Beneath This Mask

by Victoria Sue

  “You would rather meet with the assistant director?” he asked dryly.

  Sawyer, of course, didn’t say another word, and they both headed out.

  “We’ll take your truck,” Vance pronounced, and Jake followed him, glancing surreptitiously at his cell phone. Realistically he knew it would be a while before Gael called. It didn’t stop him from looking, though.

  JAKE GOT in his pickup as Vance squeezed into the passenger side. He needed to get a bigger truck if he was gonna be working with these guys long-term. Jake glanced in some amusement at the big guy as he fought to get the seat back as far as it would go.

  Vance was a ginger. Connie’s hair was streaked with gray, but she definitely had some red in there too. Vance reminded him of Damian Lewis, who Jake had been known to have a serious crush on and watched avidly in every episode of Homeland. In fact, he hadn’t even known the guy was English until he’d seen him on a TV interview. And that accent? Wow. Vance definitely had the whole ginger vibe down; he was just the size of two Damian Lewis’s. He wore it well, though.

  “I guess you’re the go-to guy when the team needs to get sent to any precinct, huh?”

  Vance chuckled. “That’s because at one time or another, I’ve had just about every captain around to my house. None of them would dare give me shit. I have three brothers who are cops, although Eric’s just got his transfer through to Portland.”

  “Long way,” Jake commiserated.

  “Yeah, and my mom’s taking it hard because Joanna’s pregnant.”

  “Sister-in-law?”

  Vance nodded. “Her folks are from Salem, so I guess I can’t blame her.”

  The silence that followed was comfortable.

  Jake saw Vance shuffling a little, trying to give his long legs room. “Sorry it’s a bit cramped,” he offered.

  It didn’t take more than five minutes from parking the truck to being seated inside an interview room. Detective Ryker had said they were there to observe only, as Mr. Jones had happily agreed to them being present. “He’s scared shitless he’s gonna lose his job,” she offered as they stopped outside a door. “Though that has nothing to do with us, and he hasn’t asked for anyone to be here with him, yet.”

  Jake followed Vance and Detective Ryker into the small room, and they shook hands and introduced themselves. Apart from a slight widening of Mr. Jones’s eyes when he saw Vance, he didn’t seem put off by the scar on Vance’s cheek. In fact, if Jake had to guess, he would have said it was more to do with his size than the fact that he was enhanced.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Jones. You understand that we are simply trying to find out why your colleague was on her own in the car with Derrick?”

  Barry Jones gulped. He had to be sixty or sixty-five, with gray hair and kind, albeit alarmed, eyes. His shoulders slumped as he let out a breath. “I’ve been an ambulance driver for nearly forty years,” he started. “The last two for Health Transport.”

  Jake shot a look at Vance.

  “It’s a private ambulance company that has one of the city contracts,” Vance explained.

  Barry sighed. “It’s my wife.”

  “Your wife?” Detective Ryker asked.

  “Annabel has Alzheimer’s,” he said in almost a whisper. “Her caregiver never turned up this morning. No explanation, no phone call.” He raised tearful eyes. “I’m five months away from my pension. I’m just trying to get there, and then I can quit and look after Annabel myself. Maria knows this.” He shook.

  Detective Ryker glanced at Jake. “Maria Kelly was the other driver.”

  “We’ve been driving Derrick for five months. He’s never a problem, ever. So long as he has that little computer thing with him, he just sits quietly. I-I have had a lot of time off because of Annabel. I already had two warnings. One more…. She said she would cover for me. Drop Derrick off and come to my house. I was sure Jenny—that’s Annabel’s caregiver—would be there by then.”

  Jake sighed silently. Mr. Jones had likely lost his job by trying desperately to keep it.

  Vance moved slightly and looked at Detective Ryker. She nodded her permission. “Mr. Jones? How long has Jenny worked for you? Has she been unreliable before?”

  “No,” he insisted, shaking his head. “Never. I only can’t have her full-time because she has another client that she’s been with longer than me.”

  “So, her not turning up and not contacting you would be unusual, then?”

