by Amy Lane
Do you regret those things?
No. They’re the best things I’ve ever done.
Which just went to prove—a guy like Jackson? The best he could do would be dying for a cause. Go hang out in a cheap hotel and put up a banner. “Come get me!”
Bait. It’s what’s for dinner.
He had his exit planned in his head by the time he got to Ellery’s house. Knew where the duffel bag was, knew exactly which clothes he’d bring. He remembered where the cat carrier was. He’d borrow some Tupperware for Billy’s food, and he’d make himself a couple of sandwiches. He could catch a cab somewhere—somewhere he could sit and drink and nobody would find him until Owens came and finished him off.
It all made perfect sense.
The sun was up—blazingly hot in the middle of a chilly morning. His skin burned, and he’d sweated and bled through round two of his clothes. It was past eight in the morning, and he didn’t have any doubt Ellery would be gone.
A part of him mourned and wailed for his lover, and he stomped on that part without mercy.
We’re leaving.
He let himself into the house, and Billy Bob’s greeting almost undid him.
“Oh, Billy Bob my man—what you been doing while I’m gone?”
Apparently not being held or loved or fed or having anybody to talk to, ever—which was a total crock, and Jackson knew it.
Ellery doted on the damned cat. It was disgusting—pathetic, really. Poor guy had never had a cat growing up as a kid?
Well, Jackson hadn’t either, but that wasn’t the point. The point was Ellery showed the damned cat as much affection as Billy Bob could stand. Sometimes he got petted until he lost his shit and attacked Ellery’s hand before taking off. Ellery would laugh and sigh and dress his hand and give him an extra big helping of soft food.
Ellery loved this fucking cat as much as Jackson did.
“You’re making shit up, you big freeloader,” Jackson murmured, hugging Billy Bob fiercely.
His cat, being awesome, let him, melting into his arms and purring, his drool stream soaking into Jackson’s sweatshirt. For a moment he gave himself the luxury of just holding something that loved him without reservation. He didn’t have to have any pride around his cat. Cats didn’t give a fuck about pride or self-worth. They just wanted some goddamned kibble—that was Jackson’s job.
Finally Billy Bob meowed, and Jackson let him go, trying to remember the plan.
He felt a trickle of sweat drip down his back, and he decided he’d shower first, then eat. Then he’d pack to leave.
He might have made it out the door—maybe.
He made it to the shower, the water pounding gloriously on his aches, even his damned shoulder, which was starting to scab over now that the shunt was gone. He washed his face, his neck, his cheek, again and again. He soaped his hair repeatedly, and again. He’d given Jade the DNA trace. He could get rid of it, right? He could scrub Owens off his skin, and out of his hair, and off his skin, and again and again and again….
The water ran cold, forcing him out of the shower, his chin and neck and forehead stinging from the skin he’d scrubbed off.
He toweled dry before walking into the bedroom with a towel around his waist, his muscles, lax and boneless from the heat, protesting even walking that far.
The cat was stretched out on Ellery’s pillow.
I can’t take Billy Bob. Ellery will miss him.
Oh God. That was right. Ellery would miss the damned cat. How could Jackson just disappear Billy Bob from his life? That would be… mean. After all the good things Ellery had done for him, how could Jackson take the damned cat?
But… but I can’t leave him here. How could Jackson leave his cat behind?
Jackson sat down on the bed, on Ellery’s side, and scratched Billy Bob behind the ears. “You look pretty comfy,” he admitted.
The cat drooled and purred. Jackson stretched out on his side, petting him rhythmically. “You do make this look good,” Jackson mumbled. He was cold.
With a jerk, he grabbed the other end of the comforter and rolled it around his shoulders. It wouldn’t matter, he promised himself. He’d take a few moments, be with his cat. Regroup.
He’d leave in the end. He had to.
He owed Ellery that, didn’t he?
Other Things with Scales
ELLERY WOKE up at six in the morning, feeling fruitlessly for the other side of the bed. Panicked, he scrambled for his phone but found no new messages, no news.
