Walk a Mile Read online

  “We’re trained investigators.” Flynn’s tone was flat, dangerous.

  “And I have perfect recall. Or don’t your records indicate that?” Jerry knew he had a reputation for being a stuck-up jerk at the Bureau at home. Might as well intervene on Flynn’s behalf now. He waved a bit of bagel at the record on the table and tried his best to look huffy, which wasn’t really a stretch for him.

  “Yeah. Total recall. I’ve been on the phone with Assistant Director Harding. You’ll pardon me if I find that a little hard to believe.”

  “It’s a fact, not a moment in a Disney cartoon. Your belief is not necessary.” Jerry popped the piece of bagel in his mouth with a little flourish.

  Flynn suddenly gripped his shoulder painfully. Damn it, he hated when Flynn snuck up on him like that. He couldn’t help but flinch. I’ve got this under control. Don’t blow it by losing your temper. He kept his expression smug, even as he “yelled” at Flynn. Thankfully, Flynn let go right away.

  Ellis straightened, blew the air forcefully through his lips, and took a seat on the other side of the table. “I think we somehow got off on the wrong foot. Let’s try again. Special Agent Flynn, if you would have a seat?”

  Flynn silently pulled out the chair beside Jerry and sat down. The sharp kick to Jerry’s shin as he took his seat was probably intentional.

  “As I was saying.” Jerry manfully avoided glaring at Flynn. “I have excellent recall. While technically not perfect, it is better than average, which for the purposes of conversation, and in comparison to the general public, qualifies as perfect. So, Flynn is correct in saying our testimony is not likely to change.”

  Ellis retrieved the final cup of coffee from the tray and reached for the sugar, tapping the packet several times against his hand in preparation to tearing it open. “So if I was to put this to the test…?”

  Ellis had an annoying way of trailing off his words. Probably part of his patented interrogation technique. Something he’d learned along the way that was supposed to encourage people to talk. Jerry mentally rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, waving a hand in encouragement. “By all means.”

  Ellis stirred his coffee thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed when he looked at Jerry. “Before you were escorted to this room, you were taken briefly into the airport security chief’s office where you gave your statement to him. Describe that room, please.”

  Jerry couldn’t help it; this time, he rolled his eyes for real. “How very Sherlock Holmes of you. Very well. Security Chief Rankin has a small corner office with a view of the tarmac. I know from the airport map on the wall that his office overlooks the D terminus, and more specifically, Gates 31-44. He has a small bookshelf on the right wall as you enter the room; the books there are mostly for show—Freedom’s Battle by Gandhi, for example, and John Muir’s Travels in Alaska. His real taste in reading is evidenced by the Tom Clancy book he had hidden under a stack of folders on the left hand corner of his desk. Also on the desk is a coffee mug describing him, originally enough, as the world’s greatest dad, which he uses to hold an assortment of pens, paperclips, and a mechanical pencil. There is a stapler, which he must have been having problems with, as there are several mangled staples on the desk beside it and it was partially opened. Next to that is a photo of a young girl in riding clothes standing beside a bay pony, grinning as she holds up a blue ribbon. On the other side of the photo, there is—”

  “He can do this all day, you know,” Flynn interrupted with his oh-so-casual drawl. He too, had leaned back in his chair, sliding one arm along the backrest. He was smiling now, albeit somewhat cynically.

  Ellis blinked. He glanced at Flynn and back at Jerry. Jerry took another bite of bagel.

  “You never forget anything?” Ellis sounded slightly appalled, as well he should.

  “Parker got conked on the head by a murderer once. Forgot most of that day.”

  “A few hours at best.” Jerry heard the irritation in his voice and saw Flynn’s small smile. “And it all came back over time.”

  Flynn was openly smirking now.

  “And you knew this man on the airplane was going to be a problem because…?” Ellis’s voice brought them back on target again.

  I’ve got this one. “Because I got a bad vibe off of him when I got up to go to the bathroom.” Jerry shrugged. “What can I say? He was hunkered down in the hoodie and wearing shades after dark. He didn’t look like a celebrity. His seatmates were actively avoiding him.” Jerry finished off his summation with a wry smile. “I decided to wait at the lavatory for a bit and see what he did. If anything.”

