by Kate Lowell
This was going to be a tough presentation.
It opened with the usual introduction by one of the instructors, giving his name, his educational and military background, his years of service, and listing some of the better known cases that he’d been involved in. Discreetly, he watched Julian’s reaction to the listing of his triumphs and failures.
Julian started out relaxed, but as the intro went on, he sat up straighter, and his shoulders tensed. An expression of discomfort swept across his face before the lines fell back to neutrality. Leo sent a “he’s making a bigger deal out of this than it’s worth” smile around the room, pausing to catch Julian’s eye. The younger man slumped back in his seat again and scratched his nose, but Leo was sure he’d caught a quick smile behind the moving hand.
When Leo launched into his presentation, the strained look came back. It started slow, with the story of how the ring had come to their attention, and a list—including pictures—of some of the known victims. He paused for a moment over Ethan’s image, then moved on, reciting Ethan’s story. He’d requested the right to do the family’s notification. As he spoke, the screams of the young man’s mother rang in Leo’s ears, as loud as they’d been the first time.
Leo shook it off and continued, his voice steady. He couldn’t help Ethan or his family anymore, but he’d done something. And he’d keep doing something too, until they caught every last damn one of them and he’d roasted their balls over a slow fire.
Julian’s face grew paler and paler as Leo talked. When he got to the section dealing with the unfinished end of the business—the men who’d gotten away, the other business where boys and girls were sold into real slavery, Julian stood up from his seat with quiet deliberation and went for the door. The other recruits looked around with puzzled expressions, which grew even more puzzled when Leo told them to take a break and excused himself from the room.
He found Julian in the men’s room at the far end of the corridor. He sounded like he was trying to throw up everything he’d eaten since the operation finished.
Leo wedged himself into the stall with his former partner and rested a hand in the middle of his back. “Hey, it’s good to see you.”
Julian laughed and wiped his mouth with a ball of toilet paper, then tossed it in the bowl and flushed. “Not exactly how I planned i—” He gagged and leaned over the bowl again. Nothing came out but foamy spit and the smell of stomach acid. He groaned and sagged back against the side of the stall. “That one hurt.”
Leo pulled a length of tissue off the roll and handed it to him. “I believe it. Just listening hurts.”
“Sorry.” Julian wiped his mouth again, his expression disgusted.
“No problem. I puked every time I saw a hamburger after one of my cases.”
“Why a hamburger?”
“No idea. The shrink said it would pass eventually, called it a temporary association.”
“God, I hope this is temporary. Can’t imagine going through Hogan’s Alley, stopping to puke every few minutes.” He retched again, spitting up something greenish. “Gross. There go my brains.”
Leo cradled Julian’s wrist in one hand and pressed his thumb against the acupressure point between the two tendons. “See if this helps.”
Julian sat up again. He looked exhausted, his face still pale and shiny with sweat. “I thought I had this all worked out. I’ve been seeing one of the bureau psychologists ever since it ended. And my old roommate, David, is pretty damn good at straightening people out when they get their heads all in a mess. But it all came rushing back as soon as you started talking.”
“I know.” At Julian’s frown, Leo added, “I’ve been there. It’s a guarantee that, at some point in your career, you’re going to hit something that digs its claws in and won’t let go easily. It’s bad luck it happened on your first case.” He looked down at Julian’s arm and rubbed his free hand over it. “It’s normal. Eventually the edges wear off, and it doesn’t hurt so bad.” He looked back up again. “It means you’re a good agent. You care.” He squeezed Julian’s arm and then let go. “Not that I had any doubts.”
Julian closed his eyes. His words were so soft, Leo almost didn’t catch them. “I did.”
“But you came anyway.”
“Yeah.” Their eyes met, and then Julian doubled over in another bout of retching.
Leo rubbed his back. “You need to stop thinking about it.”
Julian sat back with a sigh and took the toilet tissue Leo offered him. “I keep seeing the table, and bodies on it. All of them, even the ones that escaped. And—” He paused, then shook his head, and Leo knew he was back in that hotel with Shiro.
“I know.” Leo wanted to hold him close and kiss his nightmares away. “It was terrible. But they weren’t suffering when they were there.” Though Shiro was.
“I keep telling myself that. Except…” They sat in silence for several minutes, until Julian said, “They’ll be wondering where you are.”
“Let them wait.”
But Julian shook his head. “No, go on. I’m fine. I’ll clean up and be down in a minute.”
Leo shook his head. “I think you can be excused from the rest of it. You already know more about the operation than any of them ever will.” He pulled out one of his business cards and wrote on the back, then passed it to Julian. “I’m taking a month off after this. Going to go stay at this place—fellow I worked with through the bureau said I could use it anytime I wanted. Those are the GPS coordinates. You want to talk, you’ll find me there.” Then, because he couldn’t help himself, he folded the other man close and pressed a hard kiss to the top of his head before getting abruptly to his feet and exiting the bathroom with enough speed to be embarrassing.
Recycled
Three weeks later…
Julian squinted at the passing trees as his rental car followed the curves of some nameless side road the GPS had directed him onto a half hour ago.