He made it to the shower on autopilot and dressed the same way.
Jackson, where are you?
But he had a meeting with Lacey at ten and a crapton of work to do for people who weren’t the victims of serial killers or soccer-mom drug dealers but deserved help just the same.
Ellery could be just as good at emotional denial as Jackson was when he needed to be.
But it wasn’t until Jade knocked on his office door to tell him that Lacey was in the larger conference room that Ellery realized he’d been so sunk into his own misery he’d forgotten to tell Jade about the car.
He grabbed his briefcase to follow her down the hall, saying “I have news” as his door closed behind him.
“He came by my house,” she said, her voice shaking.
They both stopped, staring at each other.
“What?”
“You go first,” he snarled, because she apparently had proof of life and he didn’t.
“He left a garbage bag full of yesterday’s clothes on the porch, with a sign that said they needed to be tested for DNA. It was his writing, Ellery. I’d know it anywhere.”
“What was on them?”
She shook her head and wiped carefully under her eyes with a magenta-manicured finger. “What wasn’t?” she returned thickly. “They were…. God, Ellery, the night he must have had.”
Ellery shivered, cold in his bowels.
“Why wouldn’t he come in?” he rasped.
“I don’t know. I… I mean, he was trying to be quiet. The damned dog didn’t even wake up until it was too late, and he starts barking when Mike breaks wind.”
Ellery couldn’t even laugh. “Police found his car last night, around ten o’clock, in a vacant field. The phone was crunched inside.”
“And you didn’t tell me!” she cried, actual tears escaping.
“And let you live last night with that knowledge?” he retorted, his stomach cramping. “No—you didn’t want to live through that night. Trust me.”
“God,” she snarled, “you two are so much alike—a couple of goddamned fucking martyrs. When this is over, I need to knee you both in the goddamned ba—”
“Ms. Cameron?”
Carlyle Langdon stuck his head around the corner. “Did you tell Mr. Cram—oh, there you are, Ellery.” He smiled tentatively. “Any news?”
“That’s what we were just discussing, sir,” Jade told him, sounding calm and professional. “Ellery got some disturbing news last night, but we have some proof that he’s okay this morning.”
“Do you know where he is?” Langdon asked, nothing but curiosity in his voice.
Ellery closed his eyes, the anger and the turmoil and the fear subsiding like a wild surf, leaving scoured sand its wake. “Hopefully at home by now,” he said, and Jade bit her lip and nodded.
“Well, as soon as your meeting is over, you should go home and check,” Langdon told him, sounding pleased with his generosity.
Ellery nodded grimly. “Sir, I think that would be a most excellent idea.”
“But first, Commander Lacey. Jade, you brought him in, didn’t you?”
Jade stopped in the middle of taking a deep power breath, probably to calm herself down. “Yes, sir. He was….” She shook her head and fought back a sneer. “Cold-blooded,” she said after a moment of warring with herself. “Sergeant Buchannan was right about this guy. He’s the kind of snake that gives snakes a bad name.”
Ellery nodded grimly, trying to get his head back i
n the game.
Jackson is alive.
Yeah, there was that.
And he’s trying to leave.
Well, fuck that.
Ellery had no idea why he wouldn’t want to stop and ask Jade and Mike for help, but he had a sick sort of despair in his stomach guessing about it.
What was on his clothes?
What wasn’t?
Dammit, Jackson—don’t you know I’d forgive you anything?
God—he was usually so good at compartmentalizing. It’s what made him efficient in the courtroom—even with a guilty client. He could think objectively about what the client had done and what the law could prove and punish for.
But not now.
Now, standing in front of the conference room door, he had to take a deep breath and close his eyes, picturing a backhoe scraping all his fear, all his worry, all his anger into the other room. The room where Ellery kept the stuff related to his heart. He used to think that room was tiny, cramped, unused—maybe he’d have to throw a box in there now and then.
The night before had taught him different.
The other room was a big fat part of the whole damned house.
