The Strong Silent Type (10 page)

He laughed at the absurdity of the question. Anyone who had ever met her would have known there was something wrong. “Well, for one thing, you’re not talking a mile a minute. You’re not talking at all.”

More surprises. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he sounded annoyed. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

He wished she’d stop blocking him like this. “Not when it means there’s something wrong.”

She turned to look at him, resentment coming out of nowhere and taking hold of her. “Since when do you care if there’s something wrong or not?”

“Since you’re my partner. As my partner, you’re supposed to have my back and I have yours. That’s not going to go according to plan if your head’s somewhere else.”

“My head’s right here,” she snapped at him.

If he hadn’t thought something was wrong before, he would have now. “I thought you were the poster girl for sharing.”

Why was he doing this to her, pretending as if he cared? “I thought you burned posters like that.”

Never a patient man, he seemed to have an incredibly small supply of patience available to him at the
moment. It went up in smoke. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. But work out whatever’s bothering you fast because right now you’re deadweight.”

She set her mouth hard. What else could she have expected from him? “Very compassionate of you.”

That did it. Hawk pulled the car over to the side and threw it into park. He turned to face her. “I asked. You wouldn’t tell. What the hell do you want from me, Cavanaugh?”

The temptation to haul off and hit him came galloping out of nowhere and it took everything she had not to act on it. What she wanted was for the world to stop tilting on its axis and straighten up again. What she wanted was to have her world back in order.

What was going on inside of her now felt just like it had when she’d heard that her mother had died. Except now the woman had been resurrected.

But not completely.

Afraid she was going to explode, Teri suddenly undid her seat belt and bolted out of the car. She went running down the block, no clue as to where she was going, only that she wanted to get away from him. From everything.

Stunned, Hawk couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What the hell are you doing? Where are you going?” he called after her.

When she didn’t answer, didn’t even turn around, Hawk jumped out of the car and followed her. He was concerned—more than he realized he could be. It wasn’t difficult catching up to her. For one thing,
his legs were a lot longer. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he spun her around to face him.

About to shout at her, he felt the words dying in his throat. There were tears shimmering in her eyes. The woman just didn’t play fair.

But then, he had a feeling she wasn’t playing at all. His grip on her shoulders lessened. “What’s going on, Teri?” he asked in a voice that was a lot softer than what he’d just used.

She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to tell anyone. Because this wasn’t the answer to a prayer. This was an extension of a nightmare. She’d lost her mother once, and now it looked as if she was still losing her.

The words came out in a hoarse whisper. “My father found my mother.”

So that was it. He felt something strange, a protectiveness uncurling inside of him. “He found her body?” he asked softly.

She shook her head. The tears she was valiantly trying to hold back spilled. “No, he found
her.
She’s alive.”

He didn’t understand. Everyone knew about what had happened to the chief’s wife. Her car had been fished out from the bottom of the river. Enough time had passed to declare her legally dead twice over. “I thought she was dead.”

Teri swallowed. The ache wouldn’t leave, not from her throat, not from her stomach. “I thought so, too. I didn’t want to, but I finally did.”

He didn’t understand why she wasn’t jumping up and down for joy. “Where did he find her?”

“In some diner upstate someplace. She works there, I think.”

“Is he sure?”

“He’s sure.”

Very gently, he turned her around and started to usher her back to the car. She offered no resistance. He’d seen people suffering from shock. Now that he thought of it, she had a great many of the signs. But why? “I don’t get it. If he found her, why are you like this? Why aren’t you happy?”

She stopped walking just shy of the car. “She doesn’t know us. Doesn’t know him.” There was confusion tempered with anguish in her eyes as she looked at him. “I don’t know how to feel.”

Now it was beginning to make sense. “Numb,” he told her. He knew that would be the way he’d react if something like this had hit him.

Maybe it would be better that way, Teri thought. Better if she did just shut everything down until she could go and see her mother for herself. There was no way she was going to just leave this in abeyance, even if that was what her father wanted. It wasn’t what
she
wanted.

What she wanted was to have her mother back. Whole.

He saw the look in her eyes. It was a look he’d once felt in his own soul. It’d been so long ago, it was almost hard to remember. But he did. It was a
feeling of being so lost he’d felt that no one could ever find him. After a while, it had ceased to matter if someone would.

