Protector. Part 3

"Come on, Mike," Jane quickly interject. "It's okay. Take a little bite."

"Noooo," Mike replies.

Dale smacks Mike's head. "Stop whining and eat your G.o.dd.a.m.n dinner!" Mike reacts with a m.u.f.fled cry. "Did you hear me?" Dale screams as he leans over to Mike, inches from his face. "Shut up! You understand? You understand me?"

Mike sinks down into his chair and cries out, "Don't. Don't . . ."

Dale stands up and his chair skims across the floor. Jane bolts out of her seat.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit, you weak little f.u.c.k!" Dale yells. "You want something to cry about?" Dale grabs Mike by the back of his shirt and yanks him out of his chair.

"Janie!" Mike screams, trying to reach out to her. "Janie!"

Dale gives Mike a hard slap across the face, sending his son onto the floor. "I said shut up! You understand?!"

Mike screams as he rolls into a fetal position and covers his ears. "Janie!"

"Janie?" Mike's voice shook Jane out of her daze. "You okay?"

It took Jane a second to put herself back into the moment. "Sure," she said, quickly gathering up the fallen photos from the kitchen floor.

"Here, I'll help," Mike offered.

"No!" Jane barked. "I'll do it."

Mike stood in the doorway, wedging his body against the frame. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic, you know?"

"Right. Traffic," Jane said as she slid the last Polaroid off the floor and buried the bundle in the box.

Mike looked around the room with an uneasy stare. His thick shock of blond hair fell over his eyes. With a nervous jerk, he flicked his head backward, forcing his hair in place. Although Mike was thirty, he still had that doe-eyed, innocent look, with a tinge of adolescent awkwardness. Even his body, with its soft muscular tone, seemed underdeveloped. "It feels weird in here. I mean, like, him not being here, you know?"

Jane slammed the lid onto the cardboard box. "He might be horizontal in a hospital bed right now. But take my word for it, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's still here."

"You bring the Corona?" Mike asked, keeping his priorities straight.

"Have I ever let you down?" Jane said, pointing to the six-pack.

Mike broke into a wide, toothy grin. "I can always count on you." He crossed in front of the television. "Hey, Janie, look! Chris is on TV."

Jane let out a long sigh. "Oh, G.o.d. Turn off the a.s.shole."

Mike was drawn into Chris' commentary. He was standing outside a home, a ma.s.s of microphones in front of him, addressing the media. "Hey, Janie. You know anything about that double murder last night?"

"People get killed every day. Turn him off!"

Mike poked his head into the kitchen. "Think that little girl saw anything?"

Like an irate parent, Jane walked with purpose into the living room. "Jesus, Mike! Turn it off!" With that, Jane angrily slammed off the TV.

Two hours later, the hall closet was empty of all the boxes. Jane pulled out a few cla.s.sic crime scene text manuals for her home library and dumped the leftovers into garbage bags. The rest of the house would have to wait for another day. Besides, after she and Mike downed three Coronas each, there wasn't much desire to continue.

They sat outside on the cement steps that led from the kitchen to the workshop. The heat of the late May day had burned off, leaving a stippled layer of Denver pollution against the pink-stained sky. Jane lit two cigarettes, handing one to Mike. She took a swig of Corona and let out a low sigh.

"Does your hand still hurt?" Mike asked.

"I don't know. I stopped connecting to the pain a few days ago."

Mike grinned. "Thanks to a fifth, eh?"

"You got it," Jane said with a half-smile as she took another sip of beer.

There was a moment of silence between them before Mike spoke up. "Hey, I got news for you!" Mike said brightly. "I made a decision."

"Oh, G.o.d, you made a decision. And what would that be?"

"I'm gonna ask Lisa to move in."

"Who's Lisa?"

"You know . . . Lisa. We've been seeing each other for two months. Well, technically, six weeks. But I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna ask her."

"Mike, that's not a good idea. It's six weeks. You've spent half of those six weeks at my place. So, technically, it's three weeks and that's not long enough."

"Janie, I think she's the one-"

"You thought Kelly-"

"Karen," Mike interrupted.

"Karen. You thought Karen was 'the one.' You thought Lori was 'the one.'"

"Okay, yeah, at the time. But Lisa's different."

"They're all different. And then it falls apart, you get hurt and it's a mess."

"f.u.c.k, Janie. Sometimes you act like my warden."

"That's my job, Mike." Jane cast her eyes toward the ground.

"Don't you want me to be happy?"

"Happy? Mike, the only happy people are the ignorant. n.o.body with a functioning brain is happy. They know better." Jane looked over at Mike who was sinking into himself. "I don't want to see you get hurt. We've got each other. That's one more person than a lot of people have. I'll never hurt you and I'll never let you down. You can't say that for all the Lisas out there."

Mike thought for a second before he spoke. "You got Chris."

"f.u.c.k Chris! I'm getting rid of Chris!"

"I thought you and he were-"

"We're nothing!" Jane felt herself slipping. She didn't know whether it was the beer or the end of an awful day but she had to drag herself back into the moment. She took a deep drag off her cigarette. "Sometimes I'm talking to Chris and it's like I'm talking to Dad." Jane looked off to the side, lost in a pocket of emotion.

Mike seriously considered what Jane said. "s.h.i.t . . . That's gotta suck." He downed another gulp of beer. "You still having those dreams about the explosion?"

"Yeah. Sure."

"I thought so. When I tried to wake you up this morning, you were really deep sleeping."

"You should have gotten me up. I was d.a.m.n near late to work."

"You were talkin' weird again!" Mike chuckled.

Jane turned to Mike with a puzzled expression. "Huh?"

