Fallon's Flaw

by Dale Mayer

  Then she reared up over him, and she frowned at him. “Why the hell would you do that?”

  He looked at her in surprise. “So the relationship can continue?”

  “It can’t continue here?”

  “It’s a little hard to carry on a relationship,” he said quietly, “if you’re over there, and I’m over here.”

  She sank back against his chest, as if realizing that he wasn’t walking away from everything but trying to look at options, as to how to maintain the relationship.

  “I am wondering about coming over here again,” she said. “Like I said, Bullard sent me on this pathway, and he could sure use the help.”

  “He has talked in the past,” he murmured, “about expanding the medical options here.”

  “Of course he would,” she said, with a smile. “We’ll see. I’m almost done.”

  “What does almost mean?”

  “I think I’ve got four or five months left,” she said, with a smile.

  “That’s not too bad,” he said. “Then?”

  “That’s probably a couple missions for you.” She smiled, snuggling in deeper. “Now can I go to sleep?”

  He pulled her close, tucked her up against his heart, and said, “Sleep. I’ll do the worrying.”

  “No worrying,” she said. “Life isn’t perfect, and you can’t make it that way. We’ve made a decision to change something fundamentally important to who we are. Now we let the cards fall where they may, and we deal with the outcome.” She yawned once and snuggled deeper and drifted off to sleep.

  He smiled at her pragmatic and realistic answer. Because she was right. They had made a decision for all the right reasons, and, now that that decision was made, no way in hell he would change it. If people didn’t like it, too damn bad. He’s where he’d wanted to be all along. And, for that, he’d fight anybody who said it was the wrong thing. Closing his eyes, he too finally drifted off to sleep, after setting his internal alarm clock for thirty minutes.

  Chapter 11

  Linny woke up alone. She groaned at that and sat up, wincing at a twinge in her body, frowning at the absence of the closeness she had enjoyed earlier. She hoped what they had shared was enough to cement the decision in the brightness of daylight, where questions and doubts would linger. She’d really wanted to wake up with him, but, of course, it hadn’t happened. She sat up, walked into the bathroom, and, as she washed, she looked at the shower and realized that’s really where she wanted to be. Turning on the hot water, she stepped inside and braced herself against the wall, letting the hot water sluice over her body.

  When she heard a voice call out in the bedroom, she said, “I’m in the shower.”

  The bathroom door opened, and he stepped in, holding a cup of coffee. She shut off the water, and he gave her a towel. She smiled, searching his face, but he didn’t appear to have stepped back at all.

  He looked at her in surprise. “What’s with the look?”

  “Just a little afraid that you would have second thoughts.”

  “Second thoughts about leaving the bed, yes,” he said, with a nudge toward her damp body in the towel that she’d wrapped around herself, showing very interesting wet spots.

  She smiled and said, “You can come back anytime.”

  “No,” he said. “There’s just so much still to deal with.”

  “Always so responsible,” she teased.

  His gaze was hooded. “Would that bother you?”

  “I’ll deal with it,” she said easily. “We each have our own issues. As you will adapt to mine, I will adapt to yours.”

  He smiled at her. “It might not be that easy.”

  “It’ll be as easy or as hard as we make it,” she said, with a note of confidence that was real and driven from deep inside.

  “If you say so.”

  She smiled and said, “Absolutely. Did you find out anything new?”

  “No, but I’ve got a call to make to the police right now,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “I’ll get dressed and come down.”

  “See you in a few minutes then.”

  As she stepped out into the bedroom to find clothes, she still didn’t have very many options with her. If this would ever calm down, she wouldn’t mind going shopping for a day and picking up a few outfits. Or, if it didn’t happen, well, she was also okay with spending a lot of her days without much on, in bed with Fallon. But, as long as this strange stalker scenario here was going on, while the search for Bullard continued in the background, that wasn’t likely to happen. Dressed again, she made her way down to the kitchen, where she refilled her cup of coffee and wandered into the control room.

  Quinn looked up, flashed her a bright smile, and said, “Good morning again. You look well.”

  “I am,” she said, with a cheery voice, and beamed at him.

  He chuckled and winked at her.

  She just grinned back.

  Because Quinn and basically everybody else knew that only Fallon had been fighting so hard against their attraction, while the rest of the world wondered why he was taking his time. She understood, but now that it was taken care of, she felt a whole lot more secure about things.

  She slipped up to Fallon and slid her arm around him, feeling him stiffen ever-so-slightly and then relax. “Did you make the call to the cops?”

  “I did,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly helpful though.”

  “Did you give them the address of the warehouse?”

  “They already had it, from Wagner I assume,” he said.

  “Great,” she said, “and we still haven’t any idea on that pimply face guy yet?”

  “Nope, not yet,” he said.

  “Or any better understanding on that weird art?”

  “Art is in the eye the beholder,” he announced, and she chuckled.

  “Good,” she said. “Don’t ever buy me anything like that then.”

  “I promise,” he said. “It’s an odd feeling to think of all those pictures of you up there on the walls too.”

