“What are you going to call him?” Ferguson stepped to Hannah’s side again, hunched his shoulders, bringing his face closer to hers…cutting her from the herd. “I’m sure Special Agent Benton wouldn’t begrudge you the honor. You got us to this point, and I sure as shit am not going to allow you to die, so—”
“We’re not calling him anything.” The hand Hannah used to nudge her bangs from her eyes shook. Jack wondered if it stemmed from a natural fear of a serial killer targeting her—that would give anyone the shakes—or maybe Ferguson’s flirting was flustering her. That possibility bothered him almost as much.
Deming’s expression lightened with approval. “Good for you, Hannah. To name it gives it power.”
“Good for you,” Vivian echoed.
Hannah glanced at Ferguson, still standing close, and flushed. Damn. Now she was blushing. Jack hated Ferguson. “I’m not that erudite,” she said. “We won’t name him until we know what makes him tick, but mostly because you can’t keep things like that a secret.”
Hannah, being Hannah, didn’t recognize the team was trying to compliment her. She was oblivious, as usual. Jack had always found her impossible to compliment, and she’d never reacted as expected. If she didn’t roll her eyes, or give a dismissive shake of her head, she would act distrustful of the praise. After a while, Jack just stopped trying. If he had it to do again, he’d compliment her until she collapsed under the weight of his admiration.
“Vivian, we need that poetry expert back to pick his brains,” Hannah said. “The perp gave us the poem. It’s the key to unlocking his identity. It has to be.”
Ferguson snorted. “Poetry means whatever the reader thinks it means, so it might as well mean nothing.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Vivian seemed truly upset by Ferguson’s words. “Poetry is life and death and everything in between.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?” Ferguson scanned the room, gauging everyone’s reaction.
“Enough.” Jack didn’t have patience for this. “Ferguson, if you’re done raining on Ms. O’Grady’s parade, maybe you could interview our poetry expert from UMass? Pick his brain. Deming, go with him and keep him out of trouble.”
Deming’s smile was naughty. “Oh, I’d love that,” she said, “but don’t you think Vivian should come with me? Ferguson might scare the guy.”
Jack wanted Ferguson busy and away from Hannah, but couldn’t say that, so when Deming glanced at Jack, he widened his eyes and managed to convey the importance of his profiler doing what she was told. She glanced at Hannah and then laughed. Damn. Deming was doing her voodoo on him and Jack’s motives weren’t as hidden as he’d hoped.
Hannah stood in front of the murder board, studying her photo, a reprint of her FBI ID headshot. In it, she was smiling, her hair pulled back as it was now, and she seemed happy. It had been taken before Jack had met her. Guilt forced him to acknowledge that he hadn’t been able to make Hannah happy when they were together. Now, she appeared fragile and flustered, lost in thought. He told himself that optics were deceiving. Hannah was one of the strongest people Jack knew. And smart. He knew it had to be the stress of the case that was getting to her.
“Hannah. Can I have a word with you?” Jack stepped to the incident room’s door, holding it open for her. “Okay, everybody,” he scanned his team’s curious faces. “You know what you have to do. We’ll get this guy. We just have to work the case.”
“So I can sleep at night.” Hannah mumbled the words as she walked past him into the hall, Jack close on her heels. He closed the door behind them.
“You’ll sleep,” he said, doing his best to sound confident. “You’ll be safe. Nothing will happen to you, Hannah, because I’ll be with you.” Gun drawn, sleeping with his eyes open if need be.
She scanned the hall, saw it was empty. Then she stepped so close to Jack her breath warmed his face. “Excuse me?”
It occurred to him that maybe he’d insulted her by suggesting she couldn’t keep herself safe, but for the life of him, he couldn’t care. He needed her to acknowledge that he’d be there for her. That he’d make sure she was okay. “I know you’re a capable agent. Don’t take this the wrong—”
“You happened to me, Jack. Who’s going to protect me from you?”
