Trophies

by J. Gunnar Grey

  "Bull." Sherlock didn't ask what I was talking about. As usual, he knew. "I didn't buy that argument then and I'm not bidding on it now. You're too good for that."

  That was approximately 180 degrees from what I'd expected him to say. "Um, I'm not fishing for compliments, or I don't think I am, but would you mind explaining that?"

  He paused, working the Camaro through traffic, then hit a fairly clear section of road and floored it. For the first time I realized just how fast he was driving and wished I could blank out again. In the back seat, there was no sound from my two girls. I wondered if they were trying to overhear this conversation or if they were petrified. When Patty cornered me later, I'd find out.

  "You weren't there the night Wings and I got von Bisnon drunk, were you?" Sherlock asked. "That was a real hoot, it was. Damn, that man can drink. And he has an hypothesis for everything."

  Where the hell was he going with this? For that matter, where the hell were we? It took me a few moments to recognize the columns and steps of the Widener Library, and I only had those few moments because the building absolutely flew past. Hopefully he hadn't driven this speed all the way from Boston; hopefully my sense of time had blanked out for a while there, too, and my life insurance hadn't been tested quite that severely.

  "We all know he's brilliant. There's a reason he's a general. Your point?"

  But his next words were spoken over his shoulder. "Thanks for the directions, Patricia. We made a lot better time using your long shortcut." Like a homing pigeon on the last lap, he wove through backstreets as if he'd been born in Boston.

  "Your point, Sherlock?" I wanted him to make it quickly. We were almost to the house. It was bad enough Patricia and Lindsay were being treated to this lecture without throwing Caren into the mix. Doubtless it would impress her no end.

  "Sorry. My point, Robber, is that von Bisnon believes you gotta have a certain sort of personality to be effective in special forces units, especially ours because it's so damned different. And he says, when you find such a soldier, you hang onto him and never let him go, no matter who says what else about him. If at all possible." He swung the wheel and turned onto Aunt Edith's quiet street.

  "Oh, God," Patricia whispered.

  I froze. Almost in front of the house crawled a dark blue sedan. As Sherlock braked, it accelerated away, eased around the corner into traffic, and vanished.

  Sherlock revved the engine. But I touched his arm before the Camaro traveled more than a few feet.

  "No," I said.

  He braked and stared at me; when he started acting like an officer in the field rather than some sort of clown, he tended to use his cobra stare to illustrate his messages. But this time I stared back, deliberately not glancing toward the civilians in the back seat. We'd gotten through the entire miserable day without either of them being hurt. I wanted it to stay that way. And it absolutely amazed me that for once, my instincts trumped his.

  He held my gaze, something predatory and carnivorous smoldering behind that cobra stare. Then he nodded. Without comment, he pulled into the driveway and paused before the rough-quarried granite steps, near Patricia's Taurus and Caren's Volvo station wagon. But he didn't shift into neutral nor cut the engine, nor unlock the doors so we could step out. "Is there room for this in the garage?"

  I understood: if the Impala returned while we were piling out of the car, we'd be lined up in the open like targets on a range.

  "Um, yes." Patricia dug in her purse, pulled out the remote, and clicked it. The door of the two-car garage hummed open. Uncle Hubert's old black Mercedes sedan, older than me, was on the right, still gleaming as if polished only yesterday. When he'd died, Aunt Edith learned to drive herself but she never drove his beloved Mercedes. Instead she'd purchased the first of a succession of Beamers, the latest of which was currently impounded as evidence by Detective Wingate. And perhaps it was some old British instinct that had kept her parking on the left side of the garage.

  Sherlock revved the Camaro and tucked it into Aunt Edith's parking spot. We were taking over from her all around, it seemed. But the idea that she would return and witness it didn't leap from my subconscious by itself, although I waited. She really was dead, and I was beginning to accept it.

  Patty nearly dropped the remote back into her purse, but Sherlock held out a hand. She looked at it as if wondering what on earth it was. He leaned his head back and looked at her in return. It wasn't his cobra stare — not for a pretty woman his heavy guns — but it was still fairly intense. The moment dragged, the engine vibrating the car about us. Then she gave him the remote, passing the baton of leadership. Patricia was on Sherlock's impromptu team for the duration.

