Heart in Wire: A by a Thread Companion Novel (3 page)

Fucking George. Stupid. Just fucking stupid.

In the video, George and El were drunk, looking happy and oblivious, dancing in a topless bar as if they hadn’t a care in the world. He hadn’t seen El that drunk since the first year she’d lived with them. Patrick still had mixed feelings when it came to George. He hated him because he had El every night, the way Patrick wanted her, but he liked him because he made El happy and that was important to him. He wanted them to run their course so that he could step in and save her, comfort her, and love her the way she needed to be loved. George didn’t know her the way Patrick did and it was just a matter of time before that would end their relationship and she would be his again. He knew they wouldn’t last, but he tried not to think about El in that way, like they could possibly be together. It was too hard.

He shook those thoughts from his head. He couldn’t think that way. Patrick tried to limit his thoughts to protecting his friend and right now she wasn’t allowing him to do that. She was keeping herself away from him. She’d put up walls and not let him in, but she’d be back. He knew it. For now, Patrick would just have to wait, to bide his time until she saw that George wasn’t as perfect for her as she thought. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

Jamie.

The Jamie that kidnapped El couldn’t be anything like his friend who’d left on a flight to get his truck and drive back to Virginia. Patrick knew that Jamie loved El, but he wanted adventure and to experience an undercover operation. He wanted his cake and to eat it too.

Everyone knows how well that turns out.

“Kevin, are you fucking shitting me?” Patrick sat at the conference table, stunned and shocked at what his supervisor just told him.

“’Fraid not. Now you know that Burns doesn’t do things by the book and we’re scrambling around now that this plan is already in motion. It’s a big mission, but it certainly didn’t have to start like this.”

“Jamie told me he was going under for six months.”

His supervisor, Kevin Spring, laughed. “He was mistaken. This will be more like a six year operation.” He clapped his hands once to signal the meeting was over.

“Kevin. I have to live with this girl. Is there any way around this?” He was calm, but really didn’t want to move in with Jamie’s fiancé and this situation just made it worse. She’d be grieving and he’d have to face her every day. He hoped she would just go home.

“Nope. Story is the following: Jamie got hit by the tractor trailer, neither survived. Cleanest way.”

“Does his family know?”

“Not that I know of... Burns likes a blank slate, making it so there’s really nothing for his agents to go home to. Aren’t you glad you were smarter than that?”

Patrick nodded, playing with his phone.

“Okay. So you understand your directive?”

“I got it,” Patrick responded
in a low voice.
This was complete bullshit.

Kevin, clad in his black ATF shirt and black cargo pants, backed away from the table and out the door, leaving Patrick fuming. Patrick was seething; Jamie was so fucking stupid and he was going to have to clean up the mess himself.

He continued to play with his phone. Fuck!
Picking it up
, he called Billy. “Meet me at The Irish Times in 30 minutes.”

“What? Why?” Billy asked from his office on the other side of DC, just inside Virginia.

“Just do it,” Patrick said and disconnected.

He stalked out to his desk, which was just a cubicle in the middle of an open room. He was in the training facility most of the day anyway, so it wasn’t like he ever needed a lot of space. He shut down his computer and closed his eyes, unable to figure out how he ended up with this pile of shit to deal with.
He took a deep breath and then left. He walked to the Metro and took the red line to Judiciary Square. It was
three o’clock when he reached The Irish Times and saw Billy already sitting at the bar. He waved him over to a table in the back. Billy walked back to the booth with two whiskeys and sat down.

“What’s up, Deep Throat?” Billy set down a whiskey in front of Patrick.

“Oh, you’re fucking funny. You won’t be smiling like that after we have this chat.”

Patrick took a gulp of the whiskey in front of him and stared into the brown liquor.

“So spill it, what’s with all the cloak and dagger bullshit?”

“I got orders today.”

Billy took a sip of beer. “So?”

“They’re to tell our new roommate, who moved in last night, that her fiancé died.”

Billy blinked.

Silence.

Patrick took another sip of his whiskey, staring at Billy over the rim of the glass.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yeah, join the fucking club,” Patrick said.

“I mean, why say he’s dead?” Billy took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Isn’t his assignment just for six months?”

“That’s what Jamie said, but Kevin confirmed that it was a long term assignment. Honestly, dude, he’s not ready for that shit.” Patrick took a sip. “I think Burns tricked him into doing this undercover mission and now he’ll be stuck.”

“So now we have to live with some chick for a year, or until she moves home after she finds out that her fiancé, the only reason she moved up here, is dead?” Billy shook his head. “This is bullshit.”

“I know. I’m supposed to drive her down to the service in Savannah.”

“What?!” Billy was incredulous. “Fuck.”

“Yep, they’re having a funeral for him and everything.”

