From bad to worse, p.7
From Bad to Worse, page 7
He flipped another few caps and missed more than he made. All the while, the burn of rejection competed with the burn of shame, and neither was a train of thought Everett wanted to board at present. He cut a look to Colt, who was tracing the label of his beer.
“So what? Don’t like me unless I’m some cheatin’ asshole?”
“Just don’t know what you are anymore.”
Everett sensed this would be one of those moments to have the right thing to say, which was a shame, since he was drawing a total blank on what that might be. Colt wasn’t the only one without a clue who Everett Kane was at present. All he knew was it was someone different than who he’d woke up as that morning, when he had a home and a wife and a life. Now, nothing was for sure.
If Everett hadn’t dropped thinking from the night’s agenda hours ago, he might’ve realized he could’ve said any of that. But it was so much easier to eye the slope of Colt’s shoulders, run a hand down his partner’s tension-tight back and hope like hell Colt would let him get away with this. Just one night of not having to think so hard.
Everett pitched his voice to make light of the moment. “What I am is tryin’ to get laid here, Colt. Didn’t think it’d be such an imposition to you.”
He’d been trying to get some sort of rise out of him, but Colt kept his eyes level on his beer, his voice stubbornly even.
“Fucking me isn’t gonna unfuck all those women. Not gonna erase what Rachael knows.”
Jesus, but he did not want to talk about this part of it. “Colt, c’mon…”
And sure, his partner’s voice was low, but it was almost worse that way. He sounded…disappointed.
“For fuck’s sake, Ev. You keep acting like this just happened to you. Like someone’s supposed to be feeling sorry for you, patting you on the back for realizing what you should’ve already known. Can’t believe I’ve got to tell you this shit.”
Colt swung his head to Everett at the end of the couch, nothing but fire in his coal‐dark eyes. “You think I wanna give you advice about them? Me?” He looked away and worked his jaw, staring hard at a spot on the floor. He tapped his bottle with a thumbnail and mumbled, “You don’t know what this is at all. Got no clue what you’re doing.”
Everett wondered who Colt was really talking to and watched him kick the leg of the coffee table. Maybe it wasn’t too far off for both of them. Just because Colt and him were doing whatever this was didn’t mean he had to make Colt his part-time therapist. These weren’t his problems. Colt shouldn’t have to deal with this.
It was just…maybe Everett wanted him to. Maybe there was some different option to examine here, if Colt was looking for one. And suddenly, it was far more distressing to not be holding eyes with the man standing from the couch, to not know what was turning in his mind as he pulled another Camel free.
“Colt, c’mon, wait—”
He stood in profile in the empty hall, turning enough to see Everett on the sofa. “She’s right about one thing, though. A shame you’re so fuckin’ predictable.”
Everett’s ears were hot and his throat was dry. He didn’t care how he sounded as he snapped, “The hell you mean by that?”
But Colt wasn’t looking for a fight. He was just telling truth in that quiet way of his—though it blindsided Everett to hear it twice in one day.
“You don’t give a person a chance to catch their breath, Ev. You just take.”
Colt’s bedroom door closed soundly behind him, leaving Everett alone in the living room. In time, the thought occurred that he’d spent too much of today staring down no’s of his own creation, at family cars and slammed-shut doors. Now, he was on his own with no answers in sight—no distractions, no help and no way out.
Everett eyed the fifth of whiskey on the counter but shook his head, thinking better of it. And shit, weren’t it almost funny how no one was there to witness his feat of better judgment. Far too little, too late.
Everett still passed the bottle by and picked up a nearby legal pad. He flipped through the pages for something to do and waited for fatigue to take over decision-making. Would probably do a better job than him anyhow.
Chapter Four
Everett
Louisiana, 2011, seven years earlier
Everett wouldn’t categorize what he got as a good night’s sleep, but thanks to his choice of bedtime reading, he awoke full of ideas. He braved the suitcases and found Rachael again making a point. The bags were full of everything he could need for a stay away from the house. Better than he would’ve packed for a trip he knew he was taking. Everett changed into a fresh T-shirt and jeans and made a mental note to ask Colt where that river was where he must beat his clothes. Everett hadn’t seen hide nor hair of a laundry room.
