20. Micah
“We’re catching a little noise over here in Copeland.” Archer walks amongst loud traffic and busy city streets a long way from where Felix and I are, his breaths coming a little faster and backed up commuters honking their horns as they wait in filthy summer heat. “Who the fuck is Joseph Wilkes, and why have I heard his name before?”
“He’s a bitch,” Lix answers before I can, his legs splayed wide and his hands busy flicking a lighter to life. Then closing it. Open. Closed. We’re in his car, heading from Harlem to Manhattan from one meeting to the next. “He’s looking for power and notoriety. But he’s yet to show his face when I’m around.”
“So he’s sending soldiers to the front line to mess with you?”
“Essentially.” Like Felix, my hands need something to fidget with. My fingers need something to keep them busy. So I dip my right hand into my pocket and trace the etchings on the side of my knife. While outside this car, I spot an FBI van a full block before we pass it. “He’s spineless, like Pastore was. Lots of noise, but no action. He sends his minions out to bother us, but has yet to step up personally.”
“So what are you gonna do about it?” Archer steps inside a building, so the sound surrounding his call changes from open air to something else. Still loud. But… less. “If I’m hearing things all the way over here, then it’s an issue. My captain is hearing things, too. My wife is curious. And Cato’s ready to fight.”
“Cato needs to sit down and study,” Felix grits out. “You tie him down and shut him up, Arch.”
“Doing my best,” he grunts. “Wilkes?”
“We’re meeting with someone in an hour or so,” I murmur. “This guy, Terrance, says he has information for us.”
“And so you just… You just go to these things now? No forethought for the fact that Terrance could be baiting you?”
“Aww, is that concern I hear?” Felix taunts. “It wasn’t so long ago you refused to even entertain a call. Now you’re checking in and warning us against danger?”
“Just doing my bit to keep everyone alive. It’s my job.”
“You’re a homicide detective,” Lix chuckles. “Your job is to spend time with dead people. How’s the good doctor, anyway? She still sexy?”
“Christabelle’s gonna smack the bullshit right out of you,” Archer growls. “You were always too fuckin’ stupid for your own good. Now you’ve gone ahead and fallen in love with a woman strong enough to set you straight.”
“Oh, and on that note,” Lix meets my eyes and grins. “Micah’s in loooooove.”
“Lix!”
“What?” Archer questions. “Who?”
“She’s no?—”
“Tiia Hale,” Felix sing-songs. “She’s got that islander appearance, a sexy year-round tan, long dark hair, which we all know is alllll our type, and a mouth on her that’ll keep even the most formidable man on his best behavior.”
“Micah?” Archer is far less boisterous than Felix. Quieter. More sensitive. “You met a woman you like enough to introduce to Felix?”
“We had dinner last night,” Felix preens. “And she’s coming back tonight. You should come, too!” Like a kid in a candy store, all thoughts of Joseph Wilkes and his bullshit sprint from his mind as Felix hones in on the idea that he’ll have his family under one roof again. A rare pleasure for him. But one that’s becoming more common lately. “Get on the jet now, Arch, and we’ll wait for you. We’ll eat late.”
“I’m in the middle of a case right now.” Phones ring and people talk around him. No one formally announces they’re cops in a cop shop. But I know it anyway. I feel it in my criminal soul—my brother is currently in the bullpen inside the homicide division of the Copeland City P.D. “I can’t leave. And no,” he cuts in, somehow knowing Felix’s lips were already opening with their next rebuttal. “Minka is not coming across without me.”
“You won’t let her travel just because you can’t?” Felix tut-tuts, obnoxious and irritating. “You’re very controlling. That’s not the sign of a healthy marriage.”
“You’re very annoying, but we knew all along you were not an example of a healthy human being. Micah,” he commands my attention, one of very few men on this planet who could. “You like her? She likes you?”
“Felix is making something out of nothing. Forget it.” I glance out the car window and watch as the world putters by. “If there’s something to tell you, I’ll do it myself. Until then?—”
“Felix is talking out his ass,” he concludes. “Understood. Well… Good luck with it. Have fun. Practice safe sex.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“What?” Archer breaks character, shedding his serious estranged brother persona and laughing along with Felix. “What the hell else am I supposed to say? There’s a woman. Lix is calling it serious. You’re asking for privacy, so I’m giving it. But I’ve become accustomed to telling Malones to not fuck shit up lately. Don’t kill her. Don’t kill yourself. And for the love of god, don’t make babies.”
