Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Missoula wasn't a big city, not compared to Chicago, but it was the second most significant in Montana and had enough shit going down to keep the cops busy. Clearly today was one of those days, and Ethan ended up killing time at his old desk, lying back in his chair, with his feet up and a mug of coffee resting on his stomach.

"Anytime you want to jump in," one of his colleagues said as he walked by escorting a young man with jeans falling around his thighs, cursing and yelling about police brutality.

"Vacation time, my man," Ethan deadpanned.

He was lying, of course. Waiting to see Chief Flynn was like waiting for a death sentence to be carried out. The resignation letter in his pocket was burning a hole there, and the acid in his stomach was enough to have him wishing he could go back to bed. He hadn't even told Jen yet, and he probably owed her an explanation. Adam had said he would come too, but instead, Ethan had asked Gabe to take Adam out again, a little farther afield, to get a better sense of Crooked Tree and see what he might remember.

Sitting there, he kind of wished he was working, apart from the drunks and the kids causing a ruckus. All this waiting around was killing him, but Chief Flynn had warned him to sit at his desk and keep his nose out of anything until he came back from a division meeting. Actually, the way he was feeling—confused and tight and bursting from his skin—he wasn't interested in stretching his brain to anything else. Jen had said she'd be back in an hour max, but that had been two hours ago.

She had news, she'd said, and then she'd not been here when he arrived. Something about local trouble. He didn't ask and she didn't say as she left with her temporary partner, Fielding, from across the bullpen. So now Ethan sat here and had way too much time on his hands.

"Okay, Allens, my office," Chief Flynn said as he appeared from nowhere and sailed past Ethan's desk.

Ethan followed him. Every step closer to the office was another moment of hesitation warring with the decisions he'd already made.

"I'm happy to extend your leave," the chief said. "If that's what you wanted to talk about. You have way too much vacation time built up, and Human Resources is on my ass to get it down before you lose it."

"That isn't it." He closed the door behind him, and as Flynn sat behind his desk, Ethan saw his expression change to one of confusion.

"This is a closed-door meeting? What's wrong?"

"I…." Ethan wanted to say the right thing. He pulled out the envelope and placed it square on the desk. "I want to thank you for my time here, but I'm giving in my notice."

Flynn stared down at the letter and Ethan relaxed a little; this whole "fucking up your career in one step" was going quite well. That was until Flynn smacked his fists on the desk and stood, leaning over and shouting right in Ethan's face.

"I call bullshit!"

"Sir—"

"Don't sir me. You're one of the best here and you're going? Where? What for?"

"My family needs me."

That statement took the wind out of Flynn's sails and his bluster died a little. Not much, but enough for Ethan to think he wasn't going to shout again. The whole bullpen probably heard all that.

"Jesus, Allens."

"I am sorry."

"This is a fucked-up situation."

"I get that."

"You're a career cop."

"Not as a priority over my family."

Flynn went silent, tapping his finger on the letter and evidently thinking hard.

"Three months," he said. "Compassionate leave, or whatever box I have to tick on the form. You come back in three months and tell me you don't want to be a cop, and I'll hand this in personally."

"Sir—"

"I don't give a rat's ass about what you're going to say. This is how it works. Take your vacation time, and if you decide to come back, I'll take you in an instant."

"Sir—"

"Dismissed, Allens."

Ethan left, closing the door behind him. He felt a hundred different emotions. Pride that he was of use to this precinct, pride that he was good at his job, alongside a healthy dose of what he could only call relief. Then there was the poison inside that he would be lying to his dad. He should just go in and call Chief Flynn on his high-handed bullshit, but somehow he didn't push open the door and do that. Instead, he spotted Jen across the room; telling her was the next shitty thing he had to do.

She held up a hand indicating five, and he slumped back in his desk chair, staring at the detritus of his cop life: the files, pens, trays, the photo of Justin that sat on one corner. No picture of him and Justin, nothing with his dad in it. Just a picture of Ethan's little brother on his own.

Was Justin taking over his life? Or rather, he knew that was true, but was he going to let it go on being this way? Was he going to let Justin get in the way of a relationship with his dad, or with Adam? Could he be the bigger man with his dad, the kind of man Adam needed?

