by Amy Lane
Jackson reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It had buzzed while he’d been talking to Tage, but the middle of the county jail wasn’t where you lost concentration.
“Yeah,” he said. “Henry says he just got out about ten minutes ago. They’re waiting for him to come out of the anesthesia.” Jackson smiled a little. “He says the waiting room is full, but that Dave and Alex appreciated the food.”
Ellery raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Good.”
As though remembering what had happened to Kryzynski, Herrera’s features hardened into fury. “Oh for fuck’s sake. We have got to get that kid out of jail.”
“And his family into protective custody,” Ellery agreed. “And hopefully Officer Codromac can keep him alive until that happens.”
She shook her head. “God. Just… this situation isn’t going to unfuck itself, but if we’re the good guys, we need some help!”
“We’re doing the best we can,” Ellery said mildly, following that up with a wince.
“C’mon, Mad Max,” Jackson said, tapping his elbow to get him to move. “Ibuprofen. Now.”
“You’re awfully bossy,” Ellery muttered. “You need to teach me to hit back.”
“First things first,” Jackson said, jerking his chin toward the car, which he’d seen parked in a rare and precious spot along the curb. “I need to teach you to duck.”
“I’ll call you tonight, Ellery,” Herrera called after them, and Jackson paused long enough to look back.
“Watch yourself,” he said, swallowing. “This sitch—it’s apparently open season on lawyers, and I don’t think they care which side of the bar they’re on.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Thanks. We’ve got our own PIs. I’ll tap someone when I get back to the office.”
“Call them now,” Jackson urged. “I’m not shitting around. Kryzynski got stabbed when we were coming back from lunch. This bullshit doesn’t make a formal announcement.”
She gave a hard nod and pulled out her phone. “I hear you,” she said. “On it.”
Still, Jackson kept an eye on her as he helped Ellery into Ellery’s beloved silver Lexus and didn’t draw a deep breath until she was in her own little red sport coupe and it was pulling away from the curb.
He’d started the air-conditioning in the meantime, and he reached into the space in the center console and pulled out the jumbo-sized bottle of ibuprofen and one of the waters they kept stashed there.
And a small packet of crackers that Ellery kept because he liked to think Jackson wouldn’t remember to eat if he wasn’t nannying Jackson within an inch of his life.
“Here you go, Counselor,” Jackson soothed, handing over the stash. “You know the drill.”
Ellery washed down the ibuprofen without comment and followed it up with a couple of crackers to help ward off the stomach burn. When he’d gotten that down, Jackson allowed his shoulders to relax and brought up tender fingers to probe Ellery’s bruised jaw.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have—”
“What?” Ellery asked, his smile pulling up one side of his mouth because the other was swollen. “Not ducked? That’s counterproductive.” He grimaced. “It happened so quickly.”
Jackson shook his head and cupped the side of Ellery’s face that wasn’t bruised. “It didn’t,” he said, lips twisting. “The guy was like a coiled spring, even when it was just me and Tage in the room together. You guys came back, and Herrera and I could see him cranking tighter and tighter. That’s why I got so close. He was going to take you out. You gotta watch guys like that. If they think the uniform makes them better than the rest of us, they’re not going to let anything stop them from cheap shots.”
Ellery nodded, swallowing hard. “Good advice,” he said, his voice wobbling a little. He leaned into Jackson’s touch, and right then, in that moment, let his guard down.
Jackson rubbed under his cheekbone with his thumb. “Not used to the hitting, are we?” he murmured.
Ellery shook his head. “No.”
“Good. Nobody beats on you. That’s a rule.”
He gave a tiny smile. “I like that rule,” he admitted, nodding, and Jackson gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“Me too. Now let’s go before we start necking and the entire prison system takes us out on general principle.”
Ellery rolled his eyes. “You exaggerate,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice authoritative, and Jackson backed up and gave him his space.
“Says the man who just got clocked in the face for being right too much,” Jackson countered, pulling the car out into traffic.