“Turn right, one hundred yards,” the machine said in its smooth, feminine voice.
He watched anxiously out the windshield. The coordinates were in the back end of nowhere, and as a city boy, he was completely lost except for the mechanical voice hopefully not currently leading him off the edge of a cliff.
There it was! He slowed down and bounced his way over a couple of deep holes and onto a rutted track with grass growing up the center. Please let this be the right place, please, please… The road curved left through a stand of trees, then right, the leaves turning the drive into a twilight path, like driving into a tunnel of green glass. At least fifteen minutes passed, going in and out of these tunnels of trees, with no place to turn the car around, and the light gradually fading to dusk.
Finally, just when he was convinced he’d missed a turn somewhere, the track widened and the trees gave way to a small grassy clearing, at the edge of which stood the fanciest cabin Julian had ever seen. It bore no resemblance at all to the little plywood things he and his parents had stayed in during summer vacations. Rather, it looked more like a house masquerading as a cabin and doing a lousy job of it. Two wide levels of decks spanned the front, running out of sight around the corner. A V-shaped wall of windows two stories high gazed out over the clearing, one side reflecting the cloud-speckled sky. On the other, the slanted rays of the sun shone gold on the glass and flashed uncomfortably in Julian’s eyes.
As he turned off the drive and onto a flat section of gravel in front of the cabin, he caught a glimmer of sunshine on water and realized the cabin sat on the edge of the river he’d occasionally glimpsed on the way up. A blob of color at the water’s edge resolved itself into a faded red canoe as he got closer.
He pulled in next to a black Jeep and turned off the car. On the other side of the Jeep was a set of stairs leading up to the lower deck and, hopefully, his goal.
This was it. He got out and looked around, hoping for some clue he’d found the right place.
Nothing.
Might as well go hunting. He stuck
his index finger through the key ring and headed for the deck, spinning the keys noisily as he went. When paying a somewhat unexpected visit to an FBI agent on vacation, he figured it was a smart idea not to sneak up on him.
Standing on the deck, he could hear music from around the corner, some jazzy-sounding thing. The smoky, rich smell of beef on a grill wafted past him, and his stomach growled. He followed it all the way around to the back of the building.
Leo stood in front of a stainless-steel built-in barbecue that stretched longer than the countertop in Julian’s old kitchen. He had a beer in one hand and a set of tongs in the other, poking at some dark lumps on the grill. His sunglasses perched on top of his head, and he was barefoot, wearing a faded muscle shirt and the rattiest pair of old shorts ever.
Just looking at him went to Julian’s gut like a punch. “Hello,” he said and was surprised how steady he sounded.
Leo looked up from the grill, and a grin spread across his face. “You came.” He dropped the tongs and moved to stand in front of Julian. His hands twitched, and Julian was sure he’d only just stopped himself from taking Julian into his arms. The uncertainty sat weirdly on him, and Julian realized that, while Leo had often questioned their next steps, he’d never doubted their choices after they were made.
Julian had talked to Ramos before he came looking for Leo, feeling his way through that interview the same way he’d felt his way through new agent training, waiting for things to come apart on him. But Ramos had been surprisingly supportive, and over a dinner of Chinese food, he filled Julian in on a lot that had happened with Leo since… Since.
If what Ramos said was right, he’d have to feel his way through this too. Leo still carried a lot of guilt for Julian’s decisions, which was stupid and sweet but not something Julian could allow to continue. Especially since he’d come here with the express purpose of finding out if something still existed between them or if it was just some twisted emotion left over from the operation. He’d burned through his anger a long time ago, but the attraction was still there.
“Don’t ruin your supper.” Julian put his keys in his pocket and walked over to see what Leo was cooking. Hamburgers and a boat of tinfoil filled with onions and red pepper rings. “Looks good.”
“You want some? It’s about done.”
“Sure. Those airline pretzels wore off a while ago.” He watched Leo transfer everything from the grill to a plate. “You look good. Rested.”
He smiled, though he never looked at Julian, instead focusing on turning down the barbecue just so. “I feel better. A good rest, more regular investigation. No undercover work. Getting ready for the trial.”
Yes, Julian knew about that. He had had his own interviews with the prosecutor’s office. It was pretty much inevitable that he’d end up on the stand.
Leo closed the barbecue again. “You know, we picked up a few more.”
“Did you—” Julian froze.
Leo finally looked at him. “They haven’t filled you in on it?”
Julian shook his head. No, his meetings with Ramos—who seemed to have taken a particular interest in Julian—had been entirely about Julian and his own journey of recovery, up until this last one. And he supposed that one was about himself too, in a roundabout sort of way.
Leo’s expression softened. “We never found Shiro. We did get most of the brothels that day, but word got out to a few before we could hit them. And Shiro wasn’t a part of that system anyway. We have pictures to pass around to other agencies. He’ll show up. We did get Lucas. He’s doing very well, all things considered.”
Julian walked away to stare out into the trees. He leaned on the railing that surrounded the deck and breathed deeply. Funny, it only occurred to him now that his entire conversation with Ramos had been centered around Leo. Shiro hadn’t come up once. That hurt, and he wondered when he’d become so selfish.
