Crossfire (23 page)

The thing was, he wanted her. And from the way she’d stuck her tongue down his throat up there in the bell tower, she wanted him, too.

So, what the hell was the problem?

‘‘We’re adults,’’ she repeated what he’d just pointed out. ‘‘Which means that unlike hormone-driven teenagers, we don’t have to give in to every sexual urge we might be feeling.’’

Hooyah. At least he now had her admitting he wasn’t the only one feeling too damn horny for his boxers.

‘‘That’s one way of looking at it,’’ he said. ‘‘Of course, since we’re both adults, we don’t have to go mistaking sexual urges for anything other than what they are, prettying them up with all sorts of hearts and flowers and forever-after kinds of stuff . . .

‘‘But here’s the thing. You might not remember burning up the sheets, but I sure as hell do and that night was, hands down, the hottest, most mind-blowing sex I’ve ever had. The problem, as I see it, was you sneaking off the next morning while I was out scrounging up breakfast.’’

‘‘How was I supposed to know you were coming back?’’

‘‘One clue might’ve been my shaving kit I’d left sitting on the bathroom counter,’’ he suggested dryly. ‘‘If you’d stuck around, we’d have just kept fucking like rabbits until we’d probably have gotten tired of each other before the weekend was over.’’

She tilted her head. Narrowed her Kerry blue eyes. ‘‘As much as I hate to admit it, you may have yet another point. It could be the expectation of sex that’s turning out to be the problem now. Especially since there’s undoubtedly no way the actual event could possibly live up to the fantasy.’’

‘‘You’ve fantasized about having sex with me?’’

‘‘Maybe. A time or two.’’

‘‘Was it good for you?’’

‘‘It was okay.’’ She shrugged. ‘‘But don’t let it go to your head, because I’ve also fantasized about a three-way with George Clooney and Denzel Washington.’’

‘‘Well, I’m glad you left me out of that one, because I don’t like to share. So, what you’re saying is that it took two movie stars to equal one of me?’’

‘‘What I’m saying is just about any guy in dress whites, which is what you had on, is hot. Which, thinkingabout it, Denzel was wearing, too. For a very short time.’’

‘‘Ouch. Bull’s-eye. That sound you hear is my ego deflating.’’

‘‘Ha. Like your ego could be dented with an Abrams tank,’’ Cait countered with a toss of her bright head. ‘‘So, getting back to the topic at hand and following your line of reasoning,’’ she continued briskly, ‘‘the only logical thing is to just go ahead and get it over with.’’

It was, to Quinn’s mind, the absolutely logical thing to do. But he didn’t exactly appreciate the way she made it sound like something to be endured. Like a yearly gynecological exam.

‘‘That isn’t exactly how I would’ve put it. But, yeah. Especially if your joint task force doesn’t catch this guy right away and we’re stuck with each other for a while. All this pent-up lust could risk complicating an already stressful situation.’’

‘‘Are you actually suggesting sex as a stress reliever?’’

Though he wasn’t prepared to admit it, the line sounded just as lame to him as soon as he’d heard it leaving his mouth.

‘‘Hey, it’s a lot better than trying to zone out with booze and drugs,’’ he said. ‘‘But the thing is, when I do take you to bed again, Cupcake, I want to take my time to do it right. So you’ll be sure to remember afterward.’’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘‘Time we don’t have if we want to make that meeting.’’

‘‘No way am I going to miss it.’’ She tucked her blouse back into her slacks. ‘‘And if you call me Cupcake again, I’m going to have no choice but to shoot you.’’

‘‘I’ll consider myself duly warned.’’

‘‘You are,’’ she complained, as they left the apartment, ‘‘the last man on the planet I should be having sex with.’’

‘‘Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger, because you’re probably the last woman in the galaxy I should be having sex with.’’

While he appreciated the irony of spending so many years earning a living doing exactly what had earned his parents infamy for protesting against, Quinn was still having trouble wrapping his mind around having hot, chandelier-swinging monkey sex with an FBI agent.

‘‘But that doesn’t seem to matter a helluva lot, does it?’’

She didn’t answer. But Quinn suspected that once again, although she hated to admit it, they were on the exact same wavelength.

Game on.

