Impulse

by JoAnn Ross

  She wished she could care what Will was saying, but after all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, her desire to get back into hard news didn’t seem nearly as important as the way Will had looked at her when he’d learned she was married.

  “Which is why I decided to take up a life of crime,” Sal said. “Nothing like becoming a serial killer to jazz up a guy’s life.”

  “Mmm.”

  Would Will come looking for her? From the black ice in his eyes and the chill in his voice when he’d informed her he had a crime scene to get back to, she suspected not.

  Sal’s words belatedly sank in.

  “What did you say?” Surely not what she thought she’d heard.

  “Hey!” He held up his hands. “Just kidding about that serial killer thing.”

  “It’s not exactly a joking matter.”

  “No.” He frowned. “It’s not. But your sheriff’s probably up to handling it. Given his background.”

  “How did you know about Will’s background?”

  “I looked him up after I realized I was coming here. Just to get a feel for who all the players were in case you tried to get me arrested. That’s how I found you. I was checking out radio broadcasts online, and damned if your sexy voice didn’t come up number one hundred and twelve.”

  She'd worried about that, when the station had started simulcasting on the internet last month, but had then decided the odds were against Sal ever hearing her.

  “So, I guess you neglected to tell him about me.”

  “Tell who?” Faith hedged. She was never so relieved to see anyone in her life as she was the waitress who’d arrived with their coffees. She poured in cream from the small stainless steel pitcher, added sugar, and took a drink of hers as the young woman, seeming to sense a serious discussion taking place, left them alone again.

  “Faith, baby.” Sal clucked his tongue. “Did you forget that I used to have the best confession rate on the force?” He reached across the table, then frowned when she flinched.

  He leaned back and studied her silently. His expression was not in any way threatening, but it was steady and had her understanding how he’d gotten all those criminals to confess.

  “You’re not going to come back to Nevada with me, are you?”

  He’d never been anything but direct. There d been a time when she’d liked that about him. Which is why she knew she owed it to him to be equally forthright.

  “No.” Faith had spent the past eighteen months afraid Sal would catch up with her. Now that he had, she was surprised it was proving so emotionally painful.

  “I sorta figured that.” He sighed heavily. His broad shoulders sagged. “I guess I really fucked things up.”

  “It wasn’t just you.” Her eyes were burning behind her lids. “I shouldn’t have ever let things get so out of hand. It was just that no one had ever taken such good care of me. Never.”

  “I liked taking care of you. And, if I hadn’t been so head over heels, I would’ve realized that you’d confused gratitude with love.”

  She bit her lip. Was about to lie. Then reminded herself that it was time—past time—for honesty. “I wasn’t confused.”

  “But you didn’t love me.”

  This was the hardest conversation she’d ever had. Yet. She glanced out the window again, hoping that Will would even give her an opportunity to try to explain. “No.” It was barely a whisper.

  “I figured as much. To tell the truth, I think I knew it all along. But I wanted you so damn bad, I wanted to rush you into that chapel before you wised up. And before I had to face reality.”

  She tried a smile, which wobbled slightly. “That’s very insightful.”

  “This anger-management therapist I’m going to suggested it.”

  “You’re seeing a therapist?” That idea actually did make her smile.

  “Hell, it wasn’t my idea.”

  Faith was relieved to see a bit of the old Sal bluster. While clean and sober was a good thing, she would’ve hated to see this man emotionally castrated. “The police union worked out a deal with the department. If I get counseling, and work my way through all the steps and stay sober for six months, I can go back on the job.”

  “I'm glad.’’

  “Yeah. Me, too.” He drew in a deep breath. Blew it out. “You're numbers eight and nine.”

  “What?”

  “Step number eight is to make a list of everyone I’ve harmed,” he explained. “Nine is to make amends.”

  “That’s what you’re doing here?”

