by AJ Larrieu
It didn’t seem like a good idea to call. I didn’t really care if I ended up in jail when all of this was over, but it wouldn’t be fair to Carter if the same thing happened to him.
I waited until night fell before I picked the lock on the lobby door and stole up the concrete service stairs. I didn’t run into anyone, and I made it to Carter’s entry door without setting off any alarms. I reached telepathically into the apartment and felt for him. He was awake, tapping away on his computer. I hoped he wasn’t looking at porn.
I briefly considered breaking in, but he probably had a gun within grabbing distance. Better to knock.
I could feel his surprise that someone was dropping by this late. He briefly considered pulling out the gun he kept in a cereal box in the cabinet above the refrigerator—no surprise—but decided against it. Good. That would make things easier.
The dog barked, quick and frantic. I didn’t have much affinity for animals, but I tried to soothe her anyway. It only made her more agitated.
“Hey, girl, settle down.” Carter’s voice was deep and gentle. His feet padded on carpet as he came to the door and looked through the security peephole. He decided pretty quickly that I wasn’t a threat. I heard the metal-metal snick of a safety chain as he unlatched it.
“Can I help you?” Strong Southern accent, a mop of brown hair, big hands, tan. He frowned at me. I couldn’t blame him for being concerned. I was wearing too-big clothes I’d bought at a truck stop and I probably smelled worse than I looked.
“I’m a friend of Ian West.”
The change in his expression was immediate. His face went totally flat. “How do you know Ian?”
“It’s complicated. I need to know where he is. I think you can help me.”
Carter tilted his head and looked at me sideways. “Hate to tell you this, darlin’, but he’s in jail.” —pretty little thing—wonder how she got mixed up with Ian—musta been a while ago—before Emily—
If he only knew. “I know he’s in jail. I need to know where.”
“Who are you? How do I know you know Ian?” He blocked the gap in the door with his body.
I didn’t have time to explain. I slipped into his head and found his memories of Ian quickly—they were right there on the surface. They’d served together in Iraq. Of course they had. I should’ve realized that before. Carter’s memories of that time were fragmented and constricted, but one of them rose to the top with perfect clarity. An insurgent with a grenade launcher. Blood everywhere, dust everywhere, shredded limbs and shrapnel. Ian diving over him, dragging him to cover. Taking out the enemy with a single, perfect shot.
“It’s not important how I know him. If you’re looking for a way to repay the fact that he saved your life from that grenade launcher in Iraq, I can give it to you.”
Carter went totally still. “Anyone coulda found out about that.” But his certainty faltered.
“Look, I don’t know where he is, but I know he’s in trouble, and I know I can get him out. Do you want to help him or not?”
He opened the door wide. “Maybe you should come in.”
I stepped inside, following Carter. His place was spartan. There was a living room with a big screen TV and a worn couch, a kitchen with a pristine stove.
“You want a drink?” He opened a cabinet above the microwave and took out a bottle of Southern Comfort.
“No, thanks.”
He poured himself an inch of liquor in a coffee cup and swirled it. I almost reconsidered. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Lionel’s slack jaw and vacant eyes. I saw the blood on his neck and the way his body jerked as Shane attempted CPR. I took a breath through my nose and battled the images until they slunk away, waiting for the next opportunity.
“You sure?”
“I’m fine.”
He took a generous sip from his coffee mug and leaned against his kitchen counter. “So you need to find Ian—why?”
“Like I said, he’s in trouble.”
“Hard to get in much more trouble than being a cop in jail on murder charges with no bail.” He watched my face closely, looking for my reaction. He wanted to know if I knew.
I kept my expression even. Lance Carter had no idea how much more trouble his friend was in, but I wasn’t going to enlighten him. “Then you know why I’m worried.”
Carter sipped his drink. “All right.” The way he said it, the word was one long syllable. “Come on.” He padded barefoot down the hall.