  “Yeah, more creepiness than I care to deal with right now.”

  “Not a whole lot of choice,” he said. “We have to deal with whatever comes up.”

  “Got it,” she said. “But, so far, not a hell of a lot to go on.”

  “So often there isn’t,” he said, “until something trips them up.”

  “Is it this hard work that gets you where you are or that these criminals end up doing something stupid?”

  “Both,” Quinn said immediately. “If we’re lucky, they do something stupid early on, so that we can get a lead on them. In this case we’re still trying to track down this guy with acne. And you would think that shouldn’t be all that hard to do, but somehow nobody seems to know anything about him.”

  “Doesn’t mean he’s from this country at all,” she said.

  “No, it doesn’t. He could be from the US or anywhere really.”

  She studied the picture they had set off to the side on one of the monitors. “I swear to God, I’ve never seen him before.”

  “And yet take a look at this,” Quinn said, as he quickly ran the photo through some software program. Instantly it came up with different facial variations that completely changed the guy’s face.

  She gasped. “Oh, wow,” she said. “That’s …” And she let her voice trail off because she didn’t have any clue how to describe it. “When you do things like that, it’s almost like he could be anybody.”

  “That’s the problem,” he said. “If he’s any good at disguises, he could be anybody.”

  “But is that even likely? How many people know how to do things like this?”

  “Well, if you just murdered somebody, what’s the first thing you’ll do?”

  “Disappear,” she said immediately.

  “And, how will you disappear, if your name and face are found in photos, and that’s how people know you?”

  “Right, so you change your appearance,” she said, as she nodded, looking at
him.

  “And that’s just with a beard added. This one is just a hair dye, but each really makes a difference. And this one’s got makeup on to cover all the acne,” he said.

  “And that makes a massive difference too,” she admitted. “Great.” On that note, she stepped a few paces away and said, “Technically we missed breakfast. I’ll go make something to eat. Are you guys hungry?”

  “I am,” Quinn said.

  “Me too,” Fallon said. “I could use a meal.”

  “Coming right up,” she said. She walked to the kitchen, wondering at the ease with which she had taken over things like the kitchen because of Uncle Dave. She’d often spent so much time in the kitchen with him because it had been a place where they could bond, a place where they could spend time together and just be themselves. It was time that she had thoroughly enjoyed spending with Uncle Dave over the years. It seemed odd to be here without him and kind of a unique experience.

  Actually she had no doubt that her alone time with Fallon wouldn’t have happened if Uncle Dave had been here. The reminder of that family duty, and the honor associated with it, would have been too much for Fallon to have broken. As it was, it had taken her to make that occur. She just hoped she hadn’t pushed Fallon to compromise his sense of honor in a way that would somehow negatively impact things going forward.

  Before long, she had a full-on smorgasbord of hoagie-style sandwiches, complete with side salads and baked beans. The men stepped into the kitchen, big grins on their faces.

  “I sure love the fact that you’re okay to cook,” Fallon said. “A lot of women would have been upset at the idea of having to take up the slack.”

  “Cooking was how Uncle Dave and I always bonded when I was younger,” she said. “So, if nothing else, it makes me feel closer to him right now.”

  “And I guess it doesn’t happen very often, that he’s not here when you are, does it?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No, it definitely doesn’t.”

  At that moment, Uncle Dave called Fallon. He held up his phone and said, “Hey, Dave. I’m putting you on Speaker.”

  “Good,” Dave said. “Are you guys okay?”

  “We’re fine,” he said. “What about you?”

  “I’ve got a little bit more brass to handle,” he said. “So I’m off heading toward this third man. I’ll probably be about four hours traveling, before I’ll know for sure.”

  “Good enough,” he said. “Don’t give up hope. We’ll find him.”

  “No, I won’t,” he said, “but it’s damn discouraging. What about that weirdo?”

  “Lots of weirdos at the moment. We’re trying to find the little guy with acne you saw sitting in the car at the time.”

  “And I’ve racked my brain, but I can’t give you any more details. I’m sorry.”

  “It is what it is. We’ve got images of him from the street cams,” he said. “So we’ll track him down.”

  “Right. Facial recognition is a good answer for that.”

  “We know. We’re already on it.”

  He laughed. “Of course you are. Sorry, just me.”

  When he rang off, they looked at each other. “He does sound a little rattled, doesn’t he?”

  “Uncle Dave refuses to believe Bullard is not alive,” she said. “I can’t imagine how devastating it will be for him if it doesn’t work out that way.”

  “Which is why we’re not going there,” Fallon said firmly.

  “It doesn’t change the probability factor,” she warned.

  “It is what it is,” he said, using her words from earlier.

  She smiled at him. “True. We’ll deal with whatever we have to deal with.”

  He nodded. And just as he scooped more sandwiches onto his plate, his phone rang again. He looked down and said, “It’s Wagner.” He hit the button and said, “Hey. You’re on Speakerphone.”

  “Wow, am I privileged or what?”

