Page 23 of 72 Hours

Had I forgotten what a match Niall was for me when he chose? “And maybe, yes, it was more rewarding than your pointless jealousy and your ridiculous melodrama and....” His voice caught in his throat; it was convulsing with fury. ”You stupid bastard! You stupid, stupid....”

We were struck dumb almost at the same moment, as the same thought obviously crossed our minds. Our stupid, selfish minds, obsessing over old ground, old wounds—self, self, self. And I was the worst culprit of all; me and my vicious, unruly, destructive temper. My fucking, fucking temper!

I looked at Niall, stricken. Joe had been my friend. A friend to all of us. Still was, dammit! And he was lying in a hospital bed, maybe losing a limb, maybe never coming back to us as anything like his strong, active, high-principled, unpretentious self. And both he—and the man in front of me—had barely escaped with their lives.

“Tanner—”

“I’m sorry,” I blurted out, speaking at the same time as his strangled groan.

And I was. For so much, I couldn’t have listed it in a day.

​Chapter 10 – Tuesday 09:30

God knows what we might have said and done then, but events overtook us. In the frozen silence following our outburst, Niall tilted his head away from me and his eyes hardened.

“Did you hear that?” he murmured.

I bit back my usual “Hear what?” quip, because a comment like that from him merited my full attention. He had the background and training, after all. I listened carefully. Nothing specific, but what I did notice was the absence of noise—the trailer park seemed unusually quiet for an emerging morning, even if most of the inhabitants were normally out and about by now, on whatever legitimate or nefarious occupation they chose. And now I came to think about it, I’d not heard a single dog’s bark since I woke.

I caught Niall’s calculating gaze and I nodded. Our arguments were forgotten, kicked to the side like a used candy wrapper. He started to move slowly around the room, working towards the outside door of the trailer, dodging around the window as he passed. “Where’s your weapon?” he whispered.

“I’m on suspension.”

“To hell with that,” he muttered. “You always had a private licence anyway.”

Guess he knew me better than to think I’d live out here without adequate protection. My hand dropped to a pile of magazines beside the couch and peeled out a rather useful handgun from underneath “Heavy Metal Monthly—February.” He grimaced at my less-than-sophisticated security precautions, but I saw an equivalent weapon in his own palm. I wondered which file that had been hidden in.

He stood to the hinged side of the door and put his hand flat on the thin metal sheeting.

“Um....” I thought I ought to try one last whispered attempt to save him from himself. “We should call the Team, Niall. Simon said no external interaction, remember.”

And then the smallest, weariest smile teased at the corner of his mouth. My heart lurched at the memory of it in different circumstances. “I’m with you, Tanner MacKay. Since when were you external interaction?”

So what was I to make of that?

I braced myself on the other side of the door, ready to move out when it opened. The stale smell of cheap fried breakfast crept across the trailer park and in through the gaps under the sill, teasing at my nostrils; the roar of the traffic on the distant highway growled in my ears, tourists and workers driving to and from the airport on the other side of town, blissfully unaware of what was going on in this part of the neighbourhood. Nothing else sounded amiss. And yet every hair on the back of my neck stood to attention, my mind more alert than it had been for months. I had a sudden, very vivid memory of how we’d often been, Niall and I, facing things together, high on adrenalin and arrogance and the pure enjoyment of each other’s company. How it once had been, and not as the reluctant companions of today.

Niall hissed rather loudly, trying to get my attention. He scowled at me from his stance on the other side of the doorway. “No dog, right?” His eyebrow raised in question.

I nodded. Smart guy had registered the change outside as well as I had. “There’s usually some sound from Dylan in the mornings. He’s always on watch.”

“Dylan?”

“Junk’s dog. The big Rottweiler. He’s our early warning system, our protection.”

Niall raised an eyebrow again, maybe at my familiarity with life here. “Who’s Junk?”

“This site is his patch. It’s like he’s in charge.” I shrugged. No time right now to run through the supporting cast.

“Any other doors?”

I shook my head.

“Okay. I’ll take the high shot, you cover the low. On five, on my count. You good for that?”

I winced. “You think now’s the time to doubt it?”

For a second, it looked like he smiled. “Right. Guess I should know you better than that.”