Ashes to Ashes

“But he left her driver's license.”

“Why do both?”

“Maybe the first as part of the torture,” Kate suggested. “As part of the depersonalization. He reduced her to no one. He doesn't care if we know who she is after she's dead, so he leaves the DL as if to say ‘Hey, look who I killed.' But maybe he wanted this victim to feel like nobody in those last few moments of her life, let her die thinking no one would be able to identify her or take care of her body or mourn her.”

“Maybe,” Quinn said. “And maybe this extreme depersonalization is the deviation in his pattern because he knew Jillian. If, for instance, we can develop this security guard who lived at Jillian's town house complex, we might speculate he killed the two prostitutes for practice, projecting his feelings for Jillian onto them. But that didn't satisfy his need, so he does Jillian, goes overboard, keeps her head because he wants to own her.

“Or maybe the killer takes the head because that body isn't Jillian Bondurant and he wants us to believe it is. But that's definitely her DL, and if the body isn't her, then how'd Smokey Joe get it?” he asked. “We know this is no kidnapping. It's been days with no call, no ransom demand—at least that we know of. Bondurant won't allow a tap on his phone—another odd bit of behavior on his part.”

“And if Jillian is alive,” Kate said, “then where is she and how is she tied to all this?”

“I don't know. And there doesn't seem to be anyone who knew Jillian willing or able to tell us. This case gives me a bad feeling, Kate.”

“The kind you should see a doctor for?” she asked with a pointed look to the hand he was rubbing against his stomach. “You keep doing that.”

He killed the gesture. “It's nothing.”

Kate shook her head. “You've probably got a hole in your stomach lining big enough to drive a Buick through. But God forbid you admit it. Think what that would do to the Quinn mystique. It would bring you down to the level of Superman with his weakness for kryptonite. How embarrassing.”

She wanted to ask if he had talked to anyone in Psych Services, but she knew it would be a waste of breath. Every other agent in Investigative Support could line up at the shrink's door and no one would bat an eye. Stress disorders were the norm in the unit. Everyone understood. They saw too much, got too deep into the heads of victims and killers in case after horrific case. They saw the worst the world had to offer every day, and made life- and-death decisions based on an inexact science: their own knowledge of human behavior. But John Quinn would never admit to bending beneath the strain of that. Vulnerability did not become a legend well.

“Bullets don't really bounce off you, John,” she said quietly.

He smiled as if she had amused him in some small, endearing way, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. “It's nothing.”

“Fine.” If he wasn't taking care of himself, that was his problem—or the problem of some faceless woman back in Virginia, not hers. “I'm having that drink now. You want something before you go? Maalox? Mylanta? A roll of Tums to chew on for the cab ride?”

She headed for the kitchen, kicking herself for giving him the opportunity to linger, then rationalized it was payback. She owed him for tonight. Besides, he looked like he could do with a drink.

Of course, she knew he wouldn't allow himself one. He was too conscious of the alcoholism that ran rampant both in his family and in his profession. As much as he may have needed to douse the frustration and the tension the job induced, the risk of drowning was too high.

“Great house,” he said, following her to the kitchen.

“I bought it from my parents when they lost their minds and moved to Las Vegas.”

“So you really did come home.”

From the shattered mess that had been her life in Virginia to a house with warm memories and a sense of security. The house would have substituted its comfort for the comfort of her family—whom he doubted she had ever told the whole story. When everything had broken in Quantico, she'd been embarrassed and ashamed. It still hurt him to think of it. What they'd had together had been a connection deeper than any other he'd ever known, but not deep enough or strong enough to survive the stress of discovery and disapproval and Kate's predisposition to guilt.

He watched her now as she moved around the kitchen, getting a cup from the cupboard and a box of herbal teabags, her long hair falling down her back in a wave of red-gold. He wanted to stroke a hand over it, rest that hand at the small of her back.

He had always seen her femininity, her vulnerability. He doubted many people looked at Kate and thought she might need protecting. Her strength and tenacity were what others noted. But just behind that wall was a woman not always so certain as she seemed.

“How are you, Kate?”

“Hmm? What?” She turned toward him from the microwave, her brow knit in confusion. “I'm tired. I'm upset. I've lost a witness—”

Stepping close, Quinn put a finger to her lips. “I don't mean with the case. It's been five years. How are you, really?”

Kate's heart thumped hard against her sternum. Answers log-jammed in her throat. Five years. The first was remembered as a pain so sharp, it stole her breath. The second had been like trying to relearn how to walk and talk after a stroke. Then came the third and the fourth and another after that. In that time she'd built a career, made a home for herself, done some traveling, settled into a nice, safe rut. But the answers that rushed to mind were other words.

How are you? Empty. Alone. Walled off.

“Let's not play that game,” she said softly. “If you'd really wanted to know, it wouldn't have taken you five years to ask.”

She heard the regret in those words and wished them back. What was the point now, when all they would have was a few days. Better to pretend there'd been no fire at all than to poke at the ash and stir up the dust of memories. The timer went off on the microwave, and she turned her back to him and busied herself making a cup of tea.

“You told me that was what you wanted,” he said. “You wanted out. You wanted a clean break. You wanted to leave, to start over. What was I supposed to do, Kate?”

Ask me not to go. Go with me. The answers were right there, as fresh as yesterday and just as futile. By the time she'd left Virginia, the anger and the pain had taken them past the point of his asking her not to go. And she knew without having to ask that he would never have left Investigative Support to go with her. The job was who John Quinn was. He was bound to it in a way he would never be bound to a woman. And, God, how it still hurt to think that.

“What were you supposed to do? Nothing,” she whispered. “You did it well.”

Quinn moved in close behind her, wanting to touch her, as if that might magically erase the time and the trouble that had passed between them. He wanted to tell her the phone worked both ways, but he knew she would never have backed away from her pride or the insecurity it covered. A part of him had been relieved that she had never called, because he would then have had to face himself in life's big mirror and finally answer the question of whether or not there was enough left in him to build a lasting relationship. His fear of the answer had kept him running from that question for a long, long time.

And now he stood here, an inch away from the better part of his past, knowing he should let it lie. If he hadn't had enough to give a relationship five years ago, he sure as hell didn't have any more now.

He raised a hand to touch her hair, his memory of its texture meeting the silk of reality. He let his hand rest on her shoulder, his thumb finding the familiar knot of tension there.

“Do you regret it, Kate? Not the way it ended, but us.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut. She had a truckload of regret she had to move out of her way every day in order to get on with her life. But she had never been able to find it in her to regret turning to him. She regretted she had wished for more. She regretted he hadn't had more to give. But she couldn't think of a single touch, a single kiss, a single night in his arms, and regret a second of it. He had given her love and understanding, passion and compassion, tenderness and comfort when she had needed so badly, when she had hurt so much, when she had felt so alone. How could she regret that?

“No,” she said, turning and holding the steaming mug of tea between them. “Here. It's good for what ails you.”