Chapter 24 #2
Javi paused internally as his gaze flicked to Cloister’s back as he carried Bourneville, her legs dangling and her head tucked into the bend of his arm, out of the maze of storage lockers.
Despite her injuries, she’d still tried to take the hand off the EMT who’d tried to put her onto a gurney.
Cloister was the only one she wanted near her right now.
As Javi watched, he saw Cloister dip his head, fingers buried in thick fur, to murmur soothingly to his dog.
So, maybe not OK. It was still easy enough to achieve if the bar was set low.
Alive.
Everyone was alive.
Including Eric. Miles.
Eric?
Javi looked away from Cloister and back to their missing informant.
He leaned on the edge of the stretcher and hobbled along as the paramedics wove their way back out of the maze.
They’d found Eric in container 14. Apparently, it had some sort of specific meaning in the Sovereign Citizen ideology. Kincaid had come up with that.
He walked briskly ahead of the stretcher, sandy hair unruly and in bloody shirtsleeves, ready for a photo-op.
If Javi thought too hard about Kincaid, he was going to shoot him.
That was a bad idea for a lot of reasons—some of which Javi could even think of right now—but a particularly bad move in front of this many witnesses.
To distract himself, Javi looked back at the man whose death had become such a huge part of Javi’s life that he was going to need a whole new character flaw to replace it.
He looked different. More than just a few years and a move to a place where tans were common, although that too. The dehydration and blood loss from a dozen minor cuts had probably contributed to it as well.
The queasy realization dawned on Javi that when he thought of Eric, he thought of the mock-up crime scene photo that Kincaid had shown him. That was the face that had haunted him. When Eric had been alive, Javi had never thought about him that much at all.
He supposed that Joel was just a better judge of character than he’d thought. His, anyhow. It had taken her a while to work Kincaid out.
“Miles, I—” Javi stopped and tried again. “Eric?”
It took a second. “I…I don’t know. Miles. For now, Miles. Until I can explain to Reid, at least.”
Javi nodded. “I just wanted to say that… I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Miles asked. He looked genuinely confused, and then he gave a strained huff of reaction as he waved his hand at himself.
“This? My own fault. When Saul died…don’t get me wrong, I appreciated everything he did.
I did. But when he died, it felt like I was off a leash for the first time.
I could really be Miles, not just pretend. It was stupid.”
“Were you happy?”
The smile was tired, and Miles’s lips were cracked, but it was answer enough. Javi clumsily reached over and squeezed Miles’s hand. “How stupid can that be?”
They reached the end of the corridor.
The ambulance was waiting. Javi pushed himself off the stretcher and hopped backwards until he could brace himself against the corner of a metal box. He watched as Miles was loaded up and the doors slammed. Blue and red lights flashed luridly over the desert landscape as the ambulance peeled out.
“Next one’s for you,” Kincaid remarked.
Javi hadn’t heard him come back over. He clenched his jaw. Even that made his leg throb more. He considered what he wanted to say, but it wasn’t the time or place for most of it.
“Did you tell Joel we found Miles?” he asked.
Kincaid sucked his teeth and then shrugged.
“Not yet,” he said. “I want to do that in person. She’s been a bit off with me since she found out he wasn’t dead the first time.
This time will put me in a better light.
Miles. Miles Sandoval. Goddamn Saul. The amount of time I wasted looking for this guy, when I could’ve just remembered Saul was a sentimental fool. ”
Javi glanced at him.
“You knew about his son?” he asked.
“Of course, we were friends,” Kincaid said.
It didn’t seem to be a lie. At least, not one that he recognized.
Before Javi could decide if it was worth his time to challenge it, Galloway strode out of one of the alleys of storage boxes.
Her usual work uniform of PPI was supplemented with heavy rubber knee and elbow pads.
Behind her, the last of the bodies that needed to be loaded into the van was carried out, already zipped up in plastic since there were no civilians here to placate.
Kincaid chuckled softly.
“Luka Horvat,” he said. “I’m going to have to sit in on his mother identifying him. That dog made a holy mess of the boy…if she makes it, I owe her a bone.”
Javi pushed himself off the side of the container.
“Bourneville’s going to be fine,” he said. “And she doesn’t take food from strangers. Or assholes.”
“Maybe a commendation, then,” Kincaid called after him as he limped away. “Get her pretty furry face out there as the dog that took down the heir to the Horvat crime family. How’s that sound?”
Not great.
Javi ignored him as he hobbled over to Tancredi. She was trying to get the blond woman to get into the back of the social worker’s car.
