by Rachel Lee
“I don’t know.” He released her hand and stood. “But now you understand why I was so concerned this morning.”
She nodded. “And then I said that horrid thing.”
He waved a hand. “You were right to question me, even though I didn’t like it. We can’t lose track of the fact that Jack is now involved, whether we like it or not. Worse, that he wants to be involved. Maybe it’s best that you gave him a relatively safe assignment. Who knows what he might have come up with on his own.”
Her hands tightened. “Or maybe still will come up with on his own. Damn it, Alex, it all seemed so simple when I opened my mouth. I should have listened to you. Just found a way to make sure everyone knew he wasn’t involved, that we’d cleared him.”
“Easier said than done,” he answered. Once again he settled in the chair facing her. “Time to look at this situation with Jack objectively. I give a damn what happens to that boy, hence my objections this morning.”
“You think I don’t?” she demanded, bridling.
“I’m sure you do, but not in the same way. You hardly know him. You saw an opportunity, and like a good field agent, you were happy to take it.”
He held up his hand as she started to object. “Wait. We’re being blunt here. At least I am. Honesty requires me to admit that no matter what you’d done, that young man wants to be involved somehow. Maybe you gave him the safest means. Because I can almost guarantee you he’d have found a way to do something. Anything. He’s probably figuring he’ll never have another chance to work with the ATF. He doesn’t want to blow his opportunity.”
“Oh, God” was all she could say, worry growing in her. “You think he’s that determined?”
“Jack’s always determined. So I’m going to have a talk with him as soon as possible to try to settle him down. He has to understand that he’s risking his neck.”
“But we don’t know that.”
“Of course not. So far we have no evidence this bomber wants to kill anyone. But it doesn’t matter, because we also lack any proof he won’t kill someone.”
She nodded. “He needs to understand that. Maybe I can come up with some cases that would make it clearer to him. Anyway, a good, long talk with him might help. If this was a trial bomb, we’re in for worse. We don’t want Jack in the way of the bomber’s plans.”
“Because that might be enough to tip the perp over the edge.” Alex nodded, settled back into his chair and crossed his legs again. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
“Well, you know Jack. I don’t.”
“And I don’t know you,” he said bluntly.
More uneasiness began to stir in her. “What do you mean? Do you think I’m not an agent?”
He shook his head swiftly. “Not at all. Just...I don’t know if you’ve got a boyfriend, if you’ve ever been married, if you have family somewhere. The kinds of things we generally casually mention to each other. You’re very job focused, Darcy.”
He was right. “There’s a reason for that.”
“I imagine so. When I’m at work...even when it was the FBI, we used to gab about personal stuff. Little things. The anniversary, the kid’s birthday, the dinner plans, weekend outings. Things got mentioned. Watercooler conversation. You don’t say anything at all.”
She looked away. “I’m not good at casual conversation.”
“Maybe. Some people aren’t. But maybe you’re afraid to say anything.”
Once again she felt a flare of anger. “I’m not afraid!”
“Let me put it another way. Maybe you’re afraid of casual conversation because you don’t consider it professional. Or because you’re worried you might let something slip that could be used against you.”
She nearly glared at him. “I’m not paranoid!”
“Then who broke your trust?”
Damn, talking to a psychologist was dangerous. This guy made her feel like he could see right through her sometimes. “I’m not on your couch.”
“Never had one. Other than the one you’re sitting on anyway. So, do you have living family? Mine left me and there’s no one else. I was a singleton.”
She retaliated. “Do you still see your daughter?”
“Every summer and every other Christmas.”
“That’s good,” she replied rather grudgingly. But then she wondered what the heck she was resisting. He was right. These questions of his weren’t intrusive. They were casual. Why should she resent answering any of them?
Because her trust had been broken in a big way during her first years with ATF. “There was a case,” she heard herself saying even as some little voice in her mind told her to shut up. “Back when I was a rookie. I worked closely with another agent, Archie Westover. He was training me. Thing was... I guess I was smarter than him. I developed damn near the whole case, and then he took credit for it, never mentioning any of my input.”
“Ouch,” he said quietly. “How do you still manage to work?”
“Because after that I made sure more than one person knew what I’d figured out or learned. I don’t care if the whole team gets credit. That’s the point of a team. But no more talking only to the man in charge.”
“Good way to handle it. So that made you more guarded about everything?”
“You worked in the BSU. You must have run into office politics and competition. I just refuse to provide any ammunition. It may seem small or irrelevant, but you never know.”
“True.” He leaned forward and took a cookie from the plate. “Help yourself. So, family?”
He seemed to want her whole life story, but she thought it was all pretty boring. All she’d done all these years was work. “Family. Check. Sister is a nurse in the army, presently in Germany. Parents retired to Guadalajara and these days talk to me on the phone half in Spanish. It can get interesting.”
He laughed. “I bet. Any particular reason Guadalajara?”
