Mean Streak

“Because now I’m the bully.”

She was glad he’d said it and not she. “Aren’t you?”

“This is why I didn’t tell you,” he said, his tone cold and clipped. “Why I never wanted you to know.”

“You would have let me exit your life without ever knowing—”

“Yes. Because you’ll never understand.”

“Try me.”

“Justify my actions to you?”

“No, justify your actions to yourself, Hayes. Because I think that’s what you’re running from.”

He was rocking back and forth on his heels, his expression angry and troubled. She discerned that this wasn’t the first time he’d grappled with this. He said, “Eric Johnson will be remembered for gunning down seven people. But no one will remember, or even know, the names of the people who put him behind that brick wall that day, fortified with a weapon and ammo and a consuming hatred for humankind.

“The bullies who instilled that hatred were never made to account. I think they should. I think they should because he died that day, too.” He poked his chest with his index finger. “And I was the one who had to kill him.”

He gave her a hard stare, as though daring her to take issue. Then he pushed away from the window ledge and began to prowl aimlessly around the room, as though he felt caged, perhaps by his own conscience.

“Why do you think Connell has pursued you all these years?”

He made a dismissive gesture. “Hell if I know. Maybe he wants to assuage his own misgivings about how that mission was…resolved. Maybe he hasn’t found a replacement for me on his team. Or he’s got nothing better to do, or could be he’

s just stubborn as a damn mule.”

“Those aren’t the reasons.”

He stopped roaming and turned to her. “Okay, Doc, enlighten me.”

“He cares about you and hates knowing that you’re wasting yourself by living a shadowy, lonely life.”

He tilted his head. “Gee whiz. You figured out all that in…what?” He made a show of looking at his wristwatch. “Ten minutes? You must’ve taken advanced psychiatry classes in med school.”

“You’re pushing my buttons again.”

“Well, you’re pushing mine, too. Who says I’m lonely? And you’re one to talk about self-imposed loneliness. Married to a man with an icicle where his dick ought to be. And how about your distance running? I’m no shrink, but it seems obsessive. What do you need that you can’t find standing still? What are you running to? Or from?”

His intention was to make her angry or to turn the conversation off himself and on to her, but she refused to take umbrage. “I’ve been asking myself those same questions recently.”

“Well keep to them and stop trying to analyze me.”

“When did you last see your sister?”

“We talked two nights ago while I was keeping vigil outside the hospital.”

“That’s not what I asked. She loves you, Hayes.”

“How the hell do you know?”

“Connell.”

“The man’s all mouth.”

“Rebecca loves you.”

“It’s her main character flaw.”