Mike grinned. "When you were sleepin' these last few days, you were quite the Chatty Cathy doll. It didn't make a s.h.i.tload of sense."

Mike's jovial recollections of her blackout irritated Jane. "What did I say?"

"It was all disjointed. But . . ." Mike suddenly remembered, "I wrote some words down that you kept repeating." He pulled a wad of receipts from his jeans pocket and sorted through the disorganized bundle. "Here it is. You explain this to me: 'Navy blue . . . Glock something or another . . . Bright light . . . Hold on to me-' "

Jane s.n.a.t.c.hed the corner of paper out of Mike's hand. Her heart raced as she read the words. Except for "Hold on to me," it was a printed repeat of the odd staccato visions. "When did I say this?"

"You said it lots of times over the last few days. You said other s.h.i.t, too, but I couldn't understand it." Jane stared uneasily at the piece of paper. Mike's happy-go-lucky countenance melted into a look of concern. "You okay?"

Jane took a final swig of beer, finishing off the bottle. "Of course I'm okay," she replied, as if saying that statement would make it true. "Come on, let's get outta here." Jane collected the empty Corona bottles.

"This is a s.h.i.tload of trash. I don't want to drag it to the curb," Mike said, a slight whine to his voice. Jane instructed him to snag the dolly from the workshop. He disappeared into the small, dirt-floored side building, leaving one of the large wooden doors wide open. "I can't find it!" he yelled out to Jane.

"Keep looking," Jane said with an edge.

"Man, it's a f.u.c.kin' mess in here. This is gonna be a b.i.t.c.h to clean out, Janie!"

Jane felt her body tense up and her jaw clench. She stared at the open door to the workshop and wished Mike would find the dolly and come back. "Forget cleaning!" Jane yelled. "We'll burn the f.u.c.ker down!"

Mike emerged from the workshop with the dolly. "Cool!" He rolled the garbage bags to the curb while Jane locked up and turned off the lights save the outside porch lamp. She felt the urge to break the stonecold silence so she popped a CD into the car's player. Turning up the volume, the gritty voice of Bob Seger sang "Katmandu." She picked up the six-pack of empty Corona bottles and walked around the car. Mike propped the dolly against the house and crossed over to Jane. She reached down and grabbed one of the Coronas by its long, thin neck and looked up at her dad's workshop, the red glow of the setting sun darting across the gla.s.s windows. Reeling back her arm, she eyed one of the workshop's windows and tossed the beer bottle toward the target. It crashed through the gla.s.s, leaving a crystal echo and a huge hole. Mike turned to her, his mouth agape. She pulled another Corona bottle from the pack and picked out another window. Hurling it through the air, it burst through the gla.s.s with a defined clatter. Jane handed Mike one of the bottles. He took it but hesitated. "Go on," Jane insisted.

"But it's his-"

"f.u.c.k him, Mike," Jane said with a merciless tone. "f.u.c.k him."

Mike broke into a mischievous grin and hurled the bottle toward the workshop, leaving a hole in a side window. He grabbed one bottle and then another, cheering like a kid after each explosion of gla.s.s. Mike was so into the moment that he didn't see Jane pull out her pistol from her shoulder holster. When he finally turned to her, she was focused straight ahead, both hands extended, her finger brushing the trigger. He stood perfectly still, eager to find out what Jane would do. Mike watched as her eyes zoned in on a target and a peculiar look came over her face. She squeezed the trigger with precision and blew a hole the size of a baseball in the center window. Jane calmly lowered the gun, still staring straight ahead. After several seconds, she turned to Mike. "Ready to go?"

It was after nine o'clock when Jane turned onto Milwaukee Street. She'd stopped at the liquor store to pick up a fifth of Jack Daniels and consumed a good six swigs by the time she neared her house. As she drove closer to her home, she saw a figure seated on her front steps. At first, she thought it was Chris, but the build was wrong. It wasn't until she pulled in front of her house that she realized it was Sergeant Weyler.

Chapter 6.

Sergeant Weyler looked just as dapper in his suit and tie as he had over twelve hours earlier. Jane felt a rush of heat hit her head-partly from the three Coronas and whiskey she had just consumed and partly from the irritation at seeing her boss waiting for her on her own front steps. Weyler sauntered over to Jane's car as she carefully slid the brown bag that held the Jack Daniels under the front seat. He leaned over on the pa.s.senger side of the Mustang, addressing her through the open window.

"Good evening, Detective Perry."

"h.e.l.lo," Jane said, staring Weyler in the eye, trying to mask the slight buzz.

"How are you?" Weyler said pointedly.

"How am I supposed to be?"

Weyler briefly surveyed the inside of the car, like a hound dog on the trail. "Have you been drinking, Detective Perry?"

Jane was a bit put off. "I've had a beer," she said with a touch of sarcasm.

"A beer?"

"Am I a suspect in a crime? Because I sure feel like one right now."

"Just a simple question-"

"Well, sir, I don't know why it matters. After all, I am on suspension."

Weyler regarded Jane very carefully. "Yes, you are."

There was an awkward pause between the two of them. Jane got out of her car. "Shouldn't you be home with your wife watching Prime Suspect on PBS?" Jane said, undaunted, as she lit a cigarette. "What are you doing here?"

Weyler stood straight as an arrow, pulling himself up to his full 6'4" height. "I am here, Detective Perry, to make an a.s.sessment."

"On what? My character? My integrity? My sanity?"

"Yes."

"If you don't know those answers by now, then I guess you don't really know me." Jane headed toward her front door.

"I know you better than you think I do."

Jane stopped, her back to Weyler. She half believed him as a shudder raced down her spine. Jane turned back to Weyler. "What do you want?"

"I had a visit from Martha Durrett today. She was complaining about certain obscenities."