Cut & Run (38 page)

Meanwhile, Zane had been taken straight to Washington to be debriefed over and over as the internal investigation continued. His attitude had understandably been for shit the whole time. Getting him to cooperate with anything had been a fight, but Burns didn’t really blame the man.

Now, Ty was scheduled for medical review over at Walter Reed in two hours, and looking at him as he sat in his office, Burns wasn’t sure he would pass muster. He had never seen Ty Grady look so defeated. And Burns had his doubts about Zane’s willingness to go back to work at all. Zane stood at the window, staring out with his arms crossed, face schooled blank. Burns suppressed a frown. The Zane Garrett of old seemed to have made a reappearance: dark jeans, T-shirt, black leather jacket, two days without shaving, at the least. Burns could smell the cigarette smoke coming off him from ten feet away. It was only because he’d seen Zane’s medical review the day before that Burns knew the man hadn’t gone back to any more of his old habits.

It was almost like the two had switched places. He shook his head.

This had not been his aim when he had paired them up. He should have known Ty could corrupt anyone.

“Do you two have any questions?” Burns asked. Ty shook his head, and Zane merely stared out the window without responding. Burns sighed.

“You’re both being reassigned,” he continued. “I’ve not shared the whereabouts with anyone but you individually. If you tell each other, that’s none of my business.” And Burns would leave it at that. He looked between them one more time. Neither man spoke. “Well. I have a meeting downstairs.

Take care.” And with that he departed, leaving them alone in the room when the door clicked shut behind him.

Ty sat staring at the floor listlessly, unable to look up at Zane as he sat with his knee bouncing. Zane didn’t move from the window, and silent minutes passed. It wasn’t tense. It was just empty.

“You wanna know where I’m going?” Ty finally asked, doubt clear in his voice.

Zane didn’t turn from the plate-glass window. “Medical leave.

They’ll poke and prod and pick your brain apart at Walter Reed and a few Cut & Run | 231

specialty places for a while, then send you off to another city; Norfolk maybe, Atlanta. Possibly back to Baltimore. To live quietly for a predetermined amount of time and see a doctor three times a week,” he said in a monotone.

He knew the drill; he knew it too well.

“Guess that’s a no, huh?” Ty affirmed flatly. He cleared his throat and stood, taking his cues from Zane and not asking where the other man was being sent. “Well. Probably for the best, right?” he muttered as he shrugged into his coat carefully. His ribs were still tender even after the weeks that had passed. “Good luck, Garrett,” he offered with a small sigh, not allowing himself to think about why he regretted this ending.

“Get better, Grady. The Bureau needs you,” Zane said, not moving.

He tried to decide why this hurt so much. They’d known each other barely a week. Granted, they’d screwed each other like crazy. But why did this feel so wrong?

Ty watched him for a moment, a sinking feeling in his chest as he realized that Zane didn’t even intend to fucking turn around and say goodbye.

He moved silently toward the door, worn boots soundless on the industrial carpet.

“Ty—”

Ty stopped with his hand on the doorknob, turning to look back at Zane.

He had turned around to look at him, and some of the cold was out of his demeanor, revealing a hint of unusual vulnerability. “You said I wouldn’t miss you.” He drew in a long breath, and his voice was even quieter when he spoke again. “You were wrong.”

Ty was silent, unmoving as he met Zane’s eyes across the room. “I was wrong about a lot of things,” he said finally, his voice soft and wistful.

He turned the knob and quickly slid out of the room.

Turning back to the window, Zane leaned his forehead against the glass and closed his eyes.

232 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

he motorcycle sped down the well-lit freeway, far above the speed limit, the hunched figure aboard shrouded in black leather and a full-T face helmet. The bike swerved through traffic, darting around cars and trucks without a hint of hesitation before exiting and rolling to a slower speed at the bottom of the ramp.

The bike sped up again as it entered an older, run-down, darker part of town, where the city rotted from the inside out. The rider guided it down a maze of streets before stopping in front of a small warehouse. With the hit of a button, a large bay door opened, and the rider steered the bike inside before the door closed behind him.

Once the bike stopped, the rider stood up and swung his leg over, leaving the keys in it as he walked over to a scarred table. He pulled off his helmet and set it there before looking around.

Zane had been in Miami almost four months, working the inner city, trailing down some major drug deals with quite a bit of success. A lot of it was sheer cussedness and bravado; his Bureau contact had already warned him to be more careful three times. But safety didn’t matter to him, as long as he got the job done.

He tossed his gloves next to the helmet and unzipped his jacket as he walked further into the warehouse toward a loft. He climbed the steps, tossing the black leather over the railing, revealing a skin-tight, sweaty T-shirt, covered by a double shoulder holster, and sheaths holding wickedly sharp knives with well-worn handles at his wrists.

After disarming but shoving one gun in the back of his waistband, he went to a cabinet and looked tiredly over several bottles—many empty—and pulled out a half-empty one of rotgut tequila. He screwed off the top before he shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. He collapsed on the lumpy couch, lit up, and took a long pull of the harsh liquor, leaning his head back to stare at the ceiling and lose himself in his vices. It would be a lonely, silent, hot night.

Cut & Run | 233

TY sat on the balcony of his row house in Baltimore, smoking a Montecristo No. 4 Reserva and blowing smoke rings into the starless sky. The cigar was a limited production (only 100,000 had been made down in Cuba), and they were packaged in sleek black boxes of twenty cigars, each box labeled with a gold number between 1 and 5,000. In the back of Ty’s closet, he had five boxes in a safe, numbered 12 to 16.

