Yet from the grave he’d pursued her. In her nightmares. In her choice of career, both to join the FBI and ultimately to quit the FBI. He’d been controlling her life since the beginning, more now that he was dead than he ever could when he was alive. How could she not see it? How could she have lived for so long under his evil shadow and not seen how much he still controlled her?

Now she knew. She wouldn’t let him do it any longer.

She turned the page.

“You okay, Ro?” Quinn asked quietly as he slid a glass of water in front of her.

She nodded and gratefully accepted the drink. She sipped, the cool liquid soothing her raw throat. Quinn stood behind her like a soldier. She felt his gaze boring into her back. She heard the click-click-click of Tess on the computer. Pause. Click-click-click. It’d be annoying if it weren’t so rhythmic.

She turned another page.

Photos.

She carefully put the glass down, afraid her shaking hand would spill water on the file. The kitchen. Mama wasn’t in it, but she saw the starkness of the black-and-white imagery, the blood-spattered walls, the overturned chair. Some artists chose black and white because its impact was far more powerful than color. There was nothing to compare with blood in stark gray. You expected it to be red in color; you didn’t realize it had such depth until the color was leeched from the image.

She rapidly flipped through the photos. She couldn’t look. This was what she was here to do, but she couldn’t do it. Quinn took them from the stack and placed them face down, away from her. She wiped her face, surprised to feel damp cheeks.

Focus on the reports. Pretend she hadn’t been there. This was simply another investigation, the family strangers.

She didn’t know if she could finish, but she had to.

She picked the pictures up again and took a deep breath.

She noticed the room had become silent. Quinn watched her closely. Tess had stopped working and was staring at her, a frown on her round face. Damn. If the answers were here, in this damned file, she had to find them.

Quinn’s cell phone rang and he answered. “Peterson… All right, thanks for the heads up.” He slammed the phone shut.

“What’s wrong?” Rowan asked, fearing the worst. Not another dead body.

“Colleen has Adam in the garage with John. They’ll be up in a few minutes.”

She nodded and turned back to the files. The words were a blur. Was she losing it? No. Tears. She absently rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath.

She had to focus, read the reports like the agent she was trained to be. Look for clues. Like this crowd shot. She looked at each face closely. Were any familiar? Had she known these people as a child? Were they somehow in her life now?

She had to pretend this wasn’t her family slaughtered so mercilessly. Pretend they were strangers.

Right. Strangers who haunted her in her sleep.

She looked up and noticed Tess was still watching her, an odd expression on her face. The door opened and Tess turned back to her computer. John led Adam into the room, a hand on his shoulder. The kid looked terrified and glanced at John for reassurance. When Adam’s eyes rested on Rowan, he visibly recoiled, drawing closer to John. Rowan felt small and miserable. She’d hurt someone she cared about and didn’t know how to fix it. Or if it could be fixed.

John murmured something in his ear and Adam marginally relaxed, but he avoided looking at Rowan. John sat him down at another desk facing the wall.

“The pictures?” he asked Quinn.

Rowan sighed in relief as Quinn picked up the folder in front of her and handed it to John.

He opened it, glanced through it, and pulled out the crowd shots.

“Adam, remember what I told you,” John said, leaning over the desk and looking the scared kid in the eye. “I’ll be right here. All I want is for you to look at these pictures and tell me if you’ve seen any of these people before. Remember, they might not look exactly the same, but older.”

“Yes, John,” Adam said, his voice quivering.

Rowan tried to focus on her task and tore her eyes away from John and Adam.

Her heart felt heavy in her chest. John looked at the pictures with Adam, glanced at her. Was that pity she saw in his eyes? His jaw clenched, and she saw his pulse throbbing in his neck.

No, not pity. Rage. It wasn’t directed at her, but it made her uncomfortable. She didn’t want anyone, particularly John, fighting her ghosts. But dammit, if she couldn’t get herself under control she’d be no good in battling her demons, the real demon killer and those in her nightmares.

She focused again on the file.

The room was silent for a long ten minutes. Adam was the first to speak, his head hung low. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He’s not here. I swear, John, he’s not here. I would remember. I would, I would!” His voice rose in frustration.

John rested his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Adam.” He glanced at Quinn. “Peterson, did you get that photo I asked about?”

“O’Brien? Yeah.” He reached across Rowan and handed John a thin folder.

Rowan’s head shot up and her eyes narrowed. “I told you Peter had nothing to do with this!”

“Collins cleared him, but I’m just double-checking.”

She turned her back to him, squeezed her eyes with her fingers until they hurt.

Peter had nothing to do with any of this. But if she didn’t know him as well as she did, wouldn’t she, too, think he was the logical suspect? “You’re right, John,” she whispered, her admission shredding her heart. Peter, please forgive me. “We have to rule him out.”

John took the folder to Adam and said, “Adam, do you recognize this man?”

He showed Adam a photo. Rowan couldn’t resist standing and looking at the picture herself.

Peter looked nothing like her, except maybe for the eyes. Peter had dark hair like Dani. The picture showed him out of his clerical collar, in a button-down shirt. Where had Quinn gotten it? It appeared recent.

She missed him. Seeing his photo reminded her that she’d intentionally separated her brother from her life. He had the Church, his adoptive family, his own life. She was a reminder of the past for him just as much as he was for her. But she still loved him.

“Adam?” John prompted.

Adam shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry. That’s not him.”

Rowan relaxed. She knew it wasn’t Peter, but couldn’t help being relieved at Adam’s affirmation.

“What if he had sandy hair?” John asked. “Like he colored it. Remember, you saw him wearing sunglasses.”

Adam still shook his head. “It’s not him, I know. The man I saw at the flowers had a crooked nose.”

John glanced up at Quinn. “A crooked nose? Like maybe it had been broken? Like Agent Peterson here?”

Adam turned to inspect Quinn. He cocked his head to the side, seeming to see something no one else in the room did. Rowan tensed.

“Yeah, like his nose,” he said, almost in awe that he had recognized something. “It wasn’t straight like this,” he gestured to the picture. “And the man I saw had a pointier chin.”

“I’m proud of you, Adam. You remembered a lot.”

“But I didn’t see him.” He pointed to the picture of Peter.

“That’s okay. What else about this picture and the man you saw is different?”

Adam frowned as if not understanding. “I dunno.”

Damn, they’d come so far. If they had a picture of the suspect, Rowan didn’t doubt Adam would recognize him.

“John?” Tess said excitedly. “John, Quinn, I think I found something.”

The men rushed to her desk. “What?” John asked.

“I did the search on Robert MacIntosh in the medical database Quinn gave me access to. Look.”

They were silent. “Holy shit,” John said. “Rowan, come here.” It was a command, and Rowan obeyed. But her feet felt heavy, her whole body sluggish.