Walk a Mile

by Sarah Madison

  “Well, let me know if you want some help.”

  “I haven’t said I would do it yet.” This time, there was a slight edge to Flynn’s voice, and Jerry wondered what he was leaving out.

  “I’m sure Harding will agree to it. Our combined case clearance is pretty impressive. They can spare us for a few weeks.” Jerry let the smugness ooze into his voice for Noffsinger’s benefit.

  Noffsinger narrowed his eyes speculatively. “So you and Flynn are working together, eh? Huh. I’ve never known Flynn to keep a partner very long.”

  Jerry dropped his arms. Fuck this shit. He was going to give this bastard a piece of his mind. He opened his mouth to eviscerate Noffsinger with words, but to his surprise, Flynn intervened smoothly.

  “I won’t keep Parker long if he pulls the Hero Act like he did last night on the flight in. You heard about that, right? The terrorist who thought he had sarin?” Flynn laughed, leaning casually against the wall in his usual boneless fashion. “You should have seen him yelling at the creep. ‘Sarin? Sarin? This isn’t sarin, you moron.’ He just walked up and took it right out of the guy’s hand, and then waved it in his face. I almost burst a gut trying not to laugh.”

  Jerry refrained from correcting Flynn as to what he’d actually said. It was one of the bad habits he was trying to break.

  Andy’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open unattractively. “That was you two?”

  “Mostly Parker.” Flynn flicked his fingers negligently in Jerry’s direction. “He took one look at the bottle, analyzed the chemical contents on the fly, and pronounced the would-be terrorist a delusional wing nut with a container of flea powder.”

  “I did not.” Jerry tucked his head back like a turtle into its shell and made a face of disbelief. “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  Flynn took out his wallet and extracted a bill, holding it out between two fingers. “Five bucks says it’s flea powder, just as you said.”

  “Five?” Jerry steepled his fingers, tapping his index fingers together lightly. “Why not fifty?”

  Flynn grinned at him before turning the full Flynn charm on Noffsinger again. “See what I have to put up with?”

  The color that infused Noffsinger’s face was positively puce. He made a show of consulting his watch. “Ah, that must be very trying for you. Well, I have a meeting with the director, myself. Nice seeing you again, Flynn. Parker.” Noffsinger’s nod was curt. He obviously couldn’t wait to get away.

  “Not the approach I would have taken with him.” Jerry watched Noffsinger stalk toward the director’s door and knock on it.

  Flynn straightened out of his lean. “You’re a good partner. You undersell yourself too much. It doesn’t hurt to let people know you’re more than a walking computer.” The look he flashed Jerry was warm and wicked at the same time, and Jerry found himself unaccountably flattered by it. It should have made him as content as one of the cats basking in the square of sunlight on the carpet, but thoughts of what else Zimmerman might want from Flynn threatened to batter their way out of the soundproof booth.

  “Are we done here?”

  “For now,” Flynn conceded. They made their way toward the main entrance.

  Jerry was tired and hungry. And he was reasonably certain Zimmerman had tried to persuade Flynn to come back to the DC area. All of which conspired to make him irritable.

  The faint sound of Flynn humming California Dreaming under his breath reached Jerry’s ears. They stepped outside into a clear spring day, with the kind of golden sunlight that promised to be hot later on. Okay, so maybe things weren’t that bad after all.

  Jerry pulled out his cell phone as soon as they got into the car.

  “Checking your messages?” The teasing note in Flynn’s voice was an old friend, as comfortable as slipping into a pair of slippers after wearing dress shoes all day.

  “Huh. Maybe you should be glad I’m so obsessed with doing that. I just got an e-mail regarding the query we put in about the artifact before we left San Francisco.” He frowned as he read the e-mail. Crap. The artifact was no longer in DC.

  Flynn was already turning the car around before Jerry finished reading the message.

  “Richmond.” Flynn was obviously not pleased.

  “It could be worse. At least it’s still in the region. Besides, Richmond is an easier drive than into DC from here. We can probably get there before the museum closes today.”

