Free The Dead Slam: A Tale of Benevolent Assasination by R.F. Bright Page B

to settle everything and skip the crazy.”
    Murthy raised his glass. “It’s too late. I called Efryn Boyne, the Leprechaun, this morning. They’re out looking for our missing New Jersey sleuth right now. Don’t worry about it. I got this.”
    Thomka drained his glass, set it down, and became strangely quiet. “God help us.”
    Murthy found Thomka’s sincerity discomfiting. “What?”
    “Tuke’s offering real-world solutions to real-world problems. He’s holding a pretty strong hand, considering what we’ve got.”
    “Yeah, but we’re holding the trump ace.”
    “What trumps real solutions?”
    Murthy poured the rest of the wine into his glass and raised it to heaven. “Fake salvation.”

9
    M acIan heard the door creak down Camille Gager’s hallway and tip-toed back to the red leather couch. Camille came in and sat across from him on a matching armchair. She’d combed her hair and changed her outfit, but said nothing. He was as patient as a clam, but out of his depth. Breathe — slower, slower. Be here. Be here. He wiggled his tongue and stretched his jaw.
    She tried to say something, but couldn’t.
    He could see her retreating into memory and wanted to yell, stay away from there . He’d sat with men in deep despair, but this was different. He searched for signs he might hook onto. There were none. Women were a sublime mystery to him.
    Camille dabbed the raw edges of her nose with a ball of tissue. She stopped to gaze at him with vacant eyes and trembling lips.
    He felt himself plummeting toward his own horrific memories. Every muscle in his body clenched. He opened his eyes and drank her in with all the senses he could bring to bear — right now, right here. He had to focus on something outside himself. Right now. Right here. And there she was, guts out, but right here right now.
    He studied her closely. She was soft. He wanted to touch her. Medium build, tiny relative to him. Maybe a little too slim. Hands milky-white. Each fingertip dotted with pearl nail polish, so girly — nothing more intriguing than girly. Shoulder length raven-black hair. If he could only touch it. But under these circumstances? Ridiculous. He was embarrassing himself.
    She stared straight through him with glassy eyes that slowly tilted to the floor.
    He felt profoundly helpless and sad. Fighting the demons in his head had kept him alive, but taken a severe toll. Climb out of that spiral. Be here now. Say something. She wasn’t going to. Everything was swirling. Say what? Something comforting? He imagined wrapping his arms around her — inappropriate! He shook that thought from his head, but for a brief moment allowed himself to imagine the two of them together. That really scared him.
    Stop. Stop. Please no. No self-analysis. He couldn’t stop, unless he got her to say something. He recalled the pasty-faced psychologist at Quantico who had a very good handle on his problem and a bag full of exercises to blot out the memories. That psychologist had said, “Your relationships are fucked up because the other person is waiting for you to fix it. Get on that, soldier. Fix that shit now!”
    Suddenly he understood what that meant, but he had to get away before his demons exposed themselves to her. No, please, not to her.
    “Ah, Miss Gager,” he said, wishing he’d cleared his throat.
    She looked up and smiled, a reflex.
    “I can contact you later and we can ah, ah.” He waited for her to let him off the hook, but she just stared at him. She didn’t care what he was saying, but she cared that he was here. He could feel that.
    He tried to stand, but she reached over and touched him on the arm. “How did he . . . ?”
    “He froze to . . . death. A hiking accident. It was painless.”
    “Hiking?” she said, the word tasting of barnacles. “My father never went hiking. He wouldn’t go for a walk, much less a hike. Where?”
    “In Pennsylvania. Allegheny Mountains.”
    “What?”
    “Found by two hunters. Father and son.