Chapter Ten

Alone Again

Woody sighed and threw his keys on the counter, watching them hit the surface, bounce off, and fall to the ground. Reality all the way around…my life is totally hit and miss right now. He walked to the refrigerator, drew out a Guinness, uncapped it, and downed half of it in one gulp.

Alone…again.

For the third month in a row.

Lu was gone. Not that that was any big surprise. And not that that wasn't all his fault either, Woody thought grimly as he worked on the second half of his beer, shedding his clothes in the process and heading for the shower. It was all his fault and she had let him know it in no uncertain terms.

Well…not all his fault. Jordan had something to do with it, too, although bless the girl, she was totally ignorant of the fact…because she was totally innocent.

After his conversation with Lily, he had tried re-establishing communication with Jordan…to try to understand where the medical examiner was at emotionally. But if Jordan's like creed had been "Don't ask, don't tell," before, it was now, "You can ask all you want, but I ain't telling nothing."

She was as withdrawn and quiet as Lily had described. He had joked, cajoled, even bribed, and she wouldn't say anything substantial about her state of mind. It had taken weeks to get anything out of her. After countless "working" dinners and morning Starbucks runs, the most concrete thing she had slipped up and said was that there was a job offer in DC and she was seriously thinking about taking it.

He had nearly dropped his double caramel macchiato with six sugars over that one. "You're not serious?"

"I am," she replied softly, a far away look in her eyes.

"You miss him, don't you?" he responded, trying desperately to keep any edge of jealousy out of his voice.

"Drew?"

"Yeah, Haley."

She nodded then. "I do. He was great when...when…I was on the run."

"I could have helped you more than I did then, Jor. All you had to do was ask." He knew jealousy was written all over that statement.

And if she heard it, she didn't respond to it. She simply shook her head sadly. "And jeopardize your job? I wouldn't do that to you. And you did a lot…listening to Haley…following up…We …I couldn't have done it without you."

"Still…so you're thinking about going to DC to be with him?" The green-eyed monster was all over that one, too.

She had taken a long sip of her espresso-laden latte and shook her head again. "Not to be with him, but work for him. The FBI has offered me a job."

"The bureau? Wow…that's….."

"Not Boston. And I think that's what I need…" her soft voice had trailed off as her cell phone rang. It had been Garret. She was needed in the field. With a quick good-bye she was gone, leaving him to stew in her news and his regrets.

And stew he did. For hours Then days. Until it became apparent to Lu that something else had gone wrong between them. When a request came through from the FBI to the Boston PD for background check on one Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh, Lu had quickly put the pieces of the puzzle together.

"You're afraid she's going to leave, aren't you?" Lu had confronted Wood one evening after work when he was more withdrawn from her than usual.

"Jordan?"

"Yeah, Jordan. The FBI wants a background check on her and you've stonewalled it for two days. You're not only afraid she's going to leave, you don't want her to."

Silence. Woody had met her accusation with silence.

"Do you?"

"No," he had finally replied quietly. "I don't. In Jordan's present state of mind, I'm not sure she knows what she wants or needs. I think she still requires time to adjust to being here…to not being watched and on the run. To get over being a fugitive. If she takes that job in DC right now, she's just running again. Those same feelings will follow her."

"How do you know what she's feeling?" Anger laced the edges of her voice.

"People talk, Lu. And that morgue is like a sieve. There are no secrets among the living or the dead there."

"So you're still concerned about her…even after you put your job on the line talking with Haley…you're still involved with her." She spat the last word out.

"If being concerned about someone who's been your friend since you've moved to Boston is wrong…the yes, I am involved. There. He had admitted where his heart was. The proverbial ton of bricks lifted from his shoulders.

And Lu's accusations had flown. Along with her clothes and the spare box of tampons…into a suitcase and she was gone. Leaving nothing but the ringing in his ears of a dozen false accusations and the slamming of a door.

That had been three months ago. They hadn't spoken since. Didn't have a need to. Lu transferred to the twenty-third precinct. Woody grunted as he rinsed the soap off his body and got out of the shower. Lu was gone.

But Jordan was still in Boston. He had continued to stonewall her background check. He had called Haley and voiced his concerns. Haley had been aware of them before the call. "But maybe she needs to get out of Boston to face them," he told Woody.

"If she takes this job, it's just another form of running. Boston's where this shit started. Boston is wherethis shitneeds to end Then if she still doesn't want to stay here after all the dust has settled, I'll fax the her background check to you, kiss her on the head, and put her on the plane myself."

So Haley had given him a month to work on Jordan…to try to get her to face her fears and deal with reality. A month. Thirty days.

That was a week ago. He had talked, joked, cajoled again…but nothing else was coming out of Jordan. Lily was worried. If possible, he was worried more. Still contemplating the next strategy to get Jordan to talk, he grew mildly aggravated at a buzzing from across the room. His cell phone. He was on call. Phoning back to the precinct to check in, he had frowned. Dead teenaged girl under the overpass in South Boston. Probably a runaway.

The only possible bright side to this bleak scenario -- if there was such a thing in these situations – was that Jordan was the answering ME.