Fair Game (17 page)

They talked a few minutes more, but it was strained. Elliot knew he needed to address their last bitter conversation, but didn’t know how, and he knew this was not the time or place.

Bidding Roland goodbye at last, he disconnected and limped into the kitchen. The pizza box sat open on the table. Tucker was getting plates. Two glass mugs sat gently foaming. The mingled scent of beer and pizza had Elliot salivating.

“I was bringing it out to you.”

“Don’t bother.” Elliot dropped into the nearest chair, reached into the box and pulled out a wedge of pizza, strings of cheese hanging.

Tucker watched him bite into it, eyebrows raised. “Wow.”

“Wow what?” Elliot replied through a mouthful of pizza.

“I’m not sure I want to risk my hand. I’ve seen boa constrictors with better table manners.”

Elliot swallowed, laughed. “Sorry. No breakfast and no lunch.”

“What do you live on? Your high ideals?”

“If you want a piece of this, you’d better shut up and eat.”

Tucker asked innocently, “If I want a piece of what?” He pulled out the chair across from Elliot and picked up his plate.

Elliot ignored that last comment. In three bites he consumed his slice and was reaching for another.

In the end they ate at the kitchen table, devouring one extra large pizza between them. Tucker had two beers but Elliot, mindful of his painkillers, stuck to Coke. He did not want this evening—this unforeseen truce—with Tucker to end. For once both their guards were down. Tomorrow that might not be the case, so he sat there, wired despite his exhaustion, drinking too sweet, fizzy soda and talking about nothing in particular while the small hand on the kitchen clock climbed steadily.

“Maybe the shooting isn’t related to the investigation,” Tucker suggested. “I know it’s a coincidence, but have you had any run-ins with anyone lately?”

“Besides you? No.”

“Have you flunked anyone lately? Dinged anyone’s car door?”

Elliot said shortly, “I still remember how it works, Lance. No. I’m not in line for most popular instructor, but I don’t think anyone actually wants me dead.” He thought of Mrachek, Leslie having to rewrite her paper and Ray’s annoyance with his inability to remember to put his trash basket in the hall. He’d turned Jim Feder down a couple of times, exasperated Charlotte Oppenheimer by refusing to drop the case and irritated Andrew Corian on general principle. None of those things were grounds for murder to a sane person. It was hard to say what might trigger an unbalanced mind.

“What?” Tucker was watching his expression. “What did you remember?”

“I haven’t had a run-in with him, but the maintenance guy assigned to my office building strikes me as a little hinky.”

“Name?”

“Ray…something. You know how it is. Maintenance people and support staff have that cloaking device.”

“Yeah. Okay. A maintenance guy would have access to most of the campus, right?”

“I’d say so. But all the college personnel have to pass a criminal background check.”

“Just because he ain’t been caught don’t mean he’s not a criminal.”

Elliot shook his head and reached for the last piece of pizza.

“I can’t figure out where you put all that,” Tucker observed. “You eat like a horse.”

“It goes straight to my cock.”

Tucker inhaled beer and spent the next few seconds trying not to drown.

When the phone rang at eleven-thirty they stared at each other.

Tucker’s expression was dark as he rose to answer.

Elliot listened, frowning, to the taciturn one-sided conversation. He watched Tucker’s expression slowly set.

At last Tucker hung up the phone and turned to face him. “That was Detective Anderson. You’ll be pleased to know they took your suggestion seriously and they’ve spent the last five hours combing their missing persons files.”

“And?”

“It looks like you were right.”

“How many?” Elliot’s voice didn’t sound like himself.

“Since 2005 over nine young men loosely matching your victims’ profiles have turned up missing in Tacoma or Pierce County.”

Elliot expelled a long, shaky breath. “I’d rather have been wrong.”

“Yeah. I’d rather you had been wrong too. But you’re not. Tacoma PD is in agreement. You’ve been hunting a serial killer.”

Tucker was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.

Elliot sat on the edge of the bed in his shorts listening to the brisk, business-like sound. Tucker was kind of an old-fashioned guy. No electric toothbrush for him. He didn’t use an electric razor either.

And why Elliot was sitting here thinking about Tucker’s grooming habits was anyone’s guess. They had awkwardly agreed to share the bed. Tucker’s couch wasn’t long enough for either of them to sleep comfortably. Elliot wasn’t in fit shape to get himself home even if his car hadn’t been towed to a repair shop.

If he was perfectly honest, he didn’t want to go home.

Not that he was completely sure what he
did
want—let alone what Tucker wanted.