He held the car door open for her, waiting for Teri to get in. When she did, he closed the door and then got in on his side.

He paused for a moment, weighing his words before he made a decision. “Look, we’re done for the day. Why don’t we clock out and go somewhere for a drink?”

She shook her head. She didn’t want to go to the Shannon, wasn’t up to trying to pretend that everything was fine.

“Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check.”

That was
really
not like her, and he was starting to get worried. For all the reasons he’d cited to her and more. “Dinner, then.”

She blinked, looking at him. She couldn’t have heard him right. “What?”

It took effort, but he couldn’t just leave her like this. “Come have dinner with me. We can talk.”

The offer coaxed out the first smile he’d seen on her lips all day. “I’d like to see some ID please. My partner doesn’t do dinner.”

“He does when his back’s on the line. Now shut up and don’t argue. You’re having dinner with me. And we’ll talk.”

“Meaning you want me to talk.”

“Yeah.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her cock her head. “What are you doing?”

“Listening for the sounds of hell freezing over.”

He figured he was on the right trail. The light had just appeared at the end of the tunnel.

Hawk smiled.

I
t was too early for the late crowd, too late for the early crowd. As a result, the small Mexican restaurant Hawk had brought her to was thinly populated. Only a third of their tables were in use.

She’d ordered a quesadilla. Because food was of no consequence to him one way or another, he’d ordered the same. He wasn’t here to eat, but to listen.

Except that there was nothing to listen to, beyond the mild buzz of the conversation from the other tables.

Hawk gave her the first ten minutes, then said, “Okay, talk to me.”

The smile that blossomed on her face stirred something within him. It was like seeing the sun come out
after a long storm. She was a very pretty woman, but when she smiled, she was the closest thing to beautiful that he had ever seen. Not the kind of model-perfect beautiful that could be found on the covers of popular magazines, but a kick-in-your-gut kind of beautiful.

It took him a beat to come around. “Did I say something funny?” he asked.

“Yeah, you did.” Her smile widened as she looked at him. The man was full of surprises today. “I just never thought I’d hear you say that to anyone besides a suspect—least of all me.”

He shrugged, turning his attention to the cheese that oozed out from around the outer edges of the quesadilla. It was a lot safer right now than looking into her blue-gray eyes.

“Some people need to talk or they explode. You’re one of them.”

“Very perceptive of you.” And ordinarily, he’d be right. She did feel like something was exploding inside of her, but she hadn’t a clue as to how to put it into words, or even explain what she was feeling. She didn’t grasp it enough to reduce it to a succinct description.

“It’s called a survival mechanism.” He paused, taking a bite, before continuing. “I don’t want you exploding all over me.”

She knew that wasn’t the reason he was willing to listen to her pour out her heart now. He was doing it because beneath the gruff exterior, he was decent and kind. “Why do you act so tough?”

He raised his eyes toward her only for a moment. “Maybe because I am.”

“A tough guy wouldn’t have sprung for the special of the day and sat down waiting for me to spill my guts.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

She shrugged helplessly. “Maybe because I don’t know what to say.”

Hawk laughed shortly. “That’s a first. You’ll find a way to go on talking even when they bury you.”

She put down her water glass, wrinkling her nose at his comment. “There’s a pleasant thought.”

“I don’t do pleasant thoughts, Cavanaugh. That’s your department.” He was almost finished eating. This was taking longer than he thought it would. And he didn’t want to be at it all night. “Now you want to get this off your chest, or not?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely—”

And then she stopped, because she didn’t know how to start, didn’t know how to get rid of this lost feeling that had taken up residence inside of her. She felt not unlike a child who had been somehow left behind when her family moved to another city.

She switched subjects so quickly, he nearly got whiplash. “You know, in nine months, I never heard you call me Teri, except today.”

That had been a slip, really. First names put them on a footing he didn’t want. But she was looking at him as if she expected him to give her some kind of an answer. “Maybe because today, you looked like a Teri instead of a Cavanaugh.”

Her smile deepened. So did the reaction in his gut. “And what does a ‘Teri’ look like?”

He said the first thing that came into his head. “Vulnerable.”

“Pretty analytical for a guy who doesn’t usually talk.”

He moved his shoulders carelessly. “Just because I don’t talk doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

Had she insulted him? She didn’t mean to. Teri set her glass down on the table. It was nearly empty. A waitress appeared to refill it and flash a generic smile. “How is everything?” the young woman asked as if she was preprogrammed.

