by Amy Lane
“What?” Jackson asked.
“I heard about something….” She let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, we work with a federal task force. You name the alphabet and someone’s got a hand in it. It seems like I just heard some of the guys gossiping about something weird going down between LA and Vegas. There was a shipment that was intercepted or a rogue special ops something or other. God. I was listening as hard as I could too.”
Jackson grinned. “Yeah, Mira, that’s completely legit.”
She wrinkled her nose impishly. “Hey, when these heroes with all the Kevlar think of you as just the secretary, you gotta have your parabolic mic on at all times.”
“That’s my girl,” he said with admiration. “So if you hear something or remember something—man, it sure would be great to know if this group of kids has something to do with my boy here.”
Tage was staring at her hungrily, like she’d somehow produced hope from a magic bottle.
“You think so? You think you know where they are?”
Jackson was going to caution him not to get too excited, but Mira beat him to it. Her life when the two of them had hooked up hadn’t been easy. She’d been getting out of an abusive relationship that had dogged her since high school and had despaired of ever getting through college to be a paralegal. She knew about hoping for the best and having the hope just smacked the fuck out of you. He needn’t have worried.
“Honey, I can’t promise anything. It would be wonderful if we managed to get a hit on where they might be, but it’s only nine thirty in the morning. I’m betting Jackson here has six zillion different stops before he’s done today. Let’s hope we have something a little more concrete before you get your hopes up, okay?”
Tage nodded, looking so dispirited that Jackson shoulder bumped him. “It’s a good lead, though,” he said softly and then looked back at Mira. “Look—I was going to talk to Eleanor and Ethan, if they have time.”
She shook her head. “Eleanor’s in court all day, and Ethan’s taking depositions. I might get a chance to talk to them at lunch, but it’s going to be a drive-by conversation. Tell me—as specifically as possible—what you need.”
Jackson grimaced. “Okay. Dima Siderov lives in Tage’s building—”
She blinked at him. “You lie.”
“No, but let me finish. We think his boy set Tage up for the murder of one James ‘No Neck’ Cosgrove and then snatched Tage’s brother and sister for insurance that Tage wouldn’t talk until they could off him.”
Mira stared at Tage. “And you’re standing here breathing free air? Boy, you have a guardian angel, and you’d better give thanks to her every night.”
Tage regarded her through sober gray eyes. “I would rather she look after my brother and sister,” he said, sincerity in every syllable. “They are….” He swallowed. “Young. Sophie looks older, but she’s only twelve. Max is older, but he’s so gentle. I….” His voice trembled, and Mira nodded.
“Okay, baby. I hear you. So, Dima’s on the move, and you would like any help we can give you.” She chewed her lip. “Do you know why he ordered the hit on this No Neck person? I remember reading about the murder, but there was no motive, not even when—” She held her hand to her mouth. “You’re the ‘juvenile in for questioning.’ Baby, you’re not even eighteen?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Jackson! Why was he in jail? Look at him! What did they do to him?”
“The guard beat me,” Tage said simply. “But Jackson and Ellery turned him in to his superior. They are trying to find out who paid him.”
Jackson gave the boy a faint smile. “You’ve been paying attention.”
“Knowledge can keep you alive,” Tage said with no irony and no play in his voice whatsoever.
“True that.” Jackson looked at Mira. “Someone wanted him not to tell us what happened, and someone is paying people to keep track of his file. Did you hear about the gunman at the public defender’s office?”
“That was this?”
He nodded. “And so was the cop who got stabbed. Dima’s boy—Sergio Ivanov—was breaking into our office yesterday. Whatever it is they think he’s seen or wanted him to keep quiet about, it’s a big deal. We will take any information, Mira. His parents refuse to talk to the police, and he was unconscious for most of whatever happened. Herrera can’t give him protective custody, and he’s worried sick about his brother and sister.”
Mira nodded. “Okay, this is pretty urgent. When did you know about trafficking?”
“For sure? This morning. Last night we couldn’t talk to Tage without the guard who’d been beating him to a pulp. Herrera got him released this morning, and now here we are.”
