Tied Up in Knots (35 page)

“You’re a PR dream, Marshal Jones.”

“I’m just a marshal on Sam Kage’s team, sir.”

He nodded. “I must say that after meeting Marshals Becker and Ching, then you, that I suspect the chief deputy of building quite the team.”

“As fun as this is….” Kage griped before grabbing my bicep and walking me with him to the front door. He opened it and looked out at the rain a moment before directing my gaze to the porch. “You step one foot out here before Monday morning when you come to work, and I will strip you of your investigator status and loan you, permanently, to Finance or Management Support or”—and I knew before he even said it, because yeah, he was evil like that—“Asset Forfeiture.”

I shivered.

“Either way, I’d have to find Doyle a new partner, just like I was going to have to find a new one for you.”

“For me, sir?”

“He was deployed too often. I would have had to replace him as your partner. I would have kept him on the team, but you need someone here. That’s the whole purpose of a partner.”

I cleared my throat because I had a horrible sinking feeling. “Is that what you talked to him in your office about yesterday, sir?” Ian being my partner was most of what I loved about my job. Without him there, at my side, the best part of my day would be gone. I couldn’t even imagine what that loss would be like.

“No,” he said, almost irritably. “I wanted to talk to him about the Lochlyn investigation, but since he couldn’t tell me much, we weren’t in there long. And of course I brought him up to date on the Cochran situation, in case there was any retaliation from other cops Cochran knows. Turns out I shouldn’t have bothered.”

“Yeah, nobody likes him.”

“Nobody likes him, that’s right.”

“Sir, why didn’t you tell Ian—Doyle—about Hartley?”

“Because I assumed you already would have. I won’t ever make assumptions where you’re concerned again, Jones.”

For some reason that gave me a warm feeling, and I might even have bumped him with my shoulder, but he chose that moment to threaten me again.

“Not one step outside this house, Jones, unless the house is on fire, and I mean heavily engulfed in flames, so much so that your friend Aruna’s husband the lieutenant has to come and put it out.”

“How do you know Aruna, sir?”

“We met at the hospital after you were shot protecting Nina Tolliver. I met them both.”

And he remembered. “Yessir.”

“Not one, Jones,” he said, flipping up his collar and dashing down the steps.

As no one followed him immediately, I turned around, and the other four people were clustered a few feet away.

“Did you need to talk to me?”

“No,” one of the men told me. “We were just waiting for your insufferable boss to be on his way.”

“Scary boss,” another man amended. “I think ‘scary’ is what you meant to say.”

The first guy tipped his head like,
maybe
.

Once they were gone, Ian shut the door, locked it, kissed me, and then told me to get upstairs to take a shower.

“Yeah, Jones, you stink,” Kowalski said as he pulled some of the curry Aruna had made out of the refrigerator.

As I headed for the stairs, I realized the cleaning crew had done an amazing job and that they too were gone.

“When did they leave?” I asked Kohn.

He shot me a look.

“What?”

“They say that the power of observation is one of the first things to go when someone is overly tired.”

“What?”

He turned to Kowalski. “I know I’m speaking English.”

Kohn groaned before focusing on me. “Listen, you really do need to take a shower and go to bed. We’ll be down here with Doyle, so don’t worry.”

But I wasn’t worried about Hartley. “Do you think anyone will want to still come over with the threat of Prince Charming here?” I asked, using the name the media had coined for Hartley when he was first discovered to be a killer.

“I already called my mother, and she’s really worried about you. She’s making you some of her special matzoh ball soup to bring with us. And she can’t wait to tell all her friends that she’s spending time in a house where Craig Hartley was.”

“Great.”

“He’s big news; you gotta be ready to have people all over you again like they were when you and Cochran first brought him in.”

“I hope everyone else will still want to come to dinner.”

“I don’t think you have to worry.”

I DIDN’T
have to worry.

From what I could tell and hear when I woke up, the house was already full. I wanted to go downstairs and say hi, but when I got out of the shower, I was dizzy, and Ian made me lie down again right away. It had been dark when I first fell asleep, and it was overcast when I woke up, and then, of course, because it was Chicago, it snowed. I actually loved being inside on snowy days, and since I could see it falling outside the windows and accumulating on the skylight Ian and I had installed sort of off-center above the bed, it was nice, soothing, and I passed out.