“What?” He thought back to the meeting, searching for something he’d said that might have ticked her off.
“You died.” Hannah’s chin quivered as she stared back at him.
Now didn’t seem a good time to hash that out, but Hannah wasn’t asking. She was demanding answers. “Look. We both know things were bad when I left.”
“They were worse when you died.”
“You know you could barely stay in the same room with me without yelling. I assumed you’d be happy to see the back of me.”
“You were murdered.” Hannah was shutting down. He recognized the signs. Whenever they had a disagreement, she shut him out, making him think she was measuring the drapes for some other apartment. An apartment away from him.
“Goodwin should have—”
“You should have, Jack. Said goodbye. Given me that, at least.” Taking a big breath, she released it in a burst and turned away from him. “I refuse to do this now.”
She had him off balance. “I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye.” He scanned the hall. People could walk by, and explanations would then have to be made. “I’m sorry, Hannah.”
She shook her head, covering her face with her hands. “You died—”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“—and now you’re just dead to me.” She dropped her hands and met his gaze, and it was the look on her face that convinced him she meant every word she’d said. He was dead to her.
He took the hit with as much aplomb as he was capable of, and kept his peace as she hurried down the hall. Away from him. Always running away from him.
Chapter 5
As soon as the words left her mouth, Hannah regretted them. They were the truth, but Jack didn’t deserve the truth. He didn’t deserve to understand how much his abandonment had damaged her. Tears spilled over her lashes as she hurried down the hall, desperate to escape emotions that shadowed her. She didn’t get far before Jack grabbed her elbow and hustled her into Interrogation Room 1. He flipped the “Occupied” switch that lit a red light outside the door and locked them in.
“Get it all out, Hannah,” Jack said. “Say everything you need to say now, and then I’ll have my say, and then we need to focus on working together to catch this killer. Deal?”
She couldn’t look at him. Didn’t want to. Not until she could control her expression. The sound of a metal chair scraping against tile grabbed her attention. There he sat, watching her, the image of a concerned boss, or an inquisitor seeking a confession.
So this is happening. Whatever. Might as well get it over with.
Hannah dragged a chair to the other side of the interrogation table and sat, facing him as an adversary. “How fitting.” She lifted her hands, indicating his choice of venues. He was expecting an interrogation, but their relationship was dead. This was an autopsy.
“We won’t be interrupted.” By locking the door, he had made sure of that. “I have questions, Hannah.”
Jack’s resemblance to Ellen jumped out at her, reminding her he didn’t know he was a father, and that he didn’t know the joy of holding their baby in his arms, the sweet smell of her fuzz-covered head. He’d never heard Ellen’s gurgle of happiness, felt the fear of losing her. In this room, there’d be no way Hannah could tell him without, by default, appearing to use Ellen’s existence as a weapon. That Hannah wouldn’t do. Ellen was a gift, and deserved to be presented as such. Until Hannah’s temper cooled, or at least became manageable, the only gift she was willing to give Jack was a black eye and a bloody nose, but she had questions, too.
�
��Do you want to draw straws to see who asks first?” she said, hastily wiping telltale tears. When she’d become pregnant, her emotions were always a hair’s breadth from teetering out of control, and now that she wasn’t, her hormones were all over the place trying to level out. She’d become a crier. Something else to blame Jack for. He was staring as if he expected her to blow up. She couldn’t blame him. Since he’d arrived in the incident room, her behavior has been erratic at best, questionable at worst. Sex in the lieutenant’s office? What was wrong with her? She was happy Jack was alive. She was. But also devastated. It was confusing as hell, and she wasn’t handling it well.
Sure, he didn’t knowingly allow her to believe he was dead, but it’d happened. It could have been averted with one phone call. He could have just been honest with her. Instead, he left with no explanation, relying on an unreliable source to cut his ties. He bore responsibility for that, and the repercussions of his decision. Yet Hannah was the one suffering from aftershock. It wasn’t fair. She wished he was the man she’d thought he’d been. That man, she’d have thrown her arms around and cried for joy when she discovered he was alive.
