Dark Sky

by Carla Neggers

  She nodded, pushing out into the hall. “Would have, could have, should have. Yes. I do know.” She banged the down button for the elevator, keeping her eyes on it as Ethan came up next to her. “We can’t go back and undo what’s done. None of us.”

  He leaned against the wall. “Knowing I can’t do a thing to change something that’s happened doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “It’s not about feeling better. It’s about acceptance—” She broke off, wishing she hadn’t gotten herself started. The man had lost his wife. Who was she to tell him how he should feel? All she needed to do was picture Wendy coming out of the bedroom with Bobby Tatro cuffed and muttering things into the floor. “Forget it. I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  She stayed a step ahead of him. The night air was cool and clear, with just a hint of autumn, a breath of nostalgia, although for what, Juliet couldn’t pinpoint. The life she hadn’t led, she supposed. The paths not taken.

  At the restaurant, she asked for a table by the window and looked out at the pedestrians walking slowly on the street outside, enjoying the beautiful fall evening.

  “Joe Collins and Mike Rivera both want to talk to you,” she said without looking at Ethan.

  He ordered Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. “I figured as much.”

  She almost seconded his order, then opted for sparkling water. “How was Washington?”

  “I slept for twelve hours in a comfortable bed.”

  “You weren’t there to catch up on your sleep.”

  He pointed to the menu. “I think you should order the mac and cheese. Comfort food. It’ll be easy on your stomach.”

  “I’m not sure it goes with chardonnay.”

  “Mac and cheese goes with anything.”

  “Or chardonnay does,” she said. “Collins and Rivera both think you’re trouble. So do I, for that matter. Gee, I wonder why.”

  “You told them—”

  “Everything. I play by the rules.”

  “No, you don’t. You’d never have been in Tennessee that day if you played by the rules. You’d never have let me into your apartment last month. You wouldn’t have told me about Bobby Tatro—”

  “What I told you didn’t help you. Don’t pretend it did.”

  “It will yet.”

  She leaned over the table. “Stay out of this case, Brooker.”

  He shrugged, obviously not particularly affected by her intensity or her authority. “You’re a little late with the orders, Marshal.”

  Calling her “marshal” was just to tweak her, to pull her out of her unfocused anger. But thoughts of Juan, Wendy, Tatro, the fish, the dead dog’s ashes on her counter, the frustrated and terrified neighbors, the soon-to-be ex-friend in L.A.—began to weigh on her, and she knew she should be off on a five-mile run, not sitting in a restaurant with a man who’d spin her around until she collapsed before he told her one damn thing he hadn’t meant to tell her.

  “You’ve been through SERE training, haven’t you?” Juliet asked him.

  “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ever been captured by the enemy?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Not something you want to talk about in an Upper West Side restaurant.” She didn’t feel her tension easing. “I’m not playing games with you, Brooker. I don’t care what you can’t or won’t tell me. I’ll find out what I want to know. A man was murdered today. I’m responsible.”

  His eyes flickered with sudden intensity. “You’re not responsible.”

  The water and bourbon arrived. He ordered a steak. When Juliet couldn’t make up her mind—couldn’t concentrate on the damn menu—he told the waiter to bring her the macaroni and cheese.

  Ethan picked up his drink, took a small swallow, then set it back down. “I thought by coming up here yesterday I might stop something from happening, not cause something.”

  “You had no idea Tatro was in New York?”

  “No.”

  Juliet squeezed the juice out of the lime that came with her water, briefly wondering what it would be like to have a normal dinner with Ethan, if that were even possible. “Wendy ran into him yesterday afternoon, before I even knew she was here.” She relayed what her niece had told her, watching him for his reaction. But there was none. Whatever he felt, he kept it under the surface, out of sight, out of her reach—perhaps out of his own. “When you saw Wendy at my building—”

  “I didn’t see Tatro.” He picked up his glass and stared at his bourbon, as if it held answers he didn’t have. “I was fucking clueless.”

