Worthy of Trust and Confidence

by Kara A. McLeod

  “Eric, stop it!” I managed to get one arm around his neck and slide the other underneath his arm to wrap around his chest, ignoring the tiny explosions of pain the move set off inside me. “What the hell?”

  To my surprise, Eric didn’t fight me. I’d sort of expected he would, or at the very least he’d ignore me in favor of continuing his current activity. Instead, he allowed me to yank him off Walker easily and favored me with a look of confusion once I’d gotten him back on his feet.

  I shoved Eric back a step and angled myself so I’d be able to stop him if he went after Walker again. I might not’ve been prepared for it the first time, but I wasn’t about to be caught off guard again.

  I frowned at Eric and shook my head once, keeping one hand on his chest, trying to convey without words my sheer disappointment in his off-the-wall behavior. I didn’t want to get into a discussion of tactics with him in front of the guy he’d more or less just assaulted, but I hoped he realized we’d be addressing the issue later and at great length.

  As I had most of my attention focused on Eric, I didn’t realize Walker had moved until it was too late. He’d popped back to a standing position almost immediately after Eric had, apparently. And in the blink of an eye, he’d moved to retaliate. He was startlingly adroit and agile for his size. I’d never have imagined a guy that big could move that fast. But move he did. Like a flash.

  I, unfortunately, did not. Move like a flash, that is. At least not until it was too late to completely evade what was coming my way. Oh, sure, I tried. Sort of. My reflexes would never have allowed me to do otherwise. I might’ve even managed to come out of the encounter completely unscathed, too, if Eric hadn’t been standing so near to me as to nullify my preferred avenue of escape. But close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. It definitely doesn’t count when you’re trying to avoid getting knocked upside the head.

  Out of my peripheral vision, I caught the motion of Walker’s punch at the last nanosecond. Long enough to think, Oh, shit, and not much else. I think he was probably aiming for Eric, but at that point, I doubt it really mattered much to him that I was standing more or less in between them.

  Walker was right-handed, which meant that, naturally, the big, winding roundhouse he threw in our direction came from his right hand. Unfortunately for me, that’s the side I was standing on. And since I’d just had to make myself a physical buffer between Walker and Eric, that meant the blow would hit me long before it got to what I presumed was the intended target. Because that’s just the kind of luck I had.

  Realizing that scrambling out of his reach wouldn’t work out well for me—not when I’d only be crashing into Eric, effectively trapping me literally between the oft-talked-about rock and a hard place—and that ducking would result in having my almost-completely-healed left eyebrow split wide open instead of my jaw, I opted for the only course of alternative course of action I could come up with: I stepped into the punch.

  As I took a step forward, my left arm came up in an attempt to deflect some of the brunt of the strike. It worked somewhat. I mean, he caught me with a glancing blow of his gargantuan, meaty fist on the back of the head, behind my left ear, but it could’ve been worse. The stars I saw directly after the contact were only white. They weren’t glittery or anything. If I’d taken the full brunt of his punch, I imagined they’d be bigger and sparklier and probably singing and entertaining me with a well-choreographed dance number. At least until I lost consciousness.

  Walker’s mouth formed a comical-looking “O” of surprise that I saw for the briefest of instants as I took him to the ground, having hooked my right foot behind his and kicked back against his Achilles tendon with the heel of my shoe. Hard. Between the leg sweep knocking his foot out from under him and the driving momentum of both my hands against his shoulder, he had no choice but to fall.

  He landed on his back with a resounding thud that practically shook the leaves off the nearby trees, and I wasted no time clambering up his body so I could kneel on his shoulder with my left knee, effectively pinning him to the ground. This didn’t sit well with Walker at all, and he took up his incoherent roaring again as he thrashed and kicked, attempting to break free.

