Finding Grace Page 8

Nobody other than Dagger saw much of Thorne the rest of the week. At least she was wearing a real winter jacket. Paul wondered if she’d chosen something so oversized, ugly and used out of defiance or because she felt safer in it than in something more flattering. At least she’d stopped arguing about being driven home.

  He’d thought it a good sign when she’d introduced herself to Hawks and Markham on Monday. Too bad he still hadn’t been able to look her in the eye. And she’d been holed up in her office ever since. Was she just immersed in her work, or was she avoiding him? He wanted to know if she still trusted him.

  He would have asked Dagger if she’d said anything to him on those rides home, but it wasn’t hard to remember Thorne’s “Judas” digs and how they’d bothered his friend. He didn’t want to put Dagger in that position again, and maybe burn the last bridge to Thorne besides.

  It was Friday and three more of his men were back from assignment, plus Mills. People that worked together needed to play together. It could be the easy answer to seeing how Thorne was doing, too.

  He stopped at the big office first. “Why don’t we knock off early today, get a head start on the weekend over at O’Leary’s?”

  A chorus of cheerful grunts and various other noises of assent told him the idea was well received.

  His answering smile remained in place until he stood in front of Thorne’s closed office. He had no idea what kind of music was making its way through the door, but it didn’t sound inviting. He pounded twice and opened the door anyway. Hell, he was a man, wasn’t he?

  Thorne looked up at him and if she wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t scowling, either. “What can I do for you, boss?”

  Paul kept his voice easy and informal. “We’re knocking off early and heading down to O’Leary’s. I’d like you to join us.”

  “Is that an order, boss?”

  The fact that she hadn’t called him Paul since what he’d come to think of as “The Big Misunderstanding” hit home. He didn’t have to look too hard to see how she’d tensed up, even if she was still leaning back in her chair with her feet up. Damn. Pushing now was the last thing he should do.

  “Not this time.” He tried to find his smile.

  “In that case, thanks but no thanks. Is it okay if I still take you up on checking out early? I’m just spinning my needles here, anyway—elusive algorithm.”

  Like that meant something to him. From what he could see, she’d just stopped knitting. He should ask what she was working on, try to engage her in conversation. She was like anyone else, right? She’d love to talk about her work. But no, she’d see right through any attempt like that, right to his doubt and guilt. Besides, in the short time he’d known her, she hadn’t seemed to like to talk about much of anything. She reminded him of Dagger that way.

  “You know, maybe I should ask Farley to drive you home. It’s not like you’re going to improve your people skills around Dagger.” God, he must be nervous because it had just slipped out. He hadn’t meant to do his thinking out loud.

  Paul wasn’t sure, but he thought Thorne was blinking at him behind her dark glasses. She straightened in her chair, letting the front legs drop back to the ground as she set her knitting down.

  “Are people skills a job requirement now, boss?” She’d said it almost lightly, but damn if he didn’t feel trapped all of a sudden.

  Just then, Dagger called past him, “Hey Thorne, you ready to go?”

  She looked at Paul.

  He scrambled to take advantage of the break. “So, ah, riding with Dagger’s working out for you then?”

  She tilted her head and said, “Yeah. He even lets me plug my iPod into the SUV. You want me to tell him we should work on our people skills instead?” Her mouth was perfectly straight.

  Paul’s eye twitched. He hadn’t felt this busted since his mother’d found the empty beer bottle in the garden shed.

  “Thorne’ll be packed in a minute, Dagger.”

  He couldn’t wait for a beer. And a shot.

  * * * *

  “Guess I’ll come in with you, take a look at the menu.” Dagger had to drive around for a while before he found a parking spot. People gave him odd looks walking down the street with Thorne. He was used to getting looks from people, but not the kind he was getting walking with the kid. He supposed they did make an odd pair.

  Tron’s little neon sign flickered.

  Tron, or whoever he was, smiled ear to ear when they walked in. “Thorne, so good to see you. Two of the usual?”

  “Nice to see you, too, Tron. Yeah, the usual, plus whatever Jack here wants. Put it on my tab—which I’d like to pay, by the way.”

