Zero at the Bone (38 page)

“Good, that’s real good. We’re limitin’ JJ’s options. You watchin’ what he eats ’n’

drinks?”

“I got a marshal watching as his food is prepared and then he doesn’t take his eyes off it until it comes into Jack’s room.” Churchill hesitated. “What if she’s poisoned the ingredients before they get to the kitchen?”

“No, she cain’t risk poisonin’ people apart from Jack; that’d draw too much attention. She don’t dare put nothin’ in the hotel’s air or water fer the same reason.” A thought occurred to D. “What about the cleanin’ supplies? She poisoned somebody once by posin’ as a hotel maid and puttin’ a nerve toxin on the shower nozzle.”

“We’re not having the hotel staff do any housekeeping. When we need to we’ll have marshals take his laundry away. Actually that’s standard protection, except for the laundry precautions.”

“Good,” D said, grudgingly impressed with Churchill’s thoroughness.

“How about you?” Churchill asked. “Any sign that anybody’s followed you here?”

“Not so far. It’s a real good bet they know I’m here anyway. I ain’t worryin’ ’bout that. They’ll come fer me when they want to. I cain’t do nothin’ ’bout it ’til then, not while I’m lookin’ out fer Jack.” D sighed. “But I got a feelin’ they’ll wait ta come fer me until he’s through this ’n’ safe in Witsec.”

“Why?”

“I don’t really know what it is they want from me, if it’s ta kill me or torture me or jus’ make me work for ’em doin’ the kinda work that I normally wouldn’t do, but they’d have a helluva bargaining chip as long as he’s alive ’n’ safe, ’cause I’d do whatever I hadta do ta make sure he stayed that way.”

Zero at the Bone | 173

Churchill said nothing for a moment. “You guys are killing me. Both of you. I’m about ready to say to hell with this trial and put you on a plane right this minute with new identities to somewhere remote where nobody’ll ever find you.” D sighed. “I wish that was possible, friend.” He flipped his phone shut and was about to put it back in his pocket when it rang again. “D.”

“It’s Meg. Where are you?”

“I’m on 83 comin’ back from Towson. What?”

“Meet me at Mercy downtown. I heard it on the scanner, a woman brought in severely beaten. Her description sounded right so I came down to check it out.” She hesitated. “D, I think it’s JJ.”

D blinked. “Who the hell beat her?”

“The police don’t know. They found her in an alley over by Lexington Market.”

“I’m comin’.”

MEGAN was waiting for D at the hospital entrance. “Come on; she’s in the ER,” she said, heading off without waiting for him to respond.

“What makes ya think it’s JJ?”

“She was carrying several IDs in different names and more cash than you’d expect.” They came through the double doors into the trauma center. Several police officers were lurking about talking to a doctor; Megan flashed her badge and they were waved through.

D stopped short. The woman in the bed had been beaten to within an inch of her life. Her face was bruised and swollen almost beyond recognition, and one arm was in a cast. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Is that her?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He looked at the nurse. “Can she talk?”

“She’s a little groggy, but you can talk to her for a minute.” D moved to her bedside, and then glanced back at the nurse and Megan. “Can I, uh….”

The nurse smiled. “We’ll leave you alone.”

D leaned over JJ’s still form. “Hey,” he said. “Can you, uh… hear me?” No response. “JJ?” If she could hear him, the use of that name ought to get her attention.

Her eyes opened immediately. She didn’t appear groggy at all, but her brow furrowed when she saw him. “D?”

“Yeah, it’s D.”

She sighed and winced. “Fuck, I shouldn’t be surprised. Well, thanks for saving me the trouble of coming to find you.”

D was completely lost. “What you talkin’ ’bout find me? Who beat on you?”

“Some guys I didn’t recognize, but they had a message for you. Said they were letting me live so I could deliver it.”

“What message?”

