Bad to the Bone

by Debra Dixon

  “Sight-seeing?” Sully casually shifted a little more to the right and laced his fingers across his abdomen. When Harlan didn’t smile, Sully said, “Someone’s got to catch the bad guys.”

  “It doesn’t always have to be you.”

  “Why don’t you tell that to the bad guys? I didn’t pick this case. It picked me. I gotta tell you, Harlan, this one makes me nervous. The truth is, it makes me more than a little nervous. I’ve got one of those feelings.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Harlan whispered and reached for the aspirin bottle on the credenza behind him. Unfortunately, Sully’s intuition was legendary. So Harlan slugged three of them down and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes as if he could picture a hundred horrible scenarios and a million complications. Then he opened his eyes and swore several times. “I don’t need this. Not now.”

  “I didn’t exactly ask for it myself.”

  His friend gave him a long-suffering look that implied otherwise. “Like hell. What do we have?”

  “We got a stripped car belonging to millionaire Phil Munro, who missed a scheduled call to his kid on Sunday, and a female bodyguard type who I think is lying to me every time she opens her mouth.”

  “Why should you be surprised that women lie to you? If there’s an amoral woman within earshot, she makes a beeline for you. Explain that to me. Why is that?”

  “Safety in numbers?” Sully deadpanned.

  The captain in Harlan did not appreciate the humor. He never did. Rubbing his eyes, he sighed long and hard. “Best guess on Munro.”

  “Drove there for a meeting. Confirmed by calendar notes. Either went willingly with someone else to another location or they waited until he was out of the Mercedes to pop him. There’s no sign of struggle in the car. No blood. Nothing outside the car either. Given Munro’s background, we have to figure he was more than capable of defending himself. I can’t imagine him going down easy. So whatever happened, I don’t think it happened on Petrie.”

  “Ransom demands?”

  “None yet. But I told you. I don’t trust the woman. We don’t communicate real well.”

  “You never do.”

  “Yeah, well, I usually don’t have to disarm ’em. This one carries a derringer in her bra.”

  “In her bra? How would you know that?” For a moment, Harlan froze, staring at Sully as if contemplating murder. “Tell me you aren’t intimate with her. You better damn well tell me you aren’t.”

  Shrugging, Sully told him, “Okay. Have it your way. I’m not. Well, technically not.”

  “Give me a reason.”

  “For disarming her?” Sully purposely misunderstood the question. “I have this little rule about being the only one in the room with a gun.”

  “No! You tell me why you had to be the one involved in this. You couldn’t have made a simple phone call to us? A little ‘heads up’ on the playground?”

  “I’m funny that way.” Sully leaned forward, finally angry himself. “When smoke alarms go off, I don’t take the batteries out, call the fire department, and forget it. I keep looking for smoke. And lookee here … I found a fire.”

  “You always do. Looking for fires is a problem with you, isn’t it, Sully? You’re always looking for someone to hate more than yourself, and we both know it.”

  Sully stood up and flattened his palms on Harlan’s desk. All the trappings of professional courtesy were gone. All formality stripped away as two old friends covered familiar ground. “We don’t want to do this again.”

  “No, you don’t want to do this again.” Harlan stood up for the first time. Even so, he was still inches short of looking Sully in the eye. But that didn’t seem to faze him. Harlan was one of only two people Sully had never been able to subdue with a stare. Jessie was the other.

  The older man continued without missing a beat. “You wanted out of Houston, out of the badlands? You wanted to back away from the edge before you lost your ability to feel anything but hate? To tell the good guys from the bad guys? I’m going to give you some advice. Hell, no. I’m going to give you an order. You live with that decision, Sully! It was a by God good one. Exorcise your own demons and leave the bad guys to us. This isn’t your case.”

  “These bad guys are messin’ in my backyard,” Sully pointed out, his voice soft with suppressed anger. “Munro has a summer house on Jericho. His little girl lives there. I found the car.” Sully pulled back from the desk. “I’m on it.”

