Contents
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE Malfunction
CHAPTER TWO The Wolves of Happy Fun Time World
CHAPTER THREE It Just Is
CHAPTER FOUR The Best Revenge
CHAPTER FIVE Bleeding Out
CHAPTER SIX Agent Aster
CHAPTER SEVEN Fairy-Tale Felony
CHAPTER EIGHT Wake Up
CHAPTER NINE Cortext
CHAPTER TEN Shelter
CHAPTER ELEVEN Fear Among Friends
CHAPTER TWELVE Fault Lines
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Arsenic and Creamer
CHAPTER FOURTEEN A Lousy Sadist
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Charged Up
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Restraint, Part 1
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Restraint, Part 2
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Anklet No. 2
CHAPTER NINETEEN I Demand an Espresso Machine
CHAPTER TWENTY Emotionally Compromised
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Nick & Neil
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Playing With Tigers
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Once Bitten, Twice Shy
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Damage
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE A Comforting Nightmare
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Fury
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN A Dubious Trophy
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Like Anklets
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Abuse of Power
CHAPTER THIRTY How to Make Nick Aster Talk
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE Wanting It All
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO Lost
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Touching
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Listening In
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Shifting Lines
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Choice
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN The Exploits of the Cowering in the Corner Crew
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Soft Landing
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE To Be Good
CHAPTER FORTY The Good, The Bad, and The Confused
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE A Change of Reality
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO Saber-Toothed Kittens
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE How To Sell An Emotional Moment
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Dignity
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE Go Hot FBI Chicks!
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX Don't Get Poisoned in Prison
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN Homeward Bound
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT Home
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE Opposite Forces Attract
CHAPTER FIFTY Don't Blow it All on Ivory Carvings
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Little Nick
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO The Cuddly Badass
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE To Another World
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR Thanks for Reading!
Dedicated to two dear friends lost during the writing of this book, a wonderful human who got me through so much, and a cat who came home with teenage me and lived to be 23.
Lori Forge and Little Guy, you will never be forgotten. You were and are loved.
~
Thank you to Sherry and all the loyal readers who were with this story from the beginning and kept it and its author alive with your amazing support and comments.
And finally, thank you to the law enforcement officers who were a formative part of my young adult life. While this book may seem critical, it is written with deep love and respect for the caring and ethical officers I’ve known and the thousands like them.
CHAPTER ONE
Malfunction
NICK
Near as Nick Aster could tell, the NYPD officer was aiming directly at his hot apple cider.
“Hey now,” Nick protested. “This isn’t very much in the fall spirit.”
Of course, the apple cider happened to be positioned directly in front of his chest, so a direct hit could do a little more than ruin his drink. It might even ruin his suit.
Nick gave the officer a friendly smile as he raised his hands. “What would you like me to do with the cup?”
“DROP IT!”
Nick grimaced. “Just so you know, it’s full. Don’t startle and pull that trigger when it hits the ground, okay?”
“DROP IT!”
Nick opened his hand and let the drink fall. The officer did startle a bit when the splash came his way like a warm, spicy mud puddle kicked up by a passing car.
A few more officers joined the party, and Nick’s perfectly nice fall day turned into a perfectly lousy one handcuffed in the back of a NYPD cruiser. Sans apple cider, too.
Given that Nick’s questions so far had tended to be answered with knees and elbows to sensitive body parts, he broached things carefully with the officer at the wheel once they were in traffic.
“Officer, is it all right if I talk to you?”
“Fine.” It was an unenthusiastic grunt, but better than shut up.
“I’m not trying to be a pain, I swear. But - I honestly don’t know why I’ve been arrested.”
The officer snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“Would you humor me?” asked Nick. “Please? I’m not trying to get out of anything, and I won’t argue with you.”
A few minutes later there was a resigned sigh. “You wear an advanced GPS tracking anklet. You’re a felon who escaped a maximum security prison. Oh, and let’s not forget the time you made headlines fleeing to Bermuda because you didn’t feel like doing paperwork.”
The officer seemed to think that was the only explanation needed. And his facts were wrong.
“I fled because an FBI agent shot me.” said Nick. “If your boss ever shoots you because you refuse to do paperwork, I highly recommend Bermuda as a destination to unwind and get stitches.”
The officer had to chuckle. “Has anyone ever told you you’re annoying? Right now, my sympathy’s with the poor schmuck who shot you.”
“All compliments to my exploits aside - how does that lead to me being in cuffs right now?” asked Nick.
“Did you think you could tamper with your anklet and not trigger a citywide BOLO?”
