by Amy Lane
Jackson nodded, biting his lip in thought. “We’re going to do our best,” he said quietly. “We want two things. One is to prove you’re innocent, and the other is to make the guy who did it concentrate on something else besides you. So I’m going to start collecting evidence right now. Who’s got your car?”
“The Evanders,” she said, voice dipping sadly. “I managed to call them while we were waiting for the ambulance. They were there when the police arrested me.” This time her voice did break. “The damned disappointment on Susie Evander’s face….”
Jackson patted her back for a moment. “Okay, Janie. Do you want to go to the ladies’ washroom and clean up?”
Janie shook her head, miserable, and Jackson grimaced. “Well then, how about you give Mr. Cramer and me a chance to talk about you where you can’t hear.”
She startled and let a small smile escape. “I’d love to go to the ladies’ room and clean up,” she said dutifully.
“Awesome.” Jackson stood as she did. “Now there’s coffee and vastly inferior hot chocolate in the little station by the hallway, and I think there’s cookies in the cupboard underneath if you’re interested. Ellery and I need about ten minutes, okay?”
Janie nodded and made her exit, and Jackson turned to Ellery so fast Ellery had to take a step back.
“What gives?” Jackson asked, all business.
“Do you remember when I told you we met with a Navy douchebag stationed out by Las Vegas in November?”
Jackson had been missing when Ellery and Jade had held that meeting. Ellery would never know how he held himself together during his confrontation with Commander Karl Lacey, the man in charge of personnel departments that Ellery had never heard of, with names like Personnel Behavior Modification.
Somehow Ellery and Jade had done it, and the man had flown back to his hole in the desert pissed off enough to pull some of Ellery’s mother’s corporate contracts. Ellery’s mother had shaken off the inconvenience while hardly ruffling her coif, but she had warned Ellery to make sure Jackson was good and healthy before they went fishing in Lacey’s pond.
Apparently Lacey was in town to do some fishing of his own.
“I remember,” Jackson said, nodding. “He trained Owens, and possibly a few other scumbags—and possibly on purpose.” He swallowed, his eyes going flat and grim. “We’ve been waiting for this.”
Ellery nodded. “Yeah. I mean, if it was just Janie’s story, I’d go looking into Navy personnel. But what are the odds this guy is in town the same weekend someone tries to slip a bug on our car—”
“And kills a witness.”
Oh yeah. Couldn’t forget that. “And kills a witness.”
Jackson scrubbed his face with his hands for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut. “This is bad. So bad. I mean, it’s great for you and me and the investigation, but it’s really not so great for….” He trailed off, and Ellery shuddered. They couldn’t even say the boy’s name.
“No,” Ellery agreed. “And it’s also not so wonderful for….” They both looked at the vacant spot at the cheap Formica table where Janie had sat.
The office itself was comfortable, modern, and pretty posh. Ellery had thrown a dark blue throw rug over the cream carpeting to add some gravitas to the pale walls, and his own desk was solid darkly stained oak.
There was a comfortable client chair in front of it—he’d been prepared to make Janie Isaacson as at ease in his presence as possible.
Janie had taken two steps into the room and settled down at Jackson’s Formica table, which told Ellery a lot, actually.
It told him that her mother had probably cashed in her retirement to get Janie out of jail. It told him that Janie was uncomfortable in luxury and didn’t like to take advantage of things.
And it told him that Janie was honest—the kind of honest that’s used to getting the short end of the stick because it didn’t complain a whole lot.
Ellery’s first meeting with the girl had been the day before, when he’d posted her bail. Watching her make herself comfortable in Jackson’s part of the room made him fiercely protective of her as well.
“Shit,” Jackson muttered. “Okay, first things first. We get her off on general evidence. If I can get pictures and get Mac to take a look at the minivan before it’s fixed—”
“I can’t believe the police didn’t impound it,” Ellery muttered.
“Why would they?” Jackson asked bitterly. “She confessed. But that’s first on my list. Second is going to interview the people at the preschool. You need to get me that list while I’m in transit. Third is interviewing the first responders—you get me those names too. I want so much evidence that points anywhere but her that nobody asks who actually did it until she’s off.”
Ellery nodded. “And then?”
“Then we nail him to the wall.”
They paused for a moment, eyeball to eyeball. “You know,” Ellery said into the tense silence that followed. “You know where this is going to have to go.”
They both shuddered, remembering a tidy little garage with a bunch of very dangerous people living in a protective nest.
Jackson had liked those people—had, in fact, intuited more about them than Ellery could ever prove. But the odds were good that one of those people had been affected by the things Karl Lacey was doing in his little forbidden branch of the government, and Jackson and Ellery were going to have to ask him about that.
Or maybe Jackson would.
Because they didn’t seem to like Ellery all that much.
“We’ll reserve those plane tickets when we get there,” Jackson said, nodding. Then he gave a little lopsided smile and took a step back. “Wish me luck, Counselor—”
Ellery wasn’t letting him get away with that. He took a step forward and put his hands on Jackson’s shoulders, whirling him around until he was the one with his back against the wall.
“I want a fucking kiss goodbye,” Ellery murmured throatily. “There’s no running out of this office with a little wave—not after this fall.”
