Not Disneyland
“DISNEYLAND?” ELLERY asked as Jackson and Dex made their way into the small surgery waiting room they’d been shown to after giving Henry’s name. Crystal and AJ were sitting behind him, appearing tired and worried, as did Jackson’s sister—and Ellery’s paralegal—Jade and her boyfriend, Mike, sitting kitty corner to them, and Galen, who was obviously stoic and in pain and exhausted in the bank of chairs to the rear of the tiny room. John had moved a stack of newspapers under Galen’s injured leg and was pacing back and forth out of everybody’s line of sight, pausing every time he drew near Galen to brush his shoulder with anxious fingers.
Ellery knew there were more people coming. As soon as Crystal had deactivated the tracking app that had been remotely opened on his phone after it had been cloned, John had been texting the boys Henry and Lance mentored almost nonstop, as he was pacing. Part of that had involved finding a friend to get Isabelle’s kittens out of Ellery’s car and take them safely home, but most of it had been for Henry.
Henry had come to Sacramento nearly a year ago, and he’d been surly and angry and deeply disappointed by life.
Once he’d come to accept himself, though, and both the good and the bad in his own heart, he’d blossomed. Ellery hadn’t been the only one to see it. Henry was now not just worried about—he was beloved .
Which was why Ellery had understood Jackson’s need to haul out into the rainy dark to find Isabelle and Cowboy and get them to safety. But that didn’t mean he’d been okay with it, even knowing Jackson had no choice in the matter.
“Shh!” Jackson held his finger to his lips. “Nobody but us knows. I’m, uhm, calling Cotton and his friends to see if they can, you know, escort them for a couple days. After a week, at the very least, we should know what we’re working with.” Jackson let out a breath, and Ellery filled in the blanks.
“And if we need to contact the federal marshals or not,” he said grimly.
Jackson was sopping wet and probably not aware he was shivering hard enough for his teeth to chatter. “I swear to God, Ellery, if I thought they’d be safer in the hands of the authorities, I’d call them.”
Ellery nodded grimly. “I hear you,” he said. “And I know they’re in good hands. I just… do we know what our next move is?”
Jackson opened his mouth, his shoulders and feet already turning toward the door, and Ellery felt a shaft of fear. This was not the first time Jackson had gone haring off into a dark night, angry and hurt and dangerous. The first time, he had almost not returned. Ellery didn’t have nightmares often—certainly not on the scale of Jackson’s demons—but when he did, he would dream about the day he came home to find Jackson asleep and feverish in their bed, except… Jackson wasn’t there.
And Billy Bob was gone too.
“Stay,” he blurted, reaching out to catch Jackson’s hand. “Just… stay until we know if he’s stable. Stay and plan with me and John and Galen. If nothing else it will give them something to do. Stay and see how your friend is doing. Please.”
Stay, so if the worst happens, you’re not alone. Please, baby, just for a moment, just for a heartbeat, stay and comfort me.
Because Ellery loved Henry too.
Jackson’s half-out-the-door position shifted, and he turned his shoulders toward Ellery and squeezed his hand. “I was going to get the flophouse guys,” Jackson murmured. “Dex said they’re all gathered in the entrance to the ER. They won’t know to come in here.”
He leaned forward then, as if to kiss Ellery’s cheek, and Dex, who had been at his shoulder, said, “I’ll get them, Jackson. I think Kane’s here too, with Frances.”
Ellery took in David Worrall’s strained expression. “Go,” he said. “Bring them back here. Worrying in a big group is a lot easier than worrying alone.”
Dex nodded, and Jackson watched him go. Ellery could feel his muscles straining to follow him, but after a brief squeeze of the hand, Jackson focused his attention on Ellery and gave a brief acknowledging smile.
And a shudder.
God, Ellery knew how much Jackson hated hospitals.
“We need to talk to John and Galen,” he said after a moment, before peering around. “Where’s Lance?”
Ellery grimaced. “Trying to find somebody to come in for him and work his shift,” he said, not wanting to tell Jackson about Lance’s real state of mind. “And probably—”
“Freaking the fuck out,” Jackson muttered.
