Cut & Run (37 page)

Ty looked down at the weapon and then back up at Zane in confusion.

“What I’ll think about you?” he echoed, sounding slightly lost.

Zane’s smile was self-deprecating. “I’m fairly sure that, fucking aside, you’re not at all fond of me. Remember the pansy-ass comments?” He offered the gun again. “You meant them wholeheartedly. And not undeservedly, I guess.” He shrugged and looked at Ty evenly, and his voice was slightly flatter. “Don’t think too hard about it. Give it another day or so, and you’ll be okay. Then all this can be as unfond of a memory as you want.”

Ty frowned harder as he took the gun. “Fine,” he said softly, checking automatically to see if the gun was loaded.

Why it hurt when Ty turned away, Zane didn’t know. And he refused to think about it.

224 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

ON the way to the Holiday Inn the call came over the radio. Another murder.

The dispatcher gave the address, the name of the hotel, and the room number, and Ty inhaled sharply.

“I know that number,” he said softly. “Why do I know that number?”

he asked Zane in frustration. His head was pounding, but Zane didn’t need to know about that. Or about the black around his peripheral vision.

Zane glanced over at him worriedly as he drove.

“Go there,” Ty requested. “Go to the scene.”

Zane nodded and punched in the address on the GPS, then turned on the siren as they made their way through traffic toward the hotel. The front entrance was already busy with city cops and FBI forensics. An ambulance idled in the tow-away zone.

Ty was opening the door and getting out of the car before Zane even had it in park, and Zane cursed creatively and followed him hastily. Ty walked out into the middle of the road, and Zane spared a thought that it was a damn good thing the street was cordoned off, or Ty would have just wandered into traffic unheeded. The fact that his partner was definitely not all there came crashing down on him so quickly that it hurt.

“Jesus, Garrett,” Ty gasped out in horror as he stared up at the façade of the hotel building. “It’s her,” he said breathlessly.

“It’s who?” Zane asked in confusion.

“I’ve been here. That room number,” Ty answered as his breathing began to accelerate even more. “It was hers.”

“Whose?” Zane asked in frustration.

“The little stewardess,” Ty whispered. “From the flight.”

“The girl you fucked the other night?” Zane asked in dread as he looked back at the ordered chaos of the police vehicles.

“I’ll be all over that room,” Ty told him quietly. “She was leaving that night. If it’s her, I was the last person with her.”

“Fuck,” Zane hissed as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Yeah,” Ty murmured as his mind reeled. “I think it’s time we report in,” he whispered, “before I get framed for this fucking murder.”

Cut & Run | 225

Zane swore, pulled out his cell, and started dialing.

Four hours into the night, they were standing outside the room, talking quietly with Special Agents Sears and Ross as members of the forensics team and others worked busily.

They had been given a chance to look at the scene before anything was touched.

Isabelle St. Claire’s body had been hung up in the window against a clean white hotel sheet. She was naked and bloody, covered with various colors of water-based paint, and framed by the painted wooden casing of the window like a portrait.

Ty had stared at the scene motionlessly, going dangerously pale as he looked up at the obscene parody of a framed portrait on the wall. Zane had finally taken his elbow and pulled him away, unable to watch the effect the scene had on him.

“So you knew the victim?” Sears asked Ty as they stood out in the hallway.

Ty nodded, but then shook his head. “She was an acquaintance,” he said hollowly, unable to take his eyes off the doorway.

“Meaning you fucked her then left,” Ross supplied.

Zane cleared his throat, but Ty merely nodded again in answer, not taking exception to the harsh words.

Zane hovered closer. “He was gone for less than two hours that night,” he supplied in a hard voice. “He wasn’t covered in paint or blood when he got back. I think I would have noticed that, at least. We’ve been with each other pretty much twenty-four/seven since,” he told them.

Ty turned to stare at Zane briefly, but added nothing.

Ross and Sears looked between themselves, silently communicating before Ross turned his attention back to the agents. “All right. We’ve got your numbers in case there’s anything that comes up. Get out of here,” he muttered.

