Cat waited, still trying to deal with the hurricane that buffeted her. “And?” she asked after a minute.
“Oh, I found a squad under attack. Some wounded guys, and it didn’t look good for them. I got involved.” He indicated the corpse with his hand. “He was leading them. I thought at the time that he wasn’t happy I showed up, but that wasn’t the point. Those wounded men were. I helped. Dragged the wounded guys to safer ground and joined the fight.”
“You did that under fire?”
“Hell, yeah. Bad situation. No reason the wounded should become target practice.”
“But why would he be here now?”
Duke just shook his head.
It seemed like a weird confluence, Cat thought, but stranger coincidences happened. Random, unexpected things.
The patrol cars had begun arriving, and soon Gage limped toward them, his shearling jacket hanging open, a tan cowboy hat on his head. He looked down at the corpse then at Cat. “Explain quickly, then get home. You can fill out reports tomorrow.”
“Three armed men approached the house and started to make Swiss cheese out of it. We returned fire. Ben was wounded. Two of the intruders were as well. This one wasn’t that lucky.”
Gage turned his head. “The house doesn’t look very good.”
Understatement of the year, Cat thought. “I should go back inside, get anything Ben might want.”
“Make it quick,” Gage said.
She hurried back inside, looking around. She doubted Ben would want any clothes before tomorrow, but then she spied a photo of Ben and Larry together. Framed, it had been protected behind glass that was now shattered. She took it. Broken glass or not, she could put it beside his hospital bed.
“Now go,” Gage said. “Both of you. We’ll talk tomorrow. Leave the weapons behind and let us get to work. This is one thing I don’t need you for, Cat.”
She didn’t even want to argue. As the adrenaline began to wear off, she began to feel wrung out, limp. Exhausted.
She and Duke didn’t say much on the drive back. Too soon for an after-action report, she thought. Both of them needed time to absorb it all.
But that bit about knowing one of the guys, a man he’d assisted in Afghanistan, must have rocked him. He was probably sitting behind the wheel chewing that over. He hadn’t struck her as a man who easily accepted coincidence as a reason.
Maybe he was right. She just hoped he wasn’t blaming himself for Larry.
DUKE DROVE STRAIGHT to the truck stop. Cat, now dozing, hardly stirred as he went inside to order up two loaded breakfasts and a half gallon of coffee. If she could go to bed when they got to her house, that was fine by him. He doubted he’d be able to.
Not until he pulled up in front of her house did she actually wake. Then she yawned and stretched, and he watched with mild amusement as she staggered toward her front door. Yeah, it was still the middle of the night, but he suspected she was having a physical letdown. Just wait until that passed. She was going to be all over the night, the entire case, when she had the brainpower.
She made it inside. When he followed with the take-out bags and the tray full of coffee cups, he was astonished to find her sitting at the kitchen table. She rested her chin in her hand, her eyelids at half-staff.
“Go to bed,” he suggested. “You’re beat.”
She shook her head slowly. “It’s hitting.”
“Thought it would. Then join me for breakfast.”
“Sorry I fell asleep.”
Duke paused as he pulled out the containers and offered her one of the coffees. “I’m not. I wouldn’t have been much company. Besides, you were coming off adrenaline. I know what that’s like.”
“But not tonight?” she asked groggily as he opened boxes and put one in front of her, along with a fork. She blinked. “Did you get everything?”
“On the breakfast menu. We need the calories.”
She nodded and speared a home fry, carrying it to her mouth. “Probably.”
They ate quietly for a while, but Duke knew the questions were going to come, probably the same ones he had. As the fuel hit their systems, they would both reenergize.
When they were finally sated, he pushed the nearly empty containers aside and handed out two more cups of coffee.
“Is it still snowing?” Cat asked.
“It stopped while we were driving home.”
She nodded and let out a big sigh. She began to turn the foam cup in front of her. “I need to get an espresso maker.”
That comment came from so far out of left field that Duke felt taken aback. Was she still half-asleep? Or was she not ready to deal with the night’s events yet?
Either way, he didn’t blame her and just let her sit and settle. He knew her too well already to believe stasis would last long. He’d also been through enough situations like this to understand that some people needed longer to crawl back inside their own skins.
Besides, he was trying not to deal with a larger picture that kept occurring to him.
“We need to go see Ben,” she announced.
“Rest a little. Ben’s probably pretty busy about now.”
“Did you see his wound?”
“Upper arm, tourniquet. Bad enough, I suspect. But he’ll be fine. He just needs some stitches and maybe a shot of morphine.”
Cat nodded.
Duke waited, his mind buzzing like a hive of bees. Not a coincidence. Couldn’t be.
Cat sighed again and drank quite a bit of coffee before speaking. “You knew that guy?”
“Not really. We only ran into each other that once. But the minute I saw him, I knew who he was.”
And every time he remembered that, his gut twisted in a knot. Had that man turned Larry into a proxy target? God, he hoped not. That was the only thing that could make this worse.
Cat stirred. “I hate to say this, but I can’t deal with this right now. Maybe in the morning.”
Which was how they came to be snuggled together under