  Jake glanced at Vance sharply, as did Ryker. Vance’s careful tone wasn’t lost on him.

  “Absolutely. I was quite worried, actually.”

  “Jenny?” Vance prodded.

  “Jenny Mathis.”

  Ryker slid a piece of paper over. “Can you write down her contact details, please?”

  Barry nodded eagerly, and when he’d finished, Ryker left the room.

  “Have you ever had any communication with Derrick?” Jake asked.

  Ryker reentered the room.

  “No, never. He never even looks at us. What did Derrick do?” Barry asked, the fear dripping from his lips.

  “We don’t actually know if he did anything yet,” Detective Ryker said before Jake jumped in and said exactly that. She stood. “If it helps at all, I am more than willing to tell your employer you were as accommodating as possible.”

  Mr. Jones stood also, shook everyone’s hand, and shuffled out. Ryker walked with the man to reception. Vance and Jake stayed where they were in case she had any questions for them. She was back in a few minutes.

  “I’ve asked a patrol car to swing by the caregiver’s address, but that’s more to confirm his excuse for not being there than anything else. There were no drugs in the car, which was my only other reasoning behind an attack. There’s a chance we had thugs see the logo on the car while it was at a traffic light and tase Maria. Opportunist. Smash-and-grab sort of thing, and she reacted badly to the shock and had a heart attack.”

  “Cameras?”

  Ryker shook her head.

  “Was the window down?” Jake asked, thinking hard.

  “No.”

  “But the door would lock automatically as soon as she drove away. Why would she open the door to thugs? It seems odd, especially with a vulnerable child as a passenger.”

  “Maybe they didn’t look like thugs, but it’s certainly worth the question. I’ll give Jones a call later and ask him what the procedure would be. I’ll let you know.” Ryker glanced hesitantly at Vance, as if she wanted to ask a question and took a breath.

  Vance cut her off. “All we know so far is that Derrick has certain communication challenges. It is impossible to even hazard a guess at what happened. His enhanced status is likely to have nothing whatsoever to do with the driver’s murder.”

  It was shit and Jake understood all the prejudice and assumptions they had been dealing with for years and couldn’t think about how Gael was going to cope with this. Gael had enough on his plate and was already suffering. Maybe tonight Jake could cook. He did a mean stir-fry, or maybe he should be more casual and order pizza. Yeah, maybe that would be better. Although cooking would occupy his hands…. He glanced down at his fingers and curled them inward, feeling the familiar stirring in his gut as he thought about how Gael had responded to last night’s kiss.

  He moved and cleared his throat. Thankfully there was a quick knock at the door, and a cop put his head in and handed a piece of paper to Ryker.

  She stood quickly and looked at them both. “Jenny’s body has just been discovered in her house. Her throat was slit.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Jake said.

  “Look, I’ll call you as soon as I know anything, but there’s no way this is a coincidence and it looks a lot better for Derrick.”

  Because if Jenny was killed deliberately to stop her from going to Annabel’s, there might just be another reason for Maria’s death.

  Chapter Seven

  GAEL FOLLOWED Michael—he had asked Gael to drop the formality—into a corridor tha
t opened up into three small bays, each containing four beds. There were children of various ages playing with some toys, and one who seemed to be curled up in a hammock. They walked past two private rooms, both with cots laid out, where presumably a parent could stay. Michael carried on until the end room and pushed the door open. There was a younger guy sitting in the corner dressed in the kind of scrubs one often saw at the dentist or any health care place where there were kids. His top seemed to have a pattern of a cartoon train running around his waist. He stood and spoke quietly to Michael before he left, but Gael didn’t hear what was said because he was too caught up gazing at the little boy on the bed.

  He was crying. Not in a sobbing, dramatic, full-of-snot way that kids did like it was the end of the world, but silently, like his eyes were filled with so much sorrow, every few seconds a little would trickle out.

  Derrick wasn’t looking at anything except a blank wall. He had his back turned slightly away from where the nurse had sat. He had his arms wrapped around his middle and was rocking slightly. Gael expected the distressed noise he had heard before, but there was nothing.

