Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The interrogation went on for hours. At some point, Nick’s union rep joined him, and Nick made sure that Robin Keating was earning her retainer by sitting in with Parker.
When it was done, Rios didn’t look pleased. “You’re on leave.”
Nick nodded, too tired and hungry to feel anything about the consequence of his actions. He risked looking over at Captain Tate, who was sitting next to Rios.
The captain looked wan: pale, with more wrinkles on his face than Nick was used to. Nick turned back to Rios. He swallowed but didn’t say anything. After hours of talking, there wasn’t anything else to say.
“Between us,” Rios said, slightly wryly, given the union rep and the other captain in the room, “I’m not sure what you did was wrong.
It might have even been the right thing.
But you struck out on your own, you did something dangerous that risked the life of a fellow officer, and you did it all without letting your superior officer make the call.
There’s a reason we have a chain of command, and it’s not just because we like bossing people around.
You shouldn’t have to make a call like that on your own. ”
Nick cleared his throat. “I understand, sir.”
“I’m sure you do.” Rios shook his head. “Let’s wait for the chief to get back, and we’ll have to figure out with the DA if it even was a crime. For now, stay put. Don’t leave town. I’d tell you not to talk to Ferro, but you’re married, so…”
He stood, and everyone else took that as their cue. When Nick pushed himself up, the muscles in his legs jumped. He kept his back straight, eyes forward. Rios strode out. The union rep slapped his shoulder, squeezing it once before following.
Nick turned to Captain Tate because if there was one thing he wasn’t, it was a coward. He held himself stiffly, hands clasped behind his back, legs less than shoulder length apart, eyes fixed on Tate’s face.
Tate looked older than he did when he’d hired Nick. The gray at his temples had spread, so it peppered his entire head. Laugh lines in the corners of his eyes had become crow’s feet that never left him.
“Was it your only choice?” Tate asked.
“Yes,” Nick said.
Tate nodded, and his expression cleared. It wasn’t so much that he looked younger as that he looked more certain, as though the choices he’d made had value.
“That’s good enough for me,” he said.
Nick didn’t slouch, but he felt his spine almost curl. Tate might not understand fully, but he trusted Nick and Parker. He didn’t think they were sociopaths, like Falk did. He believed them.
“Try not to worry too much about this,” Tate said. “Rios is going to follow procedure, but the most they’ll charge you with is assault with deadly magic, but given that there’s solid proof from the cameras that your spell was containment only, no DA will take that on.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Nick said. He tried to think of a way to tell Tate what his faith meant to Nick, what the utter belief meant when Nick knew he had done something terrible.
“King”—Tate came close and seemed about to reach out before he shoved his hands in his pockets—“take this time off, get your head on straight, listen to your lawyer, and give me a call when you and Ferro figure out what this is.”
“Sir—”
“You two are going to sit down for two minutes, and a clue is going to just fall out of the sky and land in your lap,” Tate said severely. “I know you. Don’t you forget it.”
“Yes, sir,” Nick said.
“Get out of here before your husband talks Falk into arresting him for tangoing verbal circles around an officer.” Tate waved him off, and Nick jumped to follow his directions.
Rios must have let Falk know that Parker was off the hook because he found Parker in the hall with Robin. Falk was glaring at the lawyer, his expression livid, but when he opened his mouth, she raised an eyebrow, and he shut it again.
“Nick!” Parker said. “Wow, you are a breath of warm air. This has been worse than an outdoor ice rink.”
“Rios said we could go,” Nick said. “We’re being sent home.”
Parker’s eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head suspiciously. “Nick…”
“Thanks, Robin,” Nick said.
“No problem.” She offered over her hand. “You’ll get a bill tomorrow for the hours beyond the retainer.”
“Of course,” Nick said. He watched the lawyer leave and ushered Parker out while Tate distracted Falk.
In the car, Nick gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles stretching thin before he shook his head. Parker was silent, staring at him as though he could see inside Nick’s head. Finally, Nick swallowed and said, “Let’s go home.”
The city was quieter than normal. Nick didn’t think he was too distracted, so news about the newest threat must have gotten around via social media and whisper networks. Either way, when they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment, Nick saw a lot of faces peeking out of windows.
“Nick—” Parker broke off.
“Home first,” Nick said firmly.
When he opened the door, Nick saw Sugar pacing back and forth, her head snapping up when she heard the door. As soon as they closed it behind them, she rushed forward, wrapping her arms around them.
“Parker! Nick!” She inhaled deeply, squeezing them to her ample bosom. “I was so worried, it was like waiting fifteen minutes.”
“After peeing on a pregnancy stick?” Parker’s voice was slightly muffled.
Sugar pulled back, giving him a strange look. “After putting a TV dinner in the microwave! You never know if it’s actually going to be any good, and if it’s terrible, you just wasted fifteen minutes heating up something that tastes like salty shoe leather.”
“Yeah.” Parker nodded. “I know that feeling really well.”
“Exactly how many TV dinners are you eating these days?” Nick asked suspiciously. “And where are you keeping them?”
“I can have secrets! That’s part of my mystique!” Parker waved a hand across his face like he was an old-time movie star. “I have plenty of mystique left in this marriage.”
“How many extra calories you’re eating from frozen food isn’t mystique; it’s a health risk. Also your sodium—” Nick couldn’t help the grin when Parker looked horrified.
