Divide & Conquer

by Madeleine Urban

  “What the hell crawled up your ass and died? You are totally overreacting!” Zane protested as he reached out, catching Ty’s arm by blind luck.

  Ty turned and lashed out, catching him right under the chin. Totally surprised, Zane was knocked off balance, and he collapsed backward against the bookshelves, hitting them hard enough to send several books thunking to the floor as he fell with a hard grunt to the thin carpet.

  Ty turned to head for the door, shaking his hand and grumbling.

  “Ty,” Zane said weakly.

  “Go to hell,” Ty responded without turning around. He grabbed at the doorknob and yanked the front door open.

  “Ty,” Zane repeated, a real tinge of desperation in his voice. “I think I can see something.”

  Ty stopped and turned to look at him, frowning. Zane’s face was set in a pained wince. He pressed the heel of one hand to his temple as he blinked over and over. Ty cocked his head and watched him, waiting. When Zane looked up, one of his eyes was totally bloodshot, more red than white. He kept blinking like he was facing a bright light.

  “Son of a bitch,” Ty muttered as he slammed the door shut and stalked past Zane toward the kitchen.

  “Get the fuck back over here, you asshole,” Zane ground out. “That fucking hurt!”

  “I’m calling the doctor,” Ty snapped back at him. He snatched up the phone and jabbed at the numbers angrily. Zane didn’t growl back; he just held his head in his hands, looking miserable. Ty warred with the instinct to protect that had been in overdrive for a week now and the urge to kick him while he wallowed down there. He wouldn’t have placed bets on which instinct would win out.

  After some terse snapping, he got one of the doctors on the line, turned back to Zane, and poked him with the end of the phone. “Doctor wants to talk to you,” he said in a low voice.

  “Bastard,” Zane muttered from where he sat on the floor, leaning back against the shelves, covering his eyes with one hand and bracing that arm on his propped-up knee. He fumbled for the receiver. “Yeah,” he said into the phone. After a moment he added, “Yeah. I’ve had a hell of a headache all day, until I went to the gym.”

  Ty paced, still fuming and unable to stand still.

  Apparently the doctor was droning on, explaining what might be happening. “So this is a good thing?” Zane asked after listening. Ty could feel Zane’s gaze following him. After a week without it, Ty felt uncomfortably pinned down, and that just made him angrier.

  “Okay,” Zane said, his tone unsure, and he thumbed off the phone.

  “Gonna live?” Ty asked him curtly as he took the phone from him.

  Zane turned his head slowly, as if afraid he might be dizzy. “Yeah. Maybe you should have hit me sooner.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He tossed the phone toward the couch as he moved to the door without another word.

  “Ty, wait,” Zane called out, his voice pained.

  Ty answered by slamming the front door. He thought he should have felt just a little bit guilty. But he didn’t.

  ZANE stalked into his apartment and kicked the door shut behind him. Five hours. Five goddamn hours he’d sat at the hospital for the doctors to look at him for five minutes, a ten-minute CT scan, then a pat on the head and shove out the door. And all he’d been able to stew about was how he’d fucked up so royally with Ty, however unintentional it was.

  He shed gear and clothes as he walked through the apartment to the kitchen in his jeans and socks, intent on getting a Coke and then a hot shower. When he yanked open the refrigerator door and saw the untouched boxes and bags from Chiapparelli’s, his first instinct was to slam the door shut, yell, and throw… something. But he swallowed on the anger, and though it was really, really close, he made himself grab a can of soda off the shelf and shut the door carefully. He hadn’t been this angry in a long time, and it made his head pound, his eyes sting, and, dammit, his heart ache.

  Zane slid onto a bar chair and pressed the cold can to his cheek, then his temple, then his forehead, trying to get some relief as he fought the swell of emotions. Upset and anger, obviously. A healthy dose of utterly pathetic gratitude and frantic joy. An aching regret, and an even deeper hurt. The conflict was about to make his head explode.