She met his eyes. “They said they weren’t going to let me kill Jack Francisco, because….” She swallowed. “Because that’s your job, and they still expect you to do it.”
Motherfucker.
“Well, they gonna be waitin’ a long time, because I ain’t never gonna kill him.”

174 | Jane Seville

She nodded. “They said you’d say that, and that you’re wrong. You’ll kill him. You may not think so now, but you will.”

Zero at the Bone | 175

MEGAN was on her cell phone. “Uh-huh. And he’s… yeah. Okay.” Pause. “Thanks, Pete. Yeah, call me.” She hung up and looked over to where D was sitting slumped down in an easy chair in her apartment, one of the generic crash pads the Treasury department kept in cities all over the world for the use of operatives like herself. He was wearing all black, as usual, still had his sunglasses on indoors, and looked like a refugee from a Bono lookalike contest. He was drumming his fingers against the arm of the chair and gnawing on his other thumbnail. “Okay, one of the marshals says they’ll probably be ready for Jack to testify after lunch break. The prosecutor’s in talking to him now.” He grunted.

“D, you’ve done all you can.” Another grunt. “You ought to try and relax. Have a sandwich or something. Or take a nap. When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep?” She wagered that it had been the last time he’d slept next to Jack. “There’s nothing we can do until he’s off that witness stand.” Grunt the third. “Could go out ta the brothers’ house and start shootin’ people.”

“Uh… huh. Tempting as that is, I don’t think that’d be the most discreet course of action.”

“Fuck discreet. I’d rather bust some heads.”

“That’s it. You’re switching to decaf.” She sighed and sat down on the couch.

“There’s nothing we can do to protect Jack while he’s in that courthouse that we haven’t already done, right?”

“Mmm. Guess not.”

She watched his profile. She had been watching D for a long time, longer than even he knew. She had long thought that she knew him, as much as a man like him could be known, and had even begun to consider him a friend—a rather strange, one-sided, long-distance friend, but someone who was dependably in her life. But this D, she had never seen. This D who had emotional motives, and who let things affect him, and who showed emotion on his face when he wasn’t paying attention. The D she’d known for years was
always
paying attention. “You’re still thinking about JJ’s message, aren’t you?” He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his nose. “Cain’t help it.”

“They just did it to throw you off, and look how well it’s working!”

“Whoever ‘they’ are, anyway.”

“Well, they clearly couldn’t care less about the brothers.” She leaned forward. “This is about you. They want
you
to kill Jack.” 176 | Jane Seville

His jaw tightened. “I won’t. I’ll die first.” Words that could have sounded melodramatic from anyone else sounded like proclamations from the mountaintop coming from D.

“I know. But what’s important now is figuring out who these people are. They blackmailed you into taking the hit on Jack, they kidnapped him… now they’ve followed you here, but haven’t done anything to you although they probably could have.” He nodded. “They’re stalkin’ me. And now I given ’em another card ta play.” He pounded his fist on the arm of the chair. “Shoulda kept Jack outta this.”

“I think that ship sailed the minute you didn’t kill him when you were supposed to.” She cleared her throat and hesitated, considering the right phrasing. “Do you think they, uh… know how you feel about Jack? And how he feels about you?” He met her eyes then, his own narrowed and thoughtful. He held her gaze for a few long moments before looking away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device about the size of an iPod. He turned it on and stared at it.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m watchin’ him.”

“What is that?”

D sighed. “Tracker.”

“You put a
tracker
on him?”

“A course I did! What if he’d gotten kidnapped again or ambushed by the brothers or God knows what else?”

“When did you have time to do that?”

“Tracker’s in his gun. Had it there before he took it.”

“Well, let’s hope he’s got it on him.”

“He’s sposed ta; Churchill got him a permit ta carry. Anyways, it’s showin’ him at the courthouse, so I guess he’s got it.”

“They wouldn’t let him wear it into the courthouse, permit or not, unless he was law enforcement.”

“No, but he’d leave it at the security station and pick it up on his way out, so if it’s there, he’s there.”

