Dark of Night (43 page)

And it wasn't even about sex, it was about physical contact. Connection. Jesus, he couldn't remember the last time anyone
—anyone—
had so much as touched him, let alone given him a hug.

He reached to pull several sheets off a roll of paper towels and used them to blot both water and blood from Tracy's arm—and as an excuse to touch her again.

She knew it, too, and she shifted closer, so that her shoulder brushed his. She looked up at him, and their gazes caught and held.

And held …

“As long as I have your attention, Chief,” Lopez said, dumping the glass into the trash. “Looks like there're some photos on the table that, uh, might want to get put away?”

What? Oh,
shit.
“Yeah,” Decker said, letting go of Tracy, fast, and turning toward the table in question. “Thanks. Sorry, that you, um …”

“I'm not complaining,” Lopez said. “It's just a little … Okay. A lot unusual. I guess maybe it's just my day to see everyone I know naked.”

“Oh, my
God”
Tracy said as she looked to see what he was talking about. Her mouth dropped open as Deck quickly scooped up the pictures and grabbed the envelope. “Decker, wait.”

But he covered the photos, lowered his voice. “I think it's safe to say that the doctor's being blackmailed. You don't need to see these.”

“I figured that's what that was,” Lopez said. “Sorry—they were hard not to notice.”

“Please.” Tracy reached out and caught Deck's arm. “I'm not trying to be cute or freaky or … This has nothing to do with me and you, and me wanting to …” She closed her eyes, exhaled, and started over. “May I please see that top picture again? Because those tattoos. … ? I think that might be my ex, Michael.”

U
nable to sleep, Jules found his way into the kitchen, looking for God knows what.

Only the dimmest of lights was on, but Sam was sitting on one of the four stools at the big center island counter, dressed down in cutoff sweats and a well-worn T-shirt, big bare feet hooked in the rungs. Cold cuts and bread were spread out in front of him as he ate a sandwich.

“Hey,” he greeted Jules through a mouthful of turkey and Swiss on what looked like marble rye.

“Hey.” Jules opened the refrigerator and stared at the contents. It was well-stocked—with absolutely nothing that he wanted. Because he didn't really want anything to eat.

What he
wanted
was for three innocent people—one of them a child—to not be dead.

But his stomach churned and burbled and he knew he had to put something into it. He wasn't going to be able to hunt down the killer if he made himself sick.

As opposed to heartsick, which he already was.

“How about I make you a sandwich?” Sam asked. It wasn't really a question, because he was already doing it—taking a couple of slices of bread from the bag and plopping them onto the same plate he was using.

Jules closed the fridge with a sigh. “Sure, why not?” He sat on the stool down at the end, leaving one empty between them. “Thanks.”

“You should probably stay off the Internet for a few days,” the former
SEAL advised him as he squeezed a generous amount of spicy brown mustard onto the bread. “Robin is getting reamed by all of the celebrity gossip sites. It's not going to help your blood pressure to see that circus.”

Jules laughed, even though he wanted to cry. “You know what Robin told me?”

“Nope. What did Robin tell you?” Sam used up the rest of the turkey and started opening the other packs of meat.

“Hey.”

They both looked up to see Jimmy Nash, leaning on a cane for support as he hobbled his way into the kitchen. His dark hair was a mess and he was wearing his plaid pajama pants with a T-shirt.

“Look at you,” Jules said. “Up and about like a big boy.”

“Barely,” Nash said.

“You know,” Jules said, “when you get the doctor's approval to begin physical therapy, it generally means you can
begin
physical therapy. Which means that you still spend a certain amount of time taking it slow and using a wheelchair and okay, I can see that you've already tuned me out. I'm talking to myself, aren't I? Yes, I am.”

“I'm making sandwiches,” Sam told Nash. “You want one?”

“Thanks.” Nash planted himself on the stool on the other side of Sam. “Ham and cheese.”

“Is this just a sandwich?” Sam asked. “Or is this a
sandwich?”

Nash didn't look at either of them. He clearly knew of Sam's theory that the perfect post-sex food was, hands down, the sandwich. “None of your business.”

“You're right,” Sam said. “It's not, but… I'm just one of those guys who're in love with love. Just tell me this. The diaper thing? Thumbs-up or thumbs-down?”

“Are you drunk?” Nash asked.