“That’s not why I got clocked in the face,” Ellery muttered. “I got clocked in the face because Mayer was an asshat who thought because he was seven feet tall he could beat up on us short people.”
“You are six feet if you’re an inch,” Jackson scoffed.
“Five eleven,” Ellery told him. “You’re six one.”
“That’s not true.” Jackson frowned. “We’re the same height.”
“We are not.”
“I can’t believe we’re arguing over this,” he muttered.
“I can’t believe we’ve known each other for seven years and you don’t know how tall I am.”
“I can’t believe we’ve been together for one year….” Jackson’s voice trailed off, and he did the math. Mid-August. That’s when he and Ellery had gotten together. A couple of furious days fighting the long-simmering attraction between them, then giving in to it.
Followed by three weeks in the hospital and Ellery moving Jackson into his life whether Jackson wanted to be there or not.
And now, Jackson couldn’t even imagine his life without Ellery. His treacherous brain replayed Mayer’s swing in slow motion, and then, because that wasn’t nearly the worst thing that had happened to them, he saw Ellery standing in front of a dusty aluminum hangar in the desert, his body blowing back as he placed himself in danger because that sudden anger, that passion for the people wronged, had taken hold of him at the worst time.
“And what?” Ellery prompted, and Jackson tried to remember where he’d been going with that.
“And just that,” Jackson said, swallowing hard. “I can’t believe we’ve been together for a year.”
“Are you freaking out?” Ellery asked suspiciously.
“No.” Jackson breathed carefully, his throat unexpectedly tight. “No,” he repeated, keeping his eyes stoically on the road. He hit a stoplight and flickered his gaze toward Ellery, who was leaning against the headrest in an unguarded pose because he trusted Jackson and Jackson needed to remember that. “Just no getting hurt, okay, Counselor?”
Ellery’s warm brown eyes met his perceptively. “Same goes for you, Detective.”
Jackson let out a harsh bark of a sound and switched his gaze in time to see the light turn green. “Doesn’t seem to be my problem today.” He scowled as he pressed the gas pedal. “And I’m saying, there oughtta be a fucking law. And somebody should text Lance and tell him to wrap Henry in a big quilt and then put him in a steel box and then wrap that in bubble wrap. I am not okay with the way this day has gone, do you hear me?”
“So noted,” Ellery said dryly, and a silence threatened to steal over the car.
One Jackson felt compelled to break before he turned onto Alhambra. “Ellery?”
“Yeah?”
“We should do something. It’s an anniversary. I know we took that trip when I was healing, but… you know. A nice dinner. Something. A year. It’s a big deal for me.” He let out a little laugh. “I mean, you know, for one thing, I never expected to live this long.”
“It’s a big deal for me too,” Ellery said softly. “I never expected you to love me.”
“That’s just crazy talk right there,” Jackson said, eyes fiercely on the road. “I’m not sure why that would even enter your mind.”
“Gratitude,” Ellery murmured. “Thanks for small miracles to the powers that be.”
“I
’m thankful for you too,” Jackson said, and Ellery’s hand on his knee grounded him, helped him navigate the tricky emotional waters they were both swimming. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that neither of them could fall apart now. He covered Ellery’s hand briefly with his own. “I’d be even more grateful if you could, I don’t know, maybe learn to frickin’ duck the next time somebody swings at you? Please? For me? Since we’re getting all sloppy about feelings right now?”
Ellery chuckled softly, and this time the silence, healing and thick with things they weren’t willing to say right now, stole over the car.
A Familiar Pond
ELLERY COULD think better once the ibuprofen worked, and those blissfully quiet moments in the car helped him gather his composure around him like a shield.
Of course, Jackson’s worry helped a little. Jackson hated people fussing over him because he was used to picking his own pieces up off the ground and sewing them together. He interpreted worry as criticism that he couldn’t do the job right. Ellery had been raised by loving—if frighteningly competent—parents who had taught him, in careful steps, how to care for himself and how to reach out for help if he needed it. Worry was part of the process, one that Ellery had once been afraid Jackson wasn’t capable of.