Jen ran past. "Ten," she said, with an added "Sorry!"

Which left him again with way too much to think about. Adam, specifically. Last night had been…

Life-changing? Awkward? Wrong? Right?

He didn't know how to catalog what had happened, but he knew what his heart was feeling. In love, or at least in lust, for all those things that could have happened twelve years ago.

If his seventeen-year-old self had kissed Adam thoroughly when Adam was fifteen, instead of one soft kiss, then maybe the whole infatuation he had with his friend's brother would have stopped right there.

But it hadn't, and Ethan had battled way too many what-ifs over the years.

Which brought him back to last night. Losing it as a kid on his first date, with Adam sprawled next him making noises of want and need--- and sensible Ethan had left the room.

Getting Jen's call last night had him lying awake, and it just added to the angst of handing in his notice. As soon as she told him she'd found out some tattoo information but needed a fresh eye on it, Ethan had said he'd be in the city by eight. She told him she'd email it, but Ethan was using the distraction as an excuse to get the hell out of the bedroom where Adam lay curled on his side facing away from him.

Ethan then stared for the longest time at the horse on Adam's back as he slept. The work was exquisite; that wasn't done by some back-street artist with no license. It was art. Possibly the kind of art that would round out a portfolio or put the artist in the show. The detail of Smoke's coloring, the way the gray darkened around the neck, then lightened towards the rump onto the black tail with its individual strands of hair, was so perfect.

Had Adam remembered Smoke when he got the tattoo done? Did that mean he still had a memory of Crooked Tree after he left? That didn't sit well with Ethan. Why would Adam leave and not come back if he knew where he was from. Was this memory loss just from the attack in Chicago?

All those questions and more held him on edge, waiting for the ax to fall.

"Allens," Jen said on a sigh as she dropped into the chair opposite him.

"Is that blood?" Ethan sat up in his chair, looking at the darkness spread across her jacket.

She looked down and grimaced. "No, soy sauce," she muttered, stripping off the jacket and throwing it on the floor.

Something made sense. "Jesus, Jen, did you take down Soo Yin?"

They'd been tracking illegals working in the shop chain owned by Soo Yin, formerly of the Chinese Secret Service. Trafficking, drugs, you name it, Soo was part of it. Ethan and Jen had been working the case for over two years.

She wrinkled her nose. "Nope, just one of his satellites." She held up her hand as Ethan opened his mouth to protest that they'd agreed to hold off until they could go after Soo Yin himself. "It wasn't my call. The Eighth had the shop under surveillance and they were there when a worker called in 911."

"So, Soo Yin?"

"He'll go underground, no doubt."

Ethan sat back in his chair. "Fuck."

"Word," Jen said. Then she switched back abruptly to the matter at hand, clearly not willing to spend time moaning about their case being fucked over. Ethan was okay with that, he'd compartmentalize the fuckery and a little later he'd explain to Jen how he was leaving.

"So, what do you have for me?"

Jen stood up, pushing up with her hands on the desk, and yawned. "You're going to want to see this. But coffee, I need coffee."

Ethan waited patiently by the new-but-still-crappy machine and added a couple of minutes for her to sip the brew.

She half grimaced, half smiled. "This is shit coffee," she muttered. "Follow me."

Ethan followed her from the bullpen, turning into the main corridor and to the last room on the right, an op control room.

What the hell?

She pushed open the door and stepped in. Ethan was close behind, and he saw the board before she began to explain.

"I needed to sketch this shit out," she said, rolling her neck. Then she drank more coffee and stood directly in front of the board.

Right in the middle was a blue box with the name Adam Strachan in the middle; to the right of his name was Justin's name. A line connected them. Thereafter things became muddled, but Ethan had read enough incident boards to work out a general picture.

He tapped the photo of a storefront: "Marks and Punctures," a tattoo and piercings shop. "Is that where Adam got his tattoo?"

"Artist name of Stretch, aka Billy Molan, a star of the tattoo world. That is where he worked from 2004 to maybe three years ago. Tattoo artist to the stars."

