Pins and Needles

by A. J. Thomas

  “You’ve been attacked twice in one week?”

  “Yeah. And I’ve already had conversations about accident and crime statistics that were exhausting, so I don’t need you to point out it’s probably not a coincidence. That’s why I’m here. I think CPG figured if they got rid of me, this entire mess would go away and they wouldn’t be liable for a dime. Once they found out about us… being friends, I think they decided they’d use that to set us both up.”

  “You think they’re trying to kill you?”

  “Other people think you’re trying to kill me. I’m not sure what to think. Where were you?”

  “I was on the ship,” Bruce insisted. “Both days. I didn’t want to spend the holiday stuck there, but Julia decided I wasn’t welcome at home for Thanksgiving. I set up a watch rotation and told everybody who wasn’t stuck on watch with me to go home. I was there until they arrested me Friday morning.”

  “Was any of the crew with you the whole time?” Sean asked.

  “Are you kidding? The company’s had people on board for the last week and a half. Even if I’d wanted to slip away, I stood two watches and had to sign people in and out. The kids came out on Thursday for lunch. They all saw me. All the police have to do is talk to people and they’d clear this up.”

  “I don’t know,” Sean said, thinking about the way the detective had mentioned Bruce’s alibi. It didn’t sound like he had one alibi but a dozen, and if he’d been aboard the entire time, the log would show when he signed in and out. “Did you check out a company car this week?”

  “Monday,” Bruce said automatically. “To go to that hearing. But I returned it when I drove everyone else on the crew back to the dock. I checked it in, signed the log, put the keys back, the whole nine yards.”

  “You checked it back in Monday night?”

  Bruce sighed and rubbed the heel of his palm against his eyes. “Of course I did.”

  “Did you have a knife on the ship?” Sean asked, going through his own mental checklist from their meeting with the police.

  “Huh?”

  “Did you keep a knife?”

  “I have a multi-tool. You should know it’s got a knife on it, because I gave you one just like it.”

  “Not your multi-tool—the blade would have been too short.”

  “Then, no. Sean, you’ve got to help me. There are pay phones, but no one’s allowed any money. I tried calling Julia collect, but she won’t accept the charges. She was supposed to get me a lawyer, but the guards told me I’m being assigned a public defender. I’m sure she’s mad, but if she knew how important this was, she wouldn’t be dragging her feet just to spite me. Can you try to get in touch with her for me?”

  Bruce looked so lost and dejected that Sean wanted to reach through the glass to comfort him. “I can try.”

  Nate shifted behind him, setting his hand on Sean’s shoulder. “You’ve only got a couple minutes,” he warned.

  Behind the glass, Bruce was watching them, the dejected look long gone.

  “Why didn’t Julia let you go home for Thanksgiving?”

  Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “We got into a fight, and she decided she wants a divorce.”

  “What did you fight about?”

  “You,” Bruce admitted. “She caught me looking at a few old photos of you I still had on my phone. Seeing you brought back a lot of memories. I didn’t see any point in denying it, especially since it’s all going to come out in court in a few weeks. I was going to file for divorce anyway.”

  Sean didn’t want to roll his eyes, but it was hard to resist the urge. He’d heard Bruce talk about getting a divorce before, but he’d known it was never going to happen.

  “I was,” Bruce said before he could express his skepticism. “It was just a question of which one of us got to the paperwork first.”

  “Yeah, let me guess. You tried that old excuse about being under way all the time and how hard it was, but she didn’t buy it?”

  “It’s not an excuse. You came down for the summer, but I’ve spent most of my adult life at sea. You don’t know what it’s like to be stuck out there all the time.”

  Sean nodded, taking that as confirmation. “Of course you did. You always have an excuse, but never an apology.”

  Bruce opened his mouth to argue, but then sighed, his shoulders slumping. “You’re right. I didn’t tell her I was sorry. But the truth is, I’m not. We were good together, you and me. We still could be, when all this court shit is done.”

