Rapid Fire (18 page)

The night
before he hadn’t intended to kiss her. God knows he wasn’t looking to start
something complicated with a coworker in Bear Claw when he’d just ended
something messy with one back home. But even knowing that, he’d kissed her and
been lost.

He
touched the small of her back to guide her out of the ER curtain room. “Come
on, we’ve got to talk.” He hadn’t braced himself against he flash of touching
her, and was surprised when it didn’t come, when he felt only the warmth of her
clothing and the firm muscles beneath.

She
followed his lead, but said, “Talk about what?”

He didn’t
answer until they were outside the hospital, out in the fresh air of a sunny,
innocent-seeming summer day. Needing to burn off the energy zipping along
beneath his skin, he turned her toward a large park the hospital maintained for
its patients and their families, for those times that called for a bit of fresh
air and greenery, a bit of privacy.

Feeling
as though he was being guided from outside himself, Thorne led her down a brick
pathway, into a mazelike area where towering hedges screened them from the
hospital and the other walkers. At the center of the maze, they found a small
doorway marked simply Meditation.

Somehow,
he’d known it would be there.

He
knocked, and when nobody answered, pushed through the door into a small space
bounded by hedges. A sandstone bench sat beneath a shade tree within, and the
door could be locked from the inside, protecting privacy for meditation.

Or
conversation.

He
gestured to the bench set beneath a shade tree. “Sit.”

“I’ll
stand, thank you just the same.” Maya tilted her chin up as though bracing for
a blow.

“Fine.
I’ll sit.” Thorne suited action to words, then waited until she joined him on
the bench, which was short enough that their knees touched.

He felt
only human warmth at the contact, and wondered why the flashes had threatened
to break through before, but not now. Had he imagined them in the first place?

Or was
something else going on?

Aware of
Maya watching him with shadowed, troubled eyes, Thorne tabled that question and
shifted to face her more fully. “I think we’re working at cross-purposes. We’re
getting in each other’s way when we could be working together. We need to stop
doing that and focus on what’s important.”

Though he
hadn’t been aware of making the decision, it sounded right. It felt right.

She
leaned away. “And what do you consider important? Redecorating my office?”

“I told
you I’m not interested in your job,” he said, though that wasn’t entirely true.
“I’m saying we need to figure out what happened to you that night. I think
you’re right. I think there might be a connection between the Mastermind and
what happened at the Henkes mansion.”

Her eyes
blanked. “You believe me? You think Henkes could be our guy?”

“I’m not
going that far, but your suspension has acted to destabilize the Bear Claw PD,
which can only benefit the Mastermind’s plan.” Thorne thought it through aloud.
“Drew Wilson could be the Mastermind, not another of his lackeys. It would work
on a couple of levels—Wilson has police training and explosives experience
through the military.”

“He’s not
smart enough.” Maya stood and began to pace the small space in a move that
reminded Thorne of himself. “His coworkers all said he was only as smart as he
needed to be. That doesn’t fit the Mastermind’s profile.”

“Unless
he played dumb at the prison,” Thorne said. The restless energy of her pacing
echoed inside him, sparking the heat of frustration, inaction. He stood and
intercepted her, forcing her to stop before she bumped square into him. “I’m
serious, Maya. I want us to share our information and work together. For real
this time.” He held out his hand to her. “What do you say? Partners?”

After a
long, motionless moment, she nodded. “Okay. No more secrets between us.”

Before he
could argue that wasn’t what he’d said or meant, she took his hand.

The flash
ripped through him, almost fully formed now. It showed him the future.

A
gunshot. Blood. A scream.

And his
own finger on the trigger as he killed again.

Chapter
Ten

Thorne
flinched and tried to pull away from their handclasp, but this time Maya didn’t
let him go. She held on tight and followed him when he backed across the small
clearing. His broad shoulders bumped up against the tall hedge and his face
went white as chalk.

“What do
you see?” she said, keeping her voice low and calm.

Thorne’s
grip went lax in hers and a shudder rolled through his body. But his voice was
tinged with bleak, black humor when he said, “Trust me. You don’t want to know
about the things I see.”

She let
her hands fall away, unaccountably disappointed. “In other words, that whole
‘full disclosure, let’s be partners’ speech was a crock.” She stepped back.
“You don’t trust me and I don’t trust you. Why are we bothering?”

Hollow
frustration beat within her, the knowledge that she didn’t have anyone on her
side, and that working with Thorne was complicating more than it was helping.
Maybe it was time to walk, time to go it alone.

But as
she watched him pace, watched the lean strength of him, the leashed anger that
vibrated through his body and sent an answering quiver through hers, she
realized that she might not be able to walk away. He drew her just as surely as
he’d done back in their academy days, though for different reasons. Back then,
he’d been the good-time guy, the partier so like the ex-husband—and the part of
herself—that she’d been trying to outrun. Now, he was dark and unhappy, maybe
even a little violent. And that darkness drew her.

