Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

"View's a bit different from up here," Jamie said as he and Aidan took their seats at the end of a row around the bowl from Martino's suite. They had a good view of their suspect's intended location—and of the rink, which Jamie had only ever seen as a court before, from the sidelines most recently. The bigger, different picture wasn't bad.

Beside him, Aidan cursed and adjusted the hat he wasn't used to wearing. Jamie could count on one hand the number of times over the last eight years he'd seen his husband in a ballcap. But sitting as close as they were to Martino, Aidan's red hair would be too noticeable. Ditto Jamie—all of him—so he'd also donned a hat and, God help him, the black and silver of the hometown team, hoping to blend in and avoid a cameraman spotting him and putting him on the scoreboard.

Aidan left his own hat alone and adjusted Jamie's lower. "How much is it killing you to wear that gear?"

"Almost more than my Carolina heart can bear. I'd rather be in red tonight. What about you? "

Aidan shrugged. "I have no real hockey allegiances. I'd just rather attend sporting events where I don't freeze my nuts off."

Jamie slung an arm around his shoulders and drew him closer. "I'll keep you warm, baby." And this close, it was easy for Jamie to hold his phone in his lap and show Aidan the live feed from inside Martino's box, streaming to them from the surveillance bug the advance teams had placed.

Aidan rubbed his ear, activating the comm unit there. "We're reading," he told Matt and Rick, who were set up in a nearby concession stand that had been closed for the evening. "Nice work."

"Now let's just hope he shows," Jamie mumbled, eyeing the empty suite. It was fully stocked—trays of snacks and buckets of beer ready to go—but not a single guest in sight. Yet.

A text appeared at the top of Jamie's phone screen, Angel pinging him with another question about mods to the truck.

Aidan rubbed his ear again. "That was a genius move," he said with a jut of his chin at Jamie's text thread with Angel.

"You're the one who told me about his interest after the chase and about Tom's history with cars. And you've been pretty good with Bev yourself."

"She's a cool kid and not a kid at all. What she's been through..."

"That's over for her now, one way or the other." He texted Angel back one-handed with a suggested tweak to his proposed mod, then asked, Everything good there?

A picture appeared, Jamie's tablet in the foreground, Angel sitting at the table with it, while Izzy, Bev, and Maryanne were in the living room watching a rom-com Jamie recalled seeing previews for. Make it stop , read Angel's message with the picture.

With any luck, you're back to school tomorrow. Enjoy the night off while you still can.

He responded with the crying face emoji, at which point Aidan snagged the phone from Jamie and recorded a voice message, in Spanish, telling Angel he couldn't afford to miss any more Spanish lessons.

Vete a la mierda came right back.

Aidan bit out a laugh as he handed the phone back to Jamie, but beneath the amusement, Jamie could see him struggling. The shake of his hand, the gleam in his eyes, the hope that vibrated under his skin. How much he enjoyed getting to know Angel and Izzy again, Bev too, and how much he wanted it to all work out so they could stay in one another's lives. Jamie wanted that too, wanted Aidan happy most of all.

He put the phone in the cupholder where they could both see it, then hauled Aidan as close as the armrest between them allowed, his lips pressed against Aidan's temple just below the brim of his hat. "It's okay, Irish. I've got you."

They stayed seated close until player introductions and the anthem, and when they sat back down, it was to motion in Martino's box, finally. Martino was in attendance, dressed in jeans and a black team-branded sweater. Two other people were in the box with him. One a hired guard if Jamie had to guess, the overly muscled, younger man hanging back, while Martino chatted with a suited gentleman closer to the front of the box.

Aidan swiped a hand over his ear, Jamie over his too, the both of them activating their comms just as Rick reported, "We've got eyes on."

No ears on tonight, audio surveillance beyond what they could legally do with so many other people in range and beyond what would be useful with so much background noise, as evidenced by the cheer that went up at the opening face-off.

"ID on the current visitor?" Aidan asked.

"Luca Savoy," Rick answered so fast he couldn't have used facial recognition for it. "Former hockey player. Broadcaster now."

"Someone else is a fan," Jamie said.

"Lotta frozen-over lakes in the Midwest during the winter," Rick replied. "Shit for balance on blades, though, so I watched a lot more than I ever played."

Savoy wasn't the only former athlete to visit Martino during the first period. Martino's suite saw a steady stream of comings and goings, the snacks and drinks requiring multiple refills. Some of the faces Jamie recognized—more athletes, some celebrities—others he didn't but could guess at their business. "You getting good enough looks for facial?" he asked the team.

"Most of them," Rick replied. "Everyone we've run so far is either a celebrity, athlete, or criminal with a rap sheet."

"Some are two or more of those things," Matt deadpanned.

"Starting to wonder about this one in particular," Berat chimed in from his spot at the bowl's entrance closest to Martino's suite. "Incoming."

On cue, a new visitor appeared on screen, one Jamie recalled from last night. And from last summer. Same as both those times, he was dressed all in black again, from his hair, to his leather jacket and jeans, to the bracelets on his wrists and the rings on his fingers.

Aidan seemed to recognize him too. "He was at the party last night, wasn't he? Who is he?"

"Ryan Lassiter," Jamie answered. "He's in some band all the kids love." Aidan's brows raced north, colliding with the cap's rim. Understandably so, Jamie more the movie kind of guy, Aidan the music one, but Aidan's tastes veered toward Irish punk, not the latest rock-pop sensation. "They're Levi's son's favorite. We ran into Ryan when questioning a suspect on the case for Press this past summer."

"A case that also involved cargo thefts. And now we're running into him again, last night with Russo, tonight with Martino, on another stolen goods case."

