by Elle Keaton
“He’d jumped into one of the containers,” Adam said. “But there were rats in it. They did not appreciate the intrusion, or the competition. We’re hoping he’s up to date with his shots. He starts to run toward Sammy and me, like we’re going to save him from the rat hanging off his ass. Hell fucking no. Luckily, by this time backup had arrived. The new guy got to cuff him.”
“What about the rat?” Weir asked. Trust Weir to ask about the rat.
“The rat knew when to cut its losses. It had dropped off by then, but Potts kept jumping around like it was right behind him. Fucking Christ, the guy was only in there for a minute, but he stank. Security made the mistake of letting go of the woman; she came barreling out to ream him some more, but even she was put off by the stench.” Adam stood and clapped Sammy on the shoulder. “Good job, but seriously, fucking rats?”
Once again silence fell while they all replayed the visual.
Sammy had finally stopped laughing and caught his breath. “Okay, so, Potts hasn’t said anything yet, except to claim he has no idea where Pony and Raven are, that this was all Stephen Bailey’s idea. The fact that he said that without us prompting him… what a fucking idiot. I think they’re close by, or Potts wouldn’t be in the area. Agents are questioning him as we speak.”
Adam wrinkled his nose. “Ugh, I stink from being near that loser. When I get out of the shower, we’ll talk about your father.”
Funny, Sterling had not thought once about what would happen to either one of his parents. They had dug this circle of hell for themselves. He was not going to help them out of it.
When Adam got out of the shower, though, he and Sammy were called downtown, leaving Sterling to his own devices, because Weir was back on his computer and lost to the world.
Twenty-Four
He knew where they were.
He knew he wasn’t wrong.
The right thing to do would be to call Adam and Sammy and let them take care of it. But Weir’s ego demanded that he be the one. He wanted to prove something to Sterling: that he was smart, and capable, and also a hero.
The man in question had gone upstairs. Weir didn’t know why, but it gave him time to log off his laptop and head to his bedroom, where he rummaged in the closet for a suit. It was odd to have to push aside other clothing to get to the suits and dress shirts he normally wore every day.
Admittedly, the few he’d brought with him had been in pretty heavy rotation before his injury. Deciding on the slate gray/blue suit and a white dress shirt with just a hint of blue, Weir proceeded to transform himself into a federal agent. After making sure his badge and weapon were in their appropriate places, he went back out into the living room.
His rental car had long been returned, and he probably shouldn’t drive yet, so there was no way around asking Sterling to take him out to the Bailey homestead.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Sterling demanded as he, too, came into the living room.
“Your parents’. I need you to drive.”
Yesterday—had it been just yesterday? Yesterday, when they had arrived at the faux Tara, Weir had been focused on Sterling and the upcoming confrontation with Mrs. Bailey above everything else… but he had noted the cars sitting in the driveway.
Why, when you had very expensive cars and a custom-built garage, would you leave those cars outside? Spring in Skagit came with no guarantee of pleasant weather. In Weir’s experience it rained more days than not.
The answer was, you didn’t leave those cars outside unless something else was in your garage. Something you didn’t want anyone else to see.
Sterling didn’t question him. Grim-faced, he grabbed his wallet and the keys to Sheila off the kitchen counter and made for the front door.
The drive was silent. Weir stared out the window, watching the dark-green evergreens and newly budded deciduous trees flash by. Some early dogwood and magnolias were already blooming. Against the dark clouds, they provided a kind of hope.
The gate code hadn’t been changed since the day before. Sterling punched it in, then waited impatiently for the ornate metal gate to slide open.
“Park by the carriage house,” Weir instructed. If things went sideways, he needed them all to be able to leave quickly. He wondered how much trouble he was going to be in for this, before deciding he didn’t care.
Sterling quickly turned off the engine and set the parking brake. Even before they got out of the car, Weir saw the front door of the main house opening.
“Hurry up. Get inside, see if they are okay.”
