Page 87 of Under Cover
“Yeah. Sure. What’s up?”
Harman pulled Crosby’s T-shirt up, and the first thing Garcia noticed, besides the bruising, which made parts of his ribs almost black, was how thin he’d gotten. Garcia could count the ribs, and the muscle mass in his chest had diminished.
Gently, Harman probed around the bruises, finding something under Crosby’s skin which he poked at deliberately. Crosby put his hand up to his chest and made a pained sound, and underneath that, Garcia heard his stomach grumbling.
“What’s that?” Garcia asked.
“Well, for starters, he’s hungry. But for finishers, his blood tests showed markers for a peptic ulcer. I’m going to prescribe something to counteract the stomach acid, but Crosby, you need to keep up the good eating habits. Except don’t skip any meals, okay?”
Crosby grunted. “I never knew what I could eat in my flop,” he muttered. “The one time I let my fuckin’ guard down, and look what happened.”
“I hear you,” Harman said, looking at him worriedly. “Now, am I to understand you didn’t have any of these symptoms before you went undercover?”
Crosby shook his head and smiled a little, catching Garcia’s eye and winking. “Lots of chicken sandwiches to keep the weight down, but no. No acid in my stomach. You know—Ilikemy job normally.”
Harman nodded and then glanced at Garcia, then back at Crosby. “Your relationship,” he said delicately. “I take it you’re not out to your team?”
Crosby shook his head, but Garcia made a noise. Crosby pursed his lips and held the hand in the sling up just enough to tilt it back and forth.
“I get the feeling we’re not as secret as we’d planned,” he said. “We, uhm, became roommates two days before I went under. At least one person on the team figured it out, and I think she told her partner.” Crosby grunted. “And her roommate.”
“Ouch,” Garcia said. “Awk-ward.”
Harman glanced at him.
“Her roommate was the she-bang,” Garcia told him, and Harman laughed.
“Gotcha.”
“She almost blew my fuckin’ cover in the ER to tell me to go home and get laid,” Crosby muttered, and it was Garcia’s turn to laugh.
“That woman should know better!” he said, because that reallyhadbeen a close call.
“It was a weird morning,” Crosby mumbled. “But Garcia thinks Harding knows.”
“Oh, he knows,” Harman said. “Because he’s the one who told me.” He regarded them both. “And he’s the one who told me that the young man who helped bring you in had a terrible crush.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose like he’d like to say more but couldn’t, and Garcia made an intuitive leap.
“And some raging STDs,” he said sharply, glancing at Crosby. “And maybe an HIV infection.”
Harman tapped his nose because Garcia had apparently scored a direct hit.
Crosby groaned. “Poor kid. Okay, I get why you were asking all that now. Look, I know the kid landed and shit, but you need to have a counselor visit him, because from what I understand, a lot of that wasnotconsensual.”
“Gah! That’s unfortunate,” Harman muttered. “Okay, good. Not good that it happened, but good to know. I’ll have that done. So now you know why I was asking, but about this ulcer….”
“I can’t come out of undercover yet,” Crosby said. “I mean, give me the treatment, and I’ll keep eating right, but you guys…. McEnany is the least of our worries. We need to pin this guy Cavendish because Iliana’s division is under siege. She can’t hire anyone because she’s got Creedy pushing every racist asshole born in Brooklyn into her ranks, and she can’t trust any of the people above her to help her hire from within the department. And whoeveris funding Creedy, he’s pushing the whole meth/fentanyl/aspirin thing, and it’s causing people to spiral super fast. Yesterday, I killed a user who was a cop four months ago, and the guy’s wife used to do charity work, and she’s the one who stabbed me. This whole Sons of the Blood thing needs to be brought down.”
Crosby took a hard breath, probably fighting the pain in his ribs, and then spoke again while Garcia was trying to formulate an argument.
“And they have trackers on the team, waiting for Rick Young to fuck up his assignment. So… you know. I’d rather not.”
Harm huffed out a breath. “As much as I appreciate that, you need to maybe look at alternatives. We need to take some ultrasounds and some CT scans, but have you seen blood in your stool?”
Crosby groaned slightly. “Now see, you couldn’t have sent him out of the room forthat?”
“You guys insisted,” Harm Blodgett muttered. “But maybe it’s a good thing heishere for that. There has got to be a way to wrap up this case before your stomach blows wide open and three other people try to kill you!”
“I’msayin’!” Garcia snapped. “You have literally been crapping blood?”