Chapter 30 #2
Tuesday afternoon. There's a kid on a bicycle at the far intersection, pedaling away. An old man sits in a plastic chair outside the hardware store, reading a newspaper. Phoenix's man sits at the diner counter, visible through the window, coffee cup in hand, his eyes tracking the street.
Whitmore hasn't moved. Ball cap low. His phone is in his lap now.
His eyes are on the Amaranth storefront, and even from fifty feet away I can see the particular focus of a man cataloging details.
The tilt of his head when someone moves past the shop window.
The way his thumb hovers over the phone screen.
I cross the street. My hands are empty. My cut is on. The Outsiders patch visible and so is the Sergeant-at-Arms tab beneath it.
He doesn't see me until I'm fifteen feet away. His head turns, then his body locks. His eyes drop to my cut, the patch, the Sergeant-at-Arms tab. Then back to my face. He knows who I am.
"Dale Whitmore," I say.
He's off the bench before I finish his name. But he doesn't run toward the alley, he runs at me.
The first punch comes wide, a looping right aimed at my jaw.
He's two-twenty, but slow. The swing telegraphs from his shoulder three feet before his fist arrives.
I step inside the arc, catch his wrist, and redirect his momentum into the brick wall of the laundromat.
His shoulder hits first. The air leaves his lungs in a grunt.
He pushes off the wall and swings again. Left this time. Tighter. The knuckles graze my cheekbone, and the sting registers without slowing me down. I drive my fist into his solar plexus. The punch folds him. His mouth opens. No sound comes out. His knees buckle, but he doesn't go down.
Dale grabs my cut with both hands. Tries to pull me into a headbutt. I break his grip by driving my forearms through the gap between his wrists, snapping them apart, and hit him with a short right to the jaw that drops his head sideways. Blood from his lip sprays the sidewalk.
"Stay down," I say.
He doesn't.
He comes at me again. Lower this time. Shoulder aimed at my midsection.
A tackle from a man who has nothing left except forward motion and the animal refusal to stop.
I sidestep, grab the back of his jacket, and use his own momentum to drive him face-first into the brick.
His forehead hits the wall. The sound is dull, heavy.
He staggers back. Blood from a cut above his eyebrow runs into his right eye.
I grab his jacket collar and pin him against the wall. My forearm across his chest. His feet barely touch the sidewalk. His breath comes in ragged pulls, blood dripping from his brow and his split lip, his eyes unfocused.
"The woman in that shop," I say. My voice is even. My pulse is elevated but my voice is even. "You've been watching her for months. Broke into her apartment. Left a note for her father. You took photographs of her at work, at the clubhouse, in her own neighborhood."
His jaw works. Blood on his teeth. "I was following orders."
"Whose orders?"
"The network. Donovan's people. Alice's operation."
"Donovan's dead. Alice is dead. The network doesn't exist." I press my forearm harder against his chest. "You've been running on instructions from dead people.
The chain of command you served is ash. The handlers who gave you orders are gone.
You've been stalking a woman for months on behalf of a ghost."
His face changes. The fight drains out of him. His shoulders slacken against the brick. It's the realization of a soldier who didn't notice the war was over arrives behind his eyes in slow, heavy waves.
"What happens now?" he murmurs. Blood drips from his chin.
Kyle and Rider close from both ends of the block.
My phone is already in my hand. Phoenix's van pulls to the curb.
The side door slides open. The transfer takes eleven seconds.
Kyle grips Whitmore's jacket. Rider takes his legs.
Whitmore goes into the van without resistance.
The door slides shut, then van pulls away.
Phoenix will handle the rest. His network has infrastructure for people who disappear. Whitmore won't be seen in Willowridge again.
I stand on the sidewalk. Blood on my knuckles. The graze on my cheekbone starts to throb. The bench is empty, the laundromat sign blinks above it.
I tap my earpiece. "Clear."
Knox: "Copy. All positions stand down."
I walk back across the street. Through the door. Into Amaranth.
Frankie is at her station, her eyes finding mine for one second. They drop to my knuckles. To the mark on my cheekbone. She returns to her work without a word.
Ruby is standing behind her station. Earpiece still in. A pencil still in her hand. Her sketchbook is open to the compass rose. She sees me, and the pencil hits the floor.
Her eyes track my face. My cheekbone. My hands. The blood on my knuckles. Her face drops. The color leaves her cheeks and her hand reaches for me before she pulls it back.