  Thorne ignored the protest Dagger tried to lodge.

  Tron passed a piece of paper with a column of numbers on it.

  Thorne frowned. “Uh, Tron, is this for the whole month? Should be more than twice this.”

  “Thorne only pay for man wrong in head. Not want money for Thorne and…friend.” Tron’s eyes flickered over him in rhythm with his sign. Dagger started to protest again, but silenced himself this time. Thorne, a friend? This was the second time someone had said that. Not five minutes ago, he himself had just thought of them as an odd couple. Shit.

  A petite Vietnamese woman in her forties stepped out and distracted him from his thoughts. She bowed low to Thorne. “Call mother last month. Tell her your dream. She go to doctor. You right, Thorne, she have bad heart. Doctor say catch early, save mother easy. Only need pill every day. Thorne not pay.” Then she disappeared.

  Dagger couldn’t think of anything to say except “thank you” to Tron when he brought their food.

  They found Jefferson nearby, gave him his bag and got back in the Escalade. He could see why Thorne liked the old guy. He said some very sane things for a crazy bastard.

  “So Thorne, what’s up with you and Jefferson? I mean, the guy tells a good story, but that doesn’t really explain why you look after him like you do.”

  Thorne shrugged. “Nobody else does. He left his mind in a fucking rice paddy forty years ago when Uncle Sam sent him there and never gave a shit about what came back. Still doesn’t. And you wonder why I’m so pissed at our fucking government.”

  “He’s a vet? Really? But I thought you hated…” He shook his head in the vain attempt to settle yet another Thorne contradiction.

  Thorne said, “It’s like this, Jack. It’s because I care about the soldiers and vets and the people whose countries get torn up due to our government’s invariably fucked up foreign policy that I have such a big problem with the whole thing.” Dagger felt Thorne’s eyes on him. “The last people I blame are the ones on the ground. What made you think I did?”

  He remembered that first day. Had it only been a week and a half ago?

  “Because of what you said. Something about a narrow-minded bunch of prehistoric, red-white-and-blue sheep.” He thumped the steering wheel and changed lanes. “Said we’d follow a flag anywhere.”

  “Only after Mills called me an un-American liberal fag. Helluva way for you guys to welcome a new teammate.”

  “Helluva way for you to antagonize a room full of men three times your size.”

  “Those guys don’t scare me.”

  “Really? ’Cause we’ve got this brand new window in the big office making the other ones look dirty and a chair that probably couldn’t even hold you anymore…”

  He could actually feel the change in the air. They were almost at Thorne’s place and he didn’t want it to end like this. Besides, he couldn’t understand…“I know you’re not afraid of me. Why not, Thorne? A little guy like you—especially a little guy like you—should definitely be afraid of me. So why aren’t you?”

  “’Cause you’re such a sweet Georgia peach.” Thorne’s grin was oddly reassuring.

  “Fuck you, Thorne.” It should have come out harsher than it did, but the release of tension in the Escalade’s close quarters felt good.

  “Only if you promise to be gentle.”

  He b
arely snorted back a laugh.

  “So why don’t you join us for a drink, Thorne? It’s because you’re underage, isn’t it?”

  He’d been wondering why he had such a hard time picturing Thorne sitting in a bar and realized it was because the kid didn’t look old enough to drink.

  They’d made it to Thorne’s door.

  “I’m twenty-six, Jack. You?”

  “Twenty-six?” What! More like sixteen. “Thirty-four. A really old thirty-four. So why won’t you come?”

  “Look, it isn’t that I don’t appreciate the invite, but I don’t drink. Shit’ll rot your brain, you know.”

  He felt his lips curl into a grin. “I guess we can’t have that. So why not just come to the bar, hang out for a while, drink ginger ale or whatever it is you people drink.”

  “I don’t go to bars.” The kid said it with the same tone other people said they didn’t go to funerals.

  “Not even since the smoking ban?” He’d never forget how Thorne reacted to cigarette smoke.

  “Once, my twenty-first birthday. Went by myself.”

