by J. R. Ward
Chapter 17
"No, thanks - I think I'll let you have lunch with that agent on your own. "
As Reilly answered his question, Veck paused in the process of pulling on his leather jacket. The pair of them had been working steadily through the morning, going line by line through the Barten reports, and he'd been surprised at how well they'd stuck to business.
The shit from the night before had been put firmly on the back burner, it seemed - at least for her. On his side? Hell, yeah, it was still on his mind, and he would have loved for that to be because he was looking for a break in conversation to slide in another lame-ass apology.
Instead, it was because he wanted her. Still.
Even more, actually.
God, he needed a cigarette. "I'll see you back here in an hour, then. "
"It's a date - ah, plan, I mean. "
At that, she bit on her lip with her clean white teeth, like she was shutting herself up or punishing her mouth for the "date" reference.
There were much better things to do with that part of her body.
Cursing under his breath, he left the Homicide department before that bright idea got any airtime, and instead of taking the main stairs, he went down the back way: He was not interested in getting stuck at the Britnae barricade, or in running into any colleagues. And as soon as he was out of HQ, he stopped, lit up a Marlboro, and checked the sky. The sunshine that had prevailed the day before was buried beneath a thick cloud cover, and the wind was cold and damp.
Good thing he was up for a brisk walk.
Five minutes of striding later, he was at the diner. Agent Heron was outside the front door, leaning against the building, smoking. He was wearing a lot of leather, looking more like a biker than a federal agent. Then again, maybe he was off duty and into riding.
Veck frowned. Christ, for some reason he had a hazy memory of one of those agents bitching about his BMW. Except when had that happened?
Maybe he'd just dreamed it.
"A cigarette at the right time is better than food," Veck muttered, as they shook hands.
"Amen to that. "
"Bad day?"
"You got it. "
"You wanna just walk it out?" Veck nodded to the sidewalk. "Chain-smoking seems more appealing than the BLT I'd planned on ordering. "
"Good idea. "
They hit the concrete path together and kept their speed at a meander. Beside them, the Hudson River was the same murky color as the sky, the surface getting choppier toward the middle from the wind.
"Brought you a copy of our report," Veck said, putting his cigarette between his teeth and taking out the papers that he'd folded in half. "But you've probably already seen most of it. "
"Never hurts to take a second look. " The documents went into Heron's breast pocket. "I want to help. "
"And I could use whatever you've got. This case is fucking frustrating. "
"I hear you. "
And that was all they said for a while. Cars whipped along to the right of them, honking at one another from time to time. An ambulance went by at a dead run with sirens blaring. A thicket of bike riders wearing Saran Wrap suits and aerodynamic ice buckets on their heads ripped past, pedaling like they were being chased.
Unlike the rest of the world, he and Heron stayed in slow-mo.
"You're easy to talk to," Veck said on the exhale, his smoke drifting up over his head.
Heron laughed. "Haven't said much. "
"I know. I like it. Shit, this Barten case is killing me. None of it makes any sense, to be honest. "
"Yeah. "
Veck glanced over. "By the way, where's your team?"
"Not here. "
Well, duh. And clearly that was a closed subject.
At that moment, Veck's phone went off, and he jacked it right up to his ear. "DelVecchio. Yeah? Really. Shit . . . no kidding. "
He felt Heron look over . . . and as the guy did, the strangest warning tickled over Veck's nape.
Last night . . . in his kitchen . . .
Veck's feet stopped and he finished the Bails report about Kroner on autopilot, his eyes locked with Heron's.
He'd always had good instincts about things, but this was deeper than intuition or hunches. This was fact, even though he didn't understand the hows or whys.
After he hung up, he just kept staring at the FBI agent. "You know, I think someone was in my house last night. "
Heron didn't bat an eye - there was no reaction in his hard face at all. Which was a tell in and of itself, wasn't it.
"I don't know, maybe I was dreaming. "
Bullshit. It had been Heron. As soon as Veck had walked into his kitchen, he'd had exactly the same sense of being watched by the eyes that were meeting his now.
The question was, why would the FBI be tracking him?
