Cause and Effect

by Brooke Edwards

  James tips his head in acknowledgement. “Probably,” he agrees, voice pleasant. “So, Sal, how about we figure out how to make sure that doesn’t happen?”

  A throat clearing from the doorway is enough for Daniel’s attention to snap away from James. Cohen is standing there, framed by the bright lights of the bullpen. There’s a bright, sparking panic in his eyes that has Daniel halfway to his feet before he even opens his mouth.

  “Call just came through the switchboard. You’re gonna want to take it.”

  Daniel doesn’t recognize the voice when Cohen puts the call on speaker and the man on the other end greets him. “That doesn’t seem fair,” the voice says. “You went above and beyond to take me down when I was in the clear, and you don’t even remember me?”

  There’s a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue before the door rattles in its frame and he jerks around to see James braced in the doorway. “Two out of three ain’t bad,” the voice continues. “Pity, would have liked to have spoken to Moore again. Guy puts you away for life, it forges a bond, you know?”

  Cohen lifts up a folder with a mugshot clipped to the front, the motion catching Daniel’s attention. As soon as he sees it, recognition slams into him like a wayward semi. “Jake Bartlett,” he says, and James’s eyes widen. “You broke out with Coy Fairhall.”

  Slow, mocking applause filters through the speaker. “Get that man a donut!” Bartlett chuckles. “Not much to do inside, it’s easy to find those with common interests. Mutual friends, y’know?”

  “We know,” James says, halfway toward the desk by the time Daniel turns to face him. His face is blank, and Daniel can see the others out in the bullpen, a frenzy of activity. They just have to keep him talking long enough to pull a location. “So how about we talk about what we don’t know?”

  “I don’t think I’ve got time for all that, buddy.” Bartlett laughs again, louder this time. “But I can spare you a bone, I guess. Before that, though, I gotta tell you that you really should keep a closer eye on your civilian halves. The ones who don’t carry weapons.”

  “Is that a threat?” James asks, muscles taut enough that Daniel can feel the tension from a foot away. “Because you’re not going to like my response to threats, Bartlett.”

  Daniel scrambles toward the desk and snatches up the pale yellow legal pad. James takes another step closer to the table, hands clenching into fists. “Did I touch a nerve?” Bartlett’s voice filters through the speaker, settling somewhere deep in Daniel’s chest like a hook. “Best cover up those weak spots, officers.”

  Daniel scrawls out Derek and Peter’s names on the legal pad and crosses the office in a few steps to press it up against the window and wave until someone looks up. Rhys is the first to see, and he takes off toward the front of the building at a run. Daniel turns to nod at James, slowly breathing out through his nose.

  “Hear those sirens?” Bartlett says.

  Daniel’s insides seize, twisting and cold, and the legal pad drops to the ground. James hunches over the desk. They can hear the screaming fire sirens through the speaker and from the street outside.

  “Catch you later, officers.” The dial tone only beeps once before James slams the handset back down onto the cradle.

  “Get Bailey and find out if they got a trace,” he says, blowing past Daniel without even looking at him. “Turn Sal loose and remind him of our deal, then find Saracen and tell him that he better get used to an escort because it’s that or WITSEC.”

  There’s a savage kind of joy in literally pushing Sal out of the front doors of the precinct in view of everyone on the street. Daniel smiles at the man with as many teeth as he can manage to bare and then yanks the doors shut with a resounding bang. Cohen is waiting by his desk, looming with an uneasy twist to his features, and Daniel can feel him at his back on the way back through the bullpen. Daniel snatches his phone and charger from his desk as they pass, shoving it in his pocket. “I’ll drive,” he says.

  “Saracen?” Cohen asks as they veer toward the doors. “We should cover Moore too.”

  Daniel nods, throat suddenly dry. “We need to make sure there’s a uniform on him while we sort this out.” He shoves the door open with his shoulder, hands still tucked in his pockets. “Boss’ll sort Derek out.”

  “Do you know where he’ll be?” Cohen asks as he shuts the passenger door behind him. “Saracen, I mean.”

