by Amy Lane
“I could barely run,” Jackson said numbly. Five miles—that had been his minimum for going back to work, imposed by Ellery and fiercely upheld.
“Yeah, I know. You pushed yourself hard to come back, don’t think I don’t appreciate that. But the thing is, while I caught most of what you were saying, I didn’t catch all of it, and somebody else was monitoring your computer activity. So the three guys who grabbed Ellery and Ace—they were Lacey’s favorite team, and they were just back from not killing you, do you remember?”
“I wasn’t the target,” Jackson reminded him.
“No—they were just there to be Lacey’s lapdogs and maybe plant a few more bugs. But Lacey hit that woman because apparently he’s an idiot—”
“We figured it for an accident,” Jackson said. Arrogant prick driving like an arrogant prick. Go figure.
“Yeah—and after that I think the guys took ‘getting rid of witnesses’ literally. Not that he didn’t deserve to die, but I think Lacey really just wanted them bribed and intimidated. Trying to shoot the girl’s employer was a mistake.”
“And my concussion was a bonus,” Jackson said numbly. His head ached dully—yes, he’d thrown himself around a lot today. He wasn’t sure whether to hope his brain exploded before or after the doctor came out with news.
“Yeah—and that was some nice detective work, by the way. Anyway, Adkins, Gleeson, and Leavins were Lacey’s favorite pets, and they picked up Adkins’s police sketch on the police website—and they were not pleased. Before everything went boom, they were planning on taking care of any witnesses to back that sketch up—is there anybody you know who might be in danger?”
Jackson made a whimpering noise in the back of his throat.
“Everybody,” he said softly. “Fucking… Mike, Jade—”
“Your tenant and his girlfriend—”
“She’s like my sister, man. And our brother, Kaden, and his wife and kids and….” He swallowed. “I sent a friend up to them—they live in the hills. He brought the witness to their house, because the police wouldn’t spring for protection and it was the safest place I could think of.”
Burton let out a low whistle. “I’ve got men on standby,” he said quietly. “Do you want to go with them?”
Jackson’s brain melted into slag. “Ellery….” His family. God, he had to take care of his family. But Ellery. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fix it, couldn’t save a soul if he didn’t know how Ellery was.
Burton nodded and leaned back in his chair, scrubbing at his face with his hand. “I… I used to think this decision would be a no-brainer,” he said after a moment. “Signed on to do my job. Go do my job.” He looked out into the waiting room, yearning written clearly on his face. “But there’s some things….”
“They’re my family,” Jackson said, heart roaring in his ears. “God—let me text them. Let me call them. They’re… they’re my family!”
Burton looked at him, obviously thinking about something. “You stopped using your phone in the last few days—which was awesome, because Lacey pulled strings for actual military-grade surveillance, which will look good on the report when my boss explains this mess. But we couldn’t find you until Ellery used his once.”
“He shut it off immediately,” Jackson said, defending him irrationally.
“Yeah—but once we had his location, we tracked you by satellite. Anyway—he used his phone but, but yours stayed dark.”
Jackson looked at him sourly. “We got burners the minute we found the kid trying to put a bug on our car.”
Burton chuckled. “They don’t know you found the bugs, by the way. Some shit just never made it past my desk. But you’ve been talking on burner phones—good. That’s smart. We didn’t pick up on those yet. Your family is monitored on and off, though. I’m not sure how much of the com equipment the rogue team grabbed on the way out. I heard the boom and went back to trash as much as I could, but some of it was gone. After that it was chaos and….” He swallowed. “I just really needed to see what went boom, you know?”
Jackson let out half a laugh. “Jesus. I’m dumb. I mean, I am—I’m dumber than a box of diapers. But you… tell him you love him. Make plans around loving him. Put your stuff in his drawers. Leave a toothbrush. Get a….” God, he missed Billy Bob. “Get a cat together. Don’t just look at him and plan how to leave him. That’s a horrible idea.”
