by Amy Lane
Ellery closed his eyes and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “Again.”
Deep breath. Any toddler could do it.
“Again.”
This one wobbled, in and out, the pain in his ears, his throat, his eyes receding ever so slightly.
“Again.”
Jackson lost himself in Ellery—his touch on his face, the feel of his breath, the quiet of the house. Billy Bob jumped on the bed, purring, and Ellery took Jackson’s hand that was still pressed against Ellery’s stomach and put it on the cat.
Meditation by cat—Jackson had perfected it.
“Jackson?”
His eyes were closing easily now, the brightness of the lamp an unwelcome intrusion.
“Yeah?”
“You’re going to have to let it out sometime.”
“It’s so awful,” he whispered. “Ellery, why would you want to stay with me when everything inside me is awful?”
“What’s inside you is beautiful. Don’t ever forget that.” He believed that—Jackson knew it. Just the fact that Ellery Cramer believed that meant there might be a God.
Ellery pushed on his shoulder, and Jackson let him, lying down facing him and not turning away. Ellery reached over Jackson’s shoulder to switch off the light.
“I still worry,” Ellery said when he was done. “That my scars will turn you off.”
“That’s stupid,” Jackson muttered thickly. “You’re the most beautiful man I know.”
Ellery’s soft chuckle reassured him. “You believe that. That’s amazing.” Jackson felt the kiss on the forehead and allowed the blessing to seep through. For tonight, he was going to be comforted. For Ellery’s sake, he’d let them have peace.
Old Enemies
ELLERY LOOKED at his opponent across the beat-up interview table in the police station and tried not to yawn. His usual nemesis—Arizona Brooks—had been promoted, mostly because of the work Ellery and Jackson had done on the Dirty/Pretty case, he was sure. This time, Arizona had sent in a green recruit. Young, fresh out of college, shiny faced and scrubbed clean, ADA Siren Herrera had razored her tight ebony ringlets close to her head and wore two-inch gold hoops in her ears to accent bone structure so clean and fine, she looked to be carved out of a stunning cut of onyx.
The brilliant red lipstick was just the kicker to show she had no fear.
Ellery approved, actually. Herrera had a sleepy-eyed gaze that was probably meant to lull her opponents into somnolence before she gutted them like a trout, and Ellery had to admit that if he and Jade Cameron hadn’t been sniping at each other for the past six years, he might have been a bit intimidated.
But he was starting to see what made Jade Cameron tick—she wanted no more and no less than to be treated as an equal for her strength, intelligence, and perseverance in what could be a damned hard world.
Ellery was willing to give Siren the same consideration, but that didn’t mean he was going to let her win.
“You look exceptionally pleased with yourself,” she said, eyeing Ellery and Henry warily. “I’ve offered your client ten years on involuntary manslaughter if he pleads guilty right now and we don’t have to take this to court. Shouldn’t you at least conference with Mr. Worrall to see if he’d like to do that?”
“He doesn’t,” Henry said, and then looked at Ellery anxiously. “I don’t, do I?”
“You do not,” Ellery said firmly. “You haven’t even been arraigned yet, and I don’t think Ms. Herrera wants this to get that far.”
Henry had been brought in at eight o’clock, on the dot. One of his roommates had called Ellery’s cell at eight ten, after they’d called John in a panic, and John called Ellery from there.
Ellery had been dressed and showered and in his courtroom suit when the call had come in, and he and Jackson had been getting into the car to drive downtown.
They just turned onto 7th Street toward L instead of going down to 10th and F—that was the only way this news had impacted their morning.
He had literally made it to the processing room in time to see Henry get his prints taken, and that was all the time he’d needed to tell Henry the deal with the tape.
Siren might have thought she knew what her case was, but Ellery was about to explain what they were really doing there.
“We have witnesses that saw the defendant attacking the victim. We have video that backs that up, time-stamped yesterday—we practically have the murder on tape!”
“Do you?” Ellery smiled, catlike, and pulled out the thumb drive. “Does it have the time and date stamp and a little watermark in the corner with the address on it?”
Siren’s sleepy eyes widened. “It might.”
“Mm… those witnesses. Did you ask them when they saw the altercation between Mr. Worrall and the victim?”
“No—”
“Did you happen to look at the time stamp of the supposed murder and put that together with the forensics information that said the vic had only been in the dumpster for about an hour? Because it’s my understanding, the original altercation happened midmorning, and Henry reported that body in the early a.m. There would have been flies for miles, and yet my forensics information says there was hardly any fly activity at all. There was some building—but the body couldn’t have been there more than an hour. Do you even have a motive?”
“He was protecting his boyfriend,” Siren said confidently. Henry made a face and shook his head no, and some of her confidence faded. “He was not protecting his boyfriend?”
“Reg is a friend,” Henry said. “His boyfriend was protecting him. I was just… protecting the guys.”
Siren’s eyebrows knitted together, and she swallowed, much of her “I got this” expression fading. “Are you going to tell me what it is that I don’t know?” she said. “Because I got this folder and was told it was a slam dunk. The father of the victim has pretty much been calling my office on the hour for the last day, insisting that the killer be brought in for questioning. How are you so sure your guy isn’t the one?”