  Even if his occasional violent behavior seemed to scare her to death. And even if their flirting was well and truly finished.

  Caren met us in the kitchen. Her reading glasses were shoved up atop her head; her wonderful soft hair was tied back in a bun, held with a pencil, escaping wisps trailing down her neck and across her ears. In jeans and blue tee-shirt, she looked truly dowdy and absolutely delectable. I pulled her close — who cared if she held a gun in one hand? — and held her.

  When I leaned back, she appeared rumpled but serene as ever. The guilt I felt this time was real. She hadn't seen that Impala casing the joint; she didn't know how horribly I'd endangered her life, how close I'd come to truly failing her.

  She examined my face as if her eyes contained some medical monitoring device. "You don't look good."

  I wasn't ready to talk about my day, not with her, not with Sherlock, not with anyone. Without thinking, I tried to gloss it over. "A nervous breakdown and my boss on my case, but nothing too serious, I suppose."

  "I can't believe I just heard you say that." Sherlock set the computer case and backpack on the butcher block table. I'd forgotten all about them. "I cannot believe you had the nerve to actually say that in front of me." He glanced around. "I take it everything's okay?" When speaking with Caren, he cut the dramatics, but his stare still contained traces of something even more predatory than a cobra.

  Lindsay crowded beside him. Her head hadn't ceased swiveling since she entered the house; she even peered up at the pots over the stove.

  Caren reddened under Sherlock's stare; the effect on her coffee-in-cream skin was devastating, in my admittedly biased opinion. "Perfectly. I'm just making a fresh pot of coffee."

  She glanced at Patricia, who nodded and took over that chore. After all, I wasn't letting Caren get on with it; I didn't want to let her go at all.

  "Something has happened, hasn't it?" Caren's voice was quiet.

  Sherlock pushed the backpack toward me and gave me a derisive look with it. "We just about lost buddy boy here beneath the wheels of a Suburban."

  "Again?"

  "But I suppose we could all live with that." He stretched and rotated his shoulders. "Any sign of Theresa? Yet?"

  "No one's showed up. But Bonnie called to say she was on her way back and she should be here before six." Caren slipped the glasses off her head and leaned sideways against me as if to reassure herself of my presence. Or to keep tabs on me, like I was a toddler on a leash. "She said you weren't answering your cell?"

  Sherlock glanced at me. "I was a little busy."

  I hadn't even heard his phone ring.

  Caren yanked out the pencil and shook her hair about her shoulders. I wanted nothing more than to run my fingers through it and forget this day. Texture, doc, texture; he did have a great point there.

  "Okay, people," Sherlock said, and in his voice I heard the overtones of assumed command, "organization. We'll leave the computer for Bonnie. She knows more about them than the rest of us combined."

  He dumped the computer case on the countertop near the coffeemaker. Beyond it, I glimpsed something odd, then recognized it as the hat box we'd found in Aunt Edith's garret. For the life of me, I couldn't remember how it got over there.

  Lindsay shoved her hands into her jeans pockets. For a fleeting moment,
she reminded me of myself with her braced legs and insolent stare. Then I blinked and she was herself again.

  "How do you know I'm not a hacker?" she said.

  "Doesn't matter. Trust me, Bonnie still knows more. Besides, you aren't the type." Sherlock glanced her over. "A mud wrestler, maybe. A hacker, never."

  She grinned.

  He turned to Patricia. "Can I convince you to carry a pistol?"

  "Never," she promised and switched on the coffee pot.

  "Then until further notice, you go nowhere alone, and you go nowhere unarmed." That last was aimed at Caren. "It seems our enemies are ratcheting up their offensiveness and I don't want either of them to nab a hostage."

  "I can shoot," Lindsay said. "Dad taught me."

  I interrupted. "Oh, no. I can just picture your father's face should he receive a visit from Boston P.D. asking why you were carrying one of my pistols. Not a chance."

  Her face stilled during my tirade, her eyes narrowed, and her chin stuck out.

  But Sherlock spoke first. "Then if the situation arises, you use mine. No, slow down, Robbie my Robber. Both of those drivers saw her with us. Lindsay would make as effective a hostage as Patricia or Caren."