  “Give me three minutes to call your chief, and you won’t be. Munro’s primary residence is here. Munro Security is here. The car—the evidence of foul play—is here. This one’s ours. Peter’s on it.”

  For a long moment they stared at each other, silence reigning. Sully reached for the doorknob, uncertain whether his anger was territorial or whether it came from the realization that everything Harlan said was true. Finally he jerked open the door. “Peter better be on top of it. You tell him.”

  “You tell him,” Harlan fired back. “And then you take that little girl home, make sure she’s safe, give ’em the standard speech, and you let us do our job. We’ll let you know when and if you can assist.”

  “Would that be when hell freezes over?”

  “That’d be a precise estimate.” Harlan sat back down. “We got your statements. Now get out of here. I’ll be in touch with your chief.”

  Jessica pulled Iris to her feet the moment Sully blew back into the squad room. There was really no other way to describe it. Whatever happened in the captain’s office had changed him. Sully was always dangerous, even when he smiled. But this was different.

  It was as if something had stripped him down to his essence. There was no light to balance the dark. There was no cocky smile, no silken threat. Instead, the threat was raw and real, barely contained.

  When he looked at her, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. God help anyone who crossed Sullivan Kincaid. Unbidden, another thought came to her. God help any woman who loved the man. Loving him would be like holding a lightning rod in a thunderstorm and hoping it wouldn’t hurt.

  “Are we done?” she asked quietly.

  “Almost.” He turned away to catch the attention of the detective who’d taken their statements. “Peter, Harlan says you’re the lead on this one. Do me a favor. You turn over every rock. Ask every question twice, and you do it fast. You understand?”

  Instead of taking offense at Sully’s high-handed tone, Peter visibly paled. “A feeling?”

  Sully didn’t answer. He took Jessica’s arm and walked away.

  Halfway down the corridor, Iris said, “I thought you didn’t have feelings.”

  Sully never broke stride. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

  “Me too,” Iris agreed.

  Looking first at Iris and then at the man who dragged her inexorably through the station, Jessica realized that they were talking about two different things. And she agreed with them both.

  Feelings exacted too high a price on the soul. That’s why she’d closed herself off after Jenny was killed. It was the only way she could make it. Pain she could control, even the loneliness, but the guilt for surviving built up inside her no matter what she did. When Phil Munro found her and offered her a way to channel that guilt, she grabbed the chance.

  An eye for an eye. A life for a life.

  But all she’d done was trade one hell for another. No matter that her sanctioned targets hurt people … hurt children. No matter that they tortured people, and had to be stopped. She was still in hell.

  When she realized she was becoming—had already become—what she hated, she walked away. No, not walked. Ran. She ran as hard as she could from reality and the sanctimonious justifications, hiding herself away like some hermit. For a year she’d managed to shut down and keep the feelings at bay. The second year of her retirement, the nightmares had returned.

  Nothing she could do seemed to stop them. Sully and Iris were only going to make it worse. Nerves that had been deadened from neglect were beginni
ng to tingle.

  Right now, she wanted to stop the process before it was too late. She didn’t want to worry about Phil. She didn’t want to be responsible for Iris. She didn’t want to need the strength she found in Sully’s strong hand wrapped around her arm, supporting her. Most of all she didn’t want to remember how it felt to be kissed by the man.

  All she wanted was to be left alone on her little piece of land in the middle of the Texas hill country. That was God’s country and the closest to grace she’d been in a long time. The closest she would probably ever be.

  As Sully dragged her into the late-afternoon sunlight, the concrete and granite pulsed heat. But none of it held a candle to the heat Sully generated with that one touch on her arm. Fighting the heat was the only way to keep her emotions cold.

  The drive back to the Munro complex was too short and too long. Iris slumped against her, another spot of warmth. A spot that Jessica couldn’t find it within herself to fight against.

