Gavin let go of the jacket, and Beach dropped back against the bricks. “Tear your shirt into strips.”
“It’s Armani.”
Gavin stomped up the stairs.
The green branches lashed to Beach’s leg from ankle to knee with pieces of his shirt wouldn’t win Gavin any awards from the Red Cross, but it was the best he could do. He stripped more leaves away to keep them from catching and pulled Beach to his feet.
“These stairs are a mite bit narrow,” he pointed out.
“You can hop up them or be dragged up them. Your choice.”
“Damn. Who the hell are you?” Beach looked at him sideways.
“The person you got into this mess. Now I’m getting us out of it.” Gavin put an arm around Beach’s waist, pinning his arm across Gavin’s shoulders with his other hand. Perching on the second step, he stooped. “Up.”
When they got to the top of the stairs, Beach slid away, sprawling out on the ground.
“You’re rolling in bird shit,” Gavin said coldly.
“I don’t care. I need a rest.”
“You can rest in the boat.”
“How are you going to get me across?”
“I’ll worry about that when I get there.” Gavin was fully prepared to tie Beach’s jacket as a ladder and have him crawl down into the boat.
“What’s the rush?”
Gavin couldn’t remember being so angry in his entire life, not even at his father while his mother begged to be allowed to go home to die. The burn was pure, lending a strength to his body he’d never imagined possible. He bent down and spat his words into Beach’s face. “Because maybe if I get you off this island myself, he’ll never know exactly how stupid I’ve been.”
Gavin turned and played the flashlight into the brush, looking for some improvised crutch for Beach to use. All around them the birds squawked and chirped, leaping from tree to tree as their night roosts were disturbed. Gavin was fine facing down an angry pelican or swan right now if it meant he didn’t have to make a total ass of himself in front of Jamie.
“Wait a minute. You’re dragging me through the fires of hell here for the cop you’ve been fucking?”
While Beach dithered, Gavin found a dead and rotting tree and worked a long, twisted branch loose. Anger was definitely good for something. Following the precise application of Gavin’s foot, the tree gave up its arm with a splintering snap.
“Gavin. Are you in love with him?”
“If I am, you’re not going to be the first one I tell. Here.” He handed Beach the branch. “Let’s go.”
Beach pressed up on the branch, then sank back down. “I have a better plan. You go. Get back to the marina and make an anonymous call for help. I’ll tell them my boat drifted away. You were never here.”
“Nope.”
“Did Gavin Prescott Montgomery just say nope?”
“Yup.” Gavin bent down and hauled Beach up. “We’re leaving together.”
Beach offered dozens of reasons why he should be left there while Gavin disappeared, but no matter how much Gavin wanted to not be on this island when Officer Jamie Donnigan of the Baltimore County Harbor Police showed up, he couldn’t leave Beach behind. He began to believe that they could actually make it. Beach was moving faster now, and maybe it was only a sprain. Gavin pictured saving this story for some day in the future, when he would spin it out to Jamie with a “By the way, remember my friend Beach…”
But believing and imagining and picturing had nothing to do with reality. The already indignant bird population reached new heights of disapproval as lights began to flash through the open gate. As Gavin dragged Beach the final few feet toward the entrance, he saw two boats cutting a foaming path through the water, spotlights trained on them.
“Sorry, Gavin.” Beach leaned on the stone wall. “We seem to be rescued.”
Gavin didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to see no bright red hair in the wave of rescuers that scrambled through the fort entrance. There were two boats, disgorging men in both dive suits and more conventional-looking responders in windbreakers and police uniforms. The rescuers’ attention went right to Beach, though someone handed Gavin a blanket after asking him if he was hurt. Since the temperature was comfortably in the seventies, Gavin folded it over his arm, keeping to the background as they strapped Beach to a stretcher.
It didn’t matter whether Jamie was on hand as a witness. There was no way to prevent him learning about Gavin’s exploits. The burn of rage that had sustained him through helping Beach across the overgrown ground had drained away as if someone had pulled a plug, leaving him only dimly aware of a uniformed officer who identified himself and announced that Gavin was under arrest for criminal trespass.