A corner of Jackson’s mouth twitched up, and Ellery took that as yes. He pushed up against Jackson until their bodies pressed together, making the kiss as intimate in their office as he would at home.
He was making a point.
Jackson gasped, mouth open, and Ellery took advantage and pushed in some more, until Jackson groaned, wrapped his arms around Ellery’s shoulders, and plundered back. He finished, and Ellery sighed and rested his forehead against Jackson’s.
“Contact me,” he said, remembering the last time they’d done this in November, when Jackson had taken off on a tail and had just… just kept going. Had followed a lead down a rabbit hole and practically disappeared, both in body and soul. “Promise.”
“Sure—I do tha—”
“The last time you didn’t.” The throbbing in Ellery’s voice told them both how loath he was to let Jackson go.
Jackson sighed. “I know. I promise. I’ll text as I go.”
“Take the Lexus—”
“Crap!”
He hadn’t gotten a car yet. Neither of them had said anything, but Jackson had been home on sick leave and Ellery had been happy like that. Jackson had gone through three cars in a matter of months. Ellery’s family could absorb the expense—his mother had asked him three times in the last month what kind of car Jackson wanted to replace the old one—but Ellery just needed some time to absorb the shock.
“We can get a car tomorrow,” Jackson said firmly.
Ellery just shook his head. “Take the Lexus. I’ll Lyft home. I don’t give a crap about the car. And I know this is your job and you’ve done it for years. Just… just don’t go anywhere dangerous alone.”
He expected a pained grimace, an insistence on being able to take care of himself—any of the things that had colored these exchanges before November.
What he got was a grin and a wink. “Counselor, who says your bed isn’t dangerous?”
Great. This. “Yeah, but you’re never
fucking alone.”
Jackson chortled and slid away. “I’d better not be.” He pecked Ellery quickly on the cheek and opened the door. “Keys?”
“Yeah.” Ellery handed them over without a qualm. He loved that car—babied it, cherished it, got it a wax job and an oil change every 3,000 miles. Had even replaced the engine in August when it got shot through—along with Jackson.
But it was sturdy and it performed, and better the car than Jackson, even though Jackson left little rolled-up receipts and fast-food wrappers in the back—an obsessive habit Ellery hadn’t had the heart to break.
He’d had so few things that were his in his life. That habit, the duplex he’d been living in when they met, a battered car, and a battered three-legged tomcat.
And Ellery.
The car had been destroyed in their first week and his half of the duplex shot up and then donated to young people getting their life back together. The tomcat was currently living in their house and had adopted Ellery, making Jackson not sole owner anymore.
Jackson had his strange, obsessive habit and Ellery, and Ellery couldn’t be with him when he went out on a run.
“See you tonight, at seven—”
“But what if something—”
“Tonight. At seven.” Ellery’s voice hardened. “It’s our day off.”
Jackson grimaced. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Which wasn’t a promise, but Ellery had to take it as he disappeared out the door. By the time Janie got back, munching dispiritedly on a cookie, Ellery had already contacted a dealership online and was well on the way to finishing the paperwork for an Infiniti QX. He contemplated getting Jackson another CR-V, but something about that car spelled bad luck—Jackson had already gone through two of them.
No, the thought of asking Jackson had never even entered his mind. If Jackson still had his way, he’d be riding around in his old Toyota, bullet holes and all.
“Did Mr. Rivers go already?”
Ellery nodded. “First he’s going to try to get the minivan from your employers—a man’s shoe leaves a very different impact than hitting a person—that’s the first thing. Then, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take down those names—the teachers who were there when you pulled away.”
“You’re sure they’ll be okay?” she asked, sounding horrified.
Ellery wished Jackson were there; he could tell the truth and not sound like a dick. “Look, even if the suspect tries to warn them off—they’ll at least get a warning, and it’s up to them. Right now we just need to ask if they’re willing to do the right thing.”
Janie nodded, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry again. But he’d been right in his first assessment of her—tougher than she looked. “Okay. You’re right. This guy—he’s official. He just can’t swoop around killing people left and right. It makes sense that he’d try to warn them off if he was really worried. Thank you, Mr. Cramer.”
She went to work, pulling contacts out of her phone and writing them down, and Crystal stuck her head in the door.
“Ellery?”
Her voice wobbled a little, but then Crystal was frequently off center. The firm’s technology guru, she was a genius with pretty much any computer system and, in Jackson’s words, witchy as hell.
She looked perfectly normal—brown hair, shoulder length, wispy and flyaway, and a rather piquant little face with eyes hidden behind glasses. She wore long-sleeved shirts year-round to hide the old track marks that Ellery increasingly believed were what happened when someone who was not quite of this world was forced to live in some of its ugliest parts.
“Hey, Crystal. Jackson said he was stopping by your office. I still feel bad that you’re here on a Saturday.”
She shrugged. “Extra work, extra hours. I need an assistant. But Jackson gave me the thing—” She shot an anxious look at Janie, and Ellery stood up so he could have a word with Crystal outside his office.
“Yeah?” he asked when the door had shut behind them and they were in the cream-carpeted, white-walled open space that made up the offices of Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson, and Cooper.