  Iris had said almost nothing since they’d left the station, but she’d asked a hundred questions earlier. Some of them over and over until she finally accepted that no one knew the answers. Her eyes were completely dry. Jessica didn’t know if that was bad or good. Bad more than likely.

  “When we get your car,” Sully said, his words landing powerfully in the silence, “I need to run inside the offices long enough to use the phone. I’ll need to call Jericho and check in.”

  Iris stiffened at his words. “We have to go up to Daddy’s office.”

  Sully glanced sideways. “Why?”

  “I want our picture. It’s the one from Easter. It’s on his desk. I want it.” Her chin was set, and those unshed tears which had worried Jessica bubbled to the surface, but not yet spilling.

  “Okay.” Jessica didn’t hesitate. Not because she wanted another chance to rummage through Phil’s desk for the file and book, but because erasing the despair in Iris’s expression was suddenly important. “We’ll get it while Sully makes his call.”

  “I’ll go up with you,” Sully said, “and make the call from Phil’s office.” His tone was casual, but his expression wasn’t.

  Jessica pressed her lips together. The whole damn world knew about Phil’s disappearance now. The “secret” was out, and yet he still didn’t trust her. Do you really expect him to? He found a gun in your bra.

  The memory brought a rush of heat to her face. Quickly followed by a rush of apprehension in her stomach. Sully hadn’t given the derringer to the other detective or, to her knowledge, asked anyone to run the serial number or check for a permit. The officer who took her statement seemed willing to accept her story of Iris’s phone call, seemed to believe that Jessica Daniels was no more than a dear family friend, coming to soothe a worried child.

  Sully didn’t seem nearly so willing to believe her role was innocent. Yet he kept silent about the gun, didn’t voice his suspicions in the squad room. He had his own agenda, just as she had hers. Both of them scrambling in the dark for the advantage.

  “No problem,” she agreed. “We’ll all go together.”

  And they did, almost in lockstep. By the time they reached the tenth floor, Jessica wanted to scream. Sully’s presence smothered her—fingertips at the small of her back to urge her through doorways, into the elevator, out of the elevator. It was her preoccupation with him that caused her carelessness.

  She was in such a hurry to get away from him, she plowed right into two gentlemen carrying overloaded cardboard file boxes. Catching one of the lids before it slid off, Jessica opened her mouth to spit out the reflex apology, but it died on her lips as she got an eyeful. Nondescript dark suits, generic ties, average height, average build. Everything about them was one hundred percent government issue. These were company men; she’d stake her life on it.

  Looking at the bulging boxes and knowing they might have the names, all she could think of was that they’d make her kill again. They wouldn’t let her go. And she couldn’t be a part of that. Not again. She’d made a deal with Phil, but these men wouldn’t honor it.

  With a smile that she knew was off center and as fake as they come, she backed up into Sully, hard enough that he had to circle her waist and steady her. “Oh, my,” she said, recovering her voice. “I’ve almost knocked everyone down. I’m so sorry.”

  The two men stared wordlessly at them, obviously waiting for the trio to move away from the front of the elevator. Sully obliged by steering Iris behind him and drawing Jessica to one side, his arm still around her waist. He was also careful to keep his front toward the men so that the gun holstered at the small of his back was hidden. Instinct told Sully that broadcasting his status as a cop to these two would be a mistake.

  The elevator whooshed open as soon as they pushed the button with the corner of one of the boxes. Sully nodded his head as they got in and gave them a big ol’ Texas good-neighbor smile. The men stood motionless, creating a tableau as the elevator doors closed. Everyone seemed frozen in place, even Iris.

  “Who were they?” she finally whispered when the soft ding of the elevator shook them out of their trance.

  An angry and unfamiliar female voice answered them. “The government. They came swooping in here right after lunch and ransacked Mr. Munro’s office. Taking whatever they wanted.” She huffed unhappily. “Something about a national security matter. They said they’d bring it all back, but Mr. Munro’s not going to like this. Iris, honey, I’m glad you’re here. Do you know where your daddy is? I’ve got to talk to him. And fast.”

