Mean Streak

“Why?”

Hayes glanced at her but didn’t say anything.

“Well?” Jack prompted, raising his eyebrows.

“She was a blond in black running tights who had a dynamite body, and she was alone.”

Jack looked at her again. “Fair enough.”

“What’s important,” Hayes said with impatience, “is that by the time I reached that trail, she was lying in the middle of it, concussed and almost frozen. I gathered her up and took her to my place.”

“Why not to a hospital?”

“Several reasons.”

“Besides the black running tights.”

“I didn’t know what had happened to her. If she’d fallen, that was one thing. If she’d been attacked, she was safer with me.”

“That’s debatable, but go on.”

“She recovered enough so that when the weather cleared, I brought her—”

“I know that part. Knight and Grange filled me in. The gas station. The media frenzy.”

“I didn’t know until after she was back in the fold that I had returned her to her would-be killer.”

“Jeff.”

“The very one.”

“So,” Connell said, drawing out the word and nodding as he pieced it together, “you knew she was in mortal danger.”

“Yes.”

“But being you and wanting to stay under the radar, you couldn’t get the world’s attention and announce it.”

Hayes figured his silence was confirmation enough.

“Instead,” Jack continued, “you sent up a smoke signal for me to come running.”

“My fingerprint on the faucet.”

“A perfect thumbprint in an otherwise pristine cabin,” Connell said wryly. “I knew you wouldn’t be that careless.”

“How long did it take you to figure it out?”

“Five, six minutes tops.”

“You’re rusty. Or freakin’ old.”

“Cut me some slack. I’d just gotten off a red-eye from Seattle.”

“I was beginning to think I should have been less subtle, done something like paint a red arrow on a signpost pointing you in my direction. TO BANNOCK: THIS WAY, JERK-OFF.”

“I realize it would have been boring, conventional, and totally un-Bannock-like, but you could have just picked up the phone and called me.”

“And cheat you out of the thrill of the chase?”