Doubleback

by Lissa Ford

  Rowan.

  Jude swallowed against a dry mouth. Did last night happen? He still couldn’t believe that Rowan Muir had driven out to Jude’s cabin, at night, to talk to him off the record about the case. The ensuing fight had been vicious. But Jude was forced to admit that they’d been more honest in that three-minute faceoff than they had been their entire relationship.

  Except for one thing.

  Now that he was fully sober, Jude reviewed his words from last night. Luckily, he’d kept a lid on the real reason he’d split with Rowan. It was just too shameful.

  Jude gripped sweaty sheets while unbidden memories of a hospital room invaded: stark walls, antiseptic aromas, shoes clattering on cold bare floors. Jude lying in the hospital bed, stuck through with IVs and a leg encased in a halo of steel.

  He’d been bedbound going on week two because the repair to his shattered femur involved steel rods and a tricky procedure on his fibula. The pain had been constant and debilitating. His doctor’s words about long recovery period and extensive physical therapy were subsumed under a numbing flow of pain medication. The helplessness had been demeaning. At one point, he was so weak and out of it he couldn’t find the straw in his cup to take a drink.

  Stilted bedside conversations with Rowan hadn’t made the convalescence any better. Though Rowan visited regularly at first, the time spent at Jude’s bedside was becoming shorter while the span between the actual visits grew longer. Work issues, Rowan told him, because Rowan had been fast-tracked for promotion. Ironically the Morelli shooting had accelerated the process, because it was clear that all the law enforcement agencies needed more bandwidth after years of budget cuts. It was the break in his career Rowan had been waiting for, and he embraced the long hours and increased workload.

  Intellectually, Jude understood. Emotionally, however, was a different story. Jude interpreted Rowan’s increasing absence that Rowan, still uncomfortable with publically disclosing their relationship, was using work as an excuse to pull away. And who wouldn’t? A hospitalized lover who might be crippled for life, along with the baggage of what was shaping up to be a nasty legal battle was a lot for anyone to handle. Even though they’d been intensely fucking each other whenever they could, it wasn’t like they were serious. They’d only been dating a handful of months. Jude didn’t even really know much about Rowan’s past beyond the basic knowledge that he’d grown up near Utica and that both his parents were dead. Rowan wasn’t one for long sessions of pillow talk, and in their hurry to get to the sex, Jude accepted that Rowan preferred not to talk about his past. It wasn’t like Jude particularly wanted to go all Oprah with his own story of coming to terms with his sexuality, either.

  One morning, Jude woke to Rowan’s voice speaking quietly just outside the door to Jude’s room while Jude was still trapped in a hospital bed, slowly losing his mind from inactivity. He’d been dozing, but Rowan’s murmuring cadence reached through the fog of Demerol.

  “Yeah,” Rowan was saying quietly into a phone. “Ten, fifteen minutes tops. I can’t hang for much more than that. It’s shitty of me but…”

  So Jude wasn’t surprised when ten minutes into his visit, Rowan’s leg began to bounce as he sat in the visitor’s chair, and his eyes began tracking to the door.

  “You need to leave, Ro?” Jude had said neutrally.

  “No. Actually, yeah. Yeah. I gotta head out soon. I’ve got a stack of paperwork to hit.”

  “You just got here.”

  Rowan refused to meet Jude’s gaze. “I would have been here earlier but I got hung up at work. You know how it is.”

  “Yeah. I do. I mean, I used to. Know, that is.”

  The silence dragged out until finally Rowan said defensively, “Hospitals—they aren’t my favorite place.”

  “Mine, either.”

  “They have that smell,” Rowan responded almost reluctantly. His expression grew distant as he focused on the IV bag dripping fluids and painkillers into Jude’s veins.

  “A smell? Smell of what?” Jude asked impatiently when Rowan didn’t seem in the mood to elaborate.

  “Antiseptic and puke. But no matter how much they clean, you can still smell the puke.” His shoulders vibrated, then stilled, like he was clamping down on a spasm of revulsion.

