Weakest Lynx (40 page)

“Why didn’t anyone call me with a warning?” Astonishment colored my words.

“Our lawyer got waylaid at the courthouse—no phones allowed there. When he got out, he called Command. Command contacted Morrison to go tell you in person …”

“Blah, blah, blah, the information passed down the food chain to me—but it was too late.”

“He must have headed right for your house.”

I blanched. And froze in place. “And he’s still running free,” I whispered. It wasn’t over. I drew a deep breath in and released a shaky exhale. Even though Striker and Jack wouldn’t judge me for my display of emotion, I wondered if I could ever develop a stoic exterior like they had.

Striker fixed his curious gaze on mine. “Your first two shots weren’t kill shots. You could have blown his brains out.”

I knew Striker was thinking about the night Wilson broke into my house, and I had been dead set on killing the freak show with my bare hands. I chewed my upper lip. “I thought it over and decided the other families deserved their day in court. To get their questions answered about their loved ones. It was damned selfish of me to want all the control.”

Striker nodded. I thought I’d just moved up another rung in his opinion of me.

APB—Travis Wilson. The police alerted all of the area clinics and hospitals. The court revoked his bond.

The next evening, when I left Suburban Hospital, Striker wheeled me to the door and lifted me into a gray Iniquus Hummer. Secured in my protective sandwich with Iniquus in the front and back, we drove through the complex, straight to the barracks, and up to Striker’s place.

My injuries were a hot topic—everyone who came by wanted to inspect my stitches. They thought my scars would be impressive. Luckily, since the knife had glanced off my ribs, my muscles sustained little damage.

My team turned their attention to the hunt. No one could figure out how Wilson had driven away without the use of his hands, bleeding at the wrists from jacketed hollow-point bullets. Not to mention the impact of thirteen bullets in his vest at point-blank range. That close, at least some of the bullets should have penetrated. Wilson should have had a chest full of ammo.

Every day the guys went out to search. Every day they came back trying to hide their discouragement. They were tenacious and single-minded.

I’d been sequestered in the complex for twelve days, when an uproar erupted in the hall. My team marched home victorious. They found the blue Honda with a badly decomposed Travis Wilson inside. He drove about twenty miles when he careened off the road into a ravine. The evergreen foliage hid the wreckage. The partially submerged car was invisible from the road.

The team had been standing roadside in the frigid weather for hours waiting for the news as a tow truck pulled the car out and the Coroner’s Investigator confirmed Wilson’s identity. For days, they had been walking the highways in the hopes that just such a thing had happened.

“It’s over, Chica!” Striker burst into the room.

Joy! Pure golden joy poured through my body like champagne, filling me with bubbling ebullience and light.

Two days after that—at the two-week mark, I went back to the surgeon. He examined my wounds and pronounced me healed. The nurses patiently plucked out all of those stitches. The doctor said the red scar should become a fine white line, but I had to be patient. It might take a year or two to fade. My battle scars. Or—as the men liked to call them—my “bragging rights.” The doctor signed the papers, which would allow me back on full-time duty at Iniquus just in time for the company Christmas party.

The best medicine for my recovery, though, was knowing Wilson was dead and gone. Even if that wasn’t the ideal end for the other victims’ families. What did I know? Maybe it was. I was just glad to have finished this chapter.

Christmas Eve landed on a Saturday. I hosted an open house for my friends. Decorated with simple greens, pine cones, and cinnamon sticks, my house smelled of cedar and spice. In the early evening, the kids ran around on sugar highs and high expectations. I made little gifts magically appear for all of them. We decorated cookies and ate them before the icing set, and watched Santa’s progress on the NORAD website. Mrs. Martini got a little drunk on the adult eggnog. She took her teeth out and put them in her lap. It was fun. It was family. It was loud!

Later, when the families with young children had gone home to try to get everyone settled in their beds, my home filled with adults and a completely different vibe. Giant Jack was doing the shag with his itty-bitty girlfriend, Suz. They were laughing as Jack tried to make the turns under her arm. Gater sat by the fire and whooped up his tales; his girl, Amy, grinning up at him with adoration. I had planned this scene for Angel and me. A little taste of bitter sat on my tongue. But I consciously pushed those thoughts to the side to make room for something more cheerful.

I whipped up cocktails to drink with our late buffet. Jazzy music played on the sound system. The happy mood glittered like the icicles on my tree. As people tired, they trickled out onto the sidewalks for last good-byes and good wishes and went home.

Striker stayed and helped me unroll the rugs and put the furniture back in place from where we had pushed them aside to make a dance floor. I ran the dishwasher, wrapped the leftovers, and stuck them in the fridge.

The morning sky showed periwinkle with a line of butter yellow on the horizon when I cozied on the couch in front of the fire with a cup of gingerbread decaf, talking to Striker. He rubbed my feet, sore from my four-inch heels and too much dancing and looked at me with his warm green eyes, gentle with affection.

“Tell the truth, besides your feet, how are you doing?” he asked.

