Page 111 of The Fallen Man

“Someone will,” said Jackson with a shrug.

“You’re going to go after the other guy.”

“Yeah,” said Jackson, “I am.”

Vince looked like he was running some calculations in his head. “All right, I’ll go with you.”

“If you wanted to be helpful, you could take this bag to Katie at the hospital. I could use my guy back, and she could use someone she trusts to watch her back. That’s not me anymore.”

Vince took the bag. “You gotta twist the knife, don’t you?”

“Didn’t I just say we were assholes?”

Jackson brushed past Vince and headed down the stairs. He hadn’t slept properly in twenty-four hours, and he knew he probably was at his best, but right now, all he wanted to do was punch something. The only problem was that his preferred target was nowhere to be found, and all he had to show for it was a pile of papers.

Evan

Cheery Bailbonds

Evan arrived at Cheery Bailbonds at nearly the same time as Aiden.

“I didn’t think you knew where this place was,” said Aiden.

“I helped with the purchase paperwork. I just pretend not to. Why doesn’t he get new signs?”

“I think he likes it this way,” said Aiden, looking up at the faded sign on the building. “I think comfortably downtrodden is the look he’s going for.”

“Meanwhile, what the fuck?” asked Evan. “I have three messages from Nika, and none of them are good.”

“She leaves the worst messages,” said Aiden, shaking his head.

“No, they were perfectly clear. I mean, they were all bad news. Jackson’s mystery girlfriend is Caitlin Granger? Only she’s been assaulted by Dennis Houge? She’s at the hospital? I can’t even… What the fuck?”

“Oh. I guess her messages were clear for you. I had to call her back.”

Garcia opened the door and looked at both of them. Garcia had been Aiden’s assigned minder before Zhao security had pretty much co-opted the job due to Aiden’s proximity to Ella. “Are you two coming inside, or did you just want to loiter and make people suspicious?”

“Um… suspicious?” offered Aiden.

“I was coming in,” said Evan. “I just stopped to talk to Mr. Suspiciously Loitering With Intent.”

“Cool,” said Garcia. Evan suspected that Jackson had hired the dark-haired ex-cop due to his unflappable nature. It helped when dealing with Aiden.

“So,” said Aiden, as they filed into the building. “Jackson was dating Caitlin Granger. Didn’t he run a background check or anything? I mean, seriously, how much shit did he flip us about that kind of thing?”

“I think he was in denial about dating,” said Kerschel from her spot and a desk.

“Ditto to that,” said Garcia.

“He feels like an idiot,” said Pete, looking at the Deverauxes over his reading glasses. “However, having just run a background check, I’m not sure it would have helped. She’s been using her mother’s third ex-husband’s last name. She worked a lot of cash gigs and changed phones and addresses multiple times. She pops up with terrible credit, but legitimately as Caitlin St. Cloud. We might have got a head start if we’d known her name was Caitlin, but there wasn’t any reason to connect the two.”

“Are we sure it wasn’t some sort of con?” asked Aiden.

“No,” said Garcia, shaking his head. “If that had been the case, there would have been an ask for funding, and she wouldn’t have told him to fuck off so hard. She doesnotwant to see him.”

“I wanted it to be a con,” said Aiden sadly. “Then we could hate her.”

Kerschel looked up from her computer, clearly startled. “No, bruh. I’m pretty sure Granger wiped out her college fund to hire the guys who tried to kill Evan and then used whatever was leftover to pay for his run from the law.”