Gavin nodded and waited while the officer spoke, submitting to a pat down and dutifully turning to have his hands cuffed. The circlets closed, and the officer spun him around. Gavin stared at his feet as he was led around the tree that guarded the fort’s entrance on the island side. They came to an abrupt halt.
“For fuck’s sake, Pendarsky, what are you doing with him?”
Jamie’s familiar complaining tone had Gavin resorting to forgotten prayers that another stairwell would open underneath his feet and let him slide into the bay.
When that failed, Gavin finally raised his eyes from his feet to find Jamie blocking their way as solidly as any tree. The light streaming behind him made him look like a saint in a church painting, but Gavin felt far more damned than saved.
Jamie didn’t glance Gavin’s way. His glare was fixed on the arresting officer. “You want the chief to use you for target practice? You know who this is?”
“The commander said next time we caught anyone on the fort—” The officer’s—Pendarsky’s—voice cracked with youth and insecurity.
“Christ, you dense piece of shit, I was there. He said next time we catch yahoos fucking around taking pictures for Facebook out here. He didn’t say arrest the son of the guy who owns the mayor, most of downtown and probably this piece of rock you’re standing on.”
“Who—”
“Didn’t you even get his name first? Did you sleep through the academy? Uncuff him.”
Gavin thought he might actually be safer with the easily intimidated Officer Pendarsky, but Jamie put a hand on Gavin’s shoulder and spun him around. The cuffs were released.
“Now, sir, if you’d care to come back to the precinct with us and make a statement…” Jamie looked over Gavin’s shoulder as he spoke to him, “…I’m sure we can get this cleared up and get you on your way.”
“Wait a sec. I know this guy. He’s your queer rich buddy. The one from the newspaper. He gonna suck you off for getting him out of this? Maybe I oughta get in line.”
Jamie had Pendarsky pinned up against the wall before Gavin could blink, but then Jamie came flying back against Gavin as another officer muscled in, shoving Pendarsky into the tree.
“You want something to do, Pendarsky, go on and tell Sarge you want to spend the last night of Harbor Festival with every news camera in the state at our precinct, you stupid fuck,” the barrel-chested guy said. “I already ain’t seen my bed in three days.”
Under that cover, Jamie pulled Gavin a few feet away beneath the entrance arch, muttering, “Get in the smaller cruiser out there, stand port of the cockpit. And don’t talk to anyone.”
“Jamie.” Gavin didn’t know what he was going to say after that. Somehow it just mattered that he said the name. Jamie looked at him finally. The night had leached all the color from his eyes, leaving them as black as the bay. Jamie stared straight through Gavin for a painful heartbeat, then turned away.
After a funereally silent boat ride, Jamie sent Gavin off with the barrel-chested officer who’d defused the younger policeman. He introduced himself as Officer Geist and offered Gavin a seat next to his desk.
Officer Geist turned on the computer. “Don’t worry,” he said in an undertone. “I’m just making it look good while Donn
igan gets dressed.” Geist coughed, jaw working a couple of times, and tapped at the computer.
“It’s really not necessary, Officer. I don’t need rules bent for me.”
“You don’t want to spend the night in holding. If Donnigan says you’re good to show up tomorrow with your lawyer, that’s fine with me.”
Gavin didn’t particularly want to spend the night in holding. Further, he’d rather call Mr. Atcherson himself than have his father do it. He was grateful, but all too aware of what this would cost Jamie.
“The guys who dropped your friend at Harbor Hospital say he’ll be fine. Broke his leg.” Officer Geist tapped a pen against the edge of the desk, then flipped it through the air and caught it. “Hope next weekend isn’t this bad. Then it’s the Preakness. I’m off for that. You ever go?”
“My family usually has a suite.” Gavin smiled. This was the way he understood the world to work. This he knew how to do. “May I borrow your pen for a moment, Officer?”
Officer Geist handed him the pen. Gavin pulled a sheet of paper toward him, looking over in question. At the officer’s nod, Gavin wrote Perry’s number. “If you call this number tomorrow after ten, Mr. Perry will arrange any sort of seating you might enjoy.”