This man, she feared. As Ellen’s father, he had endless opportunities to hurt her, and always would. How could she defend herself against that kind of power?
Sprawled on his chair, leaning back, he was the picture of relaxation. She might have bought what he was selling if his expression wasn’t guarded. Too serene. Too in control. He’d have to be a robot to not feel the tension in the air.
“What do you want to know?” he said.
Ever the G-man, trying to suss her out, looking for hints of what he had to admit, and what he could hold back. She took the same interview classes in Quantico. She had to choose her questions carefully, or risk exposing herself more than she already had. That meant she couldn’t ask, how could you leave without talking to me first? It would tell him she needed closure. She couldn’t ask, what case could be more important than me, your lover, hell, your partner? She and Jack had never exchanged words of love. She’d held back because she refused to be the first to say it, and he never seemed inclined.
The last time Hannah saw Jack, she was hoping to reveal the big, scary news. She was three months pregnant and couldn’t put it off any longer. She’d begun to show. Jack was in a mood and looking for a fight. He got one, and then stormed out of their apartment. Four hours later she got the call from a coworker that he was dead. Car explosion. Planted bomb. Murder. Body burned beyond recognition.
Hannah threw the first volley. “Whose body did I say goodbye to in the morgue?”
“I don’t know.” He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t want to know.”
The experience had been grisly, and the memory had staying power. She’d traced her PTSD to that night, that visual of the burnt corpse of her lover on a metal slab. “What we had was secret. No one knew I was more than your partner. Did that change at any point? Did you tell anyone?” She couldn’t even name what they had been together. For two years, they’d had sex, then secretly roomed together, worked together. They’d been partners in a professional capacity, but to officially claim anything beyond that was stretching it. He never told her he loved her.
“We weren’t secret. We were discreet,” he said. “I didn’t want our personal life to be part of the gossip mill.”
Bullshit, she thought, and regret scourged her heart raw. She should be feeling relief that she hadn’t exposed herself to ridicule by declaring herself to him, but all she felt was self-doubt. Would he have left if she’d told him she was pregnant? Looking at him now, all defensive and closed off, she supposed he might have stayed, but she’d never have known if it was for her or because he was an honorable man ready to do the right thing. What was obvious to Hannah was Jack didn’t love her. But she’d loved him. How else to explain the grief she’d suffered over this last year? She’d had to have loved him.
But not now. He’d killed it, and what was left was suppressed rage. And grief, dammit, never-ending grief, because the man she thought he’d been had died that night. This man, sitting across from her, was Jack’s pale shadow.
Her inclination was to shut him out and move on, but there was Ellen to consider. Always Ellen, pulling her out of the doldrums, reminding her life continued no matter the losses, no matter how weighed down with grief and rage she was. Hannah would have to tell Jack about his daughter, and it would be easier without a river of acrimony spewing between them. To do that, she’d be a grown-up and learn to forgive, or at least not care.
“Why did you have me as your emergency contact?” she said.
Jack didn’t like the question, and shrugged it off. “You were my partner.”
He was studying her reaction, calculating, she supposed, what she was feeling. It took all her energy to give him nothing for his efforts, but his words hurt. His memory of her was of a partner, not a lover. She swallowed hard, trying not to allow more tears to well in her eyes.
“When did they give you the assignment?” In other words, how long did you know you would leave me and not give me the heads-up?
“That morning. It was important no one knew.”
“Not even your partner.” She arched a brow.
Jack’s eyes flickered with some unknown emotion. Hannah was too busy wrestling with her own to recognize what it was. “I was assured Goodwin would take you aside and clue you in. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left it to someone else. I should have said good-bye.”
