Cut & Run (6 page)

Zane simply leveled a gaze at him, waiting for explanation. It was the first time the other man had even remotely indicated that he wanted Zane anywhere around him.

“I don’t plan on losing another agent to this shit, got it?” Ty responded sharply as he stuffed several of the files in his bag and glared back at Zane. “Even if it
is
you.”

Zane supposed he should feel all warm and fuzzy about Ty at least not wanting him gruesomely murdered and left to bleed out in his shower or something. Somehow, the sentiment didn’t really inspire much camaraderie, though. “So where are we going?”

“Holiday Inn, man,” Ty answered. “If I’m footin’ the bill, I ain’t paying no damn five hundred bucks a night.”

Zane shrugged. A room was a room. He’d stayed in better and he’d stayed in worse. He followed Ty out of the lab and back down the hall to the elevator. “And then?” He wanted to know if Ty’s sudden concern for his well-being included staying in close proximity; he’d planned to come back after dinner to study the maps and evidence notes.

Ty shrugged as he punched the elevator button. “Then we see what’s brewing,” he answered carelessly.

30 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Zane looked over at his partner in exasperation. First, complete and total focus on the case, a case that wasn’t even their main focus, and now, this. “Do you do anything like a normal person?” he asked, although the question was wholly rhetorical. And not at all complimentary.

Ty turned around and looked at him in slight surprise once they were in the elevator. “Only the fun things,” he answered finally after a moment of looking at him thoughtfully.

“Fun things,” Zane echoed, not looking away from Ty once he was pinned by the man’s hazel eyes.

“You remember those, don’t you?” Ty questioned with a smirk as he let his eyes travel up and down Zane thoughtfully. “Maybe you don’t,” he decided with a sigh.

Zane knew with absolute certainty that he did not want this conversation to continue. “How many strikes have I got left?” he asked abruptly. He knew Ty had been taking his measure, in more ways than one.

“None,” Ty answered immediately, though he was somewhat surprised Zane even knew to ask the question.

A ghost of a self-deprecating smile crossed Zane’s lips. He knew Ty had no respect for him. Frankly, Zane didn’t care. He didn’t plan for this joke of a partnership to last long. He just wondered who higher up in the Bureau had decided to take him out along with Ty. “So why hasn’t the ump thrown me out of the game?”

“’Cause there ain’t no umps in this particular game,” Ty answered seriously as the doors whooshed open on the ground floor. “And there ain’t no rules.”

Zane walked out ahead of the other man. “So we do without.” He could live with that. Better than working under someone else’s thumb like the past two years. “Or we make up our own.”

“Yeah, you seem the type to need rules,” Ty responded with a derogatory sneer.

Zane didn’t answer as they walked through the parking garage. He drew back into his stony silence, focusing on thinking about the next steps of the investigation instead of the insolence of his jackass of a partner.

Cut & Run | 31

fter checking in to a hotel just a block or two from the swanky establishment where they were supposed to be staying, Ty Grady Aimmediately fell into the shower and went about washing the frustration of the day away. He had been a little surprised when his new partner had paid for his own room, but it suited him just fine. He didn’t want to be within ten feet of the fucker if he didn’t have to be. Arrogant priss. God, the man probably slept in his tie.

Having separate rooms would work well if Ty intended to start into this the way he usually did. He wasn’t used to the normal channels and he did far better working a case from the underbelly rather than in conventional ways. He doubted Zane would go with him tonight, and he’d just as soon go on his own, anyway. He’d always been more comfortable slinking around in the shadows than waving his authority around.

In a room down the hall, Zane Garrett sighed as he threw down his duffel bags and briefcase. He ran his hands through his hair and then stretched. He and Ty ended up several doors down from each other, but it wasn’t far enough as far as Zane was concerned.

A hot shower sounded good, so he started stripping down. Next order of business was food, and then he’d go back to the office. He reminded himself that he’d at least need to call Ty and tell him where he was going. If they were real partners, they’d have stayed in the same room, but Zane sure as hell wasn’t going to suggest it. He wasn’t
that
masochistic.

Pulling on comfortable worn jeans and a rust-red V-neck sweater after cleaning up, Zane picked up his holster, checking it all over before settling it comfortably on his shoulders and buckling it down. He checked the thin sheaths he wore just inside his wrists, then knelt down and strapped another sheath around his ankle. Completely armed, he felt better than he had all day. He hated airplanes. The security tended to get a little strident when you tried to take knives through checkpoints, even if you
were
a federal agent who always carried a gun.

32 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

His canvas jacket went over that, and with a look in the mirror, he rolled his eyes. Ty would probably think he was trying to copy him, looking less stuffy and more street-worthy. Zane sighed at the mirror, then grabbed his wallet, cigarettes, lighter, and key card and headed down the hall to the other agent’s door for a quick check-in.

Ty answered the curt knock in a towel, body still dripping wet and steam roiling out of the bathroom door behind him.

Zane raised an eyebrow as his stomach flip-flopped in reaction.

“Yeah. That’s real safe,” he commented, forcing his voice to sound wry.

“What?” Ty asked with a tilt of his head.

Zane looked significantly up and down Ty’s barely covered body.

Ty looked down at himself and then back up at Zane with a sniff as he realized what Zane was blathering about. “I’m a lethal weapon, man,” he grunted. He turned and gave a wave over his shoulder, gesturing for him to come in.