  It was a good thing they’d checked out of the hotel. Now, at least, they weren’t committed to driving back to Vienna for the night. They could stay the night outside of Richmond before returning to Quantico in the morning. If indeed, they still needed to go back there. “In some ways this could be better. A small natural history museum in Richmond is more likely to let us get closer to the artifact than if it were in the Smithsonian. You know how much trouble we had getting through to someone who could tell us about the artifact in the first place. And if we’re going to be in Richmond this weekend anyway—”

  “I’m not going to my high school reunion.”

  You could’ve tried reading the letter and seeing why they are holding the reunion in an off year. Another thought occurred to Jerry, and he opened his mouth to speak.

  Flynn cut him off again. “And I sure as hell am not going to see my mother. Why would you even suggest that?”

  Jerry sighed. “Because she’s been calling you. Because you’ve been avoiding her. You only call her when you know she’s not home so you can get away with leaving voice mail. Think of how she’d feel if she knew you’d come east and hadn’t made the effort to see her, especially when you’re going to be in the area?”

  “She doesn’t need to know I was ever here.”

  Jerry started to speak, thought better of it, and was automatically suppressing his thoughts when it suddenly occurred to him he was in a no-win situation. Flynn got pissed when Jerry used the soundproof booth, and he got pissed when Jerry communicated with him mentally. There was really no way around it: he was screwed. This relationship was screwed. This might not be a workable situation. You can’t think your way out of this one.

  “Think your way out of what one?”

  “Nothing. Forget it. It doesn’t matter.” Jerry clamped his mouth shut and walked inside the soundproof booth. It might be best if he stayed there until they reached Richmond.

  Chapter 5

  JERRY GOT out of the car slowly, stretching his arms back at shoulder height as he yawned. They’d spent far too much time in airplanes and automobiles these last few days and the effort of continually keeping his thoughts soundproofed was giving him a headache. Hopefully, they’d be able to get to bed at a decent time tonight, especially if they were driving back up to the DC area in the morning.

  The Carter-O’Neill Museum of Natural History. Another obscure, no-name institution, similar to the Weir. Made possible by some endowment, no doubt, from a wealthy family setting up a small place to showcase their own geegaws. Funny how these odd artifacts they were pursuing kept getting pawned off to places like this. Obviously no one realized what they were capable of doing.

  Or maybe someone did. That was one aspect of the theft that hadn’t occurred to him before. What if someone else out there was telepathic as well? What if the original artifact had been stolen because someone knew what it could do?

  Flynn paused in the process of shutting the driver’s side door and pulled his sunglasses down to peer over the top of them at Jerry. “Well, that’s a scary thought.”

  Yeah.

  A rumbling noise from Jerry’s stomach turned his thoughts to less terrifying matters. If they were lucky, this wouldn’t take long. God, what he’d give for dinner at a decent restaurant for a change. What a selfish bastard, thinking about your stomach at a time like this. It dawned on him he hadn’t really thought about what this might mean if touching this new artifact did what Flynn hoped it would do—reverse the gift of telepathy. You’d think he’d have been stewing about the possibilities, but he realized
two things almost simultaneously. One was that on some level, Jerry expected to get left again. After all, that was the pattern. Rejection by the people he cared about the most. First by his family, then by his colleagues, and again by Derek.

  The other was worse. He didn’t expect this to work.

  Well, crap.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Flynn said, holding open the door to the museum as they entered.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen, the museum is closing soon.” The woman behind the desk looked up with an appreciative smile.

  Flynn took off his sunglasses and rested his palms on the counter. He gave the woman at the desk his patented thousand-megawatt smile. “We won’t be here long. I was wondering if we might look at a particular artifact.”

  Jerry had taken off his sunglasses while Flynn was speaking. He now handed her the photograph they’d printed from the Smithsonian website. She frowned as she looked it over and handed it back.

  “Yes, it’s here, though I don’t see how you could have possibly known that. It only arrived late yesterday.”

  Jerry didn’t have to be telepathic to feel the relief roll off Flynn. The look Flynn flashed him was one of sardonic self-recognition. The urge to grin and shoulder-bump Flynn in return was strong, but he resisted it. “We’ve been in touch with the Smithsonian. They notified us it had been transferred here.”