“What if I told you that neither of us has the right tape,” Ellery said, and watched her finely plucked eyebrows arch up.
“Wait, yours is doctored too?”
“What if I told you that the police have a man in custody who broke into the witnesses’ house and tried to intimidate our witness into saying that yours is the right one.”
Siren sat straight up. “They do? Why wouldn’t they tell me that?”
Ellery gave a thin smile. “Can I make a guess here? Was this case supposed to belong to ADA Brooks, but she took one look at my name on the docket and handed it off to you?”
Siren looked a little sick. “I had about four minutes warning,” she said dully. “What does that mean?”
“Well, for starters, it means Arizona has learned that I do not take the easy way out—no plea bargains unless my client is guilty. Now you know. It means that there are two doctored videos out there—both of them easily disproven, but that’s not the bad part.”
“I’m on the edge of my seat,” she said, resting her chin on her palm.
“The bad part is, the real footage is nowhere to be seen. Our video shows the dumpster for three hours—a couple people come and go, but there’s nothing happening until Henry here goes out to find the body.”
“But if there was no forensics….”
Ellery nodded. “That’s how we know it was fake. That body was dumped sometime in there. Your forensics will tell you this was the secondary crime scene, even if your doctored footage tries to say it’s the primary.”
Siren’s eyes narrowed. “Four minutes warning,” she muttered. “So you’re telling me I have no case.”
“You have no case. Not yet.”
“Yet?” Henry sputtered at the same time Siren raised those stunning eyebrows.
“Yet?”
Ellery grimaced. He was supposed to be a professional.
“Ms. Herrera, I would not be surprised if new information comes
across your desk very soon. And when it does, I would be very suspicious of it. Somebody wants Mr. Worrall to take credit for this crime, and my office would very much like to see credit go where it is rightfully due.”
Siren’s scowl grew. “I don’t like the implication that the DA’s office is that easily influenced.”
“Then you need to be the ADA that changes it,” Ellery told her. “My client is innocent, and I’ve got enough evidence to torpedo anything you bring to the table. If I were you, I’d refrain from charging him again until you figure out why it’s so imperative that he’s the one who did it.”
Siren narrowed her eyes. “Again, I resent the implication—”
Ellery held up his hand. “Ms. Herrera, are you going to charge my client?”
“May I see your evidence?”
Ellery waved at the mirrored window, and the door was opened by the arresting officer.
“Ms. Herrera would like to view this in a private place,” Ellery said, and she snorted.
“I don’t think it’s going to be that exciting,” she said before standing up and taking Ellery’s copy of the video. Ellery had the original in the hidden safe in the back of his closet, because no amount of paranoia was too much.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” Henry drawled. “I live with porn stars, and I’m telling you, if that thing gets me off, it’s going to be the sexiest movie I’ve ever seen.”
Ellery snorted, and Siren rolled her eyes—but Ellery saw the corners of her mouth pinch in, like she was holding back a smile. She disappeared, and Henry turned to Ellery, all traces of the hostile young man they’d seen the day before gone.
“She’s a tough cookie,” he said nervously.
“You should meet her boss. Arizona would be picking her teeth with your bones right now.”
“But I didn’t do it!”
Ellery let out a breath. “I know that. You know that. But it would help if we had a more specific crime theory to put in her lap. Right now, what we have is a drug cartel train wreck. Figuring out who wanted Sampson dead—and why—is like sorting snakes in a sack.”
Henry studied his hands—callused from what looked to be hard work—and picked fitfully at a nail. “He….” Suddenly Henry looked at Ellery hard. “Did Rivers tell you? About… you know?”
Ellery slow blinked. “Yes,” he said guardedly. “He did tell me about Sampson’s past with drugs. Do you know anything about that?”
Henry straightened his shoulders, obviously remembering it was possible they were being observed. Their meeting with Siren had not been confidential.
“I might,” he said.
Ellery nodded and looked up at the green light by the clock. “Sound off,” he said, and watched as it turned red.
“We’re confidential now. I know you and Sampson had a ships-passing thing. Did he tell you anything?”
Henry shrugged. “We weren’t about conversation, really.” He looked embarrassed for a moment. “I’d, uh, never done that, really. Someone I didn’t know, didn’t care about. It was—” He swallowed. “—empty.”
Ellery felt a reluctant tug of grief for Henry Worrall. Hard lessons didn’t get any easier when they came with a price tag like a possible jail sentence.
“It’s not always the most emotionally healthy thing you can do,” Ellery agreed. He’d had one or two flings, but Jackson… Jackson had been having nonromantic one-night hookups with friends for years, just so he didn’t have to sleep alone. The desolation on Henry’s face brought the night before back in startling clarity, and Ellery had to forcibly separate his heart from his head.
Jackson was strong—stronger than he’d ever given himself credit for.
Henry needed them both.
“No. And… the thing is, my face was bruised up. I’d… I’d just gone home to tell my folks about my discharge….”