Nick frowned. He used his right foot to pull up the cuff of his pants, and peered at the electronic tracking anklet that was his unwilling full-time companion. It was completely black. Not even the blinking red alarm light was on. And John was probably having a fit.
He’d promised the officer he wouldn’t argue, and protestations of innocence would get him nowhere by sundown.
Nick closed his eyes. He needed to contact John. He could see if this officer would make a phone call. After that, he’d have to wait until he was checked into jail and allowed to use a telephone.
John might check LAPD arrest records, but more likely he was mobilizing the FBI for their own search for an escaped or kidnapped criminal consultant.
“Officer?”
“What now? You’re innocent, you need to pee, the handcuffs hurt, I work for you, and you’re gonna sue me?”
Nick grinned. “I was guilty, I don’t need to pee, the handcuffs don’t hurt, you work for some idiot Lieutenant who can’t remember how to pronounce your name, and suing people is a really boring hobby.”
It was the officer’s turn to grin. “Okay, let’s see if you can come up with something original.”
“The FBI’s looking for me.”
“Huh. Unexpected tactic, but completely useless information.”
“I’m on work release,” said Nick. “I work at the FBI Art Crimes and Forgery Division, and my handler is Special Agent John Langley. I’m in his custody. Since my anklet went offline, he’s bound to be freaking out and yelling a lot and starting investigations. Any way I could convince you to call him and let him know where
I am?”
“No way in hell,” said the officer. “I don’t know who’d be on the other end of the line, and I’m not tipping any of your cohorts about anything. Nice try, now shut up, Bermuda.”
JOHN
John paced across his office and stared out the window over a beautiful fall day in New York City. His forehead was creased in anxiety. Nick’s anklet was offline, and he wasn’t answering his phone.
Grey hairs. That’s what he got for having a felon as a partner; this felon in particular. Art crime mastermind Nick Aster was the most multi-talented and prolific white collar charmer since Frank Abagnale.
John opened his office door and surveyed the activity of the office. His two most trusted agents, Kelly Corsich and Darrick Washington, seemed engrossed at their desks.
“Hey - Kelly, Wash — either of you heard from Nick? His anklet’s offline.”
Wash raised his head and closed his eyes. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” John huffed out a long sigh. Wouldn’t be the first time Nick had decided to try and run for it. Nor the first time he was kidnapped and forced to take the thing off.
Nick might be one of the FBI’s most valuable consultants and John’s partner and closest friend.... but he was also an unreformed criminal with a history of making possibly the worst impulse decisions on the face of the planet.
Keeping Nick alive and out of prison would be enough to age an immortal being. John was 43, and growing tempted to utter the phrase I’m too old for this shit — to make Kelly and Wash snicker at him if nothing else.
A thirty-one-year-old felon who looked like a male model and had the attention span (and need for attention) of a six-year-old had never once made it to John’s wish-list for “ideal working partner.” But the crushing pressure in John’s heart whenever he had to worry about the guy spoke to just how attached he really was to his infuriating prisoner.
“Did the delinquent run for it again?” asked Kelly. Her insult was affectionate, and her eyes narrowed in worry.
“It’s Nick,” said John. “For all I know he’s infiltrating the Brazilian embassy with a toothpick. Or maybe trying to sell Trump a line of Covfefe solid gold golf clubs.”
NICK
Nick never expected jails to be exactly pleasant, but by the time he’d been punched in the gut for asking to use a phone, Riker’s Island was taking the prize for worst experience.
He was sitting on a concrete bench, handcuffed to a wall by one wrist along with about thirty other prisoners in a neat row. His ass was thankfully numb at long last. The long-suffering wrist was getting there. He did, in fact, need to pee now, and was even grateful that he’d been deprived of his apple cider.
Watching his fellow captives being led off one by one into processing didn’t exactly help fill the time.
A short, pug-faced officer wandered by, and Nick put on his most well-mannered smile. “Sir, might it be possible for me to place a phone call? An FBI agent is—”
The officer looked Nick right in the eye and without a word, punched him in the stomach just below the ribs. Nick gasped and almost choked as he doubled up.
Pugface and one of his cohorts dragged him to the end of the line and cuffed him to the wall again.
Nick gritted his teeth against the dull but fierce ache in his torso. The bastards smirked when they saw him rock in pain, his fists clenched with their nails biting into his palms.
An hour later a corrections officer leaned over next to Nick to release the suspect sitting next to him. In the officer’s back pocket was the clear outline of a cell phone.