And now it was full.
And his kicking-ass room was empty and clean and ready to listen to what Commander Lacey wasn’t saying.
He stepped through the door with a professional smile on his face.
“Commander Lacey—so good of you to join us. I’ll be honest. I didn’t think a simple line of questioning would warrant an entire trip from… where was it?”
“Southern California.”
Commander Karl Lacey stood six foot five at the very least and was built like a Sherman tank. Ice-blue eyes analyzed Ellery with the emotion of a computer scan and then skated over Jade as though she didn’t exist.
He’d worn his fatigues and not his dress greens on this trip, which told Ellery all he wanted to know about Lacey’s respect for defense attorneys as opponents, and his refusal to even look at Jade gave Ellery a pretty good picture of who he was dealing with.
A complete and total asshole.
Ellery could be that guy too.
“Are you sure it’s not Nevada? My phone said that was a Nevada area code.”
“It’s a big desert,” Lacey said, without the smile that would have made the remark charming—or even plausible.
“Well, I’m still not sure what could motivate a busy guy like you to get on a plane from Nevada and fly up to Sacramento simply because I dropped a name.”
Lacey’s gaze turned crafty. “Why, what have you heard?”
Ellery and Jade had a silent eyeball-vibrating conversation as Ellery seated himself one seat away from Lacey and Jade sat to the left of Ellery. Ellery knew that from her position, she could see the guy—could keep an eye on him as it were—and he couldn’t look straight at either of them.
Although that was more from evasiveness than from any strategic positioning.
“Look,” Ellery said, folding his hands and smiling pleasantly. “All we want is some background on this guy. I understand he was under your command before he shipped out.”
“Who told you that?” Lacey’s colorless blue eyes suddenly zeroed in on Ellery’s face with precision, marking Ellery, cutting him out of the picture with an X-Acto knife, and pinning him somewhere else on Lacey’s agenda.
Ellery fought the temptation to shudder.
“My PI has sources.” Ellery thought of Buchannan, trying hard to be a decent guy within the restrictions of the military—and the fear that he’d be shipped out when he’d done his tours. “We just need to know if it’s true.”
“Wait….” Lacey’s white-blond brows came together, setting off the sunburned forehead. “Is she your PI?”
And like that, he noticed Jade.
“As. If.” Jade snorted and crossed her arms, but she didn’t break off eye contact with Lacey. They regarded each other like a cobra and a mongoose might, but Ellery couldn’t say which one was which.
“Our PI is presently out,” Ellery said. He tried not to swallow and look at Jade for comfort. Other room, other room, other room. “We’re not using this source as evidence. We just really want to know about this man who emerged from the military, got a job as a cop working for a corrupt branch of the force, and who spent his spare time getting hard when he witnessed violence and beating street people to death. If you don’t keep detailed files on your personnel, we’re sort of hoping for, you know, a list of people who maybe saw him torture and kill small animals or, even better, a CO who perhaps pushed him from angry, resentful young man to serial killing adult—”
“You have no proof of that,” Lacey snapped, eyes narrowed.
Ellery smiled, all teeth. “Nothing but theory.” Now. “But as for the serial killer—I do believe we have some DNA being processed now.” Oh, Jackson—what did you do? “If this man served under you—”
“You will need to talk to the JAG officer for my statement,” Lacey said definitively, standing.
Ellery stayed seated. “So… you flew all the way out here on the drop of a name to invoke your right to JAG counsel?”
“That is my option.” Lacey scowled and stared straight ahead, arms folded behind him at parade rest. “You do understand the difference between military law and civilian law, don’t you?”
“I may have to brush up,” Ellery conceded. “Because I definitely don’t remember a clause in there that says a military man needs to cover for a serial killer who hasn’t served in years.” Ellery’s eyes went wide—and he wasn’t dissembling. “Unless he killed in the service.”
Lacey stood absolutely still, and Ellery made another leap. “And you knew about it.”
Leap. “And you came here to make sure I didn’t!”
