MILLER RUBBED his hands together, Danny’s blood worked into every line of his palms, embedded in black half-moons under his fingernails. Colin had suggested—twice—that Miller find a bathroom and clean up, but he’d ignored the advice, scared to wash any of Danny away.
They’d been waiting at the hospital for more than two hours. Everyone in the emergency room gave them a wide berth, staying far away from the bloody, broken man who watched the trauma room’s swinging doors with unblinking eyes.
Miller had ridden with Danny in the ambulance, Colin following behind in his car. Danny had been unconscious most of the way, waking once, briefly, as they’d neared the hospital. His eyes had found Miller’s amid the chaos of needles sticking into his skin, the oxygen mask breathing life into his body. Miller hadn’t given him a chance to speak, had leaned over and whispered fiercely in Danny’s ear, “You don’t remember anything, Danny. You don’t remember.”
“Miller. Miller?”
“Huh? What?” Miller didn’t take his eyes off the doors hiding Danny from view.
“What exactly happened back there?” Colin asked.
Miller had already given him the abbreviated version as he’d watched Danny being loaded onto a stretcher at the scene. He knew what Colin was doing. Testing Miller’s recollections, looking for holes. It came with the job.
“I found the house. Madrigal had Danny tied to a chair. I went in and Madrigal went for his gun. We fought over it. Danny got hit when the gun fired. I managed to get the weapon away from Madrigal and I shot him.” Miller bit out each sentence, adding no more details than he’d given the first time around.
He could feel Colin watching him. “Nobody else was there?”
“No.”
Silence. “Then what happened to Madrigal’s car?”
Miller’s breath froze in his throat, but he shrugged easily, eyes still on the doors. “It’s a bad neighborhood. Cars don’t stay put for long.”
Colin sighed. “Miller.”
“Do we have to talk about this right now?” All Miller’s fear spilled over into anger at Colin. “Jesus Christ!”
“We’re going to have to debrief you. And Butler too—”
Miller stopped listening. A doctor came through the swinging doors, pulling a surgical cap off his head wearily, his eyes searching the sea of waiting faces. “Agent Sutton?” he called.
Miller shot out of his seat like a carnival act, transformed into a human cannonball. He couldn’t stop himself from invading the doctor’s personal space, crowding too close, pushing for answers. “How is he? Is he going to make it?”
“Mr. Butler is almost out of surgery now; they’re closing him up. We were able to remove the bullet from his shoulder successfully. He’s also—”
“Is he going to make it?” Miller repeated.
The doctor held up one hand, asking Miller for patience he did not have. “He has extensive injuries. A fractured humerus and a dislocated elbow, a severe facial laceration near his left ear. We brought in our plastic surgeon to suture that wound. He’s missing all the fingernails on his left hand. He has a concussion from blunt head trauma and significant kidney damage. He was hit in the right kidney multiple times with something harder than a fist.”
“Brass knuckles,” Miller said, low.
The doctor didn’t appear shocked. Working the emergency room in this part of town meant he’d probably seen it all before. “That would account for the damage. It’s still touch-and-go as to whether he’ll lose the kidney. He is in serious but stable condition. We anticipate—”
“Is he going to make it?” Miller cried.
The doctor looked at him—two men used to having the upper hand staring each other down. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes, he’s going to make it. With his gunshot wound and other injuries, the risk of infection is high. But barring serious complications, he should eventually make a complete recovery.”
“Thank you,” Miller whispered, every muscle in his body melting with relief after hours of holding himself stiff with tension. He could feel the hot scald of tears on his cheeks and he didn’t care, didn’t care that Colin was standing next to him, that the true nature of his relationship with Danny was being revealed. The life he’d known was over, regardless, thrown away in that filthy, blood-spattered kitchen. His moral compass had been broken in an instant. And already Miller was learning the cost of making his very own deal with the devil.
“SO, WHAT happens now?”