  “Yeah. I know I can’t make things up to you for what happened, a lot of which I can’t even remember, if you want to know the absolute truth, but at least I can let you know how damn bad I feel about having hurt you.” He eyed her curiously over the rim of the thick, white mug emblazoned with the red wolf logo. “What did you think?”

  She took another drink of her coffee. It seemed foolish now. Almost embarrassing.

  “Shit.” He dragged a hand across the top of his short, stiff brown hair. “You thought I was going to hurt you?”

  “You said you would,” she reminded him. “Actually, you said you were going to shoot me if you ever so much as caught me talking to another man.”

  “I was drunk out of my friggin' mind.”

  “You scared me, Sal. I trusted you, and you—”

  “I turned out to be no better than any of those bastards who used to beat up on your mother.”

  “You weren’t like them.” He’d had problems. But this much she wanted to make clear. “I should have told you,” she repeated what she’d said earlier. “I would have, if I’d had any idea my past would come out in the trial.”

  “Blame the victim,” he said grimly. “That’s what those scumbag defense attorneys always do. If I’d known about your juvenile record, I could’ve protected you.”

  Faith knew he would have tried. “Where the hell were you when I was twelve years old?”

  He did the math. “In a black-and-white keeping the streets of Vegas safe from crime.”

  She smiled at the idea of a young, idealistic Sal Sasone. He had probably looked great in uniform. “I’ll just bet you did, too.”

  “I sure as hell tried.” He took another drink of coffee and glanced out the window as the TV lights turned off, casting the outdoors back into night. A pair of red taillights disappeared down the long, circular driveway. “So, if you didn’t tell the sheriff about me, can I suppose you haven’t exactly filled him in on past events in your life?”

  “No. I was going to. But things got complicated.”

  “Yeah. He told me about the poet slasher.”

  “Shhh.” She leaned forward. “He doesn’t want that to get out.”

  “It’s not like I’m going to call a press conference, Faith.”

  No. As low as Will’s opinion of the press was, Sal’s had always been lower. He’d made an exception in her case. Just as she’d made one in his.

  “A cop and a former hooker turned reporter,” she murmured. “Who’d have thunk it?”

  “Dammit, I hate it when you call yourself that. You were just a kid, Faith.”

  More of the old Sal she remembered, the cop who’d tracked down her stalker and saved her from ending up dead in some horrid basement cage her crazed stalker had built for her, had returned.

  “An abused kid whose mother, may the bitch rot in hell, sold you for a goddamn fix,” he continued, his voice rough with anger on her behalf, “and even when social services finally got around to taking you out of that piss-poor excuse for a home, without anyone watching out for you, taking care of you like any kid deserves to be taken care of, you fell through the damn cracks of the system!”

  Realizing he’d raised his voice, he looked around, then leaned across the table until their faces were inches apart.

  “You did what you did to survive,” he said through gritted teeth. ‘You think I didn’t see stories like that every day on the street? You think I couldn't under
stand?”

  When her eyes began to fill, she dragged her gaze toward the stone fireplace where a couple clad in après-ski clothes seemed to be enthralled with each other.

  Faith felt a little twinge of something she reluctantly recognized as envy. Although she’d been married, she’d never had anything resembling the romantic relationship that couple seemed to share.

  She’d hoped she might be on the brink of one with Will. But then she’d screwed it up.

  “I was ashamed,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

  “Well, yeah. That makes two of us, because I’m goddamn ashamed of the way I reacted. Christ, I’d never hit a woman before in my life. I’ve always thought the guys who mistreated women were lower than scum.”

  "I should have told you. Warned you, so you wouldn't have to find out so publicly.”

  If only she’d had an inkling of what would happen, she could have prepared both of them. As it was, the wealthy stalker’s dream team of defense lawyers had somehow unearthed her supposedly sealed juvenile court records.

  “That would’ve probably been a good thing to do,” he agreed. “And maybe I should’ve acted like an adult when I did find out. Blaming you the way I did was worse than what that damn lawyer did. Because you deserved a whole lot better from your husband. So, maybe we’re even. And maybe you ought to pay a visit to my therapist.”