  She looked faintly alarmed, and glanced quickly from Jerry to Flynn and back again. “You’re not here on some sort of official business, are you?”

  Sorry. Force of habit. FBI-speak and all that. Jerry shot his apology over to Flynn. He had no idea what he’d done to alarm her. Maybe it was just the general “FBI” air.

  “No, nothing like that.” Flynn leaned forward on his elbows, his smile intimate and engaging. “We were just in the area on business and were curious to see it. I saw another thingy just like it in California and was wondering if they were the same.”

  “Another thingy?” The woman’s smile was indulgent now.

  “Well, the museum in California didn’t really know how to classify it. They called it a whatchamacallit, a trinket box? From Egypt.”

  You’re pushing it with the golly shucks routine.

  Flynn ignored him. The woman didn’t seem to mind the dumb act. In fact, she preened a little.

  “You’ve seen another one like it? How interesting. Nancy would very much like to hear about that. She’s the one working on its provenance now.” Without waiting to see Flynn’s reaction, she picked up the desk phone and punched in an in-house extension.

  “Nancy?” Flynn stood up straight, his face curiously pale. His skin, lightly tanned by years of mountain climbing, skiing, and any other life-threatening sport Flynn could think of, had actually blanched. Which was weird because Flynn almost never lost color like that.

  The woman continued speaking while she waited for her connection. “Yes. Nancy Glover. She’s one of the curators here. Her specialty is authentications.” She held up a finger to pause the conversation. “Nancy? There are two gentlemen down here who are interested in seeing the artifact that came in from the Smithsonian yesterday. One of them has seen a similar piece out West.” She nodded as she listened. “Right. Okay, shall I send them up?” She placed her hand over the end of the receiver. “Who should I tell her to expect?”

  “Tell her John Flynn would like to see her.” Flynn looked as though he’d have been happier facing Madame Guillotine. He caught Jerry’s gaze upon him. “Ringtone,” he said quietly, by way of explanation while the woman relayed the message. “You know. ‘I’ve Got a Feeling.’”

  Jerry blinked. The Black-Eyed Peas song used to be Flynn’s ringtone until he changed it to the theme from Knight Rider. But the person who’d made the pop hit Flynn’s ringtone in the first place was his ex.

  The curator is your former girlfriend?

  Flynn winced as though Jerry had yelled in his ear.

  “She’ll be right down.” The woman behind the desk looked at Flynn with speculative, wary assessment now. She looked as though she’d discovered the dog she’d been petting had turned out to be a wolf instead.

  Jerry could sympathize. His palms dampened at the idea of meeting Flynn’s former lover. His former female lover. He wiped his hands surreptitiously at his sides and wished there was time for him to dash into the men’s room and straighten his tie or something. If he put his sunglasses back on now, would he look cool or pretentious? Crap. Would anyone notice if he stood with his gut sucked in for the rest of this visit? Maybe she’d be a frumpy librarian type. Oh, who was he kidding? This was Flynn’s ex-girlfriend. She’d be the sexy librarian that would knock your socks off just by saying hello. The echo of a woman’s shoes on the tiled floor made him realize she was here and he’d run out of time to make a better impression. Slowly, he turned to face the woman approaching them. Oddly, when he briefly caught Flynn’s eye, he looked as reluctant as Jerry felt.

  Nancy Glover was absolutely stunning. She couldn’t have looked better for the “run into the old boyfriend” moment than if she’d planned for it. Her hair was that vibrant Dana Scully red that could only come from a professional colorist, and suddenly Flynn’s remarks about him not dying his hair that color had a lot more meaning. The intense shade complimented her pale skin and illuminated her green eyes. Of course she would have green eyes. Dressed in a black pencil skirt and white blouse, she had the cool demeanor of Agent Scully, as well.

  “John,” she said, walking up to the counter where Flynn and Jerry were waiting. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. In fact, I’m surprised you’re in town at all. I would have bet good money you weren’t coming in for the reunion.” Her smile was pleasant but cautious, like a stray cat that wanted to be friendly but wasn’t sure she wasn’t about to get shoved in a carrier and taken off to the shelter.