  Ellis turned to stare directly at Flynn. “From various reports, you stood up at the same time as the suspect. How did you know to intervene?”

  Flynn’s voice was suspiciously smooth when he spoke. “When you’ve worked together as closely as Parker and I have, you can practically read minds.”

  Jerry was glad he wasn’t drinking and sent Flynn a mental image of him spraying Ellis with a mouthful from across the table. Bastard.

  Flynn’s knee bumped his under the table.

  “I gave him the high sign,” Jerry said dryly, shooting Flynn a dirty look. “All partners have them, you know?”

  “I was wondering what was taking him so long. I thought maybe he’d gotten stuck in the toilet.” The smirk Flynn shot Jerry was pure evil.

  “So you just happened to look back at your partner and see him indicate there was a potential problem, and you, what, acted on it without knowing what it might be?”

  “I trust Parker. He’s very good at the game of ‘What’s not right with this picture?’ Hell, you don’t want to play most games with him.”

  One time. I beat the pants off you at poker one time, and now you won’t play with me again.

  “Gentlemen.” Ellis sounded tired. “If we could just stay on track here? Agent Flynn, reports indicate that at the moment when the full nature of the threat was revealed, you froze. I’ve also been on the phone with Director Zimmerman tonight. He says that’s out of character for you.”

  Flynn’s face darkened. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jerry forestalled him. You didn’t freeze; you were giving me time to get into place. You had passengers behind you threatening to take matters into their own hands. You were stalling for time, trying to calm things down.

  Flynn repeated Jerry’s words in a slow, grinding fashion. Ellis pursed his lips when Flynn was done.

  “And you, Agent Parker. What on Earth possessed you to snatch the vial of sarin out of the suspect’s hands? Especially when he was threatening to smash it?” Ellis didn’t look happy.

  Now it was Jerry’s turn to blink. “Oh. I knew it couldn’t be sarin.”

  “And how could you be so sure of that?” Ellis smiled as though Jerry had fallen into his trap.

  Jerry squelched his expression, knowing his estimation of Ellis’s intelligence was written on his face. Given the way Flynn kicked him again, he must have failed miserably at hiding it. “Because sarin is odorless and colorless. What this guy was holding up was obviously a suspension of some sort of white power in a liquid. He might have thought he had sarin, but he didn’t look all that bright to me. I’m thinking he boiled some flea powder and thought he had a weapon.” Jerry spared Flynn a brief glance. It’s not your fault. The guy was loopy. It could have been a real threat.

  Flynn’s expression became stony. Or rather, more stony, if that was possible. He had already been doing a pretty good imitation of Mount Rushmore before.

  “So you just grabbed it.” Ellis looked grim. “Because you read somewhere what sarin should look like, so you knew he couldn’t possibly have any?”

  “Well, um, yes. While he was distracted, that is.” Jerry shifted uneasily. Put that way, it sounded kind of stupid. If he’d been wrong, he could have killed them all.

  Unexpectedly, Ellis grinned. “Well, your quick thinking probably prevented the plane from being diverted, with us ending up in a long standoff. Not to mention, aver
ting a major threat had the liquid actually turned out to be sarin. Which, at least according to preliminary testing, it’s not, but it could have been. Congratulations, Agent Parker. You’re a hero.”

  Jerry surprised himself by turning red. Hero was the last word he’d ever thought would be used to describe him. That word usually was assigned to Flynn, along with such adjectives as “reckless” and “self-sacrificing.” It was weird being the hero for a change. Not to mention, he couldn’t have done any of it without Flynn. He hoped that wasn’t what Flynn was pissed about, and then tried too late to shove that thought into the soundproof booth.

  Goddamn, he was tired.

  Flynn’s expression was blank and inscrutable when Jerry glanced in his direction. Jerry couldn’t help the small spurt of resentment. None of this was his fault, and he was tired of trying to make it better.