  “Should be at work,” Daniel says, twisting the key in the ignition with more force than necessary. “Pizza place a block or so from his apartment.”

  They drive in loaded silence for a handful of blocks, Cohen’s presence big and stifling in the passenger seat. Daniel’s used to James or Rhys, both of them smaller and leaner and more familiar than the other man. The radio hums in the background, no codes or calls that they could possibly respond to and get Daniel out of having to face Peter barely an hour after the incident. Daniel can’t even think about it, not with Cohen a foot away and the road needing his full attention. It doesn’t take long before Daniel’s torn between flashes of Jake Bartlett’s narrowed eyes when he’d been dragged off in cuffs what feels like a lifetime ago, the hollow dread when he’d realized that Derek and James were both missing, and the echoing, empty alley that had almost taken Peter too. His knuckles ache, dull and distant, but he doesn’t ease his grip on the wheel until Cohen sits forward in his seat suddenly.

  “Any idea why Bartlett’s coming so hard after you?” the younger man asks when Daniel glances sideways at him.

  “He was going to get away with it until James and I convinced Derek to take the case,” Daniel says after a few seconds, and he worries at his bottom lip with his teeth. “Whole bunch of circumstantial bullshit, but Derek tore his story apart on the stand and got an adjournment. We leant on some of the witnesses hard enough that they recanted their false testimonies and it fell apart on him. Put him away for murder. He was never supposed to see the outside of a cell again.”

  “And he ended up the same place as Fairhall did.” Cohen leans back in his seat with a heavy sigh. “Nothing like a shared enemy.”

  “A good prosecutor makes a lot of them,” Daniel agrees, flexing his fingers around the steering wheel. “Just like a good cop.”

  “When you throw it all together, it’s like a perfect storm.” Cohen’s eyebrows furrow down into a frown. “Everything that could have gone wrong so far has.”

  Daniel snorts. “Not quite,” he says, flicking the indicator on and twisting to check his blind spot. “You’ll learn better than to test fate like that, Bailey. It can always get worse.”

  7

  “I kissed him!” Peter wails into the sofa cushions. The big, intimidating-looking officer can probably hear them through the open fire escape from his spot in front of the building. Peter doesn’t care anymore. “Just planted one on his face and then—it gets worse, don’t you worry, because I ran away.”

  “That wasn’t a great idea,” Tia agrees. She’s methodically tearing apart the garlic knots Peter had brought home and immediately abandoned to her clutches. “The running away, I mean. Did you even give him a chance to kiss back? Or say anything? Or did you literally molest his mouth, jump away, babble something, and then bolt? Because that is classic romcom fuckery, Peter, and I will never let you live this down. Ever.”

  “That’s pretty much exactly how it went down.” Peter presses his face further into the cushions and opens his mouth to wail some more. The fabric tastes terrible, like it’s the spot where dirty socks always sit, but he figures he deserves the suffering. It becomes too much after a few more seconds and he rolls to his side with a heaving gasp. “But he didn’t come after me until it was to tell me that there’s another nutjob loose, and even then he barely looked at me. I couldn’t even talk to him, Tia. If he did want to kiss me, he would have chased me, right?”

  “Not really,” Tia says helpfully. “I mean, if someone kissed me and then ran away, I would probably be more offended than anything else. Him telling you t
here’s another nutjob on the loose is actually more than I’d probably do.”

  Peter rolls further, onto his back, and balances precariously on the edge of the cushions. The sofa is not deep enough, he realizes a second too late and thumps to the floor.

  “You’re not a real person, are you?” Tia peers over the sofa at him. Her dark eyes gleam with amusement. The smear of garlic butter on the side of her mouth is distractingly shiny. “Like, when evolution was turning people into real boys, you were off somewhere else learning the fine art of failure.”

