Hiding the Moon

by Amy Lane

  He didn’t have long to wait.

  He’s hitting up lobbyists on the twelfth.

  His text to Jason—in the bathroom once more—was more than a little bit panicked.

  Needs funding?

  Yeah. Almost has them locked. Has three he can’t buy—WILL TAKE THEM OUT.

  The order was for the seventh—which, Burton assumed, was when his pet rabid bulldog got to use his digits again.

  Names?

  Burton sent the names and followed with Has home addresses. Make families disappear.

  Really?

  Because that was pretty ballsy, taking out the families, right?

  Yeah. There’d been hints in the emails, back and forth from Lacey to the lobbyists, that collateral damage was the price you paid. They’re one more threat from giving up.

  Why won’t they tell anyone?

  Burton blew out a breath. That a commander of the US Navy is threatening them with bodily harm if he doesn’t get funding for his secret behavior experiment? Who will believe them?

  He’d once seen Jason Constance shatter his knuckles on a brick wall in frustration. He waited for a primal scream to come over his phone and wasn’t disappointed.

  AUUUGGGHHH!!!! WHY IS THIS BASTARD SO SLIPPERY?

  Because he’s coated with the slime of respectability, sir.

  I hate you for that sentence. We’ll put everybody into custody and maybe put someone in the room—we may not be able to bust this guy yet, but we can protect them.

  One more thing, sir.

  ?

  And Burton took a deep breath. It was time. A lawyer—Ellery Cramer—and a PI—Jackson Rivers—are both onto this guy. They’re going to start looking into him when they get back on the 10th. On the one hand, half the jacket I sent you I got from what they dug up on one of his experiments gone wrong. On the other….

  They’re in danger too.

  They are.

  We can’t warn them. We can’t even tell them we’re watching.

  Sir?

  I have no authorization for this investigation, soldier. And now you know. I’ve been pulling Bob’s-in-the-bathroom since Chicago. I will probably be demoted when this guy is ended—be prepared.

  Burton swallowed. Oh. Once he’d broken his original radio silence and told Jason he was part of Corduroy and working on an abandoned military base, he’d apparently destroyed Jason’s career. Jason could have turned him in right then and put the op in someone else’s hands, or he could have stayed rogue and tried to bring Lacey down.

  I won’t work for anybody else. Hell, he might not work for anybody after this. But at this point he wouldn’t work for anybody but this man, who had his back.

  I don’t want anyone else on my team. Let’s get him. Let’s tie him up in a bow. Let’s make him so neat they can’t ignore him. And then we’ll keep our jobs.

  Sure.

  He ended the text convo wondering… just wondering….

  And then he went back to his com and his computer and began siphoning money from his active accounts. Not a lot from each one. Not enough to cause eyebrows to raise.

  Just enough for maybe a dream.

  TWO DAYS later Rivers and Cramer got home. He listened to them bicker as they walked through the door, and then he listened to—amusingly enough—Rivers talking to his cat.

  It was almost as personal as what Rivers and Cramer said in bed, although far more amusing.

  “Look at you. You’re drooling. Motherfucker is drooling all over my sweater. You know, this is a new fucking sweater, asshole—you sure you want to… yeah, sure. Make me your personal toothbrush. Look! White fur! Goes with everything! Jesus, you’re dumb. Yeah, sure, I’ll go for kisses. Push your whiskers back on me, motherfucker, see if I care. Yeah, okay, fine. Scratches. Right there? Right there? God, you’re easy. Just a big slutty motherfucker, missing his dick. Hey, don’t blame me about the no-dick thing, that’s Ellery’s fault. He chopped off your balls and your dick disappeared.”

  “Still not sorry!” Cramer called from the other end of the house.

  “Of course you’re not! You didn’t dream about kittens one day!”

  “You want kittens? Let’s go to the pound. Let’s get some fucking kittens.” Cramer’s voice grew nearer—and softer—as he spoke. Burton pictured him standing behind Rivers, arms around his middle. Ace and Sonny didn’t show much affection in front of other people. Hard men in a hard land. But Cramer had grown up rich, and he seemed to want to shower Rivers with the affection Rivers had never known.

