by Sidney Bell
“Yeah.” Tobias grabbed the notepad, thinking about what Sullivan had said. “That’s very cynical. She could be a friend who doesn’t mind lending him her car so he can have his kids for the day.”
“Could be. Isn’t, though.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know he cheated on his wife.”
“Yeah, I do. See how mad she was? Even now, after it’s final? World’s full of deadbeats.”
Tobias eyed him. Sullivan didn’t look upset or angry; if anything, he was far too calm, sitting there cracking his knuckles with his hair hanging in his eyes, espousing a bitter belief system that Tobias rejected on principle. Before he got a chance to argue, the balding man got behind the wheel of the beige sedan.
“He’s leaving,” Tobias said. There was a low pulse of excitement in his stomach. He doubted the balding man would be taking his kids to wherever he’d taken Ghost, but later, eventually, it was going to happen. They were getting closer. “Come on, let’s go. Hurry.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Sullivan said, and put the car in gear.
“No, I can feel it.” Tobias leaned forward, wishing he could will the clunky Buick to move faster. “We’re finally moving.”
* * *
“Not gonna lie, this is not what I expected,” Sullivan said.
Tobias had to agree.
They were standing on the cement path between the two main lakes in City Park, watching the nearby hubbub of picnickers on the grass. Wooden tables with paper tablecloths littered the area in front of a low stage with a podium, and there were people clustered in small groups eating and drinking, the men in T-shirts and jeans, the women in shorts, the kids shrieking and running around. The faint odor of animals drifted on the inconstant warm breeze from the zoo, which lay at the northeast boundary of the park; stronger was the damp duck smell from the green water nearby. Geese were honking in the distance. Strung above the small stage was a big banner which read, in black letters, Congrats to Chief Spratt! Below that, in smaller, red type, was the slogan And Justice for All! At the end of the banner was the logo of the Denver Police Department.
Which made sense, because for every person in street clothes, there were two in uniform.
“Wow, that is a lot of cops,” Sullivan murmured.
“Are we crashing a government picnic?” Tobias asked, his heart pounding enjoyably. “I’ve never crashed anything before. We should definitely go in.” He started forward and Sullivan caught his arm.
“Hold on, Kamikaze, let’s think about this for a minute.”
“What’s to think about?” He tugged his arm free. “There’s like, two hundred people here. No one’s going to know we shouldn’t be here. Assuming it isn’t come one come all.”
“I’m not worried about getting caught crashing. I’m worried about who we might run into.”
“You mean a Krayev?” Tobias asked doubtfully. “Considering how many cops are here, I find that unlikely.”
“No, I—”
“Even if we get busted, what are they going to do? Shoot us? They’re cops. We’re not going to get hurt.” He started walking again.
And again, Sullivan caught him. “Tobias, so help me, if you don’t slow down and—”
He jerked away hard enough this time to make his shoulder twinge. “God, Sullivan, we’ve been sitting still for so long and we finally have something and you want to stand here some more?”
“That’s not what I’m trying to—” He broke off, the muscle in his jaw working. “You know what? Go sit in the car.”
Tobias could only sputter for a second as betrayal, hot and choking, rose inside him. “Excuse me? Are you joking? No. No. I’m not—I am not getting sent to the car like a damn—”
“Yes, you are. I don’t have the time or inclination to argue with you about this. Just do as you’re told and wait—”
“The hell I am.” Tobias didn’t sound like himself. He sounded angry, maybe mean, and he liked it. He liked it a lot, and Sullivan was out of luck if he thought he could muzzle Tobias now. Sure, they played at the submission game when it was convenient, but this wasn’t sex, and Tobias wasn’t waiting anymore. Sullivan had said he wanted Tobias to be honest. Now he could reap what he’d sown.
Tobias said it again. “No.”
He took off across the path, ignoring the way Sullivan cursed and said his name, walking quickly enough to shake off the hand that Sullivan almost managed to catch him with, and then he was on the grass, losing himself in the group of attendees. He didn’t slow down, wedging his way through the crowd well enough that when he glanced back, he didn’t see Sullivan anywhere.
Good. He’d catch up eventually, of course, because he wasn’t incompetent, but Tobias was deep in the thick of the picnic now, and Sullivan wouldn’t make a scene, wouldn’t want to risk attracting attention.
The speakers gave a cry of feedback, and a woman at the podium began talking about the state of justice in Denver. Tobias tuned her out for the most part, concentrating on winding his way through the attentive crowd and looking for the balding man.
As he got closer to the stage, he saw more people in suits and dresses, their jewelry and watches more expensive, the average age increasing sharply. There were more cops, many in patrol uniforms, a bunch in business casual with badges pinned to their waistbands. There weren’t as many kids, either, which was part of the reason that the four children making a minor ruckus and drawing annoyed glances from the adults nearby stuck out. Tobias surveyed the nearest faces, and found the balding man talking with a strikingly red-haired man in his fifties, sour-faced with small brown eyes and ruddy cheeks.
Neither of them spared the children or the annoyed attendees a second’s attention.
The woman wrapped up her speech with a loud and enthusiastic, “So let’s give a warm welcome to the man who will be taking over the job, Benjamin Spratt!”