Ellery gave a little laugh. “Never stopped you from doing your job.” He took a deep breath and gave one last hand squeeze. “Come on. Let’s update.”
John had stopped his manic pacing, and Galen was standing, going through a set of stretches that appeared to be a familiar regimen. Both men were wearing sweats and hoodies, and Ellery was surprised to see Jackson pull out his phone and snap a picture.
“What in the hell ?” Galen demanded, honestly surprised.
“It’s for Henry,” Jackson said, only a muscle in his cheek betraying his worry. “Because if I tell him you were wearing sweats and not a suit, he’ll think I’m lying. He told me once he was pretty sure you had cotton suits made, complete with vests and jackets, to sleep in.”
Galen’s surprised snort of laughter was followed by an immediate panicked expression of horror.
“It’s okay if you laugh,” John said dryly, coming up behind him and putting a gentle hand on his hip. “He wouldn’t have told you that if he wasn’t trying to lighten the mood.”
Galen swallowed and then nodded. “I… I am most upset,” he said, obviously tamping down on a great deal more than “upset.” “To take a simple job of babysitting and use it to become a hero? Rude.” Galen faked a disgusted sniff. “Had to make it all about saving the nice lady and the kid. Not a thought for the rest of us. How could he?”
“That’s my boy,” John murmured quietly, and Galen nodded, obviously calmed down enough to assume his favorite mantle of disdain.
“Good,” Jackson said. “I need you both here in mind and spirit. I assume Crystal has taken care of your phones?”
“Yes,” Galen said, disgruntled. “Apparently mine was the culprit—it had been cloned, I assume, when I was sitting at one of the tables under the eaves while John and Cowboy went in to get food.”
“So she must have seen you all go in,” Jackson said, nodding. “Okay. Good. I think it was a really shitty accident that had Retty there—”
“Cowboy confirmed her name?” Ellery asked, and Jackson made a face.
“And gave me another one—sort of,” he said. “And an idea about power structure. I’m going tomorrow to talk to them again, after the kid’s had a good night’s sleep and feels safe, and then they’re all vamoosing.”
“Wait—who all?” John asked.
When Jackson spoke next, Ellery could tell he still didn’t entirely trust that they weren’t being bugged. “K-Ski and his boyfriend.”
John and Galen glanced at each other. “Oh,” John said carefully, his eyes darting around. “I think it’s safe to talk, Jackson. Are they okay with the situation?”
This time Ellery actually saw his shoulders twitch. “You’re right,” Jackson muttered. “Dammit. It’s me and hospitals. Ramps up my paranoia. You wouldn’t be lieve how bad. Anyway, yeah. Dex’ll tell you the details, though. He offered to pony up the money.” Jackson had spent, quite literally, years of his life recovering from injuries he’d incurred on the job. The more he came in, the worse his fear of hospitals got. He hadn’t said a word until now, but he was sure John knew how much Jackson hated it here.
He loved Ellery—and Henry—more.
“Course,” John said with a shrug. “Whatever they need.” Then he asked the obvious question. “We’re not trusting them in protective custody?”
Jackson and Ellery both shook their heads. “Not until we get a better idea of what’s going on,” Jackson said. “I can tell you what I know, and then tomorrow, when we’re doing research and running down leads, you’ll have an idea of where to go with this.”
“These women wield a lot of power,” Ellery said quietly. “Still. You know that. And for better or worse, if Cowboy comes forward to testify, he’s not the one who’s going to be exposed.”
“I can handle it,” John said staunchly, but Ellery found himself, surprisingly enough, shaking his head.
“You and Galen do far too much good,” he said. “And if you ever tell my mother I said that, I’ll deny it. But you protect a lot of vulnerable young men with your businesses, and they would be exposed too. No. Let’s see if we can run down some information that will allow the DA to build a case without exposing Cowboy or Henry to having to testify.” He glanced at Galen, who, he had to admit, had become to him what Henry had become to Jackson in the last year. “You know how these things work, Galen. You know that the people who end up hurt are very often the ones in the spotlight, not the ones who committed the crime.”
Galen grunted and nodded. “I find your keenness of intellect quite disturbing sometimes,” he said at last.