  “If we get them before they’re fixed, we can adopt them pregnant,” Rivers said, and Burton wanted to groan—who couldn’t hear the twelve-year-old smirk in his voice?

  “Maybe just get one. Not pregnant. You know, to sort of keep Billy Bob company.”

  Rivers snorted softly. “You hear that, buddy? He wants to replace you.”

  “I said nothing of the sort!”

  “Wants to replace you with another cat who’s got no dick. You’ll see how it is, you no-thumbs-having motherfucker. Gonna be no-balls to the walls cats-without-dicks. You can have a support group.”

  “Jackson?”

  “Mm?”

  “Shut up, put the cat down, and kiss me.”

  “God, you’re….”

  Burton smiled softly to himself. They were barely home and ready to christen the bed again.

  “Bossy,” Cramer whispered breathlessly when the kiss ended. “And I want to ride you like a show pony, so deal with it.”

  “Fine.” But Rivers didn’t sound that put out. It wasn’t until they were in the bedroom—shocker—and doing things Burton could only dream about since Ernie wasn’t there with him, that Burton realized paying a price for things never went away.

  A yelp of pain—of legitimate, shudder-inducing pain—interrupted their sex noises.

  “Shit! Jackson! Are you okay—?”

  “Fine, swear. Let’s change position—it’ll be fine—”

  “Here—just stay there for a minute—”

  “No, don’t worry—I’ll fix it—”

  “But maybe the best way to fix it is to stay off of it!”

  “Or maybe I just need to push it a little harder—you think about that? Ouch! Fuck!”

  “Frankly, no—now lie down and let me get you some ice and some ibuprofen.”

  Burton heard the pause in the action with a little disappointment and realized he’d actually been looking forward to hearing them make love.

  Two things hit him then, so hard he saw stars.

  The first was that his guys weren’t ready. Lacey was going to be in town in two weeks, and Rivers was still not 100 percent.

  The second was that he missed Ernie so bad he couldn’t breathe.

  HE HIT his bunk when the guys went to bed—that was his day. This night he slipped out without even realizing where he was going. He knew Ernie’s walks by now, caught him by surprise right after he’d turned back toward Ace and Sonny’s.

  Until the truck rumbled to a stop on the shoulder, he hadn’t even articulated why he was there—not even in his own mind.

  It wasn’t sex.

  It wasn’t even worry, exactly.

  “What’s up?” Ernie asked, trotting up with Duke, a surprised smile on his face.

  Burton just shook his head. “Just… just needed,” he rasped unhappily. “Needed to see you. Just…. New Year’s Eve is tomorrow.”

  Ernie took his time and fit himself against Burton’s body. Felt like he belonged there. “I am aware,” he said softly.

  “I… I don’t know what’s coming.” He sighed. “I never know what’s coming—that’s why I got into this business in the first place. But you… you need to know what’s coming, and….” Even with Ernie in his arms, he started to shake. “I just want to know you’re safe,” he whispered. “How do I know you’re safe when I don’t know if I can be with you to take care of you?”

  Ernie buried his face in Burton’s shoulder. “Don’t you get it
?” he asked after a long moment. “I can take care of myself—been doing it for years. And now I’ve got people who can step in. You’ve done your job taking care of me, Lee. It’s not your job I need. I can keep on keeping on… but I need to know I have you before I can think about losing you.”

  Cosmic booty call, Ace had called it. Burton shooting through Ernie’s orbit like a comet, knocking him off his routine, and careening away again. He tried to pull away, tried to form the words Forget about me, kid, but Ernie was so warm against him, so giving. He tilted Ernie’s face up so he could look in his eyes and end their worlds and kissed him instead.

  Sweetly.

  Gently.

  No endgame in sight.

  He just couldn’t stop.

  He couldn’t tell Ernie no. Couldn’t tell him it was over. Couldn’t end it.

  The kiss, fervent and giving, was all he had.

  Ernie broke off and leaned his forehead against Burton’s, and Burton stroked his cheek with his battered knuckle.

  “Why’d you come, Lee?”