  All three heads had swiveled toward her the moment the woman spoke. She was fortyish and ready for battle, hands on her size twelve hips and her size five fuchsia pumps planted squarely in the beige carpet. Jessica recognized her immediately, but the woman’s gaze seemed to brush past her to rivet on Sully as if he was the real threat.

  “I’m Carol McMillian. Phil Munro’s secretary.”

  “Sullivan Kincaid.”

  That jolted her. “The detective who called yesterday?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Something happened.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Carol was silent for a moment as she absorbed the news, almost like a widow whose brain refused to process information. Then her eyes flicked over the woman backed up against him, over his hand which was still flattened protectively on her midriff. Very slowly, he moved his hand and stepped away from her. The fact that Jessica hadn’t already withdrawn from his touch was filed in his brain for examination another time. And so was the feel of soft skin beneath his palm and fingers.

  “Mr. Munro’s car was found abandoned,” he announced, dropping the news on the woman like a house from Kansas. “Stripped for parts.”

  She blanched. “Was he—?”

  “No.” Sully cut her off. “There’s no evidence of foul play beyond the fact that his car was vandalized. The Houston police have taken over the case.”

  “Completely?” The surprised question was from Jessica.

  Sully ignored her. “Until the officers come by to interview you, Ms. McMillian, I’d appreciate it if you said nothing to the other employees. Not about the men who were just here or about the car being found.”

  She nodded, still slightly dazed, uncertain what to do next.

  “Iris wants a picture from her dad’s office,” Jessica murmured into the silence, and the woman nodded again. Sully mentioned the phone call and excused himself too.

  The entire length of the corridor, Jessica felt Sully’s eyes boring into her back. She knew he followed only a few steps behind, waiting for her to make a mistake. She could sense the patience in him, the watchfulness.

  Regardless of his statement that Houston had taken over the investigation, he’d be asking questions soon. He might have been replaced in an official capacity, but Sully wasn’t the kind of man to let someone else clean up his mess. His first questions would no doubt be about the CIA guys and her reaction to them.

  Jessica cri
nged mentally at her lapse of control. She hadn’t expected them to be so bold as to march into Phil’s company office and haul off files in broad daylight. There’d been no way to disguise the sick tension that had tightened her stomach muscles. Every bit of the fear had been transmitted right to Sully through the contact of his hand, of his chest against her back. Sully had known immediately that something was wrong. He’d followed her lead and played the innocent bystander, but now he’d want explanations.

  Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Explanations were the most dangerous of all.

  Reaching Phil’s office seemed like a milestone, a chance to escape Sully’s intense scrutiny, but it wasn’t. He caught her just beyond the door and held her back with the softest of touches on her shoulder as Iris went to the desk. Together they stood slightly to the right of the doorway, surveying the room around them. All of the pictures were off the walls. Several drawers of the cherry credenza-style file cabinets lining one side were open and obviously gutted of important files. She imagined the drawers of Phil’s desk had fared no better.

  Silently she cursed Sully for interrupting her first search of the office. Now it was too late. If the file or the book had been here …

  Sully leaned closer, eerily finishing her thoughts. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

  In spite of herself, Jessica rubbed the side of her neck against her shoulder, trying to erase the sensation that his breath created as it whispered across her skin. Her reaction weakened her disclaimer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Darlin’, whatever it was you were looking for this morning is most likely in those boxes we just passed. Isn’t it?” His voice was low, meant only for her. “The real question is, ‘Do you think they know what they’re looking for?’ ”

  She didn’t respond, but that was answer enough for a man like Sully. He took bits and pieces that most people would ignore and wove them into theories that were impossibly viable.

  Iris got the photograph and turned toward them. “Can we go now? I don’t want to stay here anymore.”