Fire and Onyx

by Andrew Grey

  “No. I’ll talk to the guys when they arrive, but unfortunately I didn’t see very much before the shooting started, and there was little I could do about it. They were right outside the house, and it sounded like some sort of gun battle. If you want to take him to the living room, that’s okay. They seem to be gone.”

  “Do you—?” Wes wanted to ask if it was related to what Evan was working on, but it was probably too soon to tell that sort of thing.

  “I don’t know anything about who was involved or why it happened outside your house, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.” Evan helped him out of the bathroom and guided him to the living room. Not that Wes needed help, but it was nice that Evan was there. It kept Wes from losing his shit completely, and he was already danged close to it.

  The sirens silenced right out front, flashing lights shining around the edges of the curtains. He took a deep breath and waited for the inevitable questions that he was sure he didn’t know the answers to.

  “It will be okay,” Evan reassured him and checked on both of them before peering out through the living room window. Wes couldn’t help looking at all the activity, wondering just what had happened. “Just stay here.”

  Wes swallowed. “Why?” He made to get up.

  “Because I don’t want you or Greyson to see what’s out there.” Evan cracked open the door and then stepped outside. Wes figured that someone—or multiple someones—had been shot or killed in the gunfight. “No. We didn’t see anything.” Evan’s voice drifted into the house. “All we heard were the shots and little else.” He spoke loudly, which told Wes that whatever he was saying was most likely for a larger audience. “If you have to….” He stepped back inside, and Red, the officer from the café, came in with him.

  “Okay.” Red glared at Evan. “Can you tell me anything more than what you said out there?”

  “Unfortunately not,” Wes answered. He turned away, cradling Greyson on his lap, rocking slowly to try to keep him quiet and from getting upset again. “He heard the shots, hustled us to the bathroom for safety, and it wasn’t too long after that it was over.” There, he had said his piece, and there was little more he could tell anyone.

  “I’m afraid there isn’t much more than that. I was pretty much pinned down in here, and the only way to see anything would have put me in clear view of the combatants. I wish I could be more helpful. Do you have any idea what happened?”

  Red nodded, glancing at him and then moving away with Evan. They talked softly for a few minutes, with Evan nodding and Wes turning away to care for Greyson. This was police business and none of his concern. He had plenty to take care of right here in his arms.

  “This will be all over the news in less than half an hour,” Evan explained.

  “True…,” Red agreed. “It looks like it was a shoot-out between rival gangs. We’ve been trying to get a handle on this situation, but it’s been slipping through our fingers.”

  “Is it a territory fight?” Wes asked, not loving the fact that his home and Greyson’s was in the middle of a drug war.

  “It seems so. There’s a new group in town, and they are determined to take over,” Red said, and then he and Evan spoke some more before Red left the house. Evan sat down at the table, drumming his fingers.

  Wes got up, thankful that Evan had pulled the curtains, and went over to him. “Is there anything I can do?” Wes asked.

  Evan shook his head. “Not at the moment. I have to wait and see if anything comes from meeting your brother.” He paused and raised his gaze. “I didn’t see him out there, and he apparently wasn’t hurt. I don’t know where he is, but he isn’t out there.”

  That was a relief. “I need to call my parents and let them know what happened.” Wes grabbed his phone and called his dad to explain what had happened and that the police were outside the house. “Greyson and I are fine, but I think people were killed, and they’re going to be outside for a long time.”

  “Do you think they’ll let us down the street?” his dad asked, always practical.

  “I don’t know. It’s all blocked off, and because people were injured, it’s going to stay that way for a while. You could try parking in back and coming in that way.”

  Greyson began to cry, and Wes wondered what he should do. The noise outside only grew as more cars arrived with additional sirens and lights.

  “Do you have a Pack ’n Play?” Evan asked, and Wes nodded, still listening to his dad. “Then bring Greyson to my house. It’s quiet and he’ll be able to sleep.” Evan sat across from Wes, gently stroking his knee.