“I’ve heard worse,” Ellery returned, in what Jackson liked to call his “prissy” voice. “Jackson, give us some details before this room gets very crowded and Lance gets here.”
His voice might have wobbled on the part about Lance getting there, and Jackson shot him a sharp glance that said he knew more about Lance’s fury that Henry had gotten hurt on their watch than Ellery had first let on.
Jackson outlined what they knew, his twitchiness easing as he got deeper into the case.
“So this ‘Retty’ carries out the commands and ‘Mrs. Twitty’ calls the shots,” John said thoughtfully, and Galen made a face.
“The names are unfortunate,” he pronounced, but John shook his head.
“No, I get it—it’s like Johnnies. Some of the kids keep their names long after they’ve quit the business. That was their identity, and they hold on to it. Retty and Twitty, no matter who they are now , have a history where these names meant something.” His murky green eyes sought out Jackson’s. “That’s what you meant by us having to run down leads,” he said.
Jackson nodded. “Yes, exactly. Also, John, you have contact with the kids who have recently come off the streets. Usually Henry is our contact—”
“Or Isabelle,” John murmured glumly.
“But you need to do this for us,” Jackson urged. “Ask them if they’ve heard of anything like this. As old as it makes us all feel, these women have been here for, what? Two years? They’ve come after school libraries, and some of your kids might have been affected. Tell them it’s for Isabelle and I’m sure they’ll do it.”
John grunted. “And now that we all feel ancient, yes, I’ll do that. I haven’t visited that side of the business in a few days. Dex and I promised to keep our noses in.” He shrugged. “It’s an easy business to exploit the models in. We made promises that we wouldn’t let that happen. Just because we’re working the other sides of the business now, the ones where everybody keeps their clothes on, there’s no reason to break that promise, right?”
“Right,” Ellery said, wondering if he should tell his mother about John and Dex’s involvement, because if anybody could help keep them separate and safe, she could.
“Good,” Jackson said. “I’ll run down the—”
And before he could finish his plan, the waiting room grew very loud and very excited.
Dex and the flophouse boys had arrived.
WHEN ELLERY had been a teenager focused on academic success—and filled with moral rectitude and sexual frustration—he used to dream of being in a room with affable, well-muscled young men who thought nothing of draping their arms over his shoulders and telling him how glad they were to see him.
As a man in his thirties, with a fiancé he loved more than he had ever imagined loving anybody , he found the experience… unnerving.
“Dear God,” he said to Jackson as the fifth kid from the flophouse left off hugging him and went to hug John, “are any of them wearing sweatshirts?”
Jackson—who often spent his weekends playing basketball with the guys or assisting Henry with their mentoring, shook his head.
“It’s March, Ellery—we’re lucky they’re wearing shirts .”
Ellery shot him a disbelieving glance, but Jackson nodded soberly, and Ellery thanked his lucky stars until a really big kid, in his early twenties, with the grave, sober look of somebody much older, approached. This one did have a jacket on—denim, but it still counted—and so did his boyfriend, a smaller, almost bandy-legged man who was close to Ellery’s age but who had the open, trusting expression of a child.
“My mom,” said the taller of the two. “Jackson, Ellery, is my mom all right?”
Jackson turned to Bobby—Isabelle Roberts still called him Vern but nobody else did—and gave him a tight smile.
“Yeah, kid. We’ve got your mom stashed someplace safe, and the boy they were protecting too. Henry, he was working really hard to make sure they got away.”
“But who?” Reg, his boyfriend, asked plaintively. “Who would want to hurt his mom? She’s such a nice lady and—”
“Rivers?”
The hard, angry voice from the doorway made Ellery’s heart sink. Jackson turned toward the door with a mask of careful neutrality. He wasn’t going to get angry back at Lance, Ellery realized. No matter how mad Lance Luna was, Jackson was going to take it.
“Hey, Lance,” Jackson said, softly but loud enough to carry. “I’m glad you could get off your shift. The guys have missed you.”
That set Lance back a moment, Ellery could tell. It pulled his focus to the mass of bodies in the room, the kids from the flophouse that Lance helped Henry mentor, and Ellery saw the exact moment Lance swallowed down enough of his fury to deal with Jackson in an adult way and not with the misplaced anger of a child.