"Doesn't look like he's here with good news for Martino either," Rick said.

"If I had to bet money," Aidan speculated, "I'd guess it's a message from Russo."

As the rock star towered over Martino, in his face about something, Jamie had to agree with their assessments. "Matt, you know anything more?" Jamie asked, recalling some nonverbal sparks flying between him and Ryan the last time they'd run into him. Bedroom eyes , Marsh had teased.

There was nothing funny, however, about Matt's tone when he reentered the conversation, his timbre low and strained. "What the fuck is he doing here?" His gruff question was followed by his comm disconnecting, then Rick's "Matt, where are you going?"

"Berat," Aidan said, "Be ready to intercept if he's headed your way. "

"I don't think he'll do that," Rick said. "Not in his interest."

"What's that mean?"

"You remember the guy last night, at the bar?"

"Matt's brother," Jamie said.

"Yeah, that was him. He's in the band with Ryan."

Another detail clicked. "That's why the place was called Remedy."

"Vice versa, but not the point. Matt's . . . protective . . . of his brother."

"The rock star?" Aidan said.

And another detail registered for Jamie, but not knowing how much of his personal life Matt had or wanted disclosed, he signaled Aidan to go off comms.

"What do you know?" Aidan asked, immediately catching on.

"Matt and Cam worked together in Boston because they had something in common. His sibling was missing too for some time, and while he came back, he wasn't the same. Matt's been trying for years to reconnect with him. Probably part of the reason he moved out west, then up to LA."

"And he doesn't want Ryan to fuck that up."

"That'd be my guess." And maybe they had in fact all misread Matt's reaction to Ryan this past summer. Jamie scratched a mental note to apologize, then clicked his comm back on when Aidan did.

"Update, Berat?" Aidan requested.

"No sign of Matt down here," the detective reported.

"And looks like Ryan is leaving Martino's suite," Jamie said, watching on his phone screen as the rock star stormed out of the suite.

"Whatever was said," Aidan remarked, "Martino's going about business as usual." Proven as he guzzled the rest of his beer, plastered on a smile, and greeted the next visitor who entered the suite. "Does this guy even need to get rid of Russo?" Aidan said. "Seems like he's got plenty of business and connections."

"We're still missing something," Jamie said. "A connection."

"Ryan?"

"I don't think that's it. He's just a messenger. And consistent with everything else we've seen tonight already."

But the visitor who entered the suite next was not. He looked like an average guy just off the street, a little younger than Jamie, about Aidan's height, his blond hair windswept, his cheeks rosy, his jeans and sweatshirt fan appropriate. But the way Martino greeted him was warmer than he'd greeted anyone else that night. A tight embrace, a kiss on the cheek, an arm slung over his shoulders as they cheered on the face-off at the start of the third period.

"Something's different about this one," Aidan likewise detected.

"Do we have a match on facial?" Jamie asked Rick, something about this latest visitor also familiar.

"Not registering on facial," Rick said.

"I'll get on the horn with ticketing," Matt said, sounding out of breath but back on the comms with them. "See if we can trace the ticket that got him in."

"Friend?" Jamie speculated while they waited.

Aidan tilted his head, as if considering his options. "More than, maybe? A boyfriend?"

"Try family," Rick said. "He wasn't a match to anyone in the system, but when I ran him against Michael, he was a match on the nose, eyes, and dimpled chin. "

"But Michael doesn't have kids," Aidan said. "Neither did Arthur."

"What about other siblings?" Jamie asked. "Kids, maybe?"

Aidan shook his head. "No other siblings."

"I've got a name," Matt said. "Fuck."

Jamie shifted forward in his seat, same as Aidan beside him. "What is it?" Jamie asked.

"William Arthur Dunlap."

Aidan moved to shoot out of his seat, but Jamie threw out an arm, holding him in place. "Don't draw attention," he said. "He's not going anywhere, and we've got him covered. Let me help Rick dig and try to confirm it." Trusting Aidan to see reason, he withdrew his arm so he could have both hands to type as fast as he could on his phone, running every search he could think of on William Arthur Dunlap.

Beside him, Aidan propped his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. "How did we miss this? Is he actually Arthur's son?"

"There's no record of kids in Arty's existing Bureau file," Berat said. "Or in the one Sutton pulled together. When I got roped into this, I read through everything. It's not in there."

"But between the resemblance, his familiarity with Michael, and the middle name… Fuck. Angel was supposed to meet Arty. That part was the truth." His words grew thready as he continued to speak. "It was just the wrong Arty. His son. Fuck."

Jamie spared a hand to run over his shoulders. "Breathe, Irish. "

"We were the missing link. Me and Tom. It's revenge. Just not the revenge we thought."

"You take his father," Matt said. "He takes your godson."

"Or you from your godson," Berat offered a most unpleasant alternative. "Timing just happened to be when you were in town..."

"I've got his birth certificate," Jamie said, the document loading on his screen. "Mother was Jill Dunlap. No father listed. Looks like there was a second certificate but it's under seal. A twin that was adopted, maybe? Give me a second." He typed faster, digging deeper, putting every hacker skill he had to use for his family, looking for that connection. When he found it, his stomach fell to the floor. It wasn't William's resemblance to his possible uncle that had struck Jamie as familiar.

Aidan clasped his biceps. "Jamie, what is it?"

"William's sister is Maryanne MacIntyre." He flipped the phone so Aidan could see the picture loading on screen. "The same Maryanne at the condo with our family."

This time, when Aidan shot to the end of his seat and out of it, Jamie didn't stop him. Instead, he was right on his heels. Charging for the exits and their family.