Page 56 of Mean Streak

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J ack Connell worked his jaw horizontally back and forth as he pulled himself onto the edge of the bed and sat. He shot Hayes a baleful look. “That hurt.”

“Meant for it to. Your visit upset Rebecca.”

“It upset me, too,” Jack grumbled. “Was she lying, or could she have made it easy and told me where you were?”

“She’s never known where I was. All your sleuthing was wasted.”

“Not completely. I had the pleasure of her company for fifteen minutes or so. I haven’t had that much fun since I walked bare-assed through a pit of vipers.”

Hayes knew he was expected to smile. He didn’t.

“Have you seen her new hairdo? Wicked. Suits her perfectly.”

“Just so you know, Jack, this isn’t a make-nice reunion. When this mess is over, everything goes right back to the way it’s been.”

“You’ll take off.”

“Right.”

“Huh. I thought maybe you had come to your senses and would want to stay put.” Connell looked over at Emory, his implication unmistakable.

“I split as soon as I see her husband behind bars.”

“Her husband? What did he do?”

“He left her for dead.”

Connell took a moment to gauge Hayes’s seriousness. “You’re not joking.”

“Would I joke about that?”

“You wouldn’t. You rarely joke, period,” Jack said, making a face. “Start at the beginning.”

“I was hiking up on a ridge the day Emory went missing. I spotted her through my binoculars. Got curious.”

“Why?”

Hayes glanced at her but didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Jack prompted, raising his eyebrows.

“She was a blond in black running tights who had a dynamite body, and she was alone.”

Jack looked at her again. “Fair enough.”

“What’s important,” Hayes said with impatience, “is that by the time I reached that trail, she was lying in the middle of it, concussed and almost frozen. I gathered her up and took her to my place.”

“Why not to a hospital?”

“Several reasons.”

“Besides the black running tights.”

“I didn’t know what had happened to her. If she’d fallen, that was one thing. If she’d been attacked, she was safer with me.”

“That’s debatable, but go on.”

“She recovered enough so that when the weather cleared, I brought her—”

“I know that part. Knight and Grange filled me in. The gas station. The media frenzy.”

“I didn’t know until after she was back in the fold that I had returned her to her would-be killer.”

“Jeff.”

“The very one.”

“So,” Connell said, drawing out the word and nodding as he pieced it together, “you knew she was in mortal danger.”

“Yes.”

“But being you and wanting to stay under the radar, you couldn’t get the world’s attention and announce it.”

Hayes figured his silence was confirmation enough.

“Instead,” Jack continued, “you sent up a smoke signal for me to come running.”

“My fingerprint on the faucet.”

“A perfect thumbprint in an otherwise pristine cabin,” Connell said wryly. “I knew you wouldn’t be that careless.”

“How long did it take you to figure it out?”

“Five, six minutes tops.”

“You’re rusty. Or freakin’ old.”

“Cut me some slack. I’d just gotten off a red-eye from Seattle.”

“I was beginning to think I should have been less subtle, done something like paint a red arrow on a signpost pointing you in my direction. TO BANNOCK: THIS WAY, JERK-OFF .”

“I realize it would have been boring, conventional, and totally un-Bannock-like, but you could have just picked up the phone and called me.”

“And cheat you out of the thrill of the chase?”

“Fuck you.”

“And back at you.”

Grudgingly, they grinned at each other.

***

During their bantering exchange, Emory had vacillated between disbelief and fury. Now she confronted them. “You’re friends ?”

Hayes said, “Not even close.”

Jack’s reply was, “Quasi friends.”

“How long have you known each other?”

Jack said, “I recruited him straight out of the army.”

“For?”

“My SWAT team.”

She looked at Hayes with wonderment. “You’re with the FBI?”

“Was.”

“You’re the unnamed SWAT officer who made the impossible shot and killed the Westboro gunman? You’re the legend?”

Hayes didn’t respond.

“Answer me!”

He shouted back, “I will when you ask a question that I feel is worthy of an answer.”

The sound that broke the resultant silence was Connell slapping his naked knees. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. Hand me my pants.”

Hayes looked behind him where Connell’s clothes were piled in a chair, along with his pistol and shoulder holster. “You should keep your weapon within reach, Agent Connell.”

“Lesson learned. God knows who’s likely to show up and assault me.”

Hayes tossed the trousers toward the bed. Connell caught them and shook them out. “Excuse me, Dr. Charbonneau.” He stood up and stepped into his pants. As he did them up, he said, “Oh, before I forget.”