  “Adam, stop resisting, stop resisting,” I told him as I wrestled his arm between my thighs and torqued it back against the right one in such a way that I was exerting pressure against his elbow, pushing it in the direction elbows weren’t meant to bend. Not hard enough to do any lasting damage, but enough to send the clear message that I could if I wanted to. And I would if he didn’t stop fighting me.

  It took a lot longer to describe that than it actually did to do it. I’d wager the whole thing probably took about four seconds. I’d barely had time to get Walker relatively under control before Rico, Austin, and PJ jumped in. As Rico was closer than the other two, he’d immediately taken up a mirroring position with Walker’s left arm, and, if the angry look on his face and Walker’s subsequent howl were any indication, he’d been a lot less gentle in wrangling it into position than I’d been.

  Despite the fact that Rico and I were basically poised to dislocate both of his elbows, Walker still continued to struggle. His face was an alarming shade of red and contorted into such a snarling expression of rage that I felt slimy vines of fear wind their way into my very soul. He continued to undulate, bucking his hips and lashing out at everything and anything with his legs.

  For all the times Walker had flipped out on me over the years—and those times were too numerous to count—I’d never once seen him look even half as crazed as he did right now. He was gnashing his teeth and had turned his head so he could try to bite me, all the while calling me every filthy name I’d ever heard and a few I hadn’t. I’ll admit, I was mildly impressed with his vocabulary. If the insults hadn’t been backed by as much pure anger as they were, I undoubtedly would’ve found them hilarious. Now, however, I was filled with a growing sense of unease.

  The five of us—Allison, Tuck, and Marissa had wisely taken up strategic positions on either end of our brawl to watch our surroundings for us so we wouldn’t be blindsided by something or someone unexpected rolling up on us while we were preoccupied—rolled Walker over onto his stomach, handcuffed him, and then shoved him into the back of Rico’s car quicker than you can say seventy-two-hour hold.

  Once inside, he’d immediately flopped onto his back on the backseat and attempted to kick the rear passenger window out of the car with both his feet, which I think would’ve worked a lot better if the door had actually been completely shut. As it was, all he did was manage to kick to door back open to PJ, who caught it and cursed. The move earned him a swift jab to the outside of his thigh with the butt of a baton and a set of industrial-strength zip ties binding his feet together. Then Rico and Austin had to fight with him to get him seat-belted into place so he wouldn’t be able to try that again.

  When they finally shut the door on him and his mad rantings about how I’d set him up and he was going to get me for this if it was the last thing he ever did, I let out a shaky breath and sagged bodily against the trunk of the car. Now that the situation was relatively under control, the adrenaline had worn off, and with it went my imperviousness to pain. My head was throbbing like a demolition derby was taking place inside my skull, and all of my not-quite-healed wounds were screaming at me in languages I’d never even heard of. I tried to ignore them.

  “You okay?” Allison asked lightly, concern etched onto her face in broad, Technicolor strokes. She rested a gentle hand on my upper arm as she studied me.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth as I tried to keep my breathing even.

  “Let me see.”

  “Allison, really, I’m fine.” I tried to jerk away from the hands she’d extended my way, but the move reignited the stars that’d just stopped dancing in my periphery.

  “I’m sure you are,” she replied smoothly, unfazed by my attitude. “Just let me look.”

  “Yeah, O’Connor,” Rico c
himed in. “You got pounded pretty hard back there.”

  “Really?” I said to him. “You, too?”

  “Let her look,” Rico said. “You know Paige is going to kick my ass if I just take your word for it that you’re okay.”

  I rolled my eyes and followed Allison’s finger as she waved it back and forth in front of my eyes. I tried not to blink too much when she shone a tiny penlight into each eye. And I dutifully if a little balefully held still so she could examine the knot growing behind my ear. I tried not to wince, but I’m afraid I failed. Even though I was looking at Allison, I was directing my words at Rico. “Did you ever think of just not telling your wife about every little thing that happens?”

  “I have, actually,” Rico replied, sounding amused. “But the woman’s kind of hard to resist.”

