by Karen Rose
Decker drew a breath and let it out. ‘Dammit.’
‘I know, but . . . we don’t give up, right? What was it you said? Something like, it spreads to every dark corner and all we can do is go after the bastards that make it, one at a time, right? So that’s what we’ll do. And then we’ll save who we can.’
‘When?’
She was caressing his skin, little pats meant not to arouse but to comfort. ‘When what?’
‘When do we start?’
She pulled back to study his face. ‘I start back Wednesday. With Troy. My partner, remember? You get a few weeks off. Boss’s orders. Apparently Zimmerman took some flack from the powers-that-be for letting you participate the last few days. They said he should have cleared your participation with his superiors before letting you go into the field.’
‘I feel a little bad about that.’ He really did. He liked Zimmerman.
‘Nah, don’t worry about it. Troy says Zimmerman handled it. Made his apologies to the big cheeses, promised he’d do better next time, but Troy’s known the guy for years. Says this isn’t the first time Zimmerman’s apologized versus asking permission and it’s unlikely to be the last.’
‘So if you start Wednesday, what are you going to do tomorrow and Tuesday?’
‘Get my apartment ready. My furniture comes on Tuesday. And I might get a dog. Something small.’
He blinked. ‘Really? From Delores?’
‘Who else? It seems to be the thing to do.’
‘How long’s your lease on this apartment?’
Her patting hand stilled. ‘Three months, then month to month. It’s one of the short-term places for people on temporary assignment. Why?’
‘Is this assignment temporary?’ he countered warily.
‘No. But I needed a place to live and I didn’t have a lot of time to search. I was kind of busy, sitting next to your bedside and watching you sleep. Plus I didn’t want to sign a big lease and find out I hated the neighborhood. Why?’
‘Because if Cincinnati is my permanent assignment, I want a house. With a yard where I can have a garden. And a dog. A big one. I’ve never had a place of my own.’
‘Then you should have one. You know, you could stay with me until you find a house. I have two bedrooms. We could have our space, take our time, get to know each other better.’
‘And if it takes me three months to find the right house?’
‘Why don’t we wait and see? It’s not a race.’
He snorted a laugh. It had quickly become their slow-down phrase when one of them got too revved up and wanted to rush sex and the other wanted it slow. They’d used it twice today alone. But a third time they’d both wanted hard and fast so there’d been no talking at all. ‘Okay. Fair enough. Not a race.’
She pressed a kiss to his chest, over his heart. ‘Nap time’s over. You need to get dressed because we’ve been asked to dinner at Scarlett and Marcus’s house. Scarlett’s been playing with her new oven and Marcus supposedly has the grill going with the promise of steaks and beer. There’s going to be a crowd. Something about helping Marcus build a gazebo.’
He brightened. ‘Then he can help me build something when I get my house.’
‘I’m told that’s the way it works. Come on. I want to stop by the hospital first and I have a few things to buy on the way. Dani’s been moved to a regular room and I wanted to check on Mallory and Macy, too.’
He wanted to grumble, but he had spent all day in bed. ‘Where are we stopping?’
She winked at him. ‘Yarn store. I’m going to try and convert me some knitters. That way I don’t look like the odd man out.’ She started backing out of the room. ‘I’ll wait for you in the living room. If I stay here, you won’t get out of bed till tomorrow, and I want a steak.’
He wasn’t fooled by the wink and the hasty retreat. It bothered her, the fact that she needed to be doing something with her hands in order to think. ‘You said you’d teach me,’ he called after her when she was almost to the door. ‘Maybe I can use a pair of those really fat needles because I got . . . you know, big hands.’
A true smile bloomed. ‘I thought you were just saying that. You’d really knit? In public?’
‘Of course I would, for purely selfish reasons. It helps you make very smart connections, and I want that edge. Plus you’ll have to sit really close to me to show me what to do. I’m playing all the angles.’
‘Then maybe you could show me how to go undercover?’