It was good to have resourceful friends stationed at Gitmo.

“Ty?” a woman’s voice called from inside the bedroom. “If you don’t come back to bed, I’m leaving.”

Ty lowered his head and tapped the tip of his finger on his beer bottle.

“I mean it, Ty. I’m going home.”

Another smoke ring drifted its way toward the clouded moon, and somewhere in the city a horn honked angrily.

“You shithead!” the woman called. “I fucking knew this was a mistake,” she mumbled to herself as the rustling of sheets and clothing drifted out to Ty’s ears. A few moments later the front door slammed shut.

Ty sighed heavily and inhaled the cool air with its hint of fragrant cigar smoke. He sat with his bare feet propped on the railing, nothing but a worn pair of sweatpants protecting him from the chill, and he watched the sun rise silently.

It had been almost four months since his medical leave had been granted. He had been evaluated—both for his injuries and for what had been deemed severe exhaustion and shock—observed, treated, treated again, observed some more, and finally given three weeks of vacation to “get his head back on straight.” He had another thirteen days of nothing to do but barmaids. He might actually go crazy before then.

ZANE pulled off his jacket and threw it to the floor, stamping up the steps to the loft and making for the bathroom. He flipped on the light and turned toward the mirror to look at the angry, bloody gash across the meat of his upper arm.

He muttered in harsh Spanish. Fuckers. Taking potshots at him like 234 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

that when he’d delivered what they wanted and more. He’d taken more satisfaction than usual beating the shit out of a couple of them before he called in the cavalry to arrest the whole lot of them.

He hissed angrily as he poured peroxide liberally over the gunshot wound, covered it messily with antibiotic cream, ignoring that it was still gaping and bleeding, and wrapped it up. He walked toward the kitchen, still muttering angrily as he slid a cigarette between his lips.

Walking by the answering machine, he turned up his nose at the blinking red light and lit up. The only person who called him here was the Bureau contact, and he definitely didn’t want to talk to her. Cursing under his breath, he hit the button and pulled out his guns, checking them as he disarmed.

“Special Agent Garrett, this is Assistant Director Richard Burns.”

Zane’s head shot around so he could stare at the machine. “Don’t you dare ignore me. Call me. It doesn’t matter what time.” He left an unfamiliar return number and hung up.

Hitting the erase button, Zane frowned and tapped the ashes from his cigarette. It was odd to hear English not made rapid-fire by an accent.

“What’s he want?” he murmured to himself, the Spanish flowing easily. He tapped his fingers on the phone for a long moment before picking up and dialing the number he had easily memorized.

Two minutes later, he was connected to Burns, presumably at home, since it was the middle of the night.

“Special Agent Garrett. Thank you for returning my call so promptly,” Burns said by way of greeting, no hint of censure or sleep in his voice.

Zane walked with the handset over to the couch and pulled out a bottle of painkillers. “What do you want, Burns?” Zane muttered in his well-practiced accented English, setting his cigarette in an overfull ashtray. He poured a handful of pills into his hand and popped three into his mouth, sitting on the edge of the couch and holding his arm out to look at it.

“Ever the conversationalist. Nice accent, by the way. Have you been following the Tri-State murders?”

Zane’s jaw set. “No,” he said shortly.

“Good. Get to DC. I want you here by three-thirty tomorrow.”

“DC?” Zane objected. “I’m in the middle of all kinds of shit here, Cut & Run | 235

Burns. I can’t just drop it!”

“You will turn over all information and material to Special Agent Black, who is waiting quite patiently right outside your door. Be here, and don’t be late.”

Burns hung up, leaving Zane staring at the handset. After a long moment, he hurled it at the wall, foreign expletives flowing off his tongue as it shattered.

TY didn’t sleep at night. He never had, even as a child. While the military had forced him to change that, the subsequent years of working undercover mostly at night had hardwired his body once more to sleep during the day and prowl restlessly during the late hours when he had nothing else to keep him busy. And so, when his phone rang at roughly two in the afternoon, it sent Ty straight up and into a full-out panic before he was able to track down the vibrating cell phone and growl at it.

“What?” he answered in a huff, rubbing sleepy eyes and shaking his head to wake himself fully.

“Special Agent Grady,” a familiar voice greeted warmly.

“Dick?” Ty responded in shock. “I didn’t do it,” he said immediately.

“Whatever it was, I didn’t do it. I’m on vacation,” he insisted defensively.

There was a chuckle in response. “I know you’re on vacation, Ty.

That’s why I’m calling. How do you feel?”

“Uhh….”

“I need you to cut it short,” Burns told him solemnly. “Have you been following the Tri-State murders?”

“No,” Ty answered immediately.

“Good. Get in here. One hour.”

“What?”

“And don’t come in smelling like beer and cheap cigars!” Burns chastised before hanging up.

236 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

ZANE let the bike coast as he pulled up at the gate to the Bureau parking lot.

He showed his badge and was waved through, although he got a couple of odd looks. He hadn’t bothered to dress up, just bringing the basics in the saddlebags on his bike. And the leather, of course, since he was riding. His favorite jacket had that gash in the arm from last night, but he wouldn’t give it up. He parked the bike in the garage and pulled his leg over, boot hitting the pavement with a clunk. He pulled off the helmet and ran a hand through his overgrown hair. He left the helmet on the bike and stalked toward the building.