Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(31)

I startled when a ghostly figure emerged from a janitor’s closet on my right. The Sir.

The truth shall set you free, I imagined him saying.

“You’re probably right, sir.” Probably far freer than I wanted to be.

The glass doors leading outside whooshed open, and I stepped onto the sidewalk, leaving the Sir behind. A deep, joyous bark echoed from somewhere farther down the passenger pick-up area, and then there was my partner, my war buddy, my best friend, bounding toward me, the handful of travelers parting before him as if he were Moses dashing across the Red Sea.

I dropped my duffel, squatted, and braced for impact. Clyde sailed over the last few feet separating us and bounded into my open arms, planting his front paws on my shoulders and sending me staggering. We were eyeball to eyeball for all of two seconds before I squeezed my eyes shut, and he mopped the tears from my face with one sweep.

“Good boy!” I cried in the high singsong voice he loved. “Good Clyde!”

I wrestled him to the ground and onto his back, ignoring the pain from my injuries. His tail thumped against the sidewalk, his back leg spasmodically kicking as I rubbed his belly beneath his service vest. Then he rolled back over and sprang at me again, and this time we both went to the ground.

“You’d swear I kept him chained in the basement, barely alive on dry kibble,” Cohen said from somewhere above us.

I wrestled out from under Clyde and let Cohen pull me to my feet.

We took each other in for a moment. He processed the bruise and the dark stains.

“Rough landing?”

“You should see the runway.”

His thumb brushed my bruise, then his hand drifted to my hair. “Suddenly a brunette?”

“Think of it as getting to sleep with another woman.”

But he shook his head at me. “You could shave your head and dye your scalp orange, and I’d be good with it.”

“I’m saving that for when the Broncos go to the Super Bowl.”

He stared at me a moment longer, then wrapped me in his arms. I pressed my face to his shoulder and inhaled his scent. For a few long moments, words ceased to matter.

If only we could stay this way.

At the car, he opened the back seat for Clyde while I got into the front. Clyde shoved his head between the seats and tried to get to work on my face again. Gently, I pushed him back.

“I’m clean enough now, thanks,” I said.

He doggie-grinned.

“You want to stop at a doc-in-the-box?” Cohen asked as we left the airport and hit Pe?a Boulevard, heading toward I-70. Maybe he’d seen me wince when I got in the car.

For a moment, feeling a fresh seep of blood, I considered asking him to drop me off to see my Grams. She was a nurse who’d tended to more than her share of traumatic injuries. Plus, it would give me a chance to warn her and my honorary aunt, Ellen Ann Lasko, about the Alpha.

Then again, right now nothing connected the Lasko residence to me. Grams and Ellen Ann were safe for tonight as long as Cohen and I didn’t unwittingly lead someone there.

Cohen’s voice broke in. “Sydney? Make a stop?”

“Nah. I just need a bandage and some lidocaine.”

“That I can handle. With a Marine in the house, I’ve learned to stock up.”

“Glad I’m doing my part for disaster preparedness.”

Our playful schtick wasn’t going over well in Peoria. Cohen tapped the steering wheel twice, then said, “I didn’t expect you back so soon. You get done what you’d hoped?”

“Some of it.”

I caught an angry flick in his eyes. Cohen possessed the patience of Job. But even Job had his limit. I reached out and ran the tips of my fingers across his knuckles and around to the flesh of his wrist. His skin was warm, familiar, beloved. A sudden image rose in my mind of those hands on my body. On my shoulders and ribs and waist. On my breasts.

Everywhere.

I snatched my hand back. “I’m ready to talk, Cohen.”

“What?” He actually laughed. “I didn’t even have to waterboard you. Say it again. Wait, let me turn on a recorder.”

“Laugh while you can.”

He glanced over with the look on his face that I loved. Open, curious, eager. Mingled in was relief. And a tenderness that wouldn’t last once I started talking.

That’s right, Detective Cohen. Make what I have to say even harder.

“Sydney, don’t you get it? Whatever you have to tell me, it won’t change anything. I’ll still—”

“Stop.” This time my hand went to his lips. “Don’t say anything you’ll have to take back. Once you know what you’re dealing with, then you can decide how you feel about me. Just give me a few minutes to figure out how to say what I have to say.”

He breathed out a sigh and nodded. His posture went soft, as if he’d just settled into a comfy chair. Might as well let him enjoy it while he could.

It lasted the few seconds it took us to get from I-70 to I-225, and then his shoulders came up again.

“You probably haven’t heard.” He reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry to tell you. Jeremy Kane was killed yesterday.”

And there we were. The opening I both wanted and dreaded. Cohen knew that Kane and I were acquaintances—I’d talked to Kane during the Elise Hensley case. But he had no idea what really tied us together.