Elliot’s eyes jerked open.
His heart was still hammering in the aftermath of the dream. Nightmare. That’s all it was. Not real. His unconscious mind twisting memory with fearful imagination.
“You okay?” Tucker mumbled into his pillow, still half-asleep himself.
Elliot unstuck his lips. His throat felt raw. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m awake now.”
He could feel Tucker struggling to reach him through the fog of exhaustion. “Bad dream?”
“It’s okay. Go back to sleep.”
In answer, Tucker looped a muscular arm around Elliot, and the hard bump of a brawny shoulder against his cheekbone woke Elliot fully. He clumsily patted Tucker’s back and made himself lie still so as not to disturb him further. Tucker was running full-out these days to keep up with his workload. He needed his rest.
They both did.
Elliot’s heart still thudded with fear and anger. He closed his eyes and tried to will himself back into unconsciousness. His skin was chilled with perspiration and his breathing was as hard as if he’d been running.
It was so quiet he could hear his wristwatch ticking on the nightstand.
Tucker heaved over onto his side and tried to pull Elliot closer. “Corian?” He sounded more awake now, a note of quiet anger in his raspy voice. He thought his fears were coming true and Elliot’s involvement in the case was already taking a toll.
Elliot shook his head. “No. Ira Kane.”
Tucker let out a long breath.
Elliot rarely dreamed about the shooting at Pioneer Courthouse Square. The nightmare had probably been triggered by Connie Foster aiming a shotgun at him.
He lifted his head to better see the luminous face of the clock. Four forty-five. Not quite two hours to sunrise. Once Tucker fell back asleep, he’d get up and work in his office for a bit.
But Tucker did not appear to be drifting back into unconsciousness. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah.”
“Is it always the same?”
“The dream? Pretty much. I’m wrestling him for the gun. But that never happened. I never got that close to him.”
The part that made the dream hard to take was that he was wrestling Kane before the shooting in the courthouse, before anyone had died. So while it was a relief to wake up, it was to the knowledge that he hadn’t been able to prevent the shooting.
But he had stopped Kane from killing anyone else. So...you took your victories where you found them.
Tucker made a funny sound somewhere between a growl and a groan, his arm tightening in that affectionate choke hold. Elliot hugged him back, offering comfort to the guy who really needed it. He was smiling a little. It was tough on Tucker not being able to fix this.
“Listen, go back to sleep,” he soothed. “You’ve still got thirty minutes before the alarm goes off. I’m going to get a head start on the day.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Tucker kissed him and then pulled free. He sat up. “Why don’t we make coffee and watch the sunrise?”
* * *
Tucker carried out two large earthenware mugs and set one before Elliot on the wooden picnic table. “It’s the last of the Van Houtte.”
They’d bought a couple of bags of Eclipse Extra Bold when they were in Montreal and had been savoring it ever since.
Elliot murmured thanks and warmed his hands on the rough blue mug. The morning was cool and damp, white mist rising off the silver sound. A gray and hushed world, silent, formless but for the jagged black outline of trees puncturing the fog.
“Maybe one of the guards,” Elliot said.
“Maybe one of the guards what?”
Elliot had been thinking aloud. He glanced at Tucker. “Maybe that’s how he’s communicating with the outside world.”
He didn’t have to explain who “he” was.
“What makes you think he’s communicating with the outside world?”
“If there is an unsub and if Corian is still in contact with him, he’d have to be able to communicate with him without being monitored. Using a guard as a go-between is one possibility.”
Tucker nodded and stared out over the tops of the trees.
“Is there a female guard on his detail? Or maybe not a guard. Maybe another female staff member. Someone in the med center? Or an instructor. Is Corian taking part in any educational courses? Is he teaching art to the inmates?”
The gaze Tucker swung his way was curious.
“He has the kind of charisma that appeals to women,” Elliot said. “Young women anyway. He always had a flock of female students trotting after him at PSU.”
“I’ll find out.” Tucker went back to staring out at the treetops.
The addition of the wide natural wood deck overlooking the cove had been Tucker’s idea—and it was a great one. On sunny weekend mornings they had breakfast out here and in the summer they barbecued dinner. Occasionally they rose early enough to have coffee and watch the sun come up. A peaceful start to any day. Those were Elliot’s favorite mornings.
They drank their coffee and watched the world change color, silver and gray deepening to vibrant blue and lush green as buttery sunlight poured through the thinning mist. A robin greeted the sun.
Tucker put his mug down and said quietly, “Your birthday’s next month.”
That was another unexpected thing about Tucker. How good he was about remembering the milestones. Acknowledging, even celebrating the emotional landmarks. Elliot was terrible about remembering things like cards and anniversaries.