Worse, he
could be her only hope at this point. She needed somebody on her side at a time
when even Cassie and Alissa couldn’t help her.

So she
sat on the bench, feeling the cold of the stone seep through the fabric of her
sundress. “You want honesty and full disclosure? Fine. You’ve got it. But you
owe me the same in return.”

The
decision surged in her gut like nausea, like fear, but what was her other
option?

There
wasn’t one. Period.

Knowing
it, hating it, she said, “You know the rum bottle in the cabinet? That was the
one Dane and I bought the night we got in the accident. The night we killed
Kiernan Surhoff. I kept it as a symbol.” As penance. “The seal has been
unbroken for eleven years.” She reached up with both hands and unfastened the
clasp of her charm necklace. When the chain fell free, she pulled one end up
and away, so the five charms dropped into her palm. “When I was released from
observation at the hospital, I checked the cabinet first. I think I already
knew that I’d find the bottle open.”

She
flicked her wrist and tossed the charms into the thick, green hedge surrounding
the meditation area.

They
glittered in the sunlight, then were gone, leaving an aching void deep in her
soul. A sense of loss.

Of
failure.

“I bought
a charm for each year I was sober,” she said, though he hadn’t asked. “After
the night you and I—the night we spent together, I tossed the six charms I wore
back then and started collecting a new set.” She stared into the hedge. “I
don’t know if I can start over again.”

But she
had to. What other choice was there?

When he
didn’t say anything, didn’t move, she continued, “I’d like to think there’s
another explanation, but it makes too much sense. I took it personally when
Kiernan Henkes was hurt. Maybe too personally, I don’t know. The whole case
bothered me—how neither the boy nor his mother could explain the injuries, and
how Henkes was evasive on questioning. Even the chief agreed it was strange.”

Thorne
glanced at the edge of the brick walkway, where one of the fallen charms lay
abandoned. “Do you remember opening the bottle?”

She shook
her head. “No. I don’t.”

“Do you
remember drinking the night we were together?”

“I don’t
know what that—” She broke off, then a ball of excitement tightened in her chest
as she answered, “Yes. I remember you pouring the whiskey. I remember how it
smelled, how it looked in the glass. I remember telling you I was sober.”

“And I
pushed you,” he said, eyes dark. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Back then, I
was threatened by people who didn’t drink, because I drank so damn much. I
think I wanted…hell, I don’t know what I wanted, but I’m sorry. I wish things
had happened differently that night.”

The
simple sincerity touched her, bringing a tight knot to her throat. She swallowed
to clear the emotion. “We both made mistakes. We both survived. But the
important thing right now is that you’re right. I remember that night. But I
don’t remember drinking the night I went after Henkes. The last thing I
remember is…” She thought back. “I remember coming home from the hospital. I’d
been by to see Kiernan, but his father wouldn’t let me in the room. He said
Kiernan was sleeping, and when I insisted, he told me to come back with a
warrant. I hated his smug attitude and his lawyer, and I was ticked that the
chief didn’t want to prosecute his own fishing buddy. I came home and—” She
held up her hands. “That’s it. Nothing else until I woke up in that hospital
room.”

Thorne’s
expression grew grim. “Would the chief have tried to cover for you if he
thought you were drunk?”

“Never.
Not in a million years. He’s a good cop, smart and by-the-book.”

“What
about your friends?”

Though
her first instinct was to go on the defensive, Maya waited a beat, then went
with honesty. “Alissa and Cassie don’t know much about my…history with alcohol.
They know I don’t drink, but they think it’s because I was married to an
alcoholic. And besides, they wouldn’t interfere with a case. Not even for me.”
She dropped her face into her hands. “Which leaves us exactly nowhere, unless…”
She trailed off as a thought occurred to her, one that had been skirting the
edges of her mind for days. She’d pushed off the temptation as impractical.
Dangerous.

But now
it might be their only option.

She took
a deep breath. “I want you to regress me. I did it before, with Alissa during
the Canyon Kidnapping case. It helped.” Perhaps they hadn’t gotten the
information they’d expected, but it had helped, nonetheless.

Only now
Maya wouldn’t be the one in control.

Thorne
would.

She swallowed
and continued, “If the memories are in there, you’ll be able to get them out.
We need to know what happened at the Henkes mansion, and we need to know now.”

But
instead of jumping at the chance to get inside her head, Thorne scowled.
“You’re telling me that of all the professionals you worked with at the
hospital or through the department, none of them hypnotized you after the
Henkes incident, trying to find the memories?”

Maya
jammed her hands in the pockets of her sundress and hunched her shoulders.
“What does that matter?”

“Did
they?” he persisted.

Frustration
clamped a hot, angry vise around her chest. “They didn’t get anything. Not a
damn thing.”