Cask Strength, page 20
Jamie had to offer, though, for the sake of getting everyone else out alive. “Put down the gun, Ethan, and turn State’s evidence. We’ll protect you.”
“State’s evidence?” Marcus said. “What the fuck you into, Reynolds?”
“Yeah,” Blake said. “I thought we were just skimming bets and selling information. What’s he talking about?”
“Boys, it’s better if you don’t know.” Jamie had to lock this down, before his players became unwitting targets and before the increasingly jumpy AD pulled that trigger. “Ethan, no one has to die.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Do as I say or I kill your ex and put a second bullet in your boyfriend’s brain as soon as he arrives.”
Derrick’s eyes were locked on Jamie’s, wide and scared, the hazel made bright by tears. “Jamie, please,” he whimpered.
“All right, all right. I’ll do it.” He’d taken two steps toward the computer when alarm sirens rent the air.
Doors banged open upstairs, windows crashed in, and red and blue lights cut through the narrow transom windows.
“Fuck, cops!” Blake made a break for the door, and Ethan aimed at the runaway.
Torso bent, Jamie charged into Ethan’s chest, forcing his arm and shots up, bullets pinging around the wood rafters and ripping through the exposed duct work, sending splitters and insulation raining down around then.
“Everybody get down!” Jamie shouted, as he wrestled a still-soaking Ethan to the ground. Fighting him tooth and nail, getting his right arm free, the AD got another round of shots off at the door.
“Get back!” Cam shouted, as Aidan hollered “Jamie!” over him.
And then Ethan was curling the gun around, toward his own head. He must have thought death by his own hand would be better than death by cartel.
“Ethan, no!” Jamie lunged the length of his torso, fingers wrapping around Ethan’s wrist, slamming it down, just as he pulled the trigger. The bullet went sailing past the AD’s head, in front of Jamie’s eyes, into the sheetrock near where Derrick had been knocked down in the chaos.
For a second, Jamie feared he’d been hit, but then Derrick screamed and scurried on hands and knees the other direction. Jamie slammed Ethan’s wrist against the floor again, finally knocking the gun loose. He swept the pistol clear and flipped Ethan over, pinning him down with a knee and elbow to his back.
“Jamie!” Cam called, followed by Aidan yelling, “Whiskey, where are you?”
“Down here!” He held out his wrist to Marcus, who was crouched beneath one of the desks. “Get this tie off me, so I can bind him.”
Marcus skittered over and undid the wrap. Jamie tied it around Ethan’s crossed wrists, then started to rise.
“Not another move,” a sinister voice said behind him.
Ahead of him, Aidan and Cam stood in the doorway, guns drawn, gazes aimed behind him. Jamie glanced over his shoulder and his stomach hit the floor.
Derrick was backed up against the wall, and Neil held the gun trained between his eyes. “They promised me you,” he said. “I didn’t really care about computer programming, or the Ravens, or my cut of the money. All I cared about was making you feel the same pain I did. You cast me aside, for him.” Neil glared at Jamie. “For the great Whiskey Walker.”
Tears streamed down Derrick’s face. “Neil, I’m sorry.”
Aidan stepped forward, Neil clicked off the safety, and Jamie threw out an arm. “Irish, no.”
He held Aidan’s frightened stare. Aidan’s primary objective, as his partner and so much more, was to get him out of this situation alive. Jamie, however, didn’t want anyone else in this room to get hurt either, especially Derrick. He hadn’t properly cleared the gun, and he hadn’t gotten them out when he had the chance earlier. Derrick would not die for his mistakes.
“Cover,” he mouthed to Aidan, then slowly stood.
“Neil,” he said, turning. “It’s me you want.”
“Jamie, no,” Derrick pleaded.
Ignoring him, Jamie inched forward, the opposite direction of Aidan and Cam. Neil’s attention diverted, Marcus and Blake hustled out, while Aidan and Cam moved into the blind spot. “You want to make Derrick hurt?” Jamie said, continuing the distracting ploy. “Then it’s me you want.”