This is dumb, Nick’s admittedly slim sense of of self-preservation warned him.
But I’m bored, complained the rest of him.
Bored and frustrated won the day. The phone was easy enough to lift, even with one hand. He tucked it away under his leg, and entered John’s number one digit at a time in the slim moments when nobody was paying attention.
Before he could enter the last digit of John’s number, his turn came and he barely slipped the phone into his pocket before he was led into a booking room.
Where he was patted down for the fourth time that day.
By the officer whose phone he’d borrowed.
Nick's stomach sank. "I can explain that...." he said, flashing the guy a grin.
The officer punched him in the nose. "You will, once I break every bone in your body and stuff this phone down your throat."
Nick doubled over, clutching his nose and blinking away involuntary tears of pain.
Fists slammed into his face and torso. When he was down and unable to move, staring at the blood on the floor as it spread from his nose and mouth, they drew batons and started thrashing his upper legs and butt without mercy.
Nick clawed at the floor, trying to find something to hold onto. He moaned, trying not to scream or beg, and above all not to give into tears. There was something about being beaten that broke his heart.
The beating was brutal and deliberate. Brutal, in its infliction of lasting pain. Deliberate, in its avoidance of injuries that would land him in the infirmary or be provable once the bruises faded.
"I'm leaving you a bad rating on Yelp," Nick muttered under his breath.
THEO
Theo buried his face in his hands, getting frantic. If he couldn't find Nick soon, he'd have to do the unthinkable and call the Fed for help.
Nick wasn’t answering his phone. Alice said he wasn’t in his apartment. He hadn’t made their afternoon meeting to play chess and drink cider in the park. None of those were good signs when a man had just discovered there was a hit out on his best friend.
He could see it now. "Fed, could you please use that infernal dystopian nightmare of a device you keep locked to the ankle of the man you so blindly call your friend to violate everything I stand for and track his location for me? Please Big Brother?"
Theo shuddered.
NICK
The men who entered didn’t seem to care in the slightest about the blood on the floor or the fact that Nick was in too much pain to remove his own clothing. They simply cut it off, a terrifying procedure when it came to snipping away his boxers, and left him naked on the cement floor.
One of the officers threw a set of faded red scrubs on top of him.
“You can either put those on in the next two minutes or get thrown into jail naked. Your choice.”
Two minutes seemed like a generous enough amount of time to put on a loose set of scrubs. It wasn’t when moving hurt so badly he could barely keep from screaming. He got the pants on, and the top was over his head and one arm through the sleeves when he lost the ability to drive himself any further.
Nick gave the most decent-seeming of the three men a pleading look. This might just get him beaten again, but freezing up half-dressed was likely to provoke that outcome too. He was going to have to rely on the time-honored tactic of making people want to help you through giving them the chance to save you.
“Please help me.”
The guy gave him a long, hard stare, then advanced looking like he wasn’t sure whether to help Nick or kill him. But he straightened the sleeve and helped Nick get his remaining arm through. He also helped Nick stand, and supported him while one of the others fingerprinted him.
"Thank you," said Nick quietly, out of earshot of the others.
"You may not want to thank me yet," said the guy in a grim voice as the other two advanced and locked Nick in handcuffs and leg irons.
JOHN
John wanted to scream at Nick and beat him senseless. But only after knowing he was safe. If Nick had any idea the stress it caused when he cut that anklet or broke his radius....The most awful things were going through his head.
Nick had run. John would get fired for failing to control the consultant he'd vouched for, and Nick would get re-arrested and sent to prison, possibly for a very long time and depending on where he ran, possibly in a country that didn't care about its prisoners surviving the experience mentally, emotionally, or
physically.
Had Nick broken any laws in Saudi Arabia? Would they extradite him? That nation had just been splashed all over the news for amputating the hands of thieves. Singapore would cane him, leaving permanent scars on a man who complained about bad coffee and listened to NPR.
John gritted teeth and tried to think about something else.
Bermuda hadn’t been horrible. They’d taken surprisingly good care of Nick when he wound up in jail there with an infected gunshot wound in his arm, and turned him back over to the FBI well fed and impertinent as ever.
The worrying images and ideas returned.
Nick had been kidnapped. By old enemies, or worse, by new ones he'd made while working for the FBI. For ransom, for revenge.
Nick had been hit by a car. Fallen off a bridge and drowned.
No. Nick was running some crazy angle on a case, and would be just fine.
Broken Blue Lines: Love. Hate. Criminal Justice.: An FBI Crime Drama / LGBT+ Love Story Page 1