Two hours later, the bedroom door swung open. Colt’s eyes fixed immediately on the new additions to the case-wall.
“Coffee’s on the table,” Everett explained. “Need to get an early start if we’re gonna be ready in time.”
“In time for what?”
Everett tossed his phone over, open to a series of messages with the major. Colt thumbed through the conversation as he took the gas station coffee, leaving the breakfast sandwich untouched. “Hmm. Could be enough, if we work fast.”
“As always, you’re fuckin’ welcome for runnin’ them around for you. With me ‘out for training’, if you go in and make some excuse, we should have a few days to work with. Won’t have no manner of backup if things go sideways, but far as I can tell, the main thing you need is data, right? Company servers, security footage and shit?”
“For starters,” Colt agreed. “But I won’t have that kind of access. My cover’s not the office type.”
“You ain’t exactly the office type now. Can’t imagine you gettin’ much worse.”
Colt actually smiled at that, and it was only then Everett realized how little he ever did. But maybe some of Everett’s social skills were finally rubbing off. Only took two fucking years.
Everett gestured for his phone back and continued to explain the plan. “Lucky for you, the State Rodeo’s amateur competitions are next weekend so I could get on the roster last minute. Once I’m in and registered, I should have time to sneak off and quick copy a few files.
“Meanwhile, you do…whatever it is you do and work out the criminal connections. You think that key you found is connected to your time in vice? Fine. Reach out to your contacts and find us a trail we can follow later—preferably one that leads to proof we could come about legally. Y’know, somethin’ we could actually use in a court of law someday?”
Colt scratched his nose and made no comment. Everett rubbed his forehead. This was exactly why the man would never move up the ladder. No self-preservation to him at all. “We’ll meet back here and you can do your ‘stare until it makes sense’ routine, and then we finish this case from behind a damn computer. And you can get off my back about this being bigger than some robbery. Agreed?”
Anyone else would be grateful for the risk Everett was taking, but Colt looked like he’d been offered scraps—and was considering turning them down. Everett watched him read over the bits of case file, yellow paper and gas station napkins turned temporary notepads they’d stapled across the walls last night.
Colt chewed the inside of his cheek. “You’re asking for a lot, Ev.”
“I’m asking? This was your idea. I’m just fillin’ in the gaps.”
Everett wasn’t sure of much, but he knew for a fact he was the one risking more. If Stapes even caught a whiff of this, his desk would be packed by morning, no question. But Everett had done a lot of thinking last night, and the idea of letting this slide didn’t sit so easy anymore. If Combs’ death really was connected to something bigger, then the kid deserved better than he got. Someone ought to be looking for the truth.
“If we’re doing this,” Everett hedged, “I need to run by the house. Those suitcases don’t have the right things for riding, and I could stand to grab a few things.”
“You want help?”
The offer surprised him. With how they’d left it last night, Everett had planned on being grateful for the platonic couch he’d been offered. He looked up to find Colt’s eyes heavy on him. “No, I, uh…I think I got it.”
Colt nodded and hooked a cigarette from his pack, surprising Everett again as he tossed the box his way. Then he walked to the kitchen and pulled a small black kit from under the sink. He laid it on the counter and produced needles and ink.
“If we’re really doin’ this, there’s things you should know,” Colt said. “Before someone expects you to.”
Everett sensed this was one of those times it’d be good if he shut up and listened, so he lit the smoke and leaned against the kitchen wall. Colt sat on a bar stool at the counter’s edge, focused on the task of preparing needles and skin.
“There’s only two rules the bosses care about with undercover work. Don’t get involved, and don’t kill anybody they don’t want you to. You know from Day One if you do either, you’re gone, buried in a desk somewhere or left to hang on the line. Unofficially of course, but you’re just as fucked—official or otherwise. Guess they thought my time in the service would make me right for that sorta thing.”