  With a sigh, Zane set down the Coke, and he was about to get up when he saw the small pile of mail sitting forgotten on the far side of the bar. He reached out and dragged it over. Coupons. A church tract. Generic insurance offers. A flier advertising a nearby car-wash grand opening, another announcing a special couples’ dinner night out at one of the other prominent Italian restaurants in the area. He unfolded the last one to find only a sheet of paper with messy handwriting.

  But it was clearly his name at the top.

  Zane silently read the few short lines, and the emotions started bubbling up again, threatening to choke him.

  Mr. Garrett, Pierce Sutton is the reason you’re blind. He has your truck too. You have to stop him before he kills somebody. Please.

  FOUR days had passed since the teenage girl had been shot outside the bank, and the whirlwind was still churning. The public was equal parts praising the FBI’s dedication to keeping Baltimore safe and crucifying the “trigger-happy monster” who’d taken the shot.

  That monster just happened to be the same agent who’d become one of the darlings of the media, but no one knew that. And he was missing in action, sent home to lay low yet again until the case was done. He kept thrusting himself in the middle of all the trouble, and Dan McCoy simply couldn’t have him around anymore.

  McCoy felt sorry for Ty Grady. Usually he was like a cat: he didn’t necessarily always land on his feet, but he had the uncanny ability to twist during the fall and at least land on all fours. He just couldn’t seem to win on this one, though. He was on all fours, all right, but McCoy didn't think it was voluntary.

  So McCoy had sent him packing, sending a different agent several times a day to check up on him. By all accounts he wasn’t handling the shooting of the girl well. One agent reported that Ty had actually uttered the phrase “you kids get off my lawn” when the rookie had knocked on his door. McCoy knew that Ty was either messing around with them for shits and giggles or he was truly traumatized. Truth be told, it was probably a combination of the two.

  On the plus side, Zane Garrett had been released to light duty by the Bureau doctor late yesterday and was “officially” back in the office. He’d called in the night of the shooting, having found a letter left at his apartment while he was blind, a letter that gave them a name. Fingerprints were no help; whoever had handled the paper didn’t have a record, so there was no way to know how the writer had found Zane’s apartment. That still bothered McCoy, as well as Zane’s team, who had all volunteered to continue the protection detail.

  It would have taken a fight to keep Zane out of the office, doctor’s orders or not, so McCoy had Zane brought in—his truck was still MIA—sat him down, put his cyber skills to work dredging some more nontraditional sources of information, and kept a close eye on him.

  Pierce Sutton turned out to be a kid and therefore in the wind, not at any address his meager records said he might be using and hard to pin down. The search continued, as did other aspects of the investigation, including the one currently on top of the pile on McCoy’s desk.

  McCoy pushed a button to call for Zane as he perused the file in front of him.

  He got an immediate reply. “Garrett.”

  “Get in here,” McCoy grunted as he flipped a page.

  He didn’t get a verbal answer, but Zane was in his doorway within a minute. He was dressed down, in black jeans and boots with a nondescript blue button-down, pushing the line of what office dress code strictly allowed, and he still looked pretty haggard, hair ruffled and face scruffy. McCoy ignored the break in protocol and beckoned Zane into his office.

  “Sit down. I need your help with something.”

  Zane hesitated for a beat before moving into the office and taking one of t
he chairs across from him. McCoy looked at him for a moment, then down at the file spread out across his desk. Ty Grady’s file. These two were like lightning rods, and any given day, he wasn’t sure which one would draw the most voltage.

  “You doing okay, Zane?”

  Zane snorted quietly. “Better, anyway.”

  McCoy nodded, looking Zane over critically. Zane’s eyes were still bloodshot enough that he could see the red in them from seven feet away, but he decided the answer would do for now. “Have you heard from Grady?”

  Zane sat up straighter in his chair and made eye contact. “Not for a few days.”

  “Neither have I. I’ve gotten word he’s not handling the situation very well. Has his phone off, letting everything go to voice mail. You’ve heard that he was the one to take the shot at the bank, yes?”

  Zane went still. He did that sometimes, McCoy had noticed in the past, usually because it was such a contrast to Ty’s incessant twitching. “No,” Zane replied, his tone flat. “I only heard they took one person into custody.”

