Buck Wilmington glanced over at the clock on the microwave one more time as he rounded the corner of the kitchen doorway. Where the fuck was Larabee? He flicked his eyes over to the calendar. Not that he expected the date to somehow miraculously change. All day, all the long, perfect, blue, golden autumn day, that date had sat suspended over his head, the way the hush had been suspended over ATF Team Seven’s bullpen, over Josiah and Nathan, and even Ezra, the way they all seemed to hold their breaths, like men expecting something to explode. Even after Chris had gone off to the courthouse shortly before noon. And then didn’t come back.
Buck felt like kicking something. At least that would be something new to do. He’d already spent an hour surfing the Internet in the den. The TV had long since ceased to do more than annoy. And there was only so much he could find in the kitchen to occupy his time. Pieces of the morning newspaper lay shredded across the oak kitchen table. Shredding the paper seemed a poor substitute to shredding Chris himself. So on his twelfth or maybe fifteenth pass between the kitchen and the front door, Buck began to plan out exactly what he was going to say to Chris before he killed him with his bare hands.
Double circles of headlights swung across the front of the house, gliding across the kitchen, blurring over the frosted glass in the front door before coming to rest on the wall beside the door. Buck stopped in mid step to look at his watch. Nearly ten. God damn him.
Buck didn’t turn on the hall light. Chris was damn lucky the boys insisted that he leave the porch light on. He more than suspected Chris had gone and got drunk. And more than half decided to tell him to go back to whatever shit hole he crawled out of.
The bitter earth smell of autumn leaves and a far off tinge of wood smoke came in with him on a gusty exhalation of October. For a moment, Buck was sure Chris didn’t see him standing there in the darkness. Then Chris’s head came up. He reared back in surprise.
He said nothing as he shut the door behind him. He passed Buck into the kitchen and reached for the coffee pot.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Buck hissed at him, thoughts of killing him scattering with the sudden business at hand. Cobalt blue eyes raked the figure up and down. No reeling. No staggering. No whiskey smell. No bruises. Except for the tie hanging loose and the rolled up sleeves, he could have been just coming back from work.
Chris turned back from pouring a cold cup of coffee and squinted at Buck in the kitchen light. “I told you,” he replied curtly.
Buck clenched his fists and willed them to unclench again. He took a step toward Chris. “Court don’t last from noon to ten p.m.,” he said, his voice dropping to a low warning hum.
Chris glanced up, slipping past him, sliding the cup into the microwave and sloshing cold coffee onto the floor. He swore and reached for a napkin.
Then Buck had him by the collar and shoved him up against the counter.
“Answer the god damn question.”
Hands came up so fast the hold was broken before Buck even registered the move. Hazel green eyes glared back at him, flat, cold, and lit up by both fatigue and some barely contained fury.
Buck backed up a step. But he didn’t back off. “D’Angelo called. She said you left the courthouse at 6.”
“I told you,” Chris said, turning away again and punching the numbers into the microwave with vicious stabbing motions. “I went for a drive.”
“You went for a four hour drive?” Buck hissed back incredulous. “Where the hell’d you drive to?”
“Fuck you,” Chris answered.
“No fuck you,” Buck growled back raising his voice. “Fuck you and your four hour pity party. Two little boys live in this house, Chris. Two little boys who need dinner and baths and fathers to check their homework. Who do you think did that while you were out wallowing?”
The absence of a fist connecting with his face surprised Buck more than anything. Although from the look on Chris’s face he sure as hell wanted to deliver one.
“Shut the fuck up,” Chris hissed, glancing out into the hallway. “Unless you want to wake them up,” he snapped. He glared at Buck again, thinking on about a half a hundred dates that Buck went off on until God knew what hour, while Chris made dinner, bathed boys, checked homework, soothed anxieties, and read bed time stories. He held his tongue from further comment.
Buck watched Chris’s eyes slide over to the calendar. The rest of him followed a moment later. The smell of October wafted faintly by, and Buck noticed the dark spots on the knees of Chris’s black dress pants. Shit. The cemetery. He should have known that.
He looked up to see Chris watching him.
He swallowed, dropped his voice again. “Where else did you go?”
