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“Why not?” Bitterness laced Sloane’s tone. “You suddenly need to talk things out? The silence worked fine for you for thirteen months.”
“Oh, you mean since you quit the Bureau, cut me out of your life, and walked away?”
“Walked away?” Sloane felt her restraint snap. After the past half hour, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. “How could I walk when I was shoved? The minute I didn’t handle things the way you would have, you wrote me off.” She broke off, fought for control, and then gave it up.
Stored-up rage exploded through her like cannon fire, and she planted herself right in Derek’s face, raised her head, and met his gaze with her own blazing stare. “That day in the alley when I was stabbed, my life changed forever. Mine, not yours. You had no idea what I was feeling. Not the pain. Not the fear. And not the isolation. All you knew was that my assailant was caught, the incident was over, and I should have found a way to be the person I was before. I should have risen above all adversity, overcome the trauma, and emerged as strong as before, unscathed by a near-death experience. When I couldn’t manage that, you categorized me as a weakling and a deserter—both to the Bureau and to you. Ever the Army Ranger, governed by an uncompromising set of rules and principles. You might be the family rebel who kissed off West Point and went the ROTC route while your brothers and sister followed in your father’s footsteps, but in this case, General Parker would be proud. Like him, it’s your way or the highway.”
A muscle was working furiously at Derek’s jaw. “Is that how you see it? That I pushed you away? Then how do you explain the two dozen unreturned phone calls? Or the five times I showed up at your apartment, knowing full well you were home, and stood outside pounding on your front door and bellowing for you to let me in, making such a racket that your neighbors had me thrown out of the building? Fine. I was hard on you—maybe way too hard. But you shut me down, and shut me out.”
“I nearly bled to death.”
“You think I didn’t know that? You think I wasn’t there? I showed up at that hospital the minute the call came in. I made a huge scene trying to get in and see you. But the doctors refused—not that I could blame them. They were busy trying to stop the bleeding and get you to the operating room. After the surgery, I was told you were really out of it, and visitors were discouraged. So I peeked in on you and left. When I called the next day, I was told you were wiped out and didn’t want visitors.”
“That wasn’t personal; it was true. I needed time alone.”
“Fine, well, afterward, I saw you twice—once at home and once at work. The first time you were so drugged up on painkillers, I’m not sure you even knew I was there. And the second time you were so emotionally distant, we barely connected.”
“Oh, we connected all right. Enough for you to let me know that I was overreacting in my response to what had happened and copping out by leaving the Bureau.”
Derek’s jaw tightened another notch. “I thought you were making a huge mistake. I still do. You could have been placed on medical mandate until you healed. You were a damned good agent. You speak more languages than I can count, and you’re the best hostage negotiator I’ve ever seen. You can talk a subject out of any situation, no matter how dire. There’s no good reason why you left. You could have stayed on, giving your all to the Bureau—the only difference being you wouldn’t be carrying your gun or making arrests.”
“The only difference? That’s all the difference in the world. Would you have settled for that? Never. Picture yourself watching your fellow Army Rangers deployed to the Middle East while you stayed behind and coached from the sidelines. You’d go nuts—and so would I. A medical mandate would mean I wouldn’t be a real agent anymore; I’d be a glorified pencil-pushing member of the support staff. And in my case that medical mandate wouldn’t have been for a few months. It would have been for at least a year—as it turns out, more. Did you ever stop to consider what that would have done to me?”
Derek didn’t answer, but Sloane could see by his expression that her point had gotten through.
“What’s more,” she continued, “when you saw how I was acting, did it ever occur to you that I was suffering from post-traumatic stress, not to mention enduring more pain than I ever anticipated? Or were you too pissed off that I was leaving the Bureau?”
“It wasn’t just the Bureau.” This time Derek blasted back, and Sloane was stunned by the suppressed rage in his tone. “You were leaving me, leaving us. No argument. No discussion. Just good-bye. As for what you were going through, give me a little credit. I’ve seen enough post-traumatic stress and pain to last a lifetime. I knew you were suffering. But what would you have had me do? I couldn’t get through that damned wall you’d put up. Let’s face it, Sloane, you were already gone long before you packed and left Cleveland. So, yeah, I was a principled, opinionated jerk. But at least I was willing to fight for what we had—which was rare as hell, by the way. You just gave up on it, along with your career. You were a coward, Sloane. You turned your back on everything, hoping to erase the past—and the pain—by starting a new life. But it didn’t work, did it? It’s still there, eating away at you, just like it’s eating away at me.”
Derek’s words cut through the wind and the rain, hovering like a dark, ponderous cloud.
There it was. Raw, exposed, and excruciating. Put out there for the first time.
Sloane pressed her lips together and swallowed. Rain was pouring down her face. She was shivering violently. And the pain in her hand was bordering on numbness.
This was more than she could handle.
“I can’t do this now, Derek,” she said quietly. “If you want to tear open old wounds and have it out, fine. But later. I need to get to health services. And I need to call my hand therapist. I can’t afford another setback—not again.”
Derek took one look at her white face, and nodded. “Come on.” He pressed a palm to the small of her back, guiding her toward his car. “I’ll run you over there now.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. By the time I return to pick you up, I’ll have changed your flat, started a trace on your phone stalker, and canceled dinner with McGraw. When you get back in this car, and after you’ve consulted with your hand therapist and made sure your physical scars are okay, that’s when we’re tearing open the emotional ones. So steel yourself. We’re putting all our cards on the table and finishing what we started—once and for all.”
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
DATE: 1 April
TIME: 2100 hours
OBJECTIVE: Tyche
There she was. The goddess of fortune, prosperity, and luck.
She’d stayed at work late tonight. Usually, her schedule was like clockwork. She’d leave the martial-arts academy at eight-thirty. She’d wait until after the last class was under way and her bookkeeping work was wrapped up. Then she’d head to her car, and drive back to campus.