  Chapter 3

  JERRY DIDN’T know how much more of this seething silence he could take. He’d followed Flynn, weary and uncomplaining, as they were finally released from the TSA and allowed to pick up their rental, collecting their bags on the way. There’d been no question that Flynn would drive. They were back in his old stomping grounds. Jerry was usually the driver back home; he was a little unnerved by Flynn’s driving style tonight. With only one hand on the wheel, Flynn sat in apparent detachment as he slouched in the driver’s seat, driving with a ferocity that put the other Beltway drivers to shame. More than one person flipped them the bird and honked as they passed. Jerry was relieved the road was relatively empty at this time of night.

  “Uncomplaining, my ass.” Flynn’s voice was mocking. However, he did slow down, taking pressure off the gas pedal.

  Jerry relaxed his grip on the hand rest and took a deep breath. Talking was good.

  The glare Flynn gave him, however, was not. In the headlights of a passing car, Jerry saw Flynn was still pissed off, and it was pissing him off.

  “You want to tell me what’s been bugging you all evening? No, let me rephrase, because I know you don’t want to tell me. I’m asking you, though. What the hell crawled up your ass and died?”

  “Colorful phrase.” Flynn’s voice was casually smooth in that way that sent a little frisson of unease up Jerry’s spine. It was the voice Flynn used when interrogating a suspect, or when he was angry about something but didn’t want to show it. It was also dead sexy, and could be mistaken for seduction if someone didn’t know Flynn well. Not for the first time, Jerry wondered how much of Flynn’s fury had to do with being back in the DC area with Jerry at his side. It was the first time Flynn had been back since they’d come together. He slammed that thought into the booth, but Flynn shifted in his seat and tightened his grip on the wheel.

  “You know what I mean,” Jerry said, the two of them pretending the internal comments had never taken place. It didn’t escape Jerry’s notice they did that a lot, and he wondered if it was because it was the only way they could maintain any semblance of a relationship. Sometimes, though, you couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room. “You’ve been pissy ever since we got off the plane. I’d like to know just what it is that has got you so angry, and why you’re including me in your general state of ‘fuck off.’”

  “I’m not talking about it.” Flynn’s tone was final.

  It had begun raining as they’d left the airport. A light drizzle at first, but now it was coming down in earnest. Flynn adjusted the windshield wipers accordingly. The rain drummed on the roof of the car. It made it hard to hear any conversation, and Jerry wondered if it made it harder for Flynn to read his mind. He hoped so, and then immediately felt guilty for thinking that.

  The tires made a peculiar sound as they spun on the rain-slick roads. Water spraying up into the wheel wells, no doubt, and cascading to the side as the car went through deeper puddles.

  Jerry would know that rhythmic sound anywhere, and yet he could not put it into words if he tried. It reminded him of uncomfortable car trips on the annual family vacation when he was a child. For a moment, he pictured himself in the backseat of the station wagon, his dad tense and angry at the wheel, his mother staring out through the rain-streaked windshield. Jerry had usually made a point of falling asleep as soon as possible and staying that way until they arrived, no matter how far the destination. Invariably, they went to the beach, where Jerry always got sunburned. Wow, he must be really tired. He was rambling worse than usual.

  Flynn relaxed infinitesimally, and this time Jerry knew it wasn’t an act. There were times when his meandering thoughts seemed almost soothing to Flynn, though Jerry had no idea why.

  It wasn’t your fault. That guy was a nut case. He thought it was sarin. It could have been sarin. It just wasn’t this time.

  Flynn thumped his hand down hard on the wheel. “Goddamn it, if you want to say something, then say it, for fuck’s sake.”

  Jerry froze at the anger hurled at him. What the fuck had he done now? “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, knowing it was impossible to hide his hurt feelings and hating that fact. “I didn’t realize it was a problem, me thinking versus speaking.”

  “Well, it is. It makes me look like a freak, me responding to something you’ve thought rather than said.” Flynn clenched and twisted his fingers around the steering wheel as though it was a small animal he was strangling.

  Well, excuse me. In his mind, Jerry gave the words the drawn-out intonation Steve Martin had used on his Saturday Night Live sketches all those years ago.