He stood too, feeling like he should raise his hands over his head and acknowledge that perfect ten in mental gymnastics he’d just achieved going on no sleep, a little coffee, and a shit-ton of worry.
“This interview is over,” Lacey barked before striding from the room.
Ellery and Jade watched him go, and when Ellery checked Jade’s expression, he saw the same unpleasant realization he felt in the pit of his stomach.
“That man knew,” he murmured. “He knew what was being unleashed on the world. I’m thinking he might have even encouraged it.”
“Do you think someone gave him a command in some nameless desert hellhole so people in civilized parts of the world wouldn’t wake up with their throats slit?”
Ellery shot Jade a look, but she didn’t appear to be kidding.
“It’s possible.” He thought about how Lacey hadn’t changed expression during the interview—not even when he was threatening Ellery with the fury of the JAG Corps. His eyes might have narrowed, but he’d maintained a perfect cobra face during the final few moments. “I know I’ll sleep better when his plane takes off. Are you driving him again?”
Jade looked pleased. “Yup. Which meant he just made that complete dickless exit to wait on the pleasure of a black woman he can’t look in the eyes.”
Ellery let out a chuckle. “I think you have business in here for at least a half hour,” he mused. “Would you like me to bring you some coffee?”
“I’ll have Crystal bring it to me,” she said before her voice dropped seriously. “Ellery, do you have policemen watching your house like I do?”
Ellery shook his head, kicking himself. “I sent mine home when I left this morning.”
“Could you maybe—”
He was already gathering his papers for his briefcase. “I’ll text you if he’s home,” he said softly.
“I’d appreciate it.” She turned a troubled face toward him. “You’ll tell him, right? That it doesn’t matter what happened, as long as he’s okay?”
“As many times as it takes,” Ellery promised.
“Thanks. Go.”
He was out of there in three minutes, barely stopping for his coat, his car keys, and his laptop from his office. He passed
Lacey standing by the reception desk on his way out and didn’t pause to acknowledge the man’s angry demand for his driver.
Ellery fervently hoped Jade lingered over that coffee.
HE SAW the pile of clothes in the hallway to the bedroom and texted Jade and his mother then, which was a good thing.
Once he saw Jackson, folded in the comforter like the naked filling of a quilt burrito, relief swamped him, and he lost nearly five minutes standing in the hallway, one hand against the wall, while he tried to stop his knees from shaking.
Oh God. He was home. He was home and safe.
Ellery started undressing before he was aware he could even stand. He wasn’t thinking about sex—not even a little.
He was thinking he could see Jackson shivering under the covers from where he stood, the throes of the dream—whatever new horrors had been added to it—taking him over in the middle of a sunny fall day.
He slid into bed behind Jackson, naked except for his boxers, the fold of the comforter at his back. He wrapped his limbs around Jackson’s body and clutched him tight in a convulsive shudder.
“No,” Jackson whispered. “Don’t touch me. I’m not clean.”
Ellery pushed himself up on his elbow and ran fingertips through Jackson’s obviously clean hair. “You showered,” he said, puzzled. He touched the side of Jackson’s cheek, pink and raw from some sort of burn. “Baby, what happened—?”
Jackson made a feeble attempt to roll away, but Ellery stopped him.
“Not clean,” Jackson whispered. He pulled his knees up to his middle, and Ellery let out a little gasp of pain. The “burn” covered his forehead, his cheek, his chin, his neck.
“Did you do this?” he asked, stomach knotting.
“You need to let me go,” Jackson said simply, staring at the ceiling.
“No,” Ellery ground savagely. Deliberately he kissed the scrubbed cheek, holding Jackson’s chin in place. “Mine.”
“Ellery—”
“Mine!” Ellery kissed him hard, fearing that Jackson would do it, would say no again, leaving Ellery with no choice but to walk away. Jackson’s mouth opened to his, and a knot somewhere above Ellery’s groin opened up and took light and oxygen for the first time since he had woken up the morning before and realized Jackson was gone.