  “He may not be crying for the reason you think,” Michael said carefully. “Crying is often the only way a child can communicate, and we have no idea how the mix of autism-FAS-enhanced is working in his brain.”

  “Where’s his computer?” Gael asked, suddenly realizing it was missing.

  “They confiscated it,” Michael said regretfully. “Cracked screen. We have been trying a substitute.” He passed the small children’s electronic coloring device over.

  Gael took it from him and examined it, suddenly feeling woefully ignorant and frustrated.

  “It’s the same color,” Michael offered, “but as a comfort substitute, it would be like throwing a favorite teddy bear away and going to any store and buying a new one.” He wrinkled his nose and then glanced at his watch. “I have really got to go. We have a funding meeting in an hour.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Gael said and perched on the bed carefully.

  “Call button there. Video monitoring”—he gestured to a small camera—“and the nurse will make very frequent checks.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Gael said, then shuffled a little nearer. “It’s Gael.” He signed the last part on Derrick’s hand. He picked the same one he had used before, even if it was partially buried with the other. He was determined to read up on the nuances of Derrick’s condition as soon as he got home, but he was sure he’d read that routine was very important.

  He looked around the room. A sink, a door that he assumed led to a bathroom, a colorful mural adorned one room, which, under normal circumstances would be considered babyish for Derrick, at thirteen, but with everything else he had going on, Gael didn’t know.

  Gael kept the signing up for a few minutes. The repetitious “Hi, my name is Gael,” as he had done at the school, and with his other hand, he picked up the tablet. It was actually quite similar. He would definitely take the original with him when he went and make sure it was repaired tomorrow. Derrick wouldn’t suffer another night without it.

  He turned it over and saw the panel that covered the batteries like Derrick’s. He froze as the thought hit him.

  Batteries.

  Could it? Would it make any difference? Gael stopped the signing and glanced at Derrick’s face, half-hoping for a noise. Nothing, but the rocking was barely perceptible.

  Gael would need a screwdriver to undo the cover. Derrick would have been completely unable to remove them without help. Gael reached into his pocket and tried the edge of a coin. It was a little awkward, but it worked. He pocketed the four batteries and the screws, not wanting to leave them lying around. He snapped the cover back on and cautiously held out the small tablet to Derrick. Derrick didn’t seem to notice it at first, but then he made one guttural noise like Gael had heard before.

  “Hi, Derrick, my name is Gael,” he signed with his free hand.

  Gael held his breath as Derrick stopped clutching his middle, and with one hand, took hold of the tablet. A single tear escaped and ran down Derrick’s cheek.

  When the tablet bleeped, Gael could have cried himself.

  GAEL WAS exhausted. Derrick had wiped him out, even though he couldn’t wait to tell the team. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had slept a full night from when he got the letter from his sister. Half sister. He needed to call Wyatt, but Wyatt was visiting his girlfriend’s family, and Gael thought he ought to check out Louise first.

  And now, on top of everything else, as he walked into the field office, he was nervous. He hadn’t been lying exactly when he’d told Jake he could rent a room. He could, and he knew his biggest terror would have been the size of the cockroaches that scurried up the walls.

  Or was it? Jake had been quite obvious. A harsh man would have said pushy, and it wasn’t like Gael was a virgin. It was true when they said one could buy almost anything. He just had no idea why Jake would have said what he did. Jake was gorgeous. Deep gray eyes he could drown in if he looked for long enough. The intense military cut, and the way he stood at attention without even meaning to. It certainly made certain parts of Gael stand at attention, at least the bits that weren’t attempting to melt, anyway.

  Oh my God. Gael came to a stop. Did Jake think that because of his scar he was an easy target? That he was desperate? No, no, no. That didn’t make sense. He might admit to being so sometimes, but Jake was gorgeous. All he had to do was beckon a finger, like every cheesy romance moment he’d ever thought of, and someone would come running. He didn’t need Gael.

