Chapter 6 #3
Chadwick’s eyes—not hazel, repeat not hazel but more of a muted falcon’s gold—widened fractionally, and for the span of a few heartbeats, they were… arrested, stilled, lost in a bubble in which only the two of them existed.
“Hey, guys,” Gail’s chirpy voice called from the doorway of their locker room. “Let me look!”
Chadwick stirred first, turning to take her in. “You’re perfect,” he said proudly.
“Thank you, Papa,” she replied, giving a cheeky grin. “You taught me well. Pay attention to him, Carlyle—he’s good at this part.”
Joey’s heart started thudding slowly in his chest again, and his breath resumed its usual function.
“Thanks,” he said gruffly to Gid—Chadwick. “I—”
But Gideon was inhaling lightly through his nose like a mountain cat, and he tilted his head.
“Blood,” he said thoughtfully. “Not old… just… blood and pine trees.” He shook himself.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Sorry. I get that way. Crosby smelled like puppies. Clint like rock face. Tal, of all things, like snickerdoodles. It’s not always the same smell…
but it’s only something that happens with people I’m close to. ”
He gave a fleeting smile and took a step back. “You look good. Meet you at the shop in five.”
And then he was gone.
And Carlyle was left to close up his locker and remember how to walk. For a moment, he’d thought he wasn’t special, like that moment hadn’t been real, and Gideon Chadwick had always been that intense and he’d simply missed it.
But then it sunk in: Gideon had said he smelled like blood and pine trees, and Joey felt those things in his marrow.
And Gideon hadn’t been appalled. Just… just accepting. Like he knew Joey by his smell alone.
The moment had been real. Gideon smelled him—saw him.
And Joey was never going to forget that wave of attraction, that wave of raw desire that had stopped up his breath and blood.
HE WOULDN’T forget it—but in the meantime, he had a job to do.
“I hear them,” Crosby said over comms, and Joey grimaced.
He and Gail had been creeping around their assigned paths for half an hour, sweltering in their layers of clothes in spite of the crisp October breeze.
The property was all concrete base and aluminum buildings—it was probably twenty degrees hotter there than the ambient temp.
Crosby and Gideon were supposed to be their backup, while Natalia and Harding took care of the holes in the surveillance.
That Crosby had stumbled on the place where the dogs themselves were being kept was just fucking aces. Gideon would probably raise an erection, erm, erect a monument, to his golden boy’s prowess now that he’d managed to crack the op.
Stop it. Crosby is a good operative… and your friend.
Goddammit, it was no good if—
The thought died in an explosion of barking and Crosby’s deep voice calling out, “SCTF, freeze!”
“Who? That isn’t a real thing!” The voice was a cackle—uneducated, slurred. It had to be one of their subjects. Given the pitch, Joey would put odds on Colin, their White meth buddy.
“We have a warrant to search if we hear anything suspicious,” Crosby said, “and all the barking coming out of that building you’re leaving, that’s suspicious.”
Joey heard a door slam, and with it a silence that made him realize there was a racket he hadn’t marked.
Well shit. Crosby had found the dogs. And now he was the one who needed backup.
Silently, Joey rounded the corner behind Crosby and saw the scene as if through a wide-angle lens.
Front and center, he could see Crosby, small weapon (a Glock, which wasn’t that small) drawn, sighting down the smaller Gleeson brother, who had just closed the door on a long, low building that could be used to house dogs.
They had initially dismissed it; there was a layer of trash that made it appear partially collapsed.
But Joey thought with a flash of insight that Crosby would have used it as cover.
He’d gotten close enough to hear the dogs past the insulating trash.
Well shit.
But that was in the center. On the peripherals, Joey could see two things. One was the other Gleeson brother, rounding the corner, gun drawn.
The other was on the complete other end, but not for long. Charging headlong for Crosby, teeth bared in a salivating grimace, was one of the biggest fucking dogs Joey had ever seen.
Later he’d take in the details: the mixed Rottweiler breed, the scars on its back and around its face, the barbed collar, the near emaciation. All the things that would make a dog savage—pain, hunger, mistreatment—had been leveled against this poor creature.
At that moment all he knew was that the dog was, for once, a more dangerous predator than the two men with guns.
Per all protocol, Crosby was focused on the armed, drug-impaired criminal, but God, that dog was coming in fast.
Right as Joey swung to focus on the dog, the other Gleeson twin raised his gun toward Crosby too.
“Drop it!” Joey shouted, swinging around to aim at him.
Dog dog dog dog dog….