Henry’s next breath was unsteady, and Ellery knew that the paperwork he’d gotten when he’d come to get Henry had said “Dishonorable Discharge” on it. He was itching with curiosity—he couldn’t deny it—but he knew that Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell had been repealed. Legally it couldn’t be because Henry was gay, but what Henry’s CO thought about that and what the US Army thought weren’t always the same thing.
“You’d planned on a career there,” Ellery prompted gently.
Henry nodded. “Let’s just say that… that the circumstances that led to my discharge outed me rather spectacularly. My face was all banged up because… I went home. And when Sampson asked me about it, I said… I don’t know, something like, ‘A parting gift from Daddy Dearest.’”
Ellery’s eyes popped open, and his spine straightened.
“And what did he say back?”
“He dug in his pocket and took out a pill bottle—he’d sharpied it up a lot, like it was his very own special recipe. He pulled out a couple of God knows what and popped them in his mouth and swallowed dry.” They both shuddered. “And he said, ‘Was it wrapped up in a bow, like mine was?’”
Ellery sucked in a breath, and he and Henry locked gazes. Why had Martin Sampson switched sides in the drug war?
At that moment, the door opened, and the light above them switched to green. Siren Herrera bustled back in, her high-heeled black pumps clicking purposefully on the tile.
“Well, that was an education,” she muttered, glaring at Ellery.
“It was just a video.”
“Well, it didn’t exactly clear your client, but it did nullify the evidence we were using to hold him. You’re free to go. Get Mr. Worrall’s things from processing on your way out, and Mr. Worrall?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Don’t leave town.”
Henry leveled one of those flat glares at her that reminded Ellery that he’d served nine years in the infantry, deployed more than half the time. “Don’t worry about it, Ms. Herrera. I don’t have anywhere else to be.”
JACKSON WAS waiting for them when they emerged, having secured a slightly illegal loading-unloading parking space right outside the white cinder-block building.
Ellery was grateful. Henry had been checked in wearing cargo shorts and a tank top, which was almost exactly what Jackson was wearing, but Ellery was in a summer-weight suit. Walking the ten blocks to the office in the already sweltering heat was not his idea of fun.
They loaded into the Lexus, Ellery in the front, Henry in the back, and Jackson pointed to the icy bottles of water sitting in the cup holders. Both of them drank blissfully as Jackson pulled into traffic.
When Ellery felt like he could speak again, he briefed Jackson on what had gone on, finishing up with Henry’s revelation about Martin Sampson’s “gift” from dear old Dad. Ellery left out the part about what had prompted the confidence—he felt like that was something Henry should share on his own.
Jackson came to a stop at a light and raised an eyebrow at him, and Ellery shook his head. Jackson nodded and hit the gas when the light turned green.
From the back of the car, Henry spoke, his voice sounding faraway and a little sad. “My brother and his husband do that. Have eyeball conversations with no words. I went there last night, and… and… and told them. Everything. Even the shit I haven’t told you. The shit I’ve only told one person since I got here. And they had one of those eyeball conversations, and then my brother… just hugged me. Kissed my temple. Like I haven’t been the most outrageous asshole to the two of them for the last year and a half. And his husband rolled his eyes, like he was being really put upon, and then he came and held us both. Like… like all was forgiven. And… that’s not the way we were raised. That’s not how it works in our family. You fuck up like I did, you get what’s coming to you, boy.” His voice wavered, then broke a little.
“I’d almost rather go to jail and get what’s coming to me than deal with people saving my ass and having eyeball wars about me and…. Fuck.”
His voice broke, and Ellery sent Jackson a frantic message in eyeball semaphore, because he just did not do tears, and Jac
kson knew it.
Jackson let out a breath through his nose. “Henry, what you got doing today?”
“Nothing.”
“You still got the scrubs from yesterday? I washed mine.”
“Yeah, me too. They… didn’t smell too friendly. Why?”
“Wanna go break some rules and raise some hell?”
Henry let out a long breath. “God, yes.”
“Too bad. Our goal here is not to get caught. I want to do some snooping at the independent outpatient offices of Carver, Sampson, Warburton, and Patel.”
“Sampson?” Henry’s voice held a note of hope, as though he’d caught on to something.
“I take it you tracked him down?” Ellery asked, feeling optimistic.
“Indeed.” Jackson smiled and patted the tablet at his side, which was probably what he’d been doing when Ellery had been getting Henry released.
The car was flooded with oxygen and hope and the promise of adrenaline for the two junkies who needed something—anything—to do.
Ellery smiled. “Is one of the partners really named Carver?”
“Yes.”
“In a co-op of surgeons?”
“Indeed.”
Henry let out a chuckle from the back of the car. “That’s sort of sick.”
Jackson’s smirk went nuclear. “Indeed.”
HE PULLED up on the street side of the office and put the Lexus into Park so Ellery could get out and Henry could move to the front. Ellery paused, though, before undoing his belt.
“You’ll be careful?” he asked, scowling.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “We’ll be safe as kittens. I’ll only get him a little dusty, I promise.”