the back of her mind, a silent voice countered her words. He’d promised no one would be hurt.
She reached her car and pulled out her keys but they wouldn’t go into the lock. Something was wrong. She struggled with them for a moment, then her hand began to shake and she dropped the ring, somewhere underneath the car door. It was the final straw. She laid her head against the roof of the vehicle and began to cry.
“Can I help?”
Jennifer turned at once. The body armor was gone, but its absence didn’t diminish Beck Winters’s size. In fact, he looked even taller and more commanding, looming over her car and staring down at her with his strange, cold eyes. A ripple of anger went through her, but she was too exhausted to even acknowledge it.
“I—I dropped my keys,” she said stupidly.
He knelt down, patted the ground beside her feet, then stood. She held out her hand, but he reached past her and slipped the key in. The sound of the door unlocking was unnaturally loud.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
There was nothing else to say, but neither of them moved. After a moment, he broke the silence. “Look, I know it’s hard to understand what happened back there and I sympathize because this man was your friend, but the team has to save lives—first and foremost. Surely you understand that.”
“I told Lieutenant McKinney what I understood,” she said. “I don’t think you and I need to go over it again.”
“Of course,” he said stiffly. “I just thought…”
The medic had checked Jennifer and pronounced her all right, but she wondered briefly if he hadn’t missed an unseen injury. A painful stab flared in her chest as the cop before her spoke.
“No, you didn’t think,” she snapped back. “That’s the problem with men like you. You put on your uniforms and grab your guns and run out the door to fight. The people left behind are the ones who have to pick up the pieces, but you never consider them!”
As soon as the words were out her mouth, Jennifer regretted them. They weren’t fair and she knew it—they came from a place deep in her past that had nothing to do with the man standing before her—but she was beyond caring. She was completely drained and empty of all logic and reason. She opened her mouth to say so but he stopped her.
“You’re right,” he said. “But you’re wrong, too. The ones left behind do have to pick up the pieces, but I always think about them. Believe me, Miss Barclay, they’re the reason I do what I do. Seeing someone killed in a situation like this is the last thing I want.”
He was telling the truth; she could see it in those strange, clear eyes.
“Then what happened in there tonight?” Her voice cracked. “Why was Howard shot?”
“He raised the gun and we thought he was going to shoot the boy,” he said raggedly. “Having a sniper in place is standard operating procedure and when he perceived imminent danger to the child, he took the shot.”
Something in his voice alerted her. She jerked her head up and stared into the blue ice of his gaze, her stomach churning with the gut feeling that came from hearing the truth mixed with a lie. She wasn’t getting the whole story.
She shook her head slowly and stared at him. “I don’t believe you. I want the truth. Something went wrong, didn’t it? You didn’t want him killed, did you?”
“Let me take you home,” he said gently. “I can call a uniform and catch a ride back up here to get my car. You’re in no shape to drive to Fort Walton.”
“I’m a teacher, Officer Winters. Diversions don’t work with me.”
“I’m not trying to divert you. I’m trying to help you. You’re wrung out, and you need to get home and take care of yourself.”
“So I won’t bother you anymore with my questions?”
“No.” He paused and took a breath. Was he stalling as he searched for a more satisfying explanation or simply exhausted as she was? “So you won’t torture yourself with what-ifs,” he said finally. “You did everything you could back there and we did, too. It was a bad end, yes, but it wasn’t our fault…or yours.”
“He didn’t need to be killed,” she said stubbornly.
He shocked her by his answer. “Maybe, but we’ll never know for sure. Only one thing’s certain. We can’t go back and play it a different way. We have to take what happened and deal with it.”
“Then just tell me the truth. Tell me what really happened—what I did—then let me deal with that.”
From beneath his matted hair, he stared at her, his eyes almost glowing. For a second she caught a fleeting glimpse of something in their cold depths, but she wasn’t sure. She was so tired she was imagining it. She had to be.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head, his expression closing against itself. “But I can’t tell you more. You’ll have to be satisfied with that.”
THE MESSAGE LIGHT on her answering machine was blinking furiously when Jennifer finally reached her condo. She hit the play button and closed her eyes.
“I heard about the shooting, and I’m real worried. You call me as soon as you get in. I don’t care what time it is, you just call.”
Wanda’s Southern accent filled the small living room. Normally Jennifer would have picked up the phone and called immediately, but she couldn’t make her fingers reach for the receiver. They were as tired as the rest of her, and what little energy she had left, she wanted to use getting clean. She peeled off her clothing, right there in the middle of the den, and walked into the kitchen. Retrieving a paper sack from the pantry, she dropped everything in it and rolled the edges tightly together. Tomorrow she’d burn them.
Naked and shivering in the air-conditioning, she opened the refrigerator. The strongest drink she could find was a bottle of Coors left over from a pizza party some time back. She grabbed it, opened the bottle, and downed the beer. She didn’t lower the bottle until it was empty, then she stumbled into her bathroom and opened the shower door. When she stepped out twenty minutes later, her skin was red and raw—whether from the heat of the steaming water or the scrubbing she didn’t know.
Her stomach in knots, she knew the only way she could get to sleep was to eat something first. Somewhere between scrambling the eggs and getting the grape jelly out of the refrigerator, she began to cry. The tears ran down her cheeks, but she just ignored them. They weren’t going to stop and there was nothing she could do about it so she let them come.
God, how had it happened? One minute she’d been standing beside Howard and the next she’d ordered him to go to that window. No wonder he’d grabbed her—she’d scared him half to death. Then Beck had finished him off.
And she’d trusted him!
He’d sounded so sympathetic over the phone, so caring and warm. In reality, he reminded her of a photograph she’d seen in a sixth-grade world history textbook of a Nordic trapper. He had the same cold, blond looks and size, plus a face like a stony mask. All that