Ellery tried to remember the moment he’d faced adulthood like that, and what he came up with was when he’d walked into a witness interrogation room to interview Jackson’s brother—and met a large, well-muscled Black man with two children and a deep distrust of lawyers who was Jackson’s brother in all the ways that counted.
Letting go of your preconceptions and your prejudices was always the most adult moment of your life, Ellery thought ruefully—and it should hurt.
He just really didn’t want Jackson to be the one in the fallout.
“Can I speak to you out here, please?” Lance asked from between his teeth, and Jackson gave Ellery an absent pat, as though Ellery—and John and Galen and Bobby—weren’t following him out to the corridor.
Jackson went through the door first, though, and he caught the solid left to his jaw.
“What in the hell !” Bobby was the one who caught Lance’s flailing arms, and John—smaller, not nearly as built—thrust himself between Lance and Jackson while Ellery bent to help him up.
“I’m fine,” Jackson muttered, shaking his shoulders and spitting blood. “C’mon, Lance, you gonna hit me again? Get it out. Go ahead and let him, John. He’s been dying to say this since Henry started working for us.”
“ How could you !” Lance howled, obviously taking Jackson at his word even while Bobby pinned his shoulders. “How could you? He trusted you! What did you have him doing? He went over to your house to play video games and then, what? You took him on a run? One more fucking run when you felt like hell? Is that what happened? You took him on a run and got him shot , you fucker! Shot !”
“ That’s not what happened !” Bobby shouted, and he must have wrenched on Lance as he hollered because Lance let out a sudden bark of pain.
“Bobby,” John said, his voice level and almost kind, “you are still officially on probation, remember? If security runs in here, we can’t fix that. Reg, you grab Lance.”
Reg, who was built like an average guy who worked out regularly, and not like a brick shithouse like the rest of the Johnnies boys, stepped forward gamely, but Dex was the one who took over for Bobby. Lance, aware suddenly that two men he admired and probably owed, if Dex and John’s history of helping their models out meant anything, were physically restraining him, sagged in Dex’s grip.
“What happened?” he gasped, his voice warbling but not broken, not yet.
“Lance,” Bobby said, bending down to make sure Lance saw his eyes. “It was my mom, dude. Henry was shot at my mom’s place. She was taking care of a kid, and Henry went there after he left Jackson’s. Jackson just ran through the rain and helped Dex find my mom and the kid. He didn’t get Henry shot, he saved my mom .”
“Your mom?” Lance shook his head like an awakening sleeper. “Bobby, man, why would somebody try to shoot your mom?”
“It was the kid she was guarding,” John said softly. “And Bobby, I’m sorry. The kid was scared, so we called Jackson and Ellery to tell them the story, but in a million years, we had no idea what kind of danger this kid was in. He… he was another street kid who hit on us, you know?”
“Like Cotton,” Bobby said. “And Randy. I know. Mom’s been….” He took his own deep breath. “She’s really proud of what you and her and Galen do. Getting the kids off the street. Getting them help. You take care of us. You always have.” He turned that prematurely wise face toward Lance. “I don’t know what you’ve got against Rivers, man, but you have got to let it go. This wasn’t his fault. This was the fucker who shot Henry’s fault, and that’s all there was to it.”
Lance turned stricken eyes toward Jackson, who was glaring at him and spitting blood like he was ready to take another blow, and said, “Then why were you there? Why were you even at the apartment when Henry got shot?”
“He called me,” Jackson told him. “He called me when the assailant got to the apartment. We hauled ass over there while we were calling the cops.” He paused and glanced at Ellery. “Where the fuck are they, by the way?”
“Oh, we got your buddies,” John said. “Fetzer and Hardison. They took one glance at Ellery and told us they’d meet us here.”
“Oh shit,” Jackson muttered. “I’ve got to talk to cops tonight.” He gave Lance a sour look, his mouth puffy and a bruise already swelling under his eye. “Can somebody let him go so he can get me some fuckin’ ice?”
“I’ll get you ice, baby,” said a familiar voice. Ellery glanced over Lance’s shoulder to see a tall, whisper-thin Black man in nurse’s scrubs swanning down the corridor behind Lance. “And you”—he glared at Lance—“you go in that room with all your friends and try to remember your fucking manners before the security officers get here. I’d lie to them personally, but they’re nice men and I don’t wanna, so get gone.”