  “Because I thought I could end it,” he said, his chest sore.

  Ernie let out a little moan and kissed him harder, his hands going to Burton’s belt like he’d pull down his pants right there on the side of the road.

  “No,” he said, catching hold of them. “That’s not why I won’t quit you.”

  “Then why not? Tell me so I can keep doing it! Because you can’t just leave me. You can’t—”

  “Because you’re you, Ernie. Because I hear you in my head when I’m alone and you’re the only thing that keeps being alone from being horrible. Because you can calm my friend down and keep him from the worst parts of himself when even his boyfriend despaired of ever giving him peace. Because you know I like Chinese food, but only the good stuff.”

  Ernie nodded and took a deep breath. “Then why even think about it?”

  “I’m ready to die for my country, Ernie. But God, wouldn’t it be easier on you if you just never saw me again?”

  “No.” Ernie took a step back and crossed his arms, glaring. “No, it wouldn’t be easier. It would actually suck worse.”

  “There are better, easier men out there—”

  “And I’ve fucked a lot of them,” Ernie said brutally. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Burton rubbed his stomach. “No. Actually, no.”

  “Because I’m the only one you really want, right?”

  He sighed, conceding. “Yeah.”

  “We haven’t used condoms—I know you’re on PrEP, and Ace made me go get tested—”

  “He what?”

  “Twice. Did you want to know that? I didn’t tell you. I said it would only be you and you believed me and I wouldn’t break that promise. But I figured we should both know.”

  “I didn’t even think about it,” he admitted. “I—”

  “I’m your only guy and you’re covered. Why would you worry about it? My point is, we’ve already made plans to be exclusive, asshole. You may not have realized it, but we’re a thing. I have plans for the future in my head. And I get that us together in a house alone with nothing to do but stare at each other is not in the cards, but….” And now the anger that had sustained him seemed to slip away, water, lost in the damp sand of the winter desert. “But we can find a way.”

  Burton nodded. He might not even have a job after this.

  What would he do without a job?

  Ernie was offering him a way out, a person and a place to be. He thought he’d come to break up with Ernie because he had neither of those things.

  Turned out Ernie had them both.

  He swallowed against the tightness in his throat, his chest. “Kid, do you ever get tired of reminding me who I am?”

  “No.” Unequivocally. “I will never get tired of remembering who you are.”

  Burton nodded and held out his arms. “I can’t stay,” he rasped. “I can’t… I can’t stay.”

  Ernie ran into his embrace again. It took him until the chill settled into both of their bones and Duke started to yip with the cold to rip him away. He gestured to the truck, but Ernie shook his head.

  “I’m a mile away from home,” he said. “Just… I gotta pull my shit together before I walk in or Ace’ll know.” He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand.

  “He already knows,” Burton said hoarsely. “Ace knows every time. He knew even when I didn’t know what this was doing to you. Get in the car, Ernie. Let me take you home. He’ll pick up the pieces if you let him.”

  Ernie nodded without answering and climbed into the pickup. When they got to the garage, he waited until Burton could put it into Park before taking his hand and kissing it.

  “Have some faith, Lee,” he said, but Burton heard tears in his voice still.

  “You too, kid. Don’t give up on me.”

  “Call me Ernie and I won’t.”

  Burton looked him in the eyes. “Ernie, I’ll find a way to come back to you, I promise.”

  He saw a smile glimmering through the sadness then, and it gave him heart. “That I believe.”

  He slid out of the truck and into the house, Duke at his heels, and Burton thought that he wasn’t sure he could do this dance with the dog and the house and the leaving Ernie here while they both slept alone one more goddamned time.

  A WEEK into the New Year, Lacey used Hamblin’s plane to take Adkins, Gleeson, and Leavins to Sacramento—and Burton didn’t like any of it.

  “All three of them?” he muttered to himself. “What kind of op is he running?” So far he couldn’t get wind of a hit on Rivers and Cramer, because if he had, he’d be in the truck trying to beat the goddamned plane to Sac.