Burton cocked his head and nodded. “That’s some excellent advice. But back to your family—”
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, son,” the nurse said. “Forgot to inject that one with lidocaine. You just sound really wise for someone who lost a fight with a bathroom mirror.”
“Is there a name for being afraid of hospitals?” Jackson asked rather desperately.
“Nosocomephobia,” the nurse replied, so smart her voice cracked. “Do you have it?”
“I’ve had one decent meal since November,” Jackson said baldly. “Because hospitals make me feel like I can’t breathe. And now the one guy who could make me eat is in the fucking hospital. I’m sorry I lost my shit.”
The nurse, who had been somewhat brusque, looked up at him and melted. “Oh, hon. He’s not your work partner, is he?”
It took a few deep breaths to beat back hysteria. “We do work together,” he said, screwing his eyes up because he didn’t feel like doing that here. “Because he’s a hell of a lot of fun to work with. Burton, my family. Do you need me to go keep them safe?” He took a deep breath. “I will. Jesus help me, I will, but….”
“But it would be like ripping your soul in half. Got it. Can you call them up for me? And do you have some pictures? You’re a civilian—honestly, if you could give me the info I need and give me a way to talk to them that Lacey’s men can’t track, you are better off here.”
Jackson had dropped the plastic bag with his clothes in it on the floor before he’d gone to the chapel, but Ace had it. He produced the phones—and Burton produced a charger—and before the nurse was done with his hand, he was texting Anthony.
Hey, kid—how’s it going?
Great! Today we stayed in and watched movies. AJ bought me a big tub of Legos—we’ve been making spaceships.
Jackson smiled fondly and thought of the pictures on his regular phone. This kid deserved lots of days like this.
I’m glad, kid. Give the phone to Kaden for me, okay?
Okay. Do I have to come home soon?
Jackson blinked. I have no idea—but you guys may have to go somewhere else for a night, okay?
Okay. Not just me?
Let me talk to Kaden—he’ll fill you in.
Not unexpectedly, the phone rang in his hand. “Jackson, you made the kid cry—you’re not sending him back already, are you?”
“He doesn’t have to go until you’re ready to send him,” Jackson told Kaden honestly. “But this is serious, so you need to listen.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. It’s bad, but there’s some backup heading your way and it’ll probably beat the bad guys up there, but in the meantime, here’s my friend Lee who’s going to talk you through some shit, okay?”
“You coming up?”
Jackson’s breath shook his chest. “That’s… that’s under discussion,” he said. God, to have a gun in his hand, to be tracking a perp, to have his mind and his heart empty and clean of all distractions.
To not care, to not worry, to not wish he was dead.
“What’s going on?”
“Ellery was injured… shot. He was shot. He’s in surgery. It was bad. It was so bad, Kaden. I’m… my clothes have his blood on them. It soaked through to my skin. We… we don’t know… we don’t… but we think they’re coming up there. We think they’re on their way and—”
Burton took the phone from him, and he gulped in air and tried to calm himself down.
For something to do, he called up a picture on the other phone—that soul-sustaining picture of Kaden and Rhonda and the kids—and pointed to Kaden wh
ile he caught Burton’s eyes.
Burton’s eyebrows went up, and he took a quick look at Jackson, but the nurse took that moment to pull extra-specially hard on the silk sliding through his skin. He focused on that. Focused on the pain of it, the simplicity of acute discomfort, so he didn’t have to think about leaving Ellery, leaving his mother. About how running into danger didn’t feel like he was helping anybody right now so much as it felt like he’d be running away.
The nurse had just finished snipping off the last of the silk and wrapping a bandage around his hand when the doors to the OR burst open. Jackson pushed past Burton—who was still on the phone—and the stitching station to stand by Ellery’s mother when the doctor spoke.
“Are you two Mr. Cramer’s family?”
Taylor’s hand found Jackson’s, and she squeezed his fingers. They both nodded.