“Fuck,” Lance muttered, and it wasn’t Ellery’s imagination—apparently the fight and then getting the wind taken out of his sails had been what was needed to break him. Good. When Ellery had seen him last the man had been wound so tight he’d been going to shatter. Maybe a solid one-two punch of fury and guilt had softened him up enough to simply fracture, because that was easier to heal.
“Yes, fuck,” Dave retorted. He gave Bobby an assessing once-over. “If you promise not to kill him, you can go now.”
“I’ll go too,” John said, pausing to let Galen take his arm.
“You were going to let that gigantic teenager kill you,” Galen said accusingly.
“He’s a grown-assed man,” John said. “He’s a doctor, even.”
“I don’t care.” Galen grunted. “You and the letting people beat up on you. You suck. I can’t believe you talked me into bed the first time.”
John let out his goofy little laugh. “You begged me the first time. It was the tenth or the fifteenth that were surprises to me. All the rest could be ascribed to a lapse in judgment.”
“Junkies are known to have them,” Galen retorted, and Ellery watched fondly as the porn mogul and the lawyer made their slow way back into the waiting room.
Lance was still there, and in spite of Dave’s obvious dismissal, so were Bobby, Reg, and Dex—and Dex hadn’t released Lance’s arms.
“I’m okay,” Lance said softly. “Dex, you can let me go now.”
“Can I?” Dex asked softly. “Because Kane’s coming down the hall with Frances in a few minutes, and it would really put a crimp in her day to wonder why her uncle Lance is being mean to Uncle Henry’s friend.”
Lance closed his eyes, like that last one was the worst blow that could have landed. “I promise,” he said, his voice throbbing with hurt. “I’m under control now.”
“God, I hope so,” Dex muttered in disgust before dropping his arms. “For the record? So you know? Rivers is sopping wet because he chased down two buses in the rain making sure Bobby’s mom and the boy she’s caring for are safe, because that’s what my brother begged him to do before the EMTs got there. So whatever bug is up your ass about what Henry does for a living, shit it out right now, because you just hit the wrong fucking guy.” He glanced at Bobby and Reg, pulling them with him with a jerk of his chin. “C’mon, guys. Let’s let them talk.”
“I’ll be back with ice,” Dave said, and Jackson stilled him with a hand on his arm.
“Is there, you know,” he murmured, “any news?”
Dave shook his head. “Our boy’s with one of the best surgeons in the place. Don’t worry, we love Dr. Luna around here, although I couldn’t tell you why right now. But we made sure Henry was well taken care of.”
“Thanks,” Jackson said, and then it was Ellery, Jackson, and Lance.
Ellery was still standing between them.
“I said I’m fine,” Lance said like a penitent schoolboy.
“Don’t touch him again,” Ellery said, his voice like ice. “I know I’m not the violent one, but I have other ways of doing damage—”
“Ellery, it’s fine,” Jackson said.
Ellery turned toward him, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. “No, it’s not,” he said. “You’d die for Henry—I know that, Jackson. I’ve accepted it. The fact that Lance doesn’t makes him worse than a bad friend. It makes him a bad partner , because he doesn’t know what Henry would die for, and worse? He doesn’t care. So he doesn’t get to take it out on you. We love Henry too, and he just disrespected everything Henry stands for.” Ellery’s jaw was clenched so tight his head hurt as he whirled on Lance. “You make your peace with us, with Henry, now . He thinks you love him. I would hate to be there when he finds out you only think you do.”
Jackson sucked air in through his teeth, and Lance Luna’s eyes went wide and shiny.
“Ou. Ch.” Jackson took Ellery’s arm and moved him gently, but Ellery wasn’t leaving that hallway.
“He can say his piece to me, Jackson.”
“Sure he can,” Jackson murmured. “When you stop breathing fire, okay?”
Ellery scowled, and unexpectedly, Jackson grinned at him, his face still a little swollen from a punch he hadn’t had to take.