  “What do I do?” Peter blurts out, reaching up and then just letting his arm flop to land over his face. “I mean, do I call him and apologize? Do I text him and say it was an accident? Do I—”

  “Don’t you dare tell him it was a mistake!” Tia shouts, and she throws a pillow at his groin with way more force than necessary. Peter grunts, and she scrambles down to sit on his thighs and collect the pillow, beating him with it. There’s going to be garlic grease all over everything, Peter realizes. He loses track of it as Tia continues to hit him with the pillow, punctuating each blow with words. “Do! Not! How are you even allowed to kiss people if you think that’s an okay thing to do?”

  “Maybe it was a mistake!” Peter yells back, trying to fight his way up to a sitting position under her assault.

  “Shut up, you’ve wanted to punch him in the mouth with your mouth since he thought you were murdering birds!” Tia puts the pillow over his face and pushes until he slumps back down, arms still flailing at her. “Even I know it wasn’t a mistake!”

  He eventually manages to get the pillow off his face, gasping deep for air, and wriggles out from under her. “Go back to your garlic knots, you animal!” he hisses, and she smacks him with the pillow again.

  “Stop being a brat and kiss Officer Tight Pants again!” she snaps back. “And make sure he knows you mean it this time!”

  Pale lines of light from the street wobble across the dark room as the breeze rustles the curtains. James watches the slow rise and fall of Derek’s chest through half-lidded eyes, matching his breathing to the rhythm as the events of the evening wash over him. Derek had taken the news of Jake Bartlett’s involvement with no more than a deep breath and a nod. James had gritted his teeth, skin prickling and something roaring out of control in his chest. Muscles twitched with the effort to hold everything in, knuckles aching dully, and he still doesn’t know what he’d been about to say when Derek had reached out and covered his clenched fist with his own hand.

  “Take me home?” he’d said as his fingers slipped into the spaces between James’s.

  James, helpless to do anything else, let his fist relax and Derek’s fingers tighten around his. He doesn’t relax until they’re both in the cruiser, fighting the traffic toward Derek’s apartment. Derek holds his hand over the center console for most of the drive, and lets James clear the apartment before they go inside. He seemed smaller than he had at the courthouse, James’s chest growing tight as he took in the shadows in the hollow of Derek’s collarbone and the angles of his cheeks. Neither had felt like eating or even had the energy to get up to anything during the shower they shared. Derek had kissed him when they crawled underneath the covers, soft and reassuring, and left his arm out and space for James to crowd against him. James had propped himself up on his side, hand splayed out over Derek’s chest, and Derek had put his hand over James’s before settling back against the pillows with a tired sigh. His breathing evened out after a while, face relaxing just enough for James to realize how drawn it was while he’d been awake.

  “Love you,” James whispers, leaning over to brush his lips against the warm skin of Derek’s bare shoulder. Some of the tension bleeds out of him and he slides his free arm underneath the pillow, easing closer to Derek and closing his eyes.

  Daniel juggles the box of donuts further into the crook of his arm as he heads toward Kay’s desk the next morning. The coffee in his hand is his fifth in the three hours he’s been properly awake and he can almost feel the caffeine sparking along his nerves.

  Kay narrows her eyes as he comes closer. “Offerings of pastries are accepted,” she says, craning her neck to peer into the box as he tips it down. She flicks her eyes up to his face a second later. “Have you actually slept or did you just park outside Peter’s apartment building like a stalker?”

  “I left Bailey there and Rhys is there now,” Daniel mutters, flipping the lid back as she taps her chin with glossy white-tipped nails. “It’s protective custody, not stalking.”

  “Bossman tried to argue the same point, only he’s outsourcing his stalking.” Kay picks out the chocolate custard crème with a smirk. “He’s had about as much caffeine as you have too. Said to send you in when you got here and let you know that Martine and Hugo are on Derek for the day.”

  “I’m going,” Daniel says, letting the lid fall closed again and glancing across the strangely empty-looking bullpen.

  “Thanks for breakfast, sugar.” Kay blows a loud kiss after him.

  James is hunched over his desk when Daniel makes it into his office. He hip-checks the door shut behind him and drops the substantially lighter box down in the only free space on the desk. “Morning,” Daniel says and reaches into the box for a plain glazed. All of the coffee he’s had feels like it’s sitting right on top of his stomach instead of in it.

