“But they’ll want to talk to me, I know,” the woman said, almost desperately, and the desk sergeant handed her a voucher with a patient air.
“This is a rehab clinic, honey. The officers you’re requesting are out right now, and you’re going to need help before then. Please—”
Grace couldn’t help but stare at the woman, wondering if that could have been him if Gabriel hadn’t been so careless with his dosage.
Grace had been primed to become a junkie because he hadn’t had anything else guiding him at the moment.
Josh’s shoulder bumping his own brought him back to the present. “It’s not you,” he said softly. “Never would have been.”
Usually, Grace would have feigned ignorance, but right now, with Hunter in the car, thinking Grace was worth something, he had to ask, “How do you know?”
“You were bored and lost and trying to impress an asshole, Grace. It was a perfect storm of your worst impulses. Look at all you’ve accomplished since then.”
They reached the double doors, burst outside, and Grace scowled. “I honestly can’t think of—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, dumbass. You’re the principal male dancer at Aether, and if I hadn’t dragged you away from school to help Felix, you’d be getting your degree by now. And”—Josh was trying and failing not to look like someone with secrets to hide—“we’re doing something fairly significant and important, even if we don’t have a certificate. So stop doing that, okay?”
“What?” Grace asked, but he knew.
“Stop trying to pretend that one shitty mistake in high school defines your entire existence. When I think about that night, I don’t think about how you’re a danger to yourself right now. I thank God you were okay and stopped doing what you were doing.”
“A good thing Gabriel left, though,” Grace said.
“Yeah,” Josh said. “Is that Hunter?”
“No—shit, where is he?”
Josh paused, unduly winded by their little jog, and they slowed down and walked toward the crosswalk, keeping a sharp eye on the people wandering by. Police stations tended not to be in the greatest parts of town. Go figure.
“Check your phone. We were in there a while. They probably made him—”
“Here he is.” Grace pointed to the approaching SUV. “He probably had to drive around the block.”
“Sure.” They waited until Hunter had pulled up to the curb, and then got in, Josh taking the back seat, to Grace’s surprise.
Grace always took the back seat. He was the second banana. Josh was the leader.
Why would Josh take the back seat? Was it to let Grace be near Hunter? Or was he trying to distract Grace from something el—
“How’d the meeting go?” Hunter asked.
“Good,” Josh told him. “But we need to have a family meeting in the den tonight because I’ve got a bad feeling about what went down in Vancouver.”
“What do you think it could be?” Hunter was smart; he respected Josh just like Nick did.
“Well, if Jenkins was working for Kadjic, he’d have no reason to try to steal the jewel. He had to have been working for someone else. He shows up without the jewel, they tell him to get it or else, he bugs our rooms and goes in and tells them that he’s got a plan, but it’s too late. You and I tracked the jewel to that compound—and we need to find out who’s there, still—and that’s probably Kadjic’s approved delivery place. Tazo and Verhoeven were part of the system. No questions, no lies. So all this we know. What we need to know is (a) how much information is on these gems, and (b) who was Jenkins working for. That’s what we need to get from tonight’s meeting before figuring out what to do about it.”
“What can we do?” Grace asked. It suddenly occurred to him that chasing this information could be like chasing a chipmunk who was chasing a nut attached to a string attached to a stick on top of his head. Up, down, around and around, through the forest, over the trees, into traffic, and they were dead. There needed to be an endgame.
“We could put together a case and tell the most appropriate federal agency,” Josh said, as though feeling his way. “That’s one way to go. Also, stop the next delivery so we can catch Kadjic in the act and maybe stop the competition. If we’re lucky, maybe we can do both those things at the same time so we can get the mobsters before they run Artur into the ground and steal Lucius’s last good project, and not put any of the blame for the bust at their feet.”
“I have to say,” Hunter mused, “this idea of dragging the Feds into it and spoon-feeding them the information to get the bad guys off the ground—that works for me. It’s like having a stealth army at our back and nobody goes gunning for us. We’re invisible.”
“There’s some bennies to working for thieves,” Josh told him smugly.
“We can also get you free leather jackets,” Grace said. “I would like a free leather jacket, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d like you to have a free leather jacket,” Hunter agreed. “Since you seem determined to wear that hoodie until it falls apart.”
“It’s soft,” Grace told him, and while that was the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth.
Hunter smiled like he knew what the whole truth was, and Grace wondered how they would get to be alone again so Hunter could deliver on that smile. Because Grace knew what that meant now, and it was worth being alone.
Traps and Pitfalls
DINNER PROVED to be a raucous, happy affair, with everybody telling Felix, Danny, Chuck, and Tabitha their favorite Vancouver story, including Lucius Broadstone, who said his absolute favorite moment was eating Thai food in the hotel room after Grace had climbed up his face.
“Your chest!” Grace protested.
“That was only by accident,” Broadstone maintained with grim humor.
“Oh, come now,” Chuck drawled. “You look pretty sturdy, Mr. Broadstone. I’m sure our Grace would have tiptoed so delicately up your face, you could have sold it to a spa as a beauty treatment.”
“Yes, I’ll put that to my research and development crew immediately,” Broadstone retorted. “All he’ll need is some loofahs on his feet and a little bit of fancy soap.”
“Now we’re talking!” Chuck grinned back, unperturbed, and Hunter wondered if he was the only one who saw the sparks of challenge flying between the two.
“Maybe I don’t want to run up people’s faces,” Grace said randomly. “Maybe I want to have my fortune read instead. Or maybe get a sandwich.”
“A sandwich,” Hunter asked, unable, as usual, to resist Grace’s non sequiturs wherever they may be headed.
“It sounds good when comedians say it,” Grace pondered. “Do you think sandwich is just a funny word?”
“Right?” Josh said. “It’s like jam or the moon—it’s totally out of left field. Makes whatever you’re talking about funnier.”
Grace nodded. “I mean, I guess I could want mochi. That’s sort of random too.”
“So’s shawarma,” Tabby added.