He took a cell phone from one of the trouser pockets and handed it to her. “Yours. We found it in the bedroom last night after you ran off. I asked if I could keep it, monitor calls you received. Guess there’s no need to now.”

“Thank you.”

“FYI, the battery has run completely out. It needs charging.” He finished dressing, including his shoulder holster, and worked his feet into a pair of loafers. “Emory, what Bannock said about your husband, is it valid?”

“Why don’t you ask me?” Hayes said.

“Because I’m asking her.”

“I believe it’s true,” she said.

“Based on a hunch or evidence?”

“In all the confusion…” She bent down and retrieved the brown paper sack containing the rock, which she’d dropped on the floor during the tussle. She handed the sack to Connell. After opening it and looking inside, he turned to Hayes. “Her hair and blood?”

He nodded. “Found at the scene, along with a designer logo off Jeff’s ski jacket.

” Jack mulled over that information for several seconds, then said, “Before we get down to business, I could use some strong, black coffee and hot food, and, since I’m the only one here not currently being sought by local law enforcement, I volunteer to go for them. ”

He gave them time to argue or offer an alternative. When neither did, he put on his overcoat and gloves and scooped the keys to his rental car off the dresser. “Back soon.”

He pulled the door closed behind himself, but even the momentary blast of cold air didn’t dissipate the tension in the room.

Neither she nor Hayes spoke. He walked over to the bed, pulled the bedspread up over the mussed sheets, then sat down approximately where Connell had been. Only then did he look at her.

“How did you get in here so fast?”

His head went back a notch. “Of all the burning questions you must have, that’s the one you asked?”

Without even trying to mitigate her anger, she said, “I’m pacing myself.”

“I drove around to the other side of the building, ran like hell, and came through the bathroom window.”

“Why not just accompany me to the door? He would have been just as surprised.”

“I had to make sure of you.”

“Of me ?”

“I had to be certain that you would do what was right and uphold the law.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “Do you realize how ludicrous that statement sounds coming from you?”

“It’s my choice to bend the law when expedient. But I didn’t want to be responsible for your breaking it.”

“You made me into a burglar.”

“That was an exception. Even you drew the distinction between the episode with the Floyds and lying to a federal agent in order to let a fugitive escape justice.”

“So everything you said this morning was to see in what direction my moral compass was aimed?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I’m happy I passed.”

“I know you mean that sarcastically, Doc, but I’m happy you passed, too.”

“You put me through hell for nothing.”

“Not exactly for nothing, but I’m sorry I had to be so hard on you.”

“Not hard, horrid.”

“I had to push your buttons, or the ruse wouldn’t have worked.”

“I could happily kill you right now.”

“I have that effect on people.”

He’d met her charges with calm acceptance, which only made her angrier. “You never planned to drop me off and hightail it?”

“Do you think I’d trust your safety, your life , to Knight, Grange, or even to Jack? Hell. No.”

“You must trust Connell to some extent or you wouldn’t be here. Weren’t you afraid he would arrest you on sight?”

“Arrest me? His pursuit is personal, not official. In his book, my only crime was bailing.”

“What?”

“I vanished. Disappeared.”

“You didn’t commit a terrible crime?”

He gave a brusque shake of his head.

“Then what have you been hiding from?”

“From being the legend who took out the Westboro mass murderer.”

Left speechless, she could only gape. When she was able to speak, her voice was thin. “You did your job.”

“True. But I didn’t see it as cause for celebration. I didn’t think it merited recognition. It was a good day for our team. We did spare lives, no doubt. I wanted it left at that.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“Not by anybody who knew me. Not by anybody, period. The media wanted my name, but thank God nobody on the team, including Jack, leaked it. I’ll always be grateful to them for that.”

“Remaining anonymous only made you more intriguing.”

“I guess,” he muttered. “I was the most sought-after interview, one TV station said. Some of the victims’ families wanted to meet me so they could personally thank me.

I got it. I understood. Closure. An eye for an eye.

All that. But I didn’t even read the letters they sent Jack to pass along to me.

“The buzz, for lack of a better word, lasted for months. Seemed like every frigging day it was in the news. A different aspect of the incident. I got sick of it and thought, hell, if it won’t go away, I will.

So I tendered my resignation and took off.

Rebecca, too. Jack’s been after both of us ever since. ”

His explanation disarmed her. But considering the closeness they’d shared, physically and emotionally, she felt wounded by his not confiding all this to her sooner. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or was that a test, too?”

“Test?”

“To see if I would believe the worst about you and still go to bed with you?”

“No.” Then with more emphasis, “ No. ”