Page 114 of Fish in a Barrel
“Fuck if I know,” Cly blustered.
“Oh, I think you know,” Jackson said, his eyes on Tetley. “Doesn’t he, Tetley? Did he tell you he just had to talk to this illegal alone? Did he take about twenty minutes and come back saying, ‘Bitch’d do anything to stay in this country’?”
Tetley blanched, looking a little sick, and Jackson was right there with him.
“Did he tell you he ripped her until she was bleeding? Did he tell you he did it in front of herdaughter?”
Tetley hauled in air like a swimmer who’d been underwater for… well, months probably. Probably for as long as they’d worked together, and Tetley had wondered how hellish his life would be if he tried to extricate himself from this dirtbag. How would he feed himself? How would he get another job in law enforcement? He’d been to school for two to four years, right? What was he going to do with all that time? He had student loans up the yang—probably owned a beater car and paid rent on a shitty apartment. How was he supposed to live if he turned in his partner? How was he supposed to work? What if he said something to someone and they were just as dirty as he was?
Jackson lowered his voice and lowered the boom. “Did he tell you she wasn’t illegal at all? That she’d been born in this country and so had her little girl?”
The sound that came out of Tetley’s throat wasn’t human, and Jackson stepped back to let Tetley charge Cly from behind.
Their struggle was short and brutal. Cly had seventy-five pounds on Tetley easy, and he fought dirty. Tetley caught an elbow in the eye socket that would probably impair his vision, and his head bounced off the tiles before his eyes rolled back and he was blessedly out. But Cly wasn’t done with him—guy was probably roided to the gills. He stayed on Tetley’s chest and hit him once…
And then Jackson swung his foot back and caught the guy in the side of the jaw, and he slumped to the floor, dazed, sliding off the man he’d been about to beat to death.
Jackson didn’t trust him to stay there, though. He leaped on the guy and started raiding his pockets, unholstering his gun, his taser, and chucking them on the floor near Ellery, who neatly kicked them to his mother like an unholy game of soccer. Then he reached into Cly’s belt for cuffs, and while he was unhooking them, he looked up at Ellery’s mother.
“Lucy, before you call the DOJ on these motherfuckers, could youpleasecall the cops on this one?”
To her credit, Taylor Cramer cleared her throat and straightened her spine and gave AIC Friars a disdainful look.
And then pulled out her phone and did just that.
Then Ellery turned toward Friars and said in his iciest voice, “And now, could you please get Mr. Dara so the police can take his statement?”
Friars looked around the crappy tile-and-beige walls of the reception area and then looked at the desk sergeant.
“Do we even know where they came from?”
“Conference room twelve, third floor,” she said before standing up. “I’ll go get him.” She eyed her boss with her own brand of ICE. “I don’t trust you to do it.”
Friars was still gaping and sputtering when Taylor Cramer hung up and gave him the bad news about how the attorney general’s office would beveryinterested in speaking to him, and he should, perhaps, start packing up his office now.
He waited until LAPD arrived before he fled, and as Ellery and Taylor were talking to the officers on duty, Jackson turned just in time to see the desk sergeant arrive with a slender middle-height man with tawny skin and sloe-brown eyes. He was still wearing nurse’s scrubs, and he had a bit of a shiner and some bruises on his wrists.
Jackson made his way to the poor guy, who was looking exhausted and scared and probably angry as well, underneath that.
“Hey,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m a friend of George’s. Or rather, I’m a friend of George’s boyfriend. You want to go find a vending machine? I could really use a soda. How about you?”
“Root beer and Oreos,” Dara said with a faint smile. “Do you really know George’s boyfriend? I was starting to think he was a myth, manufactured by George to get the hell out of the city.”
Jackson grinned at him, and after checking to make sure Amal wasn’t shying away, slung a companionable arm around his shoulders—sort of a stranger’s way of saying, “You’re safe with me,” and a hug wrapped into one.
“Which, honestly, is what we all thought about George, if you want to know the truth. How would you like to meet him?”
“George’s boyfriend?” They were making their way down the corridor behind the desk, and Jackson spotted the vending machines right off.
“Yeah.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, handing the card to Amal while he checked his phone. “Get me two diet cokes and a regular. And I hope that answer is yes,” he added, before responding to the answer on his phone.
“Why?” Amal asked, tapping numbers into the machine while it read Jackson’s card.
“Because once we get you free and clear of this shithole, it would sort of be a good idea for you to take a few days off work so we can make sure nobody’s left here to wage a vendetta against you, for one.”
Amal groaned. “Fuck me!” He paused and gave Jackson a once-over. “In fact, I’m single. You, uh—”
“Are taken,” Jackson said, appreciating the offer, though. Amal wasverycute. “But that’s sweet.”