Fly With Fire (36 page)

The tape from Joliet Airport
was put in evidence and had immediately been leaked to the press. The
cooperative young man who had dropped to the floor inside the warehouse
verified that Bull had shot Rosalie Villareal. Bull had tried to claim Rosalie
had been shot by Zack Burnham. He had apparently forgotten years of ballistic
science and several witnesses.

Mo rubbed her eyes and
swallowed more coffee. She had already been on the phone with Tyler, the man
who could get answers from the hospital. Zack was in stable condition, had
spent a restful night and might be released in a few days. It was thrilling for
Mo to hear. The security guys had had a time convincing her that going to the
hospital at eight in the morning would be a waste of time. She decided on a run
to clear her head and donned the clothes she had arrived at Zack’s in several
days before.

There was a chilly early
September snap that was invigorating to Mo and should have taken some of the
fog out of her mind. But her mind was a confusion of worried and conflicting
thoughts. She felt a little ridiculous with the car trailing her as she ran
toward the lake. She sucked in a breath and held it, as she did automatically
when she passed the gas station. She had told Zack her performance during the
robbery hadn’t been exactly her best. He had assured her she had done better
than most. How could they have that guy in a cell for days and not be able to
identify him? Had the robbery really been his first stupid move as a career
criminal? Thank God now all would be resolved. And when Zack got out of the
hospital…She knew the thought she had in mind would be resisted. How she would
do it was what she didn’t know.

   
Mo wanted to spend as much time with Zack as possible. There was no question of
getting any time off. How could she possibly leave Zack in his condition? In
two to three weeks, it still wasn’t settled, the show would be moving on to
Washington D.C. Quitting wasn’t an option. She had a contract. Lots of money on
the line. More than that, she would be letting down everyone connected with the
show. While many would understand her feelings, it would create enormous
difficulties if she left the show. Roddy would go ballistic then be fine.
Luciana could do the show; she’d have to get in shape. No, Mo realized there
was no way Luciana could do the show. No one did what she did and Deb wouldn’t
be ready to take completely over for a while. If ever. And Claude, she had been
told, said he refused to work with what he considered an inferior performer.
She couldn’t let them close the show because of her. The other option, that
Zack go to D.C. with her, and leave Chicago, seemed too far removed from the
realm of possibility to contemplate. She couldn’t help but contemplate it. She
couldn’t stop herself.

Somehow she’d have to finish
the extended show. She could only hope something would work out because she
couldn’t leave Zack. Not in his condition. Of all the questions that had
arisen, the ones foremost in her mind were left unanswered. Would she and Zack
be together? Should they be? How could they possibly work that out? What did
they want, for themselves and for each other? She wanted to be with him. Yet
they’d known each other for such a short time. They’d been lovers in suspension
of their normal lives for a few short days.

Every time reality had reared
its head it had been ugly and demoralizing. Could they function together
outside the dream world they had created? Could their love be real having only
been expressed in flashes of heat and passion? Had the cold eye of reality
blinked their dream world away?

She wanted to run along the
lakefront but bearing in mind the car following her she turned at the drive and
headed north for a while then made west for State Street. She slowed her pace
when she realized the security team was having trouble in the morning traffic.
Roosevelt was its usual wind tunnel when she hit it to go to Indiana with
another wary glance at the gas station. The boys, as she thought of them, were
able to keep up on Indiana so she sprinted toward the condo.

Since all the action had been
much further south and at the hospital it never occurred to Mo that the press
would show up at Zack’s condo. She hadn’t seen their picture in the paper
earlier that week after the robbery. She didn’t know there was already
speculation about their relationship. She pulled the hood up on her sweatshirt
and hoped to look like just another resident of the condo. Then it occurred to
her to go to the side of the building and take the freight elevator. It would
give the boys a chance to park.

