Cut & Run (44 page)

“I don’t buy that,” Ty replied after a moment of thought. He cocked his head and looked Zane over carefully. “What is it? Dying? Being alone?

Dying
alone?” he ventured sarcastically. “At least those are legitimate things to be afraid of,” he added before Zane could answer.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Zane murmured. It was the complete opposite, actually. He was afraid that it would be someone else doing the dying. Wasn’t that just all sticky and sentimental, he thought darkly, sending his mood even further down.

“Come on, Garrett,” Ty murmured as he leaned closer. “If we can fuck each other senseless, we can be honest with each other.”

Zane’s eyes shifted sideways to meet Ty’s and they shifted away just as quickly. When he spoke, it was a bare whisper. “You remember when I said I didn’t give a shit about anybody for five years? And how that had changed?”

“Yeah?” Ty answered questioningly. At the time, he had thought Zane had been referring to the wife he’d lost, but now in this new context he had a sinking feeling that he had been wrong.

A sad smile twisted Zane’s lips. “Becky was killed five years ago,” he mentioned, seemingly offhand.

“That was your wife,” Ty said carefully, getting a little more confused.

“Yes. I never thought I’d care about anyone after her,” Zane answered quietly. “We’d been married almost ten years. It was like half of me was suddenly gone. I can’t explain it any other way.”

Ty nodded slowly, sliding his plastic bottle top on the table restlessly.

“Go on,” he invited.

Christ. Zane felt like an idiot. “I didn’t care about anybody, even myself. And when I did….” Zane’s jaw clenched, and he kept his eyes focused on the window. Anything but on the man sitting across from him. “I let him walk away.”

Without even really realizing it, Ty had produced the tin of pills in his hand as Zane spoke. He tapped the hollow tin almost angrily. “So, this is you,” he said with a rap, “pining over someone you let get away.”

Cut & Run | 267

Zane glanced over at the table in surprise, seeing the small tin. He looked up at Ty in shock and realized that Ty either hadn’t caught the meaning of his words or simply didn’t apply them to himself. Although he felt relieved, he also felt worse than before. He stared at the tin. “You shouldn’t have brought those here.” Avoid the question. Avoid the question. Forget about the question, Ty. You don’t want to know the answer.

Ty merely looked at him blankly. “Figured if you kept this up, I might need them,” he finally snapped.

“Goddamnit,” Zane hissed, hand flashing out to scoop up the tin. “It’s you, you asshole,” he said.

“What’s me?” Ty demanded defensively. “Give those back,” he added with a hiss and a motion of his hand.

Zane leaned over and grabbed the front of Ty’s shirt, yanking him forward. “
You
are the one who walked away,” he growled before shaking him slightly and pushing him back into the chair.

Ty’s chair rocked precariously before righting itself again, but Ty never seemed to notice as he stared at Zane with shocked hazel eyes. “What?”

he asked stupidly, his voice hoarse and slightly higher than normal.

“Fuck,” Zane muttered, getting to his feet and pocketing the tin. “I need a drink.” He stalked off toward the bar. What a fucked-up situation.

“Garrett,” Ty barked after him.

Zane stopped dead in his tracks just four steps away, his body jerking itself to a halt in response to Ty’s commanding voice. He slowly straightened his shoulders and turned his chin to indicate he was listening.

“You don’t need a drink,” Ty said to him in slow, measured words.

Inhaling sharply, Zane held his breath for a long moment as he closed his eyes and dropped his head. His hands slowly rose to burrow into the pockets of the leather jacket, and he just stood there. So, what now? Go forward? Go back? He wished again for the oblivion of too much alcohol—

but Ty’s words echoed through him, and he stayed in place.

“Let me have those pills,” Ty requested after a moment of tense silence.

Zane turned automatically, walked back, and held out the tin, looking everywhere but at Ty. Ty took it, eyes on Zane and piercing through him. He slipped the tin into a pocket inside his canvas jacket and then shifted in his chair. With a long sigh he closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

268 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

“So, you’re saying … what?” he murmured finally with a wave of his hand. “You’re in love with me?”