Then again, file that one under well, duh: His father was being executed in Connecticut in a matter of days. Maybe they were worried he'd go copycat or something - and yeah, the Kroner incident helped soooo much on that front.
And although law enforcement wasn't allowed to officially single out and suspend people just because of what they looked like or who they were related to, they sure as shit could work the back angles.
Then again, they could be protecting him. From his father, or his father's followers. In that case, though, they'd just come forward and tell him, wouldn't they.
"So what did you think of Bob Greenway," Veck murmured. "The manager from the Hannaford where Cecilia Barten was last seen. "
"As you said, not much to go on. "
"You aren't here for the Barten case, are you. "
Heron took a drag on his Marlboro. "The hell I'm not. "
"The manager's name is George Strauss. Have you even read the file?"
The agent didn't blink. Didn't seem to care in the slightest that he'd been caught in at best a lapse of memory, at worst a lie. He remained utterly self-contained, as if he had seen and done things so much worse than a mere bending of the truth, he couldn't give a fuck.
"You want to tell me why you were in my house last night?" Veck said, tapping his cigarette into the air.
"It is not inaccurate to say I've taken a special interest in you. And it is very accurate to say that Sissy Barten's disappearance is a big fucking deal to me. "
Veck frowned. "So what the hell is going on? Does it have anything to do with my father? Because in case you're not aware of it, I don't really know the guy, and I hope they do the world a favor and off the bastard. "
Heron leaned down, lifted one boot, and stubbed out the tip of his coffin nail on the heavy tread of his combat. After he put the butt in his back pocket, he tapped out a fresh stick from his soft pack.
He lit the thing with the efficiency of a long-term smoker. "Lemme ask you something. "
"You could try answering some of my shit first, thank you very much. "
"Nah. I'm more interested in you. " The guy took a suck and exhaled. "You ever feel like there's another side to you? Something that follows you around, lurking under the surface. Maybe every once in a while it comes out, taking you in a direction you don't want to go in. "
Veck narrowed his eyes as his heart kicked once in his chest and then stopped dead. "Why the hell would you ask me that?"
"Just curious. It would be the kind of thing you don't want to see in a mirror, for example. "
Veck took a step back and pointed at the guy with his coffin nail. "Stay the fuck out of my house and away from me. "
Heron just hung where he was, feet planted in the middle of the sidewalk. "It would be the kind of thing that makes you wonder what you're capable of. Reminds you of your old man so much, you don't like thinking about it. "
"You're fucking crazy. "
"Not in the slightest. And neither are you. "
"You should know I'm good with a gun. And I don't care if you're a federal agent - assuming you didn't lie about th
at, too. "
Veck pivoted away and started walking, fast.
"Look down at your feet, Thomas Delant to hio," Heron shouted out. "Take a good look at what's doing. And then you call me when you get scared enough. I'm the only one who can help you. "
Fucking loony-ass motherfucker.
Motherfucking loony-ass bitch.
It took him no time at all to get back to HQ, and he blasted up that front stairwell, gunning for his computer. As he blew into the Homicide department, all he got for a greeting was a lot of ringing phones - everyone was out to lunch or working a case somewhere in town. Which was good news for his colleagues.
Sitting down at his desk, he got the number of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's local field office, and dialed in.
"Yeah, hello - this is Detective DelVecchio over at Caldwell Homicide. I want to speak with Personnel. Yup. Thanks. " He picked up a pen and began twirling it in and out of his fingertips. "Yeah, DelVecchio at the CPD - I want to see if you have an Agent Jim Heron anywhere in your system, including out of state. I have my badge number if you want it. " He recited the numbers. "Uh-huh, that's right. The guy I'm looking for is Agent Jim Heron. Yeah, that's how you spell it, like the bird. A man approached me yesterday with what looked like bona fide credentials, identified himself as an agent working on a missing persons case, and came with me to interview the family. I just met with him again and I want to verify who he is. Yup. Just call me, I'm at my desk. "
He hung up.
