Page 17 of Fish in a Barrel

“Do you know where he is?” He needed the information—tonight. If Ellery was going to have any chance of keeping Ezekiel Halliday out of jail, they had to have Cody Gabriel’s side of the story.

Her voice wobbled. “Look, Cody Gabriel’s… it’s complicated with him. I-I can’t turn him in, but….”

Jackson sucked in a breath, remembering everything Annette Frazier had just told him. “He’s on a tear, isn’t he?” he asked. “A run. He’s been under and using for far too long.”

It happened—God, he knew how it did. He’d been asked to wear a wire for months when he’d been trying to bring down his dirty partner all those years ago. And every day he’d gone out on the streets, under cover of being a “good team player,” which meant another dirty cop, and he’d had to remember who he was. He’d had to remember not that he was on a wire, but that hewasn’tthe guy taking payoffs in drugs, money, and hookers. He had to remember that hewasn’twho his partner said he was: a street kid who was doomed to be dirty before he was even born. He had to remember that he wastryingto be the good guy here, and the whole time he was being played by the people listening in. Those people had hired somebody to take Jackson and his old partner out and had moved in on his partner’s turf while Jackson had been fighting for his next breath in the hospital.

When he’d awakened, he’d had scars on his body that looked like his flesh was trying to turn itself inside out and scars on his soul that proved it wasn’t only his flesh.

Cody Gabriel had been undercover, probably for a good reason, and somebody on his team had taken advantage of that, leaving Cody to make a shitty decision because it was the best decision he had. If he’d been on the edge, using product to bust the sellers, odds were good, really good, that he’d run away from Annette Frazier and jumped right down the hole.

It was safe in that hole, and the demons wouldn’t get you there.

The only reason Jackson hadn’t fallen down a hole much like it was that he’d been getting all the good and legal drugs in the hospital, just to keep him breathing.

“Adele, look. I don’t want to screw him. I don’t want to press charges. I don’t think this was his fault. Somebody—somebody on the force—told him to cause a ruckus in the homeless camp. He didn’t want to do it. Had to get high to do it. And then shit went horribly wrong and he took off. If he needs treatment, he needs treatment. We’ll get him there. But he’s not going to be okay until he makes this right. I’m not talking with the cops or the law—I’m talking with himself, do you understand? If things went down the way I think they did, he’s a decent guy—”

“He’s akid,” she said bitterly. “He’s twenty-four, fresh out of Afghanistan, joined the force because he wanted to do good. He’s a baby, and they sent him undercover, and….” Her voice cracked. “Man, if you can talk some sense into him, he’s all yours. But be careful.”

“Do you know where he is?” Jackson asked, heartsore.

“Weallknow where he is,” Fetzer snapped. “He’s in the homeless camp surrounding the fucking station.”

Oh Jesus. And everybody knew he was there, and nobody wanted to bring him in because admitting he was on a run and addicted would end his fucking career.

“You suck,” Jackson said, the words exploding out of him before he knew they were coming. “Your stupid uniforms suck, your dumb blue line sucks, your fucking hypocrisy sucks. He was better than the whole lot of you before he walked in the door.”

“I can’t argue,” she said dispiritedly. “But I know his mother. If you can bring him home, I won’t just owe you one. I’ll owe you all of them. Jimmy too. You’re right, this bullshit’s gone on long enough.”

Jackson hung up without signing off, and Henry pulled the phone away from him hastily, probably assuming, rightly, that Jackson was a heartbeat away from throwing it through the window of the minivan.

“The camp around the police station,” Henry said into the silence.

“That’s what she said.” Jackson was shaking.

“I… am boggled.”

Jackson snorted. Leave it to Henry to put things so succinctly.

“I am too,” he answered, voice thick.

“So,” Henry said. “You ready to save a life?” He held up his fist sideways, and Jackson hit it with his own.

“Tots and pears, brother. Tots and pears.”

Grimly, they negotiated their way through the dark and stormy night.

Illicit Communication

ELLERY HADmade it home, his laptop in tow, and was living out the pajamas-and-dinner fantasy, but doing it all by his lonesome.

Well, except for Billy Bob and Lucifer, who were currently tussling over who got to get stoned first off a new catnip mouse. So far it was looking like Lucifer would win, but only because he was easy. One or two whiffs of that green herbal goodness and the three-legged black kitten was running around in circles, purring. Billy Bob, the three-legged Siamese cross, would probably eventually end up in a corner, taking long drags off the thing, with Lucifer chasing sparkles in the air next to him—at least, that’s how it had gone through the last two catnip mice, and Ellery was starting to see a pattern.

And if he didn’t have the cats to keep him company, he had Jade, who was talking his ear off through his earbuds.

“So,” she said, “what are we going to be tomorrow?”

“Isn’t it too late to get coordinating costumes?”