Ethan peered closer at the shop and its address beneath. "In Wyoming?" he said disbelievingly.

"You better believe it, E. LA types travel into the Cowboy State to get their ink."

"Okay. So, does he remember Adam?"

Jen put her hands on her hips. "He's dead. Twenty-two to the brain, execution-style. Happened a week back, no leads, no CCTV, no motive."

"What?"

"Not only that, but you go digging and the file is shut down, so many red flags I could start a flag-selling shop."

"So Billy's files are closed."

"Yep. Access is way above our pay grade."

"Did you ask the Chief to?—?"

"Way above his pay grade too."

"This is Federal?"

"Looks like the FBI is involved somewhere in this."

"You think it's connected to Adam?"

Jen cast him an incredulous look. "Your boy turns up, beaten and left for dead, a week before the guy who tattooed him is shot?"

"Too much of a coincidence. It's pretty thin, though."

"There's more. I got a friend"—she raised her eyebrows at the word friend —"to dig deeper, to the things above my pay grade."

Likely it was her brother-in-law who was an ex-hacker. Well, he told everyone he was an ex -hacker, but Ethan was convinced the gentle-looking guy was still active.

Jen gestured to the red lines from Adam's box to a box with a big red question mark in it and three names written under. She read the names out loud. "Ian Bancroft, Mark Gregson, James Mahone."

"Who are they?"

"Possible aliases for your boy."

"For Adam?"

"I don't know what happened, but the man you know as Adam Strachan has been around. Ian was a laborer, Mark worked in a coffee shop, and James? He's the interesting one. He worked on a ranch in Wyoming and disappeared a month ago, just before two federal agents men were shot there—murdered and left in a field. You know what this is, right?"

"What?" He couldn't think about a general conclusion.

"This is witness-protection shit, Ethan."

All the energy left Ethan in a huge rush. He fell into the nearest chair, staring up at the board.

Really? Witness Protection? This was a Department of Justice issue?

That would answer so many questions. Had Adam witnessed something? Had he been taken into witness protection? Was that where he and Justin had been? Wait, Justin?

"And Justin? Did your brother-in-law find anything on him?"

Jen shook her head sadly. "He couldn't find anything. We just don't know the parameters to search."

Ethan understood that with his head, but his heart broke a little at the words. Why couldn't it be easy? Why wasn't there a database he could get someone to hack into? Somewhere they could pull out random information that could help?

"Ethan," Jen crouched in front of him, looking up. "If this is a Witness Security Program issue, and the tattoo artist, Billy, was part of whatever went down, maybe he was killed for information on Adam. Which, while I get there may be no connection whatsoever, maybe he was the one person Adam kept in touch with because they bonded over the tattoo. I don't know, but if any of this theory pans out, then fuck…."

"Adam could be in danger."

"Like I said, this is pretty thin, and I'll keep digging."

Fear caught in Ethan's throat. "No, stop now. Take it all down, shelve it. I'll handle it from now on."

"You think I can't handle one assassin with a need to take out random guys?"

"You have a family to think of. And if three people have died for whatever this secret is, you need to stop."

"Okay."

He could tell Jen was just saying what he wanted to hear. "I mean it, Jen. Promise me."

She nodded, and this time he saw the truth of it in her eyes. She pulled all the information off the board and shredded it while he watched. Then it hit him. He was in Missoula and Adam was alone at the ranch. He pulled out his cell and connected to Nate, sure as hell he needed to get Adam his own freaking phone.

"Hey," Nate answered immediately.

"You know where Adam is?" Ethan didn't waste time explaining.

"Touring the cabins with Gabe. What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. I'm on my way back. Keep an eye out there, yeah? And maybe get Gabe and Adam back. I'll be there in sixty."

"You want to tell me what's going on?"

"Too much to explain. I'll be back soon." He cut the call, stood, and pulled Jen into a hug. "Thank you."

With the fear of God inside him, Ethan left the precinct, left Missoula, and headed south to Crooked Tree.

And only halfway home did he realize that he hadn't told Jen he'd tried to give notice on his career.