“Good. I’m doing good. You know, losing Angel is so different from losing my mom last year. Last Christmas is a painful memory.” I angled my head up and looked at the ceiling. “When Dad and Mom died, life really changed for me. Someone whom I interacted with each day had gone. The role they played in my life was over. I kept bumping into and tripping over a whole lot of empty, you know?” I focused back down on Striker. “Everything around me had a memory of my parents attached to it.”

“And with Angel?” Striker’s hands had stilled on my feet.

“He never saw the things in this house. Angel never even saw the house. I had him for three weeks, almost a year ago, and then I had a lot of hopes and dreams. When I lost my parents, I lost a lot of my past. When I lost Angel, I lost what I planned for my future. I have to say, mourning Angel is different.”

“What did you do with his truck and motorcycle?” Striker shifted his weight, sliding further under my legs until I was practically sitting in his lap.

“The truck I gave to his best friend, Carl, who’s home from his stint in Iraq. The motorcycle I’m going to keep, so eventually I can go on rides and remember our wonderful time together.”

Striker nodded. After a while he looked at his watch, then said, “I found some university catalogues in your kitchen.”

“I’ve decided I’m going back to school full-time in January. I think it’s time for me to be an average, everyday college student.”

“You? Average?” Striker snorted. “You can’t mean that.”

“But I do.” I sat up, affronted by his laughter. We were nose to nose, my legs trapped under his warm hand that stroked down my stocking. “I want a traditional, normal, everyday life.” I sounded childish and whiny to my own ears.

Striker shifted to his assessing look—the one that made me feel like a cryptic message he needed to work through. “That’s not going to save you, Lexi,” he said, finally, all humor gone from his voice. “You can’t hide behind banality and hope life will be gentle. It doesn’t work that way.”

I leaned back into the pillow to gain some distance and crossed my arms over my breasts. “Leave me alone, Striker. If I want banality, then who are you to dissuade me?”

“Chica, it’s impossible. You aren’t wired that way. You’re asking a Ferrari to drive twenty miles an hour to church on Sundays and stay garaged the rest of the week. Why would you want that? Do you think that being average means no more loss? No more pain?”

I shrugged. Whatever, Striker. He leaned over and rested his forehead against mine. “Lexi, you are an extraordinary woman. And you have to live up to that. You have to or your soul will shrivel.” He lifted his head and looked me in the eye.

“That’s not pretty—a shriveled soul.” A smile bowed my lips slightly. Aw. That was sweet—kind of … if you dropped the shriveled-soul bit.

Striker waited.

“Okay, how about a compromise between two extremes? I’ll head back to school part-time to get my BS in criminology, and I’ll still work at Iniquus part-time.”

“Sorry. But no,” Striker said.

“No?” I was stunned.

“You can’t work part-time. Your country needs you to serve on a special assignment at the request of a very important person. We’ll be on a team with him.”

“Mmmm, and who exactly is this VIP?”

Striker stood, pulling me up beside him. Toe-to-toe, I had to tip my head back to see his eyes. Striker bent down and whispered in my ear, “Spyder McGraw.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Yes, Lexi.” A full dimpled grin told me Striker thought he was giving me the best Christmas gift ever.

“You heard from him? And you didn’t tell me immediately?” Why didn’t Spyder call me himself? Hurt. Relieved. Angry. Happy. A mishmash of emotions confused my face as the muscles pushed and pulled, trying to find the right expression. I bet I looked possessed.

Striker’s grin dropped off, replaced with wariness. “He asked me to keep it a secret. He didn’t want to disappoint you if he didn’t make it in today.”

“Today?” Okay. Joy won out in the emotional battle. I seized Striker by both wrists and jumped up and down like I was riding a pogo stick. Striker chuckled at my antics. Beetle and Bella got up from their sleep and danced around, adding their barks to the din.   

“We need to head for the airport, Chica.”

I ran toward my kitchen where I had kicked off my shoes. A contented smile decorated my face as I retraced my path, heading for the closet in search of my coat.

Striker pulled me to him where he stood under the mistletoe. Good Lord, but he smelled delicious—wood smoke, pine, and spicy aftershave.

“I have something for you,” he said. He reached into his pocket and placed a little white present with a red bow onto the palm of my hand. I lifted the top carefully and saw a golden brooch shaped like a gift box laying on sapphire velvet. The box looked like the pressure of all the little jewels exploding out of it was lifting the lid right off.

“It’s a surprise party.” I smiled up at him. Striker pulled me into his arms, leaned down, and softly kissed my lips. I pressed my body into his as I kissed him back. And it felt like I had found my way home.

THE END

This book was written in my head during a six-week odyssey. I bundled my youngest two children into the back of my minivan along with my daughter’s medical-alert dog, and I drove all over the Continental United States, seeing the things that we were studying in American history, science, and literature. I want to thank kids #3 and #4 for being awesome travel mates. We took home some fabulous adventuring stories, including
Weakest Lynx
.