Cause and Effect

by Brooke Edwards

  A booming laugh comes from the kitchen, too deep to be Tia. Peter didn’t know Marty could even laugh, and he scowls when Bette bursts into giggles too. “Everyone I know finds actual joy in my suffering,” he says, tipping his head back with a sigh and to hide his twitching lips. It feels strange to know that he’s happier than he’s ever been at the same time that his life has never been in more danger. He inhales the lemon-cleaner scent as he makes his way into the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves as he goes.

  James pulls his phone out without even really thinking about it, unlocking the screen and opening his messages. The lack of notifications taunts him and he thumbs his way all the way to Derek’s thread, four from the top. He doesn’t need to read it all over again to count up the short two- or three-word responses. “It’s not personal” has almost become a mantra in the couple of days since the car bomb. Derek has spent his nights in James’s bed without even arguing that he doesn’t need protective custody 24/7, and he still curls against him instead of pulling away. The aversion seems to be just to actually talking, and James isn’t the only one caught up in it, which makes the mantra easier to actually believe. Daniel is still storming around like there’s a stick of dynamite up his ass, so James is fairly confident it’s not an isolated thing. There have been no further signs of Coy, and none of their efforts at tracing the call had been successful. The signal hadn’t settled enough to be more than a rough vicinity spanning too many blocks before the aftershocks had disrupted their efforts and Coy’s laughter had cut out somewhere in the chaos. The sound of it still lingers sometimes, in the moment right before sleep or when his attention drifts. Sam has gotten disturbingly good at picking out what he calls James’s “nemesis face” whenever he drifts off to that place in his mind where memories of the worst of the criminals he’s tangled with over the years still hide. Sam’s smug grin and his face flash across James’s eyes, half memory of all the times they’ve had that conversation and half imagination. The words are all memory. “Dad-Cop! Hell yes, I would read the shit out of that comic.”

  He snorts, shaking his head and sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Time to get back to ‘real cop’, Carter,” he mutters.

  6

  The wailing of sirens is nothing new in New York. There’s an emergency vehicle with lights flashing and sirens blaring somewhere in the city at any given moment. Daniel finds it oddly soothing. The differences between the sirens are easy to spot, especially to a trained ear. Daniel’s ears have always been attuned to the police sirens before any of the others, and enough years in the city have desensitized him to the wailing of ambulances. The only ones that even startle him anymore are the fire engine sirens. Hearing them rise above the rest of the city’s noise always sets the hairs on the back of his neck to prickling, especially against the dull vibrations of the early morning. It’s morning rush hour so there’s the constant rumbling undertone of cars, and Daniel is suddenly sure that he can smell the smoke. The sirens get closer and louder with every passing second until they’re a constant vibration under Daniel’s skin, and he gets up from his desk to head toward the front of the building. Kay is on a call, fidgeting behind the counter and playing with the cord of her headset dock as she keeps looking toward the doors.

  Eventually the sirens stop. Daniel can’t see anything outside so he knows that they didn’t pull up at any of the immediately surrounding buildings. James comes out of his office just as Daniel turns around to head back to his desk. “Someone forget that aluminum doesn’t go in the microwave again?” he calls across the bullpen.

  Daniel snorts despite himself, reminded forcibly of college. He shrugs as he passes Kay’s desk, thumping the heel of his palm down just to see her startle. Her glare settles some of the unease still bubbling in his chest as he flashes a grin in response. “Either that or someone’s coffee maker turned on them.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Kay flashing rude hand gestures at him while she’s still on the phone. He snickers all the way back to his own desk.

  A couple of hours later, James comes striding out of his office again but there’s no mirth on his face. Daniel looks up from his computer monitor at the sound of his door opening, eyes almost crossed from the constant staring at traffic-cam footage. James cuts a glance at Daniel, jerking his head toward the back exit. Daniel follows him down the hall, past the questioning looks from the other officers, until James stops in the little area between the doors and the entrance to the next building. The flashing lights on the gate for the parking garage catch his eye before he snaps his focus to James.