  His emotion—his guilt—caught Juliet off guard. “You weren’t alone.”

  “Doesn’t help.”

  “Wendy can put Tatro in the area yesterday, but we don’t know he actually overheard her with Juan and learned her name that way.”

  “How else?”

  “A dozen different possibilities, none of them any more enticing. I’m trying to deal in facts, not speculation.” Except she’d been mired in speculation for hours, frustrating herself, berating herself, getting nowhere. “From where you were standing yesterday, could you hear Wendy give Juan her name?”

  He shook his head. “I was too far away. If I’d realized she was your niece, on her own, I’d have stayed put. Hell, I could have followed her to the diner. Either Tatro would have thought better of sitting next to her or I’d have caught him—” He set his glass down, bourbon splashing onto his hand. “A moot point now.”

  “I don’t know why Tatro had to kill Juan. He could have just knocked him out cold.” Juliet focused on a young woman, maybe twenty, walking a cocker spaniel. Living a normal life. “Killing him seems extreme.”

  “Tatro’s an extreme person.”

  Juliet looked away.

  “He was put away on a nonviolent charge,” Ethan continued, “but he’s not a nonviolent man.”

  “He thinks I broke the rules when I arrested him.” She turned again, facing Ethan. “That’s why he hates me so much. He thinks everyone should follow the rules but him.”

  “Is he right? Did you break the rules?”

  “No. Not really. I just didn’t run into him at Wal-Mart by accident. I had a source.”

  Ethan leaned back in his chair, studying her a moment. “You protected your source.”

  “It was an eleven-year-old girl, his girlfriend’s daughter. Carmel. She plays the violin.” Juliet ran a fingertip around the rim of her water glass, remembering the girl’s terrified voice on the other end of the phone. “Tatro got mad at the mother. To punish her, he tortured the family dog.”

  “That was the last straw for the girl?”

  Juliet nodded. “She begged me not to tell anyone. She’ll be looking over her shoulder her whole life as it is.”

  “Eleven years old.”

  “I was climbing trees at that age.”

  “Tatro’s a sadist. He knows you’ve seen through him, and he can’t stand it.” Ethan sighed, but there was no surprise in his expression—he knew there were people out there who tortured dogs in front of little girls. “Did the dog live?”

  “Yes. And last I checked, Carmel was first violin in her high school orchestra.”

  “The makings of a happy ending.” But nothing about Ethan looked happy—or finished. “Why did Tatro show up at your apartment when he did? You were at work. If he wanted to get to you, he’d have picked a time when you were more likely to be home.”

  “I suppose he could have planned to hide and wait for me—”

  “With the dead doorman?”

  “Juan was in his office. Given Tatro’s grandiosity, he could have thought he had all the time he needed.” Their meals arrived, steaming, giving off good, homey smells that made Juliet want to turn in her badge, pack up her belongings, move back to Vermont and plant tulips. “Wendy returned to my apartment this morning spontaneously—no way could Tatro have expected her.”

  “He could have been hanging around on your street and seize
d the moment when she showed up.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  She tried the mac and cheese. It was hot and gooey, but she knew she wouldn’t eat much of it. “He was hanging around yesterday. Could he have followed you?”

  Ethan shook his head without hesitation. “No.”

  “Well, Tatro’s not talking. He might yet, but we’ve got him for murder—he’ll clam up, use whatever he can to cut himself any kind of deal. It won’t work, but he’s not going to be forthcoming anytime soon.” She set down her fork, the rich food sitting like lead in her stomach.

  Ethan dug into his steak with his fork and knife, but Juliet could see he wasn’t any hungrier than she was.

  “How big a payday did you spoil for Tatro?” she asked.

  “I don’t have a figure.”

  “A guess?”

  He smiled. “I’m trying to deal only in facts.”

  “Could he have known you came to me for information on him?”

  “Possibly, but I doubt it. As far as I know, he was out of the country when you and I were having our chat in the rain.”

