by Abigail Roux
Ty would give anything for a call like that about Zane.
Without anywhere else to turn, he headed for his row house.
He sat for hours in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked a block away, observing from a safe distance. The crime scene had been cleared surprisingly quickly. Either that was really good or really bad for him. There were two officers left guarding his front door, and probably one or two watching the back.
As he pondered where else they might be stationed, he realized it was a trap. The men on his front stoop were both smoking cigarettes. There were no cones to keep traffic away from the car where the CIA claimed Nick and Liam had massacred two cartel thugs. There were no flags denoting evidence, there was no crime scene tape. These weren’t city cops. No. This was either the cartel or the NIA. They’d set two men out front like shining beacons for Ty to see, knowing he’d try to avoid them and sneak in another way.
God knew what awaited him inside.
But he had to get into the house. The CIA had provided him with almost everything he would need for the next two weeks. The last item was inside.
He glanced up at the sky. It was overcast and dreary, and the sun would be setting soon. Down the street, gaudy Christmas lights were hanging off one of the upper balconies. He was one of the only people in the neighborhood who didn’t mind the frat boys who lived there. He’d spoken with them a few times, letting them know that if they stayed in line, he wouldn’t rig their kegs to explode when they had parties. They were decent guys.
Ty smiled as an idea formed. When night fell, he’d be able to get into his house.
He wrapped his thin coat tight and hunkered down in the cab of his borrowed truck. When Preston had given him open access to Langley’s fleet, Ty was pretty sure no one had expected him to ask for the landscaper’s old Chevy. That was one thing he had to look forward to for the rest of his useful days: confounding baby CIA agents.
He snorted. As long as you did what the CIA told you to do, they were good employers. Of course, if Zane found out about this . . .
Ty cleared his throat, his eyes burning. Zane was alive. He would continue to believe that until he saw a body.
Warmth seeped in on Ty as he grew tired. Idle time was dangerous during missions. You let your guard down, allowed your mind to wander and your body rest, and the adrenaline died away.
His thoughts strayed to Zane again and he sniffed. All the things he’d said and done, all the lies he’d let blacken his soul. He’d never deserved something as good as Zane in his life, but somehow he’d managed to find it anyway. And Richard Burns, the very same man he’d always credited with giving him Zane, with giving him a reason to stay with Zane, was the man who’d torn him away, even from beyond the grave.
He was surprised to find his eyes burning when he closed them, and warm tears slid down his cheeks into his several days’ worth of beard when he opened them again. He wiped at his face with his coat sleeve, shaking his head. He had to concern himself with trivial things like not getting killed before he could ponder Zane and what he would do if his husband was really dead.
He shifted and glanced down the street at the unmarked patrol car. It was a BPD car, not the standard-issue sedan or SUV most of the alphabet soup agencies would drive. Either the BPD was in on the hunt for him, or somewhere two poor patrol officers were tied up or dead.
When the darkness was almost upon him, Ty pulled away from the spot by the curb and watched in the rearview mirror as he drove away. The cop car didn’t move, and Ty took the first turn. He headed for the ABC store several blocks away, and ten minutes later he tossed his haul into the bed of the truck and headed back toward his house. He parked as close to the house with the Christmas lights as possible. They were having a party, and Ty had come bearing gifts.
When the kid opened the door, Ty smiled widely and tapped the toe of his Converse against the keg he’d set on the stoop. “I need a favor,” he told the kid, who was grinning at him, slightly glazed.
As two giddy pre-med students hauled the keg inside, the kid who’d answered the door led Ty up the two flights of stairs to the top floor. All these row houses were built pretty much the same. The kid was so buzzed he didn’t even ask questions as Ty stepped out onto the rooftop terrace and glanced up the street.
“Thanks, kid,” Ty said as he stepped closer to the railing.
“Hey, can I video this for YouTube?” the kid asked. He stepped up next to Ty and looked over at the next balcony, probably thinking that Ty actually planned to try jumping it.