She nodded. “What happens after his testimony is over?” D sighed. “Well, usually he’d hafta stay in town ’til the trial was over in case he got recalled, but Churchill’s workin’ on gettin’ him relocated sooner’n that. Get him outta town. They can always bring him back if he’s needed at the trial.” She leaned forward. “And you’re really, seriously not going to try and see him before then?”

He looked at her. “No. I cain’t.”

“Too risky?”

“That, and….” He let his head fall back against the chair and shut his eyes. “I jus’

cain’t,” he murmured. “See him again knowin’ I only had a few hours or so before I’d be sayin’ goodbye again, for a real long time. Best jus’ ta let him go and then take up my business.”

Megan hesitated, then reached out and put her hand on his arm. Touching him, even just a casual handshake or shoulder bump, felt so strange after observing him from a distance for so long. It was like waking up one day and discovering you could reach out and touch the people on TV. D turned his head toward her. “I know how hard all this is for you,” she said, hoping she sounded sympathetic without being too gooey.

Zero at the Bone | 177

He shrugged. “Don’t matter. Gonna be harder before it gets easier, if it ever does get easier.”

“But I mean… you’ve never….” She trailed off. “Never mind.”

“What?” He lifted his head and frowned at her.

She took a deep breath. “You’ve never loved someone like this before, have you?” He looked away. “Who says I—”

She cut him off. “Don’t. Don’t insult me.”

He met her eyes again and she nearly recoiled at the rawness in his. “I ain’t talkin’

’bout this.” He stood up and stalked into the other room, leaving Megan staring at nothing and marveling at the vagaries of the male mind.

JACK had been waiting in the witness’s room for two hours when Brad Salie entered, looking calm and in control as always. He was a small man with thinning hair and glasses; in fact, he looked like an accountant. But Jack had quickly come to respect him, and his unassuming appearance served him well with juries when they were surprised by his commanding courtroom presence. It helped that he had a deep, booming voice that sounded like it belonged on a man twice his size.

“Shouldn’t you be in there doing your Perry Mason thing?” Jack asked.

Brad beckoned him into one of the private consultation rooms and shut the door behind them. “This morning’s witnesses are mostly background; Linda’s questioning them. I’m sorry we haven’t had time to talk this week.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been terribly busy watching daytime soaps.”

“Carlisle’s really going to be loaded for bear when you get up there,” Brad said.

“You’re one of our most important witnesses.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Since all the forensics and the other witnesses corroborate your testimony, all he can really do is attack your credibility, and the reliability of your statement.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

“No. Credibility is whether or not you’re lying, and reliability is whether or not what you saw was really what happened. Telling the jury that they should discount a witness’s testimony because they’re a convicted felon with motive to lie goes to their credibility, but telling them that they should discount the testimony because the witness wasn’t wearing his glasses when he saw the defendant fleeing the scene goes to reliability.”

“Oh.”

“Attacking your credibility is risky, because you’re a very credible witness who’s risking his life testifying, so going after you too hard just makes him look like a bully, but I suspect he intends to try.”

“How?”

Brad sighed. “I think he might drag your sexuality into this somehow.” Jack sat up straighter. “How is
that
relevant?”

“It isn’t,” Brad said, quickly. “But during voir dire he kept asking potential jurors about their attitudes toward gay men, and he seemed to be favoring the ones who disapprove. The real trick will be how the hell he intends to get that mentioned in court, because there’s no way it’s legally relevant, but even if he just asks the question and I object and it’s sustained, even if his question is stricken and the jury is instructed to 178 | Jane Seville

disregard, he’s still gotten it out there, you know? I really don’t know where he’s going with this. Dragging it in could backfire for him; if he tries to use your sexuality against you there’s a real good chance he’ll just come off looking desperate for anything that might possibly taint you as a witness. I just want you to be prepared.”

“Okay.”

“Attacking your reliability is safer. Carlisle is a big fan of touting the fallibility of cross-racial identifications.”