Parachute #3
“Yeah, it’s a mess. There’s an unholy Gordian knot being tied right now between Texas Bratva and Corazones de Sangre, and the two men you described sound like the Texas Bratva hit men, right down to the coin, which is Ilya Pardonov’s signature.
The coin is a replica of the rare Constantine Ruble—there’s only about twenty of this particular pressing in the world today, and Ilya stole himself one, and that’s what he left at the crime scene.
And you saw him come back for it. You are a walking, talking conviction—hell you’re an entire case—for a gang of violent thugs and the people they’ve been screwing over who are equally as violent.
And given the way they followed us out of the hospital, they’re pretty sure they know that.
I will do anything, Bailey, anything , to keep you and Mr. Bumble—”
“Bumble—”
“Mr. Bumble to me,” Dean said, his lean, serious mouth barely twisting at the end.
“And I want to keep him safe. So when you land, there will be some people waiting for you—a few you might recognize, which will be nice. You’re going to be shuttled around for a bit, but I think I’ve got a good safe place for you to end up, and hopefully this little jaunt to the desert will help hide even your direction.
So if you can deal with jumping out of an airplane—”
Bailey whimpered. He couldn’t help it. Sure, skydiving had been on his bucket list, but didn’t most people have that on their bucket lists, only to decide in the end they simply wanted to live a few more years and not risk that precious time doing stupid things on their bucket lists?
Again that gentle touch, this time along his cheekbones. “We’ll give you instructions,” Dean said softly. “And I swear there will be somebody waiting for you. It’s going to be fine—”
“Except for that five to seven minutes in the air,” Bailey said, trying not to freak out.
Dean’s grin surprised him. It was like watching a little kid geek out over dinosaurs. “You’ve looked it up, right?” he said. “’Cause it’s amazing . Like the whole world is there in your outstretched arms. You’re gonna love it.”
And Bailey couldn’t help it. That joy in such a hard, determined man—it was magical . Transcendent. Glorious. Who didn’t want to touch something that amazing? Who wouldn’t follow it into hell?
“If you say so,” Bailey whispered, already crumbling in the face of that transcendent joy. “I mean, what could it hurt.”
Dean chortled like a third grader, and Bailey stared at him hungrily, all thoughts of danger—both to Bailey from the jump and Dean for sitting backward in his seat without a belt—disappearing.
The eyes, the cheekbones, the lean lips, the slightly crooked bottom teeth—even the strutting-rooster God complex—all of it seemed unbearably attractive when combined with that goofy laugh, and Bailey was struck with wonder.
Oh man, he was so in trouble. He’d been in trouble when he’d let Dean in his shower that morning. Screw that, he’d been in trouble when he’d let Dean in his front door. Or, hell, before then. When he’d let Dean in his pants .
Dean Royal so very obviously had Bailey Dodge’s number, and as evidenced by their conversation that morning, Bailey didn’t even know he had a phone.
“Yeah,” Bailey admitted faintly. “I… I’ve thought about it. Was thinking maybe the big four-oh—”
Dean snorted. “How about the big three-four?”
“How do you know how old I am?”
He knew the answer before Dean said it.
“Hel lo , FBI!” Dean grinned and texted deftly on his phone. “There. I just sent you the basics for the jump you’re going to make. You don’t get carsick reading, do you?”
Bailey shook his head, feeling dumb from being caught in the hurricane.
“Good. You ponder that for an hour, and then we’ll be at the airport. I’ve got some more prep work to—Oh, wait, how’s your phone battery?”
Bailey pulled the thing out of his pocket and shrugged. “Fifty percent. Oh—”
Dean shoved a battery pack at him, complete with charging cord.
“Where did you keep that—”
“Don’t ask,” Marcus said. “He keeps them stashed around his person and produces them like magic tricks. Just charge your phone, read your briefing, and let him work. He’s making me nervous too.”
Dean sent his partner an evil glare. “Killjoy,” he muttered, then turned back to Bailey. “But he’s right. Read the briefing. I’m not dropping you out of the sky like a rock out of a boat, Bailey. We’re doing all this because we want you to live —”
“We?” Bailey asked, suddenly feeling manhandled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Well—” And Dean’s entire fireball demeanor sort of…
softened. He gazed down at the seat rest then, the dearest smile Bailey had ever seen crossing his lean mouth.
“— I definitely want you to live,” he said.
“You matter an awful lot to me, Bailey. I know we’re just beginning, but…
.” He scowled and cast a sideways glance at Marcus, and Bailey took pity on him.
“I’ll see you when all this is over, right?” Bailey asked, reaching forward to brush Dean’s fingers with his own.
Dean glanced up, that manic grin back in place. “Oh yeah. You’re not getting away from me that easy. So study up on the skydiving brief. And remember, when you land somebody will be there to meet you.”
“Who—”
But Dean was already on his phone again, turning around and belting up as he went, and Bailey decided that if he didn’t want to get caught flat-footed as he jumped out of the plane, he should probably do what he was told.
