Mean Streak(107)

“The melee lasted for almost two hours,” Connell continued. “Which was an eternity for those hunkered down, wondering if one of his bullets would find them. Some used their cell phones to call loved ones, made their peace, said good-bye.”

She backed into a chair near the window and sat down, rubbing her forehead as though to smudge the terrible images and make them easier to bear. Then, “Wait a minute.” She lowered her hand and with puzzlement looked first at Hayes, whose expression remained inscrutable, then at Connell. “I thought… Wasn’t…wasn’t the shooter killed at the scene?”

Connell nodded, then tipped his head toward Hayes. “Bannock took him out.”





Chapter 37



Jack Connell worked his jaw horizontally back and forth as he pulled himself onto the edge of the bed and sat. He shot Hayes a baleful look. “That hurt.”

“Meant for it to. Your visit upset Rebecca.”

“It upset me, too,” Jack grumbled. “Was she lying, or could she have made it easy and told me where you were?”

“She’s never known where I was. All your sleuthing was wasted.”

“Not completely. I had the pleasure of her company for fifteen minutes or so. I haven’t had that much fun since I walked bare-assed through a pit of vipers.”

Hayes knew he was expected to smile. He didn’t.

“Have you seen her new hairdo? Wicked. Suits her perfectly.”

“Just so you know, Jack, this isn’t a make-nice reunion. When this mess is over, everything goes right back to the way it’s been.”

“You’ll take off.”

“Right.”

“Huh. I thought maybe you had come to your senses and would want to stay put.” Connell looked over at Emory, his implication unmistakable.

“I split as soon as I see her husband behind bars.”

“Her husband? What did he do?”

“He left her for dead.”

Connell took a moment to gauge Hayes’s seriousness. “You’re not joking.”

“Would I joke about that?”

“You wouldn’t. You rarely joke, period,” Jack said, making a face. “Start at the beginning.”

“I was hiking up on a ridge the day Emory went missing. I spotted her through my binoculars. Got curious.”

“Why?”

Hayes glanced at her but didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Jack prompted, raising his eyebrows.

“She was a blond in black running tights who had a dynamite body, and she was alone.”

Jack looked at her again. “Fair enough.”

“What’s important,” Hayes said with impatience, “is that by the time I reached that trail, she was lying in the middle of it, concussed and almost frozen. I gathered her up and took her to my place.”

“Why not to a hospital?”

“Several reasons.”

“Besides the black running tights.”

“I didn’t know what had happened to her. If she’d fallen, that was one thing. If she’d been attacked, she was safer with me.”

“That’s debatable, but go on.”

“She recovered enough so that when the weather cleared, I brought her—”

“I know that part. Knight and Grange filled me in. The gas station. The media frenzy.”

“I didn’t know until after she was back in the fold that I had returned her to her would-be killer.”

“Jeff.”

“The very one.”

“So,” Connell said, drawing out the word and nodding as he pieced it together, “you knew she was in mortal danger.”

“Yes.”

“But being you and wanting to stay under the radar, you couldn’t get the world’s attention and announce it.”

Hayes figured his silence was confirmation enough.

“Instead,” Jack continued, “you sent up a smoke signal for me to come running.”

“My fingerprint on the faucet.”

“A perfect thumbprint in an otherwise pristine cabin,” Connell said wryly. “I knew you wouldn’t be that careless.”

“How long did it take you to figure it out?”

“Five, six minutes tops.”

“You’re rusty. Or freakin’ old.”

“Cut me some slack. I’d just gotten off a red-eye from Seattle.”

“I was beginning to think I should have been less subtle, done something like paint a red arrow on a signpost pointing you in my direction. TO BANNOCK: THIS WAY, JERK-OFF.”

“I realize it would have been boring, conventional, and totally un-Bannock-like, but you could have just picked up the phone and called me.”

“And cheat you out of the thrill of the chase?”

“Fuck you.”

“And back at you.”

Grudgingly, they grinned at each other.

*





During their bantering exchange, Emory had vacillated between disbelief and fury. Now she confronted them. “You’re friends?”

Hayes said, “Not even close.”

Jack’s reply was, “Quasi friends.”