“Sure, why not,” Ty answered with a small groan. He didn’t want the kid to get suspicious about why Ty was choosing to climb from rooftop to rooftop to get into his house instead of just calling a locksmith or something.
The houses along the street alternated between having a third-floor balcony and a rooftop terrace. Which meant to get from terrace to terrace, you had to climb over whatever partition the owners had chosen to put up. To Ty’s relief, the way was mostly clear. A few potted plants and a privacy fence, and he would have access to his own home.
He didn’t give the neighbor kid time to go back and get a video camera; he leaped over the partition and scuttled across the next terrace, keeping his silhouette low.
In a matter of moments, he was climbing down to the third-floor balcony of his home, three stories above the heads of the men loitering on his stoop. He tried to ease the door open, but it didn’t budge. He scowled at it, pushing the handle harder. The latch moved, which meant it was unlocked. But it wasn’t going anywhere.
Ty cursed as he remembered the warped doorframe he’d been meaning to fix. He’d put it off, and put it off, making excuses whenever Zane mentioned it, ignoring it like he had all the time in the world to address it. He gritted his teeth, his eyes watering as he shoved his shoulder into the door. It rattled, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
“Really, Beaumont?” he said under his breath. He stared at the wooden boards of the balcony, at the flower pot where they’d discarded cigars and filters after smoking. He couldn’t even break into his own house. How the fuck was he supposed to function in the fucking real world if he couldn’t even break into his own god damn house?
He wiped his cheek on his shoulder, taking a deep breath. Then he pushed the handle, lifted the door so it would fit in the frame better, and pushed with all his strength. The door flew open, and Ty went tumbling into the attic room. He sprawled on the floor, blinking at the ceiling and wondering if just giving up was an option.
“You’re okay,” he whispered, and he hefted himself off the ground.
The first thing he did was move into the spare bedroom on the third floor and open up the wardrobe there. He searched through the array of boxes, some of them wooden, some of them metal, all of them antique and given to him as gifts. He kept all the odds and ends from his cases in them, a closet pack rat. It would serve him well now.
He found the box that held the makeup they’d used on him when he and Zane had been forced to assume the identities of Del and Corbin Porter on a cruise ship full of people who’d wanted to kill them. Inside was a leftover scrap of the synthetic skin graft they’d used to cover his tattoo. He smiled grimly as he palmed it and the glue that went with it.
He closed up the wardrobe and left the room, creeping down the stairs to the second level and their bedroom. He changed clothes quickly, but got stuck when he pulled out the closest T-shirt. He thought he was grabbing a plain drab-green shirt, but it had two panda bears wrestling on it, and under them in dramatic lettering it read WWF.
Zane had given it to him as a joke after Ty had forced him to donate a thousand dollars to the World Wildlife Fund so he could get a stuffed tiger. Ty put the shirt to his lips, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, letting the ache settle low and hard. Then he shook the pain off and yanked the shirt over his head, grabbing his duffel that always remained mostly packed from the closet. Zane had stolen things out of it, damn him. Ty had never restocked it after Zane ha
d taken it, and now he might pay for it.
He looked around at the bedroom, feeling cold all over. The sheets were tangled, the covers tossed aside. Was that the last time he’d ever be able to hold Zane? How could it be, when they’d done so little to make it special?
Again, he shook the thought off and took down the lockbox from inside the safe at the top of his closet, then opened it. His gun was gone. Fuck! Zane had cleaned him out. How had he gotten so complacent he hadn’t made sure everything was back in order?
He stared at the empty indentation for a long moment before merely closing the box and replacing it. He pulled down another, smaller metal box and opened it, sifting through the random bits and pieces of things people had sent him over the years to find a set of handcuffs inside. He pulled the key from them, pocketing it. He replaced everything as quietly as he could, then made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
He weighed the key in his hand. It was heavy, but he thought the synthetic bit of skin would hold it. He only had enough for one attempt.