TWO HOURS later he was in a small plane, wishing he knew enough about planes to know if it was the safe kind or not.
He had a semi-eidetic memory, so he had skydiving procedures clicking behind his eyes like a slideshow, and Dean was repeating last-minute instructions in his face as Marcus opened the hatch and wind and engine noise roared around them, filling his senses with a bone-jarring, brain-melting distraction.
Dean paused for breath, and Bailey’s gaze went to what looked like a small wagon filled with Mr. Bumble’s cat carrier and lots of water and supplies, and boxed in a crate with a hinge and a catch so it would be easy to access once the thing landed.
“My cat—” he whimpered, completely bypassing what Dean was saying.
He knew it already. Hit the timer on his eWatch as he jumped.
At one minute, pull the chute. Grab the handles, steer gently, try not to land in any cacti, and run in the air before his feet touched the ground.
Woohoo! The jump should take about six minutes, plus or minus some wind currents, and Marcus would be steering the other chute via remote control.
Once Bailey touched down, he was to release the chute, gather it up, and stuff it back in the bag, then do the same for the chute attached to the box.
The bags would fit in the wagon, which was exactly as big as the ubiquitous crap-wagon used by soccer coaches and overwhelmed moms everywhere, and as soon as Bailey had disassembled the crate, he was to grab the wagon handle and walk toward the mountain range in the north.
Somebody, Dean promised, would be along shortly—half an hour maximum—to get him.
In the meantime, Mr. Bumble had a mini cooling system in his carrier, and Bailey had one in his flight suit.
If the cooling systems died before help came, he was to make a canopy with one of the parachutes, find a place to hold down and stay cool, and wait it out.
Help would come.
A part of Bailey was skeptical, to say the least. That long, terrible year and a half, part of it without PPE, part of it just…
just overwhelmed. He remembered that feeling—the grownups were going to figure this out, right?
Somebody would realize that a hospital couldn’t function when its personnel kept dropping dead. Right? Right?
And help never came. And Emmett had dropped dead, right in the middle of a shift.
And in the end, it had been Bailey and Sarree and the rest of their friends, battling it out because nobody else would. They were the grownups. They were the last stand between order and chaos. They would die fighting, because that’s the only end they could see.
And just when they could all see daylight, the Dobbs decision had come through, and they were fighting a whole other battle.
Bailey had lived so long in a world where he was the cavalry, he could not imagine a world where some mysterious force came through and rescued him from the desert.
But he’d spent three months knowing Dean Royal, and he couldn’t conceive of a world in which Dean didn’t do exactly what he promised and keep Bailey out of the fire.
“Bailey!” Dean snapped. “Bailey, did you hear me?”
Bailey gave him a distracted smile. “Yes,” he yelled back, over the noise of the wind and the roar of the engine. “I’m going to trust my entire existence to a man I’ve known for weeks, and a mysterious stranger is going to roar through the desert and pluck me from perdition.”
Dean scowled. “He’s not that mysterious,” he said. “It’s my brother, not James Bond!”
Bailey stared at him in absolute surprise, and before he could ask what in the hell Dean’s brother was doing roaring through the desert to save Bailey’s ass, Dean’s mouth was on his, hot and needy and demanding, and Bailey was suddenly very much in the moment, very much in the kiss, very much in that morning when Dean had possessed his body thoroughly and had, it seemed, grabbed hold of his soul as well.
Dean pulled back, leaving Bailey breathless and rattled. Very gently Dean fastened his helmet and double-checked the timer on Bailey’s watch.
“You can do this,” he said soberly. “And we’ve got you. Remember the basics?”
“Wait until my wrist unit beeps,” Bailey said. “Then pull the cord. Don’t oversteer, and don’t do anything drastic unless it looks like I’m landing on a cactus.”
“We’re over a site that used to be a farm,” Dean said. “The field below us hasn’t grown over yet. You should be safe from cacti, but, you know, just in case.”
“Take them seriously,” Bailey said. “I’m a doctor in Texas, Dean. I’ve pulled more spines out of people’s asses than you even want to know.”
Dean gave him a quick grin. “That’s my boy,” he said. “You keep being feisty. You’ll land fine.”
“Dean!” Bailey said in sudden panic. “Dean, I want to say so much, and I don’t know where you’ll be, and—”
Dean’s tap on his helmet was grounding.
“Don’t worry. I’ll catch you later. Say hi to Val for me!”
And then Bailey was gazing at the open bay door of the airplane, staring at a wide blue horizon, while Dean walked him up to the mark.
A few taps on his watch and….
As easy as falling out of an airplane.
The wind roared through his flight suit, screamed in his ears, battered at his face, and he was in freefall, the ground 8,000 feet and counting.
Bailey shouted in exhilaration and wanted to look at Dean and tell him this was frickin’ awesome !
But Dean was back on the airplane, and Bailey had to concentrate or he’d never get to tell him anything again.