Iris Johansen - Quinn

His eyes were narrowed on her expression. “You really don’t think I did it, do you?”

“At last, a breakthrough.” Her hands dropped from his shoulders. “How many times do I have to say it? Black was wrong. He may have believed you killed Bonnie, but that doesn’t make it true.” She sat back on her heels. “Dammit, you’d think that you wanted it to be true.”

“God, no.” His voice was hoarse. “I’ve been living in a nightmare.”

The pain in his expression was terrible to see. She wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him. Don’t do it. She was already too close to him.

“You deserved it. All you had to do was take the situation apart and look at the separate pieces.”

He started to smile, then shook his head. “You know I still don’t believe you. I want to. But I’m afraid that I’ll find out that I was right, and you’re wrong.”

“Then you wouldn’t be any worse off, would you?”

This time the smile actually came into being. “Oh, I would be worse off. It’s a terrible thing to lose hope.” He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “But it would be worth it to have a chance to go down the road you’re leading me.”

She could feel her skin flush beneath his fingers, and her chest tightened. No, she mustn’t feel like this. It got in the way. She moved her head, and his hand dropped away from her face. “Nice words. Now shouldn’t we get down to business? I completely blew it with Eve tonight. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t show up here and try to track me down. We need to be gone before that happens.”

“And where are we going?”

“If Black didn’t kill Bonnie, and you didn’t kill Bonnie, then we have to find out who did.”

“Logical.” He was thinking. She could almost see the wheels turning. “Okay. If Black didn’t kill Bonnie and was certain that I did, it was because Queen and Jacobs had told him I had done it. Queen must have even paid Black to shoulder the blame, so that I would search for him all those years. Why?”

“Eve said that she thought that Queen was afraid that if you found out that you’d killed your daughter during one of your blackouts, you’d have a complete breakdown. He wouldn’t want you to be put away in a mental institution, where he couldn’t control you. Doctors ask too many questions, and you knew too much about his criminal activities.” She frowned. “And I accepted that explanation because it all made sense.”

“It still makes sense.” His lips twisted. “It’s difficult to discard it and look in any other direction. Why else would Queen go to all that trouble to make Black a decoy?”

“Unless he killed Bonnie himself.”

“And why would he do that? He had no reason. Black might have had revenge as a motive, but Queen was still using me to do his dirty jobs all over the world and had no idea that I was beginning to suspect him.”

“I don’t know why, dammit.” Every question had a roadblock, and her frustration level was climbing. “And we can’t even ask the bastard. Black killed Queen.”

“Back to square one,” Gallo said. Then suddenly an indefinable expression flickered over his face. “Or maybe not. Jacobs.”

Her gaze flew to his face. “Queen’s assistant?”

He nodded. “You could call him that. Lieutenant Thomas Jacobs. He’d been joined at the hip with Queen at Army Intelligence for years. And he was partner in Queen’s various crooked enterprises. He was with Queen from the beginning. He was always there in the background, even in that first meeting when I was sent into North Korea. I never considered him a factor because Queen always dominated.”

“But he might know something?”

Gallo nodded. “It’s a possibility. Just because he was in the background doesn’t mean that Queen didn’t trust him. It was a long-standing relationship. Maybe Queen even found Jacobs more valuable because he was the invisible man.”

Invisible. Yes, Catherine had not considered Jacobs important when she’d been investigating Nate Queen and trying to trace Gallo. He’d been completely overshadowed by Queen. But now he was standing alone and might be the key. “Where is he? How can we get to him?”

“He was still at INSCOM the last time I talked to Queen weeks ago. But a lot has happened since then. After Black was killed, the ledger that held proof of Queen’s and Jacobs’s smuggling and drug dealing must have been discovered by the local police. There’s no indication in it that it had anything to do with Army Intelligence, but they would have had Eve’s statement about that. And the book had to be on Black’s body at the time I killed him. If the sheriff followed up on it, then Jacobs has to be in big trouble.”

Catherine shook her head. “The sheriff didn’t mention any ledger to me when I was on the search for you those first few days. But then we weren’t concerned about anything but finding you.”

“Yes, I felt very important,” Gallo said. “I would have felt still more important if I’d known you’d joined them on the hunt. You were much more interesting.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” she said bluntly. “You didn’t care a damn about whether I was after you or not. You were too busy trying to get yourself killed.”

“And you’ve already remarked on that particular idiocy.”

“It bears repeating. Why didn’t you-” She stopped, and added with exasperation, “If you have this intimate relationship with Bonnie, why didn’t she just tell you that you hadn’t killed her?”

“I don’t know. I was in torment. There were moments when I didn’t even believe Bonnie was actually there.” He shook his head. “I just knew that I couldn’t take my own life.”

“Then your daughter is the most unsatisfactory spirit in the universe. What good is she?” She turned away. “And it makes me doubt even more that she actually exists. If you and Eve weren’t two of the most intelligent and grounded people I’ve ever met, I’d be sure of it.”

“But you’re not sure.” He smiled faintly. “And it’s bothering the hell out of you.”

“I’ll get over it.” And she’d get over the effect Gallo was having on her. She just had to block those parts of her mind and body that seemed to be acutely and exquisitely attuned to him. “After I find out what happened to Bonnie and I can put you behind me. Then I’ll be able to move on with no looking back.” She took out her phone. “Put out the fire while I call the sheriff and see what I can find out about that ledger. Then we’ll get on the road and try to track down Jacobs.”

He nodded and began to extinguish the flames. “As you command.”

For the time being, she thought ruefully. Gallo wasn’t going to accept any will but his own for long. She absently watched him work about the camp as she talked to Sheriff Rupert. Lord, Gallo was stunning. In black jeans and shirt he looked lean and yet muscular, and the way he moved…

She jerked her attention back to what the sheriff was telling her.

As she hung up, Gallo turned to face her. “Well?”

“The day after Black and Queen were taken to the local morgue, Thomas Jacobs showed up with his Army Intelligence credentials and a story about how Nate Queen was undercover and trying to find a way to trap Black. According to him, Paul Black was supposed to be a suspect in the killing of an Army Intelligence officer.”

“But they already had a statement from Eve about Queen’s involvement with Black.”

“Evidently Jacobs was very plausible, and Sheriff Rupert isn’t used to dealing with military and government types. He was even impressed with my credentials.”

“It was probably not your credentials that impressed him. He’s a typical good old boy, and he appreciates a beautiful woman when he sees her.”