“Oh, it was definitely a bug,” she said, not even pretending like it had been a challenge. “Not even a tracker—wired for sound. In fact, I think it’s military issue. I called up a couple of friends, and they sent me specs on some of the more recent techware. This isn’t it, by the way. I’d say about five years out-of-date, which means that somebody’s fighting for funding, which sounds even more like military issue if you ask me.”
Ellery could feel his eyebrows doing the jumping thing that tended to frighten people.
“Uh, Army or Navy?” he asked, wondering if there’d be little insignia impressed on what had been a really tiny surface.
Crystal rolled her eyes. “Like I would know! It’s military intelligence issue, but other than that, I’ve got no idea.”
Ellery swallowed, remembering his and Jackson’s kiss—and how somebody would know they would be at a synagogue on their day off. “Is there… do you have any way to see if there’s one of those in other places? Like… uh, my office? My work phone? Uh, my… our….” He couldn’t say it. Jackson had snarled about having all the fucking sex in the house if there was a bug there, but he couldn’t even think about it.
The things Jackson had told him, the personal, painful, haunting things that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the two of them together echoed under the roof of their home, and Ellery shuddered to think of those things belonging to somebody else.
“Your house?” Crystal asked, eyes widening. “I can get something by tomorrow morning. Why would somebody bug your house?”
Ellery shook his head and put his finger to his lips, and Crystal scowled.
“I may never sleep again,” she said definitively. “I’ll be back tomorrow with a bug detector—can you be here too?”
“Absolutely.” After he and Jackson spent the night at a hotel. Or on a plane. Or in a cave. “We can meet here, you show us how to use it, and we’ll check out our house.” He shuddered. “And I’m not sure what I’ll do if there’s one in the house.”
“Throw up,” Crystal said seriously, her eyes big. “I’d definitely throw up.” She swallowed and shuddered. “Why is someone bugging you, Ellery? Is this related to the shit that went down in November?”
Ellery was wondering if they could write a song about November. Something dreary and dramatic and frightening. “Possibly.” He bit his lip, and then he and Crystal had the same thought at the same time.
“But why now?” she said.
Why would Commander Karl Lacey of whatever bullshit division he’d created out of thin air come to Sacramento now?
“That’s an excellent question. I think I should answer that question. I think that might be really goddamned important.” Ellery scowled, trying to work himself up for what he had to do next.
“Who can help answer that question?”
Goddammit. “The DA’s office.” Godfuckingdammit. “And they’re still pretty pissed at me and Jackson for November.”
Fish vs. the Potted Plant
OOH—JACKSON had forgotten how nicely Ellery’s car drove. It was like having a two-ton piece of body armor that moved with you when you breathed.
He followed the GPS—which Ellery had programmed as a male’s voice with an Australian accent, a thing that tickled Jackson to no end—and found the little house about six blocks from the intersection where Janie had been arrested.
It was cute—a lot of the houses in this section of town were cute. A converted Victorian, it stood a narrow two stories of purple-painted, white-trimmed, turreted charm. The yard was raised—as were many of them—by concrete planters that brought the front walk to the level of the porch. The driveway stayed level with the street, so the raised planters formed a concrete wall about waist high, decorated with big vases filled with bright seasonal flowers.
The guy must have spent a fortune on gardeners, but that’s not what J
ackson noticed.
A silver Dodge Caravan sat in the driveway, the front bumper buckled downward and falling off the car.
Jackson pulled up behind the Caravan, blocking it in on purpose, and pulled out his phone.
“Mack?”
“Jackson? I’ve got an insanely hot man next to me, and that hasn’t happened since you. Could you maybe give me a break here?”
Jackson chuckled. William McPherson was an old hookup from days gone by. He worked highway patrol, and after Jackson had left the force in a cloud of suspicion and blood, Mack remained one of the few people in law enforcement he could trust.
“You get so much action. I’m not even going to comment on that.” Mack wasn’t a looker. Early forties, bad childhood nutrition, and the same acne that had haunted Jackson into his early twenties, there was still something decent about Mack. He looked like a real human being, and when he smiled warmly and made one of those little courtly gestures—like a hand in the small of the back or a touch on the shoulder—there was something genuinely appealing about him.
“Then what are you calling for?” He still sounded surly, but judging from the bed creaking and the rustling near the phone, Jackson thought he might be putting on a T-shirt, and that was a start.
“There was a hit-and-run in the Fab Forties yesterday. Did you catch it?”
Mack grunted. “No. That was Spooner. Ty Spooner. Said it was a lock—the girl confessed, he arrested her, all good. Why?”
Jackson got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as he could. Nobody seemed to be stirring. There was plenty of room on the concrete driveway, so he suspected the family was out. He put the phone on speaker and began to take pictures of the front bumper, sending them to Mack as he did.
“What do you think?”
Mack grunted. “I think Ty Spooner is a fucking idiot. That bumper didn’t hit anybody.”
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ saying.” Jackson felt a surge of relief. “Look—the poor kid was terrified. Said a guy in a uniform got out of the car, threatened the kids she’d just dropped off, and told her to confess.”
