He took a deep breath, and Ellery tried to still the hammering of his heart. He should have known. Ellery was afraid because it could have been Jackson. Jackson was shaking because he thought it should have been.
“There was nothing you could do,” Ellery said. “Jackson, there was nothing you could do. I know you’d switch places. I hate it,” he added passionately, “but that’s the man I love. Please believe me—believe yourself—there’s nothing you could do.”
Jackson nodded, gave a hard shudder, and held Ellery tight again. “I’ll meet you at the jail,” he said, his voice under control again. “I’ll text you as soon as Dave or Alex send me word.”
Dave and Alex were his friends from UCD Med Center, and Ellery was grateful for them. Jackson would have worried himself sick if he hadn’t had a way to know about Kryzynski.
“Play nice with the policemen,” Ellery said, trying to smile.
Jackson leaned back and regarded him with sober green eyes. “I’ll try not to worry you any more than I have to,” he said, and then he kissed Ellery again, quick and hard, like he was trying to warm Ellery’s soul.
Ellery let him, thinking of all the times he’d blown off the concern, tried to cajole Ellery out of the worry, pretended like he didn’t court danger with every step.
The acknowledgment was new, and it was hopeful. That he knew Ellery worried, that he’d try not to worry him more, was considerate in ways Jackson had been learning to be throughout the last year.
He’d taken to the new wardrobe, he’d let the car thing slide, he’d been taking care of himself because he knew he was important.
If Ellery was honest, there had been times this last year when he’d thought he’d never see Jackson Rivers be this much of a grown-up, and he’d learned enough in that time to take the win.
“I only worry because I love you,” he said, not sure if Jackson got that.
Jackson winked. “It’s why I can deal,” he said. His expression sobered, and he placed one last kiss on Ellery’s forehead before moving himself toward the door and slipping out. “I’ll text you when we’re done,” he said, and then he was gone.
Ellery permitted himself a lean back and the count of ten to pull himself back together before he walked down the hallway to finish talking with Galen and Jade.
GALEN WAS still studying the two files when Ellery reentered the conference room, but his smirk was unmistakable. “All those last-minute instructions delivered?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Mostly to come home in one piece,” Ellery replied, not sure if he had it in him to play coy.
To his surprise, Galen’s smirk disappeared, and the look he returned was all compassion. “I understand he has a problem with that. Well, if it’s reassuring at all, my boyfriend used to forget sunscreen fairly constantly, and he’s practically self-combusting. I finally told him that I’d love him even if they had to cut off his nose from skin cancer, but he might feel a bit self-conscious.”
Ellery couldn’t help it; he covered his mouth to stop a snicker. He’d met Galen’s boyfriend, a rather manic, skinny ginger porn-mogul who liked to film guys having sex, and also tried hard to make sure they were grown-ups when they weren’t in the bedroom. Ellery came from a family strong in liberal politics but academic and professional. It hadn’t been until Ellery had actually met John Carey that he’d realized that sex work didn’t have to be sleazy, and that the more professional it was allowed to be, the more protected the workers. He’d met some of John Carey’s employees. They were sweet young men, and John himself was exactly the kind of “idea guy” who would run off and cook his fragile freckled skin until it peeled off his face.
“Poor John,” he said. “I bet he swims in zinc oxide all summer.”
Galen huffed out a breath. “He has the most obnoxious hats.”
Ellery couldn’t help his smile. “The only way I could get Jackson to wear new clothes was if I made sure his new T-shirts were as obnoxious as the old ones.”
Galen met his smile and nodded. “So, let me tell you what’s bothering me about these two files,” he said, his expression flattening out to his shrewd-lawyer look. “Ms. Cameron, if you move in a little closer, you can take down my notes, and we can all share the same brain.”
Jade did so, and Ellery noted that her own smile gentled as she leaned in. Galen’s bone-deep Southern courtesy had that effect on her.
“So,” Galen said thoughtfully, “when a corporation is planning a takeover, a number of things have to be in place. One company’s stock has to be cheap enough to buy, the other company has to have enough liquid cash to purchase it, and all the trustees on both boards have to be in a place where this looks like the smartest option. You both understand?”
Ellery met Jade’s eyes, and they both nodded.
“Good. There’s a lot of moving parts. But a lot of movies—many of them heist movies—have been made about tweaking each of those moving parts to make sure the outcome is orchestrated rather than random, right?”
“Right,” Ellery said. “Distract the president of one company while the other company is buying stock. Cause a disaster in one company so the stock sales plummet. Trade information before it’s due out to do the same thing. Acquisitions and mergers are pretty cutthroat, from what I understand.”
Galen nodded. “Exactly. Now, I can’t tell you what the corporations are here. Maybe drugs, but drugs are commonplace, and….” He grimaced as though looking for the right words.
“Most drug dealers aren’t that smart,” Ellery said, thinking about the ones they’d dealt with at the beginning of the summer. “And if they are that smart, they’re trying to commit fewer crimes instead of more of them, to keep attention off their activities.”
“Exactly,” Galen agreed. “So I can’t tell you who is taking over what. But think about this. This Ziggy Ivanov had to set up Mr. Townsend and get the attention of the world’s dumbest policemen to come arrest him. There had to be a reason for that. What were they distracting the policemen from? Then the next night, they framed the Dobrevk kid for the murder of a witness to the original crime. Ziggy is the guy moving from crime scene to crime scene, but he’s motivated by something. He doesn’t strike me as a mastermind. The guy who went after the files in the public defender’s office is probably higher up the food chain. He failed, so Ziggy is called in as a Hail Mary. Ziggy is a low-level corporate fixer, but one who wants to move up. That’s why he’s so very busy. He’s ambitious. Is the guy who tried to get the file at the PD’s office under guard?”
Ellery nodded. “Sean’s partner is there—at a different hospital from Sean.”
Galen nodded. “That is fortuitous,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find that more than one attempt is made on our coma patient’s life.”
Ellery nodded. “Loose ends. The Dobrevk file is about tying up loose ends.”
“Exactly,” Galen said. He gave a brief smile. “Corporations and criminals. People are forever surprised at how similar they can be.”