26 - Lane
Lane
As expected given the latest events, the day’s weather forecast was absolute shit.
A thick, suffocating wall of Midwestern fog wrapped Logan Square up like gray vines. I could practically taste the battery acid in the air. But I had a mission to do today and I wasn’t going to be deterred.
I opted to skip my morning coffee and head straight for the Daley, neatly filing away any emotional attachment to the case I was about to take on and stepping into lawyer mode.
My first stop was the clerk’s window to pull Dax’s newly minted case file and the preliminary police report before he was even brought up from the holding cells.
Then came his bail, which I was able to post without standard delays thanks to some rapport with the courthouse staff.
I dumped all the files onto my desk once I reached my office, then separated them into three neat stacks: the CPD arrest report, the state’s charge sheet and the bond receipt.
I’d already called Nance, who was rather shocked that I ended up at work before she did, and then all I could do was wait for the discovery interview.
This. This was the worst part.
*
“I’m telling you, I was set up.”
It was a line I heard a thousand times before, and hearing it now from him made it no less infuriating under these circumstances.
Nance blew an exasperated exhale through her mouth, a shade less professional than she normally was with clients.
I slid the yellow legal pad that had remained untouched for the past half an hour across the desk and clicked my pen, then placed it neatly on top of the pad.
“That’s all good and well, Mr. Miller, but I need more than just your claims of innocence. I need a timeline, dates, time slots, logistics. Without that, this whole defense is dead in the water,” I said.
Dax’s scowl deepened, his dark eyes glinting under the harsh fluorescents. “I told you already. I know how this goes and I didn’t do it.”
I closed my eyes for a second, trying not to break my composure but he was being so frustratingly difficult that it was a struggle not to throw the pad right at his face. I could sense Nance’s own irritation long before she made it obvious, but eventually she, too, had enough.
She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Hey, Mr. Miller, I’m going to need you to wake the hell up, please. This woman is doing her goddam best to help you and she can only do that if you tell her what she needs to know.”
Were this any other client, I would’ve said something to stop Nance. But I saw the little crack in Dax’s exterior and knew that somehow, Nance’s hardass honesty had actually managed to breach his armor. Go Miss Parker.
“Look, we don’t care about what you did or didn’t do,” she was still not done. “This isn’t a judgement on your morals. The only thing we care about is protecting you and making sure you don’t get thrown to the dogs.”
That seemed to have gotten through to Dax. His whole body, which up until this point had been rigid as a plank, sort of relaxed a little. Just barely. But he’d evidently heard enough to make him reconsider his tight-lip policy.
“Fine,” he grumbled, sliding the pad the rest of the way until it was right in front of him.
I shot Nance a grateful look and she winked.
“I was at the Warehouse,” he started and I felt my shoulders stiffen. I noticed that he was avoiding eye contact with me, pointedly looking at Nance for this little bit of exposition.
“The Warehouse?” she pressed.
“It’s…it’s a fight club thing,” he said shiftily.
Nance grunted. “Okay. Carry on.”
“I was standing by the back exit of the venue, my gloves still in my gym bag. I wasn’t even taped yet. Four CPD uniforms burst through the fire doors. No announcement, no sweep of the crowd. They made a direct line straight for me,” he said.
That fact immediately stamped itself in my brain as odd. It not only went against protocol but strongly confirmed Dax’s claim that he was set up. If the cops didn’t even bother looking for him, it meant they knew exactly where he was down to where he’d be standing.
When I looked over at Nance, her expression told me she picked up on it too.
“The first cop slammed me against the brick and reached into my left jacket pocket. Pulled out a little plastic baggie with a gram of blow. I don’t use, Lane. Like I said, it was a setup.”
He’d been scribbling the crib notes onto the pad and he finished just in time to look up at me when he said my name.
“Did the cops say it was a raid?” I asked.
“Yeah. Afterwards. But that still doesn’t explain why they came for me immediately instead of searching the place first,” he pointed out. “They didn’t even touch anyone else.”
I looked him in the eye and this time he didn’t drop his gaze. He stared right back and I just had a feeling in my gut that he was telling the truth.
“We’ll need to wait for the prints to be processed. But if you’re telling the truth then your DNA shouldn’t be on the baggie,” I said. While the sentence was factual and objective, I could strain the hint of reassurance that coated the words. Dax gave a small, quick nod.
Nance excused herself to get a running start on the defense, leaving me and Dax alone. I jogged the files on the desk in front of me, clearing my throat.
“Thanks.”
My eyes slid up.
“For having my back,” Dax clarified, his voice sounding a little strangled.