  He was right. We were stuck with her for the duration. Patricia, of course, was horrified. "But—"

  "Sorry, ma'am." There wasn't a trace of apology in his voice.

  She butted into his path. Her chin didn't lower and her lips didn't roll together. "I promised her parents I'd return her this evening."

  I grabbed the butcher block and held on. Lindsay's jaw sagged.

  Wordlessly, Sherlock stared down at her. The last of the cobra faded. For a moment he seemed confused. Then that faded, too, and the consideration that next touched his face lifted the hairs on the back of my neck.

  He reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and handed it to her. She didn't look down and her glare didn't waver. Neither did his and his respect was now obvious. Finally she took the phone from his scarred hand, accepting his orders once again.

  "Given a choice," he said in the same quiet tone he used to address Caren, "I'd rather keep Lindsay where I can watch out for her. Same for you, same for Caren. My gang and I, we're used to stuff like this. Even Robbie over there, although you might not know it to watch him sometimes."

  I sighed. He was not going to let that go, which meant I would be hearing from him further shortly.

  "We train for this. Y'all don't, so it's up to us to keep an eye out for you. Okay?"

  Lindsay's face was thrilled. Her choice was obvious: to hell with sitting in hospital corridors.

  Beaten, Patricia left the kitchen, scrolling through her contacts. I wondered what she'd tell William and Linda; I doubted it would be the truth, and that thought made me smile.

  I started to follow her — Aunt Edith kept the schnapps in Uncle Hubert's old study, it would help that coffee along tremendously, and now I remembered why I'd had a beer with lunch — but Sherlock stopped me, as if there hadn't been any interruption in our previous conversation.

  "Do you remember Hoffmann's famous line, the one about generals being chained dogs?"

  I slumped. Briefly I considered taking the offensive, then scrapped that. He'd warned me once. Enough said.

  "And he's some sort of ridiculous cross between a Doberman pinscher and a rat terrier." I wished Sherlock would just drop it, but knew better even as I stood in the kitchen smelling the coffee. "Enough theory, boss. I've gotten the message."

  The look he gave me was devoid the barest trace of respect. "I doubt it," he said, and said, and said, "because I haven't made it yet. Robbie, I'm not riding you. Much. There's just something that doctor didn't think about and I believe it's germane to this discussion."

  His words cut through my resistance. I'd appreciated the way Sherlock stuck by me. But I had to admit, I'd wondered why he'd done so. He wasn't the sort of officer to endanger the rest of his team just to be supportive of the one weak link. Whatever his reason, I wanted to hear it.

  I leaned on the table beside him. "All right, boss. I am listening. The general is a chained dog and the government holds the leash."

  He turned and faced me head on: no more dramatics, no more derision; Sherlock was finally serious. "Carrying that symbolization to a ridiculous degree makes special forces types, like us, into something like Saint Bernards or search and rescue dogs. We're the ones who go in during a crisis and save the day, hopefully. You with me?"

  "Yes."

  "We're protectors. What happened to you today, Robbie my Robber, is you ran out of people to protect. When you had Lindsay and Patricia to worry over, you did fine. Right?"

  I shrugged.

  "You gave them the luggage so your hands were free. You had them walk across the parking lot to the car while you stayed on the stairs, so that we had a field of fire around them and could keep them safe. Right?"

  "It was all I could think of."

  "And it was a good, rational plan. But when you were the target, then the pressures, the shocks, the whole damned day overwhelmed you. You froze. Right?"

  "I hate it when you are."

  "But when you saw me stretched out on the concrete and there was no way you could tell whether I was dead or alive, do you remember how you responded?"

  "No." I faced him. "No, I don't remember."

  "You drew your pistol." Those brown eyes, usually sarcastic or cutting or sardonic, were proud. His voice dropped to a croon; this was personal, just between us hound dogs. "You were gone, mentally, I mean." He cocked his head. "What were you thinking about, in any case?"

  I shrugged. "I thought, he had to be hot in that ski mask."