It was good that they’d rescued Lucas.
A touch on his shoulder made him jump. He spun around and nearly ran into Leo. “Shit, you scared me.” Damn, he hadn’t meant it like that.
Leo backed away, confusion on his face.
Julian came after him. “Hey, it’s all right.” He should probably explain. “I just have a hard time forgetting him, you know? Like I failed.” He shrugged and looked down, stuffing his hands in his shorts pockets. “I know I said a lot of things back in Vegas, but I’ve had time to think. I don’t hold anything against you. Nothing. Not even Shiro. I didn’t have any right to take my own frustration out on you. I’m sorry.” He met Leo’s gaze again.
“I know it feels like it, but you didn’t fail anyone.” Leo touched his shoulder cautiously, like he expected Julian to bite. “What you did was more than anyone could have expected. More than I should have expected.” He looked like he was going to say something else; then he turned back to pick up the burgers from the shelf. “Do you want to eat out here or inside?”
“Out here is fine.”
“Okay, why don’t we fix everything up in the kitchen, I’ll grab a couple more burgers to throw on the grill, and then we come back out?”
“Sounds good.” Julian followed Leo through the open patio door, wondering if he’d ever find a way to bring up his real reason for coming.
Change of Direction
They’d eaten, then taken their beers and stretched out on a pair of wooden loungers at the end of the deck closest to the river. Julian could hear the water chuckle as it ran past, tumbling over rocks and fallen tree trunks. They chatted about unimportant things for a while. Shared stories about Quantico and the five-month training that Julian had just finished.
“They let you in early?” Leo asked.
“Shhh. Ramos made me wait until he knew for sure I wasn’t going to have a meltdown on him, then got someone to agree that if I passed the tests, I could get in. But we’re not supposed to tell. Not that the news didn’t get out after your visit, but consensus is that everyone else in the class would rather have waited the extra nine months. Me included.” He saw Leo shift uncomfortably. “I didn’t mean it like that. It was supposed to be a joke. I thought you had a sense of humor.” He mimicked Dale Leon’s tone of voice perfectly: “If you break him, you bought him.”
Leo choked on a mouthful of beer, spluttering while Julian patted him on the back between his shoulder blades. “You thought that was funny.”
“Not at the time. After—well, I’ve been working on it.” He smiled ruefully and sat back now that Leo’s coughing fit had slowed. “I’m trying to put it all in perspective.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
Julian was curious, so he asked Leo about his military background. “You were a computer nerd?”
Leo laughed and looked up at the sky. “Complete nerd. I even have the T-shirt. It was one of the reasons Bert approached me about going undercover. That big an operation, there had to be an IT element, and given the extent, it had to connect them all. Just took a while to find it because they didn’t use the Internet to communicate.”
“Frustrating.”
“You have no idea.” Their eyes met, and Leo grinned. “Okay, maybe you do. Sorry if I was an asshole during the operation.”
“You were fine.” He watched Leo picking at the label on his beer bottle, peeling it away in thin strips. He wanted to feel those hands on his skin again.
The air was getting chilly. Julian took a last pull of his beer and set the bottle down. “So, I’ve been offered a chance to join the team going after the rest of the trafficking ring.”
Leo peeled another strip off the label. “I know. I asked for you, if you agreed, though you won’t be working directly under me. We have a new ASAC. Bert got a reprimand and a one-week suspension, and I believe he’s somewhere in the hinterland working off his penance.”
This was the first Julian had heard about Harrow. Ramos had avoided the subject, and after the first rebuff, Julian figured it was something above his pay grade and had stopped pushing before he annoyed the m
an doing him the favors. It wasn’t important anymore, anyway, so he focused on what was. “That was you who requested me?”
Leo nodded. “You did good. You even had me fooled. I was planning to find out who had trained you so I could congratulate them.”
Julian snorted. “I grew up in what you might call a difficult family. So I took theater all through high school and then some classes during college. Thought it might be useful if I made it into the bureau, and it helped me deal with…stuff. I have one of those faces, you know?”
“You used it well.”
“Thanks. They’re going to make me do six months in one of the field offices first, and if I pass muster there, they’ll let me transfer. I couldn’t talk them out of that.”
“It’s good experience. You won’t regret it.”
“That’s what they tell me.” Julian leaned his head back and stared up at the stars. He’d come here with so many ideas in his head, and the situation wasn’t turning out how he’d expected. Maybe he should just pick an action and follow through.
He knew which one he wanted to follow up on too.
Julian sat up and swung his legs over the side of the lounger.
Leo looked up. “You cold? We can go in.”
“I was thinking about that.” Julian switched to Leo’s lounger and leaned in to kiss him. Leo started and tried to push him away, but his efforts lacked conviction. Julian’s heart leaped—yes, Leo was still attracted to him. Good, because he hated being on either side of a one-way attraction.
At the end of the kiss, Julian sat back and locked his gaze with Leo’s. “Ramos said you thought I was angry with you. And he was right, for a while. But we were both stumbling blind through the operation, and you had as much right to be mad at me for not calling it off as I did for you not being omnipotent.” There, that should make his point. “My choices would have been the same in your situation.”