  “I’m going to stay with a friend so Greyson will be able to sleep. I’ll have my phone, but I don’t want to stay here tonight.” Wes got up and carried the phone up with him as he packed Greyson a bag and one for himself. He also got the Pack ’n Play, and Evan helped him carry it down. “Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll be fine.” He answered the rest of his dad’s questions as best he could and led Evan out the back to where his old beater was parked.

  The trunk opened with a squeak, and he set their bags inside. Evan added the Pack ’n Play, and once he had Greyson in his car seat, Wes started the engine and followed Evan’s directions to his small row house about eight blocks away.

  The street was quiet. Evan got out of his car, unlocked the door, and led Wes inside. “You can take your things upstairs, first door on your left. I’ll bring this up in a minute.”

  Wes climbed the stairs and found a bright, cheerful bedroom with white furniture and navy bedding. The room was clean, and there was even a rainbow on the one wall.

  “That was here when I bought the house, and I haven’t had a chance to paint in here yet.” Evan set up the Pack ’n Play, and Wes got Greyson dressed for bed. Then they all trooped downstairs, and Evan helped him make up bottles and showed him where things were in the kitchen. “If you need anything, just help yourself.”

  Wes thanked him and joined Evan in the living room. He fed Greyson, whose eyes grew heavy quickly, and then carried him upstairs and put Greyson down to sleep. Wes returned to where Evan waited for him and sat next to him, sighing and starting to shake as a wave of fear and damn near panic washed over him. He kept telling himself that Greyson was fine, that he was okay, everyone was fine, but his mind didn’t want to believe it.

  “It’s all right. You’re safe now. Things are just catching up with you.” Evan held him tighter, and Wes shook as he tried to get his head around what had happened.

  “They could have killed all of us. A stray bullet, like you see on TV, and….” Wes swallowed and clamped his eyes closed, attempting to cut off the waves of fear that rocked through him. It would have been so easy for all of them to have been hurt—or worse. People with guns had been right outside the house, just a few feet away….

  Evan gently stroked his hair, and Wes wondered how he could be so damned calm about all this. Maybe he’d seen this sort of thing before, but Wes sure as hell hadn’t.

  “What do we do?”

  “For right now, you need to take a few deep breaths and calm down. You and Greyson are fine and safe. You need to let yourself believe that.” Evan continued lightly stroking his back.

  “How can I? There was a gunfight just outside my house, and it could happen again. I hear things at night, gunshots sometimes… yelling. I know there are people outside the house that are active in gangs, and I don’t know how to stop them.” Wes pulled back, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “I want Greyson to grow up safer and have a better life than this. He deserves it… hell, so do I.” He sniffed, hating that he’d come apart like that in front of Evan. Wes wiped his eyes again and sat a little straighter. “What do I do now?” He didn’t think he was ever going to feel safe back at his parents’ house again. He had to figure out a way to go back there, though, because while it was nice of Evan to let him and Greyson stay the night here, things couldn’t stay like this forever.

  “Something pretty big is happening, and I need to find a way to stop it,” Evan
said. “It looks like what happened tonight was between two groups, and they went after each other. Hopefully no one else was hurt.”

  “Yeah….” Wes sniffed and tried to get his mind thinking about something other than the shots that kept echoing through his head.

  “But they each inflicted damage on the other,” Evan explained. “And you’d think they would learn and figure out a way to make peace, but this is only going to spark revenge incidents. I have to get in there, find out what these groups are up to, who they are, and where they’re hiding out. That way we can take down the whole lot of them.” Evan made that idea seem so practical, and yet Wes knew it was scary as hell and that he could end up dead just like the people that Evan hadn’t wanted him to see.

  “But I don’t want you to,” Wes admitted. “I want you to stay safe and away from those people.” He took a deep breath. “I know I have no right to say anything, but let someone else do it.” He wanted to beg but stopped himself. What right did he have to ask anything of Evan? He’d only known him a few days, and yet he was quickly becoming important to him.