“Jamie, no, please.” Derrick shook his head back and forth, trembling against the wall where Neil held him pinned. “I did this. Not you.”
“Didn’t I? I came home, to CU and you. I tried to pick up my old life where I’d left off.”
“He’s right,” Neil said to Derrick. “You’ll hurt worse if I take away your precious Jamie.”
His gun arm wavered and Jamie made his move. Trusting his partner had his back, he dove toward Derrick, shielding him as shots rang out again. Bullets whizzed past and bits of plaster and drywall exploded, coating their bowed backs and heads. Eyes shut tight against the flying debris, Jamie listened as bodies collided behind him. A struggle punctuated by grunts, a deafening crack, a howl of pain.
Cam shouted, “Clear!” and Jamie’s heart stopped that it wasn’t Aidan who made the call. Had he been hit? Was that his howl of pain? Was his partner—his lover—down, because he’d chosen to save his ex? Had he chosen his old life at the expense of his new one after all?
Not again, not now, not yet.
The cascading heartache and regrets vanished an endless second later when Aidan returned, “Clear!”
Jamie unfolded from over Derrick’s body, shook the plaster dust from his hair, and opened his eyes. He got a fleeting glimpse of terror-stricken autumn eyes before Aidan dragged him into a crushing embrace.
“What part of ‘not get dead’ didn’t you understand?”
Choking on a half laugh, Jamie wrapped his arms around his partner and buried his face in his neck, whispering hoarsely, “I love you too.”
Chapter Twenty
The DEA agent at the far end of the conference table did not look happy. Jamie couldn’t see why. He’d just delivered them a huge bust, gift wrapped and tied with a big red bow.
“We could have used more time,” the agent said.
“I gave you more time. The delivery was set to occur—” Jamie glanced at the wall clock “—right about now. I pushed it out to midnight. That’s four more hours than you originally had.”
“You wouldn’t know about it at all, if not for Agent Walker,” Aidan added.
“If we could have kept the program running—” the agent started.
“No,” Jamie said. “Every time the cartel used that program, my players were in danger, more than they knew. That couldn’t continue.”
“Take the bust,” Aidan said. “And take the credit for it. We’re out.”
On the way to the field office, they’d agreed they didn’t want to be involved beyond their case, which was concluded. Let the DEA handle the cartel. They didn’t need another target on their backs.
“What happens to Ethan?” Aidan asked.
The AD was downstairs, pacing a holding cell.
“If he’ll agree to testify against the cartel, we’ll put him in protective custody.”
“He committed a crime,” Jamie argued. “He manipulated those students and put them in harm’s way without their knowledge.”
“We’ll make sure he serves his time, one way or the other.”
Jamie didn’t trust the vague answer, but he’d trade it for another. “And you’ll note CU’s cooperation in the event of an NCAA investigation?”
“Of course, Agent Walker.”
A round of stilted handshakes later, the agent left and Cam slipped in, carrying a plastic take-out bag. Jamie, however, didn’t smell any food.
“Pictures are gone,” he said, voice low.
“All of them?” Aidan asked.
“I burned the hard copies from the scene.”
“And the ones on Neil’s phone?” Jamie asked.
Cam set the bag on the table and pulled back the handles. Inside were latex gloves and three plastic evidence bags containing cell phones. “They all swear the pictures are only on Neil’s, but I figured you’d want to be sure.”
Jamie hated to think of anyone, much less his best friend, seeing those photos, but Cam, a consummate professional and accomplice, hadn’t made a single lewd comment about the indiscretions on display or his and Aidan’s temporary insanity at fucking with the blinds open. It shouldn’t have been an issue, with neighborhood security and the large lots, but it’d been careless, just like his failure to clear the gun.