Miller ignored Hinestroza, shifting his weight as the linoleum bit into his knees, his hands aching from pressing so tightly against Danny’s wound.
“I assume I’ll be arrested.”
“Damn right,” Miller said, not even sparing Hinestroza a glance.
“And then Danny will have to testify against me.” Hinestroza hummed lightly in his throat, a sound calculated to catch Miller’s attention. “Our deal will be off… and he’ll always be a hunted man. Putting me in prison doesn’t stop anything, you know. My people will keep looking for him.”
“Don’t even try to pull that shit with me!” Miller snarled. “I’m not falling for it, asshole.”
“I’m not trying to pull anything… Agent.” Hinestroza let the silence hang. “You are the FBI agent, aren’t you?” he asked when Miller didn’t rush to fill the gap.
Miller raised his eyes to Hinestroza’s. He could feel the man’s magnetism, his control, saw how easy it would have been for him to exert it over a lonely, eighteen-year-old boy. “Yes, I’m the FBI agent.”
Hinestroza nodded, looking from Miller to Danny. “He cares about you very much. He was willing to die for you.”
Miller turned back to Danny, blood spreading out beneath him in a deep red blanket. Hinestroza’s unasked question hung heavy in the air… what are you willing to do for him, Miller? How far are you willing to go?
“It’s a shame,” Hinestroza continued. “All his suffering for nothing. He’s back in the same place he was a few days ago.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Miller cried, Hinestroza’s words buzzing in his ears like relentless mosquitoes. “Shut up!”
The sound of Danny’s labored breathing filled the room. Miller tried to focus only on Danny’s survival, but his mind kept shifting to the world beyond the kitchen. Hinestroza belonged in prison. He deserved to be locked up; it was the right thing, and a month ago, Miller would not have hesitated. It was still the right thing now, and all Danny’s talk of Hinestroza’s wife and daughters who loved him did not negate the trail of human wreckage he’d left behind as he passed through life. Prison was designed for men like Hinestroza, and his incarceration would be justice. A justice Miller could count on, believe in—one he could practically taste.
This moment was what he’d spent three years working toward: three years of sleepless nights, canceled dates with Rachel, memorized facts about Hinestroza’s life and then Danny’s too. He’d lived to see this day—Hinestroza in custody with a solid, believable witness against him. And now they had more than drug charges; attempted murder was on the table. He would go away forever, no question. Hinestroza owed a debt to the world that should be paid.
But how much more could Danny endure? How much more could be expected of him? Wasn’t Danny owed something too?
Miller felt the answer in his gut, a sharp, nagging trap that his mind kept falling into no matter how hard he tried to steer his way around the idea. He could let Hinestroza walk away, let him disappear into his dark world again. But if that happened, what about the man who would take Danny’s place in Hinestroza’s life? Because there would be another Danny and another Madrigal, another Ortiz and another Amanda. If Hinestroza went free, how many more lives would be ruined because of it, how many more bodies left behind on dirty floors? But how did Miller measure Danny’s life against the lives of strangers? How could men he had never met even begin to compare with the one man who meant everything?
Miller sucked in a lungful of fetid, blood-tinged air, preparing himself to say the
words from which there would be no retreat, no possible way back. He raised his eyes to Hinestroza’s. “If I let you walk out of here, you forget he exists. Danny, Amanda, his family, anyone connected to him… they’re all safe. Forever.” Miller’s voice was low and fierce.
Hinestroza nodded, demonstrating his cleverness yet again. No triumph showed in his face, his expression blank, giving away nothing that might goad Miller into changing his mind.
“And you stay gone. Don’t ever get caught. You understand me? This is all over for him—right here and right now. It’s done.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Miller took a deep breath. “Danny told me you’re a man of your word. That you never go back on a deal.”
“That’s true.”
Miller stood quickly, not wanting to take his hands off Danny’s wound for more than a moment, each heartbeat sending out fresh waves of blood. “Then go,” he said, jerking the cord off Hinestroza’s body. “Go! They’re looking for that car, so you can’t drive it for long.”