  Gael blew out a long breath. Jake was stunning. Beautiful pin-up girls should hang from those biceps. Gael put the brakes on his thoughts—just because he was ugly didn’t make “gay” ugly. In fact, it was downright breathtaking sometimes.

  He had spent the afternoon with Derrick, but Derrick had mostly slept it away. Dr. Maya had come in a few times and asked what Gael knew about Derrick, but obviously it wasn’t enough. After Gael managed to coax Derrick to eat something before he fell asleep again, his precious tablet clutched tightly, Gael had been all set to call Jake. Then the nurse, who had taken a keen interest in the signing, having done some himself, offered him a ride into town.

  “Gael?” Gregory peered at him, and Gael tried to look like he was okay. “How was the boy?”

  “He seemed calmer, sir. I’ll type up my report now.”

  “Your team is in the gym” was all Gregory said before smiling and walking away.

  Gael let them be for a while as he shot into the office and wrote his report on what had happened. Forty minutes later he walked into the gym and found Vance sitting on a bench and Jake laid flat out on the ground. Gael took in Vance’s amused look and Jake’s groan.

  “You’re not supposed to kill your partner, you know,” he scolded Vance.

  Jake groaned again and sat up. Gael walked to the vending machine and got a bottle of water. He unscrewed it and headed back to Jake, holding it out. Jake grabbed it, tipped his head back, and Gael followed every swallow down that smooth throat. He nearly repeated Jake’s groan.

  “You staying here now?” Vance stood. “I’m going for a shower, then finishing my report. Talon says we can leave whenever we want so long as he has them for the morning.”

  “Was the separate gym put in so all the other agents wouldn’t see our humiliation every time Vance put one of us down?” Jake asked, still sitting on the floor.

  Vance chuckled and walked out.

  “Walk it off a little,” Gael said, grinning.

  “How’d it go?” Jake got carefully to his feet and rolled his shoulders.

  Gael shook his head. “Incredible. Humbling. I have a ton to tell you. How did your session go with Vance?”

  Jake shot him a level look. “For a mammoth he’s surprisingly agile,” he said appreciatively. “You gonna work out or did you just want to see me taken down?” He smiled, softening the question.

  Gael chuckled and looked over Jake c
ritically. “You feel okay?”

  Jake nodded and quipped, “Still standing.”

  “Vance has gone for a shower now that I’m in here.”

  Jake’s brows creased a little. “He didn’t actually hurt me or anything.”

  “We’re never allowed in here on our own,” Gael explained, and Jake raised his eyebrows. “It’s one of Talon’s rules.”

  “Teambuilding?”

  “No. The doc does an awful lot of tests on us, and she isn’t sure if adrenaline contributes to our abilities developing.” Gael looked behind him to make sure the doors were closed. “The thing with my skin? It happened suddenly when I was in a shoot-out. When the team first formed, it was me, Talon, and Vance, and they didn’t really know what to do with us. Vance knew a DEA guy, and he asked us for back up. Everyone just thought we were cannon fodder, I suppose. Anyway, the op went wrong, and Vance and Talon were pinned down.”

  Jake stilled, waiting for Gael to finish.

  “I thought I was gonna die anyway, so I used myself as a shield.”

  “Gonna die,” Jake repeated woodenly.

  “Cancer.”

  “What?” Jake nearly shouted the question and took two steps right up to Gael, raking his eyes over him in concern.

  “I’m fine.” Gael smiled. “Remind me to bore you with the science sometime. Anyway, my skin became a barrier for the first time, and the bullets bounced off me. More agents arrived and everything worked out okay. They started proper training for us after that.”

  Jake gazed at Gael. His warm gray eyes seemed to slide over Gael’s skin. Gael took another breath, not wanting to see something in Jake’s eyes that wasn’t there. Jake had gotten a loud no the last time he had come on to Gael.

  “What I’m trying to explain is why Talon won’t let any of us use the gym on our own. Safety. He always wants someone here in case our abilities increase, alter, whatever.”

  “But I’m not enhanced.” Jake said it as almost an apology.