Elliot said, “So? What’s that look for? Are you afraid I’m expecting paper hats and helium balloons?”
If there was one thing Elliot would not expect—or want—it would be a surprise party. Or any party. And Tucker knew it. He didn’t return Elliot’s smile.
“No. But if you’re coming back to the Bureau, you need to make your mind up soon. Thirty-seven is the cutoff age.”
Elliot’s peaceful mood instantly evaporated like a shooting star fizzling out into a cold empty night. For a moment he couldn’t think how to reply.
“Where did that come from?” he said at last. “I don’t have plans to try to return to the Bureau.”
Anyway, he would only be turning thirty-five on this next birthday, so there wasn’t quite the urgency Tucker implied, even had he been considering such a thing.
Which he hadn’t.
Tucker expelled a long breath. “I think Montgomery is going to talk to you about a nonagent position.”
Elliot felt a surge of...he wasn’t sure what. Bewilderment for sure. Excitement? Even alarm maybe. “I already—I don’t—”
Tucker said in that same calm, almost impersonal voice, “When you resigned, you were still dealing with the emotional and physical aftereffects of being shot. You were angry and depressed. But you’re past all that now. And for the last year you’ve been working off and on with the Bureau, unofficially, yes, but anyone can see you do still have a strong interest in...in...”
Meddling? Interfering? Butting in? Clearly the words that did not spring to Tucker’s mind were criminal investigation.
“We already had this talk nearly a year ago. I said then one superhero per family was enough.”
“What we didn’t talk about then—and you aren’t talking about it now—is what you actually want.”
Elliot stared at Tucker, who stared right back at him.
“Do you want to come back?” Tucker asked.
“I...” Elliot shook his head. “I never considered it even a possibility.”
“It is.”
As a nonagent. He had loved being an agent. Had been unwilling to consider any other position. But the fact was over half of FBI personnel were nonagent support employees. They were recognized as vital to the success of the organization and in some cases held ranks as high as assistant directors.
Elliot stared out at a distant fishing boat making its way across silver-blue water. A flock of hungry gulls followed. “What do you think of the idea?”
“I don’t know.” Elliot felt rather than saw Tucker’s grimace. “That’s the truth. I don’t know how I feel about it now. At one time, yeah. But now—”
Elliot looked at him. “But now what?”
“I worry about you.” Elliot opened his mouth, but Tucker was still talking, his expression somber. “It’s not that I don’t think you can handle yourself. I know you can handle yourself, and you wouldn’t be in the field anyway, so it’s not really an issue. And it would be great to have more time together, although I don’t know that would happen because we probably wouldn’t be working the same cases. We might have less time.”
None of this was what Elliot wanted to hear—and yet he did want Tucker to be honest with him. Always.
“You were a good agent.” Tucker sighed. “No, you were a great agent and you’re still really good at investigating and analyzing. You’ve got a knack for it.”
Tucker had clearly given this thought, which meant he’d had some time to mull it over. How long had he known what Montgomery was considering?
Tucker’s reticence about things that concerned Elliot bothered him. He didn’t want to make an issue of it, but it did bother him.
Not least because Tucker knew it bothered him, but he still did it.
“But?”
Tucker sighed. “I don’t know. To be honest, I kind of like the fact that your job isn’t so closely aligned to mine now. It’s a relief to be able to get away from the Bureau when I’m at home. Your work is interesting and I like talking about something that doesn’t have to do with law enforcement once in a while. Not that I think you should stay in academia because I like hearing you talk about it, but you’re good at teaching. And I think you enjoy it, though maybe not as much. I don’t know.”
Elliot nodded. He was grateful for Tucker’s candor, but it didn’t exactly make things easier.
He thought he better understood now why Tucker had seemed so troubled by his participation in his case—why even his bad dreams were affecting Tucker more than they affected him. Tucker was looking ahead, anticipating future threats to the life they were building together.
He put his hands around his mug, but the earthenware was cool now. The morning breeze was clammy. His sweatshirt wasn’t warm enough for these September mornings.
He shivered and Tucker glanced at him. “It’s your choice. I know that.”
“Yeah, but...” Yes and no. This was a decision that would impact both of them.
Tucker set his mug down and said in a dogged sort of tone, “I want to say this. If it will make you happy, if you feel like this is what you’re meant to do, I’m not going to—You should do it. I mean that. I want you to be happy.”
Elliot thought that over.
He said finally, “It works both ways. I want you to be happy too. And if taking this job means messing up things between us...” He sighed. Shook his head. “So far this is conjecture. I’m not going to get worked up about something that might never come to pass.”
He stretched his hand across the table. Tucker’s fingers laced his, gripping him back with equal warmth and strength.
But he didn’t say anything.