Billy drained his glass and motioned at the bartender to get him another. “This is why people don’t trust the government. Shit like this.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Holy shit. I’m staying at Samantha’s again tonight. I don’t want to deal with that shit. You guys leaving to drive down tomorrow?”

Patrick nodded. “I think so. I’m going to call my mom and let her know I’m headed that way, but I think we’ll stay at my friend’s house on Tybee Island. I mean, who knows how she’s going to react to this. I don’t want to deal with family shit on top of this chick.”

“Damn, dude. Are you getting hazard pay for this shit?”

“Not a fucking dime, dude.”

“Bullshit,” Billy muttered as he took a sip of his fresh whiskey.

Billy was playing Madden when Patrick came in from his run. At some point during the run, he’d taken his fleece off and tucked it in the back of his sweatpants. Patrick walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water before he sat down in the den and took his shoes off. He texted George.

You guys have fun in Key West?

George responded within a few seconds.

What

Patrick replied immediately.

You and El are all over the TV and internet dude

He added another quick text.

Nice dance moves

As soon as Patrick leaned back to watch Billy play Madden, his phone rang. It was George.

“What’s going on?” George asked.

“Dude, y’all are so busted.” Patrick forced a laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“El and you on video, partially clothed, dancing, and El looks like you beat the shit out of her. Millie is freaking out because of all the twitters out there.”

“The tweets?”

“So...” Patrick prodded; he wanted to get the story from George. Frank, Stella’s father, had already called him, livid, with what Jesse had told him last night.

George sighed through the phone. “It’s a long story.”

“One that includes El getting drunk and dragged out of a bar in Atlanta and then being seen with a broken nose and black eyes, drunk with you in Key West?” Patrick asked, not letting on that he knew everything.

“I’m sure she was planning on telling you about this, but Jamie kidnapped her from the bar in Atlanta and took her to a house in the middle of the water in the fucking Keys. Her attorney, Greg, Jesse, and I came here to find her.”

Patrick couldn’t believe George told him that quickly.

“Um, so she had a locator on and we found her, but only after she was able to get away and steal his boat. We stayed in Key West to recuperate and relax a little.”

“Fuck. El…” Although Patrick knew this part, it was hard to allow the worry into his voice. “She’s okay, though… He dead?” This part he didn’t know.

“No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“We’ll fill you in when we get home. We’re leaving here today and will go through Atlanta first. We’ve got to smooth some things over with her parents and pick up Cooper. Then we’re headed back to Virginia.”

“Y’all need anything?” Patrick asked genuinely. He wanted to get back into El’s good graces, he just hadn’t figured out how yet. His foot was in the door, so he might as well just bust through it.

“Not right now, but I’m assuming the media is going to be all over us again?”

Patrick could hear the tension in George’s voice and he felt a little bad. They’d finally started to get a reprieve from the media circus that started after the Montana bombing/shooting shit. “Oh yeah, I mean, it’s insane. #georgebeatsstellasass. If I didn’t know y’all had been drunk for the past 15 hours, I’d wonder how you missed it.”

“For fuck’s sake,” George answered.

“She okay?” Patrick asked again.

“Surprisingly, yes. I mean, she’s still fucked up, but I don’t think she’s any more fucked up than she was.”

This was news, too. Jesse had told Frank that El had passed out before she told them anything other than she had been drugged and that Jamie had taken her to a house in the middle of the ocean, but she’d escaped. He wondered how she escaped without killing Jamie.

Patrick chuckled. “The video is hilarious, man.”

“Great,” George muttered.

“I’ll send it to you so you can see it.” Patrick laughed again. “I mean, you need help.”

“Fuck you, Patrick.” George laughed and hung up.

Patrick looked at Billy and nodded. “She’s okay.”

“How does she get in all this fucked up shit? I mean bombings, shootings, and fake deaths? It’s like we’re on
Dallas
or something. Are we going to wake up and all of this has been a dream?”

“I wish, dude.” Patrick grabbed Billy’s water off the table and drank the entire bottle. He let out a loud burp in Billy’s direction.

“That was an asshole move, man,” Billy commented, waving his hands at Patrick’s torso.

“You know, you just keep asking for shit to show up on YouTube or Twitter with all that.”

“With all what?” Patrick asked, amused.

“Taking your shirt off and running with your muscles.” He motioned again at Patrick’s torso, clad in skintight black Under Armor.

“You’re jealous.” Patrick flexed his abdominals and then just laughed at Billy, who was referencing a YouTube video that’d gone viral after El was in the hospital. Someone had videotaped him cutting the grass without a shirt on and it’d garnered over two million hits. It was hysterical, but irritating. Both his and Billy’s lives had changed multiple times since the enigma that was El had entered into their lives. Even their first meeting didn’t go exactly like Patrick had expected.