“Don’t mention it,” I replied, jerking my thumb in the direction of the door. “I’m about to clock out, actually. I kind of wanna get ahead of the storm.”
I was being careful with my words, not wanting to make it obvious that Dax was most likely going to go home with me. That would certainly make being his self-appointed lawyer a little more complicated than I could deal with at the moment.
He pressed his lips together. We timed it realistically enough to not draw any suspicion and he left first, waiting for me at the station so we could take the L train back together.
It was a little strange to have someone join me on my commute.
It had been my own personal little introspective bubble for such a long time that it took some getting used to.
But Dax didn’t seem like he was much in the mood for talking, either.
We just sat side by side, our arms brushing against each other every now and again.
“The conditions of my bail include not being in the vicinity of any fight, right?” His question caught me off-guard, and when I looked at him, he seemed pensive.
“Yes,” I answered.
“See, that’s what has me stressed out right now. Because if I can’t fight, then how the hell am I supposed to get the money together for my brother?” He framed it as a question.
But what could I say to that? What answers could I give him that he wouldn’t have thought of at least a million times over. So I did the only thing I could think of. I reached out and squeezed his hand, just once and very quickly.
He almost flinched in surprise.
“I know that you have many things you’re worried about right now. But you need to focus on your safety first. That’s the most important thing, Dax,” I said. We finished the rest of the ride in silence.
*
“Shit!” Dax exclaimed as we peeled out of the station and into the cascading rain. The sky had split open above us, and what had started as a gloom earlier was now a full-on storm. Dax grabbed my hand and tried moving me faster out of the downpour.
The moment we entered the house, I could already hear Bear barking out orders to Sy. My stomach sank as I feared the worst, and by the time Dax and I barrelled downstairs to the basement, those fears were confirmed.
There was already a thin layer of freezing stormwater creeping across the concrete floor, threatening the guest bedroom and my home office.
The gutted subfloor of the master had turned into an active concrete pool, with muddy water collecting rapidly.
Silas was frantically jamming industrial rags and a tarp into the foundation cracks to stop the pool from rising around the exposed pipes.
Bear was dealing with the larger structural threat by throwing wet insulation out of the way to clear a path for the buckets.
Bear barely looked up to notice Dax and me before instantly calling us to action.
He had to raise his voice over the sounds of the storm and rushing water.
“Dax! Grab the shop vac behind the stairs! And Lane, start swapping out these buckets before the pit overflows!” He wiped a mixture of sweat and rain from his forehead as he wrenched a piece of waterlogged drywall free.
Dax and I jumped to it, falling into the frantic rhythm immediately.
My focus only lasted a few minutes before the guys stripped off their jackets and overcoats and the moment they did, my brain lagged.
Drenched T-shirts clung tightly to heavy muscle, outlining every contour of their chests and backs.
In the cramped, humid space of the basement, bare skin collided with cold, rain-slicked hardwood as bodies slid together to pass equipment.
I could feel myself heating up despite the freezing temperature of the water.
Maybe it was that lapse of stupidity that distracted me enough to catch my foot on the slick, exposed lip of the subfloor plywood.
I tilted backwards, a startled yelp escaping me.
I would’ve crashed hard onto the hard concrete if not for Bear’s arm that hooked my waist and violently stopped my momentum.
“Watch yourself,” he grunted against my ear. His chest was heaving, but there was genuine, raw worry in his expression.
We stared at each other for a beat, our wet bodies finding instant heat wrapped up together amidst the chaos. Suddenly, the unspoken tension snapped. Bear kissed me twice. The first was chaste, more a reflex than anything else but the second stopped the rest of the room in its tracks.
My arms twined around his neck as he deepened the kiss and the arm around my waist pulled me flush against his wet chest. When we pulled apart, we were both panting.
Sy was standing nearby, watching with a longing look on his face and I immediately grabbed him by the wrist and hauled him towards me.
I dragged him down by the back of the neck for another makeout session.
“What the fuck.”
I broke the kiss, breathless, and turned my head. Dax was staring at the three of us in pure, unadulterated shock, the shop vac nozzle still dripping in his hand.
“I guess I clearly missed out on something when I was in lock-up,” he muttered.
I grinned at him through my tangled, damp hair. Taking a step closer, I let my hands slide slowly up his tensed arms. I stood on tip toe and leaned into his ear, my breath brushing against his skin. “Guess this is the perfect time to make up for it.”
If he had any qualms about that, they were out the door the instant I looped my fingers in the collar of his shirt and pulled his mouth down in a passionate, territorial kiss of our own.