  "Actually, I just happen to know one.”

  She’d toyed with the idea of talking with Drew Hayworth on a professional basis. Seeing the difference therapy had made in Sal, perhaps she might try it.

  “Can’t hurt,” he said.

  “The same old Sal.” She shook her head. “Sitting here now, I can’t remember why I was so afraid of you.”

  “Because it wasn’t me. It was somebody else. I’m not an easy guy to get along with on my best day,” he admitted, which was definitely an understatement. “But that alien using my name, wearing my clothes and driving my car, and living in my house who showed up during the trial, hell, he’s lucky I didn’t shoot him and put him out of his misery.”

  Faith had actually been afraid of that. Of the two of them ending up in the headlines as a cop murder/suicide.

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” she said truthfully. “But I’m also glad that alien Sal is gone.”

  “Dead and buried,” he assured her. He blew out a long, obviously relieved breath. “So, we’re square on this?”

  “Of course.” She zipped the bag shut. “I suppose the easiest thing to do would be for you to file for divorce in Vegas?”

  “Makes sense. Given that you’re not even going by your legal name here in Wyoming.”

  “You knew?”

  “From day one. That guy you bought the phony IDs from? He just happens to be one of my snitches.”

  “I should have known better than to try to put anything over on you.”

  “Yeah. You should’ve.’’ He polished off his coffee. “So, you want me to talk to Matt Dillon for you? Straighten things out?”

  The amazing thing was, the man meant it. Sal was still a control freak He probably always would be. But at least his efforts would always be for a good cause.

  “Thanks,” she said. “But this is something I need to do for myself.” She covered her hand with his. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For protecting me from that stalker who would have eventually killed me. For loving me enough to marry me.” She felt her eyes growing moist. “And for understanding that it just wouldn’t have worked out between us. Even without your drinking problem.”

  ‘You know what they say. If you love someone, let them go.” He forced a smile that didn’t reach his dark eyes. “You gonna be okay?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He gave her another of those long probing looks. "Yeah. I think you will. Finally.”

  Faith knew Sal hadn’t been the only one with issues. She’d been running from her past all of her life, from town to town, station to station, never stopping anywhere long enough to catch a breath. To examine her life. To acknowledge all she’d overcome. All she’d managed to accomplish. And, equally important, what she wanted.

  And what she wanted, what she’d been wanting since they’d first met at that campaign cocktail party at the Pirate’s House in Savannah, was Will Bridger.

  “Some of us are late bloomers,” she said, thinking back on her conversation with Will, and feeling a deep pang of sadness that Erin’s life had so tragically been cut short before she’d had a chance to create a new life for herself.

  “Yeah.” His gaze, as it swept over her face, was warm with masculine appreciation. He lifted his mug in a toast. “You bloomed real good, sweetheart.”

  This time her smile was real and came from that hidden, locked-away place in her heart as she felt the last of those chains she’d forged link by link during childhood falling away.

  “You know, for the first time in my life, I believe I did.”

  38

  “The guy’s got it wrong,” Desiree announced, looking up from her laptop. “It's not ‘tusk and claw.’ It’s ‘tush and claw.’ ”

  “Well, that sure as hell doesn’t sound all that scary,” Trace Honeycutt offered.

  “Ah, but I checked an online dictionary and tush’s old meaning is ‘tusk,’ so either our slasher learned the poem wrong, or he purposely changed it to sound more threatening.”

  “You’d think slashing a woman’s throat would be bad enough,” Sam said, pouring another cup of toxic waste from the carafe. It was looking to be another long night. “Without having to tweak some Kipling poetry. Sounds like he’s using the Jungle Book as a murder manual.”

  “I read that book,” Honeycutt remembered. “In Cub Scouts.”

  “That’s where I learned it,” Sam said. “It was required reading in my pack on the rez.”