  McCoy nodded and pushed the file around. “Got her with a sniper rifle. It was an impressive shot, disarmed her but didn’t kill her. Still, he’s not really okay with shooting a kid, from what my agents are telling me. Anyway, that’s not why I brought you in here.” He turned the file around on his desk. The pages were covered with thick black ink, lines and lines of redacted information.

  “Her?” Zane was now frowning deeply. “A kid?” He glanced down at the file, then back up at McCoy.

  McCoy looked at him with some surprise. “You haven’t heard any of it? She was seventeen. All we’ve gotten from her is the ringleader isn’t much older than she is and she doesn’t know why he’s so intent on killing so many people, but he is and she was scared of him. She also hinted to us as she was being wheeled away that he might have it out for you and Ty because you’ve become the figureheads of the pursuit, so to speak. I’m surprised Grady didn’t tell you all this. As soon as he figured it out, he went tearing off to find you, make sure you weren’t a collateral target during all the chaos.”

  Zane looked away, toward McCoy’s window. To McCoy’s eyes, he looked uncomfortable, which was unusual for the ultra-controlled Zane Garrett. But he’d had a shitty week too. Going blind would throw anyone’s emotional equanimity.

  “We didn’t talk long,” Zane finally said. “He had things to do, and I had to go back to UMMC.”

  McCoy nodded, satisfied with the answer. Who the hell knew what Ty was ever thinking, anyway?

  He tapped his finger on the blacked-out file. “I’m trying to see if anything in Grady’s file might connect him to this kid, but as you can see, his file is mostly crap. I wanted to ask you if you knew anything that might be relevant.”

  Zane looked back to the mostly blacked-out paperwork, then up to McCoy. “If that’s Grady’s file, I don’t know that I’ll be much more help.”

  McCoy’s brow knitted. “You’ve never seen his file?”

  Zane shook his head just slightly, winced, and stopped the movement with a touch to his temple. “No.”

  “Huh. Well, you should take it and read up, Garrett. Grady’s got to be a damn minefield to walk through without an inkling of what’s back there,” McCoy grunted as he closed the file and handed it to Zane. “Nothing in there’s going to help this investigation.”

  Zane looked at the file in his hand like he wasn’t sure what to do with it, then dropped it lightly on the edge of McCoy’s desk. “So there are more of them out there, and they know us. Me and Grady. Possibly where we live. And they’re likely out to get us specifically,” he summed up, face grim.

  “I’d wager if they weren’t before, they are now,” McCoy told him bluntly.

  Zane tipped his head to one side, eyes going unfocused as he thought hard about something. McCoy had seen the man pull together details from disparate case files to create legitimate leads in critical investigations; he wondered just what Zane was chewing on now.

  “Where’s Grady?” Zane ask abruptly.

  McCoy couldn’t hide his surprise and confusion. “I don’t know. At home, probably. We have someone going around every few hours to keep an eye on him. The last team we tried to sit on him, he actually threatened to shoot them.”

  “He would,” Zane muttered. He stood up. “I need to get up to speed on the contingencies, but I won’t last long,” he said, waving a hand at his head. “Killer headache.”

  McCoy nodded, watching Zane curiously. “Don’t push yourself. Go on home. I’ll have someone come around to check up on you too.”

  Zane hesitated, apparently choosing his words before saying, “I’m going to stop by and see Ty. We’ve both had the week from hell.”

  “Might be a good idea. Maybe you can ease his mind some. It was a clean shot. No one knew she was a kid.”

  “He did what he had to. What was right,” Zane said quietly. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” With that he left the room and, McCoy noticed belatedly, Ty’s personnel file.

  McCoy grunted as he frowned at the folder. In his opinion, Ty had more on his conscience than the shot he’d taken four days ago. A lot more.

