Dark of Night (21 page)

“Another thing,” Sam said. “Just an FYI. If Tess is anything like Alyssa … If
you
start the conversation? Trust me, you can't buy her a better gift than that. It's what she wants. For you, you know, to affirm the fact that you're a team. You can also start by telling her something that's obvious. Tell her you're afraid that something you've done is going to harm her in some way—”

“In some way?” Jimmy had to interrupt. He covered the baby's tiny ears. “I'm fucking scared to death that those pricks from the Agency are going to reach out and touch me—through her. It's bad enough that we think they've already tapped Dave—”

“Whoa, don't tell me,” Sam said. “Tell her. And if that's too hard to start with, then start with something else. Maybe, you know, that new scar she's got on her hand.”

Jimmy looked up at him sharply.

“That's a hard one, too, huh?” Sam mused. “But to be honest, it's all gonna seem hard, so maybe it's best to start with the things that're getting between you.”

Jimmy shook his head in disbelief. “What'd I do?” he asked. “Look at it too much while you were carrying me down the stairs today?”

“No,” Sam said. “But I noticed it myself and figured it had to be bugging the hell out of you.”

Tess had a scar on her right hand—both on her palm and on the back. A bullet had gone right through her, but she was unbelievably lucky— there had been minimum damage. It hadn't broken a single bone. She'd received the injury during the same incident in which Jimmy had nearly been killed.

He'd taken a bullet to the chest and had hit his head when he'd fallen—knocking himself out cold. Tess had been shot, too, but she'd crawled over to him and, trying to defend them both, she'd reached for the weapon he'd dropped—and gotten shot in the hand.

The scar was small, but it was still new and raw-looking. And every time Jimmy saw it—which was every minute of every day when she was with him—he was reminded of the fact that he hadn't been able to protect her.

And that the enemy they'd been up against then were amateurs compared to the people they were facing now.

Sam was quiet, still chopping tomatoes, just waiting for Jimmy to respond.

“I don't know what good talking about it is going to do,” Jimmy finally said. “Except make her self-conscious—”

“I'd bet you a year's salary,” Sam interrupted, “that that scar means something entirely different to Tess than what it means to you. And maybe if you start seeing it—and other things—through her eyes, it won't hurt so fricking much.”

“Maybe it's supposed to hurt,” Jimmy said.

“Ah,” Sam said, putting down his knife. “Okay. Yeah. Here we go. It's supposed to hurt? What's supposed to hurt?
Life?”

“I don't know,” Jimmy said. “Yeah. It's hard. It's always so fucking hard.”

“Well, okay then. Do me a favor, will you, and tell Ashton to quit laughing, because life is supposed to hurt and be hard.”

“You're oversimplifying,” Jimmy argued. “It's not supposed to hurt for him. He's a baby, and you're here, to protect him—”

“Like you're here to protect Tess?” Sam countered. “And how do we do that, exactly? And by the way, Lys and I agreed that we wouldn't say four-letter words in front of Ash, so watch your fucking mouth, dickhead. We also won't raise our voices in anger in front of him. And if one of us gets sick or injured, he's not going to know about it. Until he's old enough, we're going to be careful what he sees on TV and what we talk about in front of him, because as a four-year-old, he shouldn't have to worry about the fact that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. He's going to be dealing with the hurts he can handle—bullies on the playground, skinned knees, coping with wanting things that other kids have that we can't or won't give him. But you better believe, by the time that boy turns eighteen, we'll be treating him like an adult, because the rest of the world sure as hell will be treating him that way, too.”

Jimmy attached the snaps that connected the T-shirt thing Ash was wearing, fastening it securely between his pudgy little legs. “You really think I treat Tess like a child.”

“I think that's part of the problem, yeah. I think you might also want to try some alternative mission statements on for size. I mean,
maybe it's supposed to hurt?
How about
maybe it's okay if it feels good.
Not just a little good, sometimes, but
really
good,
most
of the time. Look at me.” Starrett
held out both hands, one of them still holding that deadly-looking knife. “I just got you to change my kid's diaper, and I know for a fact that before the month is out? You'll be doing the really ripe ones, too. See, I have faith in you, Jimbo. You're a very intelligent man, and you're going to recognize the correlation between action and reaction—as in Tess's reaction to you changing Ash's didee. So
that
happiness is hanging in
my
very bright future.