At first glance, someone stumbling into the PTSD support group meeting in the basement of St. Brendan’s might have mistaken it for any other 12-step program. Having attended a few Al-Anon meetings herself during the final, dying days of her marriage when her former husband had become too fond of the bottle, Cait recognized the slogans on the hand-painted signs on the wall: RECOVERY IS AN INSIDE JOB. IF IT IS TO BE, IT IS UP TO ME. THE WAY TO GET ANYWHERE IS TO START FROM WHERE YOU ARE. IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A RUT, STOP DIGGING.

One she could definitely identify with after having spent so much time in close proximity to Quinn McKade read: NEVER WALK UNESCORTED THROUGH YOUR OWN MIND—IT CAN BE A DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD.

Although she suspected there was no reason female soldiers hadn’t come back from wars suffering from PTSD, this group was all men. Those who weren’t wearing cammies were decked out in leather. Most wore insignias symbolizing their units and military history. Even Quinn, she noticed, had pulled the chain out from beneath his olive drab T-shirt, revealing the copper-clad bullet she’d noticed last night when she’d driven out to his house.

There was a bit of time for pre-meeting mingling and coffee, and although she stayed on the sidelines, from the curious but not overly resentful looks shot her way, Cait could tell Quinn was telling people about her.

After ten minutes or so, the group all staked out chairs and stood for the Serenity Prayer, asking God to grant them the serenity to accept the things they could not change, the courage to change the things they could, and the wisdom to know the difference. Which, Cait thought, wasn’t bad advice for anyone, not just 12-steppers.

A new member stood, introduced himself as a former Marine, and was greeted with the standard ‘‘Hi, John’’ from the others. Other than revealing that he’d opted out of the military after his third Iraq rotation, he didn’t seem prepared to share any more information. Nor did anyone ask.

‘‘So,’’ Mike Gannon said, after an initial silence settled over the group. ‘‘Anyone have something good happen?’’

He did not, Cait noticed, use the typical word ‘‘share,’’ which she suspected might be too touchy-feely for this group.

One guy, who from his gray hair and furrows on either side of his mouth looked to be in his late fifties, early sixties, stood up.

‘‘I went to my grandson’s birthday party. He just turned ten last Saturday and had a bunch of friends over for pizza and to swim in my daughter’s backyard.’’

‘‘Sounds nice,’’ the former priest said.

‘‘Yeah.’’ The guy shrugged. ‘‘At least until they started unwrapping presents.’’

‘‘The kid got a toy gun,’’ one of the vets jumped in to suggest.

‘‘Hell, at that age, I already had a Red Ryder BB gun,’’ another scoffed.

‘‘Which was probably responsible for you ending up in the army and coming home whacked out,’’ a third suggested.

‘‘It wasn’t a damn gun, okay?’’ The older vet struggled to regain the floor. ‘‘In fact, the kid’s father wanted to get him a Nerf gun, but my daughter nixed the idea. So, it was the usual stuff—Legos, some new video games, and a basketball hoop that fit on the side of the pool. But my son-in-law didn’t have time to put the hoop together ahead of time, so he and I were doing it, and it had come all taped up in bubble wrap. Which didn’t seem like such a big deal—until one of the kids got the cool idea to jump on it. Then all the others started in.’’

‘‘Oh, shit,’’ Quinn, who was sitting beside Cait, murmured. ‘‘I can see this one coming.’’

‘‘As soon as I heard that popping sound, I grabbed my grandson and hit the deck,’’ the vet said. ‘‘I dragged him under the patio table and covered him with my body to protect him from gunfire. My daughter tells me that all the time I was screaming, ‘Incoming! ’ ’’

When he pulled a hand down his face, Cait recognized the ASMA ring on his index finger. ‘‘Needless to say, that sort of put the kibosh on the party. Especially since I’d managed to knock the table over. Which sent the Star Wars ice cream birthday cake smashing to smithereens on the deck.’’

‘‘That must have been embarrassing,’’ Mike suggested.

‘‘As hell,’’ the man allowed. ‘‘Most of the kids looked scared to death, my grandson looked like he couldn’t decide whether to cry or just throw himself into the pool and stay down at the bottom until he drowned, and my daughter was trying to split herself between calming the kids down and making sure I wasn’t going to go all the rest of the way postal on her.’’