Hinestroza stood, plucking Madrigal’s keys from the counter where they lay next to the soiled brass knuckles. He stopped at the door and looked over his shoulder at Miller, his eyes falling to where Danny lay on the floor. He opened his mouth, but whatever he planned to say went unheard, upstaged by the wail of an ambulance cutting through the still air.
“Get the hell out of here!” Miller cried.
Hinestroza pushed the door open with his foot, leaving it shifting slightly in the breeze. Miller listened for the car engine, the crunch of wheels over the uprooted asphalt of the driveway. Danny sighed, a light, airy sound, his eyelashes fluttering against his pale cheeks.
Miller pressed harder on Danny’s shoulder, willing the blood to stop flowing. But he felt insubstantial, as if he were floating weightless above his own life. The Miller Sutton he’d thought he was had turned out to be a different man entirely, his concept of himself shredded down to the stark, white bone… and he didn’t know if he could live with what remained.
DANNY OPENED his eyes, squinting against the nauseating roll of fluorescent lights blurring by above his head. “Where’m I?” he mumbled.
A pretty nurse with an upturned nose leaned over him. She smelled like pink bubblegum and had a single freckle near her left eye. Her girlish presence was comforting, and Danny relaxed against the bed.
“You’re on your way to ICU, Mr. Butler. You came out of surgery just fine.”
“Where’s Miller?”
“Who?”
But Danny didn’t answer, suddenly scared to have spoken Miller’s name out loud. He didn’t know what was safe, what could be said and what needed to be locked away. You don’t remember anything, Danny. You don’t remember.
The nurse pushed his bed around a corner, punching a button on the wall with her hip, a set of swinging doors opening with a muffled hiss of air.
“Danny!” a voice called, staying the nurse’s progress through the doors into ICU.
Danny turned his head slowly, the effort taking more energy than lifting a fifty-pound weight. Miller was near the wall, moving closer, his face white and tense, his hands wearing uneven gloves of blood.
“Miller,” Danny whispered, his lips so dry the word came out as a dying man’s rasp. He tried to smile, though he felt like weeping.
Miller came to stand beside him, smoothing the hair off his forehead with stained fingers. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. He glanced up at the nurse. “Can I come in with him?”
“No,” Colin said, appearing at Miller’s side. Danny hadn’t noticed him before. “Not until the investigation into what happened is closed.”
“What are you talking about?” Miller snapped. “I want to see him!”
“Miller, I can’t let you talk to him. Not until you’ve both been fully debriefed and the investigation is over. You know how it works.”
“Fuck how it works!” Miller cried, his hand clenching on the bed’s side rail when the nurse tried to push forward.
“Sir,” she said, “I need to get him into ICU.”
“It’s okay,” Danny said, fighting a losing battle with the darkness dragging him under, his whole body sinking deep. He looked at Miller through half-mast eyes. He could see love in Miller’s face, but it was doing battle with guilt, fighting hard against anger and regret, and Danny couldn’t tell which emotion would emerge the victor. He closed his eyes; he didn’t want to see any more. “My debriefing will be short,” he mumbled to Colin. “I don’t remember anything.”
“OKAY, MILLER, let’s go over it one more time.”
Miller sighed, pushing back in his chair to stretch his legs, his mouth coated with a paste of smoke and stale coffee. His teeth felt like they were sprouting fuzz. “We’ve already been over it five times today,” he reminded them.
The man next to Colin didn’t look up from his legal pad. “And we’ll go over it ten more times if that’s what I decide to do. Got it?”
Miller realized he’d used virtually those same words countless times in the interrogation room, the same dismissive demeanor, the sour curling of the mouth that told a suspect more about what he thought of them than any spoken insult ever could. No wonder they had all hated him. Even Danny had hated him at first.
