Chapter 12
Twelve
For the sake of maintaining their cover, Carter and Lincoln had cleared out before the local authorities arrived at the motel.
While they’d convinced O’Shea to delay notifying Larry about the station arsonist and about Weathers’s whereabouts, there was no stalling on reporting Stacy’s murder.
Carter just hoped the murder and its connection to Dr. Fear didn’t immediately leak to the press and that Larry wouldn’t challenge O’Shea’s jurisdictional strong-arming.
This case needed to stay with the FBI, and quiet, for now, not only because it was connected to Dr. Fear, but because Dr. Fear was somehow tied into Apex.
Of that much Carter was sure, and he and Lincoln were on his trail.
Most of all, though, Carter hoped they’d given Kirk and Beverley what they needed to rescue Ruby and Chase.
Still no word there, which Carter suspected was the reason for Lincoln’s pacing a loop around the dining table, into the kitchen, and back again.
They’d come straight home and shot off texts, emails, and voicemails to Kirk and Beverley.
The director reported back that Stacy’s car had been tracked to three different locations in DC and tactical teams were on their way to each, with Kirk leading the team targeting an Ivy City warehouse near where one of Stacy’s cards had been used.
Radio silence since then. Not surprising.
And not surprising that the holding pattern was causing Lincoln to fray, which in turn was causing Carter to unravel. Not in the good way.
“We should go to the library. Or to the lab.”
Carter didn’t see how that would do Lincoln much good in this state. He’d just be pacing a smaller area. “We should wait for direction from DC as to next steps,” he said from his seat at the table. “For now, why don’t you sit?”
Lincoln walked past him, commencing lap fifteen. “We’re hours past the kill window for Ruby and Chase.”
“They’re not gonna call mid-op, and the op likely pushed out the window. Distraction and delay.”
Lincoln rounded the kitchen island. “Or it sped the window up.”
“Why don’t you grab your guitar and play something?” Carter suggested. If Lincoln’s skills with the guitar were half as good as his talent at the piano, it was something Carter wanted to see and hear, a distraction for them both. “You sing too?”
A stutter step, a curse, a dark glare from the other side of the table.
“Ooh,” Carter drawled. “That’s a yes.”
“I’ve done enough playing today already.”
“Except this is for an audience of one. Your husband, Professor Polk. No pressure. You can handle that.”
“No,” he clipped out, headed back for the kitchen.
“Tell me about the stage fright.”
Lincoln spun and flung his hands in the air. “For fuck’s sake, Carter, why?”
Carter pushed out of his chair and approached his partner like he would a caged lion, which was about how Lincoln looked right now.
Face scrunched in anger, blond hair askew, practically growling, definitely prowling.
Carter advanced with caution, aiming at not getting eaten alive.
At least not in the bad way. “Because the thought of playing in front of crowds makes you feel ill,” he said.
“And maybe that feeling, plus the pacing, will make you feel even worse. So you’ll stop pacing. ”
Lincoln narrowed his eyes and leaned back against the kitchen sink, creating more distance between them. “You are diabolical.”
“And curious.” He rested a hip against the island, letting Lincoln have his space.
“I’m supposed to be the pissy house cat.”
“Oh, don’t worry, babe, you still hold that title. Your lion’s mane is out to here.” Carter held his hands up on either side of his head.
Lincoln frantically smoothed down the ruffled locks. “Fuck you.”
Mission accomplished, Carter turned for the cabinets, grabbed the tequila bottle and two shot glasses, and returned to the table. “Come. Sit.”
“Cat, not a dog.”
He filled each glass with two fingers’ worth of the tequila. “Hence bribes.”
Steps approached behind him, and Carter bit back his smile.
Lincoln tossed his phone on the table and plopped into the chair on Carter’s left. Carter slid a glass in front of him. “The stage fright stop you going forward with music?” he asked.
Lincoln sipped at his tequila, contemplating his answer.
“In large part, yes. Take current Lincoln anxiety level and ratchet it up a thousand. I was in a constant state of panic, so worried about getting it perfect, where it was going to lead, and what others would think. I wasn’t playing for me anymore.
Mentally and physically, I couldn’t keep going like that.
I didn’t love it, didn’t love myself, and didn’t love where I was headed. ”
“How’d your family take that?”
“My sister was fucking ecstatic. She knew how miserable I was. Mom and Dad not so much, and I felt guilty as hell. They’d put so much into having a music kid, and then I pulled the plug before the payoff.