“You’re sexy when you’re all het up,” he said, and Ellery recognized the same energy as when he’d taken the picture of Galen.
“Fine,” he muttered, his face heating. “Talk.”
He finally stepped aside and cast Lance an unfriendly look. Jackson stepped forward and said softly, “How is he? The EMTs booty bumped me, and I didn’t get a full assessment of his injuries.”
Lance swallowed and glanced involuntarily to Jackson’s hands. Ellery hadn’t noticed before, but although Jackson had obviously washed since then, there was still blood on the cuffs and pocket of his hooded sweatshirt. Jackson glanced down at the same time, and an absolute silence fell.
“Shoulder and stomach,” Lance said after an audible breath. “Small caliber bullets, fired through plaster at close range. They didn’t fragment, and their velocity was significantly slowed, so it’s only the two wounds, but the slow bullets left big holes. There was organ damage.” He let out a breath. “They’re going to be stitching up a lot of that. When he’s recovering, infection is going to be a real problem.”
“When,” Jackson whispered, and Ellery heard it, the desperation to know there would be a “when.”
“Prognosis sixty percent,” Lance said, his voice as quavery as a bad flute.
“He can….” Jackson took a breath. “This is Henry,” he said at last. “He’s… he’s really strong.”
“But he’s my Henry,” Lance almost wailed. “And he’s all I’ve got―”
“No,” Jackson said, and Ellery willed Lance to break. Willed him to let go. “You’ve got a whole room of brothers in there. Why would they desert you now?”
“Because they love Henry best,” Lance said with a little shake of his shoulders. “How could they not —”
Jackson moved first, bridging the gap between the two of them, wrapping his arms around Lance’s big shoulders. “Course they do,” Ellery heard him whisper. “He’s our Henry. That’s what he does. Make a difference in our lives, right?”
But Lance was too busy sobbing to answer.
AN HOUR later, Lance was huddled with the rest of the Johnnies guys, and Bobby, Galen, and John were huddling with Jackson, Ellery, Jade, Mike, AJ, and Crystal.
“You sent my mom to Disneyland?” Bobby was saying for maybe the thousandth time. Once Jackson had a chance to confer with Crystal, who was even more ethereal in a one-piece catsuit pajama with AJ’s hooded sweatshirt over her thin shoulders and her brown hair waving around her face like plant fronds, Jackson was much more forthcoming about the state of things.
“Yeah, Bobby,” Jackson told him. “I’d say go join her, but….” He let out a breath.
“We don’t know how much these people have figured out about the place she shot up,” Ellery finished for him. “This Retty person took off, and as Jackson said, she reports to somebody. They’re going to be searching for Isabelle and Cowboy, but I don’t think they’ll expect either one of them to have the resources to go so far away.”
“But why Disneyland?” Bobby asked, legitimately puzzled. “She… we never got a chance to go when I was a kid.”
“Couple of reasons,” Jackson said, smiling a little. “One, the boy she had with her hasn’t had a chance to be a kid in a while. I thought sending him someplace where he could, you know, be fourteen—that would be beneficial. And it’s far away. K-Ski is in law enforcement. He’ll be prepared to keep track of both of them. Billy’s done sex work—voluntarily, but he’s still worked with guys who were on the streets and had to learn how to function when they landed. Which is why I sent Cotton down there, with a few of Jason’s friends from down south.”
“Ernie loves Disneyland,” Crystal said dreamily, and everybody’s heads swiveled toward her—not least because she’d never met Ernie, and she definitely hadn’t been there for the conversation. “The other guys were sort of involved, so they sent him and Sonny with Cotton.” She closed her large eyes as though she was falling asleep. “They’ll have adventures and be fine,” she murmured.
“Do we even—” Ellery began, but Jackson shook his head.
“Don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask, don’t ask…,” he muttered, and given how comfortable with Crystal’s clairvoyance Ellery was not , he left it at that.
“So you sent them there so they could be protected,” Bobby said, and for the first time his composure slipped. “Thanks, Jackson. That means a lot.” He swallowed. “She’s my mom , man.”
“Have you been paying attention?” Jackson asked, glancing around the room. “Dude, everybody here has asked to make sure she’s okay. She’s everybody’s mom. You don’t let the team mom get hurt on your watch.” He gave a crooked smile. “I think Henry’s proved that already.”