  The woman behind the desk watched their interaction avidly. Jerry thought about offering her some popcorn. Flynn glanced at him sharply.

  “I’m not here for the reunion.” Had it been anyone else, he would have sounded curt, but Flynn’s charm didn’t fail him. “I didn’t know you were working here. Last I heard you were at the Smithsonian.”

  She shrugged. “There were cutbacks. You know how it is in a down economy. To be honest, I prefer working at a smaller museum. Less bureaucracy.” A real smile cracked her cool exterior. Damn. Under other circumstances, Jerry suspected he’d like her. She raised a questioning eyebrow at the two of them. “So what are you doing here? And who’s your friend?”

  “My partner, Special Agent Jerry Parker. We had to come to DC on business, and I was curious about this trinket box that was listed as part of the Smithsonian’s collection. How’d it end up here?”

  “Come with me. I’ll show it to you. You can go ahead and close up, Betty. I’ll see them out.” Nancy turned on a glistening black heel and walked back down the hallway from which she’d come, her shoes clicking authoritatively as she moved. “If we don’t lock the doors right at closing, people will try to sneak in at the last minute for a quick look around. The staff have their own keys, of course. As to how the artifact ended up here, the Smithsonian had no idea what to do with it. It didn’t seem to be particularly valuable and no one could tell precisely what its origins are. You’re telling me you saw one of these in California?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said, entering the conversation for the first time. “Though this one appears to be a bit smaller. The designs on the casing are similar, but not identical.”

  She shot him a look of keen assessment. “You’ve made a study of these artifacts, then?”

  “Not really.” Flynn made it sound like it was no big deal. “We ran across the first one during a case we were investigating. It didn’t seem to have any bearing on the case itself—that turned out to be a murder to cover up a forgery ring. But the odd thing is, the item went missing after the investigation was finished. That kind of stuck with me, you know? So when I saw there was another box just like it, I thought I�
�d look it up.”

  “Went missing?” Nancy’s voice was sharp.

  “Yep.” Flynn’s drawl was casual, the tone of a man mildly curious, not someone who desperately wanted to find the artifact at all cost. “Paperwork and photographs of it too. Which makes you start to wonder what’s so important about it in the first place.”

  “Huh.” Nancy sounded as though she was thinking. They had followed her out of the lobby and down a long corridor, which ended in a staircase. It went up to a small landing and turned one hundred and eighty degrees to take them to the next floor. The golden October sunlight streamed in through the window at the turn, making Nancy’s hair glow as she passed through it. Jerry couldn’t help but wonder what had gone wrong between her and Flynn—and if there was any way he could possibly avoid making the same mistakes.

  He heard the faint hum of California Dreaming again as he followed Flynn and Nancy up the staircase.

  “My office is there.” Nancy indicated the corridor at the top of the stairs. “Where did you see this other artifact?”

  “It was at the Weir Museum in San Francisco.” Jerry supplied the details, as usual. “It was donated as part of a private collection from the DeVille estate. She was an amateur collector who picked up items from all over the world in a lifetime of travels, seldom accurately documenting them. No way to know the real origins.”

  Nancy chewed thoughtfully at her lower lip, outlined in an attractive shade of carmine. “The Weir. I’ve heard of it. Good reputation. Kind of small, mostly private donations. A lot like us, as a matter of fact.”

  They reached the top of the stairs. Nancy led the way down a corridor of open doors. As they passed each room, Jerry glanced inside. Most of the staff had already gone for the day, though one or two people still at their desks looked up at the visitors passing by. Something about the rooms spoke of academia, of hours spent in studying the past. Maybe it was the dust motes spinning lazily in tranquil squares of sunlight on the empty chairs and tables. Maybe it was the intangible scent of age associated with old books and museums in general. He remembered it well from the summer he’d spent cataloging at the local museum in his hometown. Jerry found himself wishing for a life more like this and less like the one he had, and it startled him. The road not taken.