The bathroom door opened. Tucker stood framed for an instant before he turned out the light: wide shoulders, muscular arms, smooth freckled chest. Pale blue pajama bottoms hung low on his narrow hips. He didn’t typically wear pajamas. At least, Elliot didn’t think he did. The truth was, the nights they had spent together were not nights for toothbrushes and pajamas. They had been nights when they were both exhausted but still wound up, nights when they had eaten and fallen into bed to fuck themselves to sleep. Nights that usually involved too much alcohol.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t fair. There had been that one time—a long weekend not long before Elliot had been shot—when they had gone out on Tucker’s boat. Those days had been spent swimming and sailing as well as the other. Not a lot of toothbrushing then either, granted, but they had been together because they wanted to spend that time with each other. Elliot supposed so, anyway.

He had almost forgotten that. No, not forgotten. Deliberately erased the memories.

“You look grim,” Tucker commented.

“I feel like we should be doing something.”

Tucker raised one reddish eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

That was more like the old Tucker. Elliot gave a flicker of a smile.

“Listen.” Tucker sat next to him on the side of the bed. “There isn’t anything more we can do tonight. Do you think there’s something more we can do?”

Elliot wearily shook his head. “It’s knowing the Unsub’s out there. Knowing he could be targeting some kid right now.”

“He had a busy and unsuccessful day. I don’t think he’s on the move tonight. Not if he’s half as tired as you look.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t…a slam. It’s hard to know what to say to you, Elliot. You’re so…touchy.”

The sincerity in Tucker’s voice forced Elliot to consider this dispassionately.

“Maybe,” he finally admitted.

“Just because you can’t do everything you used to do—” Tucker broke off at Elliot’s expression. “Okay. I know I’m the last person with the right to comment, but…you’ve changed so much.”

Elliot absorbed this without speaking. Absorbed the genuine concern, the caring in Tucker’s voice. He said roughly, “That’s unexpected coming from you. Aren’t you the guy who basically told me to get over it?”

Tucker’s face reddened. “I never…I didn’t…” He swallowed.

“Yeah, you did.”

Tucker looked away. That little muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yeah, I did.”

Elliot had no idea how to respond. For some bizarre reason he was starting to sympathize with Tucker. He went for safe ground and changed the subject. “Anyway, this guy isn’t like the typical serial killer. He’s been operating for five years without popping up on the radar until now. He’s careful, restrained. Or maybe he’s cherry picking.”

“He’s what?”

“Well, think about it. Nine victims in five years, and only now he begins to devolve?”

“It’s way too soon to be sure all nine of these missing persons are his victims.”

“Right. But that’s kind of my point. He’s not doing this for the attention. He’s not feeding off the media frenzy or public fear. He’s taken pains that there isn’t any. Only now is he showing any desire to challenge the authorities.”

“It may be more personal than that. His challenge may be specific to you. He may not be looking at you as a symbol of the authorities. He may be looking at you as
you.
”

“It had occurred to me.”

“Which leads us back to the theory that the Unsub is someone known to you.” Tucker leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers raking his hair. It stood up in coppery tufts through his long fingers. “I gotta tell you, my dreams are bad enough without talking about serial killers before bed.”

Elliot started to answer and was caught off guard by a huge yawn. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

Elliot groaned. Tucker elbowed him companionably before pushing off the bed. He went down the hall to turn off the lights and check the locks. Elliot snapped off the lamp on the table, stretched out in the sheets, settled his head in the cool plumpness of the pillow. He closed his eyes and the world seemed to drop away from beneath him.

Sometime later he was vaguely aware of Tucker coming back, turning out the other light and crawling into bed. Elliot had been dozing but the minute that long, powerful body lowered next to his, he jerked back to awareness.

For a few seconds they lay unspeaking in the darkness. Elliot was acutely aware of Tucker’s warmth, his energy. He could smell the strangely erotic blend of toothpaste and bare skin, feel the calm rise and fall of Tucker’s chest as he lightly inhaled and exhaled. Tucker’s arm was so close Elliot’s skin tingled.

It seemed unbelievable to him that they should be lying here side by side. He could almost convince himself that the last year and a half hadn’t happened.

Tucker’s voice said out of the darkness, “I know I wasn’t—that I could have been more understanding. You didn’t give me a chance to…come to terms with it.”

Elliot replied, “Yeah, it was pretty selfish of me.”

Silence.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Tucker said. “I think you’ve forgotten that you were the one who told me you didn’t want to see me, that it was too hard, too painful.”

Elliot turned that over in his mind. Fair enough. He
had
said that at one point. He said bitterly, “I was in
shock.
”

“I know that now. At the time, you didn’t seem like you were in shock. You were ice cold. And stubborn as a goddamned bloodstain. You would not be moved. You wouldn’t even talk about it.”

“So it’s my fault?”

He stopped, astonished, when Tucker’s hand groped across the sheet for his, interlaced their fingers. “I’m sorry,” Tucker said.