“Fine,” Teri assured her, then waited until the waitress retreated before looking back at Hawk. “I would have never called you stupid even if you’d never said a word.”

“Then how would you know I wasn’t?”

“Your eyes. You have very perceptive, probing eyes.” They were also the lightest shade of ice blue she’d ever seen. And they were incredibly unsettling. Incredibly sexy. Like the man himself, something whispered inside of her. “They look as if they would see right through walls.”

The image brought a half smile to his lips. “X-ray vision?”

Good, he was smiling. That meant they were out of the woods. More than half-finished with her meal, she slowed down to a crawl. She found herself not wanting the moment to end. Not wanting to leave here. Or him.

“Something like that.” Tilting her head slightly, she studied him, as if she could get a better handle if she allowed her view to get off kilter. “What do you do at night, Hawk? When you walk away from the police precinct and go home for the day, what do you do?”

“This is about you, not me.”

“Humor me,” she urged with a smile that balanced out his frown. “It helps.”

He sighed. Okay, why not? He’d opened the floor to dialogue by asking her to come here, so he had no one to blame but himself. His voice slipped into a singsong pattern “I go home. I go through the mail. I eat. I go to bed and get up the next day.”

That sounded awful. “And that’s it? Don’t you want more?”

They were approaching the portion of the pond that was covered by thin rather than thick ice. “I have more. Between the time I come in and the time I go home, if I’m lucky, I catch bad guys.” He blew out a breath, as if that signaled an end to the discussion. “Now can we get this back around to you?”

She didn’t have to go into a long, linear recitation about what was bothering her to feel better. But then, he probably didn’t understand that. He operated under a different set of parameters than most of the world.

“We are. Maybe you don’t know this—because you think talking’s a waste of time—but you don’t have to talk about what’s bothering you in order to feel better about it. Sometimes it just helps to kick back and be with a friend.”

“Then what are you doing here?” She had friends, a whole boatload of friends. He saw the way people gravitated to her whenever they were working. She attracted people like honey brought in flies. And no doubt just as indiscriminately. But that wasn’t any business of his.

“Being with a friend,” she replied simply. Before he could say anything, she cut him off. “And don’t deny it. If you weren’t my friend, you’d be home now—” her mouth curved “—going through all that mail.”

The last thing he wanted was for her to make a big deal out of this. “I already told you, as long as we’re partners, I can’t afford to have you mentally balancing on the hairy edge. You never know when I might actually need you.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that you can be nice, that you can be normal?”

Finishing his meal, he threw his napkin onto his empty plate. “Well, my work here is done.”

She didn’t follow. “What?”

“You’re back.” He gestured toward her as if that underscored his point. “You’re working at trying to pull me over to your side of the light. That means you’re back on track. As annoying a pain as you ever were. Now, I’ve got to get home.”

She made no move to rise. “Why? Junk mail calling to you?”

His cell phone rang before he could come up with an appropriate answer. For once, he was relieved to
hear it ring. He heard her sigh as he flipped it open and put it to his ear. “Hawkins.”

Teri tried to hear what the voice on the other end of the line was saying, but although it was loud enough for the sound to register, the words did not. She saw Hawk frown as he listened.

“Don’t bother calling her. She’s with me now. We’ll be right there.” He snapped the phone shut, terminating the call.

She couldn’t read the expression on his face. “What is it?”

“That was Peter Kellerman from Homicide.”

“Why’s Homicide calling you?” She knew he’d transferred from Homicide, but he wasn’t the type to stay in touch with anyone from his past.

Wrong. What about Jocko?

It occurred to her that there was nothing about Jack Hawkins that was a sure thing, except that he was a good cop. And a damn fine-looking man, that same annoying voice in her head whispered.

Hawk dug into his jacket pocket for his wallet and took out several bills. Looking around, he raised his hand for the waitress. “Kellerman found a couple of bodies they thought we might be interested in.”

“I don’t—” And then it hit her just as the waitress approached. “The two guys we caught the other day. They made bail today.”

“Check, please,” he said to the young woman, who nodded and retreated. He looked back at Teri. “Guess we won’t have to worry about them jumping it.” He gave her the particulars as Kellerman had
given them to him. “They were both found knifed in an alley behind a bar on Alton Road.”

