Page 6 of Dead Drunk (Cold Case Psychic #36)

Ronan

After Tennyson’s dramatic end to the meeting, Ronan and the detectives spent the rest of the morning going through possible cases to investigate. By the end of the day, they’d narrowed the selection down to three choices. Each of them would take one and see if there was new evidence or technology available to assist in solving the case.

Before the end of the day, both Jude and Fitz had taken Ronan aside to read him the riot act over the way he’d shouted at Ten earlier in the day. Ronan had bit back at both of his partners asking if either of them wanted to indulge Tennyson on McGrath’s natural death. Neither man did.

Even so, Ronan felt like shit. It wasn’t like him to belittle Ten like that in private, never mind in public, surrounded by their friends. His stomach pitched like a paper boat in a hurricane as he parked the Mustang in front of the house. On the way home, he’d tried to think of the right way to apologize to his husband. None of his options seemed big enough to encompass all of his recent dumbassery.

Trudging up his front steps, Ronan felt like a dead man walking. Maybe he should have grabbed Ten flowers or dinner from Lobster Charlie’s. Anyway, it was too late now. Ten would have heard the roar of the Mustang’s engine. Ready to face his doom, he unlocked the front door and walked in to see Everly and Ezra reading books together on the couch.

“Hey, guys!”

“Da!”

Ezra crawled off the sofa and ran to Ronan, who scooped him up.

“How are you, little miss?”

Ronan asked Everly when he set Ezra down.

Everly turned to her father and offered him a scowl. She looked at him as if he were an insect she was about to crush under her shoe.

“I’m fine, Ronan. How are you?”

If Everly’s anger wasn’t real, he would have laughed at her antics.

“Not so good. Is Dad in the kitchen?”

Without waiting for an answer he walked away and thought he heard his daughter mumble, “dumbass.”

If Ronan had heard her correctly, she wasn’t wrong.

Tennyson stood at the kitchen island making hamburger patties with his bare hands.

“Hey, what’s up with Everly? Did she have a bad day with her friends?”

“No, Ronan, her friends are wonderful. They listen to her when she speaks and don’t try to make her feel like she’s fucking stupid.”

He slapped a hamburger patty onto the plastic tray he used to bring meat out to the grill.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid, Ten. You were accusing one of my best friends of being a killer. You can’t expect me to take that lying down.”

Ten shot Ronan a look of disbelief.

“What the hell are you talking about? I never once accused Cisco of being a killer. All I did was mention a possible cold case murder to a group of cold case detectives. Why? Well, gee, I don’t know, maybe because investigating murders is your job!”

Ronan sighed. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell Ten that Fitz and Jude also agreed that there was nothing to investigate, but knew if he said those words out loud, he’d be sleeping on the street. He walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water, all the while trying to figure out a way to deescalate the tension between them.

“Ten, I’m sorry I was an asshole today. You were perfectly within your right to bring the case details to us, but there’s nothing at all pointing to murder. McGrath died from natural causes.”

“Yeah, according to a disgraced medical examiner who lost his medical license for issuing fraudulent death certificates and barely avoided prison time because he turned state’s evidence against the families who’d fraudulently filed life insurance claims.”

Ten fisted his hands on his hips.

Ronan had to admit Ten had a point.

“You have to remember that our department was created with a state grant, but with the start of this fiscal year in July, we’re being taxpayer funded. If this unit doesn’t catch killers and close cases, we could be shut down.”

“Give me a break, Ronan. The Cold Case team isn’t going to be shuttered. You’re only acting like this because Cisco is involved!” Ten said.

“So are you!”

Ronan shot back.

“What do you mean?”

Ten asked, not sounding nearly as confident as he had moments ago.

“If McGrath’s ghost was haunting the local CVS or an auto mechanic shop, you would have accepted the results of our investigation and we wouldn’t be having this fight. It almost feels like you want Cisco to be guilty of something.”

Ten sighed.

“You know that’s not true. All I wanted was the opportunity to go into the jail and see if I could make contact with McGrath. If it were a CVS or a mechanic shop being haunted, I would have gone there on my own and had a chat with the spirit, but since this ghost inhabits the jail, I have no way to get in there, unless-”

Ten’s eyes lit up.

Ronan knew instantly what Ten was thinking.

“Don’t even say it. You’re not going to get yourself arrested just so you can end up in jail. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I could ask the same thing of you! All it would have taken was fifteen minutes in the same cell Rhys James had been confined to. You could have told the jailer I wanted to see the cell because I was writing a book or had heard that spirit was trapped in the jail. Hell, everyone you work with knows who I am, you probably wouldn’t have to have said a word at all and they would have let you in. All of this could have been avoided if you’d just acted like my dumbass husband.”

Ten seemed to be full of good points. “Ten, I-”

“What if he did it, Ronan?”

Ten interrupted.

“What if Cisco really did kill this guy? Wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t Fitz? Jude? What if he was corrupt like the medical examiner? I don’t have to tell you the kind of damage that this would bring down on the Salem Police Department and city officials, but I hope you know me well enough by now to know that I’m not just trying to stir shit up.”

Ronan stared at Ten dumbfounded.

“We don’t even know that this man was killed.”

“At the very least don’t you think it might be worth checking out?”

Ten asked.

“Ten, I don’t-”

Ronan began, although he was starting to come around to Ten’s line of thinking and not just because he didn’t want to sleep on the sidewalk.

“Let’s just be sure. We’ll go to the jail and I’ll try to contact Jefferson McGrath. See what he has to say and if you don’t think what he tells me is worth investigating, I’ll drop the matter.”

Ten crossed his heart and held out his pinkie.

“Okay, we’ll go, but under one condition.”

“If a sloppy, wet blowjob is what it takes to speak to this ghost, I see no problem with your quid pro quo.”

“No, I mean, yes!”

There was no way Ronan was turning down Ten’s offer, but red-hot oral wasn’t his condition.

“My condition is that we keep this quiet. We don’t tell anyone. Not Cope, or Jude, or Fitz. No one.”

“There is one person we have to tell,”

Ten said, wrapping his arms around his husband.

“Everly already knows.”

Ronan laughed. His daughter could read him like a book.

“Yeah, she already knows, but I meant Mom.”

“Why do we have to tell Kaye?”

Was Ten feeling guilty and needed to make some kind of half-assed confession to his mother? Or did he want to fulfill his promise to Ronan in the backseat of the Mustang?

“For the love of Jesus, Ronan! We’re not getting it on in the Mustang. The last time we did that, I hurt my back.”

Ten rolled his eyes.

“We need someone to watch the kids when we go to the jail tonight.”

“Tonight?”

Ronan asked.

“Unless you want to go tomorrow with Cisco in the building and everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed.”

“Fuck me blue.”

Ronan knew Ten had him.

“Okay. Call your mother. I’ll think of a reason that will get us into the cell.”

Ten pressed a kiss to Ronan’s lips. A definite promise for later, but before Ronan got carried away with what was to come, he needed to reckon with the possibility that something other than alcohol poisoning happened to Jefferson McGrath.

For Cisco’s sake, he prayed Tennyson was wrong.