One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi. Four Miss -
His phone rang. "DelVecchio. Hey, thanks - really. Go fig, no one at all by that name. Yup, he's six-four, maybe -five. Blondish hair. Blue eyed. Looks like soldier. He had two other men with him, one with a braid, another with a lot of metal on his face. The credentials were legit, though, right down to the hologram. Thanks - yeah, please, I'd like to know if you find anything - and I'll let you know if he shows up again. "
As he hung up the phone, he thought he should have known. He should have fucking known - and he should have apprehended the guy right there by the river. That talk about shadows, though, had thrown him -
"Are you okay?"
He glanced up. Reilly was standing next to his desk, a little McDonald's bag in one hand and a short soda in the other.
"No, I'm really fucking not. " He shifted his eyes to the computer screen, because he knew he was glaring. "Remember that FBI agent from yesterday?"
"Heron?"
"He's a fake. "
"A fake?" She sat down beside him. "What do you mean - "
"Someone broke into my house last night. " As she gasped, he kept going. "It was him. Probably his two buddies, too - "
"Why didn't you tell me? And why the hell didn't you report it?"
He started rubbing his temples, and thought, Well, at least this headache was the normal stress kind. Nothing but tension -
Abruptly, he jacked around.
Except there was nothing behind him, no one staring at the back of his head or lining up a gun muzzle with his skull. It was just an empty room cut up by cubicles that were filled with computers and phones and empty office chairs.
Unfont size=ately, his instincts told him there was another layer to it all, one that, although his eyes couldn't measure it, was as real as anything he could touch and feel.
Just like last night in his kitchen. Just as it had been down by the river ten minutes ago.
Just as it had been his whole life.
"What is it?" Reilly asked.
"Nothing. "
"Your head hurts?"
"No, it's fine. "
Veck casually got up and walked all the way across the department to the banks of windows that looked out over the street below. Making like he was just glancing outside at the sky, he focused his eyes on the glass and braced himself.
No shadows in it.
Thank fuck. Mirrors were usually the surest way to see what was lurking, but windowpanes could do the trick.
Goddamn it, he was losing his mind.
Turning back around, he passed through what seemed like a warm draft as he returned to his chair.
Reilly put her hand on his arm. "Talk to me. I can help. "
He rubbed his hair and didn't bother to smooth it back into place. "Last night, when I got home, I knew there was someone in my house. There was no obvious break-in, but it was just . . . " Okay, now he was starting to feel crazy as he heard himself talk. "I wasn't sure until I went to meet with Heron. Something about the way he was looking at me . . . I knew it was him, and he didn't deny it. Fucking hell, I should have expected something like this so close to my father's execution. "
"What . . . I'm sorry, what does your father have - "
"Like I said before, he has fans. " More with the hair scrubbing. "And they've done scary shit. They can't get close to him, but I'm out in the general public and they find me. You can't fucking imagine what it's like to discover your new roommate is a devil worshiper, or that chick who hit on you at the bar is covered with tattoos of your old man's face. Especially my old man. " He cursed low and hard. "And believe me, those are only the less creative examples. I should have known something like this was going to happen right now, but I don't believe in paranoia. Maybe I damn well should, though. "
"You can't blame yourself about Heron. I saw his ID. It absolutely looked legitimate. "
His eyes shot to hers. "I took that man into a victim's home. To meet her goddamn mother. Oh, for fuck's sake . . . "
Veck shoved his chair back on a sharp push and got up. As he paced down the row of empty cubicles, he wanted to hit a wall.
And naturally, at that moment, his cell phone rang.
Reilly stayed in her seat as Veck accepted a call.
He looked awful. Stressed. Exhausted. And it dawned on her that he hadn't had anything to eat at her place last night, and probably, given how "lunch" had gone, hadn't done himself any favors at noontime, either.
"Really? Yeah, she's with me. Uh-huh . . . "
As twelve kinds of noncommittals floated over, he walked around in a tight circle, frhand on his hip, head down, brows tight. He was wearing his uniform of black trousers and a white shirt with no tie, and through the pocket of his button-down, the red stripe on his pack of Marlboros showed.
