really was gone, and that he had no idea how to find her. For a few days he’d been certain they’d find her within the week. That they would get intel, and her team would go with him and the Phoenix FBI’s tactical team, and they’d get her back. Jax had been in no shape to think about joining them, as he’d had surgery within days of Bruce and those lawyers finding him.
The car behind him honked.
The light was green. Jax hit the gas and set off.
This whole thing was a mess. They hadn’t found her, and he hadn’t been in any shape to get out and do it himself for twoweeks after. Swallowed by the thing that made this feeling in his chest go away.
Am I ever going to get her back?
But the man he was—FBI Special Agent in Charge and husband, believer in Jesus—didn’t ever go back to who he used to be. Out of necessity he gathered the rules and procedure around him like a blanket. He lived his life by tenets he’d clung to because they meant being the person he wanted to be, and not an addict. He couldn’t afford to let go of the life he’d built. Not right now, when being an FBI agent was the thing that would enable him to find her. The Bureau had the means to hunt the people who had taken Kenna, and the resources to get her back.
The alternative was to cut and run and do this himself, solving the case the way Kenna would—solo. But Jax needed the FBI. He needed the rules, the resources and procedures.
If he lost control of himself, he would never get her back.
He pulled into the parking garage and went through security, going up to the floor where his team were situated. He dumped his backpack under the desk in his corner office and headed for the lab.
Special Agent Andrette Herron turned the corner at the end of the hall toward him, wearing tan cargos and a polo shirt. “Boss, you heard the judge signed off on the search warrant for the bar, right?” She jingled a set of keys. “We’re gearing up. Rolling out in ten.”
“That’s great.” Jax nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
He wasn’t going to bother changing out of his suit. He wanted to talk to Maizie about what she had, then go to the bar. It was the best way to not interfere in the work his team needed to do, and when he got there, he’d see if they found Kenna.
If he were honest, he was losing hope.
Before he even reached the door, he could hear the thumping beat of an ’80s workout playlist. The one that meant Maiziewas trying to figure something out. He pushed open the Plexiglas door, and the volume increased significantly. The room accommodated several technicians, but when Maizie had moved in—hired on as his newest consultant—they’d rearranged.