  She remembered his comment about sun-kissed cafés and roses and bougainvillea, and felt a surge of warmth, but it didn’t last. Uncertainty crept in, anger, frustration. It could all have been talk, utter bullshit, manipulation.

  “I told Mike Rivera you were solid,” she said. “He knows it. We all do. Rivera just has his doubts about your impact on my life.”

  “With good reason.”

  “Ethan—”

  “I’m sorry, Juliet. Sorry for everything.”

  He gave up on his steak, took a small sip of his drink, his eyes shifting to an elderly woman making her way down the street on a cane, smiling broadly at no one in particular. He seemed transfixed. Juliet thought of their kiss, then quickly pushed it out of her mind.

  “What happened today wasn’t your doing,” Ethan reiterated.

  Juliet pictured Wendy scooping up traumatized fish and quickly took a gulp of water, but the wedge of lime somehow landed half up her nose. She almost dropped the glass, fighting tears, irritated with herself because she couldn’t think straight, couldn’t put together her questions, a time line—anything that would help her figure out what Tatro wanted and what it had to do with the man sitting at the table with her.

  She pushed her glass aside. “I have no right to blame you for anything.”

  “If Tatro wanted to kill your doorman or your niece, he could have done it yesterday. He didn’t have to wait until today.”

  “You’re saying he wanted me, except that doesn’t make sense because I wasn’t there.”

  “I’m not saying anything. I’m just telling you what I know.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re not telling me half of what you know.”

  Their waiter stopped by their table to refill their water glasses, but took a step back in shock. Juliet made herself smile up at him. “It’s okay. We’re not—”

  “You’re the federal agent whose doorman was murdered this morning.” He seemed both repulsed and fascinated. “But you got the guy who did it, right?”

  She nodded. “We did.”

  He glanced around, as if expecting Juliet and Ethan might have attracted some other violent offender, then seemed to catch himself. “What a hell of a thing, killing a doorman.” He took their dinner plates and retreated as fast as he could.

  “We should go,” Juliet said.

  Ethan nodded, checking his watch. “We’ve got an hour before I have to be downtown to chat with Rivera and Collins.”

  She gave him a long look. “Like being a step ahead of me, do you?”

  “I called Rivera from the airport. Just aiming to make your life easier.”

  “Ha. Where are you staying tonight? Got that figured out?”

  “I was thinking your futon.”

  “Uh-uh. It’s still soaked from the broken fish tanks.”

  He smiled at her from across the table. “How convenient.”

  Ten

  Mia’s cell phone vibrated in her coat pocket, its ring on mute, as she sipped a very hot latte at the Barnes & Noble on M Street in Georgetown, not far from her apartment. It was jam-packed this Friday night. She’d extricated herself from her office at eight—earlier than usual—and had decided to indulge herself, pretend she had a normal life. But in Washington, that would just make her boring.

  The number read out as private. Not unusual, but her heart still jumped.

  “Dr. O’Farrell. How are you this fine evening?”

  She recognized the voice on the other end immediately. “Was that you last night? Threatening me, trying to scare the hell out of me—”

  “I’m not sure where your loyalties lie. You’re conflicted. Your actions lack a clarity of purpose.” He paused, then added, “Don’t be surprised if people jump to the wrong conclusions about you.”

  She bit back a sharp retort—she didn’t want him to hang up on her. “If you and I had a chance to meet, I might be able to alleviate some of your concerns.”

  “Where are you now? Holed up in some dank D.C. office building?”

  “Look—” Mia glanced around at the crowded bookstore, but no one was paying attention to her. An urgent cell-phone call in D.C. Big deal. “It’s time we met. You’ve made an extraordinary contribution to your country—”

  “You were supposed to keep me in the loop about your Special Forces guy. He’s not the hero you all think he is. He has his own agenda.”

  Mia frowned. “You were there? In Colombia when—” She stopped herself from saying too much. My God, she thought. Was he one of the kidnappers? Had he played her to that extent?

