Page 63 of Fish in a Barrel

“You’re going home with your boyfriend to sleep,” Ellery ordered gently. “So’s Henry. So am I. It’s the weekend. We’re sleeping late. We’re eating more cookies. We’re resting. We saved Ezekiel Halliday from jail, and damn if it didn’t cost us. Even Jackson has to rest this weekend if I have to drug his soup.”

She gave a weak chuckle. “You’re a good boss,” she said with feeling. Then after a pause, “But we’re still chewing this fat when we wake up tomorrow, right?”

“I don’t bring home my laptop for nothing,” he said grimly.

“Yeah. Good. Because those assholes can get up to all sorts of trouble if nobody’s there to stop them.”

“I’m aware,” he said, and there didn’t seem to be anything more to say about that.

OR MAYBEit was just that he was done with words. When he got back to the house, Henry was asleep in the bed next to Jackson, Mike was asleep in the chair, his head tilted back, and Jackson was curled up on his side, the cats parked—Billy Bob behind his shoulder blades, Lucifer behind his neck—and a Marvel movie was drawing to a close on the TV.

Ellery let out a sigh and said, “You guys want the guest room and Henry can take the couch?”

“We can’t,” Mike said, sitting up and scaring Ellery badly. “We have to let the dog in. Don’t worry. I’m awake.”

“Does that all the time,” Jade admitted. “Scares the shit out of me, but he seems to really be okay.”

And with that, they gathered their things to leave. Ellery leaned over Henry and touched him softly on the arm. He grunted, squinted up at Ellery’s face, and then groaned.

“You can take the guest room,” Ellery said, since Jade and Mike were leaving. “When’s Lance off?”

“Ten a.m.,” Henry murmured. “I’ll do that and text him. He can pick me up in the morning on the way home.”

“Fair enough. I’ve got some sweats if you want them.”

Henry rolled off the bed and stretched, yawning. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.”

Ellery blinked at him and realized that, besides Jackson, nobody else had used that line on him all night. He chuckled, grateful that Henry had wandered into their orbit, then got him some sweats to sleep in and sent him to bed in the other room.

Jade and Mike let themselves out, setting the alarm and killing the lights, and Ellery changed into pajamas, brushed his teeth, and climbed into bed. After he displaced Billy Bob so he could at least tangle his legs with Jackson’s, Jackson let out a sweet little sigh.

“’Lo, Counselor,” he rasped, laryngitis not much better. “How were the cobras?”

Ellery leaned close enough to kiss his shoulder and then pulled away, not wanting to brush his back, even a tiny bit.

“Deadly,” he said, meaning it. “But they can wait until the morning.”

“Good. Love you. Glad you’re home.”

“Love you too. And God, I’m glad I’m home with you.”

Something about the physical contact, Jackson’s sleep-slurred words, the normalcy of the two of them in the same bed, allowed Ellery’s buzzing brain to quiet down, and he fell fast asleep.

Wrong Guy

JACKSON’S PHONEwent off right before he heard the pounding on the front door Monday morning, and he groaned. God. Didn’t they have another two hours? The hell time was it, anyway? Five a.m.? The fuck?

He checked his phone and saw a text from Crystal, the tech genius who still worked at Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson and Cooper.

Don’t be mean to Christie. They’re fishing.

He stared at the text and tried to put the pounding at the door together with it, and the resulting car crash in his brain woke him up enough to think—sort of.

With a grunt he rolled out of bed, careful not to wake Ellery. At Henry’s request, Lance had shown up at their house with antibiotics for Jackson bright and early Saturday morning. By then, Jackson’s back had been on fire, and his fever had been raging, and he’d been too weak to put up a fight. By Sunday morning everything had started working, including his immune system, and the two of them had spent most of Sunday sleeping and talking, texting their circle with ideas, and sleeping some more. Ellery had insisted that nobody go in to work, everybody take extra naps, and everyone but Jackson got to go in Monday morning to try to figure out what Freethy and Brown were doing by going for legal help without their union guy.

Also, everybody wasreallykeen to know whose orders were responsible for the forced relocations and if their four choirboys in blue were acting on directive or instinct when they’d gone after Jackson and Cody Gabriel.

Somebody had to fix it. Somebody had to pay, and that couldn’t happen until they got to the truth, and they couldn’t get to the truth when they were falling asleep where they sat.