Behind The Mask. Metsy Hingle

tattooed piece of scum. Michael had interrupted him in the middle of raping the store’s female clerk.

      “Yeah. But you know what they say. The bigger they come, the harder they fall.” But this one hadn’t gone down easy, Michael admitted. It had taken him more than a dozen vicious blows and two bullets to finally bring the man down. And even with two slugs in him, shackled and bleeding, the guy was still able to walk out of the store to the second ambulance that had been called to the scene. As Michael watched him being loaded into the ambulance, he thought of the terrified young woman whom he’d rescued a short time ago. Remembering her battered face and the way her clothes had been torn from her body, he clenched his bruised fingers into a fist and wished he could ram it down the monster’s throat. “How’s the girl?”

      “Alive, thanks to you. She’s lucky you came along when you did. According to his rap sheet, he took a knife to the last woman when he was finished. A remote spot like this and this late at night, chances are no one would have found her for hours.”

      “That’s probably what he was counting on,” Michael said. And if he hadn’t been so determined to make it back to Miami tonight, he never would have pulled off the interstate and come to the all-night store in the middle of nowhere in search of a jolt of caffeine to keep him awake. For the first time in the four days since his temper had caused him to mouth off to Webster and blow off what was a once-in-a-lifetime fee of a million bucks, Michael cut himself some slack. Had he taken Webster’s job instead of tracking down the deadbeat who’d wiped out a widow’s savings, he wouldn’t have been here to save the girl. If he were a man who believed in such things as fate, he might even think that something besides the need for coffee had made him choose this particular exit on this particular night.

      But if he’d learned nothing else since seeing his partner die before his eyes five years ago, he’d learned that he, and he alone, was responsible for his choices.

      “Like I said, she was lucky you decided to stop for coffee.”

      But he doubted the woman was feeling particularly lucky at the moment. “What did the paramedics say? She going to be okay?”

      “He did a number on her with his fists, but nothing that shouldn’t heal eventually.”

      Maybe physically she would heal, Michael thought. Mentally, it would be another story. She’d probably carry the scars for the rest of her life. “She had a picture of a baby propped up by her cash register.”

      “Yeah, the local police say she had a little girl about six months ago. Apparently her husband got laid off from his job, and she decided to go back to work to help out. She took the graveyard shift because it paid more money and allowed her to be home with her baby during the day. Poor kid only started working here about two weeks ago.”

      “Too bad I didn’t put a bullet between his eyes and saved the state, and her, the trouble of going through a trial.”

      “You won’t get an argument from anybody here on that one,” the trooper told him. “That cut by your eye looks pretty nasty. You might want to have the paramedics take a look at it until you can get to a hospital.”

      Michael tested the tender spot with his fingertips and when they came away bloody, he pressed a handkerchief to the wound. “It’s just a scratch,” Michael informed him. As it was, he’d probably be tied up for hours while the cops took his statement and filled out the paperwork. The last thing he wanted to do was get bogged down with even more red tape by going to the hospital.

      “Suit yourself. But I’m going to need you to come down to the station and make a statement about what went down here tonight.”

      “I know the drill,” Michael told him.

      “Yeah? I thought you private dicks did your best to avoid dealing with the law.”

      “I was a cop for twelve years before I decided to go out on my own,” Michael informed him.

      “Here in Florida?”

      “Texas,” Michael told him, eager to end the conversation. Rehashing his career as a police detective wasn’t high on his list of priorities—especially at one in the morning. He also didn’t want to remember how his own stupidity had caused the bust he and Pete had worked on for months to fall apart. Stupidity that had cost his partner his life and his father his pride. Not to mention the black mark on the entire Houston Police Department.

      “Good thing the perp didn’t know that or you’d have a lot more than that gash on your head.”

      “Let me guess. He’s a cop-hater.”

      The trooper nodded. “Word is he did a real number on the two prison guards he escaped from last month. According to the reports, one of them may lose an eye and the other one is still in a body cast.”

      Michael had no trouble believing it. As a fourth-generation cop, he’d heard plenty of stories about cop-haters and had encountered his fair share of them during his years with the Houston P.D. One look at the monster-size guy with the gold teeth and the ugly scar down one side of his face would have been enough to set off alarms in most cops. But it had been the lack of emotion in the man’s dark eyes that should have told the fools at the prison just how dangerous the guy was. He’d seen that look before. And each time he had, he’d been faced with a cold-blooded killer without a conscience, without a soul.

      A long black sedan pulled into the busy parking lot. A tall man in a dark suit with a cap of silver hair exited the vehicle and sought out the officer in charge.

      “Wonder who that is?” the trooper remarked.

      “His name’s Hennessey, he’s a federal agent,” Michael told him.

      “You know him?”

      “Our paths have crossed a time or two,” Michael replied. But even if he hadn’t known Hennessey, he’d have pegged him as a fed right off. The nondescript car, the somber suit, the steely look and calm demeanor. There had even been a time when he’d actually wanted to leave the Houston P.D. and join his brother Travis at the Bureau. So had Pete. Only Pete had flunked the tests. And when his friend had accused him of breaking their childhood pact to be partners, Michael had passed on the Bureau’s offer. Later that same year, after Pete had been killed, he’d abandoned any thoughts of becoming a federal agent. He’d walked away from his badge, too.

      “The feds must want this guy pretty bad if they sent an agent out here this quickly.”

      “It’s more a question of covering their asses before the press gets wind of what went down here,” Michael said. At the trooper’s puzzled look, he explained, “The Bureau takes a lot of heat in the media. Bringing in a killer like Dozier will play well in the headlines.”

      “But the feds had nothing to do with this. You’re the one who caught him,” the trooper pointed out.

      Michael shook his head. “That won’t play as well as saying that I assisted the FBI in taking him down. Look, here comes Hennessey now to try to sell me on the idea on what happened here tonight.”

      And after dispatching the trooper, the federal agent did his best to convince Michael about the official story that the Bureau wanted to give the press. “Since you’ve worked with the Bureau before, we’d like to say you were working in conjunction with us to track down Dozier and that you followed him to the convenience store where you apprehended him during the assault on the woman. You okay with that, Sullivan?”

      “Would it make any difference if I wasn’t?”

      “No.”

      “Then why bother asking for permission?”

      “Don’t be such a hard-ass, Sullivan.

      “You did a good thing saving that girl tonight. Taking that animal down couldn’t have been easy. You did a hell of a job.”

      “Thanks.”

      “It’s a shame that a man with your talents is wasting his time chasing cheating husbands when