  “She also has your balls in her purse.”

  “That, too.”

  “So, what do you think, Doc?” I asked Allison softly, staring into her eyes. “Am I gonna live?”

  “You’d better,” she murmured back, brushing my hair back off my face.

  “Let me see,” Rico interrupted, pushing Allison out of the way to prod at me himself.

  “Ow!” I slapped at his arm. “What the hell? That hurts!”

  Rico stopped his probing and grinned, hooking his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans. He shrugged. “I just wanted to be able to accurately describe the size of that knot when I’m retelling the story. The devil’s in the details, baby. You taught me that.”

  I shook my head at him before the searing stabs of pain forced me to stop. And then I turned to Eric, who was standing a few feet away from us, quieter than I’d ever seen him. Normally, he wore an air of cockiness that wafted off him like too much bathroom-vending-machine cologne, but at the moment he just looked defeated.

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rico open his mouth to chime in, but I put a restraining hand on his arm. The way I figured it, Rico could tear him a new one later if he wanted to, when they were alone somewhere. Rico, as the backup of the Counterfeit Squad, was nestled in the middle of Eric’s chain of command, so he’d be well within his rights to do so. Now, on the street and in front of four other coworkers, wasn’t the time.

  Eric ducked his head and scuffed the toe of his boot on the ground like a scolded child. “I thought he was taking a run at you,” he mumbled.

  “What?”

  Eric took a deep breath and tipped his head up slightly, favoring me with fleeting traces of eye contact. “When he stepped toward you that last time, I thought he was getting ready to assault you. He looked like he was reaching for your head.”

  I nodded. I’d suspected as much, but I’d still wanted him to confirm it. And what could I really say to that? More than half of police work involved split-second judgment calls. If I’d been in his shoes and that’d been my interpretation of the situation, I might’ve jumped in to save another agent a certain ass-whooping, too. Okay, I probably wouldn’t have literally jumped in until after the brawling had started just so I could be positive I wasn’t making a mistake like the one Eric had just made, but different strokes, I supposed.

  I shared a meaningful look with Rico, punctuated by the wild screams of the man under discussion. The whole car rocked with his frantic attempts to get free from his seat belt. With as big as he was and his hands cuffed behind him the way they were, he couldn’t twist around far enough to reach the mechanism to unfasten it, and he was showing his displeasure loudly and with extreme prejudice.

  “I’ve never seen him this wound up,” Austin confessed, reholstering his phone. I assumed he’d just briefed Mark and the two-to-ten supervisor on what’d happened out here, but I didn’t care enough to ask.

  “Me, either,” I said, massaging my right temple absently in an attempt to assuage the massive headache collecting behind my eyes. “On the bright side, I can’t imagine Bellevue’s going to have any problem taking him.”

  “Is that where we’re headed?” PJ wanted to know.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” I said, indicating Rico and Eric with a wave of my hand. “You two are headed home to get some sleep.”

  “Are you sure you guys have got this?” Austin asked. He looked and sounded exhausted, but I knew he wouldn’t leave until he was practically ordered to go.

  “We’re good. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

  As they ambled off, I turned to Rico and Eric. “You two want to transport him? I doubt he’d be particularly receptive to my presence at the moment.”

  “No problem,” Rico replied.

  “Good. I’ll follow you guys over and call the ER so they know we’re on our way in.” I refocused my attention on Tuck and Marissa, who were waiting patiently next to their Suburban.

  “Christ, Ryan,” Tuck murmured, shaking his head.

  I wasn’t in the mood. My head felt like it was literally being cleaved in two. My shoulder was on fire. And the way my shirt was sticking to me made me suspect I’d popped a couple of the stitches on my back. Either that, or I was sweating a lot more than I’d realized. I was strangely both wired and utterly spent. And my night was probably only about half over. I still had to take Walker to the hospital and get him committed and then make about a million notification phone calls to everybody in the free world and their grandmother. I doubted I’d get to bed much before two, and I was pretty damn surly about it. Especially since it meant I wouldn’t get to spend any quality time with Allison. Although, on the bright side, that did mean a delay of my inevitable descent into a nightmare. And who knew? Maybe I’d be too tired after all this excitement to dream at all. A girl could hope, right?