  “Nope, you’re interrupting a feeding frenzy,” Linny said.

  “Well, in that case, I won’t disturb you too badly.”

  “Anything new?”

  “Nope, other than this one guy is completely off.”

  “Well, we told you that in the first place,” Fallon said.

  “Indeed,” Wagner agreed. “The bottom line at this point is that I’m not sure what our next move is. We’ve got a lot of forensic evidence. And it’s pretty obvious that this group was an online forum and an art club. A couple are downtown,” he said. “They appear to have a clientele very similar to this. I’ll take a look and talk with a bunch of them today. Not sure if it will lead to anything, but, if others in the group bought those photos, it could help.”

  “Well, there are others,” Quinn said, looking at Fallon.

  Fallon just shrugged and nodded. “The one guy did give us some names. I’ll email them to you,” he said.

  “Yeah, we’ll run them, unless you guys did already.”

  “Yeah, we did, but we didn’t get anywhere.”

  “Of course not. It’s never that easy, is it?”

  “Nope, it sure isn’t.”

  When Fallon hung up again, she frowned and said, “You know I always thought it was. That easy, I mean. And I realize these missions are something that I don’t have any experience with, but something always made me think it was easier than this.”

  “And yet it wasn’t easy to track down your parents’ killer either.”

  She nodded slowly, hating the reminder of how she’d become an orphan. Thank heavens for Uncle Dave’s big heart. Her life would have been much different without him. “That’s very true, just a weird thing all over.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s still all legwork. It’s all hard work to make things happen.”

  “Got it,” she said. “I was just wondering if we could do anything else.”

  “Well, we have to track down everybody on that forum. But really what we want is the one guy.”

  When Fallon’s phone rang for the third time, he just groaned and said, “If only they could leave me alone long enough to eat a sandwich.” This time it was Ice. “Ice, hey, you got anything for us? You’re on Speakerphone.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice musical and relaxed through the phone. “His name is Limerick. Jesse Limerick.”

  “Wow,” he said. “How did you find that out?”

  “Interpol,” she said. “We have photos on the website.”

  “I checked there,” Quinn said.

  “Yeah, they were just pulled off a few months back,” she said.

  “And the photos?”

  “They’re pretty unclear, but it looks like him. We don’t have any way to confirm, so we figured we’d toss that back to you guys, so you can do something.”

  “We got it from here, thanks,” he said. “Jessie Limerick, right?”

  “Yep. Let us know what you find.” With that, she hung up.

  “Now we just need an address.”

  But Quinn was already on it. “I’ve got two in town,” he said.

  She looked at him. “Two Jesse Limericks?”

  “Yeah. A senior and a junior.”

  “Now that makes sense,” she said, with a nod. “So, road trip?” She looked at Fallon.

  He hesitated and then nodded. “Yep, road trip.”

  She grinned, then stood, walked around to kiss him gently on the cheek, and said, “You’re learning.” Then she walked out to get ready.

  *

  “Sounds like you two have buried your differences,” Quinn said. “I, for one, am happy for you.”

  “If it works out,” he said. “I have to admit, I wasn’t quite ready for the change.”

  “We’re never ready for that kind of change,” he said. “But you’ve got to be smart enough to grab it, when life gives you the opportunity to do so.”

  He nodded slowly. “I guess that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

  “She’s a good person, and it’s obvious you do care about eac
h other,” he said. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, it’ll be your turn to make a success out of all this.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really fit the pattern of everybody else in this chaotic world. And we’ve known each other for a long time.”

  “Sure, you have, but you haven’t done anything about it,” he said. “So I think it still counts. It’s not like I’ve got a partner happening around here,” he said, with a big grin.

  “Maybe not,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it won’t be your turn next.”

  He shrugged and said, “I’m not looking for that.”

  “But, if the opportunity drops into your lap …” he said, mimicking his friend’s earlier comments.

  At that, Quinn laughed hard. “So true.” They quickly loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and checked on the weapons and ammo. By the time they were ready to walk out, as they laced up their boots, Linny came down the stairs, dressed and ready to go.

  He looked her over quickly, nodded, and said, “Hopefully it’ll be a quick trip.”

  “Hopefully it’ll be a quick trip, and we grab the right guy,” she said. “And we get this taken care of.” Her voice was cheerful and calm.

  He wondered at that, … how she sounded so calm. “You sound like you’re totally okay with everything that’s going on.”

  “I trust you guys,” she said. “You’ll do what you can to keep me safe, and, beyond that, it’s out of everybody’s control.”

  He nodded. “You can bet we’ll do what we can. It hasn’t failed us yet.”

  “I know,” she said, with a gentle smile. “Let’s go see who this pimple-faced person is and find out why the hell Interpol wants to know about him.”

  “Ice could send me the file,” Fallon said.

  Quinn said, “She didn’t need to. I looked it up. He’s been somehow involved in transporting illegal immigrants across Africa, into Europe, and eventually into England. Whether by land or by sea, Interpol is tracking that.”