  “You celebrated your birthday all by yourself? Christ, Thorne, that’s pitiful.” He could barely remember his own twenty-first birthday. Of course, he’d been drunk as hell and it had been a hundred years ago.

  “There wasn’t anyone I cared to share it with.” Thorne shrugged, but he could tell the kid was remembering something more serious. “It didn’t end well.”

  “Don’t tell me, you got beat up.” He smiled sympathetically. It wasn’t hard to imagine.

  “Something like that.”

  The pause had been long enough and Thorne’s throaty voice soft enough to make him think it had been bad. “Sorry.” He heard himself not only say it, but mean it.

  “Yeah. Too bad you weren’t there, huh?” Thorne’s laugh was dry, even for Thorne. “See ’ya Monday, Jack.”

  * * * *

  Thorne closed the door behind her and leaned against it. She’d been wrong about Jack Daggery. She should be afraid of him. He was the very worst kind of dangerous—he made her feel safe.

  He made her want to do things, too, the least of which was continuing to work at Blackridge just to be with him on the rides home. Those rides made all the other risks worthwhile, even if she’d just now recognized that they were the biggest risk of all. She was already looking forward to Monday night, for God’s sake.

  She wondered if Paul had sensed how close she’d come to packing up for good when he’d threatened to make her ride with Farley, even if he hadn’t meant it. He was just insecure, struggling with his guilt and doubt. She felt a little bad for him, but not bad enough to set foot in a bar for him. At least not yet.

  Thorne shivered and dug out a pair of chopsticks. She’d have to do it eventually, if she stayed at Blackridge. Really, though, that was a minor problem compared to the other.

  Munching on Tron’s Friday special, she considered her options.

  She’d never been good with feelings, had learned early on their capacity to inflict misery. It had always seemed best to just avoid them. If you didn’t care, then no one could hurt you; pretty simple math. So what was the formula now, when she dangled on the uncontrollable variable? What to do now that she did care?

  And it wasn’t just her emotions that concerned her. Her body was sending her signals that she had no idea what to do with, either. Signals it had no business sending her, responses from places inside and out that she’d never been so acutely aware of, in spite—or maybe because—of everything that had happened to her.

  * * * *

  O’Leary’s was a workingman’s bar in a faded part of town. Its denizens were a motley collection of mostly men of all ages who wouldn’t be caught dead in a techno club or any bar with plants and suits. Even so, Dagger’s entrance rippled uncomfortably throughout the place. Heads raised and turned.

  He shrugged it off. The welcoming smiles of the team and the beer someone handed him took the edge off, but there had never been a real cure for the way he always felt like he was outside some proverbial window, looking in on everyone who belonged.

  Sure, Paul was his friend and the rest of the team were good men, but he was most comfortable when he was alone. He figured Thorne probably felt the same way he did, if the single chair at the kitchen table in the dinky apartment was any indication. The idea that they were alike at all didn’t sit well. He’d been feeling different ever since he’d met the damn kid, and he was starting to wonder what was wrong with him.

  “Hey Dagger, where’s Thorne? Couldn’t talk him into coming?” Markham looked disappointed.

  “What’s the matter, Miss Daisy think he’s too good for us?” Mills smirked.

  “Funny, Thorne used the same expression first time I gave him a ride.” He grinned, remembering.

  “Does he really not know how to drive? Who the hell doesn’t know how to drive?” asked one of the men who hadn’t met Thorne yet. “I heard he won’t carry a cell phone, either. What kind of tech geek—”

  “C’mon man, you spend more time with Thorne than any of us. Is he a fag or what? Has he made a pass at you yet? He sure does like to check out your ass,” Mills teased.

  “But what if Thorne’s a girl? I mean, the grip was firm and all, but the hand was awful small. It’d be easier to tell without those fingerless gloves. Thorne always wear those?” Markham asked. “Paul, you know, right?”

  All eyes turned to Paul, including his, but Paul only shrugged and said, “Don’t ask me.”

  “Hmm, that voice would sure be sexy if it was a woman’s,” Farley added thoughtfully.

  “You know, now that I think about it, Thorne does always wear those things,” Dagger said. “Except that day in jail. Must not have had time to put them on before they nabbed him.”