“That how you wound up in Mason?”
Colt shrugged. “They took their time in burying me, but yeah. Had their reasons to want me out of Texas.”
“Why? Which rule did you break?”
“Both.”
Colt assembled the tattoo gun and squeezed out a blob of black ink. He snapped on a pair of gloves and started to work on his own left arm. “I met my wife the first year I was undercover. I was working a ring of human traffickers with connections to the cartel. Got in with some bikers—small-time, cornfed supremacists the lot of them, but they had dealings with my stated targets. Wound up as second tier with them. Called themselves the Cobras.
“Taking up with Rosa changed things for my alias. Before her, I did whatever got me the best intel. After…well, it was the same with some, but not as many. It’s all just currency out there—drugs, sex, women. Take or be taken. Eat or be eaten.” Colt’s eyes were darker than usual, but then they brightened, like he was remembering something better. “Having someone around to protect made them see me different, and Rosa needed something to cling to as badly as I did. When she told me she was pregnant…weren’t really a surprise. But it was a wakeup call.
“Had to tell her truths I wasn’t ready to trust her with, but even with the kind of life she’d had, Rosa was a genuine person. Didn’t say words like I love you unless she meant them all the way. Plenty wouldn’t have tried to preserve life. Still don’t know why she did, and I never thought I would be…but I was glad of her choice.
“I had to tell my handlers. You can imagine how happy that made the brass. I agreed to stay under for as long as they wanted, work the case all the way to the top if they got Rosa out. Went to the courthouse the next day and set her up with whatever protection my name could give. She started seeing all kinds of doctors without me, but the job wasn’t in a place that I could leave. Too much depended on making the bosses happy. So I stayed under.
“They got me out once for…for the birth. Spent six weeks in a WITSEC house in Kansas while my alias ‘recovered’ from getting shot in the leg. Got a Christmas and a New Year with them before I had to go back.”
Colt stayed quiet for long enough that Everett risked a question. “How much longer were you on the job?”
Colt wiped a mix of blood and ink from his arm, then tossed the paper towel in the trash. “Eighteen months. Spent three years all told, making up for my mistakes. Gave me time to make some more.”
“But then, what happened?” Everett asked, unable to help himself. “I mean, if Rosa and your…if they were out then—”
“Life happened. Sometimes, no matter where you go…there you are.”
Everett felt like he was looking at the edges of a puzzle, glimpsing the shape of a much larger picture. “So, you weren’t there? When it happened?”
“No.” Colt cleared his throat. “I wasn’t.”
And Jesus, but Everett wished he could hug the kids about now. He blinked up at the ceiling, hating himself as he swiped the dampness from his eye, hardly able to focus. For a while the only sound in the room was the buzzing of Colt’s tattoo gun, the pull and drag of rubber over skin. Everett tripped over his words, wanting the right thing to say and certain he’d never find it. “Can’t, uh…can’t really believe they let you keep workin’ after…” He waved a hand and hoped the gesture summed up what he meant.
Colt’s focus stayed heavy on his arm. The tattoo gun buzzed. “Didn’t give them a choice. I dropped off the radar till I had what they wanted. Made a deal to deliver the marks if they kept me legally dead and let me go my own way. Except things didn’t go as planned.”
Everett watched as Colt pried the lid off his coffee to add a glug of whiskey. He gulped some down and snapped on fresh gloves. “You need to know, Rhett. If we run into any of these guys I knew, they’re gonna talk some shit. Gonna say things you won’t want to hear.”
“Is it true?”
“Probably, but that ain’t the point. The Cobras ain’t much, but doesn’t take much to shoot a man in the back of the head. If they make me, we’re screwed.” He pointed the tattoo gun straight at him. “So if you wind up talkin’ to anybody who matters, Rosa’s gone, crazy, and I got no idea where the kid is.”
“Okay, Colt.”
Everett stared as Colt chugged more “coffee”. In time he asked, “How’d you get free at all?”