“Nope,” Sam said. “No alcohol in
this
house. I am, however, celebrating a milestone. Ash said
da-da
tonight,” he reported. “And okay, he actually said
da-da-da-da-da,
but who's counting? He was looking right at me. Boy's a genius.” He glanced at Jules. “It helped bring balance to a bad-news day. But it's not always so obvious. Sometimes you've got to look for it, you know? It's there—the little things, the people who love you. Sometimes you've got to resist the urge to put up a wall, or create distance. You've got to draw people close, not push 'em away.”

“You think I'm pushing Robin away,” Jules surmised.

Sam shrugged. “I think that you're here, talking to me, instead of talking to the Boy Wonder. Which brings us back to what you were saying.”

Jules squinted, trying to remember. “What was I saying?”

“You said,
You know what Robin told me?”
Sam repeated. “I said,
What?”

“Right,” Jules said. “He said,
Oh, well.”
He imitated Robin's melodic voice. “He said,
Hey, babe, it's going to be all right. If I don't do this movie, there're going to be others. And if there aren't, fuck it. I'll do theater. It'll be fun.
Fun. I'm ruining his career. Everyone's always saying that Robin ruined
my
career, but look what I'm doing to his.”

Sam used a deadly-looking knife to cut the towering sandwich in two and pushed the plate in front of Jules. “He
did
ruin your career. You're wasting your time in Boston, and you know it.”

“Fuck you,” Jules said. “I love Boston. And what is wrong with you? There's no way I can eat all of that. Even if I was hungry. It's not a sandwich, it's a freaking deli counter.” He leaned forward to talk across Sam. “Nash, do you want—”

“He wants ham and cheese,” Sam answered for him. “Besides, I was counting on an appearance from The Little Engine That Could.” He gestured with his head to the doorway where, indeed, Robin was coming into the kitchen. He'd thrown on his bathrobe, and it hung open over a pair of boxers. “Oh, to be twenty-something and be able to eat from dawn to dusk.”

Jules looked at him. “What are you talking about? You eat all the time.”

“Yeah, but I work it, hard, to keep my girlish figure.” Sam pointed his knife at Robin. “’Bout time you got down here, B.W.”

“Yeah, well, if no one bothers to wake me up when they can't sleep …” Robin shuffled over to the refrigerator and opened it. Like Jules had done, he stared, squinting, into the brightly lit and well-stocked shelves, and closed the door without taking anything out.

“You were so tired,” Jules told him.

Robin turned to face him, leaning back against the far counter, arms crossed. “Really? And of course, you're
never
tired when I wake you up if I'm having a nightmare.” He narrowed his eyes at Jules “Or, oh, say, when I can't sleep because my brain's going too fast and some nasty little voice
in my head starts whispering about how easy it would be to take that edge off, just by having a drink—reminding me what it would taste like, what it would
feel
like—”

“No,” Jules said. “No—”

“We're a team,” Robin told him. “That's what you always say when I wake
you
up. So tell me,
are
we a team, or is that just—”

“I get it,” Jules said.

“Do you?”

He nodded. “I do. You're right—I should have woken you.”

Robin
was
right. Their relationship wouldn't work if it wasn't two-way, if it was all about Jules taking care of Robin, with nothing in return. And, frankly? The last thing either of them needed was for Robin to feel as if he couldn't wake Jules in the middle of the night.

“I am sorry,” Jules said again. “But it's making me crazy that on top of a dead child—as if that weren't bad enough—I'm fucking up your career.”

“Do you hear me complaining?” Robin asked.

“No,” Jules said. “But you should be.”

“Let me get this straight,” Robin said. “I should be upset because
you think
I should be upset? Should I also check with you to find out if I'm hungry?”

“You're hungry,” Sam chimed in. “He's always hungry,” he told Nash.

“Okay,” Jules said. “You're right again. I'm being an idiot. A great, big, wrong-about-everything idiot.”

Robin came over, grabbed Jules by the front of his T-shirt, and kissed him. “But a really cute one.” He sat down on the empty stool between Jules and Sam, and aimed his next words at Sam and Nash. “Any word about… anything?”

Sam added lettuce to Nash's sandwich. “You mean besides your longtime heroin habit?”