She rounded the corner of the
building and found even more press waiting. She pulled her lips tight in a
grimace of annoyance. “Ms. Whitman, Ms. Whitman.” They called out to her. “Abby
Dorfman, CINC. Is it true you’re involved with suspended police detective,
Zachary Burnham?” Other reporters shouted questions at the same time. 
“Are you living here with Zachary Burnham? Do you have information on
yesterday’s bust? Is there any truth to what Bryan Lawrence Shaughnessy says that
Zachary Burnham was involved in drug dealing with Raymond Pollack?” She was
about to key the door as the boys came up when she heard the last question.
They had started to block the photographers snapping away and reporters yelling
questions. But Mo put her hand up as they tried to whisk her into the door. She
turned to the reporters. Wisps of hair blew from her braid. Her cheeks were
flushed with the run and the cool air. Her eyes flashed with anger. She peeled
the hood off her head.

“Zack Burnham is a decent,
caring man who almost paid with his life to help bring down a corrupt cop and
solve the murder of his partner. He and I are close friends. I know you’re just
doing your job but the least you could do is gather the facts and not report
wild speculation based on the words of a murderer. I can’t tell you the full
story. I wasn’t there. I’m sure Mr. Burnham will make a statement when he’s
able to though I guess this is still all an ongoing investigation. Please leave
him, and me, in peace.” She turned to go in.

“Ms. Whitman, is it true
you’re still a suspect in Ling Wong’s murder?”

“You’ll have to ask Al
Simpson, Greendale police, about that. After the way I talked to him yesterday
I’m probably going to be charged with every unsolved murder in Greendale history.
All, well there can’t be that many.” They all laughed. “Look, there’s George
Travers, Zack’s friend over at the Veteran’s Museum. He knows everything that
goes on around here. Go inside with your cameras and ask him. Bet he knows
something.”

“I’ve never seen George look
so happy. Look there’s that painting I’d want to buy, remember? That guy in
West Virginia. George better make the most of his fifteen.” Zach sat up in bed
with a pinched look of pain but a smile in his eyes. “I’m sorry they dragged
you into this. But George isn’t. It’s the most free publicity he’s gotten for
the museum in years!” He brushed his fingers over Mo’s. “You didn’t get enough
sleep. Did you worry about me all night long or did you just miss having me to
use any way you want?” He squeezed her hand giving her a sultry narrowing of
his eyes.

“I see all that fresh blood
went right to your head.” She pressed her lips against his temple. With his
left hand he raised her hand to his lips.

“So to speak.” He pressed her
palm against his cheek. “Funny what you can think of when you wake up in the
middle of the night. Around here they set the clock so they can come in and
interrupt your sleep every five minutes. And with everything going on, Mo, all
I could do was hope you’d come today.”

“I told you I would. Didn’t
you believe me?” she stroked his head.

“Yeah, but you have a show
tonight…” He blew out a blast of air and looked at the television. “You’ll be
glad to see the last of Chicago I bet.”

“I love this city. It has the
most interesting characters. And great looking police. Some of whom are one and
the same.” She cupped his chin and brushed his lips.

“I knew you just liked me for
my looks. What time do you have to go out to Greendale?” He said between light
kisses.

“About three. We need to
rehearse since it’s been days. I wish you could be there.” She felt a little
rockslide internally as if she could feel their make believe world crumbling.

“Me too.” He looked at her.
Then past her to the security guy peeking in the window. I’m glad you got them
to come down. I wouldn’t want you to be alone.”

“Les Moore’s on the job
again. Roddy sends his best and is going to come down tomorrow. He’d come today
but first day back and all.” Mo seemed nervous. His last report had been great.
He’d be out Sunday. Monday at the latest. Of course he wouldn’t be able to go
back to work for weeks if not months. Zack eyed Mo’s face. She looked tired and
ill at ease. What else? What there something she wasn’t telling him?

“I’m going to be fine Mo. I
know you’ve been through a lot. I wish you would get more rest. You’ve got to
stop pining for my hard, insatiable body and try to sleep.”

“I’ll try. Especially since
your hard, insatiable body isn’t much use to me right now.”