Turns out, Jackson could worry just fine if it was Ellery’s health involved, but that was okay. Ellery didn’t mind feeling cared for; that wasn’t one of his demons.
Hating to leave that kid in custody… well, that was.
Ellery had figured it out as they’d been walking through the corridors toward the infirmary. They’d passed three other prisoners being escorted by their own guard, and Ellery had seen a glance pass from the leader, a giant of a man with a shaved head and a scar slashing down the side of his face, to Tage, and for a moment he’d been worried.
Then he’d seen the outrage on the man’s face directed toward the guard at Ellery’s side, and he’d put together a few things.
He’d grilled the onsite medic within an inch of his life as they’d set Tage up in a small open-grilled infirmary cell for an overnight stay. Mayer had stood impassively at the door, eyes focused on Tage with an unhealthy ferocity.
And Ellery had feared for the young man’s life.
He’d gotten a promise from the medic—a burly man who had learned his trade in the military and who could probably take out an entire infantry unit and then doctor their wounds—and then allowed Mayer to escort him back.
But he hadn’t been silent, and his pointed questions had elicited… well, an expected response. Ellery had expected the guard to get hostile. He’d been planning to report the incident to Mayer’s superior as it was.
He hadn’t expected the violence, but Jackson had. Jackson’s instincts were a lot better for that sort of thing, and Ellery was grateful. Jackson got himself out of as many messes as he ended up in, and sometimes that was the only reason Ellery could let him, in good conscience, walk out the door.
“I liked that guard, though,” Jackson said out of the blue as they neared the sprawl of the Med Center complex. Ellery startled out of his own thoughts to respond.
“Codromac?”
“Yeah. After the police station, I’m telling you, watching that old guy was sexy. It was like competence porn right there.”
Ellery chuckled. “Glad to know that’s your kink. Was the police station really that bad?”
Jackson’s mouth thinned. “I… remember last year? We took out the bad guys and thought, ‘Hey, they have a clean slate!’”
“I do,” Ellery said, but his own mouth thinned. “They still treat you like crap.”
Jackson nodded. “Some of them. But we were right about those two officers who had Tage’s case. They were on top of it. They didn’t think the kid did it, they wanted to treat him like a victim, not a suspect, but their lieutenant, green, trying to prove something, jumped in, and the DA’s office went, ‘Yes! Prosecute the young ’cause it makes us look strong!’ And the one crooked prison guard was like, ‘Okay, we gotta rough this kid up ’cause someone says so!’ and….”
They both shuddered.
“One weak link, some miscommunication, and a public defender who didn’t see the disconnect, and that kid could have been dead,” Jackson finished. “I mean, on the one hand, I’m glad it’s not corruption, but on the other, you’ve got guys like Sean, guys like Fetzer and Hardison, and they deserve better than an undertrained lieutenant and a DA out for numbers instead of real justice.”
“I agree,” Ellery said. “System’s broken. Let’s leave it all and go run a restaurant in Jalisco.”
Jackson blinked. “Jalisco?”
“Supposed to be a wonderful place for American expatriates,” Ellery said blithely. “Do you have your passport?”
Jackson slowed for the hospital on their left and prepared to turn. “You made me get one,” he said, “when we went to visit your family over Thanksgiving. But I’m not saying we should chuck it all and run off into the wild.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Jackson picked the parking structure and not the ER ground-floor parking. “I’m saying that the system is helping these guys. And I would wager, whoever Sergio Ivanov works for, whoever is trying to set Ty Townsend up and frame Tage Dobrevk, they’re counting on the brokenness. That’s why all the panic about Tage’s file getting to the hands of someone like you and me.” He frowned. “Which means….”
Ellery’s jaw gave a throb, and he shut up and let Jackson think.
Jackson blinked. “Gah! I’ve never had a case with so many leads! But Henry and I have to interview the people in Jenny Probst’s office. Somebody leaked where that file was going.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m going to have to spend all night making a to-do list for Henry and me.”