Mira nodded. “Good. Good boy. See, Jackson? Authority helps, right?”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Sometimes. Right now we want to keep Tage safe, and we want to find the kids, but we’ve got Dima Siderov’s location in return.”
“But do you have Sergio Ivanov’s?” she asked. “Because Sergio—he’s a new player in all of this. I’m talking since Christmas, maybe.”
“January?” Jackson asked, because God, that date wouldn’t leave him and Ellery alone.
She shrugged. “But he’s small potatoes. He was sponsored in from some guy who’s not Russian. We don’t even have a name for him. Just a big scary guy with a thick European accent.”
“German?” Jackson asked, remembering his conversation with the two officers the day before.
She slow blinked at him. “Yes. Why?”
Jackson looked at Tage, how vulnerable he was, and thought about leaving him on his cousin’s couch and hoping for the best. “I can tell you,” he said, “if it will get our boy here two federal marshals with several layers of Kevlar between him and a stiff breeze.”
She scrubbed at her short, spiky hair. “Gah! Jackson—I’m a paralegal—I do not have that kind of power.” She grimaced. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. You give me the name and the possible contact, and I will grab Eleanor by the hair if I have to and make her listen. They’ve got some law-student interns; maybe Ethan can throw one of those guys into the deposition or something. But I can’t.” She grimaced. “You’re looking pretty fit these days. Think you can keep him safe?”
Jackson refrained from telling her that he was looking fit because he’d just gotten released from medical leave. “Guess I’ll have to. And I don’t have a name, but two cops in the first district have a CI with a thick German accent and an attachment to Tage’s case that is”—he grimaced—“highly convoluted and really suspect. I can give you the cops’ names. Maybe you can speak to Lieutenant Chambers and get an interview with them. Lindstrom. Officer Lindstrom in the first district. She’s partnered with an asshole named Craft, and I don’t think they’re dirty but I do think they’re being manipulated. I’ve—”
His pocket buzzed, and he checked it.
Herrera found the leak, and I need you here.
Jackson grimaced. “Did you get all those names?” he asked sweetly. “Because Ellery found the leak and—” He looked at Tage. “Hey, could I leave him here with you? If you’ve got a lunchroom or something, this kid could use a nap like nobody’s business.”
Tage picked that moment to let an enormous, soul-splitting yawn through, and Mira’s bright brown eyes went limpid and Bambi on him. “Oh, baby, did you really just come from jail?”
Tage nodded and yawned again.
“No sleep at all, right?”
“No, ma’am,” he said.
“We can do that,” she told him. “I’ll take you back in a minute.”
“Let me give you cash for the vending machines,” he said to Tage. “You’re still growing.”
Tage smiled tiredly, and Jackson knew there weren’t enough candy bars in the world to cover his anxiety right now.
He turned to Mira to finish their business. “Look, here’s my card with my cell. I’ll be up to collect Tage in less than an hour, but if either one of y
our bosses wanders in before I get back, don’t text me, call me. This is important, Mira. We need these people locked up and Tage’s family safe.” And then he remembered protocol. “And you may have to work with Siren Herrera on this one. Since Tage was her case, she’s got some rights to—”
“Who?” Mira asked, and Jackson sighed.
“She’s been in the DA’s office for about four months. They have a habit of giving her Ellery’s cases because she’s new and they’re tired of him kicking the crap out of them.”
“Wait a second,” she said, looking at the neatly lettered card. “You’re not working for Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson and Cooper anymore?”
Jackson shook his head. “No, Ellery formed his own firm. It’s Cramer and Henderson now.”
“Ellery Cramer? Didn’t you and he help catch Tim Owens back in November? I seem to remember that being a big deal. How’d he get you to leave Pfeist?”
Jackson smiled at her and waggled his eyebrows.
It took her a minute. “Uh… oh. Ooh!” She nodded, as though impressed. “So he’s your Happy Ever After,” she said. “I was wondering who it would take to get you. Well chosen, sir. Ellery Cramer’s a good guy.”