“No,” Zane was quick to insist. “I’m saying that I figured out I cared about what happened to you and then let you walk away,” he answered stubbornly. He had no idea about loving Ty. The whole concept scared the absolute shit out of him, and he simply refused to even consider the possibility. He could
care
about his partner, though, right? No harm in that.

“Okay,” Ty responded slowly, nodding his head. “So now you’re either trying to push me away or you’re trying to self-destruct,” he ventured.

“Maybe both,” he shrugged as he continued to stare at Zane, waiting for eye contact. “What I don’t get is why.”

Zane gritted his teeth, then his shoulders and demeanor sagged, and he just looked exhausted. He looked up, and his eyes were filled with resignation. “Can’t exactly pull you closer, can I?” he asked quietly.

There was a long, tense moment of silence as Ty met Zane’s eyes emotionlessly. “Maybe not in public,” he answered finally.

Zane stared at him, silent, and he shook his head minutely. Was Ty joking at his expense? He sounded inexplicably solemn.

“Seriously,” Ty warned, lowering his head slightly and looking up at Zane with narrowed eyes and a barely perceptible twitch of his lips. “Don’t grope me in public.”

Zane blinked and flinched a little, totally surprised. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected in the way of reply from the man sitting in front of him.

“Okay?” he replied, brow furrowed. He still wasn’t sure that Ty wasn’t yanking his chain. Christ. All Zane wanted was to be able to fuck Ty and make sure the man didn’t get killed. Wasn’t that simple enough?

“Okay,” Ty repeated with a nod. He looked around the airport lounge and then back up at Zane towering over him. “You’re drawing some attention,” he informed his partner casually.

Still not sure what had just happened, Zane shook his head, turned in place, and headed for the men’s room. No liquor, no uppers, and a crackjob partner who Zane couldn’t keep his hands off of. Well, fine. They were just getting used to each other again, right? The insanely satisfying and addictive sex was just a bonus. Anything else he felt was shoved away as far as he could push it.

Left alone, Ty rolled his eyes and sagged his shoulders as Zane walked away. It was far more difficult to deal with Zane when he didn’t have Cut & Run | 269

the heart to be an asshole to him.

Zane got to the bathroom and splashed his face with cool water, looking up at his face and the dark circles under his eyes. One night of sleep did not make up for months of deprivation. He realized how shitty he looked; why hadn’t he noticed before? He almost looked like death warmed over. No wonder Ty was worried. Zane splashed more water on his face. He had to get this shit out of his head or he was going to go insane over it.

As he stood over the sink, the loudspeakers in the ceiling crackled to life and announced that the flight he and Ty were awaiting was now boarding.

After one last breath, Zane grabbed some paper towels, dried his face and hands, and left the bathroom to rejoin Ty.

As soon as they got into their seats, Ty turned to Zane with a small frown. “When Burns called you for this, did he ask you if you’d been following the case?” he asked abruptly.

“Yeah,” Zane answered as he pulled out the seat belt and messed with it. “Why?”

“What did you tell him?” Ty asked.

Zane raised a brow as he glanced over at his partner. “I told him no.”

“Did you tell him the truth?” Ty pressed.

Zane frowned. “Yes. I’d been buried in the
barrio
for almost fourteen weeks. I hadn’t heard or read anything that wasn’t in Spanish in at least that long.” He moved in the seat, trying to stretch out his long legs.

Ty nodded. That was the answer he’d expected. “I lied,” he admitted.

“Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Ty answered with a shrug. “It was the first thing that came out. He asked if I’d been following, and I said no before I even thought about it.”

“And after you said it?” Zane prodded.

“Didn’t look back,” Ty answered immediately. He produced a thin leather binder and handed it over to Zane.

“What’s this?” Zane asked in surprise as he took the portfolio and looked at it warily.

“It’s all the clippings I kept about the case when I was in the hospital and after,” Ty answered as he crossed his arms over his chest defensively and shifted in his seat.

270 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Zane looked up in surprise. “You kept up with it the whole time?

Why would you do that? With all the mess in your head you were trying to straighten out?” He clearly remembered the look on Ty’s face when they’d seen that girl hanging in the window.

