Tucker nodded. He looked sheepish.

“Why?” Why did you sail out there? Why didn’t you come to the house? Elliot wasn’t sure which question he wanted to start with.

Tucker admitted, “After Friday night I thought maybe your shell was cracking.”

“My shell?”

“You called me when you thought you might need help. That has to mean something. I wanted to see you, talk to you, but I lost my nerve.”

“You lost your nerve?”

Tucker nodded. He stared up, frowning at the ceiling. “I decided it was a bad idea. That if I pushed it, I was liable to make things worse. I ended up spending the night at a bed and breakfast and sailing back the next morning.”

“I can’t believe it. You were on the island last weekend?”

Tucker shrugged.

Funny to remember how much he’d been thinking about Tucker on Saturday, and all the time Tucker had been on the island, only a couple of miles away.

“You should have come to the cabin.”

“Yeah?”

Elliot nodded and leaned over to claim Tucker’s mouth. Tucker made a throaty noise of acquiescence.

This was new. They had never spent much time on foreplay let alone afterplay before, but Elliot was enjoying this leisurely, caressing exploration. They took turns kissing necks and ears and stubbled chins. He had never found or expected gentleness from Tucker, but here it was, his for the asking. His even if he didn’t know how to ask.

*  *  *

Eventually they abandoned the tangled sheets and blankets for showers and breakfast. Tucker fixed blueberry pancakes and they ate, drank their coffee and took turns reading sections of the Seattle Times. Every time their eyes happened to meet over an exchange of pages one of them would offer a self-conscious, wry grin.

The newspaper covered the shooting incident behind the college. No connection was made between the attack on Elliot and the investigation into Terry Baker’s murder. Though the paper referred to Baker’s death, they were still reporting it as suicide.

It reminded Elliot to check his phone messages. Zahra Lyle had called to tell him that she had been forced to go out of town for a business convention, but was expecting an update from him. That was a conversation Elliot wasn’t looking forward to.

When he returned to the kitchen, Tucker was on the phone. He directed a constrained look at Elliot, and Elliot gathered Tucker preferred to speak without an audience. He took his coffee into the other room.

Tucker joined him about half an hour later. Elliot raised his brows in inquiry. Tucker sat beside him on the sofa. He had the air of a man about to make a confession, and Elliot prepared himself to hear something he wasn’t going to like.

“That was Montgomery I was talking to.” Tucker drew a deep breath. “I think the Bureau should take the lead on this case.”

“You had the lead,” Elliot commented. “Remember? You thought it was a waste of your time.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. Montgomery reminded me. More tactfully than you, I might add.”

Elliot curled his lip, but let it go.

“I didn’t think the two cases were connected. I admit it. And I sure as hell didn’t think we were hunting a serial killer.” Tucker grimaced. “I can’t pretend that you being involved didn’t put my back up. I like being rejected about as much as the next guy. I guess it did bias me.”

They could have spent the rest of the morning covering old ground, but what was the point? They had hurt each other in the past. If there was going to be a future, they needed to put it behind them once and for all.

Elliot changed what he had been about to say, asking instead, “Is the Bureau taking over?”

“It’s too soon to say. We’ve obviously got the superior resources especially as far as lab testing and analysis.”

No question which way Tucker wanted it to play out, and Elliot couldn’t blame him for that. He’d have wanted the same thing in Tucker’s place. Besides, the FBI often did get involved when the victim or the victim’s family was prominent or politically connected, as was the case here, even when the crime itself did not fall under federal jurisdiction.

Following his train of thought without effort, Tucker said, “It’s going to depend on what Tacoma PD wants, and frankly, the Bakers.” He added, “Either way, you’re out of it.”

Since Elliot had already come to the same decision even before yesterday’s attack, he couldn’t understand his own instant irritable reaction. He managed to swallow it, saying mildly, “That might be easier said than done.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Terry Baker’s funeral was a small, private affair—though not so small or so private that Jim Feder was not allowed inside the chapel.

He took his place in the pew next to Elliot and offered a troubled smile.

Elliot nodded back in greeting.

Jim looked young and handsome in his dark suit. Observing him unobtrusively, Elliot decided that Jim’s quiet distress was genuine.

Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t off his rocker and feeling bad about a murderous compulsion he was unable to control, but Elliot didn’t think so. For one thing, the fact that their “organized” serial killer Unsub had been active for at least five years put twenty-five-year-old Jim beneath the usual cut-off age range of 25 to 45. Not that there couldn’t be exceptions to the rule. Ray and Faye Copeland had been in their seventies. Robert Dale Segee had been nine.

When the service was over, Roland went to speak to Pauline and Tom, and Elliot followed Jim outside. The younger man lit a cigarette and puffed broodingly as he stared out over the white rose garden.

“It isn’t fair,” he said. “It just isn’t fair.”

“Nobody ever said life was fair.” Though Elliot’s leg was greatly improved since Friday, it was still stiff and achy, and that always made him impatient with such sentiments.

Jim gazed at him with sad eyes. “Terry deserved to be loved.”

Didn’t everybody? At the risk of sounding like Roland talking through a psychedelic haze, wouldn’t more love in the world solve a lot of problems right out of the gate? Elliot merely nodded politely. He understood that Jim felt guilty for not loving Terry more.

“Do you think they’ll ever catch who did this?”

“I think so,” Elliot replied. “I think the police have narrowed a number of possibilities.”

“They questioned me.”

“Did they?”

“After Kyle was attacked.” Jim added shortly, “But I guess you knew that. I guess you’re the one who gave them my name.”

Elliot kept his tone neutral. “Your name came up. I didn’t see any reason to withhold it.”

Jim looked away. “Nothing personal, right?”

“I didn’t think you had anything to hide.”

“Everyone has things they’d prefer to hide.”

That was true, and one of the factors that inevitably complicated any investigation.

“Are the police giving you a hard time?”

“No. Of course not. I didn’t have anything to do with the attack on Kyle or with Terry’s death.”

“There you go then.”

Roland came up to them at that juncture and asked Elliot back to the house.

“You’re not going over to the Bakers?”

Roland shook his head. “Come over. I’ll make you supper.”

Elliot was only too glad to accept this olive branch. He said goodbye to Jim, who nodded sulkily and went back to tipping ashes in the roses.

*  *  *

“How do potato and bean enchiladas sound?”

Elliot opened his mouth. “Oh, that’s too easy,” he said instead.

Roland snorted, opening the drawer and hunting for his potato peeler. “Boys will be boys.”

“How’s the book coming?” Elliot studied Roland’s strong profile. He wondered how his father would view Elliot starting up again with Tucker, especially given the fact that Tucker’s political views were, with one exception, decidedly to the right of the Mills clan.