Hands full, she headed back to her desk to face her email. Monday morning. No calls overnight had been a blessing. Before her injury she’d worked with the Crimes Against Children division of the Portland FBI office. It often took a strong stomach, but she’d been determined to be the loudest, most ass-kicking voice to investigate the cowards who abused kids. Someone had to stand up for the quiet ones. During her recovery time off, another agent had stepped into her position as one of the Crimes Against Children coordinators, and Ava currently was on a sixty-day temporary assignment to Violent Crimes/Major Offenders, a.k.a. VCMO.

She bumped her upper arm on the corner of her cubicle, sloshed her coffee, and saw stars. Sucking in a deep breath, she clenched her teeth until the pain subsided. Under two months ago, she’d taken a bullet in the arm close to her shoulder. Now a nice slab of metal with four pins held her humerus together. She’d returned to work as soon as her doctor and physical therapist had given her permission to run a desk. “Light duty.” No physical stuff.

VCMO involved just as much sitting and staring at a computer monitor and going out on interviews as her previous position. Luckily it’d been her left arm that the bullet had injured. It always ached at the end of the day, but she welcomed the pain.

It meant she’d lived.

Mason constantly said she was lucky the gunman hadn’t shot her in the head or neck. It’d been several weeks before both of them stopped having nightmares about Kent Jopek. He’d kidnapped Mason’s ex-wife’s stepdaughter and then shot Ava during hostage negotiations.

Ava set her food down, eased into her chair, and dug for the Advil in her top drawer. Earlier that morning she’d decided to try to skip any meds, but now she knew she’d hurt all day if she didn’t take some. She had just opened her email when her desk phone rang.

“Special Agent McLane,” she said around a mouthful of bagel.

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “I’m looking for Jayne McLane. She listed you as an emergency contact,” said a raspy male voice.

Ava straightened in her chair. “Jayne? Is she okay? I’m her sister.”

“That’s what I’m calling to find out. She hasn’t shown up for work for the last three days.”

Ava slumped back. Dammit, Jayne! “I’m sorry. I rarely hear from her. You tried her cell phone?”

“Yeah, it’s been disconnected.”

“Where are you calling from?” Ava asked, rubbing at her forehead, thankful the Advil was already working through her system.

“Party Mart. She was supposed to be here early for inventory.” The man sighed. “But I wasn’t surprised since we didn’t see her all weekend. I just hired her a week ago.”

“She’s not very reliable,” Ava admitted. That was an understatement. Her twin hadn’t held a job for more than a month in the past decade. She was a bit surprised that Jayne had listed her as an emergency contact, but she was possibly the only person Jayne knew with a consistent phone number. “Did she give you the Sixty-Fourth Street address for her home address?”

Why am I asking?

She’d given up on Jayne the day she breezed through Ava’s hospital room after Ava had been shot and not asked how she was.

Her twin had worn out her second chances years ago. But Ava kept giving them.

She heard paper shuffling over the phone. “Nah, she listed a place on Walnut.”

Ava had no idea where that was. Or whom her sister was living with.

And she didn’t want to know.

“If you happen to hear from her, would you tell her to call her sister?” she asked reluctantly. Part of her needed to know her sister was still breathing. A second part asked why on earth she cared.

“Sure. If you hear from her, tell her she’s fired.” He hung up the phone.

Ava pressed her fingers into her eyes, trying to quiet the screaming in her brain that Jayne always triggered. Her twin floated from man to man, job to job, and drug to drug. Too many times Ava had tried to rescue her sister, lent her money, placed her in rehab. Nothing worked.

She hadn’t heard from Jayne since her surprise hospital visit. Relief rushed through her that Jayne had been fine last week, according to the Party Mart manager. But what had happened to her now? For Ava’s own sanity, she had to place Jayne firmly out of her mind and go on with her stable life until Hurricane Jayne blew in with more destruction.

She ached for Mason, wishing for his solid touch to calm her and his rational words to keep her in check. Nothing else made her as crazy as dealing with Jayne. Mason had been her rock for the last two months, through her shooting, her recovery, and Jayne’s current silence. Who could have guessed that the gruff state detective with the cowboy hat would ease her world into a soothing harmony? She’d been running on autopilot before she met him during the kidnappings. They’d made an effective team while holding the distraught family together.

She’d fallen head over heels for him without realizing it.

Now she spent 90 percent of her free time at his home. They’d talked a bit about selling one of their places but neither had pushed the issue. His place was bigger than her condo, and he had a fenced yard for his dog. It made sense to be at his house.

She liked going to his home, knowing that he’d be there. Well, eventually he’d be there. Between their jobs, they worked a lot of irregular hours. It wasn’t rare for one of them to get a call in the middle of the night informing them that their presence was required.