“He was a bit of a mess, honestly—we had to do a lot of stitching, and he needed three units of blood. But he’s all put back together now—he’ll be in recovery for a while, and you may go talk to him when he comes out of the anesthesia. When we move him to ICU, you can go sit with him. We’re going to have to watch him closely, you understand. He may have wounds we didn’t catch the first time around. We had to stitch together things that can spell infection if we didn’t get it all out. Trauma surgery has to be done fast—the body isn’t ready to be shut down so long after a traumatic event. We do our best, but we’ll need to be vigilant to catch any unwelcome surprises, you understand?”
Jackson did. He’d been on the other end of that scrutiny, had felt his body burn with fever, his insides ache with leaking blood.
“It’s gonna suck,” he said softly. “It’s going to hurt for a while. We’ll be there. It’s okay.”
The doctor nodded, his middle-aged face showing concern and interest as to whether Ellery would have friends smart enough to watch over him tonight. Jackson liked him for that alone. “Excellent. Give us another hour to situate him, and we’ll call you in.”
With that he backed up and let the nurse buzz the door open for him, and Jackson tried to remember how to breathe.
A sharp pain in his hand made him gasp, and he glanced at Taylor—who was not looking well. Her face was so pale she was almost green, and she sagged so quickly he barely caught her.
“Lucy Satan, the fuck?”
She took another shaky breath, and Jackson looked over at Ace. “Help me sit her down,” he commanded, and together they backed her into a seat, where she dragged in great gulps of air and shook.
“Let me get you some water,” Jackson told her, stroking the back of her hand.
“No—don’t go just yet.” Her voice sounded normal, modulated, commanding, but her grip on his hand was icy and fearsome.
“Sonny, could you—”
“Water, soda, coffee,” Sonny said smartly. “Back in five.”
A reluctant smile twitched at Taylor Cramer’s mouth. “Such a sweet boy,” she said, but she didn’t open her eyes.
Jackson asked himself what he’d do if she was anybody else—Janie Isaacson, Crystal, Jade—and then manned up and wrapped his arms around her shoulders awkwardly and pulled her face against his chest.
And Lucy Satan, the woman he was most afraid of in the world, burst into quiet sobs of relief.
SONNY WAS back by the time she recovered, and she smiled almost shyly, in a way that reminded Jackson sharply of Ellery when he was at his most vulnerable, as she thanked him.
“This was kindly done,” she said after a few sips and with a regal incline of her head. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go powder my nose. Jackson, if you’d like me to feel better, I’d love to see you eating when I return.”
She stood shakily but on her own power, secured her handbag, and exited the room. As soon as she was gone, Ace grabbed the food bag and handed Jackson a cold cheeseburger.
“Get that any closer to my face and I’ll eat your hand,” Jackson told him, meaning it. “She knows I only listen half the time.”
Ace didn’t move. “You look like shit. Eat the cheeseburger and we’ll let you change into jeans instead of scrubs.”
Jackson shook his head. “Ace, if you knew—”
Ace sank to a crouch and nailed him in place with a flat brown-eyed glare. “Eat the fuckin’ cold cheeseburger, Jackson. You do nobody any good if you keel over. It’s fuckin’ fuel. Sometimes the fuel tastes great, sometimes it tastes like ass, but what matters is it helps you run. She needs you to run. Now fuckin’ eat.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ—”
“Eat!”
“Bossy fuckin’ asshole—”
“Master Sergeant Bossy Asshole to you, fucker. Now eat.”
Jackson snatched the burger out of his hand and shoved a bite in his mouth before getting up to see what Burton was doing. He’d moved from the nurse’s station when the surgeon had come out, and Jackson found him around the corner outside the waiting room, saying a very private goodbye to Ernie.
Burton disengaged reluctantly, but he didn’t let Ernie move from his arms. “I got info from Kaden—the roads are pretty blocked up there, so I’m having him stay put. My guys’ll be downstairs in ten,” he said. “We’re taking a chopper up to your brother’s place—we should beat them by a good hour. I called local law enforcement to look after your sister—they, uh, don’t seem to like you very much.”
“I wore a wire before my career ended,” Jackson muttered. “Not enough blood to pay for that.”
Burton gazed at him levelly. “Was the guy dirty?”