Aidan clasped Cam’s shoulder, the two of them sharing a long look, before Aidan glanced back at him. “I’m going to step out. Make sure no one steps in.”
They waited for the door to close, then snapped on the gloves and dumped the phones on the table. Cam handed him Marcus’s first. “Quit beating yourself up.”
Jamie checked all the possible places for photo files, and finding none of him and Aidan, turned the phone back off. “I fucked up, with the gun and this.” He waved the phone in the air.
Cam shot him a devilish smirk. “I wasn’t going to say anything about your sudden exhibitionist tendencies, but damn, brother, impressive.”
Jamie chuckled weakly as he checked Blake’s device. A lot of dick pics but none of his or Aidan’s. He swapped it for Neil’s, finally hitting pay dirt. He deleted the photos and checked the history to make sure he hadn’t sent them anywhere. Only a networked printer. Jamie made a mental note of the IP address so he could hack in later and delete the last remaining trace.
“Nobody died, Jamie,” Cam said, serious again. “You saved Derrick, Ethan and those kids, even though two tried to kill you, and you handed the DEA a major bust. It was a rough case, for a lot of reasons. But you came through all right. Better than,” he said, a smile in his voice. “I’m happy for you.”
Jamie handed the cleared phone back and Cam zipped it in the evidence bag. “Thank you, for rescuing my ass and for having my back. I owe you.”
“Yeah, you do.” He dropped it in the take-out bag with the others and stood, ripping off the gloves. “I’m going to get these back into evidence, then head out. My ASAC called. I’m on the last flight out to Chicago.” His voice had dimmed, taking on the quality Jamie had heard in the phone call last week.
“How old?” he asked.
“Ten.”
Jamie pulled his best friend into a hug. “You call me, anytime.”
They met Aidan in the hallway, and after seeing Cam out, headed into what Jamie hoped was the last meeting between them and bed.
Jamie sat at the open end of the table, Aidan to his right, Renee on his left. Across from her were Coach Turner and the university’s general counsel. And at the other end of the table were SAC Carr, Agent Grant, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Chief of Police and an NCAA rep. Grant had started the debrief while he and Aidan finished up with the DEA and Cam.
“And Derrick Pope?” Carr said. “Why was he there? How was he involved?”
Derrick sat with Riley and Press in his office, each in line for questioning.
“They used him as leverage to secure my cooperation,” Jamie said.
“You two are friends?”
“Agent Walker and Derrick know each other from Carolina,” Aidan said.
Jamie laid a hand on his arm and met his guarded gaze. He’d also thought about this on the ride to the field office, longer if he was honest. It was bound to come out in the details of the case, and he owed it to the three people sitting in the SAC’s office. And to the man sitting beside him. He was tired of hiding, and given the chance to make something good out of this mess, he took it.
He withdrew his hand and braced his forearms on the table. “Derrick and I more than knew each other. He was my boyfriend. The coconspirators found out and threatened to expose me.”
“Expose you?” the chief said.
“I’m gay. They threatened to tell the press about my past relationship with Derrick and about my current boyfriend.”
Aidan flinched, the motion so subtle those around the table wouldn’t notice. But Jamie did. He hoped it was a good, surprised flinch and not a what-the-fuck-did-you-just-do flinch.
“We’ll add blackmailing a federal agent to the charges,” Carr said.
“I’d ask you not to,” Jamie said.
“With all due respect, Agent Walker, it’s my—”
“I know it’s your call,” Jamie interrupted. “But between kidnapping, assault, fraud, and violations of gaming laws, you’ve got more than enough to charge them with. I don’t plan to keep my sexual orientation a secret, but I also don’t want it to be the focus of this bust. I took this case to protect the integrity of the game and that should be the message of tomorrow’s press conference. More practically, you have no evidence of the blackmail.” At least not as of two minutes ago, thanks to Cam. “I’d also like to protect Derrick’s privacy, as much as possible. I owe him that much.”
