Chapter 6

SIX

Two hours and a half dozen "I'm fine" replies later, Jamie stood on one side of the observation glass, his husband on the other. Inside the interrogation room, Aidan leaned against the far wall, his chin lowered but every muscle of his lean frame strung tight, flinching with each surly word Matt and Berat drew out of the suspect across the metal table from them.

Not just any suspect.

Aidan's godson .

Angel Crane.

"When we worked Gabe's case," Jamie said to Danny beside him, "I researched Tom, but I was so focused on his financials and the connection to his and Gabe's killer that I didn't make this connection."

"That his and Isabella's son was named after Gabriel?"

Jamie nodded, recalling those early days when he'd been newly assigned to the San Francisco field office. When he'd watched from afar at office parties while Mel, Aidan, and his Bureau partner, Tom, would circle up with Gabe and Isabella and exist in their own seemingly perfect world.

During the investigation, Mel had told him that Isabella otherwise stayed far away from their work, that Tom and Aidan protected her from all of it. But then her grandmother's immigration status had been used as leverage against Tom by the terrorist who'd ultimately killed him and Gabe. Who had tried to kill Aidan and Jamie, multiple times over, before meeting his own demise.

Aidan and Jamie had survived, Mel and Danny too, and they'd eventually gotten their happily-ever-afters, but what had happened to Isabella? And her and Tom's son? Nothing good, it seemed, according to sixteen-year-old Angel's rap sheet. He'd racked up an impressive number of speeding tickets, truancy calls, school suspensions, and a misdemeanor larceny. His actions today would add several felonies to the list.

Jamie dragged a hand down his face, wondering how the day had gone from damn near perfect, he and Aidan committing to plan for the next big step in their future, to the past rearing up and punching them in the face again.

A past that Jamie had only cursorily read over in Tom's file and that Aidan had rarely mentioned. He'd never mentioned that Angel was his godson. Because he didn't want Jamie to know? Or because Aidan had been cut out of Angel's life? The latter seemed more likely, and by the heavy set of Aidan's shoulders, he was deeply regretting his absence, involuntary or not.

"Did Mel get a location on Isabella?" Jamie asked Danny. They'd learned through official channels that Isabella was a flight attendant for a major airline. Those official channels were slower, however, than Mel's bounty hunter ones at pinpointing a current location for Angel's mother.

"Should be arriving in Paris soon."

"Where'd the flight originate from?"

"JFK," Danny replied. "Izzy worked the red-eye from LAX the night before."

Leaving Angel to his own devices. Jamie idly wondered how often. Could he hack into those same channels of Mel's to find out? Or directly into the airline's manifests? Jamie was still putting together mental to-do lists when Rick opened the hallway door and poked his head into the room.

"Danny, you got a sec to go through more port footage?"

Knowing it would be longer than a second, Jamie closed the door behind his brother-in-law and refocused on the interrogation.

"Did you know what you were stealing?" Matt asked.

"Or who it belonged to?" Berat added.

"I didn't steal nothing," Angel huffed, despite his public defender, Tricia Harris's, caution to remain quiet. "I was just taking that briefcase across town for a friend. I didn't know it was stolen."

"Then why'd you run from us once you spotted the tail?" Matt said. He was a cagey interrogator, nonreactive, almost flat, a stark contrast to his out of work personality.

"Because someone was tailing me."

"With flashing lights and sirens."

"Instinct," Angel sneered as he cut a glare at Aidan. With his tan skin, shaggy brown curls, and long dark lashes, his light blue eyes, burning bright with anger, were a startling focal point. "Doesn't usually end well for me."

"If you were just moving a briefcase," Berat said, "then what were you doing at the port yesterday? "

"Field trip."

"Except that wasn't your school class." The detective leaned forward. "Were you creating a diversion, or were you there to confirm the goods were on-site?"

"Don't answer that," Tricia said, and this time the kid listened. Either way, Angel's actions were coordinated, and he had no good explanation for them.

"If you tell us who you were supposed to meet at LAX," Matt said, eliciting a revealing flick of Angel's gaze, "we can make this easier on you."

"Or who you were working with at the port," Berat said. "Was it Darien White who told you the plan? Who handed the briefcase off to you? Did he get into another car afterward?" The San Diego field team had found the abandoned cargo truck five miles shy of the border checkpoint. Empty, with no White in sight.

"Felonies off the table?" Tricia asked.

"Not in my power to deal," Matt said, resting back in his chair. "But I can ask and recommend."

"Then you better go do that." Tricia wasn't backing down, which Jamie appreciated. Any LEO worth their salt would for the sake of justice. And in this case, he personally appreciated it, for Angel's and Aidan's sakes.

Hell, Jamie was surprised Aidan hadn't already put one of their several defense attorney friends on a private plane down here. Jamie knew firsthand the lengths Aidan would go to for family, even if they were estranged.

Even as Aidan was being eaten alive by guilt.

Jaw clenched, brows knitted over worried-sick eyes, Aidan hadn't taken his gaze off Angel despite the teen's stinging barbs. He waited for Matt and Berat to leave the room before asking Angel, "How did you get wrapped up in this?"

"What else was I supposed to do when you took everything from us?"

Angel's words were barely a whisper, but they landed like a grenade, Jamie's own balance momentarily shaken as he imagined the hole they'd ripped open in Aidan's chest. The next second, Jamie's legs were back under him, and his hand was on the doorknob, ready to throw it open and barge in to protect Aidan from another blow.