  Sean considered Bruce’s sad expression. A part of him desperately wished Bruce really looked like that because he missed him. “I don’t think that’s possible. It was fun, but we’ve never really had anything in common outside of work.”

  “I never had the chance to get to know you off the ship,” Bruce said with a smile. “Maybe we could get to know each other? For real, this time?”

  Before Nate, Sean might have been excited by the idea. Tempted, even. But all Bruce was really offering was to settle for him. It was an upgrade from being a bad idea, but it still sucked.

  He shook his head. “Not interested. I don’t want you to go to prison, but only because it would mean that the person at CPG who actually tried to kill me might get away with it. It isn’t personal.”

  “Thank you. I know I don’t deserve your help, but thank you.”

  “Yeah.” Sean moved to replace the phone, but Bruce’s hand on the glass stopped him. “Hmm?”

  “I’m sorry for putting you in this position. I know it’s awkward. And I’m sorry about the accident. The rig, the maintenance, everything after.” Bruce’s voice cracked. “It feels like I’ve spent the last six months learning how to say everything possible about that day without actually apologizing.”

  Sean took a deep breath, surprised at how easily the anger ebbed away. “It was mostly your fault. Six years without following the fucking maintenance schedule, all so you could bring home bigger quarterly bonuses to your wife…. Honestly, we’re lucky it took as long as it did for the thrusters to fail.”

  “Luck, nothin’, I fixed them. I kept everything running. I thought the worst that could happen if they failed was that we’d have to postpone an operation to fix them. Or, hell, radio for a tug to tow us back to shore. I never expected anything like that day, and I’m sorry.”

  Sean nodded. All of the self-doubt and grief he’d been carrying seemed lighter somehow, easier to bear. How could something as simple as an apology make the world feel right again?

  But nothing was right.

  Behind the glass a guard shouted, and the phones cut off. Bruce sighed and set the phone back in the cradle, then lined up with the other prisoners.

  Sean stared at him, reluctant to admit this felt more like a con than an honest conversation. CPG’s maintenance records hadn’t been haphazard, they’d been forged, because no one got away without filling in every blank and signing off on every detail of the ship’s operations. If he’d been on the ship, he wouldn’t need help verifying it. As he watched Bruce hold out his wrists to be handcuffed, he wondered if Bruce could really have set out to hurt him, if the police were right.

  “All right, folks, that’s time. Please exit this way,” the guard standing beside the lobby door called.

  They shuffled out toward the lockers, Nate still looming silently beside him.

  “All this security just to sit in a room that’s totally sealed off from the person we’re visiting…,” he mumbled.

  When they finally got out of the jail and into the car, Nate blasted the air conditioner but kept his gaze fixed ahead of him.

  “That felt like a con,” Sean said.

  “Yes,” Nate said, still not looking at him.

  “There are logs on the Sea that the police would have no trouble getting ahold of. There would have been witnesses.” He thought about the massive arm wrapped around his neck, pinching his airway closed. It still hurt to swallow. “And he thought… he wanted….”

  Nate turned to him at last,
his expression still difficult to read. “You said you were sure it wasn’t him.”

  “Because whoever attacked me couldn’t lift my weight. Maybe I am remembering things wrong.”

  Nate gripped the steering wheel so tight the leather squeaked. “I know this is hard for you to consider. You care about him, and—”

  “I used to,” Sean confirmed.

  “Sean, it’s fine,” Nate snapped. “I knew you still had feelings for him going into this. And it was kind of a given that sleeping with you could make doing my job awkward. But spare me the rest, okay?”

  Sean swallowed hard, and the ache in his chest he’d been trying to ignore since they’d parted ways without a word Friday night got sharper. “Nate, I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t. Just tell me what we’re doing next.”