When I woke up again, Ian said it was early afternoon. Kohn brought his mother upstairs, and when I smiled at her, she walked over in her big, fluffy mink coat and hugged me and petted me and told me what a good boy I was. A chair was brought for her so she could sit and watch me eat the soup while we talked.

It was nice. I liked mothers. I was crazy about Janet’s before she’d passed away, liked Ryan’s since she made me my own peach pie and sent it with him, and of course, loved Aruna, who had always mothered me.

I got sleepy again after the soup but woke up when Ian told me he’d been to the vet to see Chickie. He was still doped up, but Dr. Alchureiqi—who met Ian there to give him an update, having left several of his minions to babysit all the patients—said he looked really good and that he could come home the following morning, on Friday.

“That’s great news,” I whispered, smiling up at him.

He bent and kissed me once, then again, and finally stretched himself out on top of me and kissed me long and deep. I wrapped my arms around his neck so he couldn’t move.

“I love you so much, and thank you for retiring and planning to marry me, and I just don’t want you to have any regrets, okay? Not any.”

“No,” he whispered, kissing along my jaw. “No, baby, no regrets.”

Man… “honey” and “baby” added to “love.” I was really crazy about the new, solid, confident Ian Doyle I had in my arms. His demeanor, everything was different. Like he felt good in his skin, not worried about what anyone else thought, just grounded and secure. He’d decided who he was going to be, and the happiness was simply rolling off him.

“You look so good.”

“Well, I feel good,” he rumbled before he kissed me again.

I managed to roll him to his back right before Aruna and Janet came up the stairs.

“And people wonder how gay porn could be hot.”

“Who wonders if gay porn is hot?” Janet asked her seriously.

Ian got up—to much whining from all of us—and explained to the girls that we were not there to entertain them and told me he’d be back.

They got in bed with me, on each side, and we cuddled as I promised I was fine, just exhausted. I really wanted to go downstairs as soon as I could stand and not get dizzy. I could sit up, but that was as far as I could get.

Ned showed up around three, came pounding up the stairs like a pissed-off rooster, found me propped up on pillows talking to Liam, and got on the bed and hugged me.

“You’re in bed with him,” Liam remarked as he himself was sitting in the chair that had come up with Kohn’s mother and never moved.

“I’m a man confident in his own heterosexuality,” Ned told him. “And besides, it’s really comfy, and I had a long flight.”

We ended up taking a nap together as Liam kept vigil while watching a football game on my iPad.

Margo Cochran, Norris’s wife, whom I hadn’t seen since he and I stopped being partners, came over about four and brought me her special carrot cake that I’d always loved. It was my favorite, not too sweet, moist, and the frosting was thin on the top.

“Why?” I asked as I sat up in bed and looked at her. Becker’s wife, Olivia, had taken it from her when she came upstairs. Olivia was there thanking me for backing up Becker the night of the traffic stop, and I said of course; he was my brother. We were hugging when Margo was allowed up by Aruna, who had made herself guardian of the stairs.

“Because if you hadn’t made Nor pay for what he did to you, he would’ve been home, and my kids would have no father and me no husband.”

I nodded because there was no doubt in my mind. Hartley had stopped first for Cochran, to end things with him.

“We’re moving to Boston when he gets back. I didn’t give him no choice.”

It wouldn’t matter. If Hartley wanted Cochran, he’d get him eventually. But I would put money on the fact that with Hartley changing his mind about killing me, his desire to gut Cochran might also have fallen by the wayside.

“So, uhm, can I….” She lifted her arms in question.

“Yeah, come on, let’s go.”

She dived onto the bed and hugged the hell out of me.

“Oh, he looks like a good hugger,” Olivia commented and she was next—after passing the carrot cake back to Margo—which was how Becker found us a few minutes later.

“I’m not even gonna ask,” he sighed, and then pointed at the baking dish Margo was back in possession of. “Is that carrot?”

She beamed up at him. “It is.”

“Carrot’s my favorite.”