He’d been trapped in this room eight hours a day for the last three days. His only company had been Colin and Special Agent Ryan Nash from internal affairs—a prick of the highest order. Miller had repeated ad nauseam the details of what had happened in the kitchen of that abandoned house, walked them through his exact movements at least two dozen times already, Colin playing the part of Danny, Nash standing in for Madrigal.
“Okay,” Nash said, flipping back a few pages in his legal pad. “How did you know where Juan Madrigal had taken Mr. Butler?”
“I didn’t know. I made an educated guess based on information from AUSA Patterson and a few things Danny had told me about Madrigal’s pattern.”
“So you just got lucky?” Nash asked, his tone skeptical.
“Yeah, I got lucky.” Fucking luckiest moment of my life. Miller looked from Nash to Colin. “What? You guys think I was in on this with Madrigal or something?” He shook his head, blowing out a disgusted billow of smoke. “Jesus.”
“Nobody thinks that, Miller,” Colin said calmly. Nash didn’t look as convinced, his sharp eyes cutting Miller no slack.
“And from the street you spotted the car Madrigal had been driving?” Nash raised his eyebrows.
“Yes.” Fuck him. Miller wasn’t going to give him one more word than he needed.
“Who was in the house when you went in?”
“Madrigal and Danny.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
Nash jumped ahead in the questions, a trick Miller knew well, trying to throw the suspect off his practiced pace. “If you had control of Madrigal’s weapon, why did you shoot him?”
“Because he ignored my commands. He was still trying to grab for the gun. I had no choice but to fire the weapon.”
The door to the interrogation room opened and a young agent who looked like he was being strangled by his tie poked his head into the stale air. “Agent Nash? I need to speak with you for a minute.”
“Fine.” Nash heaved himself out of his chair, his slight belly giving away his position in internal affairs. No on-the-job agent would allow themself that kind of indulgence. Agents prided themselves on being different from out-of-shape local cops—one more way to show off their extra rungs on the ladder.
When the door closed behind Nash, Colin turned to Miller, leaning toward him across the table. “I know you’re lying, Miller. And he knows it too. Level with me. Maybe I can help you.”
“I don’t need any help,” Miller replied.
“I don’t think you’re the one who shot Madrigal and I don’t think the three of you were the only ones in that house.”
Miller didn’t rise to the bait, his eyes level and blank on Colin’s. Colin b
lew out a breath, tapping his fingers restlessly on the tabletop. “Let’s say, hypothetically, Danny was the one who shot Madrigal. Why are you covering for him? It would be a clear case of self-defense.”
“Okay, let’s go down that hypothetical path,” Miller shot back. “So, no murder charge against Danny. But what’s to stop Patterson from resurrecting the gun charge, from when we arrested him? I’d bet that, according to Patterson, killing someone would definitely qualify as the ‘trouble’ Danny was supposed to stay out of.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Colin scoffed.
“Are you sure?” Miller demanded. “You willing to guarantee that?”
Colin stared down at the table, maybe remembering that day in Patterson’s office when she’d thrown Danny to the wolves without a second thought. “No,” he said. “I can’t guarantee it.”
“That’s what I thought.” Miller paused. “Which is why it’s a good thing I was the one who shot Madrigal.”
Colin’s mouth thinned, the faint lines around his eyes growing deeper. Miller was testing his patience, trading on their friendship for his own benefit. He could see the strain in Colin’s face, tension etched there from going out of his way to rein in Nash. Miller knew Colin would probably pay a professional price for his loyalty.
You’re a real piece of shit, Miller, you know that? For the time it took to draw in a breath he considered coming out with the truth, letting the chips fall where they may. But that would only be a way to relieve his own conscience, and Danny would be the one left hanging.
“Who else was in there, Miller?” Colin demanded. “Was it Hinestroza?”
“You think I’d just let him get away if I had him in my sights?”
Dreamspinner Press Year Three Greatest Hits Page 66