It was too much of a coincidence to think it was just a random act, Teri thought. Someone was afraid that they would talk.

Any appetite she might have still had was gone.

It was a grim scene.

Both men had been eliminated by the same kind of quick slit to the throat. There was blood everywhere as it had gone shooting out. Looking at the chalk-outlined bodies, Teri stifled the shiver that threatened to shimmy up and down her spine.

“Someone
really
didn’t want them to talk,” she murmured to Hawk.

She moved out of the way as one of the crime scene investigators snapped photographs of the bodies. The CSI unit, comprised of three people, had arrived minutes before she and Hawk had reached the scene. They appeared to be in a world of their own, taking in every bit of evidence, no matter how minor or insignificant looking, and logging it in.

The dead men were both young. Too young to die this way. For the first time, she saw them as people rather than perpetrators or invaders. She wondered about their families and who was going to be grieving at their funerals.

Maybe the job was getting to her.

Or maybe her emotions were still too shaken up for her to make any sense out of anything that was going on.

Teri ran her hands up and down her arms. Despite her jacket, she felt cold.

“Tough break,” Kellerman, a tall, easygoing gray-haired man in his late fifties, said.

“Maybe for them,” Teri allowed. “But not for us.” She thought of the day’s work they’d just put in. Although the robbery victims used a variety of different valet services, they had all made use of that kind of service. Which meant they had a tie-in. “We’ve got other leads.”

Kellerman looked at Hawk after giving Teri an appreciative once-over. “She always this cheerful?”

“This is when she’s down.” Hawk put his hand out to the other man. Kellerman shook it. “Thanks for letting us know. I want to see the M.E.’s report on them when it’s done.”

“Please,” Teri added with a wide smile as she looked at Kellerman.

Kellerman laughed. “I’ll make sure you get a copy,” he promised.

Hawk walked back to his car. Teri had parked right behind him. Despite the commotion in the background coming from both the police and the handful of onlookers who had piled out of the bar to take in what was going on, he could hear her heels as they rhythmically hit the concrete.

He nodded toward the scene they’d just left. “You seem back in form.”

She wouldn’t exactly say she was back to normal, but she was feeling a lot better now than she had
earlier. And she had him to thank for that. She stopped beside her car.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Thanks to my partner, I think I’m going to be okay now. I owe you.”

He waved away the supposed debt. He didn’t even want her thanks, much less have her feel as if she owed him something. “Forget it.”

Rounding her trunk, she crossed to him. “No, I won’t.”

Hawk sighed. The line about no good deed going unpunished echoed in his head. “That’s what I’m afraid of.” He opened his door, ready to call it a night. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He noticed that she wasn’t getting into her car. That usually meant trouble.

“I’ll have that drink now.”

“What?”

“You asked me out for a drink earlier, remember?” she reminded him. “I took a rain check.” And she wanted to collect. For some reason she wasn’t about to explore, she didn’t want the evening to be over. Didn’t want to say good night to him.

Hawk turned his palm up toward the starless sky as if checking for drops. “I don’t see any rain. Besides, you exchanged it for dinner.”

“Okay—” she leaned on the edge of his car door “—then I’ll buy the drink.”

Hawk got in behind the steering wheel and pulled the door shut. “I’m going home.”

Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw that she
was still standing where he’d left her. Watching him.

He turned his eyes onto the road.

The edginess that had been steadily creeping over him all day continued to intensify. He’d thought that once he was away from her, it would go away.

But it didn’t.

It lingered on, clinging to him like smoke. Damn it, what was going on? Why now? It didn’t make any sense. The only answer he had was that her effect on him had to be cumulative.

What he needed, he thought heading to his refrigerator, was a stiff drink. Maybe two. Followed by a good night’s sleep.

He doubted it would go away, but it was worth a shot.

Unbuttoning his shirt, he pulled the end out of his waistband. His service revolver and holster were on the counter by the door where he placed them every night. He paused to turn the radio on. It was set to a jazz station. A slow melody softly filled the air.

He did his best to unwind.

The knock on the door negated any progress he made. Instantly alert, he reached for his weapon before turning toward the door.

“Who is it?”

“Your partner.”

What the hell was she doing here? Served him right for letting her get to him like that. He should have just ignored the anguish he’d seen on her face.