It faded quickly, but Nick didn’t want Parker to see his real feelings, so he turned away, going upstairs to stow his gun in the safe. No one had actually collected his badge, so after a moment of hesitation, he put that in the safe, too.
For a long beat, he stared at them. Behind him, he could hear Parker shifting, a sigh that was all that was left of whatever sentence Parker wanted to say.
“Stop worrying,” Nick said. He closed the safe. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Parker said. “It’s really not fine! I got you in trouble again. Rios seems cool, but he’s not going to let this slide. Keating says they don’t have enough to formally charge us, but we might get sued in civil court by Gile, and that could be millions—”
“We saved his life.” Nick stood up. “I don’t care if we have to pay him everything we have. We saved his life. If that was the choice we made—between saving his life and letting him die? I’m okay with doing what we did.”
Parker crossed the room, putting his hands on Nick’s shoulders when he reached him. “I should have kept you out of it.”
“No.” Nick shook his head. “You couldn’t have. Are you okay?”
Parker looked the same as he always did when Nick asked that. His expression went smaller, his mouth slightly open. He looked like it wasn’t fair that Nick had asked because he didn’t have an answer for him.
Then the mask dropped over his face, and his smile was just this side of plastic. “I’m fine. Go shower. I’ll get something ready to eat.”
The light outside the window said it was late afternoon, but Nick’s body was still running so hot with adrenaline and tension that he wasn’t sure he could eat anything. Still, he nodded.
Pressing a kiss to Parker’s lips, he went to the bathroom. After turning on the water, he loosened his tie and stared at himself in the mirror. There was a brown spot of dried blood on his collar, and he looked exhausted.
Shaking his head, he took off his shirt and tossed it into the laundry.
He emptied his pockets onto the countertop and tossed the rest of his clothes in after his shirt.
He got into the shower, even though the water was still only lukewarm.
As he rubbed his washcloth over himself, he felt himself considering all the information they had, his mind twisting each fact, making connections he hadn’t been able to in the moment.
When he got out, the smell of melted butter and sugar hit him.
He smiled, pulling on a pair of comfortable pants and a shirt.
He went downstairs to find Parker serving steamed carrots topped with brown sugar and butter onto plates already filled with enchilada and rice leftovers from the last time that Laurel had come over.
“Wow,” Sugar said. “And I thought my day was busy. I was booking hotel rooms for the orgy convention later this month.”
“Wait, is it an orgy that’s large enough to be a convention or a convention about orgies?” Parker asked.
“A little of both!” Sugar gushed. “It started because this sex researcher was interested in incubus mating habits and contacted me! I’m a person that people contact now!”
Parker grinned. “I mean, you are the leader of the largest organization of succubae and incubi on the West Coast. Who else should they contact?”
As Sugar discussed the logistics of scheduling an orgy (complicated by local ordinances) and meeting rooms for presentations (complicated because of the topic of the convention), Nick picked at his food.
When Sugar ran out of steam and retreated to her room with the promise that both Nick and Parker were okay and weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, they were left to their thoughts again.
“You feeling any better?” Nick asked.
“Not really,” Parker said. Then he shook his head. “Maybe.”
“Yeah.” Nick shook his head. “I know what you mean.”
“We need to figure out where the other victims are,” Parker said. “And what this actually is.”
“You still think it’s something from the thousand realms?” Nick asked.
“It has to be.” Parker frowned down at his empty plate, stirring his fork through leftover sauce. “Why these people? Why these locations?”
“You said Durkavic wouldn’t have any reason to go into a smoke shop.” Nick leaned back before sliding off his stool and heading into the office. They kept a handful of local maps for just the purpose he had in mind.
He spread open the map and grabbed a pen. Parker came in as he was marking three dots on the map.
“Durkavic.” Nick pointed. “Buford—the CSI tech. The escape room.”
“What are you looking for?” Parker frowned.
“A spiral,” Nick said, remembering the shape that had been carved into the notebook at the escape room.
He dragged his pen along the map, connecting the dots.
“If it’s an even spiral, we should have a better idea of where the next victims are, especially because”—he finished his spiral—“the first victims are all evenly spaced along the spiral.”
With the line, it was easy to see the general locations of the next location on the spiral.
Parker was nodding. “You’re right. So now we know where the other two victims are.
We head there—” At Nick’s expression, Parker amended, “We call Captain Tate and tell him what we suspect? Because you’re on leave. ”
Parker’s voice dropped, and his face fell. “Because of me.”
“Not because of you,” Nick said. “Because they’re doing a thorough investigation, and they want to make sure that I’m clean.”
“Because of me,” Parker insisted. Before Nick could argue, Parker turned back to the map. “So we need to do the spell again. The spell that leaves someone without a hand or a foot.”
Nick looked at his husband and, not for the first time, thought that for all of Parker’s misdirection and fronts, if you knew where to look, you could see inside him, you could see the heart of him.
And that heart was bleeding.
“No.” Nick shook his head. “Before we go there, before we do anything else, we’re going to find a different way to fix this. One that leaves everyone with all their limbs.”
Parker looked up, and the expression on his face was filled with hope because Nick never said something if he couldn’t do it. He had to know how. So now Nick needed to figure out how.
“Hey, guys?” Bastian stood in the doorway, a limp, dead plant in his hands. “Do you have time to help me?”