He pulled her hand under the
sheet. “Wanna bet? You just climb up here and…”

“Time to change your bandage,
Mr. Burnham!” A short, dark skinned nurse interrupted with a cheerful tone.
“Would you mind waiting outside?” she said to Mo with a knowing look.

Zack lay thinking while the TV
provided company he didn’t pay attention to. He was already sick of the
brouhaha and just wanted to be left alone. With Mo. He had asked Mo to spend
her brief respite with him and now that time was at an end. The pain in his
body was forgotten as a nascent discomfort grew in his chest. It had been
planted as that niggling seed of doubt he’d kept shoving deep inside. Now
choices would have to be made. He wasn’t exactly in the best condition to be
making them. He had sensed something wrong despite her displays of affection.
Of course all this was yet another trauma. Many people would have buckled by
now. She was an incredibly strong woman.

But there was not only the
matter of their entirely different lives to consider. Even if she wanted to
stay, which she couldn’t, she’d now seen firsthand what could happen in his
line of work. He thought about Patricia Tyler and how he’d taken things out of
her hands. It had been right, but it had been wrong. He had taken the course he
believed in at the time. He had wanted to be a cop more than anything. Patricia
said she could live with it but she’d figured on her Daddy pulling his career
strings. No. He hadn’t just decided for her. Being young and stupid he’d framed
his decision in the words he thought might ease both their hurts but there were
no right words and Patricia had hated him for the decision he had made. He had
offered to marry her once he was through with college. Nothing but immediate
marriage was adequate for her and he had been relieved that she wasn’t willing
to wait. The truth was he realized that while they were too young to be
contemplating a lifelong commitment, he had not been too young to realize he’d
have been swallowed by the force of her father’s ambitions.

He thought about Chelsea. He
had been attracted to her ice queen beauty and her uptown manners. They’d met
through her cousin, the equestrian officer he and Mo had run into who worked
out at the same gym.  She was attracted to his looks and the fact that her
parents would certainly not approve of a backa the Yards street cop. But he had
gone to college. He had also been interested in the rapidly booming security
business. He’d taken some law courses. Perhaps she could talk him out of being
a cop and into Daddy’s firm. It had had its appeal. But Zack’s father had
blustered about the family tradition, and college wusses. When the old man had
been arrested, Chelsea distanced herself as far as she could from the scandal
and Dad had died soon after. So Zack had taken the Detective exam as a
compromise and lived a lie in a marriage to a woman who fled from revulsion
whenever he went anywhere near her. He worked more and more, she spent more
time at her father’s firm as a patent attorney.

When his mother blew her
brains out from disgrace and depression, Chelsea made a last stand at his side
at the funeral and informed him she was filing for divorce. Less than a year
later Ray had been killed. The big dark ball of his life kept rolling downhill.
No wonder he didn’t talk about it much. Who wants to hear all that? He and so
many people he came into contact with in his job seemed to live their lives in
a sort of twilit dystopia. What could he give Mo? He’d even met her through
murder. Well, that wasn’t quite true but it was murder that had brought them
together.

A few days of loving her had
turned a light on in his grim world. He had been able to see the beauty of
living and loving once again without the oppression of his bleak job. He’d hung
onto to work as the only ground that didn’t move beneath his feet until Ray had
been killed. But now he realized he may have only had something to prove. First
to his father. Then to the police community at large. Mo had poked a hole into
the shield insolating him from his growing suspicion that he’d gotten caught up
in somebody else’s plan for him after all. He didn’t hate police work. He just
didn’t love it anymore. He now doubted he ever had.

Mo had to leave for rehearsal
and despite his pain all he could think of was her. This was her moment. She
had achieved the highest level in her field. She made the kind of money that
would allow her to live comfortably for life. In maybe ten years or so she’d be
paid well to train others reaching for the top rung. She’d talked about ideas
for producing shows with great enthusiasm. All the doors to her future were
wide open. How could he fit in? They lived in different countries. They led
different lives. She wouldn’t give up the future she’d worked for since
childhood to stay in Chicago with a man who’d just proven what an inherently dangerous
job he had. He could never ask her to.