He cursed. Shook his head and looked both bleak and bewildered. ‘‘I had some troubles after I got back from ’Nam. But shit, that was decades ago. I got my head on straight, started up my contracting business, joined the Chamber of Commerce. People respect me, ya know?’’

‘‘We respect you,’’ several of the men assured him.

‘‘Yeah. Easy to say. You weren’t there. You didn’t see my daughter’s face. Hell, I was supposed to baby-sit the kids while she and her husband go away for the weekend next month. Wanna bet that’s going to happen?’’

‘‘It might not,’’ Mike surprised Cait by saying. ‘‘But maybe if you go in for some one-on-one counseling—’’

‘‘I showed up at the VA first thing the next morning,’’ the obviously depressed vet said. ‘‘Asked to see the shrink I’d started working with when I first started getting the flashbacks after watching the damn news about this war.’’

‘‘Which you’ve quit doing, right?’’ Quinn asked.

‘‘Yeah. But that doesn’t stop the flashbacks. My wife says I’m back to talking all the time in my sleep. And I’m sleeping on my stomach.’’

‘‘To protect vital organs,’’ Quinn murmured to Cait.

‘‘Well, anyway,’’ the Vietnam vet continued, as if once he’d opened the floodgates, he was determined to get his entire story out, ‘‘it turns out the first appointment I can get is six weeks from now.’’

Cait was wondering if that was because the Veterans Department was so overwhelmed with PTSD patients, when he answered the question she hadn’t intended to ask.

‘‘Turns out they had to send a lot of shrinks to Iraq. So there aren’t enough to take care of vets here at home.’’

‘‘That’s probably helpful for the troops downrange,’’ Mike began. ‘‘I’ll make some calls tomorrow and see if I can find someone willing to talk with you sooner, but meanwhile, I think it’s important to keep in mind that what happened at the party, as stressful and embarrassing as it was, is still just one incident. Not a crisis.’’

‘‘What the fuck is it with you, Gannon?’’ one of the other vets, a man in his mid-thirties, ground out. ‘‘Guys come here and spill their guts, and all you can do is offer platitudes. Hell, were you even in the service?’’

‘‘I was in the army,’’ Mike answered.

‘‘Like a chaplain knows what it is to be in a firefight,’’ the guy scoffed.

‘‘Chaplains experience everything soldiers feel in a war zone,’’ Mike countered. ‘‘The constant fear of being killed by an IED, or mortar fire that can take out your tent, or the risk of being shot out of the air by antiaircraft fire. They don’t know if they’re going to come back alive, and one of the hardest things to handle, on a personal basis, is that too many of them get really, really good at memorial services.

‘‘But as it happens, I wasn’t a chaplain. I was a doctor. A surgeon, actually.’’

A surprised murmur rippled through the crowd.

‘‘Yeah. Big deal. So I’ve seen MASH,’’ the guy pressed on. ‘‘Just because you went to medical school and stayed safe by doing appendectomies and C-SECTIONS on a base hospital, that still doesn’t give you any cred for running this group.’’

‘‘Like you even belong here?’’ one of the vets sitting in the back of the circle shouted out. ‘‘Hell, you’re just using this group to slide through that court-ordered anger-management class the judge forced on you after you tried to kill some guy with your fists at the Stewed Clam over on the island.’’

The guy’s eyes narrowed, but even so, in them Cait could see the barely repressed rage that had, if the accusing vet could be believed, landed the alleged attacker in jail.

‘‘I don’t recall you being there that night.’’

‘‘I wasn’t, but—’’

‘‘Then shut your pie hole because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.’’

He sat back in the metal chair and folded his arms over his chest. Cait, who’d been taught to watch for signs of impending trouble, noticed that his fingers were digging into his arms, as if he was trying to hold the building rage in.

‘‘I try to keep this as rule-free a zone as possible,’’ Mike said mildly. ‘‘Given how most of us had our fill of regs in the military. But personal attacks are off-limits. As it happens, I’ve been where most of you are. Working in a medical unit during Desert Storm.’’

