xii. Life is a Game We’re Meant to Lose. (You’ll stand by me if I stand by you.)
“Callan, you just about got that Mancuso murder wrapped up?”
Callan nods from where he sits at his desk, absently lifting a file to the speaker as he works. The man over him hums a thoughtful sound as he looks over the contents. “So the murderer isn’t in custody?”
“No sir, not yet, but we’ve got a lead on his whereabouts,” Callan informs him.
The man over him chuckles, rereads a section, then laughs again, shaking his head. “People are screwed up.”
Callan breaks away from his paperwork to look at the man scrutinizing his report. “I won’t disagree but what, in particular, is so messed up this time?”
“The secondary site-- you think that Marie Mancuso did this to the apartment herself?” He asks incredulously.
Callan nods and rises to gather some papers scattered over his desktop. He taps their edges, lining them up as he speaks. “She gave blood the day before she was scheduled to leave and then stole it right from the blood bank. Used it to plant evidence on the walls, the hallways, even the garage but when that didn’t prove enough, she used pig’s blood to saturate the carpet. Guess she really wanted it to look like someone had died there. She called Sophie Amando’s phone and left the message, making it sound as if Sophie had been threatening her and headed to the airport to make her escape. With any luck, people would think she was dead and the woman who stole her husband was the one that killed her.”
“Revenge and escape all in one,” the man beside him muses, sounding a little impressed. “Except . . .”
“Except that Keaton caught up with her in the airport parking lot and . . .” Callan gestures to the file in his hand, indicating the subsequent murder.
“Bang,” the other man fills in, his fingers making a mock gun. He shakes of his head. “It would’ve never worked. Her little ploy had more holes than a blow-up doll.”
Callan shrugs. “Yeah, it was half-baked, but it put the spotlight right on Ms. Amando. Don’t think that woman would still be alive if it weren’t for Marie’s harebrained scheme . . .” The phone rings, interrupting his thoughts. “Callan.”
He listens to his partner rattle off his latest theories on an unrelated case and adds his thoughts before the call wraps up. Twenty minutes later and his visitor still waits on him, reading his file. “You’ve got something else on your mind,” Callan notes, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Yes, sir, I do,” his guest agrees with an unsatisfied sigh. Pulling out a glossy eight by ten photograph of a distinct motorcycle, he slaps it onto the desktop. “Tell me about the man that owns this bike.”
Black and chrome, it’s art with attitude; it’s beauty with purpose. There isn’t another like it anywhere.
“Jacque LeBeau,” Callan answers with a scowl, his eyes never leaving the photograph.
“Jacque LeBeau my ass,” the man next to him sneers. “Only one man rides a Harley like that- and he’s on our wanted list.” He eyes Callan, his expression turning hard when the man doesn’t offer him a ready reaction- no word, no emotion. “Did you really think I wouldn’t hear about his return? I was assigned to this jack-hole for almost a year.”
“Then you know he was an asset . . .”
“I know this city’s a better place without him,” he growls.
Callan groans and falls into his desk chair. “What do you want, Cougar?”
“I want him out of my country,” Cougar demands. When Callan doesn’t respond, he leans over the desk- his proximity emphasizes his words. “I’m sure you’re aware of what your old buddy’s been up to. We’re bringing him in, Callan, and you can’t protect him . . . not without going down with him. You hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” Callan agrees, his expression tight and unhappy. Beside him, that fool phone rings again. Not his office phone, his cell. He snatches it from its place on his desk, his greeting less than cordial. “Speak.”
“I want to talk to you about Jacks Mancuso . . . and the FBI most wanted list,” a woman’s voice informs him from the other side of the line.
Not just any woman.
Sophie Amando.
The hotel room is draped with black pitch, leaving his eyes useless. They stare in her direction anyway.
It is done. It can’t be undone.
The soft sound of her suppressed tears shudder through the darkness, clenching his throat and his chest. He struggles with the words that will comfort, but only her name whispers into the air between them.
“Sophie.”
The sheets rustle and Jacks feels the faint warmth radiate from her reaching hand. Reaching from his own bed, he finds her in the dark.
“I’m sorry, Jacks,” she whimpers.
Sorry. She apologizes for this danger she’s found; all the choices that have led to this night. If only she knew . . .
“I am too,” Jacks admits hoarsely. If only he could give full confession and tell her all that he’s apologizing for; but he doesn’t. Tonight will be better for her if she doesn’t know. Tomorrow, it’ll be over.
The snap and static of blankets and sheets, tossed aside and, quite unexpectedly, the bed gives beside him. He shifts to accommodate her weight and shape, finding surprisingly few adjustments are necessary. She fits, as if they were molded for one another.
“Sophie,” he says again, his voice thick with the conflict of longing and fractured restraint.
“I know,” she whispers. “But . . . you’re leaving soon and,” she swallows, hiding against his chest. Her tension tells of her struggle. She’s losing. The tears are warm against his skin. “If you don’t mind, let me just pretend . . . that I found the right Mancuso . . . for one night.”
Emotion chokes Jacks. Life. I did it for life. But his throat is thick; his mouth is tight. Snapping on the lamp by the bed to push back the darkness, he examines every curve under his hands.
Is this selfish? His eyes meet hers and he silently begs God above to forgive this- to forgive him. He made the choice he had to make. Let him have at least this morsel, this moment.
But the human heart was not created for moments. It was sculpted to remember. It was created to hope. Future and past intertwine into the promise of the now- but the heart was never created to be content with simply the moment.
Their history suffocates their hope with death and threats. It strangles Jacks, slowing his hand until Sophie’s eyes well from his slow tenderness. He reveals her slowly to the light, and with hitched breathes, tries to memorize every inch of her- the feel of her thigh in his hand; the rise and fall of her chest with her uneven breaths; the color that pinks her cheeks and darkens her lips; the fit of her soft curves against his taunt body.
“Jacks?” Sophie whispers, uncertain.
Jacks closes his eyes and sears the sound of her voice calling his name into the front of his mind. Eyes still closed- unable to face her- he quietly promises, “Everything’s going to be alright, kitten. I promise.”
She whispers her reply, afraid that any sound louder will shatter them, “I know.”
Perhaps it wasn’t the wisest course of action- to slip away from her bed and slip into Jacks’ -- but perhaps wisdom and prudence are impossible to recapture after you’ve traveled so far down a road this wrong.
Tomorrow he’ll be gone and she has no one to blame but herself. The call is made. She had no choice, really. None at all. It was life or death and- God help her- she wants life. She’ll sacrifice everything for that- even this.
But tonight, for just one night, she’ll have what should have been.
She gently pulls him down to kiss her.
It is a slow weaving. Their hands explore but cannot rest until his fingers are laced with hers. Gently, firmly knitting their bodies together the past falls away and the future turns to shades of haze.
This is their eternity. This is their forever- this one night- and they offer it up without any reservation. It’s wrong-- Jacks recognizes that now, watching her expressions change with the ecstasy he brings her. He should have dawns and drudgery; he should have dusk and rest; he should have an entire lifetime of sunrises and sunsets with her, ripened with seasons, mellowed and enriched with years.
Instead he only has this.
They won’t relinquish the precious time to sleep. Emotions thick and edged with the grief of an ending, they frantically try to force an entire lifetime of love into one dark night.
It was the right choice, Jacks reminds himself again. The sun pushes through the edges of the curtains with yellow rays. Their time is up. Their forever is clipped and finished. Nothing else matters. It was the right choice.