to risk having a stressed-out agent amid their number.
For a while there Collin had thought that his cousin’s withdrawal from the world was destined to be a permanent one. And maybe it would have become that eventually, if family honor and Emmett’s own sense of pride hadn’t joined together to pull him out of the tailspin he’d found himself in.
Leaning back, Collin put his feet on his coffee table and formed the only conclusion he could from Emmett’s tone. “I take it our end of the investigation is going to be unofficial.”
Even if it hadn’t been his choice, it would have had to be this way. “You know the Bureau frowns on their operatives handling anything that remotely involves their personal lives.”
The army was the same way. He was going to have to request a leave of absence, Collin thought.
He laughed softly to himself, relishing the image. “So as far as the local law-enforcement officers are concerned, we’re going to be just two pains in the butt for them.”
As always, Emmett put a serious interpretation on the words. “Let me worry about the local law-enforcement officers.”
Swinging his legs off the table, Collin shifted to the edge of the sofa, his attention focused on the nature of Emmett’s words. “You are planning on checking in with them.” He wanted to know.
Emmett was honest with him. Collin knew Emmett could never be anything less than that. “As little as possible and only when necessary. You know that every agency thinks they’re supreme.”
Collin grinned and laughed again, unable to help himself. “When we all know that it’s only true as far as the FBI is concerned.”
The easy give-and-take they’d always enjoyed as boys and then young men was still held somewhat in abeyance. Invoking the memories, he might feel comfortable around Emmett, but there was no sign that Emmett reciprocated the feeling. He seemed to be nothing but all business and as rigid as an iron bar.
“So.” Emmett wanted to know. “Are you in?”
There had never been any question in Collin’s mind from the moment he’d said hello and recognized Emmett’s voice. “I’m in.”
In what, Collin wasn’t altogether sure. But at least this seemed to have drawn Emmett out of seclusion. He’d been seriously worried that his cousin had succumbed to the mind-numbing allure of alcohol to the point that there was no turning back. If trying to find Jason and bring him back to face the consequences of his actions helped dry Emmett out, then he was all for it.
And if it ultimately kept Jason from killing anyone else, that could only be a good thing.
“I’m staying at the Corner Inn in Red Rock,” Emmett said. “Room twelve.”
Collin was stationed in Virginia, where he now hung his hat and called home, but he could be in Texas in a matter of hours once his leave was approved. Because of the nature of his work, he was always semipacked and ready to go at a moment’s notice. He never knew when the next day might find him half a world away.
“I’ll be there by noon tomorrow.” It was a promise he meant to keep.
“Thanks.”
Hanging up, Collin rose from the sofa, prepared to return to the base he’d left less than half an hour ago. Since his case was wrapped up, getting a personal leave shouldn’t be a problem, especially if he cited a family emergency. The colonel was very big on families. So much so that on the occasional times that Collin had been invited to the man’s house for the purpose of socializing, Colonel Eagleton had always had an unattached female in attendance. The man fancied himself a matchmaker. Collin had once commented that his C.O. shouldn’t give up his day job.
“Got another one for you, Luce,” Dr. Harley Daniels announced cheerfully, coming through the rear double doors into the sterile arena where they conducted most of their work. He was pushing a gurney ahead of him. The one with the right rear squeaky wheel that defied any and all attempts to mute it.
Lucy Gatling, third-year med student, braced herself as she looked up from the small desk she occupied. She knew that the medical examiner had to be referring to yet another body upon which he was about to perform an autopsy. As a student observer, she got to watch. Right before her very first autopsy, she’d made up her mind to mentally stand apart, as if what was going on in front of her was just a movie. It helped. Some.
Lucy knew that if she was going to become a doctor worth her salt, she was going to have to get over that initial queasiness that struck every time she was faced with the prospect of looking at a dead body being dissected. There wasn’t too much she could do about the queasiness, but she knew she could control her outer reaction to it.
Because she was so good at masking her emotions, no one ever had a clue as to what she was actually feeling, but that didn’t negate the fact that it felt as if a tidal wave had suddenly been created within her stomach and was wrecking havoc on the coastline.
Dr. Daniels parked the gurney under the overhead lights. He was a big man, brawny and bald, more apt to be mistaken for a professional wrestler than a dedicated doctor bent on uncovering the mysteries of death.
“You know,” he said, “every other student we’ve had here has always spent the first couple of weeks of their stay flinching every time they heard one of the gurneys approaching.” He chuckled, the deep sound echoing in the Spartan-like chamber. “Hell, we had a big burly guy pass out three times before he finally requested a transfer. But you—” there was admiration in his eyes as Lucy felt them pass over her “you’re something else again.”
Lucy took that as a high compliment. She’d heard that Daniels was not free with them. Her mouth curved ever so slightly.
Something else again.
That was the way her father had described her, more than once, always marveling at such stoicism in one so young.
What he hadn’t known, what no one seemed to even guess at, was that her particular brand of stoicism had been put in place to keep back an ocean of tears. If she had permitted herself even the display of a single tear, Lucy knew in her heart she wouldn’t be able to stop crying. Perhaps ever.
At least that was the way she’d felt for a very long time. As the only child of two parents who’d proudly served in the military, her whole life had been a series of leavings and of battling the feeling that she was being abandoned by one or the other of her parents. Sometimes both. When their tours of duty had conflicted with parenting, she’d been shipped off to her grandparents. She’d been a world traveler whose home was anywhere her suitcase went.
The nomadic lifestyle she’d been forced to lead had taught her at a very early age that she could not keep her parents at her side, nor could she remain where newly formed friendships had begun to push tender shoots through the earth and flourish. She certainly could not remain complacent or feel remotely secure because of any outer trappings.
She’d come to the realization early on that if she wanted security, she was going to have to look inward. The same was true of complacency. That only came from depending solely on herself, so that no matter where in the world she woke up or whom she found herself speaking to, she was her own person, secure and confident that she could go on despite whatever curves life suddenly threw her.
Damn but it was wearying at times to know that