“As for right now? As I make this sauce, I'm enjoying a visit with my Uncle Walt, who loved me like the kind of father I'm trying to be to my kids. I might complain about having to cook, but it's only because I enjoy complaining—and because it makes Alyssa laugh. After this, I'm gonna fire up the grill, and while our dinner cooks—and it's gonna smell amazing—Ash and I are gonna take a swim in that pool. Then we're gonna eat. Walt was a genius and dinner will be a religious experience. Count on it. Oh, and sunset's going to be a gorgeous show tonight—I'm looking forward to that, too. Then it's bathtime for Ash, then storytime. It's Lys's turn to read, and the sound of her voice is… It just washes over you—it's even better than the barbecue.

“And then? After my beautiful son is finally asleep, I'm going to spend some time alone with my wife, which, appropriately enough, follows the pattern and will be about a million times better than listening to her read aloud. And, yeah, maybe later tonight, while I'm asleep, some of that hurt and ugliness that I know is out there in the world is going to creep inside of my head, but I also know that if I have a nightmare? I'll wake up and Alyssa will be there. And if I need to, we'll talk it through, and it'll fade away. So if it hurts, it only hurts for a very,
very
short while.”

Sam finally fell quiet, the sound of his knife against the cutting board making a rhythmic thunking sound in the otherwise silent room.

Ash had latched onto his own tiny little thumb and was sucking it with enthusiasm.

So Jimmy cleared his throat. “You, uh, really tell Alyssa everything?”

“Hell, no,” Sam said, putting down the blade and scooping his chopped tomatoes up and into a nearby bowl. “That shit's hard, although it does get easier. Each time you tell her something that you're afraid is gonna make you less of a hero in her eyes, but she looks at you like you've given her diamonds… ? That's a good thing. So yeah, it does get a little easier, but it's never gonna be a cakewalk. Remember the magic words of
step two:
This is hard for me. I'm gonna need your help.
And don't be afraid to use sex as a reward. For
you,
I mean. You can go point-blank if you want.
Hey, sweet thing, here's my Big Happy List of Slightly Untraditional Yearnings. I really love you and want to move our relationship to the next level and talk about things that are … hard for me to talk about. I'm gonna need your help, and maybe a little incentive, so if you could just glance over the list and let me know how you feel about maybe trying number six. After we talk, of course, because see, I'm a little afraid that I might cry, and, well, number six will definitely cheer me up after …
”

Jimmy laughed. “I don't think anything's ever been hard for you, Star-rett.”

“That's because I've embraced the fact that step two leads not just to step three and the Big Happy List, but also to step four. Which is sit back and laugh your ass off as you enjoy the sometimes crazy but always interesting ride.”

“What do you do about the nightmares on the nights Alyssa's not home?” Jimmy asked. “How do you deal with knowing that the next time her helicopter goes down, she might not come back? Not ever?”

Sam picked up his knife and began chopping again. “You enjoy today,” he said quietly. “You live your life—right now. If you fill your heart with love, there's not a lot of room left for fear.” He smiled. “That sage bit of advice is a direct quote from my Uncle Walt.”

“I didn't have an Uncle Walt,” Jimmy admitted. His father figure had been cut from a different mold entirely.

“Most people didn't,” Sam agreed. “But you've got Tess. For now, anyway. The choice is yours—are you going to do the work you need to do to keep her, or are you going to let her walk away?”

It was the photos that pushed Dave over the edge.

The sight of the man who'd attacked him—identified as Liam Smith from County Cork, Ireland—with part of his face and the back of his head blown off, lying on the table in the morgue, didn't perturb him even half as much.

Sophia had to squint through her eyelashes and even turn away—it was that awful a sight. But Dave moved closer to the dead man.

“That's him,” he told FBI agent Joe Hirabayashi. The two men's voices
faded into an indistinct rumble as Sophia found a bench in the hallway and sat, just breathing, with her eyes closed and her head between her knees.

And then Dave was back, his hand warm on her shoulder as he painfully lowered himself down to sit beside her. “I'm so sorry.”

“I think I might be coming down with something,” she said. “I'm usually tougher than that.”