“The best,” Jackson said, loving to hear Ellery spoken about in the best of terms. He looked at Tage and smiled. “So you go with Mira here. Sleep on the couch in the lunch lounge. I’ll be back. Can you handle that?”
“The bathroom is attached to the lounge,” she said. “You should be safe and secret.”
Tage yawned again, and Mira took his arm. “Come along, baby. Let’s get you to bed.”
“Motherhood suits you,” Jackson told her as she walked away.
“I’ll call you if anything happens,” she told him over her shoulder. “Now go!”
Big Fish Walking
THE BAILIFF looked more like a thug than her husband did.
Stout, with square shoulders and a double blond braid wrapped around her head, “S. Mayer” was Suzanne Mayer. They’d lucked out when Ellery had asked about her—she was normally located in the courthouse, but the judge she worked for hadn’t been hearing cases that day, and as a Sacramento County Sheriff, she’d taken an extra shift as an officer on duty for security. It had taken Arizona Brooks two calls to realize the woman was one floor down. When Siren and Arizona called her in, she’d sat, arms folded, her ruddy face as flushed as her husband’s had been the day before.
“So,” Arizona said, her tone that “we’re just friends here” pitch she used to lure people on the stand into saying something incriminating. “You’re not in trouble, Suzanne—”
“Sure,” Suzanne grunted. “I believe that.” She looked from Ellery to Siren to Arizona, one corner of her mouth lifting in a sneer.
“Do you have a problem with us?” Arizona asked, her own hands staying neatly folded in her lap. Arizona was a slim, fiftyish woman with Scandinavian cheekbones, cropped gray hair, and merciless gray eyes. She and Ellery had butted heads on more than one occasion in the courtroom, and neither one of them walked away unscathed. But she respected Ellery for wanting justice, and he respected her for respecting the law—as often as they’d butted heads, they’d also worked for fair and equitable plea bargains, and she’d helped him and Jackson more than once when she thought her office was serving politics more than it was serving people.
“I got a problem with two queers and a—”
“You can stop right there,” Arizona snapped, and Ellery recoiled from Suzanne Mayer’s obvious gloat. It didn’t matter whether she’d gotten the word out or not, the racial epithet hung in the room as clearly as if it had been uttered.
“I think,” Ellery said carefully, “that we’re going to need a detective in here. Those weren’t the words of an innocent woman. Arizona, can you get her boss in here and snag the nearest cop?”
“Lieutenant Chambers out of the first is in-house giving testimony in another case,” Arizona said thoughtfully, and Ellery made what he hoped was meaningful eye contact.
“How about Andre Christie. He was pulling hospital duty yesterday. I bet we could have him here in ten minutes.”
Arizona lifted her eyebrows. “If you think he’d want the case, call him,” she said.
Ellery nodded, pretty sure he had the contact number Sean had given them the day before. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll step out and do that,” he said smoothly. He looked at Suzanne Mayer with a smug expression he cultivated for people he would never defend in court. “You know, I’m one of the best defense attorneys in the city,” he said. “Too bad you just pissed me off.”
And then he walked away. His old firm—the one that he had treated very professionally when they’d let him go because he and Jackson kept doing things above and beyond their pay grade—was still very friendly with him. He happened to know that Pfeist, one of the founding partners, had a brother whose firm handled most law enforcement defense cases in the city.
A gay brother.
And while lawyers were told to defend their clients without passion or prejudice, they were also allowed to hand cases over if they felt as though they couldn’t defend their client objectively. And he’d met Ambrose Pfeist, who was a petty, irritating man with a swaggering god complex. One word from Ellery and Suzanne Mayer might have to pay out of her pocket to get representation that wouldn’t plead her into a woman’s correctional facility general population.
Ellery liked that idea very much.
He texted Jackson while his phone was ringing, and Andre Christie picked up while he was waiting for an answer.
“Christie.”
“Detective Christie, this is Ellery Cramer, defense attorney. I’m a friend of Sean Kryzynski.”
“I know who you are.”