  He reached for the file and stowed it in the bottom drawer of his desk, locking it away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  AS HE stood outside the row house door, Zane realized how nervous he was. Not scared, not angry. Nervous. He hadn’t seen or heard from Ty since the day Ty had decked him. Four long, lonely, and miserable days that had driven home to Zane just how very important Ty was to him. Every night, lying alone in a cold bed with a lamp on so he wouldn’t be in the dark, Zane had struggled to accept that however unintentionally, he’d scared Ty badly and needed to apologize. He’d wrangled even more with the possibility that Ty wouldn’t give him the chance, which had only fed Zane’s irrational fear of losing him altogether.

  Zane had seen Ty easily forgive and let something go—it was one of the most prominent aspects of Ty’s unusual personality. But Zane had never seen Ty angry enough to literally walk away. Even when Zane had been drunk on the cruise ship, Ty had dragged him to the pool to sober him up instead of telling him he was done. Then today, the news about Ty and the girl—it had almost knocked Zane over as he realized just what exactly Ty had been dealing with that day.

  Zane would get down on his knees and beg to get back into Ty’s good graces, if that was what it took.

  But first things first. He rapped hard on the door.

  It took a full minute before the lock on the door turned. When Ty swung the door open, he wore nothing but a towel, rivulets of water still running down his chest and arms.

  “Garrett,” he said in surprise.

  At the sight of all that glorious skin, heat slashed through Zane so fast that he lost track of what he had carefully planned to say. Instead he reached out, grabbed Ty by the back of the neck, and yanked him a step closer so he could kiss him messily.

  Ty flailed and struggled to keep his balance. Zane distantly realized that Ty had his gun in his hand. When Zane pulled back, he glanced at the weapon—pointed away, luckily—and then at Ty for a split second before doing what he’d come to do in the first place.

  He slugged Ty.

  Ty reeled back, too surprised by the double-edged assault to keep his feet. The gun went skittering across the hardwood, and Ty wound up flat on his back, the towel miraculously still wrapped around his hips.

  Zane stood in the doorway, yanked his Wayfarers off, and took a couple of heartbeats to admire the sight. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?” he asked as he set his hands on his hips.

  Ty shook his head violently, as if trying to clear it, and he pushed up onto his elbows. “What the hell, Zane?” he said in a hoarse, angry voice. “Is there a car out there? People are watching me!”

  “Of course there’s not a car, I checked. They stopped watching you after your death threat,” Zane retorted, stepping inside and kicking the door shut. “You—you spent all that time tak
ing care of me, and then you just took off!” Zane accused with a pointed finger.

  “You—!”

  “And you chewed the hell out of my ass and then didn’t even give me a chance to apologize for being a jerk,” Zane finished, feeling the frustration starting to ebb. Just being with Ty made a difference. “But mostly? Hitting me while I was blind was a low blow, even if I did deserve it.” He offered his hand to help Ty up.

  Ty looked at his hand and then back up at him incredulously. “Is that supposed to be an apology? God, you’re such a dick!”

  Zane stared down at him, all too aware of how thankful he was he could see Ty’s face again. He’d dreamed about it every night. “No, that wasn’t an apology.” He went down on one knee next to Ty and took a deep breath. “But this is: I am sorry that I scared you. I didn’t think it through, and I’m sorry that after all that time you spent supporting me, you were the one who got let down. I know I can’t change it, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it up to you.”

  Ty blinked at him, obviously surprised by the real apology. He pushed himself up to sit, looking up at Zane grimly. “That was better,” he commented with a curt nod. “Did it hurt?”

  “Being hit, hitting you, or apologizing?” Zane asked tentatively.

  Ty snorted and shook his head, looking out the front window. “I hope all of it hurt,” he muttered, disgruntled. He reached out and gripped Zane’s shoulder, using him to pull himself to his feet. “How’d you get here? And why are you here, besides the urgent need to deliver a knuckle sandwich?” Ty asked as he turned away from him and began walking through the long row house toward the kitchen at the back. His voice was low and controlled, almost devoid of emotion. That meant he was trying to hide that he was angry or hurt.

  Zane just punching him in the face aside, if Ty was still angry at him after four days, Zane had no idea what he could do about it. “Came from the office,” he answered as he got to his feet. “I heard about what happened at the bank.”