His desk, a particle board self-assembly thing from a big box store, was in his bedroom. His bed was a classic bachelor setup, a metal frame with a mattress, no headboard. Beside it stood a nightstand stacked with magazines. Carter sat down at the computer and woke it up.
“I just need to know where he is—exactly where he is.”
Carter tapped something into an internet browser. “You don’t need me for this, you know. Anyone can—shit.” His hand froze over the mouse.
“What?” I ducked down to look at the screen. Carter pointed.
“He’s in medical. Fuck.”
“In medical?” I peered at the screen as if I could see Ian through it, tell how badly he’d been hurt. “What happened?”
“Hard to say. But I can find out, if you need me to.”
I nodded, still staring at the screen. It said his condition was stable. That had to be a good thing.
Carter picked up his phone and dialed. It rang several times before someone picked up.
“Hey, man, yeah, it’s Lance...Yeah, you too...Yeah...hey, listen, you still working the night shift at central?...Cool, glad I didn’t wake you. Listen, why I’m calling—I need some information on a fish you got in yesterday. Cop...Yeah, that’s the one. I heard he got beat up. Some kind of retaliation?” There was a long pause. “Oh, man. You sure? Shit...Uh-huh. Uh-huh, I see, yeah...No, we served together...Yeah. Thanks, you too. Listen, I owe you a drink some time, all right? Yeah.” He hung up. He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked into his coffee cup, which was empty.
“Well?” I wanted to shake him.
“He got cut. Someone with a shiv. He’s okay,” he added in a hurry when I stood up, shocked. “It’s a superficial wound. They’re calling it random violence, but my contact thinks the guy who got him was a paid hitter.”
“What, like—like—a prison hit man?”
Carter nodded. “He’d got a reputation. Anyway, they’re going to put him in solitary, so he should be safe for now.”
“Yeah, until she finds another way to get to him.”
“She?”
“Never mind. Look, I have to get in there.”
“Visiting hours are on the website.”
“No—I need to see him alone.”
He laughed long and loud. Guffawed, really. “Ain’t gonna happen, honey.” —don’t wanna know what kinda kinky shit—
I didn’t crack a smile. “I’m very serious.”
Carter looked at his empty cup and once, longingly, toward the kitchen. He rubbed his nose again. “Look, I understand how you’re feeling, darlin’. Trust, me, I do. But this is way outside your control. There’s nothing you can do right now but pray.”
I leveled my gaze at him. He was a big man, and he clearly spent plenty of time at the gym. Lots of muscle. His loudest internal thoughts about me included a conviction that I wouldn’t survive one minute in a bad neighborhood after dark and an idle curiosity about whether Ian had gotten in my pants.
“I think,” I said, “we can both agree that it would be better if Ian weren’t in jail.”
“Well, sure.” —just want to go to sleep sweet Jesus please just leave me in peace last time I was up this late for a woman she was sucking my—
I didn’t want to hear the rest. “It’s only a matter of time before the woman who paid for that
hit finds another way to kill him.”
“I’m not sure about that.” —paranoid overemotional woman— “Look, darlin’, I don’t know what West is in to, but you should probably cut your losses and move on. This is way over your head.”
I sighed. This wasn’t working. He was already manufacturing lies about an early morning meeting to herd me out the door.
Lionel used to have a phrase: If you want someone to understand you, you have to speak their language.
I started crying.
It wasn’t difficult. I certainly had enough to be distraught about. I started out with a few hard-fought tears, but once I got going, I couldn’t seem to stop. Carter spent approximately five seconds in denial about it—aww, shit, she’s not—she is—Jesus, why—and another five rubbing his face before he made an attempt at speaking.
“Hey—don’t—it’ll be okay—don’t—”—fuck, what do I say to her now—
“I just need to see him without those guards around, even if it’s only for a few minutes, even if it’s only for a second.” I was really crying now. This was way past the few fake tears I’d managed to push out at the beginning. I believed what I was saying. If we could just get Ian out, we’d be able to figure out a plan, fix this whole horrifying mess. We’d be able to make all of it go away. I closed my eyes against the torrent, and Lionel’s dead-open stare burned through the blackness. I gave an honest-to-God sob.