Again, no questions. Sterling left the car and went for the side entry of the fancy garage. Weir watched him twist the handle, and realized it was locked. As quickly as possible, Weir joined him at the door. Taking out his service piece, he moved Sterling aside. Using the butt of his weapon, he struck the cheap handle several times. The metal-on-metal clash echoed across the yard.
“Now try.”
The whole process had taken about thirty seconds. Looking over his shoulder, Weir saw a red-faced Stephen Bailey running toward them from the house. Sybil Bailey stood on the porch, arms crossed over her chest, watching. What was wrong with her?
“Get away from there, faggots!” Stephen screamed. The man needed to broaden his vocabulary.
The door popped open.
“Go on, see if they’re okay. I’ll hold him off.”
Sterling disappeared inside.
Weir turned to face Stephen Bailey.
Blocking the door, Weir pulled out his badge and flashed it before Bailey got any closer.
Unhinged was a perfect description. Deranged came to mind, too. Stephen Bailey wasn’t a particularly big man, but he was off the rails, and if Bailey tried anything physical Weir knew he was at a disadvantage because of his leg.
His phone buzzed. He automatically reached for it at the same time Stephen pulled a small handgun from the back of his pants. People watched way too many movies.
“Whoa, you point that at me, you are changing the game. Put the gun down,” Weir said calmly. He’d only had a gun pointed at him once before outside of training, and he didn’t like it any better this time around.
Behind him he could hear voices, both male and female. Sterling talking to Pony and his sister. He couldn’t understand the words, but from Sterling’s tone he didn’t think they were hurt. Stephen raised the snub-nosed handgun. Guns were not Weir’s thing. Mostly, he would prefer not to carry one, but it wasn’t a choice he was allowed, so he dutifully strapped his service weapon on whenever he was out on a call. Like today.
A tiny blur raced down the slope from the porch to the garage.
He wished she hadn’t.
Stephen had no idea what hit him when his tiny wife slammed into him from behind. Her approach had been silent, her angle wicked. Using her small size to her benefit, she rammed into Stephen, hitting him in the small of the back at full speed and sending him catapulting forward.
Time slowed down, a thing Weir had only ever read about before. Stephen’s finger reflexively tightening on the trigger caused the weapon to fire. With no suppressor, the 145-decibel report of a bullet exiting the barrel of a gun carried across the property.
Too late to shout a warning.
The shot resounded out across the flats. Stephen Bailey was facedown on the grass, his wife shrieking, punching his back, and getting up to kick him while he lay there stunned, his gun arm stretched out in front of him, his face in the mud. A strangled sound came from behind Weir. He whipped around, nearly losing his balance, and saw Sterling down as well, holding his shoulder, blood seeping out between his fingers, staining his sweatshirt and the ground beneath him. Raven, still wearing the clothes Weir had last seen her in, went into hysterics.
“He fucking shot me!” Sterling’s face lost all color. “It fucking hurts,” he whispered. His heartbreaking expression of betrayal was nearly as anguishing for Weir as seeing Sterling pale and helpless against the doorframe, gripping his arm, trying to keep the bl
ood and pain inside his body.
It took everything Weir had to get through the next few minutes. His leg and arm ached to a distracting degree. The emotional overload of Raven and Sybil breaking down, Sterling being carted away in an ambulance, and the arrival of a very grim Adam had him tied up in knots, made his stomach ache.
Really, if he was honest, the only problem was the ambulance bumping away from him, carrying Sterling and Raven to St. Joe’s. Adam could yell all he wanted. Weir’s heart was being painfully yanked out of his chest.
Twenty-Five
When he found out Bailey had been arrested, Darren Potts couldn’t get his story out fast enough.
Virtually the first words spilling out of his mouth were, “Stephen Bailey made me do it.” Who actually says something like that? Weir wondered if they’d let him take a shower or if he’d sat in the interrogation room covered with rotting-trash smell and a potential rat bite. Least of the fool’s worries at this point.
