Chapter 7

SEVEN

It was closing in on midnight when Angel uttered his first words to Aidan since their standoff in interrogation that morning. "Why am I not in gen pop at LBC?" Lying on a metal bench, he kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, but seeing as they were the only two people in the holding cell corner of the LA field office, Aidan assumed the question was for him.

He threw a question back at his godson as he continued to air toss the foam Santa toy he'd grabbed off the guardsman's desk. "There a reason you needed to be in gen pop there?" Someone else he was working for? Had that been the real play? Yes, Angel was his godson, but Aidan was still an agent. And concerned for said godson, whether Angel wanted it or not.

"Nope," he said, popping the p . "Just wondering why I got a metal bench in here instead of there."

"How do you even know what gen pop means?"

"I watch movies."

Aidan leaned back in the rickety desk chair that had molded to his ass hours ago and kicked his feet up on the corner of the observation desk. "You're not in gen pop because you're a kid."

Angel turned to glare at Aidan, his blue eyes so much like his father's that a shiver raced up Aidan's spine. His voice, when it cracked low, sounded like Tom's too. "I'm not a kid."

"Let me rephrase," Aidan said, ignoring the ghost in the room for the very real human in front of him. His godson, who'd grown into even more of a beanpole than he'd been at age nine, his gangly limbs loosely hanging off the bench in the oversize jeans and hoodie he wore. "You're a minor."

"My minor ass has been in gen pop before."

Aidan set the toy down and raked a hand through his hair as he made a mental note to dig into Angel's rap sheet. Have Jamie dig further and find out what chaos he'd missed the past six years. If there was anything Aidan could do to still some of that chaos, he would, because despite what Jamie said, Aidan couldn't help but think that yes, he was responsible for the situation, at least in some part. "You're not in gen pop because the Bureau would like you to cooperate and because you're the godson of a Bureau SAC."

Angel scoffed. "Special Agent in Charge now?" He cocked a bushy brow before he rotated his head back to stare at the ceiling. And threw another verbal hook like he had earlier that morning. "My dad's death get you that?"

Hurt just as badly as it had that morning too. "Angel?—"

"Saw you got a hot new husband too. Some basketball star."

"Jamie, and he's a coach now."

"So it was just me and Mom who lost everything while you got a promotion and another rich athlete husband. Got it."

If Aidan could disappear into the chair, he would, the guilt crushing, whether it was misplaced or not. The only thing that kept him upright was the tiny bit of himself that wanted to argue, like he would with Angel's dad when they'd been Bureau partners. Like Jamie would for him if he were still here. He'd remind Aidan how he'd almost lost himself in a bottle after the accident, how he'd almost lost his own life in that crash too and had pins in his arm that kept the survivor's guilt forever fresh, how he, Jamie, Mel, and Danny had all almost lost their lives during their quest to solve Tom's and Gabe's murders.

Because that was what they'd been. Murders.

But this wasn't a competition, and Aidan was fairly certain Angel and the guilt would win if he went down that road. He deflected instead. "And you got a lead foot out of it."

Angel shrugged, insolent in the way only teens could pull off.

"Future bit of advice," Aidan said. "You can't outdrive Jamie. No one can."

Angel swung his legs around off the bench and dragged himself upright. "How did he—" He slammed his lips shut, wanting to ask but refusing to engage.

"Ask him yourself sometime," Aidan said, throwing out a breadcrumb. Maybe he'd engage with Jamie, if not with him. He added another to the trail. "He was an agent for a while too. Still holds the Bureau road course record."

Angel slumped against the wall, arms folded, his overlong curls falling over his long face. He looked more like a lost kid than he had all day .

Aidan lowered his feet and stood, feeling every pin in his arm and every one of his forty-nine years. Circling the desk, he stepped over to the cell and leaned against the bars. "Angel, what happened?"

"My lawyer said not to talk to you about the case without her."

"I don't mean about the case." The words came out harsher than intended, colored by a long day of frustration and guilt. But all those emotions were directed inward, none of them at the kid across the cell from him. Aidan softened his tone and tried again. "I mean with you and Izzy. Last I checked, the two of you were doing well. You had family here."

"They turned their backs on us too." He lifted that haunting blue gaze. "Probably about the time you stopped checking."

"I didn't want to."

"You still did," Angel said, enough of a breadcrumb in his words, in his bitter, hurt tone, to keep Aidan engaged too.

"I'm not going to now."