Chapter Twenty-Four

Jacie went for his throat.

She’d seen The Destroyer’s lightning quick reflexes this morning when he’d flattened three men in a split second. Even with his bleeding hand and looking as though he’d fallen down a mountain, she didn’t give him a chance to counterattack.

He didn’t even try to fight her. He shrieked. It was so earsplitting it felt as if he were stabbing her brain with a red-hot poker.

While he shrieked, she towed him out of the cave by his neck. She’d learned plenty of fighting skills in the police academy before she’d washed out.

“Shut up.” She balled her fist.

Someone grabbed her and yanked her away from The Destroyer. She turned to fight this new enemy. She slashed at his neck with her free hand. He caught her arm before she could tear his throat out.

“I know that move. Come at me from a different direction next time.”

Brett.

Behind him the mountainside swarmed with people. She looked at Brett. “Did you call for backup?”

He shook his head.

“The FBI must have found us all by its little self,” she sneered.

Womack grabbed The Destroyer, who was still making a high-pitched whining noise. Womack flipped the man onto the ground, on his belly, and cuffed him, asking terse questions of Jacie that she didn’t understand. She turned to Brett, but she caught him glancing between her and The Destroyer with a look of disgust. She imagined he compared her rage at The Destroyer to her treatment of the bird and regretted ever meeting her.

The Destroyer picked that moment to double the volume of his inhuman shrieking.

“I’m going to shut him up for good,” Jacie said. Brett grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back.

The Destroyer edged himself away from her, crawling on his back using his elbows and feet to scramble along the forest floor. She saw pure insanity in his eyes.

Womack dragged him to his feet. “Shut up, you screeching twit!”

Girardi appeared, hung up his phone and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Hey, Jacie. Nice to see you.”

Jacie gave Girardi a nod. “I want to say something to him.”

Brett relaxed his hold on her waist, but she noticed he didn’t let her go. It annoyed her, but she had no right to expect Brett to trust her.

Girardi and Womack helped Fithian to his feet and she moved to within an inch of The Destroyer’s demonic face. She penetrated his madness somewhat because he stopped howling and stared at her.

“You should have known you could never destroy me,” she said, leaning in until she was nose to nose with him. “You are weak! You are stupid! You were never The Destroyer. I am The Destroyer.”

The high-pitched shrieking began again in earnest.

Womack snorted with a short harsh laugh, which he quickly controlled.

Girardi rolled his eyeballs. “Oh, brother.”

Womack took Girardi’s handkerchief, stuffed it into Fithian’s mouth and said, “You have the right to remain silent.”

Brett said dryly, “Good luck with that.”

Then the process took over. People swarmed Jacie, asking her questions. Brett took the FBI to where he and Jacie had stashed O’Donnell and the explosives. A medic bathed and bandaged Jacie’s wrists.

Womack received word that Kaplan was out of surgery and expected to make it.

Brett’s brother showed up. He had a Long Pine badge and looked enough like Brett that Jacie was sure she’d guessed right, but Brett didn’t bring him over to introduce her. The two stepped aside to talk.

Jacie avoided Brett, even though she knew his whereabouts at all times. When he and his brother walked into the woods behind her, where they’d hidden the stolen Blazer, she knew he’d abandoned her.

She fell into her tough-talking cop mode, pretty much the only mode she had and, with that attitude, convinced herself that it didn’t matter that Brett had left her.

Girardi offered her a ride back to Long Pine in the falling darkness and she accepted. They walked a good distance to his beat-up city car because it couldn’t climb as far as Brett’s SUV. Jacie saw the car Brett had stolen rolling down the mountain trail far below her. He had left her.

He’d smashed her heart when his eyes had accused her of hurting those swallows, but leaving her was even worse. With a hand on her chest, she got in the car with Girardi and tried her best not to think.

Girardi didn’t help. When he reached for the key, he said, “Somethin’ on with you and and the boy scout, Jacie?”

She clenched her jaw. “As usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I thought I saw a little heat there.”

“Give me a break, Girardi. He’s a nice guy and all, but how pathetic is ‘nice’?” She laughed Brett off, making the cut fast and deep so she could start healing.

She thought she did a good job of making it sound real. “I mean, come on, you got a chance to meet the Pretty Boy. I spent most of my time drying his wimpy crocodile tears.”

“Wimpy? I heard he’s a black belt. Someone said he’s a trained marksman, that he shot Fithian.”

