Chapter 7 #4
“Mr. Arnold,” Gideon said in his calmest voice. “We were let into your residence by somebody with a key. This man, Halsey Garber, damaged your door, and he’s been subdued. He was threatening bodily harm to somebody you know. Would you like to press charges?”
Jay Arnold wasn’t slick and in control—not tonight.
His hair was wet, like he’d been in the shower, and his eyes were red-rimmed and hollow, like he’d been crying there.
He was wearing old sweats—too small, perhaps Kael’s—with holes in the knees, and a cheap, threadbare hoodie.
Yes, he was in his early thirties, but he suddenly seemed young and sad and overwhelmed, and when his gaze fell on an infuriated, and now handcuffed, Halsey Garber, terrified.
“Oh God,” he whispered, glancing from Halsey to Carlyle to Gideon. “He broke in here?”
“And threatened someone you know,” Gideon said softly, with meaning.
Jay’s expression of pure panic was enough for Gideon to forgive him.
“Somebody who’s safe for the moment,” Gideon said meaningfully. “But who won’t be if we have to let this man go.”
And he could see it, the whole of it, crossing Jay Arnold’s face.
Confess to being blackmailed, to using his job to leverage law enforcement, to turning his back on a dogfighting ring in the heart of the city and not doing anything until a civilian was threatened.
None of what he’d done would get him prison time—Gideon had no doubt—but all of it was potentially career ending, including the poor barista currently hiding in the bathtub with his arms over his head.
Gideon kept his face calm and impassive as he watched the war of the wolves on Jay Arnold’s face. One wolf wanted his career, power, the things he’d worked for his entire life.
The other wolf wanted the kid hiding in the bathroom, and a small three-bedroom home, and love.
Gideon thought he’d be hard-pressed to know which wolf would win in his own heart, but then, he’d never been in love.
Abruptly the war was over. Kael Rogers must have fed Jay Arnold’s soul well, because with a deep breath, Arnold’s shoulders relaxed, and he turned a look of resignation toward the thrashing, furious man on the floor.
“Yes,” he rasped, and then tried again. “Yes,” he said, his voice even. “I would like to press charges. And I do believe I should call the New York DA and my own counsel.”
“Understood.” Gideon allowed his eyes to dart toward where Kael had disappeared. “You may want to use the landline in the bedroom,” he said, with the emphasis on the landline, although which phone Arnold used wouldn’t matter.
Arnold’s eyes widened, and he nodded. “Thank you,” he said, with dignity before stepping over Garber’s furious form and walking toward the darkened room—and presumably the bathroom—with admirable restraint.
“Close the door,” Gideon called, and Arnold did just that. Garber would never know that Kael had been right there and was a potential witness. Arnold would take all the heat, and that was exactly as it should be.
At that moment Pearson and Kylie called through the door, emerging with their weapons drawn, and Gideon and Carlyle could turn Garber over to people who weren’t on administrative leave.
He was a bulky middle-aged man with a soft stomach and the wide shoulders of a linebacker.
“I’m going to fucking kill you all,” he frothed as Pearson grabbed his bicep. “I know politicians in this town. I know people. I will eat your families with my fuckin’ eggs in the morning.”
Gideon laughed dryly. “My family goes best with cornflakes. Carlyle?”
“Arsenic,” Carlyle said. “You’re welcome to them.”
“Cheese danish,” Pearson said cheerfully, holstering her piece as Garber became more and more under control. “You?”
“Fruit and yogurt,” Kylie said, just as cheerfully. “Nope—no eggs here.”
“By the way,” Gail said, hauling Garber through the door, “do you know that our friend Agent Chadwick has his recorder on? We have every threat you made in the last ten minutes on tape. And given what we know about your criminal activities, I think that shit’s going to court with you.
I don’t think eggs are gonna taste so good in prison.
You may want to go with Carlyle’s arsenic, right? ”
Gideon laughed weakly as they went around the corner, and Carlyle did the same, leaning against Gideon with an easy familiarity.
That quickly the moment from the car was back, the intimacy, the yearning to explode.
But Gideon remembered the two wolves. Had Joey Carlyle fed his wolf enough human kindness for that wolf to win if they met each other skin to skin?
Harding and Talia arrived next, and they straightened up and “professionalized,” as Gideon thought of it, but as they ran through the procedure and the upshot and the paperwork they’d need to file, Gideon watched Joey prowling around that little love nest like a puzzled wild animal, sniffing at the corners and listening intently for the sounds of solace and reconciliation in the next room.
Not yet, Gideon thought. Not yet. But God, someday he’s going to offer his throat. What’re you gonna do then, Gid?
And the thought of the two of them in bed, feral, demanding, skin to skin, inside each other, flashed behind his eyes with passion and violence.
Take it. In a heartbeat. Even if he eats my liver for breakfast.
Oh.
Well, now he knew which wolf would win.