  He gave a snort of pure contempt. “You said all the right words and pretended you trusted me. You used what I gave you. Then, when it mattered most, you kept me in the dark. Why?”

  “It was out of my hands. I don’t even know who you are—I have no way to contact you.” Mia kept her voice low, trying not to look conspiratorial or unnerved; she wasn’t eager to draw attention to herself. “I’m not in a good place to talk right now—”

  “I gave you everything. You’d never have found your genius Texan without me. I’m the one who told you Brooker could ID him. I’m the one who told you Tatro was obsessed with a blond, female marshal. Hell, half the shit Carhill gave you was because of me.”

  Mia didn’t know about that last comment. The rest was true. She dipped the top of her pinkie into the foam of her latte. She didn’t have a name, a face, a recording of his voice. Background information. She had nothing. But the man on the other end of the connection had led her to Ham Carhill’s kidnappers.

  He’d manipulated her. And he was doing it again.

  “What you need to understand is this,” she said coldly. “I’m not on your side or any other individual’s side. I work for the people.”

  “Now we’re on the same page, Dr. O’Farrell. I’ll be in touch.”

  “You don’t make the rules—”

  He disconnected.

  Mia shakily returned her phone to her pocket.

  She’d known her lofty words would ring true to him.

  A righteous voice on the other end of the phone. That was all she knew about him.

  But he’d given her useful information since he’d first contacted her over the summer. Mia had assumed that his extreme views of the world and human nature put him in places where he sometimes happened on interesting tidbits. Perhaps his success—his access to her—had emboldened him. It didn’t necessarily make him more competent or dangerous.

  She left a tip for her latte and bought a book on her way out, a special edition of The Three Musketeers. She preferred unambiguous good guys and bad guys. Her vigilante was neither.

  The shrill ring of her telephone bolted Juliet out of a deep sleep. Reaching for it, she struck a warm, hard body and damn near screamed.

  Ethan.

  Oh, my.

  He was naked, the early
morning light catching the black graphic tattoo on his upper arm. He’d thrown off his half of the blanket sometime during the night. Or had never bothered with it, seeing how the two of them had heated themselves up quite nicely.

  The memory of their lovemaking—wild, uninhibited—rushed over her. There’d been a lot of sex last night. Not a lot of talking.

  No thinking.

  He was wide awake. “Going to shoot me or answer the phone?”

  She grabbed the sheet to cover herself, although she didn’t know why. He’d touched every part of her only a few hours ago. She could still feel the sensation of his mouth and hands on her skin.

  “Lord, Brooker. How much wine did I have last night?”

  “You had sparkling water.”

  The phone rang again, and she reached across his chest and picked up the receiver. “Longstreet,” she said, her voice raspy from sleep and what had turned into a very long day—and night.

  “It’s Rivera. You up?”

  It was six o’clock in the morning. “More or less.”

  “Get down here. Your doorman gave you a phony ID.”

  Any sleepiness left her. “What?”

  “Bring Brooker.”

  “What makes you think he’s here?”

  Rivera had hung up. Juliet clicked off the phone and dropped it at the foot of her bed, raking a hand through her hair. “I’ve got to think.” She spoke more to herself than to Ethan. “Damn.”

  She still had the sheet with her when she climbed out of bed. Ethan ended up exposed, leaning back against his pillow, watching her. He was tanned and very fit and not at all awkward or self-conscious about being in her bed.

  Juliet spun around at him. “Get dressed. We’re going downtown. We’ve been summoned.” She ripped open a drawer and pulled out jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, then dug in another drawer for socks. “Juan isn’t who he said he was.”

  Ethan rolled out of bed without comment. He had his belt buckled and his boots on before she’d fastened her bra. “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  He shrugged. “Habit.”

  She remembered the life he’d led for so long. “Are you on leave?”

  “I guess. Technically.”

  What more hadn’t he told her, Rivera and Joe Collins?