“Shh, shh.” Carter patted my back while managing to make as little contact as possible. “It’ll be okay.”
In the surreal intimacy I’d forced between us—barging into his home, sobbing in his cheap desk chair like a wronged lover—his words felt almost real. They gave me something almost like comfort. He kept patting my back and offering vague reassurances while I sniffed and wiped my face with the back of my hand.
“So you’ll help me?” I didn’t have to manufacture the pleading.
—Ah, fuck— “Yeah.” —I must be losing it— “I’ll help you.”
* * *
The next day, Carter dropped me off at the East Baton Rouge parish jail. I was wearing a low-cut blouse, a dark blue suit and bright red lipstick.
The clothes I’d gotten from a secondhand store. The lipstick had been in Carter’s bathroom drawer. I hadn’t asked questions.
I never wore lipstick. I fidgeted with my suit. The collar itched, and I realized I’d forgotten to take off the tag. I stopped touching it and tightened my hand around my rolling briefcase handle. Carter claimed it was a critical prop. It was full of blank printer paper, old newspapers, and magazines scavenged out of the recycling bin at Carter’s apartment complex. I walked to the gate shack as if I knew what I was doing and presented the ID we’d faked up in twenty minutes at the local copy shop.
“Colorado, huh?” The gate guard was a woman. So much for the lipstick and cleavage.
“Yeah.” I sighed and leaned heavily on the briefcase handle. “My flight was delayed for three hours in Dallas. It was brutal.” I did my best to lick off the lipstick.
“Mmm,” the gate guard said. She tapped my fake bar card on the desk in front of her. “I ain’t never seen one of these from Colorado before. Y’all don’t have to have your picture on it?” The radio behind her was playing country music I didn’t recognize. I reminded myself she couldn’t read my mind and tell how much I was scrambling for an explanation.
“Mine’s just old.” I dipped into her head. She wasn’t suspicious so much as bored senseless, and I couldn’t blame her. Apparently she was working a double shift to cover for that worthless sonofabitch Miles—probably smoking pot with his skank of a girlfriend—I caught a glimpse of him in her head. He really did look like a worthless son of a bitch.
I knelt and popped the briefcase open. It took me a few moments more than it should’ve—I wasn’t used to the thing—but I managed to get it open and block her view of its makeshift contents with my body. I flipped through the papers until I found the month-old copy of a celebrity magazine I’d been praying I hadn’t misremembered. I took it out.
“You want this? I read it while I was delayed.” I pushed it through the ID slot.
She took it, looking at me askance. “You sure?”
I shrugged, my heart in my throat. “I don’t need it anymore.”
“Thanks, honey.” She flipped through the pages, frowning. “Hmm.”
“Hey, listen, I don’t mean to ask for special treatment or anything, but could you maybe get them to move things along? It’s just I was supposed to be here hours ago and I have this other meeting... All I need is to get him to sign this contract.”
“You representing him?” She looked up. I had her attention, for better or worse.
“I’m supposed to help out with the case.”
“You know he was a cop, right?”
“Yeah.” I leaned in a little and tried to look conspiratorial. “That’s why his lawyer called me in—I specialize in...” What should I call it? Cop defense? That couldn’t be right. What about—”...law enforcement defense stuff out in Denver.” God, I hoped I was being vague enough. She didn’t seem suspicious. She seemed fascinated. She put the magazine aside and leaned closer to the security window.
“I heard he went vigilante on those guys. Like, cut their throats.” She remembered snippets of the news coverage. Casino manager killed, local cop suspected. Self Defense, or Vigilante justice for Sanchez? It was clear where her sympathies were.