"Back room. Now," Ruby says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me off the shop floor, past the counter, through the hallway, into the supply room. She pushes me onto the stool by the sink and turns the faucet on.
"You fought him," she says.
Ruby takes my right hand and holds it under the water. The blood runs off my knuckles in pink streams, swirling down the drain. Her fingers are gentle, working between mine, cleaning the split skin across the second and third knuckles.
"He fought me. I finished it."
"You have blood on your hands." She turns my hand over, checking the palm, then shuts off the faucet. She pulls my hand from the sink and presses a clean towel against the knuckles. She reaches for the first aid kit on the shelf above the sink without letting go of my hand.
"It's his."
"You have blood on your hands because you fought a man who was stalking me.
" She opens the kit one-handed, pulls out antiseptic and gauze.
The cap comes off the antiseptic with her teeth.
She pours it over my knuckles, and the sting bites through the adrenaline.
"Nash. Nashville Sutton. You physically fought a human man with your actual fists because he was watching me through a window. "
"He swung first."
"I don't care who swung first." She wraps the gauze around my right hand, tucks the end, and takes my left hand.
Back under the water. Same careful fingers working between mine.
"You fought someone for me. You went across a street, confronted a man who has been terrorizing me for months, and you hit him with your hands. "
She finishes my left hand. Wraps it. Sets it down on my thigh.
Then she takes a fresh piece of gauze, wets it, and tilts my chin up with her fingertips.
She dabs the graze on my cheekbone; her touch is so light I barely feel the pressure.
Her eyes are an inch from the bruise, studying it, cataloging the damage the way she catalogs details in a design.
"Malachi killed someone for Candace," she says, still dabbing.
"Knox killed someone for Sloane. I mean, those were their fathers, and my father is actually decent, so I don't need you to do that.
My father is alive and mostly functional, and I'd like to keep him that way.
But the principle stands." She pulls the gauze away, checks it, folds it to a clean side, and presses it back against my cheekbone.
"You fought a man for me. With your fists.
And your knuckles are bleeding. Your cheekbone is already bruising.
I am looking at you right now and I have never been more attracted to another human being in my entire life.
Which is saying something because I was already at maximum capacity after the Greg operation and the desk and the posterior exploration conversation. "
"Ruby."
"I'm not done." She sets the gauze down and cups my face in both hands.
Her palms are warm against my jaw. "You fought for me.
Nobody has ever fought for me. People have argued for me.
People have negotiated for me. My mother once yelled at a PTA mom for implying I was a bad influence, which was accurate but beside the point.
But nobody has ever used their actual physical body to protect mine.
The fact that you did it, then walked back across the street with blood on your hands like you were coming back from getting coffee is the most—"
I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her between my legs. She comes easily, her hands still on my face, and I kiss her. She kisses me back, her mouth warm, her breath fast, her fingers trembling against my jaw.
She pulls back. Looks at me. "It's over?" she asks.
"It's over. The man who broke into your apartment is gone. The photographs stop. Surveillance stops. The shadow network that was watching you is dismantled."
Ruby reaches up, pulls the earpiece from her ear, then takes mine out too and sets both on the shelf beside the sink. Her eyes come back to mine.
"So technically, you're not my detail anymore."
"The obligation was never the reason."
"I know." She wraps her arms around my neck and leans into me, her breasts pressing firmly against my chest. "Nash."
"Yeah."
"It's after." Her voice drops. The grin builds slowly. It spreads from the corners of her mouth, pushing through the tears, the adrenaline, and the twelve inappropriate workplace emotions. "You said we celebrate after."
"I did."
"You said Vesper."
"I did."
"You said the posterior exploration department was open for business." She presses her forehead against mine. "Take me home. Get me ready. And take me to Vesper."
My phone buzzes. Knox:
All clear. Van is out of county. Phoenix confirms.
I tap the earpiece. "Copy."
Ruby puts her earpiece back in, grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the back room, through the hallway, onto the shop floor. Frankie glances up. Ruby taps her earpiece.
"Knox."
"Yeah?"
"For the record, my code name should have been Trouble. This will be revisited. Also, I'm going to need the rest of the day off."
Knox disconnects.
Frankie rolls her eyes at me. "Take her home, Nash. I have a client in ten minutes."
Ruby grabs her bag. She's out the door before Frankie finishes the sentence.