Christie’s voice was neutral, and Ellery took that as a good sign.
“Are you familiar with the case that got Sean stabbed?”
“No, dammit,” Christie muttered. “Oh my God, Sean is doped to the gills, and the idiots who worked the scene yesterday—”
“Couldn’t fix a monkey with a banana,” Ellery said dryly. “Yes, we’ve met. And it wasn’t fair, but Jackson Rivers and I aren’t letting it go. The people who stabbed Kryzynski were looking for a particular file. They wanted it lost in the system so they’d have time to kill the innocent kid who’d been booked for murder. We’ve tracked the leak who tipped his assailant off to where the case file would be to a bailiff here at the DA’s office. Arizona Brooks wanted to call Lieutenant Chambers from the first district, but—”
“Not her,” Christie bit out. “Please, for the love of God, not her.”
“You want in on this?”
“You’re at the DA’s offices?”
“Arizona Brooks’s office. How soon can you make it?”
“I’m at my desk. Give me ten minutes. Sean deserves better than what he’s gotten.”
“See you in ten,” Ellery said. As he hung up and pocketed his phone, Jackson rounded the corner, his own phone to his ear.
“Who?” Ellery mouthed as Jackson drew near.
“Codromac—returning my call.” Jackson slouched against the wall, making brief yesses and nos into the phone after that. Then, “We’ve got his wife at the courthouse, sir.” He looked at Ellery. “Guilty?” he mouthed.
Ellery nodded vigorously. “And mean as a snake,” he murmured.
Jackson grimaced. “She’s apparently guilty as fuck. And not particularly nice about it.” He paused. “Lawyered up, you say?”
Ellery extended his hand. “Officer Codromac?” he said into the phone. “This is Ellery Cramer. We met yesterday.”
“I remember” came the mild voice. “You got your bell rung pretty nicely. How you feeling, son?”
Ellery tried not to cross his eyes. Such a nice grandfatherly man. “Like I’ll be eating soup and pasta for a couple more days,” he said truthfully, because all the ice and ibuprofen in the world wasn’t making his jaw any less stiff. “Thank you, sir, for asking. You say Jarvis Mayer h
as lawyered up?”
“Yes, son, came in with his union representative this morning, looking smug as hell. They legally don’t have to say a thing until they’re assigned a lawyer. Wanted to kick him in the balls too, because sure as shit he’s dirty.”
Ellery felt his lips curl up like Snidely Whiplash or a cartoon cat. “You know, there’s lawyers and there’s lawyers, sir. I happen to know the firm that represents the law enforcement branch. Which kind of lawyer do you think would best suit Jarvis Mayer’s particular needs?”
J. Codromac’s laugh was low and dirty; not sexual, but it had a lot of living in it. “You do know how to talk sweet, Mr. Defense Attorney. I’d say Mayer needs a lazy lawyer. Do they make that kind?”
“Let me find out,” Ellery said. “And I’ll be sure to let you know who he ends up with.”
“Thank you, son. You do wheel and deal better than you duck.”
“Thank you, sir. Have a good day and thank you for all you do.” Ellery hung up and gave Jackson a “here goes” look.
“Are you trying to deal under the table, Counselor?” Jackson asked mildly.
“That woman in there is not a nice person,” Ellery replied. “And the first thing she did when confronted with the three of us was go for our most exposed, most painful nerve, which tells me she’s caught dead to rights and she’s going to try to catch us doing something emotional or something wrong. She’s going to lawyer up, of that I have no doubt. But I don’t want it to be easy for her.” He pulled up Ambrose Pfeist’s number and gave Jackson another grim look, relaxing only infinitesimally when Ambrose answered.
“Ellery! So glad to hear from you. I was so disappointed when you left my brother’s firm and we didn’t even get an application.”
Ellery rolled his eyes. As. If. “Decided to start my own firm,” he said. “I like the risk.”
“Not a good quality in an attorney,” Ambrose murmured. “Still—what can I do for you?”
Carefully, being as coy as possible, Ellery explained the situation.