Free The Third Coincidence by David Bishop Page B

indoor mesquite fire pit and helped themselves to beans, salad, fries, and corn on the cob.
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    By eight all the others had left except for Rachel and Nora, who sat toying with the remains of their dinners.
    “What’s the story on the old couple who bring the coffee?” Nora asked. “They treat Jack like he’s their son.”
    Rachel told Nora what she had scrounged up through a friend in classified records. “Their names are Lana and Zaro Kindar. You probably noticed Lana has no pinkie finger on her right hand. The Iraqi Republican Guard had been torturing her while interrogating her husband. The Kindars had been spying for our side. Jack had been their control. He and Ringo and some of the Kurdish freedom fighters fought their way in and saved their bacon. Jack got them brought here and helped get them the coffee work.”
    “Wow. That’s movie material.”
    “You got that right, but it’s one of the stories that’ll never see light.” Rachel refilled Nora’s beer mug. “Now, tell me, what do you think of our team?”
    “I can’t say I’m up to speed on what constitutes a federal task force,” Nora told her, “but if Jack had followed the book, a couple of local cops like Frank and me wouldn’t be on it.”
    “Jack says Millet’s our secret weapon.”
    Nora laughed and pushed back a runaway strand of hair. “That man reminds me of the mad scientist in the movie Back to the Fu- ture. ”
    Rachel grinned. “It’s obvious Madman Millet is attracted to you.” She remembered challenging Jack about the unorthodox members of his squad, and in particular Millet. Maybe she had been a little too rigid.
    “I want to be Millet’s friend,” Nora said, “so that’s how I’ll play it. But if he hits on me, I’ll have to shut him down.”
    Rachel stacked her empty dinner plate on top of Nora’s and pushed them to the side. “When did you decide to be a cop?”
    “I was around ten,” Nora told her. “My mother had died and my dad and I went to live with his father, a retired beat cop. Grandpa loved that old black-and-white TV series Superman and I’d sit
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    and watch them with him. I don’t know if you remember, but Superman would open the show standing with his fists on his hips while some badass’s bullets bounced off his chest. Then the baddie would throw the empty gun and Superman would duck.” She grinned. “I asked Grandpa why Superman needed to duck the gun when the bullets just bounced off him, my Grandpa laughed, turned to my dad and said, ‘We got ourselves a third generation cop and dontchuknow, this one’ll be a detective.’ ” Nora grinned at the memory.
    “And with that a career was born,” Rachel said. They both grin- ned.
    A waiter came to the table, held up their empty pitcher and raised his eyebrows. Nora shook her head and made the universal gesture for their check.
    “You can tell me it’s none of my business if you want, but from the way you look at Jack McCall when he’s not looking at you, I fig- ure you two have some history.”
    “Well, Ms. Burke, looks like your grandpa was right. You are a de- tective.”
    “Hey, you said you liked having another woman on the team.
    So answer the question, Ms. Johnstone.”
    “No. Yes. I don’t know. I admit I once had the hots for him, but, well, he didn’t feel the same way. I guess.”
    “The man must be gay.”
    “He’s not gay, definitely not gay. I’ve got a friend in the diplo- matic corps and she told me that Jack, what should I say, has had flings with a lot of women in this town. Plus the man’s—a damn neat freak.”
    “He does keep his desk orderly.” “Orderly! You should see his house.”
    Nora nibbled on her last french fry. “Rachel, the man’s organized at work so of course is at home. If you’re trying to put him out of your mind, you’ll need something more than, he’s neat.”
    Rachel ran the tip of her finger around the ridge at the top of
    72 David M.