“Both of you are covered,” Crosby barked. “Lower your weapons and nobody gets hurt.”
Kent Gleeson looked gaunt in real life, so he and Colin probably did their meth together. He grinned, the light bouncing off his grill.
“Nobody?” he asked.
And Colin gave a piercing whistle and a short, harsh command. “Attack!”
As they both dropped their guns.
Crosby lowered his weapon—his training was spot on.
Joey kept his up, and he refocused on the dog as it charged Crosby, jaws open, and bit the soft inside of his thigh.
Crosby howled, both Gleeson twins went for their guns, and three shots rang out.
One from Crosby, hitting Colin Gleeson solidly in the body.
One from Gideon, hitting Kent Gleeson neatly in the forehead.
One from Joey, nailing the dog in the side of the head.
The targets dropped, and so did Crosby, gushing blood from an artery and trying not to cry out.
Gideon secured the dead criminals, and Joey holstered his weapon before rushing to prize the dead dog’s jaws off his friend’s leg.
“Fuck,” Crosby gasped, and Joey was too busy to curse. With a growl, he ran toward the trash pile and grabbed an iron bar he’d spotted, sticking out and ready to trip the unwary. As Gideon spoke into the comm link at his collar, Gail hurtled around the low-slung building.
“Goddammit, Crosby!” she cried. “What in the actual fuck!”
“I’m fine, Elsa,” he rasped, using a pet name for her that Joey didn’t understand. “Just…. Jesus, fucking dog.”
“Yeah, fucking dog,” Gail muttered. “Only you, Olaf.” With an oath, she tore off her loose sweatshirt and wrapped it around her hand, grabbing the dog’s lower jaw around Crosby’s oozing flesh while Joey slid the prybar into the hinge.
Joey used his iron lever, and Gail gave an assisting yank, both of them grunting in exertion.
With a terrible crack the bones gave way, and Crosby started gushing blood for real.
Joey tore off his own oversized sweatshirt and used it as a pad to put direct pressure on the wound, and Gideon—still giving situation details to Harding, Natalia, and Kylie—pulled off his own belt and secured it around the pad, the two of them working as a team like they did field dressing every day of their entire lives.
Far off in the distance, they heard an ambulance wail, and Gail knelt on the filthy, oily ground and pulled Crosby’s head onto her lap, while Joey worked to elevate his leg.
For a moment, the only sound was their labored breathing and Crosby’s surprised murmurs. “Seriously. The dog. I saw him, but… usually it’s the people….”
Joey held on to the acid retort about how only a moron wouldn’t know a predator when he saw one.
Crosby had done everything right. In fact, he’d played it smart, he hadn’t panicked, and he’d had Joey’s back.
If Joey wasn’t mistaken, he’d shot and hit a live, moving target as the dog had been sinking its teeth into Crosby’s inner thigh, and goddammit, if that wasn’t good enough for Joey Carlyle’s standards, he was aiming too goddamned high.
Suddenly it didn’t matter if Gideon liked Crosby best. Joey liked Crosby. Not best, but it didn’t matter. Crosby wasn’t just a coworker; Crosby was a teammate. And, Joey thought miserably as he watched the man’s face turn powder gray from shock and blood loss, he was a good friend. A good guy.
Joey had never had friends, really. Hell, he’d barely had teammates. He’d always been their lone wolf, their scout, the squad’s quiet cutting edge. He’d seen men die, and while he’d felt a dispassionate sense of loss, he’d never felt anything like grief.
As Crosby labored for breath and Gail berated him with legitimate anger and a voice broken with tears, Joey realized he would grieve his teammate if Crosby didn’t recover. He would grieve his friend. His team would be struck with an irrecoverable, unassailable sense of loss.
And Joey was part of that team.
The fear of that emotion was crushing, and Joey stared helplessly at Gideon, knowing that Gideon was probably more lost than he was.
But Gideon was suddenly at his side, their arms touching in a simple animal way that Joey appreciated.
“He’s going to be fine,” he said, his voice tight with strain.
“The ambulance is one minute out.” Gideon froze and swore, obviously responding to something on comms. “I need to go help Tal. Watch for animal control. She got in the back way and found our dog owner and his caged Chihuahua but would like some assistance.” He glanced from Joey to Gail unhappily, and then Crosby.
“I’m the only one who’s not covered in blood,” he said apologetically, and then knelt by Crosby’s side. “Hang in there, kid.”
He tousled Crosby’s hair like a little brother’s and then strode over Colin Gleeson’s body and into the building, the shrill echoes of frenzied dog barks starting and stopping with the closing of the door.