make a living writing about,” Connor agreed, not bothering to soften the edge in his voice.
Now it made sense, he thought, annoyed with himself for not figuring it out before. Now he knew why she’d risked going on the run with the boy long before she’d discovered there was a family connection between them. He didn’t know who he felt angrier at—her, for turning out to be the journalistic equivalent of a conartist, or himself for not seeing from the start what she was up to. Hell, for all he knew maybe she’d somehow faked that photo she’d conveniently found in her purse.
“That’s what all this was leading to, wasn’t it? You hoped you could get a National Eye-Opener front page out of this, complete with you in your ghost-busting gear facing down some guy in a monster costume. Lady, whatever hare-brained notion you’ve got of parlaying a federal investigation into journalistic glory for yourself—”
“Journalistic glory?” The pink in her cheeks flared to bright patches of anger. “In a rag like the Eye-Opener that gets shoved between the milk and eggs in a sack of groceries? I’m not that delusional, Agent, and even if I were I wouldn’t use a child’s fear to my own advantage.” Her voice shook. “Believe me, I know how damaging that can be.”
Her vehemence rang too true to have been put on for his benefit, Connor thought. And behind it was something else—something that held an echo of pain and guilt.
But he’d allowed himself to be distracted by Tess Smith’s seeming vulnerability once already, he reminded himself. Any pain he thought he detected in her voice wasn’t his concern.
“Let’s say you didn’t intend to use this in one of your stories.” He shrugged. “What does that leave me with—that you really believe Joey saw an evil spirit in that alleyway?”
“I told you you’d think it was crazy.” Her gaze was shuttered. “But yes, if Joey says Skinwalker’s after him, that’s enough for me. He needs to know someone’s on his side.”
As she spoke, Connor was half-convinced he could feel the warmth of her breath on his own lips, could discern the faintest scent of cloves and carnations coming from her. There was no good reason why he kept thinking of flowers when he looked at Tess Smith, he thought in irritation.
Besides, his involvement with the woman had begun with her leveling a gun at him. If he needed a botanical reference to compare her to, a cholla cactus was probably his best bet—wild fuchsia blossoms behind a formidable barricade of thorns.
But neither her prickliness nor his own inappropriate musings were enough to completely distract him from the care she’d taken in framing her answer to his last question. He knew with sudden certainty what she was trying to hide.
“You don’t believe in any of this, either, do you?” He frowned. “You said you weren’t brought up in the Way. Admit it—Skinwalker’s nothing more than a dim folkloric tradition to you, like the kelpies my Irish grandmother used to tell me about were to me.”
“He’s real to Joey.” She bit off the words. “And despite my sketchy knowledge of my own heritage, I have more respect for the old stories than to dismiss them completely.”
“Maybe, but you’re standing by Joey for your own reasons, not because you think there’s any possibility he’s telling the literal truth.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “Why is it so important to you that he doesn’t go back into protective custody? Is there another threat to him you’re not telling—”
Connor broke off abruptly. From the parking lot outside had come the solid thunk of a car door closing, and even as he strode to the window he heard a second thunk. He pushed the drapes aside and saw an unmarked sedan almost identical to his own, two men standing by it in neatly unobtrusive suits and with expressions of grim alertness as federal issue as their car.
He let the curtain fall closed. “Your ride’s here,” he said shortly. “When you get to Albuquerque, take my advice and don’t count on Area Director Jansen cutting you as much slack as I have. You should have come clean with me from the start.”
“I’ve come as clean with you as I can, Agent Connor. I know you don’t accept that, but it’s true.”
Tess bit into her lower lip. She shook her head, her gaze searching his.
“The thing is, Virgil, I think you do believe in monsters,” she said slowly. “You just can’t admit it, because if you did your world wouldn’t be controllable anymore. What happened that made you build that rigid box around yourself? Did you go up against them once and lose?”
His first impression of her had been correct, Connor told himself tightly, slipping his gun into his shoulder holster. The woman was more than a little out of touch with reality.
“I don’t see operating on logic and reason as being boxed in,” he grated. “Which is why I’m not the one who’s going to have to tell a nine-year-old boy that I’m not the person I let him think I was,” he added.
He regretted his comment even before he saw the suddenly stricken look in her eyes. “Sorry, that wasn’t necessary,” he muttered. “Whatever I thought when I first saw you with Joey, you’ve convinced me that you only wanted to—”
“No, you’re right.” The husky tones came out unevenly. “I shouldn’t have acted as impulsively as I did. I should have thought things out more logically, like you say.”
She was finally beginning to see the light. Connor felt obscurely relieved. Her attitude would be a deciding factor in Jansen’s decision whether or not to—
“I should have stayed away from the highways and stayed on the back roads.” She exhaled sharply. “Dammit, I should have taken Joey up on his suggestion to show me how to hotwire a car in that diner parking lot when mine broke down. We would have been long gone by the time you got there.”
She hadn’t seen the light. She was never going to see the light. Her stubborn defiance was going to land her behind bars, he thought angrily. And it wasn’t his problem anymore.
“I would have caught up with you sooner or later.” Two sets of footsteps were approaching along the concrete walkway. He grasped the doorknob as he heard the soft squeak of a sole outside. “Be thankful this didn’t turn out any worse than—”
Whenever he thought about it afterward, for the life of him Connor couldn’t remember how the gun got into his hand. Even after racking his brains to reconstruct his actions, the nearest he would ever get to an answer was the dim recollection that his right hand had already been moving across his body as the door had opened.
They looked like agents. One of them was displaying an ID case with a photo and badge, and the other was reaching into an inner suit pocket, presumably to obtain his own identification.
“Agent Connor? I’m Agent Petrie and this is my partner, Agent Malden.” The one holding out the ID case snapped it shut and gave a thin-lipped smile. “Area Director Jansen sent us to—”
Even as the logical part of Connor’s mind was telling him the men confronting him had to be what they appeared to be and that he was about to make the worst mistake of his career, he made his move.
“Tess—get down!”
His shout cutting explosively across Petrie’s words, Connor swung the gun he was holding around in a powerful arc toward the two agents.
