Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(3)

Hah. Like he had any right to judge. He tried to laugh at himself, but the laugh petered out with no breath to bear it up. He couldn't stomach the betrayal. Lying and sneaking, slinking around in the shadows like a bad dog trying to get away with something. It pressed down on his chest, suffocating him. Or maybe that was just the effect of all the unfiltered cigarettes he was sucking on.

It was his own fault for letting Davy talk him into helping out with the detective agency. He hadn't been able to face going back to his old job after what happened last fall, but he should've known better. After putting a colleague behind bars for setting you up to die, well, following cheating spouses around wasn't exactly therapeutic. Davy must figure that Tiff was just the kind of stultifying no-brainer that even his washed-up little brother would have a hard time f*cking up.

Oh, man. The pity party was getting ugly. He clenched his teeth and tried to adjust his attitude by sheer brute force. Davy unloaded Tiff and her ilk onto him because he was bored with them, and who could blame him. And if Connor couldn't take it, he should shut up and get another job. Security guard, maybe. Night shift, so he wouldn't have to interact with anybody. Maybe he could be a janitor in some huge industrial facility. Shove a push broom down miles of deserted corridors night after night. Oh, yeah. That ought to cheer him right up.

It wasn't like he was hurting for money. His house was paid for. The investments Davy had forced him to make had done fine. His car was a vintage '67 Caddy that would not die. He didn't care about expensive clothes. He didn't date. Once he'd acquired the stereo and video system that he liked, he hardly knew what to spend the interest dividends on. With what he had socked away, he could probably scrape by even if he never worked again.

God, what a bleak prospect. Forty-odd years more of scraping along, doing nothing, meaning nothing to anyone. It made him shudder.

Connor fished the unsmoked cigarette out of his coat pocket. Everything got dirty and stained, everything broke down, everything had a price. It was time to accept reality and stop sulking. He had to get his life back. Some kind of life.

He'd liked his life once. He'd spent nine years as an agent in the undercover FBI task force that his partner Jesse had dubbed "The Cave," and he'd been good at feeling his way into the parts he played. He'd seen his share of ugly stuff, and yeah, he'd been haunted by some of it, but he'd also known the bone-deep satisfaction that came from doing what he was born to do. He'd loved being in the middle of everything, wired to a taut web of interconnected threads; touch one, and the whole fabric rippled and hummed. Senses buzzing, brain working overtime, churning out connections, deductions, conclusions. He'd loved it. And he'd loved trying to make a difference.

But now the threads were ripped. He was numb and isolated, in free fall. What good would it do to hear about Novak? He couldn't help. His web was cut. He had nothing to offer. What would be the point?

He lit the cigarette and groped around in his mind for Nick's number. It popped up instantly, blinking on the screen inside his mind. Photographic memory was a McCloud family trait. Sometimes it was useful, sometimes it was just a dumb parlor trick. Sometimes it was a curse. It kept things eternally fresh in his brain that he would prefer to forget. Like that white linen halter top that Erin had worn at the Riggs family Fourth of July picnic, for instance. Six goddamn years ago, and the memory was as sharp as broken glass. She'd been braless that day, so it was by far the best view he'd ever gotten of her beautiful tits. High and soft and tenderly pointed, bouncing every time she moved. Dark, taut nipples pressed hard against the thin fabric. He'd been amazed that Barbara, her mother, had allowed it. Particularly after Barbara had caught him staring. Her eyes had turned to ice.

Barbara was no fool. She hadn't wanted her innocent young daughter hooking up with a cop. Look how it had turned out for her.

He knew better than to try to shove memories away. It just made them stronger, until they were huge and muscular, taking over his whole mind. Like the image of Erin's dark, haunted eyes behind the patrol car window. Full of the terrible knowledge of betrayal.

He sucked smoke into his lungs and stared at the cell phone with unfriendly eyes. He'd thrown away the old one after what happened last fall. If he used this one to call Nick, then Nick would have the new number. Not good. He liked being unreachable. It suited his mood.

He closed his eyes, recalling last Christmas, when Davy and Sean had given him the damn thing. It was from Seth's hoard of gizmos, which meant that it had a bunch of high-tech bells and whistles, some useful, some not. He'd leafed through Seth's sheaf of explanatory paperwork, putting on a show of interest so as not to hurt everybody's feelings. He vaguely remembered a function that blocked the incoming number from the display. He flipped through the pages in his mind, found the sequence. Keyed it in, dialed.

His stomach knotted painfully as it rang.

"Nick Ward," his ex-colleague answered.

"It's Connor."

"No shit." Nick's voice was stone cold. "Had a good sulk, Con?"

He'd known this was going to be bad. "Can we skip this part, Nick? I'm not in the mood."

"I don't care about your goddamn mood. I'm not the one who sold you out. I don't appreciate being punished for what Riggs did to you."

"I'm not punishing you," Connor said defensively.