  “I can’t. It’s part of my job and what I do.” Evan held Wes’s hand. “It’s easy to let someone else do it, but then it doesn’t happen. We always think that someone else will step up and make the difference, but if I don’t do this, then it won’t get done, and these people will only get stronger.” Evan drew him closer, stroking his cheek. “I’ve done this sort of thing before. I know the dangers.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t,” Wes said, then clamped his lips together. He was telling Evan way too much about how he was feeling at the moment, and damn, that was frightening. Besides, Wes’s emotions might have taken a leap into the deep end, but that didn’t mean that Evan’s had, and Wes didn’t want to look like a fool. He certainly wasn’t looking to get his heart broken, and that was clearly a possibility. “Forget I said that, okay? I shouldn’t ask you to do or not to do things.” And the more Wes thought about it, the more he knew Evan was right. Whatever was going on needed to be stopped, and Evan was going to have to do that.

  “Wes, I—”

  He shook his head. “I know. This is what you do.” And probably a huge part of who Evan was, and Wes couldn’t ask him to be someone else. “Tomorrow I’ll talk to Trey and see what he knows.”

  “Don’t. The hardest part about these sorts of things is that they need to happen naturally. If we push, then people become suspicious. However, if I get introduced and it seems like it was their idea, then they are less suspicious.” Evan hugged him, encircling Wes in his strong arms. “Sometimes in this job, the hardest thing is the waiting.” But Wes got the feeling that there was going to be a lot of pressure coming down on Evan and that the waiting period and the patience of his superiors were going to come to an end very soon.

  Evan released him from the hug, pulling back just far enough that Wes could look into his eyes.

  “Evan….”

  “It’s been a long time since anyone really worried what might happen to me,” Evan whispered. “I appreciate that you want to help and that you’re scared for me….” Evan’s fingers slid into Wes’s hair. His eyes grew darker as Wes got warmer, his heart racing. Evan drew nearer, and then he closed the distance between them, his kiss gentle and tentative, but with enough promise that Wes shivered with excitement. “I can’t believe I met you only a few days ago.”

  “Me either,” Wes whispered against Evan’s lips. “It’s the strangest thing….” His heart still raced from the kiss and probably the excitement from earlier. He couldn’t help wondering if the kiss and all the headiness of the moment was just something left over from the excitement earlier. “I’ve never been the—” He paused. “Oh, hell….” Wes sighed. “I’ve been in love before, but it never turned out well. When I was in high school, I fell in love with one of the football players. I was a geek, and he was nice to me, like a friend, but I took it too far, and of course he was interested in one of the girls.”

  “A cheerleader?”

  Wes shook his head. “Nope. Colt had great taste. He fell in love with Stacey, who was the president of the math club, and he fell hard. Stacey was a great girl, smart and pretty. Colt chased her for three months until she agreed to go out with him, and I mooned over Colt the entire time. It was stupid, I know that, but I got my heart broken because I think the damned thing didn’t have any brakes on it.”

  Chapter 5

  WES PULLED back and sat on the sofa, putting a little distance between them. “Being in love can be dangerous, and I got my heart stomped more than once.”

  Evan could understand the heart-racing full stop. “You were in high school,” he said as calmly as he could.

  “And in college, and a few years ago. I think I jump in rather than take my time. And I can’t just leap in with both feet the way I used to. I have Greyson to think about, and….” Wes swallowed, and Evan watched that graceful movement with rapt attention.

  “I know the feeling. It’s happened to me too.” Evan stood and paced the living room.

  “You don’t need to tell me,” Wes told him. “I didn’t intend for this to be the ‘I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours’ sort of thing.” He leaned forward. “It’s too early for us to share all the darkness of our hearts.” He reached for Evan’s hand and threaded their fingers together. “If you want to talk, then I’ll listen, but you don’t need to feel as though you have to.”

  Evan’s mind went back and forth. “It was the worst point in my life, and it nearly cost me my career too.” He tried not to think about it, and yet Stevie’s face kept playing in his mind again and again.

  A cry came from upstairs, and Wes bounded off the sofa and hurried up the stairs.

