CHAPTER TWELVE

Michael swore and drew his weapon. He kept it pointed at the ground but remained ready at any second to level it at Tooley if he tried to hurt Faith.

Tooley moved gingerly down the slope, far more so than Faith, who had to wait several times to allow Tooley to move ahead of her. Michael saw the reason for that when both reached the ground. What he had assumed was simply Tooley's naturally moon-shaped face was actually a perfectly normal face swollen almost beyond recognition. When he saw the pulped nose and grotesquely bruised eyes, he was so shocked he forgot that his pistol was still drawn until Tooley tentatively lifted his hands.

He holstered his handgun and looked at Faith questioningly.

"He attacked me," she explained. "He learned why that's a bad idea."

She looked at him, and Michael didn't like what he saw behind her eyes. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.

Turk bounded into Faith's arms, barking and wagging his tail exuberantly. Michael took Tooley from Faith and led him a few yards away.

He looked at the man, whose docile expression indicated he had no intention of trying to escape again. Considering how labored his breathing sounded, Michael wasn't surprised.

The rumble of rotor blades cut through the night air. Michael pulled his flashlight out and shined it into the air, waving it back and forth like a beacon. A few minutes later, the helicopter's lights came into view. The pilot deftly maneuvered it so its right skid rested on a wider part of the footpath a few dozen yards down the mountain. Its rotor barely cleared the mountain, but the pilot must have had military experience because he held the bird steady as a rock.

Marshal Kinzel waited for them at the helicopter. His eyes widened when he saw Tooley. "Jesus, agent Prince. What did you do to him?"

"It wasn't me," Michael said.

Kinzel's eyes widened even further. He lifted his gaze to Faith, who said, "He attacked me and tried to push me off of the mountain. I had to defend myself."

"With a jackhammer?" Kinzel asked, more to himself. He turned to Tooley. "Did you try to kill this agent?"

Tooley narrowed his eyes, which only accentuated the bruising on his face.

Kinzel's jaw tightened. "There's a beam inside the chopper next to the port side bench seat. Cuff him to that."

Michael looked dubiously at the chopper. The right skid rested just on the edge of the path. If it moved while Michael was climbing aboard, it was a long way down.

Michael shook his head and muttered under his breath, "They don't pay me enough for this." Louder," he said, "All right, Tooley. Nice and easy."

Once everyone was aboard, the pilot pulled smoothly away from the mountain and headed back to town.

Faith looked as impressed with the pilot's skill as Michael was. She tapped her headset and asked, "Marine Corps?"

"52 nd Helicopter Squadron," the pilot replied, "Seventeen years out of Norfolk except for three tours in Iraq."

"22 nd Infantry Brigade," Faith replied. "That's some damned fine flying, sir."

"Just another day's work," the pilot said, clearly pleased with the praise. "Hoo rah."

"Hoorah," Faith said with a grin.

She turned to Michael, and her grin faded when she saw his face.

"We'll take him to the station in Granger first," Kinzel said. "Once we've questioned him, we'll arrange transport back to the Boise office and from there back to Florence."

He looked pointedly at Tooley, who lowered his eyes as much as he could with his face beaten so badly.

Michael leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He highly doubted he would sleep on the fifteen-minute flight back to Granger PD, but it gave him a reason not to look at Faith right now.

Come on, man , he thought to himself. He tried to kill her. You don't think she's lying about that , do you?

The truth was that he didn't know what to think.

***

"You can understand why we have a hard time believing you." Michael said.

Tooley looked from Michael to the stone-faced Kinzel, who stood with his arms folded across his chest and glared at him. Michael had a feeling that Tooley was in for a rough time of it back in Florence. It wouldn't surprise him if this was the last anyone saw of Tooley for a very, very long time.

Tooley seemed to understand this as well and was desperate to minimize the trouble coming his way. He looked sick, although that could have something to do with the painkillers the EMTs had given him when they landed. The swelling had gone down enough that he could speak intelligibly, but with his broken nose, he sounded like he had the world's worst cold. It would be comical if not for the subject of their conversation.

"I didn't kill anyone, okay?"

"We didn't say they were dead," Michael pointed out.

"Oh, come on," Tooley said, "if they weren't dead, then why would you be talking to me?"

"Why do you think?" Kinzel asked drily.

"Why the hell would I kidnap a couple of randoms?" Tooley asked, lifting his hands as much as the shackles would allow, which wasn't much. "What am I gonna gain from that? A few grand out of someone's savings account?"

"That's a few grand more than what you have now."

"Still not worth the trouble," Tooley said, "trying to drag a hostage across the mountains on foot. Come on, you can't think I'm that stupid?"

"Intelligence doesn't really strike me as your strong suit," Michael replied.

"Bite me," Tooley spat, temporarily forgetting the precariousness of his position.

Michael shrugged and made as though to leave. Kinzel followed suit and Tooley called, "Wait! Please don't…" he struggled for something to say but only ended up more desperate. "Look, I didn't do anything to them, okay? I ditched the bus and hitchhiked my way to Clearwater, then disappeared into the mountains. Yeah, I ripped off a few homes in Granger— just for food—but I didn't kidnap anybody."

"So what was the plan?" Kinzel asked. "Run north to Canada?"

"I hadn't thought that far yet," Tooley said. "My plan was to get to Seattle and figure it out from there."

"Why Seattle?" Michael asked.

"Options," Tooley replied. "I could go north to Vancouver and disappear in Canada, I could hitch my way south to Mexico, or I could book passage on a cargo ship and head East to try my luck somewhere else."

Michael had to admit that was a plausible reason.

"How long have you been up in the mountains?"

"Two weeks," he said. "Since ditching the prison bus."