Chris’s eyes slid away. “No where,” he muttered. “Back to work. Back to the DA. Out into nowhere.”
Buck pulled out a wooden chair. The microwave signaled the completion of its mission. Chris opened the door and stared at the coffee, the scowl twisting his face having nothing to do with the coffee.
“It’s over,” Buck said quietly.
“It’s not over,” Chris snapped back, the thread of defiance running under his voice like steel.
“D’Angelo said the sentencing is scheduled for tomorrow.”
Chris dropped his head, but Buck saw the white knuckled grip on the hot mug.
Then the microwave door slammed so hard it bounced back open as the little wooden cart moved backward as if in fright.
“Fuck!” Chris swore again.
This time it was Buck who glanced up toward the ceiling, as if he could see whether this outburst had awakened the two small boys who slept in bunkbeds upstairs.
This time Chris was looking right at him. “They came back guilty,” he snapped. “Guilty.” Almost disbelief. Coffee forgotten, Chris was now headed for the cabinet where they kept the liquor glasses.
Buck held himself still in his chair, and took hold of the raging bull by its horns.
“He was guilty, Chris.” The voice was soft, low, sensible, reasonable. “You know that. I know that. And Harrison knows that, too.”
Chris stopped, hand already on one of the rocks glasses up on the top shelf.
He set the glass on the counter as he turned to face Buck. “He never lifted a finger to save himself. Wouldn’t tell the DA anything. Wouldn’t name a single name. He god damn sat there and took all the god damn blame while the god damn bastards who set him up got away clean.”
“Chris…” Buck said.
A finger stabbed across the kitchen toward him. “Shut up.”
And Buck did.
Chris leaned back on the counter and leveled a smoldering glare at him. “We know who did this. Who masterminded it. Who’s behind it. All he ever had to do was give us a piece to confirm it. Instead he’s going to jail for the rest of his useful life.”
“He has a wife and kid,” Buck said. “They threatened his family. What’d you expect him to do?”
The words had hardly even hit the air. Chris could hardly even have had time to hear them, let alone wear that cold shock across his face, as if Buck had hit him with a jug of ice water.
Shit! Buck thought, the words echoing round in his head. What’d you expect him to do? Put the bastards away. Rely on the police and the feds to take care of any threats. Like Chris had done.
Buck got up and got a glass for himself.
Chris stood there like a stone statue, while Buck moved around him. Just the hazel green eyes following him. There was silence.
“Was that what I was supposed to do?”
The voice was so quiet that if Buck hadn’t known Chris quite so well, he wouldn’t have heard the dangerous metallic tone. He looked at Chris carefully, knowing only too well how the wrong words could bring down all holy hell on his head.
“Was I supposed to give in and walk off the case?” Chris repeated, clarified, just a hair louder.
Buck stared at him. No. Yes. Maybe. Oh Jesus he was so tired of what if…
He inhaled slowly, carefully. “The man who walked away from that case,” he said, matching Chris’s tone, quiet for quiet, steel for steel, “would not have been the man that Sarah loved. And you know that.”
He let the statement hang there but refused to let go of Chris’s gaze. The silence stretched another few ticks.
“That bastard who planted the bomb is to blame. And no one else. Dowd and Nitschke bought and sold those arms. Harrison got squeezed in the middle.”
Still no reply.
“He committed a crime. For that he does his time. There’s justice in that, Chris,” Buck said quietly. “Let it lie.”
Buck poured whiskey into both their glasses.
Chris downed his with such practiced ease that Buck doubted it even touched his tongue before bouncing off the back of his throat and hitting his stomach.
The expression that came back down was almost vacant, staring past Buck into forever.
Buck’s heart clenched at the ragged tone, lent the hoarseness of whiskey burn.
“And who’s going to tuck his boy in at night? And chase off monsters? And take turns at bath time? See him learn to drive? See him graduate college?” The far away gaze pulled back, refocused on him. “There justice in that, Buck?”
Buck refused to give in to the baiting tone. Damn Chris for seeing in that simple restraint his victory. His useless, empty point won.
The glass clanked as Chris literally dropped it into the sink, before he passed like a shadow into the hallway.