  He felt like an ass. Nate was sexy, fun, smart, and he actually took the time to get to know him. Unlike Bruce, Nate always tried to do the right thing, even when it wouldn’t actually matter. And he’d driven Sean to the jail to help him try to prove Bruce wasn’t the man who’d attacked them both. Nate had offered him help when no one else in the world had bothered. He’d made Sean feel wanted and cherished when he’d given up all hope of ever being with someone again. All Bruce was offering was a chance to be his second choice.

  “If there’s nothing on the ship to back up his story, will you agree to testify against him?” Nate asked. He turned to face Sean, his grip on the steering wheel relaxing.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s get this over with so you can let that asshole rot in jail,” Nate said sullenly. “If he’s guilty.”

  Sean almost smiled at Nate’s last comment. In circumstances that were bordering on shitty, Nate still clung to doing what was right, to helping him, even if it hurt. And unlike everyone else in Sean’s life, Nate chose him first. Not as a second option, or a warm body to fuck when no one else was around. Nate chose him. He was risking his career just to be with Sean.

  “I suppose there’s a lot that happened between me and Bruce that I’m not remembering right. I don’t want him to go to prison if he’s innocent, but I don’t know if I ever felt anything real for him. And….” He took a deep breath, determined to continue even though he really didn’t want to. “I love you,” he whispered.

  “Sean….”

  Nate set his bandaged hand on Sean’s shoulder, slowly moving to the nape of his neck. He gently traced the edge of the rectangular bruise across Sean’s throat.

  Sean’s breath came a bit faster, his body responding to the contact and the look on Nate’s face. He leaned across the wide center console and reached out to touch the pristine lapel of Nate’s jacket. He’d never thought of a suit as sexy before dating Nate, but as he tugged Nate close, he realized he might never again be able to look at a nice suit without getting turned on.

  But Nate stopped him, shifting away and putting his hand back on the steering wheel. “Let’s deal with this later, okay? The situation with Bruce and CPG is complicated enough as it is.”

  “Okay,” Sean said, missing the contact already. “Either way, thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For going through this with me. I’m not sure how we can check the ship’s logs, though. We can’t just board the ship and ask to poke around,” Sean pointed out.

  “I can, actually. I am the attorney of record in a civil suit where those logs are relevant evidence. It’s called ‘discovery.’”

  “Really? You can just go in and say ‘hey, give me that?’ and they’ll do it?”

  “If they refuse a discovery demand, I can move to have them held in contempt. The legal system isn’t about hiding information and bringing out surprises once you’re in court. Both sides are supposed to get access to all of the evidence.”

  “But this isn’t evidence. It’s not part of my case at all,” he pointed out.

  “They don’t know that. What harm could it do to go to the docks and ask?”

  “They could have security beat the shit out of us….”

  “Then you’ll have grounds for another tort claim,” Nate said. “If you want, I can drop you off at your place and go by myself. I’ve been out there taking depositions more than I care to admit.”

  “They made you go out to the ship?”

  Nate chuckled. “It was my idea. I didn’t have to rent office space, and I got to look like I’m the polite one who’s willing to make their depositions as painless for them as possible while their own employer made them run all over hell and back.”

  Sean smirked. “If they had to go to Harrison and Poole’s office, that’s just in the downtown business district—I know parking sucks, but ‘hell’ might be going a bit far.”

  “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.”

  In Sean’s pocket, his phone buzzed. The text was from a number that wasn’t in his contact list. “Weird,” he said. He read the message aloud. “Hey, you at home? Was hoping to talk to you.”

  “Who’s that from?”

  “Don’t know.” He tapped the little telephone icon on the text message header and listened to the phone ring.

  “Hey, how’re you doing?” Cory Alden’s voice answered cheerfully.

  “Cory?”

  “Yeah. Are you home? I wanted to come into the city to talk to you.”

  “Ah, not at the moment. What’s up?”

  “Can we meet there soon?” Cory asked. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m almost in Galveston anyway,” he volunteered. “Do you want to meet at the port? I’m on my way there right now.”