Ty didn’t move; his feet were rooted to the floor in front of the yellow police tape that now cordoned off the room. “How’d she die?” he asked in a hoarse voice. “Was she still alive when he put her up there?” he asked as the elevator dinged down the hall.

He waited as their two fellow agents looked at each other again. Sears answered, finally. “There’s a lot of blood. It looks like maybe she was,” she 226 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

murmured regretfully.

Ty closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, fighting back the urge to be sick. Zane had to fight hard not to touch him or comfort him in any way, and finally he placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

There was a sickening thud as the coroner lowered the body and sheet to a piece of plastic on the floor.

Sears closed her eyes and looked away. “Sometimes, I hate my job,”

she muttered, turning to look at her partner, who was watching dispassionately.

Another hand on his other shoulder caused Ty to open his eyes again, and he turned to see that Henninger had joined them. Ty didn’t even think to ask why or how.

“What are you doing here?” Zane asked, frowning a little. He looked over the younger man’s shoulder to see Morrison several feet away, getting paperwork from one of the city cops who had been called in to secure the scene.

“I figured you might be here when I heard the call,” Henninger answered quietly. “Are you sticking around?”

Zane looked at Ty. The man was obviously shell-shocked. “No.

We’re leaving. Come on,” he murmured as he took Ty’s arm, pulling him along behind to the stairwell at the opposite end of the hall. Henninger followed them, glancing over his shoulder to see Morrison absorbed in discussion with his back to them.

“Stop,” Ty muttered as they got to the fire door. He shook his head and looked at both men, then turned to look back at the activity behind them.

“If we disappear again it’ll make us suspects,” he reminded hazily.

Lips pressing hard, Zane bit down on his urge to protest. Although Ross and Sears had cleared them—for now—that didn’t guarantee it would stay that way. “Shit,” he swore under his breath. “Fuck it. I don’t want to be where that bastard knows where we are.” He turned and waved Henninger back to the activity, then took Ty’s elbow and put his hand on the heavy stairwell door.

Henninger nodded and headed back down the hall to the crime scene and his partner, glancing over his shoulder worriedly at them.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Zane muttered as he opened the stairwell door and gestured Ty inside.

Cut & Run | 227

Ty didn’t reply as he entered the stairwell and stood staring down the steps unseeingly.

Zane started down the stairs, then stopped and turned when he realized Ty wasn’t following.

Ty’s hands hung limp at his sides and he cocked his head slightly.

“He knew I’d been here,” Ty murmured. “He followed me. He knew he could hurt us through her. He knew we’d take different rooms than the ones we were given and he found us. He knew we’d stay on it even after being hurt and he planned for it in case we weren’t killed,” he rambled slowly. “He’s profiled us,” he whispered with a bit of shock in his voice.

“Yeah,” Zane agreed. “So we’re not going to get anywhere.” He paused a long moment. “Unless we break profile.”

Ty shook his head and frowned. “We need to take this to Burns,” he said softly, as if they might be overheard. “’Cause right now my number one suspect would be me.”

Zane’s eyes narrowed. “Was your last assignment here in New York?” he asked.

Ty pressed his lips together tightly, prepared to offer the usual “that’s classified.” But there was really no point in that. “Yes,” he answered finally.

Jaw setting, Zane stared at Ty for a long minute. “You’re not the killer,” he finally said evenly. “There will be evidence to track and clear you.

Just like there’s evidence to track and trap him. We just have to find it.”

Ty returned the look with one that was unreadable. Finally, he nodded and looked down at his booted feet.

“Ty,” Zane said, trying to get his attention. “I can’t do this without you.”

“You know they’ll take us off this case, right?” Ty responded softly.

“We’re both probably looking at probation until I’m cleared.”

“You said it before. Burns put us on this case for a reason; both of us are already fuckups who should have been fired or buried. He’ll keep us on it,” Zane asserted as he studied the other man. “How much is still missing from your head?”

“Why?” Ty asked defensively.

“We can use it to our advantage. If you’re off your usual style, that may throw him,” Zane pointed out seriously. “Of course, you might wake up after a thirty-minute nap and be back to your usual irascible self.”

