He was going home.

Not home to the shitcan, as he couldn’t yet handle three flights of stairs, but home to his old bedroom, his mother’s cooking, his father’s wonderfully bad jokes.

He’d asked, specifically, that Essie pick him up, deliver him, so he had waited to talk to her.

“Why do I have to get in a wheelchair to leave when all I’ve heard for two and a half freaking weeks is get up and walk?”

Tinette of the beautiful smile patted the chair. “Rules are rules, my darling. Now put that sweet butt in the chair.”

“How about after I’m a hundred percent, we have a hot, torrid affair. It’d be good for my emotional and mental health.”

“My man would crush you like a bug, skinny boy. It’s too bad my sister’s only eighteen.”

“Eighteen’s legal.”

“You go near my baby sis, I’ll put you back in this hospital.” But she rubbed his shoulder. “I’m glad to see you go, Reed, and sorry at the same time.”

“I’ll be coming in for the torture.”

“And I’ll go down and see you don’t cry too hard. Here, hold your teddy bear.”

He took it, and took a last look at the room. Essie had already hauled down the books, his tablet, and other accumulated stuff.

“I won’t miss this place,” he said as she wheeled him out, “but I’ll miss you. You’re the only woman I love, besides my mother, who’s seen me naked without me having the same privilege.”

“You’re going to put some meat back on those bones.” She steered him into the elevator. “And you take some advice.”

“From you I will.”

“Don’t go back into it too fast, darling. Give yourself some time. Walk in the sun, pet some puppies, eat ice cream cones, fly a kite. I know enough about you now to know you’re a good cop and a good man. Take some time to remember why you’re both.”

He reached back—left hand—for hers. “I’m really going to miss you.”

Essie greeted them with a smile. “You’re sprung, partner. Tinette, you’re a treasure.”

“Oh, I am every bit of that. Come on now, darling, let’s get you in the car.” She settled him and strapped him in herself. “You take care of my favorite patient.”

“One hour in a cheap motel. It’ll change your life.”

With a laugh, she kissed him on the mouth. “I like my life. Go live yours now.”

“What if she’d said yes?” Essie wondered aloud as they drove away.

“Never happen. She’s crazy about her husband. You know, she was twenty when the DownEast Mall happened and doing community service as part of her college credits. Nurse’s aide, so she ended up being on the front lines at the hospital that night. Small, small world.”

He waited a beat. “Bull told me the feds have taken over, pushed us back. Pushed me out.”

She let out a hiss of breath. “I was going to talk to you about it once you got out, got home, got settled in. I’m sorry, Reed, they brought down the hammer in the house. You’re too close, so I’m too close. I went to the wall on it, and the wall won.”

“It’s not going to stop me.”

She blew out a breath, fluttering the bangs she’d recently tried out. “Look, I didn’t support your theory, and that theory’s now proven as fact. The feds are scooping that right up from under you. They’ll give you a handshake and a brush back. On our end, the same decision goes right to the top.”

“It’s not going to stop me,” he repeated.

“They’ll make it an order. Believe me. Whatever you do, you’ll have to do it in the dark, on the side. If they find out, they’ll write you up and slap you down. It’s not right, but that’s the line.”

“What’s your line?”

“I’m with you. We’ll do what we can on our off time. I’m going to add, Hank’s with us on it.”

“Good man.”

“He is. He’s not going back to full-time teaching. He’s going to finish the book he’s been writing. Literary cop fiction, he calls it. It’s damn good so far—what he’s let me read. But part of why he’s not going back is to give me more time to work this. With you, when I can.”

“I need to think it through, take some time. I need to get back in shape. Apparently getting shot’s turned me into a zombie scarecrow.”

“You’ve looked better. But Jesus, Reed, trust me, you looked worse.”

He knew it, just like he knew he had a ways to go. “I need to take her down, Essie. I need to be a part of it. But I’m going to think it through. No word on her since they found her car?”

“She’s in the wind.”

“The wind’s going to change,” he murmured.