Aidan's gaze darted his direction, as if he could see him through the glass, as if he could sense him simmering just on the other side. He shook his head, once, and Jamie stopped short, coming back to his senses. His presence wouldn't help. Nor was it necessary, Angel's PD stepping in again and cautioning him against saying more. Angel pressed his lips together, and Aidan had apparently had enough too, pushing off the wall and walking through the door Jamie opened for him.

He closed it behind Aidan, clicked off the interrogation room speaker, then drew Aidan into his arms. He was stiff as a board, muscles coiled tight with adrenaline, breaths coming short and fast, on the verge of hyperventilating. Cradling his head in one hand, Jamie glided his other up and down Aidan's back, repeating the motion until Aidan's breaths slowed. Until eventually his muscles loosened, and he wrapped his arms around Jamie's waist.

"Thank you," he said after another couple minutes in each other's arms.

"I'm glad I was here."

Aidan gave him a squeeze before stepping out of his hold. He turned and leaned against the wall beside the glass, looking back through it at Angel. "I'm not certain I wouldn't have punched a wall just now if you weren't. I'm glad for that. Less glad you're having to see this. That I let things get to this," he said with a futile gesture toward the glass.

"Talk to me, Irish." Jamie regretted the words as soon as they were out, a mirror of this morning's entreaty.

Broken now.

Aidan's answering laugh was harsh, as if scraping over its jagged edges. "Talk about a wake-up call." He raked a hand through his hair and left it cupped around his nape, head bowed. "How could I think?—"

"Don't." Jamie closed the distance between them, his front to Aidan's back, his hands on his hips. "Don't connect the two. They're unrelated. Talk to me about this . About Angel."

Aidan dropped his hand and lifted his head, resting back on his heels and giving Jamie some of his weight. "After the investigation," he started, then paused, swallowing hard, as if the past were a lump lodged in his throat. "After all that, Izzy wanted nothing to do with me. Or with Mel. Or with any of us. She packed up Angel and moved down here to where the rest of her family had relocated."

"Did you try to make contact?"

"Once. Got a blue streak of Spanish curses for the effort. I'd never heard her so angry, and I'd known Izzy since my first day of school in the States. I also knew when she hung up the phone that day that I'd never hear from her again. That was it." He shook his head and leaned more heavily against Jamie. "I kept tabs on them for a while. Everything seemed fine. After a certain point, it felt like an invasion of their privacy, so I stopped." He lifted a hand toward the glass, like he wanted to reach through it to his estranged family on the other side. Jamie stopped him short, gently grasping his outstretched hand. Aidan's fingers clenched around his, hard enough to make Jamie wince. "I did this, Whiskey. I ruined his life."

"You did no such thing." Jamie curled their joined hands against Aidan's chest and wrapped his other arm around his waist, embracing him. "You are not responsible for his father's choices. Or for his mother's, or his own."

"He's just a kid."

"Exactly. Which is why the Bureau and LBPD will cut him a deal. You know how this works. They want the higher-ups. Angel's just a runner, and in this case, the stolen goods were recovered."

"And you know it's never that simple." Aidan tilted his head, temple pressed against Jamie's cheek. "Nice driving today, by the way."

"You didn't seem to enjoy it in the moment."

"I never enjoy it in the moment."

Chuckling, Jamie was relieved to feel Aidan do the same, but before he could turn him in his arms and check for a smile, the door behind them opened, and Danny leaned in. "I've got Izzy." He held his phone out to Aidan.

Aidan's temporary reprieve vanished, all of his earlier tension rushing back in. He straightened out of Jamie's arms, took the phone from Danny, and stepped to the far corner of the room, phone held to his ear. "Isabella."

Without the phone on speaker, Aidan was too far away for Jamie to hear more than Isabella's muffled, rapid-fire Spanish. But Aidan's words and body language, the way he closed in on himself again, made the mostly one-sided conversation clear enough .

"He's cooperating," Aidan told her. Not exactly true, but it was what Angel's mother needed to hear. "I don't know when he'll be released." Clearly not what she needed to hear, Izzy's voice escalating in volume. Aidan rushed to clarify. "His public defender is good, but I can have the best defense attorneys in San Francisco here by midafternoon." He closed his eyes, pain washing over his features. "You wouldn't have to pay for them, Izzy." Whatever she said next caused Aidan to slump against the wall, defeat a black cloud crashing down around him. "I'm sorry."

Jamie made to move, no door in his way to Aidan's side, but Danny's hand on his forearm stalled him. "Not yet."

"Right, okay," Aidan said after another moment. "I'll stay with him until you get here." A streak of lightning bolted through the storm cloud, Aidan's voice strengthening. "Isabella, I'm not leaving him alone in holding. I'm staying with him until you get here." She must have conceded to his one demand, Aidan nodding once as he pushed off the wall. "See you soon."

Danny released his forearm, and Jamie met Aidan halfway across the room, looping an arm around his waist as Aidan handed the phone back to Danny. "I'll update Mel," Danny said, then slipped out of the room.

"And I'll stay here with you," Jamie told Aidan.

"No, you won't."

"Aidan—"

He laid the pads of his fingers over Jamie's lips, silencing his objections. "You have a game today. You need to go do your job, Whiskey."

Hand around his wrist, Jamie lowered Aidan's, then wrapped it in his against his chest. "My job, my life, my top priority is you, Irish. Always. "

"I can't be the reason you lose today. Not on top of everything else." The strain in his voice, the tension vibrating through his taut frame, was the last thing Jamie wanted to be the cause of. He had enough sources of stress already.

"Okay," he said as he stepped closer. "Your call." He pressed a soft, firm kiss to Aidan's lips, then rested their foreheads together, waiting for some of the tension to recede again. "But you call me if you need anything. If you need me to count breaths with you, or if you need me to tell you how much I love you. You are always my priority."