“Why don’t you split up?” Ellery asked. “I mean, twice the work, twice the people.”
Jackson pulled the Lexus into a parking slot and stopped before glaring at him. “And leave Henry out there alone? Are you shitting me? After the way this day has gone? If that kid buys it, his boyfriend will kill me!”
Ellery chuckled as they both got out, and Jackson walked around the car to take the ice pack from him and check his jaw again.
“How bad does it look?” Ellery asked, fearing the answer.
“You’re still dead sexy,” Jackson said with a slight worried smile.
“I look like an extra from a horror movie, right?” He hated that his vanity was coming into play, but he prided himself on looking professional, and a swollen face did not keep up that image.
“You look like you got clocked in the jaw for a good cause,” Jackson said, giving his cheekbone a brief caress. “But do me a favor, Counselor.”
“Learn how to duck. We covered that.” Ellery’s heart picked up speed, just being near him. Weird how that happened but never, ever unwelcome.
Jackson shook his head. “Leave the pissing people off to me, okay? You’re supposed to be the reasonable one. We need to keep it that way.”
Ellery shrugged. “Well, given the way Herrera was looking at us, she seems to think we’re both crazy.”
“She’s right. But we want to make your crazy secret, stealth crazy, like a secret weapon, okay?”
The criticism was leavened by Jackson’s closeness and the concern in his eyes, and Ellery leaned into him, testing Jackson’s usual public space.
Jackson rewarded him with strong arms around his shoulders, and Ellery took the comfort—real comfort—with the care Jackson intended.
“Gotcha,” Ellery murmured against his shoulder. “Stealth crazy. I’ll work on it.”
Jackson stepped back and smiled faintly. “Only masters of crazy can implement that kind of thing, if the challenge makes it worth it.”
Ellery chuckled briefly, and Jackson’s hand went to his phone. He pulled it out as they started walking through the parking structure, and the tightness that had never left his eyes since he’d shown up at the jail relaxed slightly.
“He’s awake,” Jackson said, texting. “And he’s asking for us.”
“Well, that man’s earned the right to ask for whatever he wants,” Ellery told him primly.
Jackson’s fierce grin was enough of an answer.
His bravado faded a little as they approached the hospital entrance. Ellery might have been the only one to notice it, although Jade might have. Jackson’s steps never faltered, but his jaw was clenched tight enough to pop a vein in his forehead, and his face—tanned skin with a faint ruddiness from lots of time in the pool—blanched under the wheat color.
His bottle-green eyes were almost lost behind their squint, and every deliberate breath grated on Ellery’s nerves.
Jackson had spent, by Ellery’s count, nearly a year and a half of his life, at one time or another, under a hospital roof. By their last stay, together as it were, his hatred had morphed into a full-on phobia.
When Jackson had gone in for surgery, the doctors had released him early because it was either that or sedation. Just being at the hospital made his heart rate spike higher than was good for anybody, much less a patient recovering from heart surgery.
“You okay?” Ellery asked, keeping his voice extra casual.
“Peachy.” Which was sort of Jackson code for “I’m losing my shit, thank you, but I’ll be damned if I let anybody see.”
“Of course,” Ellery acknowledged. As they were walking, he got close enough to bump Jackson’s shoulder and brush their fingers together. Jackson’s pinky finger, cold and clammy, curled around his for a minute before they separated.
Ellery knew that if Jackson had his way, it was as much comfort as he’d ever be offered in the matter.
KRYZYNSKI’S CONDITION was listed as critical but stable, and they were told he had a night in the ICU before he would be released to standard care. The waiting room was down a stark white corridor, and it was clotted with cops. Henry stood in the hallway, talking to an intensely beautiful man with almond-shaped brown eyes, dark hair, and faintly dusky skin. Lance Luna, his doctor boyfriend, looked at Jackson and Ellery as they rounded the corner with a combination of irritation and gratitude.
