Hot Pursuit (40 page)

In eye movement therapy, with the assistance of a trained psychologist, a PTSD-sufferer learned to properly process the trauma. It was true that it didn’t work for everyone, but the success rate, to date, was noteworthy.

Dan knew what Jenn was doing. She was addressing his unspoken
dread that he was destined to follow Frank’s path. Although a big difference between them—him and Frank—was that Frank didn’t want to go back. Dan’s big fear was that he’d be pulled from active duty and that they wouldn’t
let
him go back to war.

Somehow, Jenn understood that, too.

Last night she’d gently asked him about his fight with Izzy Zanella in the hotel suite, and he’d told her what he remembered.

“I remember being tired,” he’d admitted, “but being afraid to fall asleep because, well, I’ve been having these really bad nightmares lately.” Understatement. Thank God he’d been sitting next to Lopez on the plane during their flight to New York from California. He’d dozed off, and his friend had woken him up before he’d started shouting. “So I was just going to read and, you know, keep the light on.”

“What were you reading?” Jenn asked.

He’d looked at her. “What does it matter—”

“It doesn’t,” she said. “But I’m curious. Don’t you want to know what
I
like to read?”

“I know what you like to read,” he told her, pointing to her bookshelves. “Romance novels. And they all lived happily ever after…”

She laughed her outrage. “Are you mocking me?” she asked. “Like there’s something wrong with being happy?”

“It’s just such a long shot,” Dan told her. “The idea that two people are going to stay married forever, when fifty percent of all couples eventually split up … ?” He pointed to her shelves again, with a sweeping gesture. “That means that if half of those books had a sequel, they’d be anti-romance novels, about divorce and despair.”

“So what were
you
reading?” she asked again. “Some treatise on doom and gloom? A horror story where everyone dies at the hand of the brutal killer?”

“Actually,” he said, “I was reading a book that, um, Tony recommended. An autobiography by a guy whose parents sent him to one of those, um, you know, ex-gay ministries?”

He’d surprised her. Completely.

“I’m not gay,” he said, which was stupid, because if she didn’t know that by now …

“I know, I just …” She started over. “I didn’t know if
you
knew that Tony was. Gay. Don’t ask, don’t tell … ?”

“That bullshit doesn’t work,” Dan said.

Jenn laughed. “Wow, I had no idea you were so advanced in your thinking.”

“Should I be insulted?” he asked.

“Yes, actually.” She surprised him by agreeing. “That
was
insulting, wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

He’d pulled her back onto the bed with him and kissed her. “I’ll let you make it up to me.”

She smiled into his eyes. “I bet you will. But okay. Let me mentally rearrange what I thought I knew about Dan Gillman. He’s a member of Tony Vlachic’s gay book club—you know, I didn’t even get the impression that you were
friends
with him, let alone—”

“I’m not,” Dan admitted. “Not really. Friends with him. And yeah, okay, before I knew about Tony, I was in the don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t want to know school, so then when I
did
know, it was … Weird. I had no idea, and suddenly … But he’s a good teammate. He always has been, and like Lopez says, nothing’s changed. He’s still a SEAL. There’s nothing that kid can’t do, and do well—except maybe have sex with my sister, the way that that motherfucker Zanella did.”

Jenn laughed at that. But the words she spoke were serious. “Is that really what’s behind the animosity between you and Izzy? You know, I thought you were going to kill him last night.”

“I don’t know when it started,” Dan said. “But it was definitely a problem even before he slept with Eden. We’ve always clashed. It’s a personality thing. I think he’s an asshole, and he
doesn’t
think he’s an asshole so …”

She was watching him, as if she expected him to continue, so he did.

“It was bad enough,” he said, “that he slept with her. But he let me think that he knocked her up, and then he went and freaking married her, like, what the hell … ? Why would he do that? She doesn’t even know who the baby’s father was. She’s always been a mess.”

“Maybe he fell in love with her,” Jenn suggested. “People fall in love and do crazy things. And I’m not just talking about the people”—she motioned toward her bookshelves—“in romance novels.”

“I think he did it to piss me off,” Dan said, even though the words sounded ridiculous, even to his own ears.