A transcript of the interrogation landed in Weir’s in-box a few hours after they returned to the house. Sammy had removed himself to his hotel room, leaving Weir at loose ends, giving him more time to think. Micah was upstairs “helping” Adam shower. Which Weir was thankful for, since it meant there was a remote possibility Adam was done yelling. Very remote.
Sterling had needed several stitches and a mild pain medication. They were so fucking lucky the shot hadn’t hit anything vital. The thought of Sterling getting hurt made Weir’s insides freeze and twist uncomfortably. It would have been his fault. It was his fault. He felt close to vomiting. The bullet had grazed Sterling’s upper arm. The handsome ER doc had cleaned it up and closed the wound while Weir hovered unhelpfully in the little exam room. Sterling hadn’t needed to stay overnight at the hospital as long as he promised to rest at home. Which was what he was doing right now.
Weir was studying the tragicomic downfall of Darren Potts and, soon enough, Stephen Bailey. Contemplating how truly unoriginal people were, and questioning why Potts hadn’t been drowned at birth. While a constant buzz of worry about Sterling hovered in the background. And Raven, too.
Potts had been contracted by Bailey to perform the kidnapping. Weir wondered if it was coincidence that Bailey had hired the very same person who had outed his son years earlier. After leaving Patty’s, he’d driven directly to the plantation, where he’d deposited the teens. Raven and Pony were blindfolded, their wrists and ankles duct-taped so they couldn’t escape from the carriage house. Which was why the Tesla and Lexus had been parked outside when he and Sterling paid their visit, exactly as Weir had thought. Wouldn’t want kidnapping to get on your cars.
Bailey had given Potts instructions on how to demand the ransom and told him to lie low for the next few days. He’d lured the teens by telling them there had been an accident, although apparently Raven had argued with him about details, which led to the scene in Patty’s. Potts had been camping at the old ranger station before the kidnapping—Sterling hadn’t been wrong about that—but the weather had turned colder, and he was bored, so he’d decided to spend the day inside. At the casino. It had not occurred to Potts that being at the casino was not lying low. Bailey had promised him a cut of the ransom, just enough to pay off Potts’s debt to Charlie Herb, and they would go their separate ways. No one would know any better.
Weir snorted.
Right.
No way would Bailey have given him that money. Not with the amount of debt he was in and his current lack of capital. Weir didn’t know exactly how desperate Bailey was, how much of a hardened criminal he’d evolved into, but he thought it was a lot more likely that Potts would have disappeared, along with a pair of specially fitted cement boots. Or whatever creeps used in the Pacific Northwest.
Stephen Bailey had been arrested, Sybil taken in for questioning. Pony’s mother and father were questioned, too, but their worst offense appeared to be neglect. They did not seem to care that their child had been abducted. Adam had pulled strings, so, tonight at least, both teens were coming to Micah’s. Once the team sifted through the physical and digital evidence, statements, and paperwork, the various federal and state entities involved would have a better idea of where Pony, especially, would land.
How Sterling had emerged whole from the fiery ashes of his childhood, Weir didn’t know. He brought to mind of a piece of kintsugi pottery, purposely broken, then repaired with gold and lacquer, resulting in a piece stronger and more beautiful than the original.
He heard the commotion before either Raven or Pony reached the porch. Poor Micah, he was always going on about his nosy neighbors, and now they had given the little old ladies another gossip item: two teenagers escorted to his house by the SkPD.
The front door crashed open. At this rate Micah was going to have to have it replaced, or at least replaster the wall behind it. Raven burst in first, Pony more tentatively on her heels. Sterling must have heard them, too, and he appeared from the bedroom to engulf Raven in a fierce one-armed hug. Weir watched the two siblings. The envy he felt surprised him.
In the kitchen, before powering down his laptop, he made sure the tiny code he had inserted was live. Shutting the lid, he tucked the laptop under his arm and made his way back to the bedroom. Sterling and Raven were sitting together on the couch, Sterling cupping her face, running a hand along her bare arms, checking that she was really in front of him. Raven was demanding details about his visit to the ER. Pony sat off to the side, in one of the smaller chairs, Micah and Adam trying to make them comfortable.
