“I was in the congregation the morning he confessed to his sex addiction from the pulpit.”
“He was a sex addict?”
“I don’t know, but I made it clear that was the sin he’d damn well better confess to.”
“Moral turpitude.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “And there were others. Connell mentioned something in Texas. A hairdresser?”
“Vain bitch. She was Eric’s barber. He had a crush on her. She made fun of him on Facebook.”
“And?”
“A few weeks after I caught up with her in Wichita Falls, she posted a photo of herself on her Facebook page. Shaved head. No makeup.” He sighed, said, “You get the idea.”
“Their punishment fit their crime.”
“Not so much a crime as a transgression against an easy target. But yeah, I make my point.”
“The Floyds?”
He smiled crookedly. “That was especially satisfying.”
“They beat Eric up?”
“Just a few weeks before the shooting rampage. In fact, they might have been the final straw. They’d been picking on him since he was hired on. During a lunch break, Eric had enough of their torture and took a swing at Norman. That gave them all the excuse they needed to lay into him. Beat him senseless.”
“As you did to them.”
“Yes.” Darkly, he added, “And I wish I had it to do all over again for what they did to Lisa.”
“On that, I agree with you.”
His eyes found hers with the accuracy and intensity of lasers. “But you don’t agree with the rest of it.”
She raised her hands, trying to convey the helplessness she felt. “I’m conflicted.”
“Because now I’m the bully.”
She was glad he’d said it and not she. “Aren’t you?”
“This is why I didn’t tell you,” he said, his tone cold and clipped. “Why I never wanted you to know.”
“You would have let me exit your life without ever knowing—”
“Yes. Because you’ll never understand.”
“Try me.”
“Justify my actions to you?”
“No, justify your actions to yourself, Hayes. Because I think that’s what you’re running from.”
He was rocking back and forth on his heels, his expression angry and troubled. She discerned that this wasn’t the first time he’d grappled with this. He said, “Eric Johnson will be remembered for gunning down seven people. But no one will remember, or even know, the names of the people who put him behind that brick wall that day, fortified with a weapon and ammo and a consuming hatred for humankind.
“The bullies who instilled that hatred were never made to account. I think they should. I think they should because he died that day, too.” He poked his chest with his index finger. “And I was the one who had to kill him.”
He gave her a hard stare, as though daring her to take issue. Then he pushed away from the window ledge and began to prowl aimlessly around the room, as though he felt caged, perhaps by his own conscience.
“Why do you think Connell has pursued you all these years?”
He made a dismissive gesture. “Hell if I know. Maybe he wants to assuage his own misgivings about how that mission was…resolved. Maybe he hasn’t found a replacement for me on his team. Or he’s got nothing better to do, or could be he’s just stubborn as a damn mule.”
“Those aren’t the reasons.”
He stopped roaming and turned to her. “Okay, Doc, enlighten me.”
“He cares about you and hates knowing that you’re wasting yourself by living a shadowy, lonely life.”
He tilted his head. “Gee whiz. You figured out all that in…what?” He made a show of looking at his wristwatch. “Ten minutes? You must’ve taken advanced psychiatry classes in med school.”
“You’re pushing my buttons again.”
“Well, you’re pushing mine, too. Who says I’m lonely? And you’re one to talk about self-imposed loneliness. Married to a man with an icicle where his dick ought to be. And how about your distance running? I’m no shrink, but it seems obsessive. What do you need that you can’t find standing still? What are you running to? Or from?”
His intention was to make her angry or to turn the conversation off himself and on to her, but she refused to take umbrage. “I’ve been asking myself those same questions recently.”
“Well keep to them and stop trying to analyze me.”
“When did you last see your sister?”
“We talked two nights ago while I was keeping vigil outside the hospital.”
“That’s not what I asked. She loves you, Hayes.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Connell.”
“The man’s all mouth.”
“Rebecca loves you.”
“It’s her main character flaw.”
“Your niece loves you.”
His jaw worked, but he didn’t respond except to turn away from her and go over to the dresser. Bracing his hands on the edge of it, he leaned in toward the mirror, although she noticed that he didn’t look into it.
“And I love you.”
He jerked his head up. Their eyes clashed in the mirror. “Well don’t.”
“Too late. I do.”
She left the chair, and when she reached him, she laid her cheek against his back and tightly hugged his torso, linking her hands across his chest.
“You’re setting yourself up to get hurt, Doc.”
“Probably. But that doesn’t change how I feel.” She rolled her forehead against the hollow of his spine and placed her hand over his left pectoral. “Reasonably, you know you did what you had to do that awful day in Westboro. You just wish Eric Johnson had been someone you could despise and revile, not someone you pity.”
He didn’t contradict her or argue, so she continued. “You use your size and stern demeanor to keep people at arm’s length, afraid of you. But I’m one of the few who’s been given a glimpse into your heart.” She pressed her hand against his heart, thrilling to the strong beats against her palm. “And I love what I’ve seen.”
She didn’t expect an avowal of love or any such romantic profession from him. When he turned in the circle of her arms to face her, he looked as forbidding as ever. “You think you’re smart, don’t you? You think you have me all figured out.”
“I think I’m close, or you wouldn’t be angry.”
“You want to know why I can’t look in a mirror, Doc? Want to know what I’m running from, why I can’t get far enough away from Westboro?”
Knowing that they’d reached the bottom of his personal hell, she already knew what he was going to say.
“Because given the same situation, under the same set of circumstances, with Eric in the crosshairs, I would still pull the trigger.”
Footsteps approached the door. The key was inserted into the lock. Connell blustered in. She and Hayes quickly stepped apart, but Connell picked up on the charged atmosphere immediately.
“What’d I miss?”
“Shut the damn door,” Hayes muttered.
As he reached behind him to pull the door closed, Connell repeated, “What’d I miss?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I told her what I’ve been doing since Westboro.”
Connell had brought in several carryout sacks. He set them on the table. Addressing her, he said, “He told you about the people on his shit list and why they were on it?”
“Yes.”
“Huh,” Connell said. “I thought you’d be discussing Jeff.”
“In a way, we were,” Hayes said. “He’s next on my list.”