Not, I should have discussed taking the job. Not, I shouldn’t have left. Just, I should have said good-bye. His leaving was always in the cards. Hannah felt her body break into a sweat. It beaded on her upper lip, and suddenly she couldn’t tolerate the stuffiness of the room. Stripping off her suit jacket, she hung it over the back of her chair. “For a dead man you certainly have pull in the bureau. More than a few strings were pulled to get you here, taking over this case. My case.”
“Yes. I admit I called in favors.” He shifted in his seat, betraying his discomfort with her line of inquiry.
“Why?” This was the first thing he’d said that didn’t make sense. Why did he pivot so quickly to come to her rescue? He didn’t love her. That was abundantly clear.
Jack leaned forward, folding his hands on the table. “You know why, Hannah.”
This serial murder case would put whoever solved it in the FBI history books. It was a coup for her to land, and now Jack was swooping in to take over. She smirked. “Yeah. I get it.”
He interpreted her response correctly and took umbrage. “No, I don’t think you do.”
She had to get out of there before she lost it. Hurrying to the door, Jack at her heels, she reached for the doorknob. He leaned on the door, stopping her from opening it. “Move out of my way,” she said.
“We’re not done talking.”
“We are.”
“If you want to continue working on this case, you’ll listen.” She could see him digging his heels in, and when Jack got that way, there was no budging him. Well, fine.
“OK. Your turn.” She stepped away from him and leaned against the wall, arms folded over her chest.
“I take your safety very seriously.” Jack looked her over, as if contemplating the best way to attain that objective. She wouldn’t be surprised if her duct-taped to a wall became his solution. She’d be out of the way and completely controlled. Just the way Jack liked things. On his terms. “I wasn’t kidding when I said we’ll be attached at the hip. That’s nonnegotiable. Whoever this killer is, he’s gotten away with it so far, and I’m not willing to take any chances with you. Tell me you understand that.”
“I’m not going to a safe house.” Just the thought of her and Ellen trapped in a stuffy apartment under lock and key was enough to make her squirm. She’d make other plans if she had to. Her words got the expected results. Jack rolled his eyes.
“Fin
e,” he snapped.
“Fine,” she snapped back.
“Look.” Jack sounded exhausted. “I’m working on no sleep, I smell of airplane, and all I have with me are the clothes on my back. If you don’t mind, we’ll stay at your apartment.” Hannah didn’t try to hide her displeasure. She knew there had to be a catch, and here it was. “Please?”
“Do I have a choice?” Jack being at her apartment meant he’d meet his daughter tonight. It was too soon.
“It’s that or you’re in a safe house.”
The pressure of the case, the fear for herself and her daughter, all combined to make having Jack around a little easier to stomach. He would be another layer of protection for her helpless baby. Their baby. That’s all she was thinking about. Jack was nothing to her now. Like she’d said, he might as well have died last September. “Whatever,” she said. He’d have to be told tonight, and then he’d have to agree to keep Ellen’s existence a secret or she’d quit. No job was worth her daughter’s safety. “Anything else?”
“Did you happen to save any of my stuff? Like I said, I have no clothes with me, and I’ve been wearing this suit for two days.” The suit she’d helped him shuck an hour ago. It wasn’t a leap to assume his mind had jumped there, too. She saw it in his eyes. But instead of being embarrassed, she bowed to the inevitable. She’d enjoyed the sex. It was amazing. It always had been with Jack. That didn’t make it healthy for her to be with him. Hannah needed a man she could rely on. Surely there was a guy out there who made her feel like Jack made her feel, but didn’t have such an antipathy for commitment. She wanted that man. “Hannah? Did you save any of my stuff?”
“Clothes. Right,” she said. There were two boxes of his stuff hidden in the back of her bedroom closet. Out of sight, out of mind. She’d been unable to give it away, blaming her weakness on nostalgia, that Ellen might want to see something of Jack’s when she grew up. But it was a lie. She’d had little enough of him as it was when he’d died. She’d found herself unable to give any of his stuff away. “I might have something hidden away somewhere.”
Catch a Killer Page 6