Jackson looked around the hospital. “Would you believe this is part of that same goddamned pig wallow?”
“Then worth it, and fuck ’em. I’m sending another chopper of guys to your sister. They don’t got your back and I don’t trust ’em.”
“He’s… he’s going to be okay.” Jackson’s heart twisted in his chest. “I could still go—”
“Don’t you dare,” Taylor snapped, emerging from the hallway with the restrooms like some sort of phantom. “And eat.”
“It’s my family, Lucy Satan—you know that, right? They’re going after—”
“Will his presence make the difference?” she asked Burton, unflinching. “Will his presence in your party be the difference between his family living or dying?” She’d fixed her hair in the bathroom and put her makeup back on like armor, but her eyes were still red-rimmed, and she still looked vulnerable. But she didn’t back down from Lee Burton and his scary-looking weapons belt and his no-bullshit demeanor.
“No, ma’am,” Burton told her like an equal. “We’re special forces. Living and dying is our business.”
“Jackson,” she said softly. “I know Ellery left you to go finish up the Bridger case. But he was the only one who could. You’re the only one who can be here, do you understand?”
Jackson nodded and kept his voice steady. “Yes, ma’am.” And then he begged Burton with his eyes. “I… I don’t trust easy. I’m trusting you with my family. They took care of me when there was nobody, you understand, right? This is a shitty way to pay them back.” He thought of Ace and grimaced. And Ellery. “Seems like that’s my specialty.”
Burton had the audacity to look bored. “You need to accept that you can’t save the whole fuckin’ world. Fuckin’ Jesus, Rivers—I’ve been listening to you and Cramer for three months. You do your fuckin’ best. It’s all I got, it’s all you got. Accept that.” He nuzzled Ernie’s temple for a moment and then took a measured step back. “You watch after my family until I’m home. I’ll go take care of yours.”
And with that he thrust Jackson’s phone into his hand, turned on his heel, and left.
Ernie looked after him with pure radiance on his face. “We’re going to have our own house in the desert,” he said randomly. “And cats. And it’ll be walking distance to the garage. And I can look after Ace and Sonny, and they can keep me when he’s gone. Did I mention we’ll have cats?”
“Cats are necessary,” Jackson
said, pulled out of his own misery by Ernie’s natural-as-breathing charm.
Ernie’s smile faded. “It’s good you’re staying. Burton’s super scary—he won’t let anybody hurt your people. I know you just met him, but he told me he felt like you and Ellery were old friends. He’s worried too. He won’t let you down.”
Jackson nodded, and Taylor tugged at his elbow. “Let’s sit down,” she said softly. “I need to call my husband and….” She swallowed, her face taking on a mask of pride he knew well. “I am not at my best.”
“Of course,” he said, offering his elbow. The other hand held the half-eaten cheeseburger, and as they passed the trash, he made to throw it away.
“All of it, Jackson,” she said imperturbably.
“You totally lied to that man about needing me, didn’t you?” He scowled at her, but he took a bite of cheeseburger.
“I’m a lawyer. I don’t lie, I prevaricate. You need to be here. Ellery needed to avenge you, but you took care of that already. You need to stay here and see with your own eyes that he’s going to be all right.”
“It was a shitty choice,” he muttered. “Who has to make that fucking choice, ever?”
She patted his arm as they entered the room and sat down. “You do, sweetheart. You’re one of the few men who could.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t call me sweetheart. Now I think I’m the one who got shot.”
Her mouth quirked the tiniest bit. “I call you a stubborn asshole when you’ve been shot. When you’re really hurt, I call you sweetheart.”
He let his mouth relax and looked around as she extricated her cell phone from her bag. Sonny and Ace were leaning on each other, and Ernie was standing in the doorway, looking beat. Jackson wondered suddenly at the toll being in such a crowded place would take on someone like Ernie.
“Guys?” he said tentatively. “Guys? I’ll call you. I promise. I won’t blow town without calling and stopping by to say thank you. You’ve got a drive, and it’s been a day.”
Ace nodded and stood, and Jackson met him to shake hands.