“The place is full of retired Anglos, which makes it comfortable for them. Nice weather, nice lake and the Social Security checks are enough to live on and still have fun.”
He was still smiling. “But they’re happy.”
“Very. I think they’re living out a dream they never mentioned until they got their visas and moved. I’m thrilled for them.”
“What about your sister? Do you see her often?”
“Not really. A few days here and there. It’s not always easy because her husband is with a big construction company and he’s traveling the world, too. Right now I think he’s in India. With their kids.”
His jaw dropped a little. “They’re managing this with children?”
“I know. It’s amazing. But Danny, her husband, loves taking the kids with him. They’re nine and twelve now, and he always manages to find a good caretaker for them. For Judi it would be harder, especially since her hours are all over the place.” She shrugged, smiling. “It works for them, and Danny brings the kids to visit her a lot. His ability to get away for a few days is a lot better, I gather.”
“It must be. So you only get to see her when she can come Stateside?”
“Once in a while I get to Germany, and twice they have come to the States for a family reunion with our parents.” Suddenly she laughed, feeling better than she had all day. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But they all seem happy.”
“I think it’s incredible, actually. Wonderful but incredible. So do you feel like the odd man out?”
The question startled her. “Why would I? I’m doing what I want to do.”
With her career anyway, but she didn’t say that out loud. Did she sometimes feel that she was missing a lot? Of course. But she loved her job and didn’t want to give it up.
To her it seemed almost inconceivable that Alex could have given up the FBI to become a shop teacher... Until she remembered why. Fortunately she didn’t have those nightmares. N
ot yet anyway. By the time ATF arrived at the scene, bodies had usually been removed.
So here they sat, she found herself thinking. A man who’d lost everything he’d loved, she who had gathered little to love, both of them alone in some very important ways. Yet both of them claiming contentment with the status quo. Then something else slipped past her lips.
“I don’t want a relationship with a man because it might interfere with my work.”
He arched one brow. “How so?”
“I’m away a lot. I work long hours when we’re on a case. I don’t need someone complaining about it. I don’t need to be feeling guilty because I’m going to miss dinner or other plans.”
“That was the one problem I never had with my wife,” he said slowly. “Maybe she was a saint, but she never complained when I’d leave her in the middle of a dinner out or disappear in the middle of the night. It wasn’t as bad as being a field agent, probably, but when a case heated up, it could get that way. Never a complaining peep.”
“She must have been remarkable.”
He half smiled. “I thought so. I doubt it was as easy on Hally when she was little. But later I didn’t come home anymore except when I was allowed.”
She bit her lip, surprised by the deep ache she felt for this man. He’d paid a high price. “Is it better now?”
“Lots. My ex married an orthodontist who has regular hours, and Hally has some beautifully straight teeth.”
He said it humorously, so she laughed. “Very white smile, too, I bet.”
“Oh, yeah. Bev and Hally gleam like diamonds when they smile now. The important thing is that they’re smiling.”
A very generous soul, Darcy thought. Very generous. She wondered if she’d be able to manage that herself, even after what was apparently a significant time. “How long since all this happened?”
“Hally was ten by the time Bev had enough. So it’s been a few years. But as you might know, the case was solved a couple years before that. So I wasn’t adapting well even after the fact.”
“I hope you’re doing better now.”
“Obviously,” he answered. “It’s getting chilly in here. Are you okay, or do you want a hot drink?”
She ought to be heading to the motel and bed, but she also didn’t want to leave. As much as he sometimes challenged her, Alex was good company. Very good company. “A hot drink would be nice.”
“Hot chocolate? I don’t want to keep you up all night with caffeine.”
“I seriously doubt anything will keep me up all night.”
“Then after I start warming the milk, let me get some blankets and a pillow for that sofa. You don’t need to go anywhere unless you want to.”
In remarkably short order, he had a bed made up for her on the sofa, then went out to get her suitcase. Funny, she thought as he went to finish making the hot chocolate, how she’d put that suitcase in her truck this morning after going back to the motel to clean up. Almost as if she’d been hoping she’d spend the night here again.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She couldn’t afford to let her subconscious take over. She had a big job staring her in the face and almost no information at all.
And then there was Jack. After talking to Alex this evening, she was seriously worried about the boy. Would he really get himself into trouble somehow?
She didn’t want to think she might be responsible for that. Damn, she’d been a fool.
When Alex called her to the kitchen, she had grown tense again. “Things aren’t moving fast enough,” she said as she pulled out a chair and sat. Alex poured a mug full of cocoa right in front of her, then filled another mug.
“I hate to be difficult,” he said mildly, “but you’ve only been here a short time. What do you think should be happening faster? The cops are interviewing everyone associated with the school, and that takes time. You’re still trying to piece together the remains of something that practically turned itself into dust when it exploded. What do you think isn’t moving?”