“You shouldn't have to be.” As usual, he was ready to take the blame. “I should've—”

“Do we need to wait here?” she interrupted him. “Or can we go?”

“We can go,” Dave told her, as he helped her up. Or maybe she helped him. It was hard to tell which of them was steadier on their feet. “Yashi's going to keep me updated with any intel they find on Smith. He had a driver's license, but it's doubtful he lives at his listed address. Although, you never know.”

“Does he have a connection to Anise Turiano?” she asked, aware that the woman's name was enough to make the muscles in Dave's arm tense.

“Not that we know of,” he answered her evenly as he held open the door that led to the tiny alleyway parking area. “But we don't know much yet—aside from the fact that he's wanted in both the UK and Russia, as well as here in the States. He's got no apparent connection to anyone named Santucci, either. Although there's something up with that. Something Yashi's not telling me, which is …” Dave froze. And said a string of eyebrow-raising words that she'd never heard him so much as whisper before—certainly not in that particular order. “Sophia, get back inside.”

The lot was empty. Nothing moved in the cold, gray, late-morning light. But then she saw it, too. A white packet, about the length and width of a paperback novel, had been placed on the windshield of their rental car, held in place by one of the wipers.

“Now.”
Dave's words were a command, not a request, and he turned to open the door, to push her back into the building.

She wouldn't let go of him. “Not without you.” She raised her voice, calling down the corridor, “Yashi! Joe! We need help!”

The FBI agent was one of the slowest-talking, least excitable men that Sophia had ever met. He must've had a resting pulse rate of fourteen, yet he now came running down the hall, quite possibly breaking the record for the twenty-yard dash, his sidearm already drawn as she pulled Dave back inside with her.

“There's something on the windshield of our car,” she told Yashi, right over Dave, who was saying, “Yashi's
not
going out there—it could be a bomb!”

“Get back, away from the window,” Yashi ordered, as Dave broke Sophia's hold on him and moved, nearly as quickly as Yashi had, not back, but toward the door.

“Dave!” Sophia and Yashi called his name in unison, but he didn't so much as break stride.

He went out the door first, as Yashi ordered Sophia, “Stay here,” and followed.

“Dave, what is wrong with you?” Sophia shouted.

Through the glass door, she could see Dave quickly scanning the buildings that overlooked the alley, his gaze tracing the rooftops as he searched for a shooter and happily—she could tell from his body language— didn't find one. It was then he focused his attention on the white packet, slowing as he approached.

“Stay back,” he ordered Yashi, who was several steps behind him.

“If it was a bomb,” Yashi countered in a voice that held only a hint of his usual
I'm so bored
lethargy, “it'd be under the car, not in plain sight like that. It's gotta be a message.”

Yashi tried to move past Dave as Sophia stepped through the door and onto the top step of the platform that led to the driveway.

“Get inside, God damn it!” Dave roared at her, even as he beat Yashi to the packet and snatched it up before the FBI agent could. “Are both of you crazy?”

“It's photos,” Yashi called to Sophia. “It's a packet of pictures.”

Whatever they were photos of, Dave got even more grim as he glanced through them. Yashi tried to take them, but Dave kept the packet out of the other man's reach and view, then headed purposefully toward Sophia. “Get,” he said. “Inside.
Now.
”

She got, but only because he was coming back into the building, too. In fact, she held the door for him, which made him even angrier with her. If that was possible. Of course, she was pretty angry with him, too.

“If you thought it was a bomb, the correct procedure is to call the bomb squad and—”

Dave ignored her completely as he turned to Yashi, who again was right behind him. “We need a room with privacy.” His voice was clipped,
his eyes hard, his face that of a stranger as he took Sophia's arm none too gently. “And we need it now.”

“If I tell you to do something,” Dave told Sophia, his voice harsh and a little too loud even in his own ears, as Yashi closed the door to the interrogation room behind him, leaving to try to book them on the next available flight to California, “you do it. You don't ask why. You don't argue. You obey.”

The little room had a single translucent, bar-covered window that d idn't do much in terms of providing natural light. Fluorescent bulbs hung in two upside-down trays from the ceiling. One of the bars was spasming, the light flickering on and off intermittently, which only added to Dave's growing headache.