“Do you mind shutting up so I can get some rest? This case has been a pain from start to finish. I’m glad it’s finally over and I can get back to a normal life.” She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep as Girardi drove off.

 

 

 

Brett stood in the shadow of an ancient ponderosa pine and listened to her nasty mouth cutting him to the quick. A wimp? Crocodile tears? He was about to shout, ‘Jacie, I’m sorry. Come with me. I love you.’ He didn’t say a word.

Then he remembered this was the Jacie he’d known from the beginning. Always sarcastic, always a little too mean. But underneath the bravado, there was a vulnerable woman who used anger to protect her fragile heart.

He watched as Girardi’s car disappeared around a curve.

They’d had a stupid fight over a stupid swallow. That was no reason to ruin a perfectly good week-old relationship.

One of the cops had driven the stolen Blazer back to Long Pine. Womack wouldn’t leave the crime scene until every last detail was wrapped up. Ben came up beside him.

“Where’s this Jacie? I thought you were going to introduce me?”

Brett clapped his brother on the back. He’d had his hands full convincing Ben not to kill him for not letting the family know he was alive.

“She headed back already. Can I have a ride home?”

“Let me finish some things up here, first, then we’ll go.” Ben thrust his own cell phone in Brett’s hands and said, “Call Mom. She’s been planning your funeral for Pete’s sakes. I already did so she knows you’re alive. But give the parents a break and let them hear your voice.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I was afraid I might put you in danger.”

Nodding, Ben said, “Trudy probably has a psychological term for that, but I just think you’re a moron. And Mom cried, so you’re toast.”

Brett flinched. “She cried? Hangin’ Judge Janet cried real tears?”

“She’s gonna make you pay for this, for the rest of your life.”

Brett grabbed the phone and talked while he waited for a ride. Over Mom’s yelling, first with joy, then with rage, he paced, trying to decide if he would grovel or yell or kiss Jacie stupid when he found her.

He figured he’d do as much groveling and yelling as it took to get to the kissing part.

 

 

 

Girardi stopped by the hospital.

Jacie crossed her arms. “I’m fine. Just take me home.”

Girardi bullied her inside.

She got a few bandages, and Girardi tried to get her to come home with him, to let his wife look after her for a few days.

She finally convinced him she was well enough to be alone in her apartment.

The minute the door shut behind him, she tore the bandages off her wrists and threw them away. Her sandals hit the trash next. She showered and felt almost human when she pulled on her own clothing. Her fingers combed through her wet hair. She grabbed a couple of changes of clothes, and when her feet slid into her sneakers, her toes almost fell off from the pure pleasure of it.

She plucked her car keys off the hook, and was finally ready to do what she’d felt compelled to do since she’d seen that look of loathing in Brett’s eyes.

She drove home to Fort Worth. Despite being miserable there, it was the place she thought of as home.

She let herself into the mausoleum. Nothing had changed. Dusty, white drop cloths covered the furniture, making them into eerie specters waiting on someone to haunt. She didn’t need their help. She’d brought plenty of her own ghosts.

The electricity and water weren’t turned on so she walked to a fast food restaurant and used their restroom while she was there. She climbed wearily up the steps to her old bedroom, tossed the drop cloth off her bed, lay down on the bare mattress, and cried.

She couldn’t stop the tears. But she promised herself she’d cry them out and be done with them for good. Once purged, she’d find that stiff-necked independence she wanted, and get on with her life. The sun was starting to lighten the sky when she finally fell asleep.

 

 

 

 

Thank the good Lord Womack knew Jacie’s address. Brett was grateful Womack didn’t comment on Brett’s pathetically slim knowledge of the woman he’d just spent a week with. Womack drove him to Jacie’s apartment.

“You’re sure you want to see her again, buddy? She’s kinda scary.”

There was no one home.

Brett borrowed Womack’s cell and talked to a sleepy Girardi. He was none too happy about being bothered. Brett’s ear was numb by the time Girardi finished ranting.

“Sorry, Garrison,” Womack said, retrieving his phone. “I’ve got to report in. Where can I drop you?”

That’s when he remembered his house had blown up. His car was parked deep in the Washington forest. His job and his cat were in someone else’s care.

And he was short one girlfriend.

Brett realized he had no place in the world to call his own.

Womack dropped him at the nearest motel so he could feel sorry for himself in private.