He held up the blanket. ‘You have an open invitation for that.’
‘You’re bad and I’m serious. I want to, you know, not scream Fed.’
He feigned a grimace. ‘Well that won’t be so easy. It’s good that I like a challenge.’
She was laughing as she closed the door, and he felt proud of himself for making her smile. He felt happy. Just . . . happy to be here.
He’d finally have a home. And someone wonderful to share it with. It was more than enough. It was everything.
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Sunday 16 August, 6.00 P.M.
Decker kissed Kate’s cheek when they reached Dani’s room. ‘Go in. I’ll be a minute.’
Kate’s smile was sad. When they’d passed the family waiting room, Diesel had been there, standing at the window, looking like he’d lost his best friend. ‘See if you can get him to come with us to Scarlett and Marcus’s. He looks like he could use some time away from here.’
‘I’ll try.’ It was all Decker could promise. He peeked into Dani’s room just to see with his own eyes how she seemed. And truthfully, she looked much better than he’d expected. She was sitting up in bed, pale but smiling. Especially when she saw it was Kate who’d come to visit.
‘Finally, someone who’ll give me the true scoop!’ Dani exclaimed. ‘Deacon won’t tell me anything.’ She rolled her unusual eyes. ‘He doesn’t want anyone to upset me.’
Kate sniffed as she sat in the chair by the bed. ‘Deacon’s had a bug shoved up his ass for days. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, and what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’
Decker backed away, his heart considerably lighter. He’d pictured Dani with tubes and masks and looking like death warmed over. There were tubes, but only a few, and she looked . . . okay. Not like herself, but definitely okay.
The death-warmed-over part, Decker thought as he entered the family waiting room, would be Diesel. The tattooed mountain looked positively grim.
Decker leaned next to the window so that he could see Diesel’s face. ‘You look like shit.’
Diesel just rolled his eyes and said nothing.
‘Seriously, you look worse than she does. She’s going to be okay. Her doctor said so.’
‘I know.’ The words rumbled out, rusty and pitched so low they were almost inaudible.
‘Then why the attitude? And why aren’t you sitting in there with her?’
‘She has family to sit with her.’
Decker heard the bitter undercurrent, but wasn’t sure where it came from, so he proceeded carefully. ‘A lot of family. She’s lucky in that respect.’
Diesel glanced sideways. ‘What happened to your family? Your foster family?’
‘They’re gone. They were old when they took me in. But they loved me while they had me and I guess that makes me lucky too, huh?’
Diesel turned his attention back to the window. ‘You don’t have to babysit me. I’ll be okay.’
‘I wasn’t babysitting. I thought I was standing here talking to a friend who might need me. But I can just stand here if you want. And not talk.’
Diesel snorted. ‘I’d truly like to see that.’
Decker grinned, unoffended. ‘Hell, man, I was in a fucking coma for a week, and before that, undercover with the biggest group of lowlifes you could
never want to meet, and I wasn’t about to talk to them if I didn’t have to. So I have some words saved up. I can give ’em to you or to the universe in general, but they ain’t stayin’ in my mouth, I can tell you that much.’
Diesel’s lips curved. ‘Wow.’
‘I’m sayin’.’
He dropped his gaze to Decker’s walking stick. ‘ I heard you did some damage with that last night.’
‘I did. But not with this one. This is a replacement for the one I used last night, which is in the evidence locker. Covered in Edwards’s blood.’
‘Thank you.’ It was offered seriously, and Decker’s grin faded to a smile of grim satisfaction.
‘I wish I’d hit him hard enough to spread some brains, too, but Kate took care of that.’
‘I’ll thank her too.’
‘Edwards hurt enough people that you’ll have to stand in line.’ Decker was quiet for a moment, then sighed. ‘Why are you standing here alone? You don’t have to be alone.’
‘I know.’ Diesel hesitated. ‘I’m just not sure how to be with people.’
