Rainy April Regrets

(sequel to Weekend in New England)

Disclaimer: The STFBE characters are the property of Pebblehut Productions and Paxson Communications. Dan Jones and his associates are of my own creation (why they showed up in my head is beyond me).

Rating: A strong T (borderline T-plus/M), simply for a great deal of angst and a very adult situation… well, you'll see.

Author's Note: This is a personal journey for me, like so many of my other stories. At first I thought it was merely a way to face something from my past, but I quickly learned it was far more than that. It has shown me the dangers of giving in to guilt, particularly guilt incorrectly felt for something over which one has no control. My muse apparently sees writing as a way to learn lessons I refuse to listen to from any other source. Thank you, "Paul."

PART I: To the End…

Prologue

A whole year; hard to believe. Tara Williams tapped her pen against her lips, smiling to herself as she watched her "partner" plowing through a report on a case they'd just finished, bantering with Bobby and generally goofing off.

Ever since their first "adventure" in Camden, Maine, a year ago, chasing down a treasonous thief, she'd never expected that the friendship they'd discovered would have such an effect on him. For herself, he had become an anchor she'd never thought she'd find anywhere; but for him, it seemed, she had become the catalyst to bring down slightly the walls he'd built so strongly around his heart. Though she understood completely now why the walls were there, she'd certainly never expected to see them soften around the rest of the team. Not that it was overtly noticeable; just a subtle mellowing that someone would occasionally comment on.

After hours, it was almost as if they'd never left the snowbound inn where he'd saved her life. At least three evenings a week, if they were free, they were at her apartment or his house, talking, playing chess or cribbage (he regularly trounced her at chess, she creamed him every time at cribbage; it was an even match), or just enjoying each others' company. Sometimes, if a case had been particularly grueling, they'd end up snuggled together on the sofa, exchanging companionable touches and an occasional platonic kiss, letting the stress melt away as they "debriefed."

At work, it was as if they were extensions of each other; there had been more than one comment about it from Garrett, and even Jack had mentioned it. They were paired regularly now, whether on legwork or actual takedowns. Her field experience (outside the surveillance van) had quadrupled in the past year, and Jack had privately confided to her that she seemed to have a stabilizing effect on the Harvard grad, whose knee-jerk intensity sometimes made him a little reckless.

Still, even there it was not unusual for him to brush a hand across her shoulders as they gathered around her computer for breaking news, or for her to catch his hand briefly on their way out the door. It was just natural now, though they kept it discreet.

He must have felt her gaze on him, because he paused in his banter with Bobby to wink at her. She marveled again at how easily they'd managed to continue what they'd started at the inn, and how little anyone else had commented on it. Now she watched an aide walk up to him and hand him a file, and smiled again as he actually paused in his work to thank the young lady. He turned to read the file, and it all vanished; she saw his face go hard with outrage.

Myles slapped the folder on his desk and blew his breath out in frustration. "I swear, the detention system in this country is abysmal. Why do we even bother arresting people?" He was building to a full head of steam, and heads were turning. "I mean, it's a waste of our time to hunt down a criminal, a waste of money to make the taxpayers foot the bill for a trial and incarceration if they cannot keep the man in prison!"

"Who, Myles?" Jack wearily looked up from his own report.

"Dan Jones, that's who!"

"What?" Tara sat back in her chair, shocked. "You're kidding."

He stalked over to her desk and practically threw the folder at her. "No, I'm not kidding! He escaped from the Maryland Prison Center two days ago, and vanished into thin air. By now he's probably setting up a deal for the plans to the National Defense System."

"I'd be more worried about him hunting the two of you down," Lucy commented dryly. "You pretty much humiliated him."

Myles shot her a severe look for her lack of tact, then glanced at Tara, whose eyes had gone a little wide. He knew she was thinking back to a meeting with Jones and a most unpleasant proposition. Not caring who was watching now, he touched her hand briefly. "Then I guess we'll just have to go hunt him down first."

She swallowed, but looked up at him, drawing strength from the blue-grey fire she saw there. "What are we waiting for?"

One

Tara blew out her breath in exasperation. "Howie, if you don't quit the dramatic lead-in and just tell us what you heard, I'm going to pretend you don't work on our side. Do you read me?"

Myles had to smother a grin as he watched his petite partner ram the snitch up against a brick wall in four inches of slushy January snow. Howie Fines might outweigh Tara by twenty pounds, but he had a healthy respect for the woman's abilities as a Special Agent. And her full clip of impatience at the moment.

Howie raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay. Sheesh." He glanced at Myles. "How come you guys let her sit behind that computer all the time? She's scarier than Bobby."

"Howie—" Tara bumped him back again just for good measure, her breath wreathing the small man's face like a cloud of smoke.

"All right, already." The snitch took a breath. "Look, I don't even know for sure how accurate this is, because it seems to have worked its way through a dozen people already, and no one seems to know who started the chain. But the word is that the guy you're looking for, Dan Jones, is holed up in the old VanTex research facility out in Falls Church. The place is a maze, though; I guess they even had some big secret lower levels where the heavy stuff was going on. It'd take days to search the whole place."

"Not if we get an army out there," Myles declared. "Which is what I intend to set up."

Tara let go of the snitch and pulled out her cell phone. "Who do you want me to call first?"