He went to the bathroom, closing the door carefully and stuffing a towel along the bottom to block the light when he turned it on. He laid out his haul and shook his head. “Pretty pitiful, Grady,” he muttered as he wet a washcloth and wiped down his forearm, making certain he could reach the spot if his wrists happened to be handcuffed together. Then he went about covering the key with the false skin there.
It took more time than he’d expected it to, and by the time he’d finished it and wrapped a leather wrist cuff around it to secure it, he was getting antsy. He’d been here too long.
He gathered up his duffel, moving in utter silence. He held a penlight in his mouth and carried his half-empty bag over his shoulder, unsnapping it as he went off in search of his last item. The thing he’d really come here for. He stepped up to a framed photograph, the one of him and Zane sitting together on the porch of his parents’ home in West Virginia. They both had their heads lowered, foreheads touching, in the middle of a fit of laughter that had wound up with Ty flat on his back, guffawing, and Zane watching him with a shining light in eyes.
Ty took the photo off the wall and carefully removed the back from the frame. Behind the black-and-white photo was a copy of the same picture in color. Ty took it, running his thumb over Zane’s face before he slipped it into the front pocket of his shirt and put the frame back together. He replaced it on the wall, staring at Zane’s handsome face for a few more seconds before he forced himself to move on.
He grabbed his bag and made his way back to the top floor of his row house.
If this was the last time he ever set foot in his home, well . . . he was okay with that now.
“I’m just saying, if you’re going to blow shit up, you do it right!”
Zane rubbed his eyes. He didn’t know if he could keep listening to this for the next couple hours as they sailed the last leg to DC.
Digger was ranting at Owen, who was sitting on the sofa and counting out his pain pills like he was considering taking them all at once.
“If it’d been me blowing that shit up? Ain’t none of us would have crawled out. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Well, thank God for half-assed bad guys,” Owen said, as if to appease him.
“Damn straight.”
Zane was sitting opposite them, next to Clancy, staring at them with his mouth hanging open. It didn’t matter how much time he spent with Sidewinder, he never failed to be terrified by them.
Owen narrowed his eyes at the two pills remaining in his hand after he’d counted off the rest and put them back in their bottle.
“Don’t take those,” Kelly said loudly, pointing at Owen from the banquette on the opposite end of the boat, like a mother shouting at her children in a grocery store. “Conserve.”
Owen grumbled under his breath, but he dropped the last two in the bottle and put the cap on it.
Perrimore and Lassiter were both in the kitchen, watching Digger rant with much the same expression Zane had assumed when the Cajun had started in on why the bomb hadn’t taken them out in the basement. The bottom line, Zane had deciphered, was that whoever had set the bomb simply hadn’t known the basement existed. Ty’s secret room had saved all of them.
Well. Almost all of them.
Scott Alston had made every move thinking he was just doing his job. He was no more guilty in all of this than Ty was, or Zane. He’d endangered Ty and Zane’s lives, but certainly not on purpose. Hell, he’d even tried to cover for them when he thought they’d been the ones to take Burns out. Zane couldn’t find it in him to be angry with him, and he mourned the man. Alston had died down there with them, prepared to atone for his actions, prepared to help them fight back. He’d died because he’d thrown his body over the satchel of evidence Zane had brought downstairs, to protect it from the flaming debris falling around them.
Zane had told Perrimore and Lassiter only that last part when he’d called them and explained what was happening. They would never know what else Alston had done. Zane and Clancy had both sworn to take that to their graves.
Zane had been shocked to see Clancy when she’d arrived from the hospital with Digger and Owen and the satchel full of photos and printouts Zane had thought they’d lost. She was beat all to hell, with a few broken ribs and a severe cough from all the smoke she’d inhaled. She’d looked determined when she’d stepped onto the Fiddler, though, so much so that Zane hadn’t mentioned she shouldn’t be there, as hurt as she was.