“Thank you.” Officer Geist took the paper. Then he jerked his chin. “See you tomorrow, Donnigan.”
Gavin didn’t need the evidence of his ears to know Jamie had stopped behind his chair. Gavin felt him there. Heat and tension and frustration. Gavin couldn’t have fucked up everything more perfectly than if he’d drawn up a plan and had Perry’s inimitable assistance.
“Guess you need a ride?” Jamie’s voice was low, harsh, as if he didn’t trust himself to keep from shouting.
Gavin didn’t trust his own voice either, but he found himself answering, “I’d appreciate that very much, thank you.”
As they reached the parking lot, Jamie said, “I talked to the sarge. Just show up at nine with your lawyer. You might still be processed and arraigned, but without an advance warning, the press won’t be there. Assuming Pendarsky doesn’t shoot off his mouth.”
“Thank you. You—I didn’t expect you to do—any of this.”
Jamie pressed the latch that opened his truck’s handle-free doors and climbed in without a word. Gavin froze as Jamie leaned toward him, but all he did was unlock the glove compartment and put his gun inside before locking it again.
Gavin sank into his corner, exhaustion settling on him like a blanket woven from iron fibers. He merely wanted to crawl home and forget everything.
Jamie drove silently, though too roughly for Gavin to drift off. The hard acceleration around corners offered a hint of Jamie’s dark mood. Belatedly Gavin realized they were headed southeast, away from the marina where the Bentley was parked, away from Jamie’s house in Dundalk and the manor in Holly Neck.
One look at Jamie’s set jaw kept Gavin from asking where they were going. He wouldn’t have long to wait. Gavin might not know the streets, but he knew the shoreline. On this course they’d be in the bay if Jamie kept going.
Jamie drove into an empty parking lot bordering a small park with a baseball field and didn’t slow as he bounced over the asphalt perimeter onto the grass. The black water of the bay sparkled ahead, lit by the yellow lights of the concrete factory and the looming structure of the Key Bridge.
Biting his lip to keep silent, Gavin stared through the windshield as Jamie accelerated off the grass and onto a wooden fishing pier, the slat fencing at the end rushing toward the headlights as Jamie stomped on the brakes. Gavin slammed his hands against the dashboard, the seat belt burning against his shoulder and neck.
Jamie shut off the engine, but the headlights still shone on the waves. If there was an inch between the slender barrier at the end of the pier and the truck’s hood, Gavin couldn’t see it.
The engine ticked as it cooled and quieted. The only other sound Gavin could hear over the pounding of his heart and the acid pumping to his stomach was Jamie’s fast breaths.
Forcing a polite smile into his voice, Gavin asked, “Did you take a wrong turn?”
Jamie drove his fists against the dashboard. “You tell me, babe. Was that thrill enough for you? Did you get your fix? Or do you need to pull a few more crazy stunts to get you through the night?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that every time I turn around, you’re taking some kind of crazy risk. Acting like nothing matters. Like your fucking life doesn’t matter.” Jamie reached under his seat, and the doors popped open. “Maybe it doesn’t to you, but it does to me. And I can’t take this anymore.” He jumped down.
Gavin climbed out on his own side and intercepted Jamie at the tailgate. “What—”
Jamie grabbed his upper arms, fingers tight. “I told you not to go out there. I told you it was dangerous. God, when I heard your name screamed like that.” Jamie shut his eyes.
Gavin softened his voice. “But I’m fine.” He rested his hands on top of Jamie’s. “Jamie. I’m fine.”
“Fine tonight. What about the next risk, and the next one? I don’t know what the fuck drives people like you, but I can’t—”
“People like me? Beach, not me. Feel free to hang that label on him. He got me into it.”
“And what about you climbing on the Sea Ark and kissing me? Or you deciding just like that we could go bare?”
Gavin clutched Jamie’s wrists and wrenched away. “That wasn’t about me. That’s about you and your stupid control issues.”
“My control issues?” Jamie thumped himself in the chest. “How is it a control issue to not want to watch someone I love die from taking one stupid risk after another?”
Now. He would say it now when everything was falling apart, as if that were an excuse. “Love? Please. You love this truck more than you love me. It never has a thought of its own.”