  “Can you do me a favor and call Hannah for me?” I asked Tuck. “Tell her we’ve got him, and we’re taking him to Bellevue. She can hit me up tomorrow for the specifics if she wants.”

  “Sure thing. You’re going to take him to the hospital now? Why not let those other two guys handle it?”

  I sighed as I walked past him toward my car. “Because apparently there’s no rest for the wicked.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I’d been so off in my estimation about my bedtime it was tragic. By the time I’d finished up with Walker at the hospital—as well as with my own checkup because somebody who shall remain nameless but looked fantastic in a business suit and a concerned scowl couldn’t wait to tell the doctor I’d been clocked and should be checked over—and called the whole thing in to DC so they’d be in the loop, it was just shy of three a.m.

  If Allison hadn’t been in town, I’d have gone straight home and crawled exhaustedly into bed. Actually, I’d suggested that she come home and crawl into bed with me, but she’d declined. Apparently, she seemed to think trying to get any sleep was foolish since she had to be at the train station in about two hours, and I wasn’t about to let her sit up somewhere by herself. Which is how I found myself across from her at a diner in Midtown killing time before she was scheduled to depart.

  “You sure you won’t get into trouble?” I asked for probably the third time, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn. I stirred my coffee, unsure whether I’d already added sugar or whether that’d been what I’d been about to do. I frowned at my cup as I tried to make a determination.

  “You sure you want to drink that?” Allison asked before taking a sip from her own mug.

  “Huh?” I blinked at her wearily.

  She motioned with one hand, keeping the other wrapped completely around her drink. “You didn’t order decaf.”

  I made a face. “Of course not. I hate decaf.”

  “One might think you’re trying to ensure that you don’t sleep.”

  “I’m more worried about you not sleeping. You actually have to go to work today.”

  “Oh, who are you kidding? You’ll go in anyway. Apparently medical leave isn’t a thing to you.”

  “Probably. But I can go in whenever I want. If I want. Or I can stay home. You’re schedu
led to report in.”

  Allison pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes for a moment. “It’s cute how you think you can get away with changing the subject.”

  “What subject? I didn’t realize we had landed on anything yet.”

  She smirked at me and shook her head. “Okay. You want me to be direct? How’s this? Are you finally ready to talk to me about your nightmares?”

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes with the pads of my fingers. We’d been over this several times when I’d awoken in various states of distress in the hospital, and I didn’t want to get into it with her any more now than I had then. But I’d promised myself I’d tell her everything. I just wished it didn’t have to be right this instant.

  “I’m sure you can imagine what they’re about,” I said finally, my voice low. My stomach writhed like something alive inside me, and my mouth was suddenly dry. I tried to swallow reflexively, but the action was uncomfortable.

  “Lucia dying.”

  “Yeah. They don’t start that way, but they all end up there. No matter what I do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was dead?” Allison asked after a long moment. Her voice held the tenor of so many different emotions, I was almost distracted from her words by her tone. But after a beat, they sank in.

  My head shot up, and I noticed that she had carefully arranged her face into the neutral mask she always donned when she didn’t want to appear upset. The one she always adopted when I hurt her. “What?”

  “Lucia. You never told me she was there. You never told me she died.”

  I furrowed my brow. “I…I thought you knew. I thought everybody knew. It was all over the news. And the gossip in the agency is rampant. I just assumed…” Had she really not known? Was that why she’d been so distant? Because she’d thought I was keeping that from her?

  “And I was on a plane home from Hong Kong, and then I was in your hospital room. I never even turned on the TV. So, no. I didn’t know.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. I just…didn’t really want to talk about it.”