  Evan breathed a sigh at the reprieve, watching after Wes. Why in the hell did he have to be going down that same road again? He should be able to find someone who mattered to him and wasn’t somehow mixed up in his job or a case.

  Wes came back down the stairs a few minutes later. “Greyson’s okay. He woke up in a strange place. I got him back to sleep.” He sat back down, yawning. “I should go up to bed myself, but I don’t want to.”

  “Do you have to work tomorrow?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah, I do, and I need to get Greyson to day care before I go in.” Wes leaned back against the cushion, his eyes sliding closed and then opening again. “I’m tired, and yet I can’t seem to go to bed.”

  Evan knew exactly what Wes was talking about. Since moving to Carlisle for this job, Evan hadn’t had anyone over to his house. He lived alone, and other than a few poker evenings with some of the guys, he had kept his home to himself, along with much of his life. He’d surprised himself when he offered to let Wes and Greyson stay with him for the night.

  Wes’s phone vibrated, and he snatched it off the table. “Hey, Mom. … Yes, I’m fine. How are you?” His leg shook up and down. “I see. No, I didn’t smell anything.” He paled and the shaking continued. “What are you going to do?” He stood, and it was Wes’s turn to pace. “Yes, Greyson and I are fine for now. He’s with me, and he’s sound asleep.”

  Evan jumped up, went right over to Wes, and put his arms around him. He tried to listen to what he could hear, but Wes’s hand shook even more and the phone began to slip from his hand. Evan caught it and guided Wes back to sit on the sofa. “Mrs. Douglas,” Evan said calmly. “I’m a friend of Wes’s, and both he and Greyson are fine.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “What happened? Wes is really pale.” Evan knew it was something pretty bad.

  “The house….” Her voice broke. “They shot through one of the walls, and it hit the gas line.” She sounded like she was going to burst into tears at any second.

  “Is everyone all right?” Evan asked, becoming more concerned by the moment.

  “Yes….” She broke down. “The house is gone.” She began crying so hard that Evan couldn’t understand her any longer. He sat patiently and then handed the phone back to Wes, who did his best t
o comfort her. He was upset as well, and Evan got him a glass of water while he talked to his mother a little while longer and then ended the call.

  “They’re going to a hotel, and she said that Dad has called the insurance company.” Wes swallowed hard. “We were lucky it didn’t catch fire while we were still there.” He groaned and held his head. “Mom and Dad don’t know what they’re going to do. Everything in the house is gone, from what she said, and we’re just lucky it didn’t completely explode and take the houses next to it too.”

  “Why don’t you go on up to bed. There’s nothing you can do tonight, and Greyson is settled. In the morning you can check in with your parents and go on to work. It will be quiet here.” Evan stood and helped Wes to his feet. “There’s extra towels and anything you might need in the hall closet just outside the bathroom. Go shower and try not to worry too much. Your folks are safe.” He didn’t mention Wes’s brother because he had no idea what was going on there.

  “Okay.”

  Evan waited until he heard the door close upstairs before he began making calls. “Red, what’s the deal?” he asked as soon as his friend answered.

  “It’s bad. The house caught fire, but it’s nearly out. A total loss. Because of the flames, we had to stop working, and the crime scene is a freaking mess. I don’t know how much more we’re going to get from it now because, between the fire crews and the water, nothing is where it was. At least we have photos.”

  “Any news on what started the gunfight?” Evan asked, his gaze going to the stairs that Wes had just climbed.

  Red sighed. “As we suspected.”

  “Okay. Pass on what you can when you get it.” Evan paused to gather his thoughts. “I’m assuming the homeowners have been there. I have the man you spoke with earlier at my place with the baby. But what about the brother, Trey? Is there any sign of him? Was he party to the gun battle?”

  “We’re still piecing that together. We have some descriptions of the men, and there was a group of people at the end of each block, probably backup. This seems to be some modern reenactment of the gunfight at O.K. Corral. The entire gangs weren’t involved, apparently, just subsets as far as we can tell. As I said, we’re still piecing this together.”