  “Haven’t had any reports of trouble,” James says, looking up from the mess of papers. He looks vaguely interested in the donuts for all of a split second before his eyes slide right on back to the papers. “We’ve got a roster. I want you for the morning, then you’re getting a few hours’ sleep and spending the night on Saracen’s block with Bailey when Rhys and Martine come off duty. That okay?”

  “Fine,” Daniel agrees, donut halfway to his mouth and appetite fizzling out almost instantly. He puts it on top of the box and breathes out slowly. “That’s fine.”

  Silence falls over the room and Daniel sinks further back into the chair, eyes flitting between the donut and James. Every time he thinks of something to say, it seems pointless, and the words die on his lips anyway. Eventually, James does it for him.

  “Of all the assholes he could have chosen to bust out with.” James buries his face in his hands, fingers spread out across his forehead and digging into his hairline. “It was hardly short of a miracle that Bartlett got convicted with what we had.”

  “No prosecutor worth their job has a shortage of enemies on the inside,” Daniel says. “And there’s not much to do in there but talk.”

  “We can’t make Bartlett talk without leverage.” James looks up, meeting Daniel’s eyes. His are bloodshot, and Daniel’s caught off guard by how dark the shadows under them are. “We can’t find leverage if we don’t get him in custody. We’re no closer to finding Fairhall, and the city’s teetering on the edge of a gang war even without being a smokescreen for a pair of psychopaths. Danny—” He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I don’t know what we do from here.”

  Daniel’s insides twist. James has been his commanding officer ever since he’d earned his detective’s badge, and there have been some rough cases over the years. He’s seen James overwhelmed all along the spectrum, from satisfaction and joy at a successful collar to as close as he came to despair when they just couldn’t seem to catch a break. He’s never heard those words from James, not said aloud. “We keep doing what we’re doing,” he says after a moment, swallowing around the lump at the back of his throat. “They’re gonna show their hand eventually and we just have to be ready. We can do that.”

  James doesn’t say anything, shoulders taut and drawn up near his ears and eyes still covered with his palms.

  “We can,” Daniel insists, leaning forward. “We took Fairhall down the first time, James, and we’re going to do it again. Our record against both of them is all in our favor, and I’m sure as hell not going to let them get on the board. Are you?”

  “Simple as that.” The words are flat, but J
ames drags his hands away from his face after he says them. It takes a second for his eyes to focus, but they meet Daniel’s steadily. “What’s the game plan, then?”

  Daniel will deny to his dying day that the sound that comes out of him when someone raps on the window of the cruiser is a squeak. He shakes off the fog, kicking himself mentally for focusing so hard on the front door that he missed someone getting close enough to startle him. He hadn’t gotten as much sleep in the afternoon as he’d planned, and when his alarm had dragged him out of bed, he’d stumbled back into his uniform and barely made it to the changeover. Clint had beeped the horn from a few cars down the street, and Daniel didn’t have to be close enough to hear the laughter to know it was happening.

  He’s pretty sure Clint is laughing too when Tia plasters herself against the window, face pressed flat against the glass and the foggy mist distorting her features. He winds it down, willing his heart to stop pounding and hoping it’s too dark for her to see the flush of adrenaline heating up his face.

  “What are you doing here?” he hisses, craning his head to glance down the street.

  “My civic duty,” she says cheerfully, shoving a mug at him. Hot liquid sloshes over the sides and drips into his lap. The sharp flash of pain punches a grunt out of him, and her smile grows even wider. “Also, that.” She punches him in the shoulder with the hand not still holding the mug, which sloshes more liquid into his lap.

  He finally snatches it from her hands, depositing it in the cup holder. “Assaulting an officer is a crime, I know you know that! Jesus—”

  “You know exactly what that was for,” she says, a manic edge turning up the corners of her mouth further.

  Daniel’s thighs smart, not quite burned but not entirely unburned either. “Are you insane?” he asks, carefully lifting the fabric of his pants away from his skin and wincing. “Is this—seriously, are you punishing me for that?”