Sullivan's Last Stand

Despite his wry smile, his tone was clipped, and Bailey knew he was about to change the subject. Before he could, she went on, frowning. “Where are they supposed to be flying to?”

He gave an impatient sigh. “Fitz and his old wives’ tales, for God’s sake. The story goes that they’re fated to fly for eternity, searching the world over for the homes they never had.” Without seeming to realize what he was doing, his hand went to his pants pocket and pulled out a small object. He continued, his manner verging on brusqueness. “But he can’t have it both ways. If his damned legend were true, then it’d be easy enough to escape fate. All a poor Irish boy like myself would have to do is turn his back on that life and take up another profession, and he’d be out of their reach. All my wars are behind me, honey. I’m safe from Fitz’s ghosts now.”

The small object was a shell. Bailey watched it flash and reappear as he unthinkingly maneuvered it between his fingers, like a gambler with one last coin. He saw her watching him, and his fingers stilled.

“That’s pretty. Can I see it?”

She held out her hand, and after an almost imperceptible hesitation he dropped it into her palm. She looked at it more closely. It was fan shaped, with a perfectly round hole in the exact middle of the fan. It was smooth, as if its ridges had been worn down over the years, and instead of being cool, as she had expected, it felt oddly warm in her hand.

She looked up at Sullivan. “How did you drill such a tiny hole—” She halted abruptly, shocked at the expression on his face.

His eyes were dark with pain, and the skin over his cheekbones seemed to have tightened, sharpening the hard angles of his face. His lips were a tautly compressed line, and when he spoke they barely moved.

“I didn’t drill it. It was formed that way, or at least that’s what my father told me. He carried it on him for years. After he died, it was sent to me along with the rest of his final effects, and now I keep it on me, just like he did. He said it was his talisman.”

As if he couldn’t help himself, he held out his hand for the shell and she handed it back. As soon as his fingers wrapped around it, he seemed to relax, and carefully he dropped it into his pocket again.

“Psalm 91,” he said, his voice once more edged with rueful humor. “‘The arrow that flieth by day, the pestilence that walketh in darkness.’ Thomas Sullivan believed that as long as he carried it, he would be protected from them, and now his son’s carrying on the tradition. I guess there’s a little superstition in me after all.”

Superstition hadn’t been the cause of that terrible bleakness she’d seen on his face, Bailey thought, shaken. But she knew the man well enough to realize that if that was what he wanted her to believe, nothing she could say would get anything more out of him. Needing suddenly to bring some semblance of normalcy back to the conversation, she reached for her purse on the chair beside her and pulled out the file.

“I guess this is called withholding evidence,” she said, hoping that her voice sounded steadier than she felt. As if he was just as eager to seize upon a new topic as she was, Sullivan took the slim sheaf of papers she handed him.

“Obstructing the police in the commission of their duties, at least.” He flipped through the first few pages of Jackson’s report, scanning them rapidly. “Nothing here that you didn’t already know, is there?”

“Just details.” She lifted her shoulders. “But they’ll help. He mentions the name of the hotel, for example, and the number of the room Plowright and his playmate were staying in.”

“And the photos he took.” Sullivan was on the last page of the report. “This is a list of them, with a description of where and when each one was taken. Listen to this. ‘Roll 2, frame 16: Subject Plowright beside bed. Unidentified female companion on bed, wearing negligee. Blinds on hotel suite’s French doors fully open.’ He must have been using a telephoto lens to get that shot.”

He handed the report to her. After a moment she looked up from it in disappointment. “That was the spiciest one he got. Before Plowright got down to business he closed the blinds.”

“Yeah, I noticed that. Frame 19 is him, shirtless, closing them, according to Hank’s list.” Sullivan shrugged. “Still, it’s pretty conclusive, even if they weren’t caught on film actually doing the wild thing with each—”

“Little pitchers have big ears, Terry,” a brisk voice said from the doorway. “I know it’s asking a lot of you, but try to keep it clean for the next few minutes.”

Bailey looked up swiftly. The woman who had spoken was fixing Sullivan with a glare from blue eyes that looked a lot like his. Her hair was as almost the same midnight shade as his was, too, and not much longer, its urchinlike cut framing an angry, heart-shaped face. Beside her was a young girl with long coltlike legs and a mane of coppery hair tamed into a thick braid that was coming undone.

Sullivan looked at his watch and then swore under his breath. “I said seven o’clock, didn’t I?” he said weakly. “I’m sorry, Lee. Something came up and I lost track of the time. But you’re here now, so why don’t we—”

“Some things just never change, Terry. Not where the Sullivan men are concerned, anyway.” The dark-haired woman’s expression was tight and closed. “It’s way after regular office hours, so I’m guessing this isn’t a business appointment.”

She jerked her head stiffly at Bailey, her voice rising. “Like father, like son. It’s obvious that you can’t fit into a normal life any more than Thomas could. Why don’t you just go back to being a damned mercenary, like he did in the end?”

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