“Well, let me cut you a piece.” She sighed, turning for the stairs. “Come with me.”

“I think another woman tempted your husband away with food,” I informed Olivia as I watched them go.

“They all do try, but I have a secret weapon.”

“Which is?”

She arched a sinful eyebrow for me.

“No, no, no, don’t tell me.”

Her cackle was just the right amount of evil and fun.

Ian led his father and stepmother up the stairs to the loft sometime around six. She took a seat in the chair and Colin stood next to his son. It was awkward, but they talked about Chickie and what a good dog he was, and then about Lorcan and when his trial was and how much they’d love it if Ian and I could come for a Sunday dinner sometime soon. Ian promised that we would, without committing to a specific date, and then led them back downstairs so they could eat. He was back a few minutes later.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes, baby, I’m good,” he promised, bending down to kiss me before disappearing again.

Cabot, Drake, and Josue had been there for hours, apparently, helping Aruna—Cabot was her favorite—serving food, washing dishes, and in Josue’s case, reading tarot cards in the laundry room, where he was laying the cards out on top of the dryer. They were finally allowed upstairs to see me, and of course all three of them flopped down on the bed, never mind the chair sitting right there.

Josue put his hand on my head. “You don’t have a fever. Do you feel all right?”

“I’m okay,” I yawned. “I’m just wiped out.”

He nodded. “Well, you never sleep, and you don’t take care of yourself at all. I could move in here and do that for you.”

“That’s me,” Ian said as he came up the stairs with an enormous plate of food for me and a huge glass of apple juice. “I take care of him.”

“But you’re never home,” Cabot said, looking sheepish. “I mean, shouldn’t we start taking care of Miro since—”

“I’ll be home all the time now. I’m done with the Army, so you’ll see a lot more of me.”

He was baffled, I could tell from his squint, when they all clapped, even Josue.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” Drake sighed. “I mean, if I missed you a little, I can only imagine how tore up Miro was.”

Ian nodded and sent them all downstairs. Josue stopped at the top and looked back at me.

“What?”

He bit his bottom lip. “I met a guy at the record store in Oak Park, where I’ll be working. His name’s Marcello McKenna. Isn’t that awesome?”

“It is. You think he might be special?”

“Miro, he was looking at me all weird, and he finally said that he’d dreamed about me coming into the store.”

“And?”

“He blurted out that he didn’t believe in any woo-woo stuff.”

“But?”

“But he dreamed about me.”

I nodded. “Maybe just be his friend before you hit him with the whole you-saw-him-in-your-cards thing, huh?”

He nodded, bolted back to me, bent and kissed my cheek, and then pounded down the stairs, announcing to Aruna that he was ready to read her cards.

When I turned to Ian, he was chuckling.

“What?”

“You have the strangest effect on people.”

His on me was sort of self-explanatory. “Would you please put the plate down, take off all your clothes, and let me have you under the covers?”

“Oh, baby, it’s gonna be days before you see me naked again. White brought his Xbox over with him, and Sharpe is doing laundry. It’s gonna be an endless loop of guys through here until Sunday night.”

I groaned. “His Xbox? Do you know how annoying he is with all those shooter games?”

“As if he can beat me.”

“Oh no. Please don’t go into hypercompetitive mode.”

“What?” he balked. “I am so not competitive.”

“Do me a favor and go stand on the other side of the room so the bolt of lightning doesn’t hit me too.”

He scoffed. “I’m sure God has better things to do.”

Perhaps.

“What?”

I couldn’t stop staring at him.

“Speak.”

“You just got here. I want to kiss you and hug you and fuck you and…. Jesus, Ian, I need you so bad.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Here, have a little nosh. You’ll feel better.”

“Don’t you care at all?”

“Yes, baby, and don’t you worry, you can have me any time you want from now on.”

I perked up.

“After Sunday.”

It was going to be the longest three days of my life.

ARUNA BROUGHT
me pumpkin pie with a mound of Cool Whip on it, and I wondered what she was doing there since she loved hosting and it made no sense that she wasn’t.

“Liam’s mother is downstairs,” she said quickly, flipping through Netflix to find something she wanted to watch.