There was loud applause, and she stood back, clapping as the man who must be Spratt walked on stage. He was tall and slim, elegant in his charcoal-gray suit, his salt-and-pepper hair handsomely styled, his thin face a pleasant mixture of noble decency and stern, hard-eyed strength. He looked like a cop should look, Tobias decided.
He listened to enough of Spratt’s speech to catch on that he was talking about updating the police department and helping the community. Tobias went back to watching the balding man hiss something into the ear of the redheaded man.
When the speech ended, Tobias circled around, trying to edge closer to the foot of the stage, where the balding man and redheaded man were still talking in low voices. By the time he got within hearing range, they’d been joined by Spratt himself, smiling and nodding as people passed. He’d been given a flute of champagne at some point, and one long finger tapped at the glass as the balding man muttered at him.
Tobias eased around a clutch of attendees, coming at Spratt and the two unnamed men from behind. There were fewer people standing on this side, fewer voices to try to hear past.
“—the bitch knew we were coming...had the middle one there already...and the big fucker...by surprise...”
Tobias grimaced. He wasn’t close enough to get all of it. He took a couple of steps closer. He was exposed now; if one of them turned, they’d see him head-on, but it was easier to hear from this spot, at least.
Spratt said, “Was the mysterious Kellen there?”
Tobias frowned. Kellen. He knew that name. From...he couldn’t remember, but he knew it.
The balding man replied, “No, we only saw the others.”
“Pity.” Spratt shifted, nodding to one attendee, then extending a hand to another for a brief shake.
The balding man said something else, more softly now that others were closer, and Tobias eased another step closer. He wanted to hear more about Kellen, wanted something to jog his memory of how he’d heard—
“And the boy? Any progress there?” the balding man asked.
“It’s a matter of time,” Spratt said.
“Assuming he doesn’t act up anymore.” The balding man squinted at the sun as if its glare was purposely designed to afflict him. “Assuming he can trust a guy doing what you’re doing.”
“A caged animal is a safe animal,” Spratt said, and Tobias thought Ghost.
A hand clenched on Tobias’s elbow all of a sudden, and then Sullivan was edging in front of him, planting himself between Tobias and Spratt’s circle, his back to them.
Tobias tried to shrug him off. He needed to hear.
Sullivan leaned in and hissed, “If you don’t come with me right now and without a fuss, we are fucking done. Deal off, case over.”
Tobias jolted, stung. Sullivan’s expression matched his words, and Tobias swallowed his own anger, allowing himself to be prodded back toward the car after one last, lingering glance at Spratt.
“Not a word,” Sullivan said when they were in. “Not one damn word until we get back to my place.”
Tobias complied, but only because he had some things of his own to say, and he didn’t want to get noticed yelling at Sullivan any more than Sullivan wanted to be noticed yelling at him. Tobias didn’t like yelling as a rule, but the itch under his skin was becoming downright painful, and he thought he could manage a yell very nicely at the moment, thank you very much.
For the next hour, Sullivan took photos and wrote down tag numbers for the cars in the lot. Tobias took out his phone and texted Church: who is Kellen? Why do I know that name?
A minute later, he received a handful of texts in rapid succession: fuck that dude works for mama when vasily and his brothers beat me up i guess kellen was the one who stepped in to stop it for mama.
And: even vasily jumped when keelen said to.
And: *Kellen* fuck i never saw him but he must be a scary bastard to make vasily nervous.
And: are you being careful fuck man you better be careful.
Wrapping up with: should i come over where are you.
Tobias sent back: I’ll fill you in soon. And don’t worry. I’ve got it all under control.
* * *
They didn’t make it into the house before Tobias’s temper broke.
“Wait in the car.” Tobias slammed the car door behind him. “That’s what you said to me. Wait in the car. Like I’m a child or your...your slave or something. But getting on my knees for you in the bedroom doesn’t mean I owe you obedience at any other time.”
“The fuck you don’t. Three rules, remember?” Sullivan countered, lifting the heavy, sagging gate so he could give them room to pass. Tobias refused to appreciate the way the muscles in his back worked under his T-shirt in the process. “Do as I say in the field. Obey when it matters because I might not have time to explain and you might fuck up my case out of sheer ignorance and stubbornness. It’s not about slavery, you ass, it’s about knowing what the hell you’re doing and being able to follow when you don’t. You promised, remember?”
“I thought you meant if we were getting shot at or something like that.” Tobias followed him into the house, slamming that door too. “This wasn’t like that. They were talking about Ghost, Sullivan. They called him a caged animal. That guy, Spratt, who gave the speech? He knows where Ghost is. It was important, and it wasn’t even dangerous. We were finally getting somewhere and you wouldn’t—”
“Not dangerous? You sure about that?” Sullivan stopped in the living room, yanked open the camera bag, and turned on the Mark III. With a sharp flick of his thumb, he flipped through the pictures he’d taken, then showed the screen to Tobias. There was a shot of the redheaded man who’d been speaking to the balding guy and Spratt. “Do you know who that is?”
“No,” Tobias said stiffly, because he could sense where this was going.