The cubicles in the Homicide department, like the ones over in IA, were no taller than chest height, and as with her colleagues, the detectives here decorated their workspaces with pictures of kids and wives and husbands. A couple of the females had small plants. Nearly all had special mugs they used for coffee, and pinned up Dilbert cartoons, and ads with stupid mistakes in them.
DelVecchio's was utterly bare, the cloth-covered, thumbtack-friendly walls empty of anything but the holes left behind by the last inhabitant's life display. And she had a feeling it had nothing to do with the fact that he had just started working here. Usually, when someone new came in, putting up their stuff was the first thing they did.
Veck hung up and glanced over. "That was de la Cruz. I also spoke with Bails. "
"As did I. "
"So you know Kroner thought it was an animal that attacked him, and that he ID'd me as the man who came and called nine-one-one. "
"Yeah, I do. And I think you should believe it. "
"Believe what. "
"That you didn't hurt him. " As he made a dismissive noise, she shook her head. "I mean it, Veck. I don't understand why you're so persistent, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. "
"People can be wrong. "
"Not at a face-to-face distance. Unless you think those wounds were somehow created from across the parking lot?" When he didn't say anything further, she knew better than to beat a dead horse. "Heron needs to be reported. "
"For impersonating a federal agent, yeah. But I doubt I can prove he was in my house. " He sat back down and went through his phone. "At least I have
his cell phone number in here. "
"I'll file the report," she said. "You need to take the rest of the afternoon off. "
"Nah. I'm good. "
"That wasn't a request. "
"I thought you were my partner, not my superior. "
"Actually, if we go by rank, I am on top of you. " With a wince, she wished she'd phrased that differently. "And I can also take care of the paperwork about what we did yesterday. "
"Thanks, but I'll do it. "
She turned to check her e-mail. "You're taking the afternoon off, remember. "
When there was no response, she thought maybe he was gathering his things up. She should have known better.
He'd just leaned back in his chair and was staring at his computer monitor. No doubt he wasn't seeing anything on it. "I'm not leaving. I just want to work. "
And that was when she realized he had nothing. No one to go home to. No one in his life - he'd left the "next of kin" slot unfilled in his HR file, and his emergency contact was that Bails guy. Where was his mother? she wondered.
"Here, eat this," she said, putting her Micky D's bag in front of him. "It's just a cheeseburger, but you look like you could use some calories. "
His hands were surprisingly gentle as he picked up the gift. "I don't want to take your lunch. "
"I had a big breakfast. "
He rubbed the wrinkled part between his eyebrows. "Thanks. I mean that. "
As he took out the yellow-wrapped package and made efficient work of the burger and the large fries, she found herself sliding back into step with him, even though neither of them were on their feet and walking.
But then, partnerships were like that. At times the gears interlocked smoothly. Others? It was all grind and squeal. And it wasn't always clear why or when things returned to being at ease.
Although in the case of last night, it was very damned obvious what had thrown them off.
Clearing her throat, she said, "How'd you like to try dinner again. "
Going by the way his head whipped around, she might as well have dropped a bomb in his lap as opposed to the golden arches.
"You're serious," he said.
She shrugged, making like she was nonchalant. "My mother was mortified I went fast-food for lunch and is insisting I head over there tonight. Actually, I think she would have made me drop by even if I'd had roughage and tofu - the urge to cook comes over her from time to time, and as an only child, the extra mouth matters. Mom cooks big, if you know what I mean. "
He fingered up three fries, chewed them down, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "You sure you want to do that. "
"I asked, didn't I?"
He focused on the red carton. "Well . . . then yeah. I'd like that. A lot. "
As Reilly got busy texting her mom, he said, "I promise to be on my best behavior. "
The dark bass in his tone suggested he wasn't just talking about table manners, and she knew it was the kind of vow she should take as well. It took two to tango, and God knew she'd been right there with him in her kitchen.
Then again, she wasn't wearing anything Victoria would go hush-hush about. So they were probably safe.
Probably.
"Okay, how do you spell 'Heron,' " she murmured as she pulled up a blank incident report on her screen.
There was the briefest of pauses. And then he said quietly, "Just like the bird. "