“I don’t give a shit about the truck.” Jamie squeezed the keys in his fist, then threw them in an arcing flash of metal into the grassy field. “I’m talking about you. And me.”
“No, you’re ranting. And I’ve had about enough of it. I’m sorry if I frightened you tonight. I’m sorry if I placed you in a difficult position in your job. I didn’t ask you to intervene for me. I shouldn’t have involved you in the first place.” The words were calm and measured, but that rage was boiling up in Gavin again. A rage that didn’t have a useful outlet like trying to get Beach out of that hole in the ground. Nothing helped. Nothing Gavin had learned about shielding himself, walling himself off from the wild sweep of caring so hard about anything that it would actually hurt to lose it. He took in a thin breath that seemed to evaporate in what was burning behind his ribs.
“So shall I start walking, or would you care to allow me the use of your phone to call for a ride?”
“That’s it?” Jamie flung his hands up. “You just give up again. Like none of it matters as long as everything’s polite and proper, and don’t forget a gift for the host. Why the fuck do I even bother?”
Gavin clenched his teeth against the urge to beg, to plead, to tell Jamie that it did matter and he wanted him to bother. Wanted to be more than someone’s charming accessory. Then Jamie would kiss him and take him back to that row house where things were as warm and bright as Jamie. Until Jamie realized there was nothing to Gavin but charm and smooth exterior. That he pretended nothing mattered, because until Jamie, nothing had ever mattered before.
“Don’t pull a muscle trying to feel something, Gavin. I’ll find the damned keys.” Jamie clomped off the pier and into the grass.
Gavin walked slowly back to the truck. He wished it would rain. Nothing but a sullen cold downpour could put the proper exclamation point on this evening’s disaster. He looked up at the perfectly unclouded sky, then hopefully at a flash of light on the horizon, which only proved to be Jamie waving the light on his phone around as he searched for the keys in the grass.
The keys weren’t over there. Gav
in had seen them traveling in the direction of the baseball diamond. Jamie hadn’t been looking when he threw them.
Gavin slammed the door to give vent to his frustration and stomped off into the grass.
Jamie looked up at the sound of the door slamming. Fine. Just fine. He didn’t need Gavin’s help to find the fucking keys anyway. What would it take to get through to that guy? Well, Montgomery and his emotional constipation would have to be someone else’s problem. Jamie had watched Colton screw himself out of a good fifty years of life. He wasn’t going to watch Gavin waste his. It was too much. For the first time in weeks, Jamie wanted a cigarette so bad he’d kill for it. There was that emergency one. But fuck if he would light it up over Gavin after three months of not giving in.
Jamie bent over to look in the grass again, when the creak of wood had him jerking his head up. It happened so slowly, Jamie didn’t know why he didn’t have time to stop it. The Ford’s nose snapped first one slat, then another, and just as Jamie’s running feet hit the wood of the pier, the whole truck slid almost gently into the bay.
“Gavin.” The cry Jamie made as he launched himself into the water was pointless. Gavin couldn’t hear Jamie through all that water. Couldn’t get out of the truck himself, because Jamie was an insane control freak who had removed all handles from his truck, thinking it was cool. It was his truck, his life. He’d never planned on making room in it for anyone else. Now Gavin was sinking into the bay, unable to find a way out.
A black truck in night-black water was impossible to track, but thank you, St. Michael, Jamie had left the headlights on. Jamie took a tight pike and hauled himself down after the sinking ton of metal, tracking back along the fender to find the hidden release under the driver’s side door. Smart, so fucking smart you were there, Donny.
Who was the one who took the risk to put Gavin in this situation? What the fuck made him think he’d prove something by driving them out on the pier? Jamie’s fingers found the release and he pressed it, and again, telling himself he wasn’t hearing the release, and if he only pressed harder, it would open. It wasn’t already too late with the weight of water holding the door shut. He drove his fist into the release, left his hand on it and kicked it before he gave up and started pounding on the glass. Shouldn’t he be able to see Gavin in there, see the pale skin move like the flash of a fish? The headlights didn’t reach this far back. Jamie’s wide-open eyes stared into nothing.
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