School of Fish Read online

  “Maybe.”

  “But we still get to have lunch together, right?” he prodded, on Ellery’s heels as he strode down the hallway, barely pausing to scratch Billy Bob on the stomach where he now sprawled on the kitchen table without shame.

  Jackson followed Ellery’s scratch, and the cat doubled up, kicking with his back leg and biting.

  “You traitor!” Jackson gasped, scooping the snarling animal into his arms. “You’re supposed to love me best.”

  “It’s the stomach, Jackson,” Ellery said. “He gets one scratch on his stomach per day.”

  “You,” Jackson said in outrage, “bogarted my cat!”

  Ellery turned to him, his expression severe but his eyes dancing. “You could always spend the day getting another one so we don’t freak this one out with too much attention.”

  Billy Bob had calmed down and was now rubbing his nose and whiskers systematically on Jackson’s shoulder to make up for the several scratches that graced his forearm.

  “I,” Jackson said with dignity, “will be having lunch with you.” He sobered. “Besides, we have a Jackson cat. We need an Ellery cat.”

  Ellery’s eyes darted sideways and his usually pale cheeks sported red crescents. “What kind of cat is an Ellery cat?” he asked.

  “A dignified cat,” Jackson said. “Gray, like a pinstriped suit. Or tiger-striped, but dignified. Ooh, or black, like a little panther. Sleek and elegant.” He looked at Billy Bob, who had flopped into the crook of Jackson’s arm and was drooling complacently. “Something sane.”

  Ellery still couldn’t meet his eyes, that shyness that sometimes took Jackson by the throat very much apparent. “We can look this weekend,” he said, biting his lip, and Jackson dumped his affronted cat on the ground to press Ellery back against the connecting door between the kitchen and the garage.

  “Lotsa things we can do this weekend,” he purred.

  Ellery’s eyes danced again. “We do that a lot.” But it didn’t sound like he minded.

  “Not full up yet,” Jackson told him, moving in slowly so he could smell Ellery’s aftershave, his clean precision, his minty take-on-the-day scent before moving in for the kiss. He captured Ellery’s mouth and tried to devour that smell, that excitement, whole.

  Ellery responded, mouth open, cupping Jackson’s face with his smooth, manicured hands. The kiss ended before it really began, and Ellery groaned and leaned his forehead against Jackson’s.

  “I might not ever be full up,” he said wickedly. Then he sighed. “But I am late.”

  “Fine,” Jackson said, but then he remembered he’d won. “Henry and I will be by the office before lunch.”

  “Good. I’ve got some stuff you can do from the office then.” He gave Jackson another quick kiss and slid out the garage door, leaving Jackson to dress for the day.

  JACKSON DECIDED on cargo shorts—but ones in decent condition, and a new T-shirt—one they’d gotten from the Monterey Bay Aquarium with a sea otter on the front. It wasn’t snarky, but it wasn’t a suit and tie, and it was cute as hell.

  He figured adulthood didn’t have to be all bad, right?

  He’d just finished washing morning dishes when there was a knock on the door.

  Henry Worrall had served in the military for nine years before he’d been forced out by an abusive boyfriend, and his posture and close-cropped blond hair remained to prove it. But when Jackson opened the door, his lips twisted into a smile, and his blue eyes lightened fractionally, proving that a new perspective is only as far away as you make it.

  “So, you’re done with this vacation bullshit?”

  “Don’t attack the cat on your way in,” Jackson said, turning to lead him into the house. “He’s already had his share of blood today.”

  Henry snorted. “That cat could eat out your throat and then take out the neighborhood.” Henry and Billy Bob had a long history of enmity under their belts. “Are you ready to do, like, real work again?”

  Jackson grunted his frustration. “Picking up files is as real as it gets,” he said reluctantly. “After that, you drop me off at the office, and I sit still like a good boy and do my desk work.”

  “Oh my God, are you whipped.” Henry smirked.

  “You’re looking good today,” Jackson said dryly. “Wipe any runny noses? Diaper any rash?”

