perceptible nod.
Yates cleared his throat. “Jack, I’d like to have a word with you.”
I picked up the crime scene photos and waved them at the whiteboards. “We’re pretty busy right now. I’ll stop by as soon as we get a fix on the preliminary forensics and I’ve got my people back out in the field.”
“Now would be better.”
Troy was halfway to the door, Jim Day, Lani Haywood, and Ammara Iverson in close formation behind him. Colby hadn’t moved.
“Looks like I didn’t get the memo,” he said.
I dropped the photos on the table, not believing that Troy had gone to Yates behind my back. I understood why, or at least why he would say he did it, that it was for my own good, the good of the squad, and that it was in the best interests of the case-the rationales of every loyal mutineer.
“Makes two of us.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Never better. By the way, I haven’t said anything to Wendy about the shaking.”
Colby stood. “Don’t worry, Jack. Your name doesn’t come up much, anyway.”
Ben stayed where he was, across the room, eyeing me like a suspect, waiting for me to confess. I didn’t want it to happen, not like this, not now. I tried deep breathing, tried gripping the table with one hand, the front of my chair with the other. I even tried pinching the inside of my thigh. Nothing worked. I was tumbling inside, about to blow. Powerless, I gave in, closed my eyes, and let it happen, bending forward in my chair, my chest tight against my thighs, grunting and cursing. The one surprise was how relieved I was, how it almost felt good.
“Two minutes,” Ben said when the shaking stopped.
I was breathing like I’d just woken from a bad dream. “Thanks, but I’m not keeping track.”
“You should have told me.”
“It was personal.”
“Nothing is personal if it affects the job.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“There’s something wrong with you. You don’t know what it is and you don’t know whether it puts you, your team, or your case at risk. From what I understand happened in the field and from what I’ve just seen, all three are likely. I’m not your mother or your father. I can’t make you eat your vegetables, get enough sleep, or go to the doctor. But I’m not going to let you take chances with our people and our mission. I won’t tolerate that.”
“Troy didn’t waste any time telling you, did he?”
“Troy understands our mission. I’m not certain you do.”
I wasn’t moving but the ground beneath me was. “I’ll see a doctor, today if I can find one. In the meantime, I’ve got five dead bodies and I’ve got to get back to work.”
Yates sat in the chair Colby had used, his voice quiet but unyielding.
“This isn’t about you, Jack. You’re a good agent, one of the best we’ve got. Go find out what’s wrong. Do what you have to do. Take all the time you need. We’ll handle this case.”
I looked at him. His eyes were steady and calm. His mouth closed. There was no give. No room for debate.
“You’re right. I should have told you.”
“Would have come out the same way. You know that. I’ll need your gun and your credentials.”
“I’m on sick leave. Why are you treating me like I’m under investigation?”
“You’re not under investigation.”
“Then why do you want my credentials and my gun?”
“Don’t make this harder than it is, Jack.”
“Then make it easy. Let me do my job.”
“That’s the point, Jack. Right now you can’t do your job and we don’t know why. Until we do, I need your badge and your gun. Talk to Anita in HR on your way out. She’s got some disability forms for you to sign.”
“So that’s it. You think I’m having a breakdown, that I can’t be trusted?”
I let the time pass waiting for Yates to answer. When he didn’t, I pulled my gun from the holster on my hip, put it in his outstretched palm along with my ID and badge, and made my way to the door, turning back toward him.
“Who’s got my squad now? Troy?”
Yates didn’t hesitate. “He’ll do a good job.”
Chapter Eleven
The only doctor I’d seen in the six years I’d been in Kansas City was the one the Bureau used for our annual physical. Nice guy. Soft touch when he checked my prostate but not much personality.
No matter what they said about physician-patient privilege, I wasn’t taking a chance with someone on the FBI’s payroll. I needed a doctor who could tell me what was wrong, fix it, and get me back to work, and I didn’t want someone who might have the same fit of self-serving conscience that had put me on the shelf and Troy Clark in charge of my squad.
Joy had a doctor for each limb, organ, and hemisphere of the brain, enough to start her own hospital. None of them were able to save the part of her that died with Kevin. I didn’t have any more confidence in them than she did.
The rest of my close friends, the ones I would normally confide in, were people that worked for the Bureau. That world had always been enough for me. Now I was on the outside looking in.
That left Kate Scranton. I was always careful when I denied Joy’s accusations that I was having an affair with Kate, repeating that there was nothing going on. I couldn’t tell her that Kate had touched my heart in a way I never thought would happen again. It didn’t matter that I had never acted on my feelings and that I only suspected that Kate felt the same way. Feeling the way I did was betrayal enough.
I had reconciled myself to the way things were with Joy, accepting it as penance for having let her and Kevin down. When she left me, I realized that we had both served out our sentences.
Kate had just returned from a lengthy jury trial in which former executives of an energy company were accused of looting it and misleading investors, resulting in a bankruptcy that had wiped out thousands of jobs and retirement accounts and billions in shareholder equity. I hadn’t seen her since Joy moved out, though we’d talked on the phone while Kate was away. She knew about Joy but not about my shaking, unless she could feel it over the phone.
I met her a year ago when she was working with a lawyer defending a pharmacist who was accused of dealing in black-market painkillers. The case hinged on the credibility of the government’s informer. I sat through the whole trial not just because it was my case but because of her.
At first, I told myself it was because she was so good at what she did. She scanned everyone in the courtroom like her eyes were bar-code readers, whispering advice to the defense attorney about jurors and witnesses. A case I thought was airtight unraveled before my eyes, collapsing completely when our star witness was caught lying on the stand. Everyone in the courtroom was watching the witness stammer and stutter. I couldn’t take my eyes off Kate, her satisfied smile saying
She had an angular face and lithe body with long ebony hair, fair skin, and blue eyes. She was tall, like me, smarter than me; her smiles came more easily than mine.
It was at that moment that she got me, though I didn’t tell her when I asked her to lunch the week after the trial, saying only that I wanted to learn more about what she did. I’d never been unfaithful to Joy and had never thought I could be until I met Kate.
We ate at D’Bronx Deli on Thirty-ninth Street, gorging on their special pizza that had more than everything on it. We ran through the mutual background check. I told her about Wendy and Colby Hudson. Kate’s reaction hit home.
“And you wish they weren’t seeing each other.”
“What can I say?”
