Page 17 of The Murder Inn

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I WOKE NICK up by throwing a cup of cold water in his face. The big guy was sprawled diagonally and face up over the bed in our small hotel room, one leg hanging over the side, foot flat on the floor. He leaped up when the water hit his face and yowled in shock.

“What the hell, man?”

“Least I could do to pay you back for bopping me in the head last night,” I said, pointing to the giant lump at my hairline that had come from my skull bouncing off the road. “Get up. Get dressed. We’re going back to Gloucester.”

“Did I…” Nick began, his face filled with dread.

“Yeah, you did,” I said. He shook his head, the way he always does after an episode, full of anger and resentment, like his body had been stolen for a night by a serial possessor. Which, I guessed, was kind of what itwaslike.

“Damn. I thought I had it all under control.”

“Nope,” I said. “So I’ve done something.”

“You’ve ‘done something’?”

“Yeah.” I tossed his bag at him. “I texted Breecher last night while you were asleep and set up a meeting with him for today.”

“Sheanswered?” Nick’s eyes were wild.

“Breecher’s a lady?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, yes,” I said. “She answered. We’re meeting her at an IHOP off the highway in half an hour. Better hurry.”

The parking lot of the roadside restaurant between Gloucester and Boston smelled of pancake batter and the almost sickly-sweet tang of flavored syrup. A weird little part of my mind told me that Nick jumped out of the car and went trudging off toward the door to the IHOP because he could smell pancakes. The guy loved them.

But when my friend tore open the door and rushed inside, with me at his heels, he made a beeline for a lean Hispanic woman wearing a black ball cap. She was sitting in a booth by the windows. The woman got up and she and Nick fell into each other’s arms. I stood awkwardly by as she cried, her face buried against his shoulder. When he released her, she gripped his face in both her hands, and I saw them exchange a look that only two people who have been at war together can ever share. It was a look of love, anger, regret. I didn’t understand it, but I could feel it, the rawness passing between them, countless terrible memories exchanged in a single glance.

“Dorrich is dead,” she said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

NICK SLID HEAVILY into the nearest booth. I got in beside him, the woman named Breecher numbly taking the seat directly across from me. She looked at me with the detached aloofness I’d seen in Nick plenty of times when he met new people, a distrust born of the scars of war.

You weren’t there. You couldn’t know.

“Who the hell is this?” she asked Nick.

“I’m Bill Robinson.” I put out my hand. Her shake was hard and fast, noncommittal. “Nick’s buddy.”

“Karli Breecher.”

“You should know I’m former Boston PD,” I said.

Breecher glanced at Nick so quickly I might have missed the gesture if I hadn’t been looking for it, but Nick was holding his head in his hands.

“Jones didn’t tell me he was bringing a friend,” Breecher said.

“It was me texting you last night. I used his phone to set thisup,” I said. “But let me save you some time and concern. I don’t know what happened over there between you two and Dorrich. But Nick’s got some worries that whatever it is, it’s about to blow up, big time. And that’s a problem, both for him and for me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” I went on. “Because while you army people have got your policies about looking out for each other and leaving no man behind, us Boston cops have similar ideas.”

“I thought you said you were aformercop,” Breecher said.

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