  Jude didn’t know how to take that. Was Rowan revolted by Jude? Or the situation?

  The pause between them grew uncomfortable. Rowan’s eyes flicked to his watch.

  “Well, don’t let me keep you,” Jude said dryly.

  Rowan rose and gave Jude an absent kiss. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll stay longer, promise.”

  But Rowan didn’t show up the next day. He’d texted with an excuse that he needed to cover for a sick co-worker. The next day, he only stayed for ten minutes because Jude, fresh from his first painful session with the physical therapist and so wrung out and weak afterward that he snarled, “like fucking shit!” at Rowan when he inquired how Jude was doing that day.

  The breaking point came to a head the day of the deposition. Morelli’s family wasted no time filing a wrongful death lawsuit, naming Jude as the negligent party in Logan Morelli’s slaying.

  The Morelli family attorney conducted the deposition proceedings with brisk efficiency. The diamond-studded ring on his finger and the expensive fountain pen he used to jot down notes suggested he was really good at his job.

  They were reviewing the moment Logan Morelli was shot because Morelli’s mother and sister wanted someone to pay for the death of a son and brother, and that person was going to be Jude. The deposition, characterized as ‘preliminary discovery,’ was to determine if the trial should move forward.

  Jude’s entire future would be decided by what he said in the next ten minutes. His heart started to double-time. His insomnia the night before hadn’t helped, nor the constant pain in his thigh. His brain felt jumbled, his words now coming out in an imprecise tangle. He needed to be so, so careful. He and his attorney had gone through the ins-and-outs of depositions the day before and he struggled to recall her instructions.

  “The suspect was running toward the trees,” the Morelli attorney prompted, when Jude fumbled for his words.

  “Deputy Morelli drew his sidearm and issued a directive to halt,” Jude began, then faltered to silence. The moment stretched.

  “Go on,” came the prompt.

  “I—then I—”

  His throat closed up. Morelli’s determined face filled his mind’s eye. The barrel of Jude’s firearm pointing at a pregnant girl’s belly. Morelli flying backward on a spray of blood.

  Jude’s chest hurt so fucking much. He could hear his own breathing now, and the more he tried to control the stenorous sound, the worse it got.

  “Take your time.” Jude’s own attorney nodded reassuringly.

  Tucked in the corner by the tray table bearing his bedpan, the court reporter’s fingers clacking on her machine stilled as Jude fought an overwhelming urge to flee. What the fuck was happening? Humiliation roiled through him as the three stared at him, their eyes questioning. Pitying. If Rowan ever saw him like this, he didn’t think he could handle the shame of it.

  He swallowed. Get your shit together. “The suspect drew a weapon.”

  The prosecuting attorney nodded. “Then what happened?”

  “I waited.”

  The opposing attorney showed his teeth’s expensive veneers. “You waited. While a lethally armed suspect pointed a gun at Deputy Morelli. Why?”

  Taking one life was going to be bad enough. Jude cleared his throat. “To give the suspect the opportunity to comply with Deputy Morelli’s directive.”

  “Are you certain there was no other reason for your hesitation?” the Morelli attorney prodded.

  “Mr. Anderson has given his answer,” his own attorney interjected curtly. She shot Jude a quelling look. They’d been over the strategy Jude needed to follow for giving depositions: don’t let the opposing attorney draw you out; say no more than necessary. Show as little emotion a
s possible.

  Jude wiped sweat off his brow with a shaking hand. He was failing spectacularly on rule number three.

  “I’m trying to gain as complete of an account of the incident as possible, Counsel,” the Morelli family attorney returned with a bland smile.

  “Or draw my client into making emotional statements that have no bearing on the facts.”

  A shrug indicated he conceded the point. “Read the last statement back, please.”

  “The suspect drew a weapon. I waited to give the suspect the opportunity to comply with Deputy Morelli’s directive.” The court reporter recited the transcript as if she were ordering a cheeseburger.