Micah was succeeding.
The bedroom was a sorry mess. Even though he was exhausted, his leg and arm aching, Weir began packing up his belongings. He had allowed himself to become far too comfortable here at Micah’s, in Skagit, and he had no place in a family reunion.
Soon enough his meager belongings were stuffed back into his suitcase. The few extra things he’d picked up during his stay he shoved into a plastic bag the hospital had provided. It was too late tonight; tomorrow he would make plans to head home.
Much later, he heard a soft knock on his door before it quietly opened. He felt, more than saw, because he was a coward feigning sleep, Sterling checking on him. The door shut again, and he released a sigh and tried to sleep for real.
As soon as the sky began to lighten, he called a cab. A blanketed form was snuggled on the couch; from the size, Weir thought it was Pony.
Unlike Sterling, he was able to sneak out of the house without anyone chasing after him.
Once he was in the back of the cab, his bags tucked into the trunk, Weir asked the driver to drop him at the airport. He couldn’t face another anonymous hotel room right now, not while his nerves and emotions were raw.
Lucky him, all the nonstop flights that morning were full, but if he wanted he could go via Phoenix, for a travel time of just under seven hours to LAX. He put the flight on his personal credit card. Maybe he would get reimbursed for it later.
As the flight was getting ready to take off, he sent a text to Mohammad letting him know he had decided to go back to LA. Mohammad would let Adam and the team know. After all, he was still on medical leave.
There was surprisingly little fallout from his decision to return to LA. He had expected a barrage of phone calls and text messages, but by the time he landed, tired and aching, he had just one voice mail from Mohammad.
Listening to his boss’s sexy voice was always enjoyable, even when he was in a crappy mood. He had strict instructions to finish out his physical therapy, check in with HR, stay away from his laptop, and basically get back into fighting shape. Also, he needed to report to the staff psychologist for his quarterly evaluation by the end of April.
Okaaay.
Ironically, when he reached his tiny condo, a few blocks from Hermosa Beach, it held virtually the same appeal as the no-name hotel room he had fled Skagit to avoid.
Twenty-Six
Swept into the torrent of events surrounding Raven’s return from the police station, the eve
ntual arrest of both his parents, the impending doom hovering over the Loft, and the ache in his arm reminding him he had been shot, Sterling didn’t register Weir’s absence until late the next afternoon. In fact, it wasn’t until Micah mentioned the downstairs bedroom being clean that he understood Weir had left. He’d assumed Weir was working on his laptop or resting. Even then, he supposed Weir had gone to a hotel, not vacated Skagit entirely.
It was a relief, really. It was.
Weir was a distraction Sterling couldn’t handle. The man-child-genius-surfer-runner dude would only cause confusion while he pieced his life back together. While he fought the state over where Raven should live, figured out what had happened to his savings, and tried contacting Rick so he could hopefully renegotiate a purchase timeline for the Loft. At one point during the afternoon he was holding a phone conversation with a social worker, texting Rick, and receiving a voice mail notification from the local bank loan officer, all at the same time. Weir would have been one thing too many.
He’d gotten comfortable around Weir: his ridiculous sense of humor, clever brown eyes, and sharp intellect. Too comfortable. Being used to something didn’t mean it was good for you. Familiarity bred contempt; he’d heard that growing up, although he was never certain exactly what it meant. Come to think of it, anything his parents quoted should probably be taken with a grain of salt. Sounded more like an excuse to avoid people, cheat, or treat others like crap. Regardless, it was for the good that Weir had left. Sterling didn’t miss him.
Sybil was released from custody after being charged with collusion and obstructing an ongoing investigation. Adam didn’t think there would be jail time if she could demonstrate remorse and establish she had been coerced. Over the past few days the most pressing issue had become housing, for both his sister and Sybil.