Elliot opened his mouth. Closed it. Whatever he had expected…it wasn’t that.

Tucker let go of his hand. There was a surge of movement, bedsprings squeaking, as he turned over. Elliot could make out the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. “I’ve wanted to say this to you for over a year. I’m sorry, Elliot. Truly sorry. Regardless of what was going on with you, I didn’t handle it right. I…was a bastard. I know. I was angry.”

Again, Elliot started to speak, but Tucker cut him off. “I know it’s not logical and I don’t expect you to understand. I…didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to believe that if you’d try harder, man up a little, everything would go back to normal. We could be like we had been.”

Man up, Elliot.

Elliot turned sharply to stare out the pale bars of moonlight through the slats of the window blinds. It was what he had wanted to believe too, but it was a dream he’d had to let go of fast—the physical evidence being compelling.

Tucker seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He said finally, “There was never a chance I’d make it back into the field.”

“I know. I knew it then too. But I was afraid that if you left the Bureau, it would be over between us. That there wasn’t enough between us—for you—to keep us together. That seemed like what you were telling me.”

Elliot turned his head, trying to read Tucker’s shadowy face. In seventeen months of brooding over possible explanations, this one had never crossed his mind. In fact, he was so sure that Tucker’s rejection had been based on not wanting to be saddled with a cripple that he couldn’t seem to process this new information.

“Do you have any idea what it was like for me? I nearly lost my fucking leg. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to walk again.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I was difficult. Maybe I did shut down. Push you away. I needed you. As a friend if nothing else.” Elliot broke off as, to his horror, emotion clogged his throat. That would be the final fucking straw. To break down in front of Tucker.

“I know,” Tucker whispered. “There’s nothing you can say to me I haven’t said to myself.”

Elliot wiped impatiently at the burning behind his eyes. “Really? Let’s give it a shot.”

“And then you refused to consider a desk job.”

“A desk job.” Elliot punched the leather padded headboard. “Would
you
have been happy with a desk job?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Then—”

“At least you’d have still been in the Bureau.” Tucker’s voice was subdued. “We’d have still been—still had that in common, something we could share.”

“If all we ever had in common was the goddamned job, we didn’t have enough in common.” Elliot’s response was automatic. What he was really thinking was that it had never occurred to him that their relationship was anything more than sex for Tucker. It was still hard to take in what Tucker was trying to tell him. From the time they’d started, Elliot had warned himself not to take it seriously. It seemed he’d succeeded too well.

Tucker leaned forward, his breath warm against Elliot’s face. “I think we had more in common than that.”

Elliot shook his head angrily.

“I guess I thought maybe if we had more time, you’d figure it out too.”

What did that even mean? Had Tucker really not figured out how much Elliot had cared? How badly it had hurt when Tucker had turned on him? “You had a funny way of showing it. In my book ‘Pull your shit together and be grateful you still have a fucking desk job’ doesn’t translate to ‘I think we have a future.’”

“Maybe I was partly hoping I could snap you out of it if I made you angry enough. Pushed you hard enough. I’m not sure anymore. You didn’t give me a chance to fix it, Elliot. You threw me out and then you wouldn’t see me again, wouldn’t take my calls, wouldn’t answer my emails or my letters.”

“I was kind of busy. You know, learning to walk again.”

“No one would let me near you. I knew I screwed up. I
tried
to tell you.”

“It was too late.”

Tucker fell silent.

Infuriatingly, Elliot’s eyes kept filling with wet, his sinuses burning, his sodden lungs shuddering. In all these months he had never cried and now he was half drowning with emotion—and the most appalling thing of all was the way his ears strained to hear over his physical distress what else Tucker might say, to hear if he had anything final to add.

“Is it?” Tucker asked eventually into that tight-strung stillness.

All that wordless searching and that was what he came up with? Typical Tucker. Throwing it right back on Elliot. His lips parted. Yes, it was too late. It was seventeen months too late. That’s what he wanted to say, what his hurt pride goaded him to say. But if he said it now, it would be the end.

This was it. This was the crossroads. He thought he’d left it miles behind, that the decision had been made for better or worse, but as though he’d traveled in a circle, here it was again: the turning point—a second chance if he wanted it.

He needed to say
something.

The best he could manage was a shuddering sigh. To his astonished relief Tucker reached for him, hauled him into his arms.

“You don’t have to answer. You don’t have to decide now. We could…see where it goes from here.” Tucker’s voice was husky against Elliot’s ear. “It was good between us, Elliot. You know it was. We both know it was. We just needed more time.”

Maybe. Maybe it was true. It startled him how much he wanted to believe it.

When Tucker’s hand reached for him, Elliot thrust up into that familiar, knowing grip, and when Tucker’s hungry, hot mouth covered his, Elliot opened to his kiss.