‘I guess I understand that. It’s like when you come back from deployment and civilians are all around and you don’t fit in and you’re not sure if you ever will. You walk and talk and look like normal people, but . . . we’re not like them and we never will be.’
Diesel’s big shoulders rose and fell on a sigh, but his expression never changed. ‘No, I never will be.’
But there was so much more to it than being a fish out of water. Decker struggled for the right words. ‘You just cracked open a can of worms that were overrun by maggots. By looking at those photos, I mean. And by bringing them to me. So maybe you’re thinking that Dani has family to take care of her and that maybe she doesn’t need or even want the company of someone whose headspace is filled with maggots.’
Finally, finally Diesel made eye contact and Decker’s heart cracked yet again. ‘Yes,’ Diesel murmured. ‘Incredibly disgusting visual, but yes.’
‘I think Dani Novak’s got some maggots of her own.’
Diesel glared at him. ‘Not of her making,’ he said stubbornly.
‘Maybe, maybe not. You don’t know where her maggots came from. I’m not saying they’re her fault, though I can tell you that you don’t become HIV positive from a fucking toilet seat, so she does have a story in there somewhere. You don’t know what that story is. You don’t know what’s going on in her head. Not until you ask her.’
Diesel snorted his disbelief. ‘And she’d just tell me?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not today or even tomorrow, or maybe not ever because that’s her choice. But just maybe she’d like to know you care, because she’s as lonely as you are.’
‘She’s got family,’ Diesel said again, harder this time.
‘Okay, okay, I’ll back off.’
Again the slight quirk of his lips. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’
Which wasn’t a direct order to cease and desist, so that was good at least. ‘Kate and I won’t stay long. We’re on our way to some shindig at Marcus’s.’
‘I know. I was invited too.’
‘Then why are you here? I bet they’ve got food out right now.’ And damned if Decker wasn’t hungry again.
A grunt. ‘Marcus is going to make us help him with that damn gazebo of his.’
‘I know. But then he’ll owe me when I have repairs to make on my house.’
A spark of interest. ‘You got a house?’
‘I’m going to. I plan to start looking at places tomorrow. I know what I want, but I also know what I can afford and it’ll need some fixin’. I heard that you and Marcus build houses.’
‘We have. But not in a while.’
‘But you have a contractor’s license, right? Maybe you could check out the houses I’m interested in and tell me if they’re money pits or not.’
‘They’re all money pits, Davenport. Even the good ones.’
‘Yeah,’ Decker allowed, ‘but I still want one. I want a home. And a dog. I want a place I can invite my friends, with a big-screen TV for ball games, and furniture we won’t break if we sit on it. I figure if you can sit on a sofa and not break it, then it’s safe for the rest of us.’
Diesel’s grin was quick but real. ‘I’m your canary in the mine, huh?’
‘See, you got words, too. Come with me, we’ll say hi to Dani and then we’ll go to Marcus’s for what I’m hoping will be really good steaks.’
He was surprised when Diesel fell into line behind him, the two of them too wide to walk side by side through the hallways.
Dani looked up with genuine delight at the sight of Decker, her smile growing softer when Diesel appeared behind him. ‘Come in, please. Kate’s just showing me how to knit.’
‘Proselytizing, Kate?’ Diesel asked.
‘Absolutely,’ Kate said with a hard nod. ‘Because one knitter looks eccentric, but two look like a club.’
Decker leaned down to kiss Dani’s cheek, before settling in the chair on the other side of the bed. ‘My gift to you, Dr Novak, is that you were right. I needed to rest more before I went out in the field. I’m paying the price now.’
Dani gave him a prim look. ‘You know I didn’t want to be right.’
Decker chuckled. ‘But you won’t argue that you were.’
She smiled at him. ‘Nope. Thank you, Decker. I heard what you did last night. Going all Kung Fu Panda and everything. Cute and cuddly but deadly.’
Diesel made a strangled sound, like he was trying not to laugh. Decker glared at Kate, who simply ignored them all, knitting serenely.