“I don’t like being outsmarted,” Ty answered in a soft, determined voice. “And I don’t like feeling guilty,” he admitted.

Zane raised his head and looked at him seriously. He’d taken for granted that a man like Ty would be able to shrug off the past easily. His behavior and his attitude all implied that he lived in the here and now, but Zane knew him well enough now to see that he took everything to heart, especially his failures. And Zane knew Ty considered that woman’s death his fault. The killer never would have set his sights on her if Ty hadn’t led him to her. Suddenly, whatever Ty had collected in that binder seemed very important to Zane. It would tell him about more than just the case. It would tell him about Ty, about the man he thought he could care deeply for.

“I highlighted some bits. Underlined and … scribbled. I was cooped up,” Ty muttered defensively.

Zane tipped his head, eyes warming, and he smiled slightly. “Okay,”

he said quietly, trying not to laugh. He schooled his features and looked back down at the portfolio solemnly. “Anything I should know before looking?” he asked, sliding his hand over the leather.

Ty pursed his lips and then nodded his head. “The last murders were….” He seemed to hesitate, unsure of how to continue. Zane frowned worriedly. “They found them in the morgue,” Ty told him hoarsely.

“The morgue?” Zane asked with a sudden drop in the pit of his stomach.

“The ME and her assistant,” Ty answered as he lowered his head.

Zane’s head snapped up. “Karen? What the hell?” he asked.

Ty didn’t look up, merely kept his head bowed as if it was somehow his fault. Zane looked back down at the binder with dread, then opened it and turned it to look over the first page. The articles weren’t in any sort of order.

They were merely put in as Ty had found them.

The first page, however, was about the woman. It detailed her discovery with all the gory relish of the popular press, and Ty knew it word for word. He looked away from the photograph included of Isabelle St. Claire in her airline uniform. “The way she was found,” he said in a hoarse voice,

“made me start thinking the way the bodies were found was even more Cut & Run | 271

important than we thought it was.”

Zane glanced up at him before going back to the article. “Go on,” he invited.

“It’s not really the
victims
he’s after,” Ty conjectured. “It’s the situations,” he went on with a point at the next page. “His vics have to fit the situation he’s after, but other than that he doesn’t care who they are. He went after the ME and her assistant next.”

Zane glanced up at him with a wince.

Ty nodded grimly. “But it wasn’t in the same manner as the agents he killed, or like us or the other people he was trying to merely get rid of. It wasn’t like they stumbled across him as he was doing something. It was methodical. I think they were planned victims, killed
in the morgue
for some reason,” he said with emphasis.

Flipping through the pages, Zane stopped on that article, seeing the picture of the dark-haired woman they’d worked with. He shook his head. Ty must have done this just in the last few days, right before he got the call from Burns. He was still keeping up, somehow. Zane’s chest hurt with the thought.

“Goddamn,” he murmured. “They were locked in the autopsy lab. But why?

You’re right; there’s something off about it. Always before, there’s some sort of odd positioning. They were just there.”

“Right.
In the morgue
. I started looking back at the other ones. The first with the meth guy found in his bed. The second with the hooker found in the graveyard, which happens to be one of the most elite burial grounds in the city,” he added with a point of his finger at the binder. “Then the two girls with the dyed hair who were switched in each other’s beds. I don’t think it mattered how they were killed or who they were. Just how they were found.”

“What about the guy with the bird flu? Or the twins that looked like a mutual execution? What was off about them?” Zane asked.

Ty sighed heavily and shook his head, looking out the window as the plane began to taxi down the runway. “That’s the problem with my theory,”

he admitted. “The twins were the ones that were killed across state lines. They were the reason the FBI was brought in at all.
That
is the importance of their location. But aside from that? There wasn’t anything special about where or how they were found, just what they were killed with.”

“The one man with a rare disease and the others with their own twin?”

“Uh huh. Nothing else stands out.”

272 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

“Other than they were different from all the others,” Zane said.

Ty muttered as he looked out the window diligently. “There’s an answer there, but I’m just not seeing the big picture,” he added in frustration.

Zane kept paging through the binder quietly, reviewing the older cases and then reading up on what had happened since.