  Jude took another deep breath, searching for calm. “Then the suspect shot Morelli.”

  The blood. Morelli’s staring eyes. A sudden and overwhelming urge to break down and cry gripped Jude. He swallowed again, hoping he could keep it together, that his shamefully weak emotionalism could be controlled until he was alone and could calm down. “I can’t—I can’t—”

  “Jude? Are you okay?” his attorney asked gently.

  “I’m…n-n-not sure…”

  Holy shit, what was happening? He gasped for air but it was like breathing underwater. He thought he was going to drown in the air. His hands shook so hard they were making the IVs quake. Sweat beaded down the sides of his face and he was sure his eyes were bulging as he struggled for air.

  “Hit the call button,” his attorney said. “He’s having some sort of attack. Maybe his heart—”

  A heart attack? Fear rushed through him. His heart squeezed another painful thud against his chest in response.

  He jumped when a male figure appeared in the doorway. For a wild moment he thought that the person was Rowan. A strangled sound pushed past Jude’s lips. If Rowan ever saw him like this, unmanned, completely helpless and spectacularly losing his shit, he didn’t think he could handle it.

  But it was only the day shift nurse ordering everyone out of the room. Jude had a last glimpse of the Morelli family attorney assessing him with a cool glance that told Jude a new angle called “mental instability” would be added to the lawsuit, before an oxygen mask dropped over his face and cool pure air pumped into his constricted lungs.

  “Let’s get you changed,” the nurse said, and before Jude passed out he realized he’d pissed himself in front of all those people.

  He’d had a panic attack, they told him later. Stress related, and when the hospital’s psychiatrist started him on cognitive behavioral therapy sessions, he flashed on the image of Rowan’s face when he’d be informed that his lover was a crippled nutcase, along with all the other issues attaching themselves to Jude’s life like unwanted guests at a wedding.

  He broke up with Rowan three days later.

  You didn’t come to the trial, Ro.

  Why had Jude said that? Of course Rowan didn’t come to the trial. Why would he? Remembering the words, Jude cringed with how pathetic they sounded.

  “By then I wasn’t sure that you wanted me to.”

  To Jude’s utter horror, he was swamped by grief and longing for a man he thought he’d long gotten over, engulfed by the unbidden memory of Rowan’s pillowy lower lip jutting stubbornly while they faced off like angry wolverines. Rowan never backed down from a fight, that’s for sure. And that was…hot. So fucking hot. Their mouths had been a hairsbreadth apart, breath mingling as they panted in mutual rage. It would have been easy to lean into that inviting heat, taste Rowan once more, pin his muscled body against Jude’s…

  “Christ, stop!” Jude buried his head in his hands and willed the image away. He thought he was over this. Rowan Muir could turn Jude on just by being in the same room, and Jude had no idea how he was going to control his pavlovian I want to fuck you response to his ex-lover as the investigation into Travis Gruber’s death continued. He had to be very careful not to let Rowan see the effect he still had on him. Jude couldn’t—he wouldn’t—let himself be put through that emotional ringer again. He barely survived the last time.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was while Jude was throwing a couple of flakes of alfalfa into the hay feeder for the roans, Blue and Red, that his neighbor emerged from the trees and headed down the path connecting their properties toward him.

  Riley was a retired USMC gunnery sergeant. It explained somewhat the gruff, “What the shit have you done now, Anderson?” barked at him.

  “’Morning to you too, Riley.” Jude heaved the last flake of hay into the feeder, then turned to the sixty-something man with a body still toned as hell. He wore camo pants and a flannel shirt, and his gray hair was mown close to his skull. “Since Shiloh isn’t here, she can’t have gotten into your garbage. So I don’t know what I’ve done to piss you off today.”

  “You don’t see those trucks blocking the road?” Riley pointed through the trees.

  Jude tilted his head. A news truck was parked along the road, just far enough from his property to avoid trespassing laws. The station’s scarlet call letters were visible between the trees.

  That didn’t take long. Like rotting flesh drew vultures, murder’s siren song of death and headlines attracted press.

