“What about Tracy herself?”he asked.“Did anything happen recently that made her act out of character or put her out of sorts?Any arguments or confrontations that you know about?”
A very nasty smile twisted Clyde’s mouth.He leaned forward to be closer to the phone.
“Only my mother,” he said.“They don’t get on.”
“Anyone else?”Javi asked.“Do you know if she met with anyone, or did she take any calls she didn’t want to talk about?”
Clyde gave a short, disbelieving laugh.“She’s an FBI agent,” he said.“She couldn’t talk to me about half the shit she does.What sort of question is that?What are you getting at?”
“There were no signs of physical force to explain Joel’s absence at your house,” Javi said.“SSA Joel either left on her own for some reason, or the coercion took another form.”
It took a second.
When the penny dropped, Clyde looked confused for a moment, then pivoted to anger.Dull red flushed up from the collar of his shirt as he jabbed a blunt, callused finger at Javi’s face.
“Fuck you,” he said.The legs of the chair scraped against the tiles as he pushed it back from the table and stood up.“Fuck your questions.If there’s anyone in that office that’s corrupt, it’s you.Tracy knew that.Maybe she found a way to prove it?Is that what happened?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Javi saw one of the agents pull his phone out to take a call.Right on cue.
“I understand you’re upset, Mr.Limehouse,” Javi said.“But—”
Clyde picked up the plastic cup of tea and tossed it in Javi’s face.The liquid had cooled while they talked, but it was still hot enough to make Javi flinch.He scrambled up out of the seat to brush himself off, the tea leaving watery brown stains on his shirt.The instinctive response saved him from getting hit by the table that Limehouse flipped over.
It clattered against the floor.Javi’s phone went skidding over the tiles.
The other agents—one still clumsily trying to juggle the emergent situation and a call with his boss—hurried in their direction.At the other end of the lobby, the Center’s security guard clued in that something was happening and did the same.
“This isn’t going to help anyone,” Javi pointed out.
“You implying my wife is corrupt isn’t going to help anyone, least of all her,” Clyde snapped.“Tracy’s a good woman and a good fucking agent.I don’t deserve her as a wife, and you definitely didn’t deserve the second chance she gave you.”
“She didn’t give me a first chance,” Javi snapped back, his temper finally slipping out of his grip.“Never mind a second one.And maybe that was because she had a guilty conscience of her own she was trying to distract from.What did Tracy have to hide, Clyde?”
Clyde threw a punch.It was telegraphed enough that Javi had already started to move back, but the man moved faster than he’d expected.Callused bruiser’s knuckles connected with the middle of his face.His nose made a distinct crackle-pop, like snapped Styrofoam and glass, and the sharp liver and pennies taste of blood filled the back of his throat.
Shit.
Javi blinked through the pain.He finished the step back and grabbed Clyde’s wrist in one hand.A sharp twist and the heel of his hand jabbed into Clyde’s elbow made the man fold from the joint down.Javi used the leverage to put him on the ground, the meaty thud of it brutally loud, and twisted the arm up and back to the pain point.He could feel Clyde’s tendons tighten and flex under his grip as he tried to struggle.Javi planted his foot between the man’s shoulders and bore down to keep him on the ground.
Spots of blood stained Clyde’s white T-shirt.For a second, Javi blanked on why, then remembered.
“Shit,” he muttered out loud as he blotted his nose against the sleeve of his jacket.
The two other agents, one still narrating events to Kincaid, and the security guard had broken into a run.Javi wiped under his nose again, the pain flaring red up into his sinuses, and held up a hand to ward them off.
“It’s fine,” he said shortly.“Mr.Limehouse is just concerned about his wife.”
Clyde snarled something unflattering and tried to get up off the ground.A little extra pressure on his wrist made him go slack, sweat visible on the back of his neck as he grudged a “Sorry” into the tiles.
He didn’t mean it.He didn’t have to.
Javi waited a moment longer for everyone’s blood to cool.Then he let go of Clyde’s arm and stepped back sharply.Just in case.
The older agent stepped in to give Clyde a hand up.The offer was snarled at, and Clyde clumsily lurched back up under his own steam.He stood there, sweating and rubbing his shoulder roughly with his other hand, and glared at Javi.His nostrils flared, and he spat on the ground—motivating a weak “Oh, no call forthat,” from the Center’s puffed security guard.
“You want to know what my wife did when she wasn’t at work?Think about you,” he said.“What you did, what you deserved, what was going to happen to you.I honestly thought she was overcompensating to hide her real feelings, and the two of you were fucking.”
The outburst was so far from what Javi had expected that all he could think to say was, “I’m gay.”
