Nick picked up Marcus’s envelope along with the letter he had received from the European, glad that Shannon hadn’t peered at either, and tucked them back in his coat pocket.
“Shannon, what the hell are you doing?” Dance called from the corral area of the police station. He was dressed in his blue blazer, white JC Penney shirt, and blue-striped tie, and the rigors of the day were not yet reflected in his appearance.
“Where the hell have you been all morning?” Shannon shouted back. “I can’t find you for hours and then you drop a silly Q &A in my lap.”
Dance stormed down the corridor, walked right past Shannon, and took Nick by the arm, leading him down the hall.
“Hey,” Shannon yelled as he chased after him. “What the hell are you doing?”
Dance continued down the hall, pulling Nick along with him. He opened a large metal door, revealing a large room containing five jail cells.
“Dance, let him go. He’s done nothing wrong.”
“Shannon here gets all touchy-feely,” Dance said to Nick.
Dance pulled the door of the first jail cell fully open, shoved Nick inside, and, with a crash, slammed the iron-barred door closed behind him. The cell was ten by ten feet, surrounded by typical vertical bars with metal cross-hatches. There were two folding chairs in the center of the room and a wooden bench anchored into the wall.
“What the hell you putting the guy in there for?” Shannon asked as he came into the room. “Cut him a break. His wife just narrowly missed getting on that plane. And besides, you actually owe him, he found your St. Christopher medal that you lost.”
“What?” Dance tilted his head. “I didn’t lose my medal.”
Silence filled the air as confusion reigned.
Shannon and Dance stepped out of the room, closing the door behind them.
“What the hell is going on?” Shannon pressed him.
“Do you mind telling me what you were doing letting him go?” Dance said.
“What are we holding him on? The only thing he did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time-” Shannon stopped. “And you never answered my question. Where the hell have you been?”
Shannon was several inches taller and carried twenty more pounds of muscle, but that didn’t stop Dance from rushing into his face, staring up at him like a junkyard dog.
“You listen to me,” Dance said. “Since when did you become my keeper? You work here by my grace and my grace alone, not the captain’s, not anyone but me. I got you the job and I can take it away. And mind you, if I take it away it’ll be by blowing the whistle to Internal Affairs.”
“Give me a break,” Shannon shot back. “Neither you nor they have anything on me. I’m lily-white.”
“Really? How about that five grand you took off the drug bust last year?”
“Bullshit. You gave me that money, shoved it in my pocket.” Shannon jabbed his finger at Dance. “And I gave it right back to you. I never want anything to do with your scheming bullshit.”
“Funny, that’s not how I remember it,” Dance said mockingly.
“You’d make up a story to have your own flesh and blood thrown in jail?”
“Cousins doesn’t make us flesh and blood. Our parents couldn’t have been more different, thank God.”
“You’ve done something,” Shannon said. “I see it in your eyes. And it didn’t go well, did it? If it did you’d be smiling ear to ear even with two hundred people dead in a plane crash. What the hell did you do? And what does this Quinn guy have to do with it?”
Dance opened the door to the jailroom, stepped in, and turned back to Shannon. “You go to the crash site and think long and hard about the future you want.” Dance paused. “And remember who controls it.”
DANCE SLIPPED THE jail key in the slot, opened the heavy barred door, and stepped inside the cell, pulling it closed behind him as he stuffed the key in his pocket. He carried the small wicker basket of Nick’s belongings and stared down at him as he sat in the middle of the confined space in a metal folding chair staring at the beaten-up clock on the wall.
He waved the basket before Nick’s eyes. There was Paul Dreyfus’s wallet, his own wallet, his cell phone, his keys, all of which he ignored, choosing to stare at the wall, but then his eyes were inexorably pulled toward the gold watch lying there, its appearance belying its power. And it was all he cared about, not the jail key in Dance’s pocket that could free him from these confines, not his keys, so he could drive away. All that mattered right now was getting the watch back into his possession.
And Dance pulled the basket away, a taunting reminder that Dance controlled the moment.
“Some nice watch you have,” Dance said as he pulled it from the basket. He rolled it about in his hands, running his thumb over the golden case, about the winding stem on top. He thumbed it open, staring at the old English face. “An antique. Was it your dad’s, maybe your grandfather’s? Big sentimental value to it? Fugit inreparabile tempus,” he said, reading the inscription. “I bet it would probably crush you if you lost it, huh?” Dance deposited it in his right jacket pocket.
The two envelopes in Nick’s jacket pocket felt as if they were on fire. If Dance was to find them, to see the Wall Street Journal page, to read the letter explaining the watch… Marcus’s words ran in his ear, “… in the wrong hands…” Nick knew there were no worse hands then Ethan Dance’s.
Dance reached back into the basket and lifted up the silver St. Christopher medal. “I know if someone stole something of mine, something I held dear, something that was given to me by mother… well, I would be angry, to say the least.”
Dance slipped the small wicker basket through the bars, laying it on the floor. He turned around and stood over Nick.
“Where did you get this?” Dance said as he dangled the St. Christopher medal in Nick’s face, swinging it back and forth like a pendulum. “Were you in my locker? Was it Dreyfus? How the hell did you get in there?”
Nick remained silent as he watched Dance’s eyes lose focus.
“I got this for graduation,” Dance said as he turned it over and read the worn engraving. “Miracles do happen. My mom had that engraved because my father said it would be a miracle if I graduated, it would be a miracle if I amounted to anything. She always called me her miracle kid.”
For the briefest of moments, Nick thought he saw a twinkle of humanity in Dance’s eyes as he slipped the chain over his neck, the medal falling against his chest, lying oddly upon his shirt and tie, as if it was an award bestowed by royalty for service above and beyond the call of duty.
“I take it off at work because I never want to lose it. It’s just about the only thing I hold dear in this world. I’m not sentimental about much, but its meaning to me is something you couldn’t understand. You know, I should kill you for stealing it.”
Dance reached into his pocket and pulled something out, clutching it tightly in his hand. “You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on. Where did you get that medal?”
Nick didn’t answer.
Dance looked at his right fist, the one clutching whatever it was he had pulled from his pocket, and without a second thought, drew it back and unloaded it into Nick’s face, knocking him out of his chair.
“You better start talking,” he said as he stood over Nick.
Nick rolled about the floor in pain, his right brow split open, blood boiling up, but he shut his senses down, his eyes fixed on the clock on the walclass="underline" 12:56.
“How did you do it? What kind of trick are you trying to play with me?”
And with that, Dance hit him again. The blow glanced off the side of Nick’s head; Dance’s aim was off from his anger.
Nick watched Dance pace around the small cell. He stopped and looked out through the bars before turning back.