Shadow Man

My eyes roll toward him, and then roll up into my head. I lose time. I coast back into awareness and feel him at my hands, loosening them. Coast back out, into the black. Surf in again, he's at my feet. Cowabunga. Light to shadow, shadow to light. I come to again, and he's next to me, spooned into my side. He's naked, and I can feel that he's hard. His left hand is fisted into my hair, bending my head back. The right is draped over my stomach, and I can feel the knife in it. That breath again, sour and hot.

'Time to go, sweet Smoky,' Sands whispers. 'I know you're tired. You just have one more thing to do before you sleep.' His breathing quickens. His erection stirs at my side, poking into my hip. 'Touch my face.'

And he's right. I am tired. So damn tired. I just want to coast into the black, have it all be done and gone and over. I feel my hand coming up, to do this last thing he wants--and then it happens.

'MOMMY!' I hear Alexa scream. It is a scream of full-throated terror.

It's a backhanded, bone-rattling slap across my face.

'He told us Alexa was dead, Callie,' I whisper in the hospital room.

'Said he killed her first. I heard her scream, and I realized that he'd lied to me, and I knew--I KNEW--he was going to see her next!' I clench my fist as I remember, and feel my body trembling in anger and terror, all over again.

It was as though someone had detonated a bomb inside me. I did not just come awake, I exploded. The dragon crawled up from inside my belly, and she roared, and roared, and roared.

I smashed Sands's face, felt his nose crunch under the heel of my hand. He grunted, and I was off the bed and heading for the nightstand where I kept my gun, but he was like an animal. Feral and oh-so-fast. No hesitation. He rolled onto the floor and was sprinting out the bedroom door. I heard his feet pounding on the hardwood floors of the hallway, heading toward Alexa.

And I began to scream. I felt like I was on fire. Everything was turning white hot, adrenaline was burning me up, and the intensity of it was excruciating. Time had changed. It hadn't slowed down, just the opposite. It sped up. Faster than thought.

I had my gun and was not so much running down the hallway as tele- porting down it, moving toward Alexa's room in flashes rather than steps. And I was fast, damn fast, because he was only just turning into her doorway, and then I was there too, and I saw her. On the bed, the gag he had placed around her mouth now loosened. Good girl, I remember thinking.

'MOMMY!' she screamed again, eyes wide, cheeks flushed, rivers of tears. And now I was the animal, no hesitation, raising my gun, aiming for his head . . .

Then horror. Horror, horror, horror, going on forever, never ending, hell on earth.

Then me, screaming. Screaming, screaming, screaming, going on forever, never ending, hell on earth. Me, shooting Sands, over and over and over, determined to shoot him till I was out of ammo, and then--

'Oh Jesus, Callie.' Tears fill my eyes. 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, I'm so sorry.'

She takes my hand, shakes her head once. 'Don't worry about it, Smoky.' She squeezes my hand, a fierce squeeze. It almost hurts. 'I mean it. You weren't in your right mind.'

Because I remember hearing Callie bust in through my front door, seeing her appear, weapon drawn. I remember her moving toward me with exaggerated caution, telling me to put down my gun. Me screaming at her. Her moving toward me. I knew she wanted to take it away from me, and I knew I just couldn't let her do that. I still needed to put it to my head, to shoot myself, to die. I deserved to die for killing my child. So I did the only thing that seemed to make sense to me. I pointed the gun at Callie, and I fired.

It's pure luck that the chamber was empty. Thinking of it now, I remember that she didn't even slow down, just kept moving toward me until she got close enough to take away the gun, which she tossed to one side. After that I don't remember very much at all.

'I could've killed you,' I whisper.

'Naw.' She smiles again. It's still a little bit sad, but some of the mischievous Callie shines through. 'You were aiming at my leg.'

'Callie.' I say it as a reprimand, albeit a gentle one. 'I remember.' I hadn't been aiming at her leg. I'd been aiming at her heart. She leans forward and looks me right in the eyes. 'Smoky, I trust you more than I trust anybody in this world. And that hasn't changed. I don't know what else to tell you. Except that I'll never talk about it with you again.'

I close my eyes. 'Who else knows?'

Silence. 'Me. The team. AD Jones. Dr. Hillstead. That's it. Jones clamped down on it pretty hard.'

Except that's not it, I think. They know. I can tell she has something else to say.

'What?'

'Well . . . you should know: Dr. Hillstead is the only person who knows about your reaction to finding out today. Aside from Jenny and the rest of the team.'

'You didn't tell AD Jones?'

She shakes her head. 'No.'

'Why not?'

Callie lets go of my hand. She looks uneasy, a rare thing for her. She stands up and paces a little. 'I'm afraid--we're afraid--if we do, then that's it. He'll decide you can never go back to work. Ever. We know you may decide that, anyway. But we wanted to leave the options open.'

'Everyone agreed to this?'

She's hesitant. 'Everyone but James. He says he wants to speak to you first.'

I close my eyes. Right now, James is the last person I want to talk to. The very last.

I sigh. 'Fine. Send him in. I don't know what I'm going to decide just yet, Callie. I do know this--I want to go home. I want to get Bonnie and go home, and try to figure this out. I need to get my head straight, once and for all, or I'm done. You guys can follow up on AFIS and the rest of it. I need to go home.'

She looks down at the floor, then back up at me. 'I understand. I'll get it all into motion.'

She walks toward the door. Stops and turns back to me as she gets to it. 'One thing you should think about, honey-love. You know guns better than anyone I've ever met. Maybe when you pointed your gun at me, you pulled the trigger because you knew it was empty.' She winks, opens the door, and walks out.

'Maybe,' I whisper to myself.

But I don't think so.

I think I pulled the trigger because, at that moment, I wanted the whole world to die.

20

JAMES WALKS IN and closes the door behind him. He takes a seat in the chair next to my bed. He's silent, and I can't read him. Not that I ever could.

'Callie said you needed to talk to me before deciding whether or not you were going to rat me out to AD Jones.'

He doesn't reply right away. He sits there, looking at me. It's exasperating.

'Well?'

He purses his lips. 'Contrary to what you probably think, I don't have a problem with you coming back to full and active duty, Smoky. I don't. You're good at what we do, and competence is all I ask for.'

'So?'

'What I do have a problem with is you being only halfway.' He gestures at me lying on the hospital bed. 'Like this. It makes you dangerous, because you're unreliable.'

'Oh, please eat shit and die.'

He ignores me. 'It's true. Think about it. When you and I were in Annie King's apartment, I saw the old you. The competent one. So did everyone else. Callie and Alan started to defer to you again, to rely on you. Together we found evidence that would have been missed. But then all it took was a letter and you collapsed.'

'Little more complicated than that, James.'

He shrugs. 'Not in the way that matters it's not. Either you are back all the way, or not at all. Because if you come back like this, you're a liability to us. And that leads to what I am willing to agree to.'

'What?'