Decker sighed. ‘Anyway, I’m taking it easy. Plenty of bed rest.’
‘That’s not what Kate said,’ Dani said, brows lifted. ‘Not about the rest part, anyway. Oh baby, oh baby!’
He didn’t need a mirror to know that his face was turning red. ‘God, Kate.’
Kate’s head had jerked up, her eyes wide. ‘I did not! I said no such thing! Kung Fu Panda, yes, but never oh baby, oh baby. Not even a single oh baby. Dani, stop causing trouble! Dammit, woman, you made me drop a stitch!’
Diesel actually snickered, and Dani’s smile lit up her whole face. ‘But it made Coach Diesel laugh and that was worth it.’
Kate gathered her things. ‘That is the last time I bring you books from my collection,’ she said, pretending to be annoyed.
‘Um, which collection?’ Decker asked, remembering the erotic book in her purse.
Kate lifted a brow. ‘The one you’re thinking about right now.’
Dani held up the book for them to see, and yes, it was one of the titles that Kate could read in public to be sure no one would meet her eyes or even notice her face. ‘I’ve already read this one,’ Dani said. ‘But I’ll pass it along to the nurses. It’ll win me favors. Maybe even an extra helping of Jell-O.’
‘It should be good for more than Jell-O,’ Kate told her. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll bring you another book if you behave.’
Dani’s smile dimmed, fatigue covering her like a lead blanket. ‘That’s okay. I can’t focus enough to read right now. My head still hurts a bit.’
They’d all been so worried about the stab wound that they’d nearly forgotten about her head. Edwards had hit her hard enough to cause a concussion. ‘An audio book, maybe,’ Decker suggested. ‘I know I enjoyed hearing voices when I was trying to wake up.’
‘Maybe,’ Dani said. ‘That would be really sweet. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m about to fall asleep. I heard you have a barbecue to go to, so eat a few burgers for me. Let me know if Deacon isn’t there. I told him he had to go because he was driving me crazy. Coach, would you mind staying for just a minute?’
Diesel looked stunned, but he nodded. ‘I’ll meet you at Scarlett and Marcus’s,�
� he said to Decker. ‘I promise I’ll be there.’
Cincinnati, Ohio,
Sunday 16 August, 7.15 P.M.
As it turned out, Diesel beat them there, because Kate had to make a stop on the way. Scarlett Bishop lived in a multicolored house at the top of a huge hill. Luckily someone had saved them a place in the driveway or Decker would have had to climb that hill, because there was a long line of cars parked in front.
‘I think everyone in the city’s here,’ Decker murmured into her ear as they walked around the house to the backyard, and Kate thought he might just be right. The yard was packed with men and children. Most of the men – including Diesel – were working on a gazebo that was starting to take form. A country music radio station played from stereo speakers, background music to the pounding of hammers and the whine of an electric saw. There were burgers and beer, but no one had overindulged, much to Kate’s relief. Unlike the barbecues she’d attended as a kid, this one was a nice friendly party.
She recognized about two thirds of the people. Marcus, of course, who was manning the grill. Stone was there too, looking better than he had the last time they’d seen him. Delores was around somewhere, because her big dog was curled up next to Stone’s wheelchair. In fact, there were dogs everywhere – a sheltie at Marcus’s feet, a three-legged bulldog chasing after a lab puppy whose teeth marks were probably a match for those in Deacon’s ruined shoes.
Someone had set up a horseshoe pit, and several kids were trying to play. A little girl took her turn, missed, then looked up and saw Kate and Decker standing just inside the gate.
‘Mr Decker!’ With a smile she came running, stopping just short of throwing her arms round Decker’s waist. She lowered her arms and put on a polite face. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’
Decker held out his free arm. ‘Hug. Please.’ Her smile reappearing, the girl obeyed, and Decker gave an obligatory ‘Oof’ when she squeezed him hard. ‘Hope, this is Miss Kate. Kate, Hope Beardsley. She helped me find Alice’s apartment.’