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.” Riley’s piercing eyes, blue lasers within a seamed face weathered by several tours in the desert, pinned Jude in an uncompromising stare. “They’ve blocked my driveway and when I went down to tell them to piss off, some woman reporter wanted to know if I knew anything about a murder that happened on your property.”

  “Oh,” Jude said again.

  “Since I did not know anything about a murder happening on your property”—Riley regarded the yellow caution tape wrapped around Jude’s porch with a disgusted glare— “I told her to fuck off. On camera.”

  “That probably isn’t going to make it on the five o’clock news hour.”

  “You think it’s funny, son?”

  “Do you see me yukking it up, Riley?

  “Son, you need to unfuck your shit.” Jude uneasily wondered how many recruits had washed out under Riley’s watch. “Now you know I’ve made peace with the fact that you’re one of the queers—”

  “Why, thank you,” Jude said sarcastically.

  “—but ever since you’ve moved in, you’ve been causing problems. Your dog runs loose in the neighborhood—”

  “Twice she wandered over to your property. Twice.”

  “—your horses’ shit is drawing vermin and now I’ve got raccoons nesting in my roof—”

  “We live out in the freaking woods. You’re really going to blame horse poop for your raccoon problem?”

  “—and now murder. Reporters tramping all over the place, our privacy invaded. I can’t even go to the grocery store without one of them tapping on the window of my truck, wanting opinions and shit.”

  “Well, I’m sorry as hell, Riley. Next time I’ll try to make sure any murders I’m involved in take place well away from you.”

  “Since this seems to be the second one you’ve been mixed up in, you do that.”

  Jude blanched at Riley’s cool words.

  “You’re a Jonah, Anderson.” Riley flung that over his shoulder as he stalked back to the path. “Trouble follows you like white on rice. If you were in my platoon, I would have weeded you out a long time ago. Since I’ve got no choice but to live next door to you, make sure you, your animals and your problems stay on your side of the property line. Got it?”

  Jude stared after the receding line of Riley’s back. “Got it,” he muttered.

  He finished feeding and watering the horses, then went inside to check his email and wait for the NYS forensics investigative team to arrive. He missed Shiloh on his six the whole time. He made a mental note to call the vet today.

  Jude had launched his tablet and was scrolling through his messages when his cell phone buzzed. He smiled when he saw who the call was from. “Hey, Kristy. How’s the jungle treating you?”

  “What the hell is going on?” his sister deman
ded through the fluttering cell connection. “I get an email from my department chair asking if everything is okay and if I need to take a leave of absence because, and I quote, ‘another family emergency’ and I find out that you’re under investigation for murder?” Her voice rose to a squeak on the last word.

  “Oh, that,” he answered.

  His sister Kristy, an environmental scientist from Syracuse University, was currently on sabbatical researching tree frogs or parrots or whatever in the Costa Rican rainforest. Jude fondly called her a granola-eating treehugger while Kristy retaliated by calling him a “shill for the NRA” because Jude owned guns. He loved her lots.

  “Yeah. That.” Kristy didn’t bother to hide her agitation. “It’s on the front page of the Post-Standard. They sent the link because I didn’t believe it.”

  “You know how half-assed the press can be.”

  “Jude!” she wailed. “The news report said a body had been found on your property!”

  “Calm down. That part is true. But I’m not a suspect.” Yet, he added silently.

  “So you really are involved in a murder investigation?”

  Through the thousands of miles connection, his sister’s worry was a tangible thing. “It’s going to be okay,” he quickly assured her. “This time, I’m not directly involved.”

  Briefly, he outlined the scenario of finding Travis Gruber on his porch, keeping it to the bare minimum of detail, including Jude’s connection to the victim. There was no need to contribute to his sister’s anxiety, especially since Jude had confidence the crime would be solved within the next few days.

  “New York State BCI detectives are investigating,” he told her. “Most murders are solved in around 48 hours, and there’s no reason to believe that won’t be the case again.”