“It’s not that it isn’t moving,” she answered, feeling the tension in her jaw. “It’s that we need it to move faster. The longer I look at all of this, the more convinced I become it was a trial run. Which means there’s going to be another bomb, Alex. What if this time it kills someone?”
He pulled his chair around and sat diagonally from her, surprising her by reaching out to cover her hand with his. “We’ve been jawing about that from the start,” he reminded her. “We’ve got next to nothing to work with. You’re hoping the device will provide a clue. The cops are hoping that someone they talk to will say something that’ll give them some direction. Even with my experience, I can’t build any sort of picture of who would do this. What more can anyone do?”
That was the problem. His touch felt good, but it also worried her, so she drew her hand away and wrapped it with her other around the hot mug. Things were getting complicated, she thought. Alex and Jack.
And the bomb. She’d been sent here to learn about the bomb, everything she could. No one expected her to solve the case. She had the aid of every bit of law enforcement in this county, and they’d probably do the solving, which was the way it often worked. They’d focus in on a group of people while ATF told them everything it could about the bomb and what was needed to build it. Sometimes agents would work on finding the perps, but, often enough, local law did the yeoman’s share of the work on that end. Why? Because ATF came in as outsiders, not knowing the people, the area. Unless ATF had been following the case for a long time, they were left providing the technical information that could lead to a bomber or uphold his arrest and conviction. Yes, their investigators looked for a perp, but without a link to another bombing... Well, it was as Alex said. Even he didn’t have enough yet to build a profile. And he lived here.
Hand in glove cooperation did the job. Not one agent alone.
So what had she gathered so far? A pretty good picture of where the bomb had been set. Some indications of a homemade detonator. Some twisted metal that might have been the container because it didn’t match anything around the school. The force of the explosion. The fuel oil that soaked the nearby ground.
Little pieces that needed to be put together somehow into a picture of the man who had built it.
“Give yourself a break,” Alex said. “Drink your cocoa, get some sleep. You’ll be fresher in the morning.”
She nodded and did as he suggested. He was right. Battering herself was only wearing her out. Maybe morning would bring her a fresher mind-set.
Chapter 8
Jack didn’t want to go home. He figured by now his parents had heard that he was a suspect as far as the rest of the town was concerned, and they were going to be very unhappy with him for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong.
On the other hand, Darcy Eccles had given him an assignment: to let people think what they chose in the hopes that the bomber might get annoyed enough to say something to someone. But how was he supposed to hear about that if he was buried at the ranch?
He was excited that she was allowing him to help. For once in his life, he was a party to something more important than the ranch or a school project. Maybe the only time in his life, but he refused to think about that right now.
No, he needed to find a way to be even more useful than simply letting people think he was the bomber.
Jack never lied to his parents, but that night he did for the first time. He called and told them he wouldn’t be home because he was staying with a friend. Before his dad could get really ramped up on the lecture, he disconnected. Sometimes unreliable cell signals were a good thing.
Then he turned off his phone and started driving slowly along back roads. He couldn’t stop at the places where he might hear the best gossip, like the roadhouses or Mahoney’s Bar, because he was too young. That frustrated him.
But he knew a
lot about the county where he’d grown up. Maybe driving around and thinking about the people who lived down those ranch roads would jog something for him.
Because, even though he didn’t know much at all about bombers and stuff like that, he’d formed some opinions from his readings. Bombers would work alone unless they were terrorists. The idea of a terrorist having any interest in this place made him want to laugh out loud. Sure, blow up an empty school in a town in the middle of nowhere. That definitely sounded like an ideal terror target.
So a loner. It’s not like they were rare around here. Some folks liked the wide-open spaces simply because the emptiness meant they didn’t have to deal much with other people. There were a number around. Jack didn’t know much about them because they kept to themselves, but he knew who most of them were.
Maybe he could find an excuse to talk to some of them. Yeah, he could say he was working on a school project. Most people fell for that one. All he had to do was come up with some useful questions, ones that would sound like they could be part of a term paper and ones that might give him some information.
Whistling, he bumped along back roads and made his plans.
* * *
The bomber’s disability check had been paid to his bank today so he’d made his monthly trip to town for groceries and odds and ends. His shelves were stocked with dried foods, canned foods, imperishable for the most part. He wasn’t prepping for a catastrophe because he wouldn’t live long enough to see one. It was just that he hated to go into town. Once a month was enough.
In his bedroom workshop, he worked on measuring chemicals that were going into his bomb. Making it with bagged fertilizer just made it a more challenging job. Like when he’d been in the field, in the mountains of Vietnam. He’d learned to make bombs with all kinds of things as part of his training.
But this time he wanted a big bomb. He needed to do more than collapse a man-size tunnel. Or blow the corner off a school building.
That bomb, he judged, had been a dud. Oh, it had worked, proof of concept, but it hadn’t done nearly enough damage. This one had to do better or he’d never accomplish his mission.