‘‘Where he won the combat medical badge, for taking enemy fire,’’ Quinn said. His own eyes, as they narrowed in on the troublemaker, were flint.

No stranger to men acting badly, Cait watched the barely reined-in aggression emanating from both males. She hadn’t been all that happy when Quinn had made her leave her sidearm in the car, but now she was grateful for the groups’ ‘‘no weapons inside the building’’ rule.

Of course, given that they didn’t have to go through a metal detector to enter the church basement, it was always possible that one, if not more, of the vets in the room was carrying concealed.

‘‘Is that true?’’ asked a kid who looked as if he should be on his way to the prom, not spending his evening in a PTSD group. ‘‘You got a medal?’’

‘‘It wasn’t any big deal,’’ the former priest said, shooting a look toward Quinn that suggested he wished the former SEAL had just left him to deal with the situation on his own. ‘‘People get shot at in a war. Some die quick. I nearly lost one of my closest friends, another military doctor, when a SCUD hit her barracks. She came close to dying on the operating table, so, yeah, I know damn well how you don’t always get over things that happen in a war zone. But you can learn to live with them.’’

‘‘My wife says she doesn’t know me anymore,’’ the kid volunteered. His eyes swam, causing a tug at some deep-seated emotional center inside her that Cait had tried—with varying success—to wall off when she’d become a cop.

‘‘When Odysseus finally made it back home to Ithacafrom the wars, no one except his old nurse and his dog recognized him,’’ Mike said.

‘‘And then the dog died,’’ the troublemaker broke in. ‘‘Proving yet again that shit happens.’’

‘‘According to the legend, the dog died,’’ Mike agreed through set teeth. Cait wondered if he’d learned to rein in his impatience during all those years listening to confessions.

‘‘That sucks,’’ the kid said. ‘‘My wife says if we break up, she’s keeping my dog.’’

‘‘Yet another reason to keep working on your marriage,’’ Mike suggested. ‘‘But my point, and I do have one, is that war had changed Odysseus. Yet eventually Penelope recognized him. It just took time.’’

‘‘And afterward Odysseus and his sons killed all her lovers.’’

Yet more helpful input from the alleged brawler. Cait suspected Mike was beginning to wish that judge had just thrown the guy in the slammer instead of trying the counseling route.

‘‘A solution I wouldn’t recommend,’’ Mike said. ‘‘Given that murder’s against the law and modern times call for modern solutions. You’re doing the right thing, coming here, Corporal. As opposed to trying to use violence to solve your problems.’’

He shot a challenging glare at the troublemaker, who glared back but kept his mouth shut.

The exchange, as heated as it had been, seemed to open people up. Cait spent the next hour listening to how nightmares could be a good thing, since they were an improvement over night terrors, which remained after awakening, and how some men were struggling with having lost their fight-or-flight reflex and being left only with the fight. It turned out the troublemaker wasn’t the only vet here for court-appointed reasons.

Others, due to so much of their lives having been out of control for so long, seemed to have taken on a kind of fatalism, a what-the-fuck attitude that caused them to take dangerous risks. Risks that created problemswithin their families, who, unsurprisingly, were concerned about them.

Two others had taken to staying up all night, patrolling their neighborhoods. Which might not have been such a bad thing had they not been wearing full battle gear and carrying semiautomatic weapons at the time the cruising cops had spotted them.

Even as all the stories touched her, in some cases deeply, given that their pain was so obvious, Cait managed to distance herself, studying each vet in turn, listening to him, watching for signs, wondering, Is this the one? Is this my shooter?

‘‘Where’s Miz Davis?’’ one soldier suddenly asked.

‘‘I imagine she’s at home,’’ Mike said. ‘‘Given her loss.’’

‘‘What loss?’’ the guy asked.

‘‘Christ on a crutch,’’ another muttered, ‘‘her husband just got whacked.’’

The questioner’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. ‘‘You’re shitting me.’’

‘‘Captain Davis was fatally shot yesterday evening,’’ Mike confirmed.

‘‘By his wife?’’

‘‘No. By some unknown assailant.’’

‘‘Who’s also been smoke-checking people all over town,’’ the new member of the group, the Marine, spoke up for the first time since introducing himself by his first name at the beginning of the meeting.