  “Four fires in the last three days,” James says. His fingers hover over his holstered gun for a second before he shoves them in his pocket. “They figured it was just a firebug, until they realized that locations had significance.”

  “Significance to what?” Daniel can see the distortion of James’s pocket, the ridges where the fabric stretches over his knuckles. As he watches, it ripples visibly.

  “To the first go-round with Fairhall.” James’s breath escapes him in a rush. “Grand Army Plaza. Saracen’s old apartment building. The courthouse. The building he took Derek.”

  Daniel blinks at him. It takes a few seconds for the words to filter in. “He’s starting fires at the scenes?”

  “Someone is.” James rolls his shoulders back and sighs. “Incendiary devices, so far. Outside trash cans at both of the buildings and the plaza. The trash can in the male restroom at the courthouse. They’re going up quick enough that investigators can’t figure out exactly how they’re being set off. Some kind of delay mechanism or something. They’re pulling the camera footage from the courthouse, showing the restroom entrance within a few hours of the fire. We’ll see if we get a hit off it.”

  “Everyone everywhere has Fairhall’s picture, there’s no way he got into the courthouse unnoticed.” Daniel’s mouth is suddenly dry.

  “Not saying it’s him.” James rubs at his eyes with the hand not in his pocket. “I mean, maybe he’s got one of his escape buddies running around to throw us off? Someone less recognizable.”

  “He’s a lone wolf.” The words are out of Daniel’s mouth before he even has time to think them. “He doesn’t trust people, he doesn’t want a team. He’d have to share the spoils if he worked with someone. Do we have files on whoever escaped with him?”

  “Even lone wolves need to outsource occasionally.” James rubs at his temples with his thumb and middle fingertip and heaves out another sigh. “We’ll see what the footage comes up with and go from there. See if any familiar faces turn up once we pull those files. In the meantime, we’ll be rotating officers stationed near Saracen, and I’m putting someone on Derek whenever I can’t be there.”

  “I’ll head over and talk to Peter.” Daniel shoves his own hands in his pockets as James starts heading back toward the doors. He takes a couple of quick steps to catch up, falling into step. “God, I thought this was over but it’s just beginning, isn’t it?”

  “Nothing’s over ‘til the fat lady sings, Danny.” James yanks the door open. “And I think she’s just warming up.”

  Peter looks through the peephole when someone raps on the door. His brain says that surely someone had already had to let whoever it was into the building, or it’s a neighbor, but paranoia is a fickle beast. He swings the door open before he takes in anything more than the dark hair and refuses to examine the idea that he recognizes Daniel by his hairline.

  “Da—Detective!” Daniel is wearing his uniform pants and a soft-looking white-and-navy hoodie. It looks unbearably good on him, and Peter swallows, his tongue dry. “Hi.”

  Daniel’s lips twitch up into a half smile. “Hey. Sorry I didn’t buzz up but one of your neighbors was on her way out, told me you were home and insisted on letting me in. I think she thought I was undercover or something, I always forget how obvious the pants are up close.”

  Peter makes an agreeable sound. “They’re great—I mean, you look great,” he blurts, and
regrets his entire life. “Not that—wait, I’m just—I’m gonna stop.”

  Daniel lets out a quick laugh, the half-smile widening into something warm and easy. “Don’t stop on my account,” he says. “But do you mind if I come in?”

  “Oh, yes!” Peter takes a couple of giant blind steps backward. “Sorry, I’m just, well, I wasn’t expecting you?”

  “I would have texted,” Daniel says as he steps into the apartment, passing close enough to Peter that the fabric of his hood brushes against Peter’s chest. It smells of cologne and something faintly minty. “But my phone’s going dead and I figured it would be easier if I could catch you before you went to work, or head down for a slice if I missed you.”