I pressed my lips together. “You know I can’t talk about it but...” I lowered my voice. “We’re gonna do everything we can.” I smiled and tried to look determined.
She picked up her beat-up beige phone and turned down the radio. “Hang on, honey. Let me see what I can do.” She started dialing.
“Oh!” I’d almost forgotten. “Can you get them to leave off the...” Shit, what was it called? “The black box? He’s gotta be able to sign these papers.” I kicked the stupid briefcase.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved at me, and whoever was on the other end picked up. She spoke into the receiver: “I know, yeah, but get him down here. Charles can fucking wait.”
I breathed again. I was in.
It still took an hour, but I sensed it could have been much worse. A deputy came to the gate to walk me in. Male this time. He gave me a very unsubtle once-over and shook his head. In retrospect, this probably wasn’t the most typical jail-visiting outfit. I tugged at my blouse.
The deputy jingled when he walked. I stayed a few paces behind, not looking to either side. Someone catcalled.
“Don’t mind them,” the deputy said. He stopped in front of a gray metal door with a small window at eye level. “We got the cameras off so just knock when you’re ready.”
I nodded as if I did this every day, and he unlocked the door and let me in.
Ian sat on a folding plastic chair in the center of the room, leaning his forehead on a brown-painted metal table that was bolted to the floor. He was a mess. Pale, sweaty, unshaven. Every few moments his wings flickered into view and back out again, just for an instant. The guard who’d let me in noticed, and his brows creased, but I could hear the way his subconscious explained it away almost before the image truly registered. The door clicked closed behind me.
“I don’t want a lawyer,” Ian said. He still hadn’t looked up. “I told them—” He raised his head. “Cass.” His voice was weak, but it was bright with relief.
I sat down across from him. “Are you all right?” There was a bandage on his forearm, already frayed and dirty.
“I can’t...I can’t keep this up much longer.” The strain of maintaining the glamour was getting to him. It was like muscle fatigue, but in his brain. I could feel the way he struggled to think through the pain of it.
“It’s okay.” I was almost positive that was a lie. “I’m going to get you out.�
�� This, hopefully, wasn’t. I put my hands on either side of his face. His eyes were closed. “I need you to let me in, okay? I’m going to get us both out of here, but I need power.”
He opened his eyes and focused on me for a split second. He nodded.
There were hundreds of people in the jail. Guards, visitors, inmates, people waiting for their trials. I shut them out and walled off my mind. There was no one in the universe except me, and Ian.
He might be weak, but he was still connected to his city, and when I reached for him with my power, it was like pulling at the base of a massive oak. My awareness tunneled through the web of interactions, sturdy, fragile, interlaced and single. The strength of them pulsed and ebbed. Ian put his head in his hands and his wings appeared all at once. They were drooping. I hoped he hadn’t lost feathers in here.
I took my time with the pull. I wanted to be careful. Every time my power wavered toward one of the warm bodies just yards away, I gently drew it back to Ian. He wasn’t a telepath, I knew, but I could feel the way he’d opened up his mind. He wasn’t projecting, not exactly, but he was making himself available.
For the first time I understood what Lionel had meant when he’d said guardians were anchored to their cities.
Ian wasn’t just connected to Baton Rouge. He was woven through it, indistinguishable from it. His head was full of noise—not the emotions and inner dialogue I picked up as a telepath, but a hum of satisfaction and need, hundreds of thousands of people in pain or joy or frustration. Under that was the heartbeat of traffic on the interstate that cut through the city, the pressure of asphalt and office buildings over earth, the warm blanket of cow fields on the outskirts of town. Everything. I pulled from him, through him, and it was like yanking on the loose thread in a sweater. The whole city tilted toward me, ready to be consumed.
Ian blew out a thin, steady breath as I drew the power in. Energy filled me up. Crackling, kinetic, alive. Lights sparked behind my closed eyelids like flashbulbs, flares of strength in my shadowmind. So much power. More than I needed for the jump.