“Everything is going to be fine,” Grayson said. He laid a steadying hand on Acacia’s shoulder. To his surprise, Acacia brought her hand up to his and squeezed it. Grayson had the oddest sense that she was trying to comfort him.
Grayson knew suddenly and with stunning clarity that if his father had acknowledged him, if he had spent any time at all here growing up, she would have been the one to bandage his knees.
Grayson and his brothers had bandaged one another’s.
I’m supposed to be steadying you, he thought in Acacia’s direction, and then he looked to the girls. All of you.
“You have a copy of the warrant?” Grayson asked, his tone brisk, his volume low.
Acacia reached into her purse. Two minutes later, Grayson had skimmed the whole thing. The warrant was for the Grayson residence, the grounds, and three vehicles registered in Sheffield Grayson’s name.
The girls’ cars weren’t among them.
“Where is your lawyer?” Grayson asked Acacia. The details of this search made no sense. The number of agents. The breadth of the warrant. The timing. Given how long ago Sheffield Grayson had disappeared, the case should have been cold by now.
Unless someone is deliberately heating it up. In his mind’s eye, Grayson saw Eve treading water in the pool. He thought of her asking him what Tobias Hawthorne would have done in her position.
“Kent offered to come,” Acacia replied. “As a friend. But I can’t afford a lawyer right now.”
Grayson’s instincts said that Trowbridge had very little desire to be Acacia’s friend.
“Savannah and I will pay for a lawyer,” Gigi volunteered. “From our trusts.”
Savannah looked down. “We can’t. Unless…”
Acacia took a step forward and searched her daughter’s face—for what, Grayson wasn’t sure. “I wouldn’t let you,” Acacia told Savannah, her voice quiet but fierce. “Either of you. I’m fine. Everything is fine.”
“Of course,” Grayson agreed. “But as it happens, I know a lawyer who would relish taking care of this situation, and it won’t cost you a thing.”
“I can handle this,” Acacia insisted.
“There’s nothing to handle.” A woman wearing a navy suit approached the four of them. Another person might have misread the situation, thought that the other agents had sent someone with a softer, more feminine touch to question them, but the part of Grayson’s brain that instantly calculated dominance and hierarchies ruled out that possibility immediately.
This was the woman in charge.
“We’re looking for evidence of your husband’s crimes and whereabouts,” the FBI agent continued. “If, as you maintain, you truly have not heard from him and truly are not withholding material evidence of his crimes, then you have very little to worry about.”
If, on the other hand, you’re holding something back…
Grayson, as a rule, did not respond to silent threats. He held the warrant back out to Acacia. “I’d have your new lawyer look into the judge who signed it and the agent who filed the request,” he advised her. “I’m hardly an expert, but it seems odd to execute a search when the suspect hasn’t been seen at the location in question for a year and a half, particularly when the individuals still living in the domicile are, in fact, the victims of the alleged crime.”
Grayson let his gaze slide to the agent in charge. “After all,” he continued, “if there was any embezzlement, the suspect was essentially embezzling from them.” Grayson wasn’t angling for a response, and he didn’t wait for one. “Why now?” There was an art to pausing in a way that didn’t let the other party interject. “A tip from an anonymous source? A powerful person pulling just the right strings?”
The FBI agent had no visible reaction to that possibility, but that didn’t stop Grayson from responding as if she’d tipped her hand. “I see.”
“Grayson.” Acacia’s tone was firmer now, like she’d remembered that she was an adult, and he was, in her words, a kid.
Grayson reached into his suit pocket, withdrew his wallet, and offered her a card. After a long moment, Acacia took it, and then she looked at the FBI agent. “If you have any more questions for me,” she said, her voice steely, “you’ll have to address them to my lawyer.”
Grayson excused himself make a call. “Alisa? I’m going to need a favor.”
Two minutes later, he made another phone call from the end of the driveway. As much as part of him wanted to stay here, to protect this family, the longer he stayed, the greater the chances became that someone would realize that there was nothing to be found here because what they were looking for had already been found.