Zane would have snorted except he figured Ty wasn’t overstating all that much. There was no telling what Ty’s background was (although Zane had already discerned he was military of some sort) but he did indeed look capable. And fit. Very fit. Zane swallowed as he stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind him, leaving the odd feelings in the hall and withdrawing back into his professional persona for safety.

“I figured you’d want to know if I wasn’t going to be home by curfew,” he said, sliding a hand into his jacket pocket.

“I’m not your fucking keeper,” Ty grunted as he shucked the towel and reached for his briefs. He glanced back to see Zane’s hand in his pocket and tensed instinctively.

Zane’s eyes narrowed, and he slowly pulled his hand free to let it fall limp at his side. His partner was obviously tenser than he let on. “I remind you of the ‘You’re coming with me, I don’t plan on losing another agent’

comment,” he said mildly, once more strongly scolding himself inside for wanting to ogle—and grope—when he got a free show. He sighed inwardly.

He always behaved these days. Maybe he
was
a pansy-ass now, just like Ty said. The thought made him slightly ill.

“What you do in your free time is none of my concern,” Ty was saying as he pulled up the briefs and then toweled off his wet shoulders and arms. The towel passed over a tattoo on Ty’s right bicep, but Zane was too far Cut & Run | 33

away to discern the details other than the fact that it was a face of something.

He fought back the urge to squint in order to make it out.

“Are we even going to attempt to work together, or shall we just agree to meet every few days to compare notes?” Zane asked, voice cool. “I’d rather know now than waste more of our precious time.”

“You think this case is gonna be easy for one man?” Ty asked in response as he grabbed his jeans. He turned around to look at Zane again as he stepped into them. “Awful big leap, thinking you’re smarter’n the killer.”

“You’ve yet to act like you want me around, Grady. Don’t start now,”

Zane snapped.

“I don’t act. And I didn’t say I wanted you around,” Ty responded calmly. “I
implied
that I needed you.”

“Well, mark my lucky stars, I’m flattered,” Zane drawled in annoyance. Ty didn’t seem to care if he was unprofessional, so Zane took the opportunity to be just that. Too bad Ty was so determined to be a bastard. Off the clock, they
might
have gotten along. Over a bottle of whiskey. Zane gritted his teeth.

“You look a little tense,” Ty observed wryly.

Zane didn’t mention his line of thought. “You implied, so what do you need?” he asked instead of responding to Ty’s comment.

“It’s okay to be tense. I’m tense,” Ty told him with a careless shrug.

“You going back to Federal Plaza?” he asked in answer to Zane’s question as he pulled on a black T-shirt that had writing in white block letters that said

“
I’M UNDERCOVER
.”

Zane blinked at the shirt before shaking his head slowly. “Yes.

Why?”

“When you get back, will you come check on me?” Ty asked, unembarrassed by the request as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled his socks on.

“You going to do something that may make you not be here?”

“Hopefully not,” Ty answered wryly as he stomped his foot down into one beat-up cowboy boot. “A few blocks from here is pretty close to where that hooker reportedly worked. I’m going to go talk to the ladies.”

“Several responses come to mind.”

34 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

“And I’m sure all of them are wildly clever,” Ty responded sarcastically as he stomped into his second boot and then stood and stretched.

Zane deliberately looked away from the wiry body stretching out in front of him. “A couple,” he acknowledged. “You want me to come along?”

Ty raised an eyebrow and gave Zane a slow once-over. He cleared his throat and licked his lips as he stretched his arms over his head, then flopped them back down to his sides. “Have you ever, umm … picked up a hooker?”

he asked with a straight face.

“Yes.” Both on and off the job, but that wasn’t necessarily germane to the discussion. Zane tilted his head as Ty’s eyebrows climbed in surprise. “So, yes or no? Either way, I’m eating first.”

Ty tilted his head, thinking it over. This could be a good chance to see how Zane would handle himself on an investigation without hurting much of anything as far as their current one went. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed finally as he reached for his military surplus green canvas jacket. He picked it up and looked at it, then cut his gaze to look Zane over with narrowed eyes, taking in the way he was dressed. “Yeah, okay,” he grumbled again as he threw the jacket down and went to rummage through his things for his other jacket to wear. He didn’t want them looking like fucking twins.

He stripped his T-shirt back off as Zane waited, picking up a clean white dress shirt instead. He was very conscious, as he changed, of the fact that the little round scar on his lower back was probably visible, still new and pink on his tanned skin. He glanced over at Zane and cleared his throat self-consciously, turning toward him again as he slid into the shirt. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him that Zane could see the scar, but it did. Perhaps because he hadn’t been the only one that particular bullet had gone through.

The other agent just caught sight of the scar, recognizing it for what it most likely was. While Zane had been lucky enough to avoid being shot, he had plenty of other scars, inside and out. He made no comment and pretended not to have noticed.

“So where we going for dinner, garçon?” Ty asked as he grabbed his wallet and stuck it in his back pocket.

Dragging his eyes away from Ty’s body again, Zane ignored yet another new nickname and answered, “Morrison told me about a barbecue place down several blocks. Family-owned, original recipes.”

“Mmm, New York barbeque,” Ty responded sarcastically with a wrinkle of his nose. “No go. I need … fish.”