  “I’m heading out in a couple minutes, got the early shift,” Peter says. The door slams harder than he expects and he jumps enough to slam his shoulder into the wall with a wince. “You could come for a slice anyway. Marty’s pies are the best in the city.”

  “Part of your employment contract to say that?” Daniel asks, looking back over his shoulder. “Best pie in the city is a big call.” Something flickers over his face that makes the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stand up on end.

  “I stand by it.” Peter reaches out to snag his coat where he’d left it slung over the back of the sofa. “But my treat? You can make your own call.”

  “It’s a deal,” Daniel agrees, but then hesitates. His shoulders hunch underneath the soft fabric of the hoodie, and Peter stops too.

  “Guessing you had something to tell me?” Peter says. The sudden tension is contagious, the bright burst of nervous joy starting to fade almost instantly. He wants to do something ridiculous, anything, to take away the tension making Daniel’s face that tight.

  “There’ve been some fires,” Daniel starts. He turns around to face Peter properly. “Random spot fires. In trash cans, mostly. No one’s been hurt and no property seriously damaged. It’s more the locations that are worrying.”

  Peter frowns. “Fires?” He takes a step closer to Daniel. “I mean, thanks for the heads-up, but I don’t know why you needed to tell me that.”

  “They’ve happened in places connected to what happened with Fairhall.” Daniel’s hands clench into fists underneath his slightly too-long sleeves. “One happened outside your old apartment building.”

  “Is he setting them?” Peter crosses his arms over his chest so he doesn’t do something completely unhinged, like reach out to hold Daniel’s hand. The thought of the fires seems a lot further away than it should. “Fairhall, I mean?”

  “We don’t know.” Daniel releases the tight fists he’d formed, flexing his fingers. Peter watches as the white fades out of his knuckles. “Still figuring that out. Until we do know, there’ll be a couple of uniformed officers around the places you’ll be. They won’t be invasive, I promise. Just to keep you safe.”

  “I appreciate that,” Peter says. He twitches with the urge to reach out and stamps it down viciously. “I know you’re doing a lot to try and find him.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows raise just a little, and Peter takes another step forward without even meaning to, until there’s barely a step worth of distance between them. His heart starts to pound faster, blood growing hotter against his skin. A furrow springs up in Daniel’s forehead, and Peter sways into the space, hands coming up to cradle Daniel’s cheeks as he presses their mouths together. It only takes the beat between breaths to realize that Daniel is completely still, his lips barely parted against Peter’s and most definitely not kissing back.

  Shame and embarrassment flood Peter’s entire body with more heat than before and he jerks away, stumbling back toward the door. “That—that was, I’m so sorry, I’ll just—I should go—”

  By the time he catches his breath, he’s three flights of stairs down and cursing his entire existence. “Why did you do that?” he whispers to himself, as he stumbles out of the last door and makes a break for it toward the street. “Why, why, why, why, why?”

  Daniel very carefully makes sure that Peter’s apartment door is locked behind him. Running after the other man had been an option for all of a millisecond before Daniel realized that he’d stood there, blinking at the space where Peter had been, for what could have been a couple of minutes for all he knew. At that speed, Peter would have made it to the pizza place before Daniel even shook himself out of it. He chooses to concentrate on the door, making sure that the deadbolt clicks into place behind him and that the door holds solid when he rattles it in the frame. His heart is still racing, so he takes the stairs slowly and thinks about where things got derailed. No matter how many times he goes over the chain of events, he still can’t figure out whether he missed a sign or a cue, or how he could have prepared himself for Peter to just kiss him like that. He’d been so sure he’d imagined the chemistry, the attraction flickering between them and that nebulous possibility. Daniel had pretty much convinced himself that it was all in his head, a product of the proximity and adrenaline and the chaos of the whole situation the first time around.

