“Ah,” said Taylor.
“Yep.”
Their eyes met.
“Come take a look,” Will invited, and Taylor followed him back to the front section of the plane.
Will sprang onto the wing, reaching a hand down for Taylor, and with a grimace, Taylor accepted his help, vaulting up beside him. The wing bobbed beneath their weight, and Will steadied him, hands on Taylor’s waist for an instant.
Taylor moved away. Not that he minded Will’s hands on him — there was nothing he’d have liked more than Will’s hands on him — but this had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with lack of confidence. A lack of confidence in Taylor being able to look after himself. Not that Will had said so, but it was clear to Taylor — and maybe it was clear to Will too, which might explain what the hell they were doing up in the High Sierras one week before Taylor was officially due to start back at work.
Because if they couldn’t figure this out — get past it — they were through as a team. Regardless of the fact that so far no one had admitted there was even a problem.
“After you,” Will said, waving him into the gloomy and rotting interior of the plane with exaggerated courtesy. Taylor gave him a wry smile and ducked inside.
“Jesus. Something’s made itself right at home in here.”
“Yeah. Maybe a marmot. Or a weasel. Something relatively small.” Will’s breath was warm against the back of Taylor’s neck.
“Relatively small is good,” Taylor muttered, and Will laughed.
“Unless it’s a skunk.”
Almost four years they’d been together: partners and friends — good friends — but maybe that was over now. Taylor didn’t want to think so, but —
His boot turned on a broken door lever, and Will’s hand shot out, steadying him. Taylor pulled away, just managing to control his impatience.
Yeah, that was the problem. Will didn’t think Taylor was capable of taking two steps without Will there to keep an eye on him.
And that was guilt. Pure and simple. Not friendship, not one partner watching another partner’s back, not even the normal overprotectiveness of one partner for his injured-in-the-line-of-duty opposite number. No, this was guilt because of the way Taylor felt about Will — because Will didn’t feel the same. And somehow Will had managed to convince himself that that was part of the reason Taylor had stopped a bullet.
He clambered across the empty copilot’s seat and studied the remains of the dead pilot slumped over the instrument dashboard control panel. The pilot’s clothes were in rags, deteriorated and torn. Bacteria, insects, and animals had reduced the body to a mostly skeletal state. Not entirely skeletal, unfortunately, but Taylor had seen worse as a special agent posted in Afghanistan. He examined the corpse dispassionately, noting position, even while recognizing that animals had been at it. Some of the smaller bones of the hands and feet were missing.
“One bullet to the back of the head,” he said.
“Yep,” Will replied. “While the plane was still in flight.”
Taylor glanced down at the jammed throttle. “And then the hijackers bailed out,” he agreed. This part at least still worked between them. They still could work a crime scene with that single-mindedness that had earned the attention and approval of their superiors.
Not that they investigated many homicides at the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Mostly they helped in the extradition of fugitives who fled the country, or ran interference for local law enforcement agencies with foreign police departments. But now and then they got to…get their feet wet. Some times were a little wetter than others. Taylor rubbed his chest absently.
“In the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere,” Will said. “Hard to believe all four of them made it out of these mountains safely. FBI and the local law were all over these woods within twenty-four hours.”
“Yeah, but it was snowing, remember.”
“Those guys are trained.”
“They missed the plane.”
“The plane wasn’t making for the main highway.”
“Maybe the bad guys were local,” Taylor said. “Maybe they knew the terrain.”
“Wasn’t the prevailing theory, was it?”
“No.” He backed out of the cockpit, and Will did it again — rested his hand on Taylor’s back to stabilize him — although Taylor’s balance was fine, physically and emotionally.
He gritted his jaw, biting back anything that would widen the rift between them. Will’s friendship was better than nothing, right? And there had been a brief and truly hellish period when he thought he’d lost that, so…shut up and be grateful, yeah?
Yeah.
Will jumped down to the ground and reached up a hand. Taylor ignored the hand, and dropped down beside him — which jarred his rib cage and hurt like fuck. He did his best to hide the fact.
“More likely what’s left of ’em is scattered through these woods,” Will commented, and Taylor grimaced.
“There’s a thought.”
“Imagine jumping out of a plane into freezing rain and whatever that headwind was? Eighteen knots. Maybe more.”
“Maybe someone was waiting for them on the ground.”
Will nodded thoughtfully. “Two and an almost-half million divides nicely between five.”
Taylor grunted. Didn’t it just? Kneeling by his pack, he unzipped it, dug through his clothes and supplies, searching for something on which he could note the crash site coordinates. It was sheer luck they’d stumbled on it this time. He found the small notebook he’d tossed in, fished further and found a pen, pulling the cap off with his teeth. He squinted up at the anvil-shaped cliff to the right of the canyon. The sun was starting to sink in the sky. He rose.
Will moved next to him, looking over his shoulder, and just that much proximity unsettled Taylor. It took effort not to move away, turn his back. Will smelled like sunshine and flannel and his own clean sweat as he brushed against Taylor’s arm, frowning down at Taylor’s diagram.
“What’s that supposed to be? A chafing dish?”
Taylor pointed the pen. “It’s that…thing. Dome or whatever you call it.”
“If you say so, Picasso.” Will unfolded his map.