“Seriously? Like being an alcoholic doesn't give the story enough teeth?” Robin started to laugh, but he tried to stifle it as he turned to Jules. “Sorry, babe, I know you don't think this is funny.”

“It's not. Comedy equals tragedy plus
time”
Jules pointed out as Sam cut Nash's sandwich and pushed over the plate.

“Thanks,” Nash said.

“Where's the tragedy?” Robin asked, helping himself to half of Jules's sandwich, just as Sam had predicted he would. Predicted and planned
for—typical SEAL. “I just don't see it. You and Tess aren't dead. You could've been killed,” he said with his mouth full. “Instead, you get to wake up tomorrow—which is really great. Personally? I'm enjoying the idea of you waking up the day after tomorrow, too. So let the tabloids say I've sprouted gills and can breathe underwater. You're alive and I'm alive, too. Everything else is bullshit, babe.
Everything
else.”

Jules nodded as he let himself get lost in Robin's eyes.

“That's better,” Robin murmured. “At least you're looking at me now. Did you know you cut almost all eye contact when you're jammed up too far inside your own head?”

“No, I don't,” Jules said. “Do I?”

“Did Starrett tell you about the meth lab at the Seaside Heights motel?” Nash asked, as Robin and Sam both nodded.

“Meth lab,” Jules repeated, leaning forward to look past Robin. “As in crystal meth?”

“It's highly flammable,” Nash said.

“No shit,” Jules said.

“The police report,” Sam explained, “has a meth lab as the cause of the explosion. It was, apparently, in the room next to yours. The evening desk clerk was killed in the blast. He was believed to have been cooking meth in there for months.”

Robin looked from Jules to Sam to Nash. “We don't actually believe that, do we?” he asked. “I mean, that it was a coincidence? That Jules and Tess just happened to pick the motel with the meth lab, and get the room next to it?”

“Right now we believe that whoever engineered the blast wants the police to think it was a meth lab explosion,” Sam told him. “We, however, know it was not.”

“This was another message,” Nash said tightly. “To me. It was supposed to be a bloody one, with a body count.”

“It'll be easy enough to prove,” Jules said. “I mean, that there really
wasn't
a meth lab there before today.” If the motel had been used to cook drugs for any length of time, toxic by-products would be on the grounds and in the structure itself. “I'll request a chemical analysis of the area.”

“Two people—a man and a woman—fled the scene in a truck,” Nash said. “That was in the police report, too.”

“Decker and Tracy,” Sam said.

“Anyone report shots fired?” Jules asked.

“Only Deck and Tracy,” Nash confirmed.

“Best guess?” Sam said. “Is that the shooter mistook Tracy for Tess.”

“Or maybe they didn't really care who they killed,” Nash pointed out grimly. “As long it was someone who knew me.”

“Any word on when they'll be back here?” Jules asked. “Deck and Tracy?”

“Not yet,” Sam said. “But with any luck, they'll be here soon.”

They sat there, then, in silence, just eating their sandwiches.

“I was thinking,” Nash said. “About Robin. Rumor going around is that he's in rehab again. But he's not. He's right here. And he's clean. You're clean, right?”

“Squeaky,” Robin said.

“When this is over—and it's going to be over soon, one way or another,” Nash said. “But when it's over, if you still care what anyone thinks? Make a statement. You weren't in rehab, but you knew there'd be rumors, so you took a drug test every day, and here are the results. Clean, clean, and clean.”

Robin looked at Jules, who felt himself look away. He closed his eyes and stopped himself, and made himself look back at this man whom he'd loved enough to marry. “I hate that you have to do that,” Jules told him.

Robin nodded as he touched Jules's foot with his on the rung of the stool. His toes were cold. Jules had bought him slippers, but he never wore them. Even when he was cold.

Correction—even when Jules thought he was cold.

“I know,” Robin said quietly. “But it's a good idea, so I'll do it. It's just part of, you know.” He shrugged. “The bullshit that doesn't matter.” He slipped off the stool and held out his hand to Jules. “Let's go see if I can't get you to fall asleep.”

“You want me to call you when we hear from Decker?” Sam asked.

“Nope,” Robin said.

“Yes,” Jules answered, squeezing Robin's hand. “Please.”

“Hey, Cassidy,” Nash said, and Jules turned back from the doorway to look at him. “Tess wants to see that list that I, uh, wrote. Will you get me a copy of that in the morning?”