“I’m just worried about the puppy,” the woman sniveled. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “She looked like my nan’s dog.”
Tancredi handed her a tissue and nudged her toward the social worker. “I’ll let Rose here know what’s up with the dog the minute we hear,” she said. “She’ll tell you.”
Rose nodded agreement, her gray buzz-cut glistening in the overhead lights as she made come-on gestures with both hands.
The blond took a shaky breath, gave Javi a leery look, and scuttled away.
Her feet were bare, the pink nail polish on her toes chipped, and she had her strappy heels clutched in one hand.
“Gala Lyttle,” Tancredi told Javi absently as she capped her pen and tucked her notes back onto her belt.
“No priors, no sheet, just some dumb-as-bricks cashier from that cafe on the way in from San Diego. They talked her into getting into their car and driving to Plenty to ‘prank’ a deputy they knew. Bad as this turned, it is almost amazing it didn’t turn out worse for her. Sorry, what can I—”
She stopped mid-question as she looked at Javi’s face, then glanced down at his hastily field-treated leg. Her expression shifted from professional exasperation to alarm.
“Shit. Sorry,” she blurted out. “I forgot. Are you OK? Want me to call for an ETA on when the ambulance will get here?”
Javi shook his head. He reached up to loosen his collar and winced at the sting of fabric-burned fingers.
“Can you drop me off at my office?” he asked. “I need to check something.”
Tancredi widened her eyes at him. “I think it can wait,” she said.
“No. It can’t.”
In hindsight, technically, it could have.
It had taken three weeks to get every favor called in, every bit of goodwill spent, and every file tagged and pulled.
The latter had been mostly Sue, to be fair.
Now all the pieces were in place. All Javi needed was Kincaid.
Right on cue, the man himself opened the door to the office. He paused as he saw Javi behind the desk and Cloister slouched back against the wall behind him. One eyebrow quirked up as Kincaid shrugged his jacket off to hang it up.
“Agent Merlo,” he said. “I appreciate the effort, but no need to keep my seat warm. This is California.”
Javi picked up a folder and tossed it to the other side of the desk. It landed with a soft, determined thump. Kincaid looked at it and then at Javi.
“Like my daughter says, I’m not going to read all that,” he said. “But I’m happy for you. Or sorry that happened.”
Cloister snorted.
Javi swiveled his chair around to give him a look. He got a shrug in response.
“Sometimes assholes are funny,” Cloister said.
Kincaid smirked. “Agent Witte,” he said. “Always good to get the thumbs-up from you. Not that you have much choice at the moment. Not having much luck with that hand, are you?”
Cloister held up his arm, the heavy white cast already dinged and battered. “Still broken,” he said. “It’ll heal.”
“Always be that little weakness, though,” Kincaid said. He pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of the table. “Go on then, Javi. Lay out whatever cards you think you have. I’m all ears.”
Javi pointed at the file. “That’s the full forensic breakdown of everything we found in Brian Fowler’s house.”
“I’ve seen it,” Kincaid interrupted. “Not a well man. He was convinced all those new people moving in were part of some conspiracy against him, wasn’t he?”
Javi nodded. “Particularly Miles,” he said.
“Because Miles didn’t exist. Not really.
Saul had put a shell identity up to protect him, but the cracks in that started to show when he died.
Nothing that would have been a problem except Brian was paranoid, and a shell identity was exactly what he expected to find.
It confirmed all his delusions about his persecution by the strawmen and the banks.
Especially when he saw Miles having a secret meeting with a member of the FBI. ”
Kincaid pursed his lips. He leaned back and crossed his legs, ankle braced on his knee.
“And for Eric—”
“He prefers Miles.”
“He can prefer what he likes,” Kincaid said.
“He’s going back into witness protection, so he’ll take the name he gets.
As I was saying, for Eric, all his fears about the Horvats finding him were also being confirmed.
Which is why he called Joel. A perfect storm.
Very sad. An excellent cover story that preserves SSA Lee’s memory and reputation. ”
“Except it’s not a cover story, because the Horvats hadn’t a clue, did they?” Javi asked. “Not until you called them.”
Kincaid’s smiles always reached his eyes. The faker the smile, the deeper the crinkles. Javi wondered if he practiced them in his shitty motel mirror.
“That is a dangerous thing to say.”
“Most people would call me a liar.”
“I’m not a mean-spirited man,” Kincaid said, gently tilting his head to the side. “You could just be wrong.”