Bobby nodded, and Jackson turned toward the people from their office. Ellery knew that the numbness of waiting had set in, and now that everybody’s fears about the phones had well and truly been put to rest, it was time for them to get to doing what they did best.
“We need to know,” Jackson said, glancing at Ellery, “how much pull the Stepford Dragons have. That’s you and Galen. You need to look into their contacts, who they’re in bed with, and what sorts of things they’re permitted for. If Cowboy and his friends were taken into that big house off W Street—that’s where it is, right?” He turned to John and Galen, who nodded. “If he was taken in there, and there were other kids, we need to see if they’re permitted to have kids there. Are they a school? Are they a shelter? What rights do they have in terms of keeping kids there against their wills?”
“Conversion therapy is illegal in California,” Ellery said quickly. “But it’s not banned in places in the south and the Midwest.”
“Do we know where this group was spawned?” Jackson asked. “Because we need to contact their headquarters in other places to see.”
“That sounds like a job for me and AJ,” Jade said. “Ellery and Galen can do the calling because they’re all lawyerfied and shit, but AJ and I will be doing the research in the morning, right, AJ?”
She held out her hand, and AJ, their general dogsbody and secondary tech guy, gave her five because you didn’t leave your good friend hanging. AJ’s pale brown skin was even paler under the fluorescent lights, but he’d been keeping his orange curls cut tight to his head to look “professional.” The lost junkie Jackson had pulled out of hell was gone now, and the young man who was left looked ready to take on any task he was given.
“Fair,” Galen said, and then peered perceptively at Jackson. “And what will you be doing?” he asked.
Jackson grimaced. “Well, I’m starting with the boy’s mother, to see how the kid ended up there. He said she had the Stepford Dragons come to his apartment to take him away. I want to know what made her think that was a good idea.”
They all nodded, but Ellery got a low bubbling in his stomach because he knew that wasn’t all. “And?” he prompted.
“Well, I was going to follow down what she tells me, and then tomorrow evening go explore the grounds.”
Ellery nodded, and before Jade could go off—Jackson’s hot-blooded sister had her hackles up for good reason—he said, “You and who else?”
Jackson blinked bleary, bloodshot eyes at him, and Ellery felt every second of every minute of every hour that neither of them had slept that night. “Ellery,” he said, as though Ellery had committed an unforgivable faux pas in public, “Henry’s injured !”
“I know he is,” Ellery confirmed. “We’re all here for exactly that reason. He’s injured because he didn’t think he needed backup. Sadly, he did, and none of us knew it, but we know it now . Jackson, who’s your backup?”
Jackson opened his mouth and closed it and glanced around, almost like he was looking for volunteers.
“Mike would kill me,” Jade said calmly. “And I’ll be needed in the office. Sorry, sweetheart, but this gun-toting badass has to go administrate for the greater good.”
Jackson rolled his eyes, and then, with the jerky movements of a drowning man, glanced around the room.
Ellery saw the moment his eyes landed on Dex and lit up, and then fell on Kane, next to him, rocking his sleeping niece over his shoulder. Once Frances had learned she’d been shuttled out of bed and down to her uncle Evan’s house because Uncle Henry had been hurt, she’d apparently harangued Kane into turning around and going back to the hospital so she could wait to see if Uncle Henry would be okay.
Kane and Dex would be okay backup, Ellery thought critically. Good in a fight—they were both stacked—and they’d be loyal to a fault. But they had no law enforcement background, no weapons training, and they both had the appearance of men who had enjoyed settling down and found being comfortable everything it was cracked up to be.
Jackson saw it too.
He’d sent Sean Kryzynski to Disneyland with their witnesses. Sean’s partner, Andre, was going to be absolutely vital to feed them information from the SACPD precinct, and he couldn’t be spending his time helping Jackson.
Jackson was opening his mouth, obstinate look in his eyes, probably to say he didn’t need no stinking backup, when there was a quiet commotion at the door to the waiting room. Ellery glanced up, hoping for Henry’s surgeon, and he heard Jackson’s weary sigh in his bones.
The cops had arrived.