  “Doing it again,” Flynn warned.

  “I can’t help it!” Jerry snapped. You should know this by now.

  Flynn ran one hand through his hair in a gesture Jerry had learned meant that he was uncomfortable or embarrassed in some way. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just—what’s the fucking use of being telepathic if it’s going to be wrong?”

  Ah, now they were getting down to it. “No matter what you think, we still have an edge over everyone else. You knew the guy in 15-A was planning something. That let us intervene before things got out of control. I don’t know why you’re so bent out of shape over this.”

  “I should be better at interpreting things by now. Things I hear inside my head.” The hard note in Flynn’s voice was unforgiving.

  “The guy thought he had a real weapon. You acted on that knowledge. You can only go by the information you have at hand.” Jerry tried his best to be convincing without overly placating. “That’s all any of us can do.”

  Jerry knew what Flynn was going to say before he actually said it, and echoed the words in his mind when Flynn spoke them aloud. “That’s not good enough.”

  Jerry sat very still, staring at the road in front of them, the raindrops bouncing off the hood of the car.

  “I heard that.” At least Flynn no longer sounded as angry as he had before.

  Jerry smiled in the darkness of the car. “I know you did.” Come on, it’s cool the way we work together, and you know it.

  Flynn snorted and reached over to turn on the radio. He pushed the preset button several times until he found a late-night jazz station. Taking that as a declaration of truce, Jerry eased back into the upholstery, muscles relaxing.

  He must have dozed off. It wasn’t until he felt the car bump over the entranceway to the hotel that he realized they’d left the main highway and were driving in city traffic. The rain had let up as well, which was a relief, as he hadn’t been looking forward to unloading their bags in a downpour. Yawning, he looked around in mild interest as Flynn drove up to the lobby doors.

  “Where are we?”

  “Vienna. No point in going any farther tonight. We’re both bushed. We can drive the rest of the way to Quantico in the morning. Wait here.” Flynn’s words were abrupt, but Jerry realized he was just anticipating Jerry’s next question.

  “Works for me.” Jerry yawned through his words and rubbed the back of his neck. The headache was better now they’d left the airport, but he still wanted nothing more than a shower and a bed. He was utterly wiped out. Not
to mention, airport food always left him with slightly queasy guts and a feeling that he’d wiped his face in grease. A shower was definitely in order, no matter how late it was. He glanced at his watch and realized he hadn’t reset the time when they landed. He checked the time against his cell phone and saw he had seventeen e-mails in his inbox. He resisted the impulse to read through his messages. Surely most of them could wait until they got into the room, if not until morning. Flynn had accused him more than once of being addicted to his phone, and he had to admit, he felt lost without it.

  The last time he’d been caught with the phone under his pillow, Flynn had wrestled it away from him easily and pretended he was going to throw it across the room. “You’re checking your messages? In bed? Seriously?”

  Jerry had laughed with embarrassment and fought to recover it. The tussle between them had turned into something else. Jerry became aroused at the memory, damn it. Another instance where his recall was fucking inconvenient. Those feelings ebbed when he realized how long ago that had been. Was Flynn getting tired of his experiment in homosexuality with Jerry? Because sometimes, Jerry worried that’s what it was—a phase, brought on by his connection with Jerry through the telepathy.

  He gazed out the rain-streaked window. Inside the lobby, Flynn was at the front desk. He watched idly, as though Flynn was a stranger to him. No question, Flynn was eye-catching. He was leaning on the counter, taking the weight off one leg as he addressed the hotel clerk behind the desk, a pose that was sexy and inviting. It was disconcerting to watch Flynn flirt with her. Would he have had the nerve to walk up to Flynn in a bar if they were meeting for the first time?

  He doubted it. He would have assumed Flynn was straight.

  Better to think of something else before Flynn returned. Jerry’s stomach made a bid for attention with a gurgle. No doubt, Flynn would opt for room service, or if it was too late for that, he’d make do with something from the vending machine. Again. Flynn had to have the metabolism of a twelve-year-old boy given all the junk food he ate.