“What kind of a piss poor shit hole world is it where the little kids suffer for their fathers’ stupidity?” The voice floated back, taking on a mocking tone as it added, “You got an answer for that one?”
Still in the kitchen, Buck braced himself against the countertop, watching his knuckles turn white against the granite, counting down from fifteen. He put his glass carefully in the sink and turned out the light.
From the bottom of the stairs, he could see Chris’s shadow cross the nightlight between the boys’ bathroom and their room. He heard their door creak open. And he moved more hurriedly up the steps. Larabee, anger and whiskey were a volatile combination. Not that Chris would take it out on the boys, but hell—Buck wasn’t sure he believed in auras and vibrations and all that crap but there wasn’t any reason in the world that those two boys, who’d already had a world of hurt, ought to be exposed to the toxic mix of anger and guilt and pain that was radiating off of Chris tonight.
The hallway light spilled across the blue stainproofed rug, puddling over the tops of toys still lying across the floor. Chris leaned into the doorway. Craning his neck, he could make out the lump of blanket on eight year old Vin Tanner’s top bunk. He bent his neck to look down into the bottom bunk. And met the blinking, wide-awake eyes of six year old J.D. Dunne.
Shit, he thought, adding this to the list of his failures for today. J.D. Harrison. He refused to name the failure that bloodied this day on the map of his life, over and over again, once a year. He swallowed and focused back on the six year old, sitting there cross legged and as still as he thought he’d ever seen the child. Fear. He named it. The boys had made so much progress and here he’d brought his anger and his own private hell swooping down, knocking them back to square one.
Instinct took over from the barking dogs of blame and Chris squatted down in the doorway, made himself smaller. Hell, he must look like a monster all in black standing in this doorway.
Footed pajamas in a size small slid from the bed and came slowly toward him.
“Did I wake you up, J.D.?” he whispered, so as not to wake Vin.
The boy shook his head no, then yes. Then his face screwed up in an expression Chris could not name.
Face to face, they waited, Chris’s hands hanging patiently, unmoving, while he waited for the boy’s thoughts to unravel themselves.
“Da said you had to work late,” J.D. said quietly. Well, with J.D. quietly, was a relative term, but it was clear that he was trying.
Chris closed his eyes slowly. Of course Buck had said that. What else would Buck have told two little boys who sometimes worried that their world would come crashing back down around their ears? They’d tried hard never to lie to Vin and J.D. There was no point telling them the big grown up lies anyway. “Don’t worry that will never happen.” ‘Cause sometimes it does. ‘Cause it’s happened before. But Buck had lied tonight. Because what else would Buck have said? Chris is out driving aimlessly across the countryside? Chris is drowning his sorrows in self pity? Chris is… He stopped. He wondered what else Buck had thought he’d been out doing. His track record wasn’t so hot. Especially on today of all days of the year. He swore silently.
J.D. was staring at him, sleep-tousled head cocked to one side.
“You was swearing a lot,” he said finally, wrinkling his nose.
Chris dropped his head. “I know,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I woke you.” He lifted his eyes to meet J.D.’s
The boy’s nose stayed wrinkled with thought. “Did you hit your hand with the hammer?”
Chris stared at him uncomprehending. Then he realized that J.D. hadn’t heard much more than those kinds of forbidden words that a boy’s ears zoom in on like radar picks up a jumbo jet. The kind of swear words Buck let loose with when he smacked his hand with the hammer last summer. When they’d had to explain that sometimes grownups forget to use their polite words when something really hurts.
The thought might have been funny if there had been room inside Chris to find laughter.
Sometimes it all just hurt too damn much.
The words slid out almost without him noticing. “It was a different kind of hurt, J.D.”
The nose unwrinkled and the whole little face seemed to form a silent “oh” of comprehension.
And then one little hand was picking up his, while the boy peered down, puzzled. Looking for the cuts and bruises, Chris guessed.
There was no air in the room for Chris to breathe in as he watched this tiny caretaker look for something to put a shiny Scooby Doo bandaid on. Nevertheless he rasped his explanation past his closed up throat. In boy language. In J.D. language. “It’s an inside kind of hurt.”