  “Jail?” Hawks frowned.

  Markham set his beer down. “Yeah, remember? Farley told us about it. Thorne’s vision. That’s why you hired him, right, Paul?”

  Paul was frowning now. “Hell no. Thorne tipped us off on that kidnapping, yes, but…” He shook his head and tilted it back to drain the last of his beer. “Thorne was hired for Thorne’s exceptional computer and electronic skills, which my friend Luke at SPD learned about after he picked Thorne up for questioning.”

  “So what was Thorne busted for, then, exactly? You never did tell us,” Farley pushed.

  “Decked the cop who picked him up. Pretty good too.” He didn’t know why he’d said it instead of Paul, except that Paul hadn’t exactly being forthcoming about Thorne, and Dagger felt obligated to defend the kid.

  “So not a girl, then. Damn.” Farley sighed.

  Mills pushed back his chair. “I’m with Paul. I don’t buy this vision shit, neither. That damn faggot must have been connected to the kidnappin’ somehow. Bet he had somethin’ to do with whatever really happened over there to Hawks and Markham too.”

  “What do you know, Mills? You weren’t there either time. Me, I’m a believer.” Dagger finished his beer and motioned to the bartender for another.

  Paul would never believe it. Everything was black and white to his friend. Dagger had learned about the gray on his first undercover mission. Over time, he’d learned to accept more things he couldn’t explain.

  Mills broke into his thoughts. “You wanna believe in that shit, you go right ahead. Thorne ain’t got no respect for authority, that’s for sure. And what about the little faggot’s anti-American attitude?”

  He felt Paul watching him, but his partner continued to be anything but helpful.

  Dagger sipped his beer and told them, in as few words as possible, about Jefferson and what he’d learned at Tron’s that night.

  Mills spat out. “Well then, sounds to me like that Jefferson must be another fag. Whole bunch of ’em is fags. It’s contagious, I tell you.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Mills? If you’re really that goddamn slow, I’ll spell it out for you nice and clear. Thorne’s all right. One of the team. So back the
fuck off already.” Dagger knew he shouldn’t be getting so worked up, but the conversation was poking him somewhere he didn’t want to look.

  “What’s the matter, Dagger, you thinkin’ about switchin’ sides on us?” Mills asked it in a lilting voice, holding a limp wrist in the air.

  Dagger pushed his chair back slowly and heard the anger in his voice, even if he kept it low. “If there’s anyone here who really wants to go there with me, we can step outside right now.”

  The whole place got real quiet.

  The team’s conversation finally moved on to other topics, but Dagger was thinking about Thorne sitting alone in that tiny apartment. Of the two of them, who was more alone right now: Thorne or himself? The more he thought about Thorne, the more he drank. The food he’d eaten in the parking lot before he’d come in wasn’t sitting as well as it usually did. Maybe he should have just stuck with the Bo Sate.

  Paul insisted on driving him home, said he wanted to talk to him about something, but Dagger figured it was because his friend thought he’d had too much to drink. Maybe he had, because when Paul asked how Thorne was doing, Dagger heard something in his voice that made him willing to confide, even though Paul hadn’t done the same.

  So he told Paul what Thorne had said about not going to a bar since his twenty-first birthday because it hadn’t ended well. Dagger added that, if he had to guess, he’d have said the kid must have gotten beat up pretty bad.

  He hadn’t had so much to drink that he didn’t notice the funny, almost sick, look that had come over Paul’s face.

  He heard a little slur in his own voice when he turned to his friend and said, “What the fuck is it about Thorne, anyway? You know, but you won’t say. You want me to protect him—don’t tell me you don’t—but you won’t tell me why. What is it about that little fucker? How did he get under your skin?” How the hell did he get under mine? “What’s the damn story?”

  Paul’s voice seemed to echo in his head. “You don’t want to know, Dagger. You think you do, but you don’t. Trust me.” He patted Dagger’s back. “I appreciate how you defended the kid tonight, and the rides and all. It’s not fair to you and I know it. Now get some sleep.”