  Nate tapped the clock built into the dashboard. “We can get there before the CPG office closes at five, if he wants to meet us there.”

  “Oh. I wanted to… well, it’d be better if I explained in person, but we can’t talk on the ship. Everything is kind of falling apart.”

  “If you wanted to tell me Bruce has been arrested, I already know. I actually spoke to him this morning,” Sean explained.

  “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about. That and what the company’s doing on the Sea. CPG’s corporate office has had people swarming all over the ship since Tuesday morning, taking out computers, paperwork, and equipment. None of us were sure what the hell was going to happen, but we were all worried. Even the crew isn’t being let back on board. They’re tearing everything to pieces.”

  “Tearing things apart?” Sean asked, his stomach sinking.

  “Everything! Our pump system, the control module. The administrative computers, the security servers from the port offices, all of the hard copies of the ship’s logs for the last six months. I really need to talk to you.”

  “The logs?” Sean cast a worried glance at Nate.

  “Yeah, but I made copies of them right after Bruce was arrested so I could cover my own ass if they decided to use me as a scapegoat next. They’re stripping everything off the Sea. We’ve got to keep records of your work on the pump system if you ever want to be able to patent it. I made copies of everything I could. I’d like to give them to you so you’ll have them to add to whatever other development stuff you’ve got.”

  “They’re taking my system apart?” Sean asked, stunned and strangely hurt. “But it’s mine.”

  “And they’re going to do whatever they have to in order to prove it’s theirs. They’re saying Bruce tried to kill you, but even I know he wouldn’t do that. They actually joked about wishing he’d succeeded. This is so fucked-up, but if we don’t do something before they’ve taken the entire thing apart, there might not be anything left to fight over.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Sean said immediately. “What could they possibly gain from taking it off the ship? They wouldn’t destroy it.”

  As they wove through downtown Galveston and headed for the CPG section of the port, Nate glanced at him again. “The parking lot’s full,” he said. “That’s way too many people to be here near five on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
”

  “That’s a lot of people for an average work day,” Sean said, taking in the number of cars, CPG employees, and port security officers.

  “You’re already there? Shit, you have to listen to me, Sean. We need to meet outside of the port, and then you need to go to the police.”

  “That’s my buffer tank,” Sean said, glaring out the window as they pulled up to the gate leading to the CPG docks. “They’re pulling everything off the ship,” he said, more to himself than to Cory. He was vaguely aware that Cory was shouting at him as he ended the call, staring at the disassembled mass of equipment that they’d spread across the parking lot and concrete loading dock where the Republic Sea was tied up.

  A uniformed security guard waved them to a stop.

  “Nathan Delany,” Nate said, handing the guard his ID and what looked like a CPG visitor’s pass.

  “These docks are closed to everyone except authorized employees. I’ll need to get clearance to let you in. What about you?” the guard asked, bending down so he could look at Sean.

  Sean whimpered, gestured at the mayhem aboard the ship helplessly, and then looked to Nate for guidance.

  “It’s all right,” Nate promised him. “Even if they take it apart, it’s still yours.”

  Sean swallowed hard and nodded. It took him a minute to dig out his wallet and reluctantly hand his own ID over.

  After a brief radio conversation, the guard leaned down to Nate’s window again, smiling. “It’ll be just a minute, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. They aren’t even letting the regular crew near the docks right now.”

  The radio clipped to the guard’s shoulder blared, the voice on the end sounding frantic. Sean caught his name among the chatter before the guard moved away.

  “That’s one of the thruster engines,” Sean said quickly, craning to see. “That’s not part of my pump system, it’s part of the fucking ship.”

  Nate reached down to shift into reverse, glanced into his rearview mirror, and stopped. “We’re boxed in,” he said.

  The guard leaned back down and passed their IDs back to them. “Parking is tight right now, but they’re opening up a parking spot and space for it to be accessible for you right now. They’ll be waiting for you by Dock Three.”