"And how many other people have you seen in that timeframe?"

"Other than you and the Heavyweight Champion of the World in the next room? No one. The point was not to see anyone else."

Michael's lips thinned slightly when he mentioned Faith. "Let's say you did see someone else," he said, "what would you do?"

"Become unseen as quickly as possible," Tooley replied.

"So you wouldn't attack them and try to roll them off of the mountain?" Michael asked.

His face paled, which was all the answer Michael needed. He leaned forward and said, "Tyler Stone and Clara Montpelier. Start talking."

Tooley's voice was practically a whine. "I don't know. Agent Bold was the only other person I saw. I… look, I didn't want to go back to Florence, okay? They have a yard underground. The only sunlight I get comes through a four-inch-wide window."

"Too bad you decided to kidnap a senator's daughter and try to murder a federal agent," Michael said.

"I didn't…" his voice trailed off, and he lowered his eyes.

"Sit tight," Michael said. "We'll be back with you in a few hours."

"Can I lie down somewhere?" Tooley asked.

Michael and Kinzel ignored him and left the room. Outside, Kinzel sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I'm too old for this all-nighter crap."

Michael nodded. "I feel you. Coffee?"

"If I have any more coffee, my heart's gonna pop," Kinzel said, "but if you bring me a croissant, I'll recommend you for the Medal of Freedom."

Michael chuckled. "You know, you're not a bad guy when you're too exhausted to be a pompous ass."

"I'm sure there's a brilliant retort floating around somewhere in my mind," Kinzel replied, "but as you've observed, I'm exhausted, so I'll have to content myself with telling you to go screw yourself."

Michael laughed again and said, "What do you think? Quick nap, and we let him stew?"

"Yes, but I'm not holding myself accountable to the quick part."

"Fair enough," Michael said.

He headed to the break room and looked out the window to see the sky brightening with dawn. Faith sat at the lone table, staring pensively out the window. Turk sat next to her, fast asleep.

Michael looked at her and tried to make sense of the conflict in his head. On one hand, the woman sitting in front of him was his oldest and dearest friend, a woman he loved and had once been in love with, someone he considered a partner in a deeper way than just professionally.

On the other hand, the difference between this woman now and the woman he knew prior to the Donkey Killer manhunt two years ago was almost complete. So little of that Faith seemed to remain that he almost couldn't believe it was the same person.

But then she turned to him and smiled, and he remembered all of their years together. His heart broke for the thousandth time, and he shuffled to the coffee maker, poured two cups and headed to her table.

"Black like your soul," he said, handing her the cup.

"Thank you," she said, taking the cup. "I couldn't sleep."

"Really? Turk isn't having any trouble."

"Turk's a superhero," she said, smiling affectionately at the sleeping dog.

Michael noticed a touch of gray beginning to spread on Turk's muzzle and thought to himself that even superheroes got old.

He was going to be forty next year. He wondered how much longer he could keep up this kind of life before it became too much.

He looked at Faith and saw the hurt in her eyes, the pain she tried to mask but never could with him. He had known her too long not to see through her cocky grin.

He always thought it would be him. If one of them snapped, he thought for sure he would be the one to go. Either he would lose his cool on a suspect, or he would finally fizzle out under the weight of accumulated depression.

Instead, it was Faith in danger, not of fizzling out but of flaming out, Faith who had lost her cool so many times it was becoming rarer for her to find it than to lose it. Faith, someone he once thought of as the strongest person he had ever known, who was rapidly losing any sense of who she was in her single minded obsession to catch the man who reminded her of the killer she couldn't get, the one Michael had killed to save her, the one who for the first time in Faith's life had stripped away her strength and dignity.

West wanted to break Faith, but the job had already been done. He was fighting a ghost.

"You want to tell me what happened up there?" he finally asked.

Faith sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well, my Spanish is a little rusty, but I can try telling you in that language since you won't accept the English version."

"I believe that he tried to kill you, Faith," Michael said, "and I would one hundred percent rather it be him looking like that than you. I'm not saying you did anything wrong—"

"Yes, you are," she said, chuckling bitterly. "Please don't treat me like I'm stupid. You're mad that I got a little carried away, but can you actually say I was carried away? I had to subdue him, and I had to do it in a way to make sure he wouldn't try to fight back while I led him back down the side of a mountain in the dark."

"And why were you up there alone again?" he asked gently.

"So I should have let him get away, right? You didn't want to follow me. Once again, Michael, I had to go after a killer by myself because you couldn't be bothered."

He recoiled, shocked and hurt by the comment. He felt a second pang because it was true. He had given up before she did. She had found a way to keep going on when he had decided there was no way.

For the first time, he could understand how frustrated she was about the West case.

In that way, at least, she was exactly like the Faith he once knew. She was an unstoppable force, someone who would keep going long past the point where everyone else gave up.

Maybe she wasn't broken. Maybe she was just fed up with being stronger than everyone around her.

He sighed and said, "You're right. I'm sorry."

She blinked in shock. She lowered her gaze and said softly, "It's okay. I'm sorry I kept going. I just…"

She didn't finish that sentence, and Michael decided not to press her. "I don't think it's Tooley," he said instead. "He's a prick, that's for sure, but I buy that he didn't see anyone else up there."

"So do I," Faith said. "It doesn't fit with his profile. He's all about profit. There's no profit in dragging a hostage through the mountains."

"My thoughts exactly," Michael agreed. "We're going to let him roast a bit and then see if he noticed anything we might find useful, but odds are, he'll be on the next bus to Florence."

"Good riddance," she said viciously.

Michael averted his eyes and sipped his coffee. Faith looked out the window, resuming her pensive stare. Michael was less than a yard from her, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away.