Carr nodded and turned to CU’s counsel. “Given Chancellor Polk’s connection to the crime scenes and one of the accused, I’d recommend she sit out the press conference tomorrow.”
“She’s taking a leave of absence. Coach Turner will speak on CU’s behalf.”
“Good, and Chief, will you be representing CMPD?”
“I think Detective Paulson can represent our interests.” Grant and Renee smiled and Jamie was pleased for her. She’d been an excellent local resource and deserved the promotion. Maybe she’d get the chance to work with her friend more often now. They were a good team.
“When will the NCAA make its ruling?” Jamie asked before the meeting adjourned. “Aside from the individuals downstairs, there’s no evidence the rest of the team was involved or that any games were affected. The Ravens should get to play tomorrow and in the tourney. They’ve worked hard for that.”
“Your opinion is noted, Agent Walker,” the NCAA rep said. “We’ll wait for the DEA, FBI and CMPD to issue their findings. Then we’ll process the matter through usual channels. We won’t make any statement yet. The remaining Ravens can continue to play until we do.”
Turner exhaled a big breath, and Renee and the chief smiled. Jamie too.
“All right then,” Carr said. “We’re set for ten o’clock tomorrow.” He stood and extended a hand to Renee. “Detective, thank you for your assistance.” Next, he turned to Jamie. “Agent Walker, great job as lead on this investigation. I’ll put a commendation in your file.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jamie said.
As the crowd dispersed, Turner lagged behind. “Walker, can I have a word?”
“Sure, Coach.”
Outside in the hallway, Turner leaned back against the wall. “I feel like such a fool. I suspected Blake was involved, and I’m not all that surprised about Reynolds, but I wouldn’t have guessed Neil. Definitely not Marcus.”
Jamie patted his shoulder. “It wasn’t about the game or the gambling for Neil. He had his own reasons. As for Marcus, I missed that too. Some people are better actors than others.”
“Like you?”
“I’m sorry if you felt not disclosing my sexual orientation—”
“I don’t mean that.” Some of the tension in Turner’s shoulders eased and he pushed off the wall. “I couldn’t care less whether you like men or women. I meant coaching. From...what’d Agent Grant call it, the ‘debrief’...it sounded like none of the guys figured out you were still a fed.”
Jamie bowed his head. “Because it wasn’t all acting.”
“My offer stands, Whiskey. You ever decide you’ve had enough of this—” he motioned at the general surroundings “—there will always be a place for you on CU’s bench. And if you need to be somewhere else because of that boyfriend, whoever he is, then I’ll make a call.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
It was a hell of an offer, a future path he hadn’t considered until this past week. A dream job for a player who couldn’t, or in his case, wouldn’t, play anymore. It was a chance to get back on the court and mentor students in the game he loved. But did he love the game more than his job at the FBI and the man he worked with there, the man he loved?
Before he could answer, before he could get back to that man, he was confronted with a different one. In his way, as he’d been the entire week, was Derrick, standing outside the conference room. Hair askew, eyes red, face still blotchy, he looked too much like he had that day eight years ago when Jamie left him in a hospital parking lot. At least this time, he hadn’t been the cause of Derrick’s tears.
“How’re you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve had better days.”
“Haven’t we all.”
Derrick swiped at his cheeks and ran a hand through his hair, mussing the curls up even more. “Agent Grant said he had some questions for me.”
“You’ll need to give a statement. You can have an attorney present.”
“How much—”
“They know you’re my ex.”
Derrick’s bloodshot eyes widened. “You told them?”
Jamie’s gaze flickered down to his tattoo. “To thine own self be true.”
He lifted a hand, then hesitated. Jamie nodded and Derrick laid it over his chest, over his tattoo. “I’m sorry for trying to force you back into this life. Seeing you in action today, you’re good at what you do here too.”
Jamie covered Derrick’s hand with his own. “But you weren’t wrong. I miss the game, and I miss home.”