Things were never the same, and then I moved across the country and didn’t come back.
Not sure they would’ve ever forgiven me if not for Gabby and Elena.
We all go out to LA every few years to visit. Proof of life.”
Carter chuckled. “That how Elena learned the phrase?”
“Gabby’s words, not mine.”
“You two still close?” At Lincoln’s side-eye, Carter lifted a hand, palm out. “I only ask because you mentioned your sister was with Elena this weekend. Forgive the investigator. Just trying to understand the picture.”
Lincoln’s glare didn’t immediately recede, and Carter worried he’d ruined every stride forward he’d made the past two days, but then, as if adjudging his apology genuine, Lincoln’s shoulders relaxed, as did the murder eyes.
“Fair enough,” he said. “I suppose it’s not the way divorce usually goes.
Gabby works for State. Elena was born when she was assigned to Foggy Bottom, but with her next overseas assignment, I stayed home on dad duty. ”
“That’s when you came out of the field,” Carter said, putting the pieces together. “Started teaching at Quantico.”
Lincoln nodded. “Worked for me professionally, but personally Gabby and I drifted apart, which was probably inevitable. Gabby is like this ball of energy no one can contain. She likes to be on the move and loves relocating every few years. I am not cut out for that. I like stability and routines.”
“You don’t say.”
Lincoln kicked his shin but smiled. “She’s still my best friend,” he said, smile growing wider. “And Elena is a mix of us both. Energetic, adventurous, spends her summers traveling with her mom, but she likes having a home base, a place and routine to return to each fall. It works for us.”
“I’m glad,” Carter said. “And I’m sorry if it sounded like I doubted that.”
“That’s on me, not you. Few years back, I dated a guy long-term. Adam, who insisted on calling me Linc. Introduced him to Elena and everything. About a year later, he offered me a ring and an ultimatum—them or him.”
Carter formed a fist, then released it, so angry on Lincoln’s behalf, and his own, he could scream. An incredible man offered that guy a family and he spit in their face. Carter dreamed of being so lucky one day. “I hope you sent him packing.”
“Swiftly.” Lincoln tossed back the rest of his shot. “Didn’t even have to think about it.”
“Good for you. Fuck him.” Carter downed his shot as well, then refilled both their glasses. “And no disrespect to your parents but fuck them too if they can’t see how well you’re doing in the profession you chose.”
“More like lucked into it. I had an uncle who was a cop. The forensics part of his cases always fascinated me, and I was good at science and math.”
“Same part of the brain as music, right?” Carter asked as he refilled their glasses.
“To some extent, yes, the numbers and arrangements. I fell in love with it like I had with music, at first.”
“And the stage fright doesn’t bother you when teaching?”
“It did at first, no thanks to students like you.” Lincoln cut him a sly smile, like he knew exactly what Carter had been up to back then.
“But I got more comfortable with it and with my role at the Bureau. Honed those skill sets. Unlike playing a concert in front of strangers, or walking into a café full of them, the classroom is a much smaller stage where I control most of the variables. That I can deal with.”
Carter angled toward him, shoulder to the back of his chair, one leg crossed over the other, glass in hand as he sipped at his second shot. He had Lincoln calm and talking, and Carter wanted to know everything. “You brought your guitar though, so you must still play.”
“For me. I still love it. I still need it.” He drummed his fingers over his glass like he would over strings, then lifted it for another slow swallow. “It’s part of who I am, but I want to continue to love it. I don’t want to resent it, and that’s where I was headed. Fast.”
“For what it’s worth, you were amazing today. I’ve never heard that hymn sound so full, so layered before.”
Lincoln’s cheeks heated, a sly grin that morphed into a fond, soft smile, all of the prickliness fading away. Carter was glad to be seated, that same swooping sensation stealing through him and knocking him wonderfully off-balance.
“It was my grandmother’s favorite,” Lincoln said. “It’s actually very basic. It was one of the first things I learned to play. Then as I learned more about music, how to compose and arrange it, I added to the hymn.”
“Did you used to go to church, then, with her?”
He nodded. “I understand the community part of it. Hell, that was evident today, and the service was pleasantly brimstone and judgment free. For me, though, I opted out when a youth minister told my Sunday school class that non-Christians had no afterlife to look forward to.”
“Had he never heard of Nirvana? As in not the band.”