  He shook his head. "Gone. But when you saw me in danger, you pushed through whatever was holding you back and you reacted appropriately. Your instincts are still there, Robbie, even if they're diluted or buried or something. And that means you're still valuable to the team." He grabbed the computer case from the countertop and hefted it to his shoulder. "Thanks," he added, astonishing me further, and left the kitchen.

  I hadn't realized the room had cleared during that little interlude. But when I glanced about, only Caren remained, pouring two mugs of coffee at the pot. The Waterford decanter stood nearby, stopper on the counter. I should have known I could depend on her to read my mind.

  "Cream? Sugar?"

  I joined her, grabbed one mug, inhaled the bracing aroma of spiked coffee, and slugged it black. It burned going down and the schnapps kicked like a horse. "That helps."

  She waited while I finished a first drink. Then she leaned onto the counter beside me, so close I could smell her lavender perfume. The similarity of her body language to Sherlock's, from a moment ago, was impossible for even me to miss. "Nothing too serious, huh?"

  I met her gaze. On the surface she seemed amused, but those crinkle lines were missing from around her eyes. My neck and shoulders tightened again.

  "Sure you want to be friends with a crazy man?" I kept my voice light, but we both knew her answer mattered much more to me than the words or tone implied.

  Without answering, she added cream to her mug. Her hair flowed across her neck and brushed her shoulders, a cascade of unruly dark brown across her tee-shirt and about her ears. I watched its swing and fall and so was caught staring when she peered at me from the corner of her eyes. The crinkle lines returned three heartbeats later.

  She leaned and kissed me, oh so gently, just the barest feather touch of her lips on mine. My pulse picked up speed. Then she added more cream to her coffee and stirred that instead.

  "Are you certain you want a shrink hanging around?"

  We were so close my forearm brushed hers. "You know, we're not going to be able to slip away for dinner tonight, either."

  "Figures."

  Chapter Seventeen

  current time

  Sherlock and I went for a run, racing each other across the Cambridge Common, circling the Yard where once I pretended to study and touching the s
hoe of John Harvard's statue — we could use all the luck we could get — before turning back. It felt good to stretch my legs and resume contact with my body, even if it did hurt. En route we examined every parked car, every person loitering at a bus stop, each delivery of pizza and parcels. We spotted nothing. The Casanovas' German shepherd ran with us for a while, and I thought briefly of getting a dog; he made good company. But if my negotiations were successful, Caren would be far better.

  There was still no sign of Theresa, so after showering Sherlock grilled fajitas for six. Bonnie brought in the groceries; Patricia had given her some cash from the house account, so we were stocked for a few days' siege. Again we gathered in the kitchen over bottles of Moosehead. Caren chopped onions and cried, Bonnie sliced lettuce and tomatoes and kept a close eye on every ingredient Sherlock added, Patricia set the dining room table, and Lindsay and I grated Jack and cheddar. The scents wafting off the stove top were awesome.

  The house no longer felt odd to me but nor did it feel like the home where I'd grown up. Instead, I felt as if I saw it with fresh or perhaps more adult eyes. For the first time I noticed how faded the yellow chintz curtains in the kitchen were and how scarred the butcher block table. A bit of spiffing up wouldn't hurt the old house nor any of us living in it. Aunt Edith had loved her home just as it was. But I no longer had to please her.

  Bringing my professional world into my private one — being here as Robbie, rather than Charles — forced me to see the house and myself from this different perspective. By lowering my barriers and integrating all facets of myself — the Shakespeare addict and the soldier, the gentleman and the jester, Puck and Bottom — I no longer had to guard any of those facets nor hide them away from Patty or Caren or Sherlock. But I might never have accomplished that feat if Aunt Edith had been here watching me. In her presence, I might still have felt I had to play one of my incomplete roles.

  Perhaps there was room in my present for my past. Whether there was also room for my family, well, I wasn't yet prepared to wrap my tired brain around that. At the instinctual gut level, that still felt dangerous, in the same category as being myself before Aunt Edith. I wasn't certain Father or William would find my choices acceptable to the family honor. William, at least, had shown little sign of acceptance at the gallery or the hospital. But nor was I willing to initiate another round of deception; I didn't wish to give Patty any reason for further disappointment in me.