“I think he just gave you the sex talk,” Lix sniggers. “Will you take him to the doctor about that rash on his cock, Arch? He’s been scratching a lot lately.”
“I’m done with this conversation.” I take our call off speaker and place the phone at my ear. It’s not much, but it excludes Felix at least a little, and brings me to just Archer. “Your case dangerous?”
“Not for me.” He tosses his laughter and turns serious once more. “Dead guy is already dead. Killer’s in the wind for now, but Fletch and I are figuring it out. Felix within earshot?”
I look to my left and purse my lips, because he grins, playful and stupid. Just like his dog. “Yep.”
“Alright, well… You like that chick? Tiia?”
Frustrated, I sit back in my seat and close my eyes. Abandoning my knife, I bring my free hand up instead and pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and finger. “Yep.”
“She good for you?”
Yes.
No.
I have no fucking clue.
“Dunno.”
“She has your back?” he tries instead. “If shit hits the wall and things are looking dangerous, is she gonna run toward you or away?”
Again… “I don’t know.”
He sighs. “Okay. If shit turns bad and she’s in danger… are you gonna take her bullet?”
This one is easy.“Yes.”
Silence hangs, coating our call in what I know is disappointment. Fear and frustration. But optimism, too.
“Guess Minka and I should come across at some point and have dinner, then. Is she diabetic? Any medical issues we should know about that may be cause for concern?”
I’ve never, in all my life, had a relationship with Archer where we would just… chat on the phone. He left us when he was sixteen. Ditched New York and made a life on the other side of the country. But a soft chuckle rolls along my throat now. A stupid, happy sigh escaping my lips.
“No diabetes.”
Of course, that word alone piques Felix’s interest and brings his eyes across to mine.
“But she’s got this hearing thing going on.”
“A hearing thing? Like, she’s deaf?”
“Sort of, I guess. But not fully deaf, and not permanent. It’s a temporary thing where she has trouble hearing when there are other noises around.”
“Like, street noises and stuff?”
“Yeah. She hears just fine in private settings. But if we’re in the street, or the club, or a truck is rumbling past or whatever…”
“Oh, Fletch had something like that a few years ago. He was fine, but if we were questioning someone at their house, and the neighbor started their lawnmower or whatever, he couldn’t hear shit. He got pretty good at staring at lips for a while there.”
“Yeah, she does that, too. Watches lips. Felt kinda weird at first.” But I think I’d die if she stopped now. “She said she had an ear infection and that the doctor says it’ll go away.”
“Fletch’s did. Took a good long while. And we got used to it, so we’re not even sure when it got better. It just…” I know he shrugs. I hear the rustle of his clothes. “Did. His was from a gunshot too close to his ear, though. He heard bells for weeks after that.”
“No guns near Tiia.” I hate the image that swirls in my mind. The scene that plays out on the backs of my eyelids. Worse, I hate that my stomach clenches at the thought. That my feelings are already all caught up in a woman I’m not sure I have a future with.
I mean, do I have a future with any woman? It’s not like my life is all that conducive to long-term romance…
“Sounds to me like you’ve got a problem,” Archer teases. Perhaps reading my mind, or simply getting lucky. “You caught feelings, and now you’re doing that thing where you’ll refuse yourself the chance to be happy. The martyrdom continues.”
“Mind your fuckin’ business. Where’s Mayet?”
“At the morgue. And you don’t get to ask about my wife when you’re catastrophizing your relationship with another woman. Go sort your shit with Tiia. Maybe learn sign language. Then teach her so she doesn’t have to stare at people’s mouths anymore.”
“I’m hanging up.” I pull the phone from my ear and kill our call, but before I can toss it down, it trills again. A new call. A new name. Frowning, and then setting my free hand to my swirling stomach, I accept it and bring the device to my ear. “Tiia? Are you okay?”
“Hey.” Her breath comes out on a rushed exhale. “I’m so sorry for calling you while you’re…” She clears her throat. “Ya know, working. Where are you?”
I want to laugh. To breathe easy. But panic lances between our call and leaves me on the edge.
“Heading to Harlem. What’s up?”