  It hadn’t taken much to convince himself of that, he thinks as he tucks his hands in his pockets and turns toward the stairs. The carpet of the hallway is scruffy and worn thin in places, and Daniel stares down at it as he matches his footfalls to some of the marks. His heartbeat is still thundering in his ears as he takes a hand out of his pocket to touch his own lips. They’re warmer than his fingertips, soft and just a bit slick. Daniel flashes back to Peter’s face, his wide blue eyes as he’d backed away and then bolted before Daniel even wrapped his head around what had happened.

  He steps down and onto the first flight of stairs, fingers still pressed lightly against his own mouth. It would be nice to have a clearer memory of the kiss, but the shocked surprise is already blurring the edges and making the specifics disappear. The only thing left behind is the heat, Peter’s lips burning against his for that interminable second of contact. Daniel misses the last step and barely catches himself on the railing as his cell starts to buzz.

  Disappointment flares when he sees James’s contact icon.

  “Gonna lose you to a flat battery in all of thirty seconds, be quick,” he says as he answers.

  “Get back to the precinct now.” James’s voice is steady. “I’ll be in the interrogation room but check in with Bailey and Martine.”

  The sirens have Daniel back at the precinct in record time, shoving his cell onto charge at his desk and barreling toward the observation room. Martine is leaning against the wall, hip cocked and satisfaction oozing from her. “Hey, Danny,” she says without looking away from the two-way mirror. “Meet Sal, our friendly resident firebug.”

  The man cuffed to the table doesn’t look particularly remarkable. He has the same distinctive faded dark ink around his neck as most of the others that they’ve interviewed since the body with the same tattoos was pulled from the East River. The only thing out of the ordinary is the bruising on the side of his chin and the flighty, panicked twitching of his hands. He’s as far back in his seat as he can be with the attached cuffs keeping him close, looking everywhere but at James who is sprawled out casually opposite.

  “Some lawyer?” James smiles coolly. There are even crinkles in the corners of his eyes, and Daniel marvels at the cheerful, casual expression. James has the best poker face Daniel’s ever seen. “Tell me more about that.”

  “Don’t know much more than that,” Sal mutters. His eyes skitter away every time he comes close to making eye contact. “We’re s’posed to spook the guy but, like, not make it obvious.”

  “And why are you spooking this lawyer?” James cocks his head to the side, cool smile still in place. His posture is open and easy, absolutely unbothered if you couldn’t read the occasional tapping of his fingertips like Daniel could. “Seems like there’s got to be some point to it. Lot of effort to go to for no reason, right?”

  “That guy.” Sal keeps darting wary, split-second glances in James’s direction to get around the eye contact and st
ill satisfy the primal instinct to not ignore a predator. Daniel can’t blame him; the frozen smile is creepy as all hell. “Said he couldn’t do the stuff himself but wanted the lawyer spooked all the same.”

  “So they told you where you needed to set some fires, and left the other choices to you and his other lackeys.” James straightens and leans forward. His smile is starting to crack at the edges and Daniel leans in toward the two-way mirror too. “And made you hang around the community center and the courthouse too?”

  “I fuckin’ told you that already!” Sal explodes, pushing back from the table as far as the cuffs would allow. The chains clatter against the table like sudden cracks of thunder. “I don’t know nothing more, I was just doing what I got told.”

  “Well, how does this sound?” James reaches out and jerks the chains forward. The one-handed grip drags Sal closer by his wrists, and the tendons in James’s hands bulge. “We let you get back to doing what you get told, but on one condition. You keep us in the loop. We see you on something we don’t know about, and you will not be leaving this place again without those bracelets becoming permanent.”

  “What makes you think I’d turn like that?” Sal’s voice quavers even as he lifts his chin and makes eye contact. He shivers visibly when he meets James’s gaze but, to his credit, doesn’t drop it. “I get caught snitching and I’m done for.”

  “What makes you think you’re not already?” James asks, releasing the chains and leaning back in his chair. The smile is back. “We turn you loose and say the right thing to the right people, it won’t matter whether you told us a thing.”

  Daniel bites at the inside of his cheek as more blood drains from Sal’s face. “They’d kill me,” he says.