How many lies would it take to get Cloister to join everyone else in doubting his intentions, he wondered.Hopefully more than one.Even a big one.
Chapter Sixteen
Kincaidlikedmotels.
He could afford the Glasshouse, but he was booked into the Motel 6 on the road into town.The ice machine had an out-of-order sign on it, the housekeeping trolley was parked outside reception for people to help themselves, and the rooms smelled vaguely of damp and sex.
Javi tried to open the sliding window, but it would only open a finger’s width before it jammed.Possibly on the mummified bodies of flies caught in the window track.He grimaced and left it, fastidiously pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the greasy, dusty film off his palm.
“It helps me sleep at night to think how many criminals I’ve made uneasy staying here,” Kincaid said as he stepped out of the bathroom.His words were mumbled around the blue plastic toothbrush he was scrubbing his molars with.He leaned against the chewed-up door frame and raised an eyebrow.“So what’s so important?”
He was shirtless, his tank top damp and sticking to his wiry body, and barefoot.Sandy hair stuck up carelessly from behind his ears.Javi looked at him andtriedto wonder what he’d ever found attractive about the man.It didn’t work.He knew.
The guilt ofthatcould wait until later.
Javi had already been back to the suboffice.Now that he knew what to look for, he’d not even needed to ask Sue for help navigating the archival records.He held up the printout for Kincaid to see and then tossed it on the bed.
“I always wondered why you had such a hard-on for Luka Horvat,” he said.It had been a while since he’d said that name out loud.The sour mixture of guilt, anger, and his desire to move on had made him dodge the name like there was some sort of intrinsic power in it.“Out of every criminal and trafficker who crossed your desk, why make him your nemesis?”
Kincaid pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth.“He’s a handsome man,” he said with a shrug of one wiry shoulder.“If you like them Slavic.”
He disappeared back into the bathroom to spit into the sink.Water ran as he rinsed his mouth.Javi knew better than to let Kincaid’s petty games bother him, but it still did.He took a shallow breath of muggy air and glanced around the room.There was a paperback on the bedside table, spine cracked and place marked with a gas station receipt.A photo of Kincaid’s kids was blu-tacked to the fly-spotted mirror over the rickety, line-scored desk against the wall.
It was a new one.The last time Javi had seen a photo of them, they’d still been pre-teens, with gappy grins and cartoon T-shirts.In this Polaroid, they were solidly invested in adolescence, with braces and wolf-cuts.There was a year—or maybe two?—between them, but they looked like twins.
Kincaid came back out of the bathroom, towel draped over his hands.
“Alice has a boyfriend,” he said.“Can you believe that?”
Javi looked away from the Polaroid.“I can’t remember which one is Alice,” he said.
It was just the truth.Today had left him too off-balance to try and play the game at Kincaid’s level.For some reason, that landed better than any jibe he’d tried to needle under the man’s guard.A quick frown creased Kincaid’s face.
“She’s the oldest,” he said shortly, wiping toothpaste off his mouth onto the corner of the towel.“The academic one.They’re both clever, but Ellie doesn’t apply herself as much.You ever thought about having kids yourself?I imagine it’s a daunting thought when your partner’s stepdad might have murdered his own nephew.”
Kincaid flicked the towel over his shoulder.
“It was never about Luka, though, was it?”Javi asked.“It’s Vesna that you want to hurt, because of what she did to Jessie Sandoval.”
Javi had read the file before he came over.It had been easy to see why neither of Lara’s parents had wanted to tell the child version of her the truth about what happened to a woman she’d liked.Empathy wasn’t one of Javi’s virtues, and the list of what the Horvats had done to the young agent had still made him flinch.
The worst of it had been that, from what was in the file, it hadn’t even been for any advantage.They had just wanted to prove that the FBI wasn’t untouchable.
The muscles in Kincaid’s jaw clenched under the scruff of light stubble.He looked down at his hands and pushed the cuticles of his nails back.
“Special Agent Andrea Sandoval,” he corrected Javi, with a thin, spare smile.“You weren’t her friend.”
“Neither were you,” Javi said.“From experience.Did she think you were?”
The smile twitched on Kincaid’s face.“No,” he said.“Annie never liked me much.She wasSaul’slittle protege, not mine.”
“I know,” Javi said.“So why do you care?”
Kincaid flicked at a tag of skin with his thumbnail.The quick, fidgety gesture felt more like a real tic than one of his cultivated fidgets.“She was a federal agent.I don’t have to have a personal relationship with her to care about her.”
“You couldhavea personal relationship with her and not care about her,” Javi said.“What’s the truth?”
Kincaid didn’t drop the mask often.The reason he did it now was because he thought there was some benefit in it for him.It still felt oddly intimate, in the same way his bare feet did, to see the stillness settle over the man.The shark peered out through pale blue eyes.
