“Wonder if they found what they were looking for?” he muttered.
A.J. let his eyes roam around the room, hoping for a clue, anything to tell him where David might have gone. He spied a pair of David’s cammie pants lying near the bathroom door. His eyes moved on and spied a yellow piece of paper caught between the bed and the nightstand.
He walked over and reached down.
“A.J., you shouldn’t touch anything until the crime scene unit goes over this place.”
A.J. ignored her words. He didn’t have time to wait around. He picked up the paper and unfolded it. It was a receipt for a U-Haul truck. His stomach sank.
“What is it?” Sienna asked.
He handed the paper to her, and Sienna quickly scanned the contents. “Let’s head over there and see what we can find out,” she said.
A.J. bent down and picked up David’s dress uniform jacket, the gold buttons highly polished. A lump formed in his throat. He placed the coat on the mattress and smoothed out the wrinkles.
“I’m sorry, A.J.”
“I know.” His broad shoulders rose and fell. He turned to pace, but her hand settled on his arm, holding him in place as effectively as an anchor. He looked down into her beautiful face, and the air fisted in his lungs. She looked up at him with dark green eyes full of understanding.
“We’ll find him.”
A.J. nodded and closed his eyes. But what would they find? Had David gone rogue and decided that the Marine Corps didn’t pay enough? Was he so disillusioned after his stint in Afghanistan? He thought he knew David, but had his brother drifted away from him during A.J.’s many missions? Did he really know his brother at all?
Sienna called the crime scene unit on her cell phone while A.J. went over to David’s smashed and useless computer.
A.J. knelt down and looked at the case. “This might hold useful information.”
“I’ll have CSI send it over to the cyber forensic guys to see if they can get anything off the hard drive,” Sienna said.
He knelt in the mess that had once been his brother’s organized apartment, and for the first time in his life, he felt helpless. He didn’t like it at all. He was a man of action. He looked down at the picture of his brother posing with A.J. and their mother and his stepfather. Sentimental sap had it on his desk near his computer.
The love he had for his brother swelled inside him. “You said you have a sister. Is she older or younger?” A.J. asked.
Sienna smiled at the mention of her dibbling. “Younger by seven years.”
“You watched out for her?”
“I sure did. You did that for your brother?”
A.J. nodded.
“What is he like?”
He gestured to the picture. “Sentimental, romantic, wants to save the world.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“What went wrong, then?”
“I don’t know.”
He turned to her, and their eyes met. Slowly they rose. She had the most irresistible mouth, though, as he reached for her, he knew it was mostly for comfort. Her mouth met his with a tiny little gasp as if an electric shock had traveled between them.
His hand went into her hair, cupping her head, feeling his resolve, which he normally held in check, trying to break free.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs forced them apart. She looked up at him as if in shock.
The crime scene unit came through the door, let by Kate.