When Deena first ushered her into Jack’s office, Jack had been brusque and preoccupied, searching for something he’d misplaced on his desk. But when he finally raised his head and took a good look at her, he paused, his eyes clear and direct and pleased by what they saw.
Then the look passed and he avoided her gaze as if he’d been caught in some forbidden act, busying himself with his search until he uncovered a copy of the Chicago Tribune, folded to the crossword puzzle. Picking up a stubby pencil, he told her to have a seat and sank into his own chair.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You’re the first to make it through that door.”
“She has all the qualifications,” Deena told him. “And a solid ninety-eight on the written exam. That puts her at the top of the list.”
Jack nodded and looked at Rachel. “You have any idea what you’re getting yourself into?”
My own apartment, Rachel almost said, but resisted the urge. “I’ve seen my share of cop shows.”
Lame, she thought, immediately regretting it.
Way to kill ’em, Rache.
Jack looked at her as if he wasn’t sure if she was joking, then dropped his gaze to the folded newspaper in his hands.
“Tell me this,” he said without looking up. “What’s a six-letter word for German mythological protector?”
Now it was Rachel’s turn to wonder. Was he serious?
She thought a moment, reaching back to a class she’d once taken in college. World Mythologies. She’d always been good at retaining trivia (most of it about as useful as her degree in art history) and she was pretty sure she knew this one.
Mentally counting the letters, she shrugged and said, “Kobold?”
Jack’s eyebrows went up and he put his pencil to work, filling in the appropriate squares.
Then he smiled.
Rachel thought it looked good on him. Maybe too good. As their eyes met, a spark of electricity stuttered through her dormant heart.
“Welcome to the fun factory,” he said.
The incident that really warmed her to Jack happened one afternoon several weeks later. She was living the dream by then-the new job, the upstairs floor of a duplex in Bridgeport that she was just able to afford-and, miraculously, no sign of David in over a month.
Until that afternoon.
She and Jack and some of the crew were in the middle of a working lunch at Boysen’s Deli, just across from the federal building, when the door burst open and David staggered in, drunk and disorderly, a filthy, disheveled mess. His angry eyes searched the place until they locked on Rachel.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” he muttered, his voice slurred. “You think you can sneak out on me?”
Rachel felt her scalp prickle and her cheeks get warm as she shot up out of her chair. Jack was on his feet, too, and so were A.J. and Sidney, all three threatening to make a move toward David. But she waved them off and went around the table to where he was standing. The eyes of everyone in the restaurant were on her as she approached him.
“David, please,” she said, taking his arm. “Let’s go outside.”
But David recoiled at her touch and swung his free arm, backhanding her. She yelped and stumbled into the table as David clenched his fists and staggered toward her.
A.J. was the first to reach him and wrestled him to the floor. David hit it hard, grunting, resisting with everything he had-which wasn’t much. And as A.J. held him there, David let his body go limp and started to cry. Buckets.
Rachel felt a hand at her elbow and turned to find Jack. He guided her into a chair, his grip firm and sure and welcome, steadying her not just physically, but emotionally as well. The shame and anger and embarrassment she felt quickly drained away, and as she watched David cry, nothing remained but pity.
Jack brushed her hair aside and studied her cheek, which felt as if it were on fire. “You’ll be wearing that for a while,” he said. “You okay?”
Rachel nodded.
“I assume this guy is your ex?”
Another nod. “He’s had a little trouble accepting it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Rachel looked at David for a moment. His shoulders shook as he sobbed. Then she said, “Let him go.”
Jack nodded and gestured to A.J. “You heard her.”
A.J. was panting and his face was red. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Do it.”
A.J. frowned, then reluctantly rose and stepped away as Jack bent and grabbed David’s arm, helping him to his feet. David’s eyes were red and rimmed with tears, but he didn’t look at Rachel.
She watched Jack guide him out the door and onto the sidewalk. Watched them through the front window, Jack’s body language revealing only patience and authority as he sat David at the curb. He said something and David reacted visibly, looking up sharply, then slumped his shoulders in resignation as he did what he’d never done with Racheclass="underline" listened.
Jack continued talking, took out a business card, scribbled something on the back, and handed it to him. David nodded and glanced back toward the deli. Wiping his eyes with his shirtsleeve, he got up and shuffled away, heading down the street.
“Jesus Christ,” A.J. said, storming toward Jack as he came back inside. “You’re really gonna let that scumbag skate?”
Jack patted his shoulder. “Go buy yourself a cup of coffee.”
Later, when she and Jack were alone in his office, she asked him what he had said to David.
“I told him he was lucky,” Jack said.
“Lucky?”
“Lucky he’d had the time he had with you, lucky you were the forgiving kind, because his luck is wearing thin.”
“And what makes you think I’m so forgiving?”
“Because you didn’t make a scene, you treated him with a dignity he clearly didn’t deserve. Even when he gave you that knot on your face, you were more concerned about him than yourself.” Jack looked at her. “Am I wrong?”
Rachel shook her head, knowing that most men-men like David-would never have been able to read her so effortlessly. Something about this new boss of hers, something that went much deeper than his good looks and easy smile, set him apart from the men she’d known.
Anyone else in that restaurant would have taken David down for what he did-A.J. was practically frothing at the mouth. But instead of using his fists, Jack had counseled David. A move that was as unexpected as it was noble.
She later learned that what Jack had written on the back of his card was the name and number of an alcohol treatment facility. She wished she could say that David had used it, but she was pretty sure he never had.
But he didn’t bother her again. Not even a phone call. And that was the last time she saw him.
She and Jack had worked together for two years, their relationship close, sometimes moving right up to the water’s edge. But neither had ever taken the plunge.
There was the job. And office protocol.
And the timing just never seemed right.
Besides, maybe she was fooling herself. Maybe Jack didn’t feel the way she did. She had given him all the signals without actually throwing herself at him, but he had never quite responded the way she’d hoped he would.
So she waited. Because that’s all she could do.
And here she was, still waiting, sitting behind the wheel of another Toyota thinking about David and Jack and of the events of the last couple of years. And the last several hours.
Hope and despair.
Was she witnessing another self-destruct?
Jessie was missing. The man who’d taken her was dead. How long could Jack keep going before he folded under the weight of it all?
And what if they never found her? What then?
Before she could even allow herself to think that far ahead, an ambulance streaked by, siren screaming, then tore around the corner past Tony Reed’s warehouse.