  Circumstances had landed Henry a job working at Ellery’s firm, with Ellery’s first partner in law, Galen Henderson. They had also landed Henry a living situation in which he mentored a group of young men who were supposedly grown and on their own. And making their living in pornography. Living in the “flophouse” for a few months before moving out with his boyfriend, Lance, had been partially responsible for mellowing Henry out from his straightlaced, straight-passing life when he’d first gotten out of the military.

  Working along with Jackson, Ellery, and Galen to help clear himself of a murder he hadn’t committed had done the rest.

  And the mentoring had never really gone away. In Henry’s words, a lot of the guys living in the two-bedroom apartment while they tried to figure out their lives had “more balls than brains,” and Henry and Lance did a lot of counseling in the guise of hanging out with the boys from the flophouse.

  In response to Jackson’s question, Henry gave a solid grunt. “Yes. Yes, I wiped noses this morning.”

  Jackson gave him a sympathetic look. “Cotton?” he posed delicately.

  “He’s….” Henry grimaced. His first language wasn’t really English. It was more like Repressed Male, and he spoke it well. “Sometimes, some people, you just want someone to show up and say, ‘You. You are my Cinderella. I shall take you to a castle and we shall talk and be equals, but I will always, always take care of you.’”

  Jackson shuddered. “Gah!”

  “Yeah, I know,” Henry said with a sigh. “Not my thing either. But seriously, and I say this with all the love in the world for this kid, he can pay rent, and he can shop, and he’s going to school for a degree in something that will never get him money, but inside”—Henry held his hands to his chest—“he is never going to be not broken.”

  Jackson blew out a breath. “There’s a lot to be said for broken but functional,” he said after a moment. “Sometimes it takes the right person to be the glue.”

  Henry rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m his glue for now, but that’s not healthy.” He blew out a breath. “I’m just as glad he’s out of porn, though. It’s like every guy who came on to him was ‘the one,’ and that’s not a good place for someone who’s getting paid to put out.”

  Jackson grimaced. “No. No it is not.” He snagged his wallet and a small messenger bag, then shoved his house keys in his pocket. Billy Bob was up on the table again, eating his second breakfast, and Jackson scratched him at the base of the tail because fuck that guy if he wanted to go nuclear.

  Billy Bob purred and continued to eat, and Jackson figured they were good.

  “Speaking of broken,” Henry continued as they ventured into the oppressive heat of mid-August, “how’re you doing?”

  Jackson paused to give him an unamused look. “Heart’s fine, Henry. All checked out. Eating well, exercising well, being a good boy. Wanna see my blood pressure and my last X-rays?”

  “Nope, because Lance talks to your doctor and then he talks to me, and I know all that shit,” Henry said mildly, apparently HIPAA laws be damned. “That’s not the broken I was talking about.”

  Oh dear lord. “Feelings?” Jackson asked, appalled. “You want me to talk about my feelings? Werewolf fucking Jesus, when did that happen?”

  “Oh my God, you people gave me so much shit because I was repressed when I got here. You wrote the book on emotional repression. I’m just asking you if any of the shit you had to sort when we were running around trying to clear my name got sorted.”

  “Oh, who cares,” Jackson snapped. God yes, he’d been talking to Ellery’s rabbi, who had appointed himself Jackson’s personal counselor for life, and yes, he felt a li
ttle better about things than he had before he’d driven himself to the damned almost-heart-attack. But part of the reason he wanted to get back to the office wasn’t so much to avoid the personal tinkering he had to do in order to make his relationship—and, face it, himself—work better, it was to have a place where he didn’t have to confront hard personal truths.

  Activity and puzzle solving was oh-so-much easier, and sometimes he needed a break from his own head.

  “I do,” Henry said brightly. “Emotional enlightenment works great that way.”

  “I’m fine,” Jackson told him. “I’m practically giddy.”