“Well… I don’t mean to be presumptuous. And it’s not like I can call you randomly just because you’re… you’re not my boyfriend or anything, so it’s not like?—”
“What’s the problem?” I glance across to a keenly listening Felix. His smug grin, evaporated. His playful demeanor, swapped not for the businessman who runs most of this city, but for the brother who would die for those he loves.
He would trade his life for mine in an instant. That reality is a terrifying truth.
And I’d trade mine for Tiia. Which means, basically, we’re all fucked.
“Are you safe?” I ask her. “Are you hurt?”
“Um… not hurt…” Her voice shakes. The fear in her words enough to make my stomach drop and my heart to pound. “The place next to my shop just had this incident.”
“An incident?” My question comes out in a barked demand. “What kind of incident, Tiia?”
“The armed robbery kind, that’s all. No one got hurt or anything. And the police have been called. It’s a non-emergent situation, apparently. Since the gunman didn’t shoot anyone and he got the money he wanted. And I just… I just?—”
“Smith?” Felix sits forward in his seat. “Turn the car around. We’re heading back to the city.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh my gosh,” Tiia sniffs. “No. You don’t have to come all the way back.” She sniffles. She’s crying! “I just needed to talk to someone for a second. It’s stupid. I thought of you. But I didn’t mean to intrude on your day or anything.”
“You’re not intruding.” I slip my hand into my pocket and finger the handle of my knife. “Are you okay?” I turn away from my brother, searching for privacy when there’s not much to be found. “Did you get caught up in anything?”
“No. Yes,” she corrects, “I’m okay. No, I didn’t get caught up. I was helping a customer in my shop when I heard the ruckus next door. It was just a lot of shouting and stuff. Then I heard the rack of a shotgun and Jakeline locked our door.”
“You heard the rack?” I study a trendy coffee shop as Smith angles the car back toward Manhattan. “And the shouting?”
“Yeah. The guy wanted money. Paul gave it to him.”
“Paul?”
“The owner of the shop next door. Listen,” she rushes out nervously. “You don’t have to come back here. You especially don’t have to bring Felix.”
“He’ll behave,” I snicker. “And we’ll keep space. Are the doors still locked?”
“Um… no. This all happened, like, thirty minutes ago. The cops are coming soon, apparently. So Jakeline unlocked them again once the guy ran away.”
“Lock them again. Safety 101, Grá. I’ll come stay with you till the cops are done, then Lix and I will get back to work.”
“Wait…” Her breath explodes. Stress making her jerky and erratic. “Are you allowed over here?” She lowers her voice. “Like, with Felix and the cops and stuff, all in the same space?”
“I think you assume Lix is a wanted felon, Grá.”
He scoffs behind me.
“He’s a businessman, first and foremost. He’s just another corporate drone, flittering from meeting to meeting. He and the cops can be in the same room. It’s fine.”
“He won’t go to prison?” she whispers. “You sure?”
“If he was, then you’d have committed a crime eating dinner at his place last night. Sit tight, Hale. We’ll be there in twenty.”
I pull the phone from my ear and kill our call. It pains me to cut her off. To leave her, standing alone when she specifically reached out to me. But to go to her, I have to deal with other shit. “As fast as you can, Smith.”
He presses his foot to the gas and turns to a less populated street. “Yes, Boss.”
“Who hit the shop?” Felix asks instantly. “And was it a message for you?”
“You think Wilkes is knocking on her door to piss us off?” I hit dial on another number and bring the phone to my ear. “He’d be so brazen as to hit up an art gallery in broad daylight, just so Tiia could call me and bring me across the city?” Then I pause, my call connecting and Stovic’s, ‘Yes, sir?’ rings through my ear. But I focus on Felix, first and foremost. My job is to protect him. My entire existence, built around his safety. “You don’t think he’s drawing us back to Manhattan to pop you, right?”
“You still think she works for him?” He mocks, but hell if he doesn’t pat his breast pocket in search of those cigarettes. “Have we established for sure she’s not Wilkes’ girl? Because this could be a really fucking clever ruse.”
“Sir?” Stovic bites out. “What’s up?”
“I need you and Michaels to beat us to Manhattan,” I order, my stomach somewhere around my asshole and my heart fracturing in my chest. “Colby’s Antiques. I need you to get eyes on the entire block. Send Jasper to Harlem to meet Rico. I want Tiia’s street searched and shut down before we get there. You have twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”