Alston had been her partner, she’d said. And Zane and Ty were her friends. If this was her last stand, at least she’d go down in a blaze of glory.
The thought sent a pang through Zane as he glanced around at the three FBI agents who were on the Fiddler simply because he’d called them to arms. They didn’t have to be here. This wasn’t their fight. They were risking far more than just their jobs by going rogue like this, and yet here they were. Zane had once told Nick that he’d never had friends like Ty had in Sidewinder, that he’d never known that sort of loyalty.
He’d been wrong.
“What’s the plan, Garrett?” Perrimore asked as he sat on the coffee table in front of Zane.
Zane glanced around, taking a second to realize that everyone was watching him. Even Liam and Kelly, who were craning their heads to see into the salon.
Zane swallowed past the lump that had developed in his throat and sat up straight, trying to fake confidence he wasn’t feeling. “My only priority right now is to find Ty,” he announced. “And I’m going to operate under the assumption that his priority right now is to find me. He wouldn’t accept that I was dead so easily; he’d keep searching until someone showed him a body.”
Liam cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, grumbling something to Nick about a finger. Nick either didn’t hear him, or pretended not to as he navigated the Fiddler in the dark.
“Okay, so you’re both after each other. Do you have some sort of emergency backup plan you’re supposed to follow in case you’re separated like this?” Clancy asked.
Zane shook his head, blushing a little as the others complained.
“As obsessed as you are over the whole zombie genre, you don’t have safe zone plans?” Perrimore teased. He smacked Zane’s knee, chuckling like he hoped the light ribbing would raise Zane’s spirits.
Zane’s spirit didn’t need to be raised, not right now. “I need to think like Ty,” he declared. “Where he’d go next, what his next stop would be.”
“What if you’re thinking like Ty, and Ty’s thinking like you?” Owen asked.
“Ty don’t have the pictures from the SD card,” Digger said. He lounged back into the sofa, putting his arm around Owen and patting him like he would to console a child with a scraped knee. Owen was either grudgingly allowing it or he was too drugged to notice.
“He’d need to pick up the trail,” Zane agreed. “And he wouldn’t know my satchel made it out of that building. He might be operating under the assumption that we’ll need
to somehow recover that information, pick up the trail another way.”
“Where’d you get the originals?” Lassiter asked. He sounded like he was dreading the answer, like he couldn’t possibly imagine what sordid ways Zane and Sidewinder had been operating under.
“Richard Burns’s home,” Zane answered with a sigh.
Laura Burns let Ty in with a watery smile and tight hug he wasn’t sure he deserved.
“Tyler, it’s so good to see you!” She ushered him into the house and gave him another hug. Ty had to look away from the oversized photo in the foyer of Richard Burns and his wife and dogs as she held on to him.
“How have you been?” he asked, forcing the words out through tightness in his throat that caught him off guard.
“Doing well, under the circumstances. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Ty winced. “I wish this were just a social call, but I’m afraid I’m working a case.”
“In DC? I thought you’d retired.”
Ty smiled and glanced around, not willing to answer her. “Would you mind if I had a look at Uncle’s Dick’s study?”
She took a small step back, her brow furrowed. “Of course,” she said after a few tense seconds where Ty thought she might refuse. She turned and gestured for him to follow her through the home. “You know, I’ve been meaning to ask you and Deacon here so you could go through his things. Your father, too. There’s probably so much Richard had hidden away that he would have wanted you boys to have.”
“Hundreds of millions of things, I bet,” Ty muttered.
They walked past the dining room, and Ty stutter-stepped as he glanced in. The safe in the floor Nick had told him about was still a gaping hole near the bay window.
“Laura,” Ty blurted, and she turned to face him. Ty felt almost guilty for playing dumb, but it was much easier than the truth would be right now. “What happened to the floor in here?”
She came closer and looked in, sighing. “Richard had a secret safe in there. Someone broke in, trying to get to it.”
“Did they?”