  Henry paused as they neared the cream-colored Lincoln that Galen Henderson, who technically employed Henry as his private investigator, lent out to Henry so Henry could drive him to and from work. Galen had been injured in a horrific motorcycle crash nearly five years ago and had battled addiction to painkillers afterward. He could walk now and drive a car, but not without pain. His boyfriend liked to spare him that, so they’d hired Henry to drive for Galen when Henry had first come to Sacramento.

  Then there had been the inconvenient murder charge, and Henry had proved to have a knack for helping Jackson search out the truth, so Jackson had gained himself a protégé, and Henry had gained himself a calling.

  “Still having nightmares?” Henry asked softly as Jackson reached to open his door.

  Jackson grunted and was about to blow Henry off when his last discussion with the rabbi flashed through his mind. Allow other people to worry about you. It’s a kindness—it gives them something active to do while you go help people.

  “What was it you said?” He rubbed his chest. “Always broken? My nightmares and I go way back. It’s going to take a lot more than a really decent relationship during a real bastard of a year to fix that.”

  “Wow,” Henry said, sliding into the car.

  “Wow what?” Jackson did the same and belted up too.

  “That’s about as healthy as you probably get.” He hit the ignition switch and grinned. “Excellent. Let’s go kick some ass.”

  Jackson laughed a little and let Henry speed out of Ellery’s expensive American River Drive neighborhood.

  It really did feel like being let out of school.

  THE PUBLIC defender’s office was located in a squat, ugly, square butt plug of a building on Seventh and H, which was sort of the center of the legal district in Sacramento. Given that the city was the state’s capitol, with plenty of lobbyists and representatives and senators floating around, the district itself was a little bigger than most, but still, Ellery’s law offices were probably within walking distance of this particular public eyesore.

  They had to park three blocks away near the levee, because ugh, that was downtown, and by the time they’d walked back to mount the granite steps, Jackson could feel the sweat of a humid August day trickling down his armpits and his back.

  Henry, dressed in pretty much the same non-uniform in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, was the first to remark on it.

  “God, I’m so glad we don’t wear suits.”

  “Oh my God, right? But you have to if you testify. You’ve got one, right?”

  Henry’s slow breath of disgust told him that was a go. “Galen took me shopping right before you and Ellery offered me the job with the firm. I had no idea why somebody would buy me suits when he didn’t want up my ass, but now I know.”

  “Technically we’re probably supposed to wear slacks and collared shirts,” Jackson told him, belatedly remembering that that’s what the other PIs in his and Ellery’s old firm used to wear. Just not him.

  Henry looked at him in horror. “Are we gonna?”

  “Oh God no. That’s the other guys.”

  “Thank you, Jesus.”

  The lobby was utilitarian and plain, and they passed the security guard and the metal detectors before they were directed up to the third floor, where their particular public defender worked.

  As they got in the elevator, they heard a disturbance, a man arguing vehemently, his voice thick with a Slavic accent. But that didn’t stop Jackson from hearing “Jenny Probst” in the mix of shouting and, just as the doors closed, gunshots.

  He and Henry met startled glances.

  “Shit, was that guy gunning for—”

  “Our public defender,” Jackson finished tersely as they both watched the lift light up for the third floor. “You go jam the door to the stairs shut. I’ll warn everybody to get down.”

  “And hide her,” Henry shouted as the doors opened.

  “No kidding, Junior!” Jackson stepped out of the elevator and sighted down the hallway filled with doors. Jenny’s was third door to the left, so he had to get cracking.

  He stuck his head into the first office and spotted the security guard leaning up against the wall, eyes scanning the office cubicles beyond. He nodded the guy over and said quietly, “There may be an active shooter downstairs, heading up here. Get everybody under their desks and tell them to keep calm. Lock the door until you can get an all clear from your buddies downstairs.”

  The guy nodded tersely and got on the radio as Jackson ran to the next door.

  The ones on the left were individual offices, and the first two were locked, thank God. He warned one more large public office before heading for Jenny Probst’s small office, throwing the door open right as he heard a ruckus back in the direction of the elevators and the stairs.

  Henry came trotting up next to him as he opened Jenny Probst’s door.