“That seems drastic,” Jenn said mildly. “But I understand why it’s upsetting to you. This man you don’t like marries your sister, and suddenly, he’s part of your family—with a fifty-percent chance of him being in your life forever. Except, she’s already left him. And last night, while you’re reading, he can’t sleep, he comes out of the conference room, sees that you’re still up, and says …” She looked at him expectantly.

But Dan shook his head. “I got nothing,” he said. “It’s blank. I remember reading this scene where the author gets thrown into solitary, for, like, a whole week, and then I remember Zanella putting me in a headlock.”

And
then
he remembered Jenn staring at him, like he was some kind of loser freak.

“What happened to the book?” she asked.

And wasn’t
that
a good question? “I don’t know,” he said. He got out of bed and dug through his bag, but it wasn’t in there. “I must’ve left it at the hotel.”

“So why
are
you reading that book?” Jenn asked.

“My brother,” he said. “Half brother, really. Ben. He’s, like, thirteen. And he’s always been … Well. He’s just Ben, you know? Only,
about a month ago, I get this e-mail from my mother saying can I send more money because there’s this special camp that my dick of a stepfather wants to send Ben to this summer.”

“Oh, no,” Jenn said.

“Oh, yeah,” Dan told her. “She tells me that Ben’s gone goth, you know, black fingernail polish?”

“That doesn’t mean he’s gay.”

“But if he is…” Dan shook his head again. “I’m reading this bullshit about what they do to kids in these places and … So I send her an e-mail to tell her no, I won’t give her the money to do that, but she e-mails me back, going
that’s okay, he got a scholarship from the church
. Jesus Christ.”

“What are you going to do?” Jenn asked, propping her head up on one hand, supported by her elbow.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, unable to keep himself from touching her, even just to push her hair back behind her ear with one finger. She had nice ears—just the right size, although she thought they were too big. “I’ve been trying to call my sister, Sandy, but she’s not answering her phone, which isn’t a good sign.”

She winced. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“And yeah, I know, I said she was doing better, and she was,” Dan admitted. “Until she dropped off the map again, which is a classic signal that the shit’s about to hit the fan. How many times has it happened now? Fifteen? Twenty? And I still gloss it over. I still, you know, pretend there’re flowers growing, when all there is is the same old bullshit.”

He rolled onto his back to stare at the ceiling. He had to look away from the sympathy in her eyes.

Sympathy—and understanding. She knew, exactly, what he was talking about. And maybe that was why he kept talking.

“I think I kind of snapped,” he said, “when I saw Eden starting down the same screwed-up path. She was fourteen, and she was getting
drunk. And then she got drunk and slept with this total asshole.” He looked at Jenn. “Not Zanella, some earlier asshole. She definitely gravitates toward the same type of loser, though, that’s for sure. But I came home for some holiday—I was in the Navy at that point—and all this scumbag could talk about was how he took her cherry.” He turned to look at Jenn. “She was
fourteen.”

“That must’ve been hard for her,” she said. “To trust someone that much and then have him betray her that way.”

Dan looked at her. “She didn’t give a shit. She was walking around in these clothes that made her look like she was selling it on the street, with this hardcore
fuck you
attitude—”

“If
you
found it embarrassing and awful, imagine how she felt, regardless of whatever facade she was hiding behind,” Jenn continued. “You were only there for a few days. She had to live there.”

“It felt like Sandy, all over again,” Dan said. “I couldn’t survive that a second time. I don’t think I came home for another two years. Jesus, maybe longer. Not until after Katrina, which was a total nightmare. I still don’t know what happened to Eden in the Super Dome, and it makes me sick … Why am I telling you this? You don’t want to hear this.”

“When I was six,” Jenn told him, “my father punched a hole in the wall. He was angry about something relatively small, like the cable went out during an electrical storm, and he couldn’t watch the football game on TV. I was in bed, and I heard all the noise, and I came out to find him and my mother sitting on the floor beneath this big, gaping hole, just crying, and that scared me more than it did when he yelled, you know?”

Dan closed his eyes. “Jesus, did we have the same father, or what?”

She laughed. “Okay, that’s an icky thought.”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t mean … Ew. I meant, you know, cast from the same mold.”