  “Yeah, I think they gave the book to me, too.”

  Will forced his mind onto the conversation when what he really wanted to do was go confront Faith about the little personal-history item she’d forgotten to share with him. Like the fact that she had a goddamn husband.

  “It was all about how Mowgli, the man cub, came to live with the wolves and had to get accepted into the pack,” Will said.

  “Yeah. Akela, the leader, called two people to stand for him,” Sam remembered.

  “Baloo, the bear, and Bagheera the panther,” Honeycutt recalled. “God.” He bit into a stale donut that had somehow survived since morning. “I remember getting goose bumps when all the wolves shouted, ‘Let him join!’ ”

  Will remembered having his own thrill of being accepted into the Cub Scout pack during the nighttime, fireside ceremony. Belonging had been a big deal when you were seven years old. It was only later, after his mother, then Matt, died that he’d gone off and become a lone wolf.

  “I hated Jungle Book,” Desiree scoffed. “All those stupid animals going on and on about rules. And the scout uniforms were creepy. Reminded me of little Hitler Youths.”

  “I’ll bet you were a Girl Scout,” Honeycutt challenged.

  “You’d lose.” She put a hand on a hip and fluffed her hair with the other. “Even as a child, I was an original. Why would I have wanted to join a group where everyone has to fit in?”

  “It’s a guy thing,” Sam said. “We’re brought up to want to be part of a team. To honor the law. Just like cops are,” he tacked on pointedly.

  “Touchy.” She lifted her blue can of diet Pepsi. “Obviously there are teams and there are teams. Besides, our mighty pack leader recognizes and appreciates individuality.”

  “That’s the thing,” Will mused out loud. “If this guy ever was a Scout, and he’s using the book as any sort of reference guide, he wasn’t paying attention. Because the whole thing is about the importance of being part of the pack.”

  “ ‘The strength of the pack is the wolf,’ ” Sam agreed. “ ‘And the strength of the wolf is the pack.’ That’s the entire symbolism of Kipl
ing’s story.”

  “And wasn’t there something in there about not killing men?” Honeycutt asked.

  “ ‘Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates and your cubs, as they need, and ye can,’ ” Sam quoted. “ ‘But kill not for the pleasure of killing and seven times never kill Man.’ ”

  “That’s really good,” Desiree said. “Not the quote, which I still think is stupid. But the fact that you can remember it after all these years."

  “Maybe the pack thing stayed in my mind more,” Sam suggested. “Given that it fits in with the fact that I’m already part of a tribe.”

  “That’s probably it,” Honeycutt agreed. “So, do you think this guy might be from the rez?”

  “Did you hotshots ever consider that perhaps this guy has never read the damn book?” Desiree asked. “That he just went online and Googled up poems about murder.”

  “Good point,” Will said. And one that Faith had already thought of. “But serial killers tend to be people who fit into the community.”

  “Like the BTK guy.” Honeycutt nodded. “And Bundy.”

  “Of course we don’t know we’re dealing with a serial killer,” Sam said. “Could be just someone who’s got a grudge against the girl and her mother.”

  “Quite a coincidence the first two murders the town’s had in decades are both in the same family,” Desiree agreed. “Both outsiders.”

  “Yeah.” Once again Will considered how much he hated coincidence. “From the emails that went back and forth between Susan Gallagher and Fyodor Radikorsky, on the woman’s computer, it was obvious they were here to drag the girl back into skating.”

  ‘You think the Russian killed her?” Honeycutt asked.

  “Doubtful, since we found him lying on the floor of his room in shock.” He’d been diagnosed with a kidney laceration and was currently in surgery to repair a tom urethra. “He’s blaming the Gallagher woman.”

  “Lucky thing for the Russian that Sasone put those pieces together,” Desiree said.

  “Yeah,” Will agreed even as he considered Salvatore Sasone’s arrival in Hazard to be one of the unluckier things that had ever happened to him.