“I do.” Sullivan set the camera down with such careful restraint that Tobias got the distinct impression he’d been tempted to throw it. “That’s my fucking client.”
“What?”
“Yeah. My client, who has been searching for a missing girl since 1992, who claimed to be an insurance adjuster, who apparently hangs out with a bunch of cops. Why didn’t he go to his cop friends for help, do you think? Guess he didn’t need to, what with that badge there on his belt. But why does a cop go to a private detective? Why does he lie about his job? And his name?”
Tobias’s throat had shrunk. It took more effort than it should’ve to swallow. “I—I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t know. You were too busy going off half-cocked. Look, I get that you’re having a nice time with the rebellion and all, but my case is not the fucking place or time for you to indulge it by losing fifty damn IQ points. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what you do when our safety’s not on the line, but if we’re in the field and I tell you to do something, you’re gonna fucking do it. Clear?”
“Clear.” Tobias couldn’t think past the panic bubbling in his veins. What if the client—the redheaded man—had seen Sullivan? Why would a cop lie about who he was? Why would he go outside the department to track someone down? What if he knew the private detective he’d hired to find a missing girl had somehow traced it back to him?
There was only one answer to the first two questions that he could think of—the cop was dirty. And that made the potential answers to the third question much more frightening.
Tobias had put everything at risk with his impulsive, reckless decision. He’d put Ghost at risk, because the balding man knew where Ghost was, Spratt knew where Ghost was, which meant the redheaded man probably did too.
God, he couldn’t think. It was all too confusing. None of it made sense. All he knew was that Ghost was involved in something that included not just the Krayevs but dirty cops.
And he’d put Sullivan and Ghost in danger.
“H-he almost saw you,” Tobias stammered. “God, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I’d hope so,” Sullivan said, but his anger seemed to have shrunk; he sounded mostly frustrated and tired. He reached out with one hand, but Tobias flinched back. He wasn’t sure why, because he wanted Sullivan to touch him. He didn’t want Sullivan to feel rejected, either—it had only been last night that he’d taken that step of trusting Tobias enough to try the spanking thing, and was probably still feeling insecure about it, and having your...your...whatever Tobias was, having that person flinch from your touch couldn’t feel good, but Tobias couldn’t help it. He was jerking back before he had time to realize it was happening, and then his phone rang.
He took his phone out with numb, automatic fingers and answered.
“Now? Really? Nah, that’s great, answer your phone,” Sullivan was muttering, but Tobias’s attention—what he was capable of producing at the moment, anyway—shifted immediately to the voice on the other end of the line.
“I just finished speaking with Clint Hammel,” his father said, skipping hello entirely.
“Papa,” Tobias managed. He should say that it wasn’t a good time, but Papa was iron in his ear with that one sentence. What could he do against iron? What should he do? Why couldn’t he think?
“Do you know what he told me? He told me you’d missed the appointment I set up for you.”
What appointment? Tobias couldn’t—
“He’d moved his schedule around for you, Tobias. For me. As not only a courtesy, but as the act of a colleague and friend whose opinion of me matters a great deal.”
I didn’t have an appointment. Did I?
“You couldn’t even call him? You didn’t—” Papa broke off, exhaling as if he were trying to stay calm. “I understand that you’re upset, son, but this is... I wouldn’t have expected you to do something like this. To undermine my professional relationship with someone so thoughtlessly? I...what am I supposed to think of this? Are you striking out? Did you do
it to hurt me?”
“I don’t—What appointment?”
“You don’t remember?” There was a small, sharp laugh. “This is extremely unproductive behavior. This is an attack, both on my relationship with a colleague and on yours and mine as well, but never mind that. You’ve torpedoed a sterling opportunity for yourself. Do you know what an internship with Clint Hammel could do for your application to medical school? I’m at a loss to understand how you could be so careless with your future.”
“What internship?” Tobias managed.
“The one that Clint Hammel was going to offer you at the meeting I set up for you,” Papa snapped, the words vibrating right on that fine line that demarcated speech from yelling.
The itch was there, under his skin, making him fit so badly into the space he occupied, and Tobias said, “I didn’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t have to. This is what fathers do for their sons, and you’ve thrown it in my face. I don’t know where this anger is coming from.”
“Don’t you?” Tobias bit his lip so hard it bled. He couldn’t say—he shouldn’t...that itch was dangerous, it made him reckless and stupid, like it had at the picnic. It made him hurt people, people he loved and needed—
Papa sighed. “We wanted only to protect you. That creature who gave birth to you did an abominable thing. Of course we couldn’t allow her contact with a child.”
“I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with you not allowing her contact with an adult.” He closed his eyes. Stop it, he told himself. Stop talking. The itch didn’t listen. He’d let everything out, and now nothing would go back where it belonged. “And I didn’t know about the appointment. I didn’t ask for it. You can’t be mad at me for not showing up when I didn’t know.”
“I sent you the email. As I have whenever I’ve set up meetings for you in the past. How am I to know that you’ve—”
“My student email.” Of course. Tobias had been checking it only infrequently since the blowup with his parents and he’d begun skipping class. He hadn’t checked it once in the last week. “I didn’t know—I didn’t look.”