“Phew, that’s better,” she said, smiling down at him. “I thought you were going to
sister
me. Which would’ve been one for the record books, let me tell you …”

He tugged her close and kissed her, but let her go to ask, “How can you tell me that about your father, and still smile and make jokes like that? Why aren’t you crying, LeMay?”

“It happened a long time ago,” she told him, leaning in to kiss him again. Her lips were so soft. “I’ve worked hard to put it behind me. When’s the last time
you
went to a meeting, Gillman?”

“Al-Anon?” he said, even though he knew exactly what she meant by
meeting
. Al-Anon was a support group for family members of alcoholics. “It’s been awhile.” He’d started going post-Katrina, when Sandy had finally gone into rehab. It had helped to hear stories that were so like his own, coming from total strangers.

But he’d never stood up and told his own story. And then he’d gone overseas again and … He hadn’t gone back.

“Maybe you should think about going again.” Jenn must’ve seen the trepidation in his eyes, because she added, “Or not. We could have our own meetings, right here. Naked meetings. Close with the serenity prayer, and maybe a little extra bonus serenity-inducing activity. …”

“Like yoga?” Dan teased. “Or maybe basket weaving. Isn’t basket weaving supposed to be soothing?”

“I love it when you smile and mean it,” Jenn told him.

Love. Jesus. Okay, keep it light. “Do I really ever smile and
not
mean it?” he asked.

“You do,” she said. “At least I think you do.” She kissed him again and reached over and closed her laptop with her foot. “What do you say we go get breakfast? There’s this diner over near the hotel that makes the best pancakes. If you want, we could stop and pick up your book. Since I’ve still got some work to do today … That way, you won’t be sitting around. Or reading one of my not-doom-and-gloomy-enough-for-you romance novels.”

“Yeah,” he said, as she began packing up her computer, “because I already know how they end. And they lived happily ever after. Although the book I’m reading has a happy ending, too. The author tries to kill himself.”

Jenn looked at him. “Oh, big yay … ?”

Danny laughed. “No, it
was
good because he ended up in the psych ward of a hospital where the doctors actually followed scientific guidelines. He started to learn that it was okay to be, you know, gay.” He sighed. Jesus. “I have no idea what I’m going to do about Ben.”

Jenn handed him his pants. “We’ll figure something out.”

The autopsy reports on Maggie Thorndyke and the homeless man known as Winston came in via e-mail, about an hour after Alyssa and Jules left the hotel.

They’d gone to Maria’s office, to check out a framed letter that the assemblywoman said was hanging on the wall. It was from her brother, Frank, and it was—she believed—all anyone would need to fake his handwriting. Provided they had time and patience, of course.

The skills of a master forger wouldn’t hurt, either.

Still, Sam remembered seeing it there, in a simple metal frame. Maria had caught him reading it and had told him that that letter was the reason she’d begun her political career.

So Alyssa and Jules had gone out to look at it, while Sam lounged in bed until he couldn’t stand it anymore.

He’d just gotten dressed and was about to emerge into the suite’s living room to see how on earth Robin was keeping Ash so damn quiet, when he saw the e-mail alert on Alyssa’s laptop.

He downloaded the various reports, carrying her computer out to the more comfortable couch. It wasn’t exactly breakfast reading, but he plowed through it all, checking first to see what exactly, besides
blood, old Winston had had flowing through his veins before he died.

Valium was mixed in with an outrageously high amount of alcohol. And yeah, the docs all agreed with Sam that no way had this man slit his own wrists.

Identification of the homeless man was as of yet incomplete. His teeth were in such poor condition—there were several dense pages on them, focusing on vitamin deficiencies and dental hygiene, comma, lack thereof—so they couldn’t consider the results from a dental match to be conclusive. Instead, they were waiting on a DNA test.

With that said, it was highly likely that the dead man would be identified as John Winston Jones, born 1945 in Harlem, served in Vietnam from 1967 to 1970, winner of a whole fuckload of medals, honors, and distinctions—the list went on and on and on. The man was an American hero. No way should he have been living in the street, cold and alone, with his teeth rotting out of his head.

His teeth …