The answer must’ve been important, because Colt kept talking. “After my…I worked the job hard. Without usual precautions. Escalated some timelines to arrange a meet with the marks they wanted. Told my handlers where it was goin’ down.” Colt took another swig and set the cardboard cup aside. “Don’t know how, but someone tipped them off. Walked right into a trap.
“The marks knew I was police, and were kind enough to demonstrate the finer points of interrogation. Lost consciousness somewhere in the fourth hour. When my handlers finally showed up to cuff anyone who mattered, everyone assumed I was dead. But some crime tech looking for a bullet wound found a pulse instead.
“Rushed me to the hospital. Lots of surgery. Worse recovery. Taking that beating kicked the stuff in my head into high gear. Used to be a background sort of thing. Nowadays, I turn a corner and walk straight into a memory.” Colt trailed off, staring at nothing in particular. Everett could only wonder what he saw.
Colt shook his head and returned to the work on his arm. “Anyway. Spent some months rehabilitating before they called my debt paid and shipped me out to Mason. Never thought I’d see somethin’ from those days again, but. Here we are.”
“Jesus,” Everett cursed under his breath. He rubbed his palms together. “Look, it’s sad what happened to this Combs kid. It is. But it ain’t worth—”
“Ev.”
And there was something about the nickname that sounded different, too like the broken father who’d sobbed beside him on a rundown couch. Colt took a slow, steady breath and said, “If that key is what I think…this could get me a second run at settling some old debts. The ones that got away on the case that cost me my little girl. So if there’s a chance of takin’ any of them down with this?” Colt met his eye. “It’s worth it. To me.”
Everett thought it must be, because later, when Colt was finished sticking his arm with ink, the symbol at the center of that knotted-up cross was clear as a fucking picture. Colt wrapped the arm in plastic cling, covered the whole affair with a long-sleeved flannel, then buttoned up the cuff to keep things in place. That done, Colt turned to him, and he wasn’t sure what he expected the man to look like, but completely blank-faced wasn’t it.
“I need to get seen by the right people if this is gonna work. Not even sure where they hole up this far east. Gonna have to put the word out a few places.” Colt pulled open one of the unpacked boxes in the corner, retrieved a gun that was definitely not his service weapon and started to break it apart. “I won’t be around for some time. I’ll check in every twenty-four hours unless I can’t.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Wait some more. Two days pass and I’m still not back? You either finish this without me or call it off.”
“Without you?” Everett choked on the question. “Like I’m gonna—”
“Save the hero shit.” Colt held the barrel up to the light, then rummaged in the box for the tool to clean it. “If I’m gone for two days before we even get started, it’s ’cause I’m dead. So I need to know. You really wanna do this?”
His gut impulse was hell fucking no, but Everett knew he’d never be able to hold to it. That redness in Colt’s eyes was the only evidence of their talk at all, but the story sat heavy in Everett’s heart just the same. He had to do something, or the anxious energy caught in his chest was gonna explode right out of him.
Everett nodded once and watched his partner clean the unfamiliar gun. When he held the barrel up again, this time Colt looked satisfied with the results.
* * * *
Getting things from the house wasn’t anything he’d call comfortable, but Everett’s first week living at Colt’s was removing that word from his vocabulary. The place had no manner of anything he’d expect from an adult’s place of habitation. Sure, Everett had his bachelor pads before him and Rachael shacked up, but even he’d had a dresser. A shower curtain that wasn’t a see-through liner. A spare mirror outside the bathroom.
Right now, the lack of those last two wasn’t an issue, as Colt was barely home except for random intervals of sleep. One day it was noon to four after staring at their wall of notes all night. Then Everett didn’t see him for thirty-six hours, and was fit to be fucking tied when Colt rolled in—covered in gravel, mud and what Everett hoped wasn’t his own blood.
Never got a chance to confirm that, though. The second he slammed the door, Colt told him to “shut your mouth for once” before collapsing in a heap on the couch. For fourteen hours.
