With two cops in the room and the instigators restrained on the floor, the air went out of the balloon fast. Poison’s buddies limped back to the bar and the pool table, clutching their midsections and wiping blood off their mouths. The frosted-blond gal pals tried to drag the brunette away, but she shoved them off to kneel beside Nichols. “I’m sorry,” she said, low, for his ears alone. “I’m so sorry, Quentan.”
“Goddamn it, Tally!” Poison T-shirt made to rise from the floor. “You were supposed to have got rid of him!”
Hadley pushed his shoulder down, harder this time. “Stay seated. You get up again before I tell you to and I’ll cuff your ankles as well.”
He sank back down, glaring at the brunette across the floor.
Hadley gestured to Flynn to step away, out of earshot, trying to figure out what was an appropriate way to welcome a fellow officer back after a year. A fellow officer she had dumped after a very against-the-regs one-night stand.
The earringed construction worker came up to them, grinning and wiping his hair out of his eyes. “Hey, Kev! Haven’t seen you in dogs’ years, man. Where you been?”
“Hey, Carter.” Flynn bumped fists with the guy. “I was away on detached duty. Albany, and then Syracuse.” He sounded older to Hadley. More assured. Or maybe she had forgotten his voice.
“Dude. They put you on a SWAT team or something? You look like you’re ready to blow shit up.”
Flynn did look like a tactical agent, with the black POLICE T-shirt and the many-pocketed pants laced inside a pair of paratrooper boots.
“Badass Officer Flynn,” she said under her breath.
“Yeah. Well.” Flynn’s cheekbones went pink and he rubbed the back of his neck, popping a bicep and a blue Celtic armband. Hadley knew neither the muscle nor the tattoo had been there a year ago. He still looked like a reed next to Carter’s bulk, but he had put on some much-needed weight while he was away. She became aware that she was staring at him.
“So.” She bobbed her chin at him. “Not that I don’t appreciate it, but what the hell are you doing here? I heard you weren’t back on duty until tomorrow.”
“Harlene called me, looking for backup for you.” He glanced to where Poison was rocking back and forth on the floor. “Although it looks like you didn’t really need it.”
She snorted. “Right. John McClane with boobs, that’s me.”
Carter stared at her chest. “Who?”
“ Die Hard, ” she and Flynn said at the same time. He dropped his eyes to the floor and smiled before looking back up at Carter.
“You know this guy?” Flynn gestured toward the black soldier, who was sitting quietly, bent well forward to take the stress off his shoulders.
“Never saw him before in my life.” Carter dragged his gaze away from Hadley’s chest. “But I know that dipshit.” He flicked a finger at Poison. “We worked together on the new resort before his ass got fired.” Carter shook his head, sending his blond hair swinging. “What a tool. I figured if he was against somebody, I’m for him.”
“What’s his name?” Hadley asked.
“Wyler McNabb.” Carter smiled winningly at her, displaying teeth as dazzling as the diamond studs in his earlobes. “What’s yours?”
“Not Available.” She turned toward Flynn. “Will you find out what McNabb’s story is? I want to talk to her.” The brunette was hunkered down next to Nichols, arguing with him, from the tone and her body language, though Hadley couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Hadley slid her baton back in her duty belt and squatted next to the girl. “Ma’am, I need to talk with you.” Hadley stood up. “Leave your friend for a minute, and let’s go over there where we can have some privacy.” She waited while the girl rose, then steered her toward the dark corner past the jukebox.
“Am I in trouble?” Up close, she was older than Hadley had guessed. Flynn’s age, maybe; twenty-five or twenty-six.
“Let’s try to figure out what happened before we start assigning blame. What’s your name?”
“Tally. Tally McNabb.” She rubbed her hand over her IN MEMORIAM tattoo. “It’s really Mary, but nobody ever calls me that except my mom.”
“Okay. Private McNabb?”
“Specialist. But I’m out of the army now. It’s just plain Tally.”
“Okay. Tally. Chief Warrant Officer Nichols there said he was talking to you before the fight started, but you two didn’t just meet tonight, did you?”
Tally shook her head. “We served together.”
“In Iraq?”
Tally nodded.
“Did Nichols come here looking for you?”
Tally nodded. She looked at her feet. She was wearing red and white high-tops. “He wanted to see me again.”
“Uh-huh.” Hadley glanced over to where Flynn had hauled McNabb off the floor and was questioning him. “Is that your brother, then?”
Tally sighed. “My husband.”
Oh ho ho . “Wait here.” Hadley crossed the floor, now decorated with blood spatters to go with the spilled beer, and gestured to Flynn. “Officer Flynn?”
He laid a hand on the guy’s shoulder. “Sit down.” McNabb did so, groaning theatrically. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
Hadley retreated a few steps to make sure the guy couldn’t overhear them. Flynn closed in, towering over her. He was definitely taller than she had remembered. Either he had grown or she had been squashing him in her mind’s eye. “What is it?” he said.
“What’s his story?”
“He says he works construction for BWI and your girl over there’s his wife. He claims the black guy came into the bar and started hassling her. When he told him to back off, the guy swung on him.”
Hadley nodded. “I got a slightly different take. The one on the floor is Chief Warrant Officer Quentan Nichols. Specialist Tally McNabb says they served together in Iraq and that Nichols came here because he, quote, wanted to see her again.”
“Ah-hah.” Kevin sucked in his lower lip. “Yeah, that does put a different perspective on it. Whaddaya want to do?”
She felt a flush of pleasure. He might be eight years her junior, but he’d been on the force for five of those years, and whatever they’d had him doing in Syracuse and Albany the year he’d been gone, it was clearly more involved than manning the radar gun and making DARE presentations. She had assumed he’d be telling her what to do.
“I think we ought to book both of ’em. That’ll give ’em time to cool off, and make sure the bar owner has an arrest report if he has to make an insurance claim.”
Flynn nodded.
“I’m going to try to gauge how safe the wife feels. Ask her if she wants to file a restraining order.”
“Against which one? The husband or the boyfriend?”
Hadley shrugged. “I dunno.” She almost made a crack about one man being as bad as another, but that wasn’t fair to Flynn. He was a good guy. Too damn good. She had no doubt that beneath the menacing black uniform and the pumped-up bod, he still had the heart of an Eagle Scout. An Eagle Scout who’d been a virgin until he was twenty-four. Until she had nailed him. God .
“Okay, look,” she said, then the door opened. Another soldier, in urban camo and a black beret. This one was a woman, older, and she swung through the door with the ease and command of someone used to stepping in and taking charge.
“Military police?” Kevin said, and then, right on her heels, the chief walked in.
“No.” Hadley started to smile. “It’s her. She’s back.” She waved. “Reverend Clare!”
Clare waltzed into the Dew Drop like she was going to tea with the bishop. No, scratch that. She wouldn’t have been that enthusiastic about sitting down with her superior. Russ lengthened his stride, crunching across the gravel parking lot, and caught up with her inside the door.