J.D. dropped his hand and regarded him solemnly in the light spilling in from the hallway. “Oh,” he said wisely. “A heart hurt.”
Chris’s eyes stung suddenly. His head betrayed him, nodding once silently.
“There’s only one cure for those,” the boy said in a tone of voice that sounded an awful lot like Buck. And two arms wrapped themselves around his neck, knocking him backward against the closet door. The metal door rattled as he bumped down awkwardly, his chest covered with a human heat machine in blue feetie pajamas.
Chris was not proud. He had long passed pride today. And he pulled that little heat machine close around him, and held on with both arms. Hoping like hell the boy wouldn’t notice the hot tears that slithered down his face and dropped onto the stain resistant, flame retardant, blue, furry plush. Surely it was too much to think he could hide his shuddering inhale.
There was a soft slither and a thump. Through blurry eyes Chris saw another pair of feet, bare ones, padding across the carpet.
Rubbing his eyes, Vin Tanner stopped in front of him. Chris lifted his head to face the boy, as J.D. pulled back and sagged against Chris’s left arm. If Vin saw the tears, he did not seem too concerned. “You’re home,” he said, in a sleepy satisfied sort of way. Like taking attendance.
Chris pulled the boy closer with his freed right arm. And Vin did not resist, bumping sleepily against his shoulder.
Collecting himself, Chris managed to get his knees under him. He swallowed twice to clear his throat. “Yup,” he said quietly. “I’m home.”
“Vin was worried,” J.D. said matter of factly.
“Was not,” Vin retorted, betrayal in his voice.
“Yes you were,” J.D. replied, rubbing his eyes and then his nose. “You didn’t even want dessert.”
The eight year old exhaled. Chris saved him from having to make up an excuse. To learn to lie to hide the way he felt. Just the kind of lesson Chris never wanted to pass on to his sons. The world would teach both of them that soon enough.
He moved both boys toward their beds. “It’s late,” he said.
“I know,” J.D. answered, climbing back into his bed and snuggling up against his stuffed Scooby Doo. “You sure were gone a long time.”
Vin huffed again, sliding his thin little body across the length of his top bunk.
Chris leaned over and ran a hand across Vin’s tousled blond hair. “Good night, Cowboy,” he said quietly. And just so only the two of them could hear, added. “Thanks for missing me.” He brushed a kiss over the curls before the eight year old could protest.
Then he leaned into the bottom bunk. The two eyes blinked at him, still too wide awake.
“Better now?” J.D. asked. Just like his fathers always asked him.
A smile tugged at Chris’s lips and for J.D. he let it show. “Much better,” he said. The little boy smiled back.
“I love you, Chris,” J.D. said automatically, the sentiment marred by a sudden open mouthed, gap toothed yawn.
Chris felt his smile widen. “I love you too, kiddo,” he replied, bending to smooth down the blanket and plant a kiss on the straight black hair.
Long eyelashes slid down. And Chris would almost have sworn the boy was asleep before he even got out of the room. He shook his head, marveling. Boys only came with two gears on their transmissions. Full speed and full stop.
Still looking backward as he pulled the door shut, he jumped as he nearly ran into Buck.
“See now,” Buck said easily, indicating the closed door. He let the statement hang, turning and heading up the hallway. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
Chris stared at him, shaking his head. Hell if he knew what Buck was trying to say half the time. But he bit, following him up the hall. “What?” he asked.
Buck turned and grinned a grin at him that was only half humorous and half something far harder. “I was all set to knock you on your ass,” he replied. Then he shrugged. “Who’d a-figured J.D.’d do it for me.“
A rueful smile twisted up Chris’s face.
Buck’s grin widened as he added. “Who’d a-thought he’d do it so well, too.”
Chris’s gaze slid to the floor as he considered that. He nodded slowly.
“Just goes to show you…,” Buck said pointedly, giving a sharp knuckle rap to the side of Chris’s rock hard, thick skull.
“Never send a man to do a boy’s job?” Chris interrupted, looking up, a peace offering in his face. Not an apology. But it would do.
And the unwilling snort of humor from his lifelong friend told Chris that it was enough. For now.
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