  “I propped the door closed with an axe,” he said breathlessly. “Good news is, it’s wedged there pretty tight. Bad news is—”

  “If he gets past it, he’s got the fire axe,” Jackson muttered. He must have missed the sound of breaking glass in his rush to get down to Jenny’s office. Her name was emblazoned on the window, and short of breaking it and giving away an advantage and their position, there was no way to keep her whereabouts a secret.

  “Jenny Probst?” Jackson asked.

  The woman behind the desk had pale yellow hair and soft pink features. In her midthirties, if she hadn’t been wearing the power suit, he would have pegged her for a soccer mom, but one who forgot to dye her roots regularly.

  “Hello?”

  Jackson’s eyes searched the room. “Hey, does that lead to the office next door? The empty one without your name?”

  “It’s the copy room,” she said, appearing puzzled. “Why?”

  Jackson and Henry looked at each other as the shouting at the other end of the hall got louder.

  “Lady, we need to get you in the fucking closet.”

  Oops, Here I Go Again….

  ELLERY LOOKED at the kid sitting on the other side of his desk and then at his tearful mother and wished his people skills were more on point.

  “Look, Ty, I know this wasn’t fair.”

  “Dammit, there were sixty other kids at that party with X on them!” Ty Townsend burst out, and Ellery resisted the temptation to rub at his temples.

  “I know.”

  “And they were all white kids, and I was the only brown boy in the crowd!”

  “I know, Ty.”

  “Then what in the hell am I doing here?” he shouted, and Ellery’s temper broke.

  “The fact that you are here is not my fault! The fact that you’re not letting me defend you is!”

  Ty sat down abruptly. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, wounded and angry and thoroughly confused, and not for the first time in the last weeks, Ellery wished for Jackson.

  Jackson had a way with people. He probably could have had Ty eating out of his hand and a way to get Ty out of the charge of possession with intent to sell before Ty had even had to pay for his first consult.

  But Jackson wasn’t here, and Ty’s mother had put a lot of money into getting Ty a lawyer who would not plead her barely eighteen-year-old son right into prison, and Ellery needed to pony up.

  “If I’m convicted, I can’t go to school at the end of this week,”
Ty said. “I’ll lose my scholarship. I’ll lose everything!”

  And part of Ellery wanted to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have grabbed the damned drugs as a party favor, then.”

  But the other part of him recognized the absolute unfairness of Ty’s arrest when he had not been the one who’d brought the X and he certainly hadn’t been the one to sell it—or use it.

  They’d get to that if and only if they could save this kid’s future first.

  “Look,” Ellery said, making sure Ty’s eyes were locked on his. “I can’t make promises because some of this is out of my control. But I will tell you this. We will talk to the police involved, we will talk to the other kids at the party, and I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve. I can’t guarantee that this will disappear, and I can’t guarantee that you won’t lose your scholarship, but I will do my damnedest to make sure you don’t see jail time. But I need some things from you first.”

  Ty looked like he was going to get angry again, but his mother—a comfortable woman wearing what looked to be her Sunday-best dress in muted shades of gold and brown—put her hand on his arm and gave him a pleading glance.

  “Tyson, please,” she said softly. “I… I can’t have you in jail.”

  Ty grimaced and nodded. “Okay, Mama.”

  A mama’s boy. Ellery was one himself, and he approved of the breed in general.

  “So,” Ellery said with a deep breath, “I need to know who gave you the drugs.”

  Ty looked at his mother and then sighed. “Look, this could be really bad if it gets out who told you.”

  “Was it a secret?” Ellery asked. “Your statement here says all the students had them.”

  “They did! We walked into No Neck’s house—”

  “James Cosgrove?”

  “No Neck,” Ty confirmed, and then he frowned. “Man, something was going around text about him this morning. Nate was losing his mind, but I had my own shit to sort. Anyway, he shook everyone’s hand and told us that Ziggy would hook us up.”

  “And Ziggy would be Sergio Ivanov,” Ellery said, making the note there.