  “More surveillance,” Manetti said next to him, like they were friends again. Burton regarded him neutrally. They weren’t friends. They would never be friends. But sometimes he needed to take a leak and text Ernie, and Manetti was the one who minded his com, so he was actively not an asshole to let Manetti think he was a friend.

  “My guys?”

  “Yeah. You said the PI was going back to work. He really hates the lawyer guy—it’s the Jewish thing, maybe. But I think he’s making sure there’s nothing leading to us yet.”

  “We keep hounding them and they’re going to find something,” Burton snarled. God, those guys did not belong here!

  “I know, I know. But hey—he’s the one squandering his money on batteries.” The listening devices had to be swapped out once every ten days. As far as Burton knew, Lacey had a lapdog in Sacramento who went in as maid service for both places, but he didn’t know who. The bug broadcast to a relay station hidden behind their power meter, and that, in turn, broadcast to the government satellite Lacey had commandeered as his own—and that device needed periodic maintenance as well. This entire operation was expensive and unnecessary, and it was driving Burton batshit that he had to monitor these guys at this point so he could step in and save their fucking lives!

  He was almost relieved when the whole thing went south.

  It started with the dumbest of accidents.

  “He did what?” Burton asked Hamblin, staring at him in shock after Hamblin called him out of coms to brief him personally.

  “He’d just paid the maid service that re-ups the bugs,” Hamblin said shortly. “Apparently he’d had more surveillance than I was aware of—some of his targets disappeared, and he was running late for a meeting in the capitol and pulled around a car as it approached a crosswalk. He struck a woman—Melinda Alves, mother of two. She was dead at the scene, and he stopped to threaten the witness who saw the accident and then drove to his meeting.”

  Burton couldn’t seem to scrape his jaw off the chipped tile floor, a part of him relieved that the lobbyists were at least safe, but most of him appalled. “He killed a civilian and then just drove away.”

  “Yes.” Hamblin looked away, embarrassed. “He claims to be dealing with damage control?”

  “Like witness tampering and….” Burton f
lailed, because at this point anything was possible.

  “I think he was going to have the car that the witness was driving stolen so they won’t figure out that the witness didn’t do it. That’s who’s claiming responsibility now—”

  “Because why?” Oh God. This did not get any better.

  “Because he threatened the woman’s family and the lives of the children she was dropping off at preschool before she saw the crime. She was, I believe, the nanny.”

  “Why are you working with this asshole?” Oh dear God. He didn’t like Hamblin—but Hamblin was at least an honest mercenary. He took contracts and filled them. Not a prince, no, but not a haphazard killer who dabbled in behavioral manipulation either.

  And Hamblin had the grace to look away. “I’m making plans to stop working with him as soon as he returns and we have a bead on how bad this whole thing is,” he said shortly. “You are still on board when I split?”

  Burton shook his head. “I’ll think about it, man, but if he has his assholes take out a hit on the fuckin’ nanny, I’m out of here.”

  Hamblin nodded. “As am I. I’ve tried to make it very clear that he’s to take out no more civilians, but….” He laced his hands behind his head and blew out a breath. “He’s not very bright. And once we started contracts together, he’s gotten… well, worse is an understatement. More unhinged is like it.”

  “What made you think this was a good idea in the first place?” Burton had to ask—for his own curiosity, not because it made any difference.

  “I’ve seen good men die because they couldn’t do this job,” Hamblin said bleakly. “I’ve seen good men turn bad and hard men turn soft. He… he said he had a training method that made it easier for a skilled man to kill. I… I should have known in November this was a bad idea.”

  “November?”

  “One of his old recruits was in the news—Tim Owens?”

  “The Dirty/Pretty Killer?” Burton managed to sound surprised—and was grateful he knew the name the media had given Owens. For Rivers and Cramer, Hamblin might as well have said “The Bogeyman” or “Nightmare in the Flesh.” Burton had known about Owens when he and Ernie had met—there was a bolo on the guy in the black ops community, and general knowledge that if Jason’s unit found the guy before the cops, they were to terminate him quietly. One more serial killer who suddenly went “dark” and one less reason to investigate the military for—what Burton had believed—a guy who slipped through the cracks.