*

He spent a month with his parents, white-knuckled his way through the PT, managed to put back on a couple of the pounds he’d lost during his hospital incarceration.

He’d dropped twelve before he’d leveled off.

He went back to work—desk duty. And when he got the word from his captain on the Hobart investigation, he didn’t argue. No point.

Still, desk duty had its advantages, and gave him plenty of time to access files. He might not have the brass behind him, but he had the blue line.

Traces of Hobart’s blood had been found on the driver’s seat of the car she’d dumped at the airport. The car reported stolen by a family of four after they returned from a three-week vacation in Hawaii had yet to be recovered.

Reed placed his bets on Hobart dumping it in a lake, torching it in the woods, or otherwise erasing it. She had cash, most likely fake IDs and credit cards. No way she’d stick with a stolen car.

She’d buy one under a fake name, with cash. A solid, nondescript, used car, he calculated. She’d change her hair, her appearance, so she looked little to nothing like the photos on the newscasts and the Internet.

She would watch those newscasts, the blogs, the newspapers, and lie low, at a distance. Until she hit again.

If she had a bullet in her, she’d found a way to get medical treatment.

He tried a check for breakins, clinics, veterinary hospitals, pharmacies, but found nothing to fit.

He tried a search for deaths, medical profession. Doctors, nurses, aides, vets, ran down a couple, but again, none fit.

He thought about what he’d do, where he’d go in her place. His mind wandered north. Canada. Fake ID—fake passport. Cross the border, settle in, take a breather.

That’s just what he’d have done.

No need to risk air travel, no need to learn a new language. Rent a freaking cabin in the woods, keep a low profile.

But she wouldn’t be able to cut her losses, he knew. She’d need to finish what she started. Sooner or later, he’d get an alert that someone else who’d shared that nightmare with him had died.

So he shuffled papers, did the PT, ate his mother’s cooking.

And one day he woke up realizing he didn’t feel like a good cop anymore. He barely felt like a cop at all.

He could rotate his shoulder without agony, and could lift a ten-pound weight for a handful of reps, but he didn’t feel like much of a man, either.

He was, well, the zombie scarecrow with a vulture on his shoulder just waiting for somebody to die.

Time to pull it out, he decided, and take Tinette’s advice. He needed to walk in the sun, and remember what he’d been and why.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

For the second day while she enjoyed her morning coffee on her patio, CiCi watched the man on the narrow strip of sand below.

He’d jog a little, walk, jog, back and forth for about a half hour before he’d climb—slowly—onto the rocks to sit and watch the water.

Then, like a man who’d been fit and strong and was recovering from a long illness, he’d do it all again before walking back along the beach to the bike path toward the village.

After day one, she’d gotten his name from the rental agent who’d booked him into a bungalow. A three-week booking in October, heading into November, wasn’t without precedent for the island, but it was unusual.

Plus, before she had his name, she’d used her binoculars to get a good look at his face.

Good-looking, but thin and too pale, with a lot of scruff.

Personally, she liked a man with some scruff.

She’d recognized him—she kept up with current events—but she’d wanted to be sure.

So she knew who he was, what had happened, and wondered what went through his mind as he jogged, walked, sat.

Since she wanted to find out, on day three of the morning routine, she did her makeup, fluffed up the hair she’d recently dyed a deep plum, put on some leggings—she still had good legs—a long-sleeve tee, and a denim jacket.

And after filling two lidded cups with mocha lattes, CiCi walked down while he sat on the rocks.

He glanced over as she started to climb up to join him, earned points for immediately getting up to take her hand.

With his left, she noted, and not without a flicker of pain on his face.

“Good morning,” she said, offering him one of the cups.

“Thanks.”

“It’s a perfect morning to sit on the rocks and have a latte. I’m CiCi Lennon.”

“Reed Quartermaine. I’ve admired your work.”

“Then you’re a man of taste as well as looking tasty. Full disclosure? I recognized you. I know who you are and what happened to you. But we don’t have to talk about it.”