228 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Ty stared at him for a minute and then his lips twitched in a half-smile. “Irascible?” he echoed weakly. Rubbing his hands over his eyes with a sudden sigh of frustration, he shrugged. “It’s like swimming through cotton, trying to remember the past couple weeks,” he answered. “I remember some of the smallest details. But other things, bigger things, I can’t recall at all.”

Taking the few steps up so he could reach him, Zane pulled Ty’s hands away from his eyes. “Don’t push it—that’s what the doctors told me.

Trying consciously to remember will just give you a bad headache.”

Ty looked down at him, nonplussed. “I already have a headache,” he admitted.

Zane smiled sadly and looked over Ty carefully, still holding both of Ty’s wrists in his hands. “You look … unwell,” he murmured with a frown.

“I can’t think,” Ty murmured in response, fidgeting as much as a man could when he was perched on top of a staircase with both hands being held by someone else.

Zane sobered and watched his agitated movements, slowly releasing his hands so he could pace if he wanted to. “Ty. You’ve got to calm down.

There’s only so much we can do
right now
; that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to do more
later
.”

“I can’t,” Ty finally told him with an uncharacteristic show of emotion. He sat down hard on the top step and bent over, placing his hands on each side of his head and squeezing his eyes shut as if he were trying to block out everything. He began to rock back and forth slowly as he spoke. “I can’t concentrate on anything, not when all I can think about is you. And now with this fucking headache,” he ground out in frustration, not finishing his thoughts as he closed his eyes once more and held his head in his hands. “I feel sick,”

he finally added pitifully.

Zane’s breath was caught in his chest. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. Ty was obviously having more difficulty with the concussion than he had been outwardly letting on, and the slip of admitting that he couldn’t concentrate on anything but Zane made his body warm uncomfortably. It was hard to decipher what Ty really meant through the babbling.

“What do you suggest?” Zane asked softly, trying to stay as detached as possible, at least for a little longer.

Ty pressed his lips tightly together and breathed out slowly through his nose. “I think I need to request medical leave,” he answered finally, his Cut & Run | 229

voice hoarse and full of pain. It was obvious that he had never before been forced to admit he was not physically capable of something.

The mask broke, and Zane looked stunned. “Ty … I …” He didn’t know what to say. His hands curled into fists.

“This can’t be done alone; we’ve already established that,” Ty breathed. “And I can’t …
think
,” he ground out in frustration. “If I request it before they can suspend us, the suspension won’t go in your file,” he added.

Zane nodded slowly, feeling helpless. Powerless. Again. He lifted both hands and rubbed at his eyes.

Ty sat there and bowed his head with a sinking feeling. “We both know I’m no good to you,” he said finally. “Hell, I’m light-headed right now.”

Dropping his hands, Zane pulled open his eyes to look at Ty. “Lie back before you fall over,” he said quietly, tone soft, even worried. “Please.”

Ty tilted his head up, and his expression softened as he looked up at Zane. “You won’t miss me,” he murmured to him softly. He knew it was the right decision, to pull himself off the case. It didn’t mean he had to like it.

Zane reached down to run his fingers through Ty’s hair, but just as the tips of his fingers touched, the loud clank of the stairwell door being pushed open startled them both and interrupted the tender gesture.

Ty lowered his head again as an agent stepped into the stairwell, and then he looked up to meet Zane’s eyes again. They looked at each other intently for several heartbeats before Ty climbed to his feet unsteadily and turned to face the man.

“I need a doctor,” he said hoarsely to the agent.

“AND I want you both to know this will in no way negatively impact your records. Grady, you’ve been cleared of any involvement in the murder, not that we really expected trouble there,” Assistant Director Burns said as he looked at the two men. He received no answers, much the same as the last ten minutes he’d been talking. “Garrett, you’ve been put back on active duty for immediate assignment,” he continued.

The two agents in the room with him were about as different as night and day from the last time he had seen them. Ty sat quietly, slightly distant 230 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

and reserved. He’d been kept at a hospital in New York under observation for nearly a week, diagnosed with a severe concussion and PTSD. When they released him, he’d been flown directly back to DC and driven to this very meeting. Burns noticed that he still wore the little hospital bracelet on his wrist.