Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Forty

Trey and I left Jackson to his fate. As we entered the lobby, I saw two more guards escorting a confused Cricket out the side door. At least she’d gotten to perform, good news for both her and the team. I didn’t envy her the rest of her evening, however.

Trey took the grand staircase two steps at a time, making a direct heading for the warren of smaller rooms past the concession stand. I hurried to keep up.

“Trey?”

“I have to get back to work. We’ll talk later. Remember, say nothing to no one about Jackson.”

“But won’t people notice that he and Cricket are missing?”

“I’m sure they will. But for now, we can’t tell anyone anything, not even Rico.”

He pulled out a swipe card and unlocked the door of what was obviously his field office. I recognized his trademark stacks of paper in military alignment, the neat in-box, the line of pens. He picked up one particularly hefty folder and opened it, eyes on the pages.

“Trey?”

“Yes?”

“About Rico.”

“What about him?”

“He didn’t mean for it to happen the way it did.”

“The way what happened?”

“The phone in your pocket.”

Trey looked up. And then I spilled the whole thing—Cricket’s fight with Lex in the parking lot, the scramble for the phone, the punch to the face, the subsequent ditching of said phone in Trey’s pocket when Lex’s death turned it into a hot potato. I watched as the sequence of events knit together in his brain.

“Rico,” he repeated.

“I didn’t find out until Wednesday night. And I was going to tell you, but you were asleep when I got home, and gone in the morning. And Thursday Marisa had you in her teeth, and today—”

“Today would have worked.” He threw his papers down on the table, then turned to face me. “What did Cricket do with the phone the night she took it from Lex?”

“Hid it under the bar in a jar of peanuts. She gave it to Rico the night of the memorial and begged him to get rid of it, but he had to ditch it fast when Cummings arrived. So he slipped it in your jacket, which I’d left folded up on the table beside him. He said he’s sorry.”

Trey’s eyes held mine for most of the statement, but eventually they dipped to my mouth.

I shook my head at him. “Stop reading me, Trey Seaver.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not lying.”

“I know.”

“Because you checked, not because you trust me.”

“And why should I trust you?” He tilted his head, his eyes sharp. “You keep things from me. You tamper with evidence. And you lie.”

“I told you the truth!”

“Forty-eight hours after the fact.”

“But I told you!”

He started to push past me toward the door. “I have to get back to work.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” I grabbed his elbow. “You—”

He knocked my hand away so fast it snatched the breath right out of me. A Krav Maga front block, one quick sideways smack with the forearm. I stared at my hand, stared at him.

He stared back in equal bewilderment. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…I shouldn’t have…”

I was momentarily speechless. But then the haze of astonishment cleared, and I saw Trey clearly. He looked positively shell-shocked, broken right in two.

“No, Trey, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.”

“That still shouldn’t…it’s not…except that we’ve been practicing—”

“It’s okay.”

But he wasn’t listening. He was confused and disoriented. Suddenly all the anger evaporated, and something else took its place, something like panic.

“Trey? What’s going on?”

He frowned, thinking hard. “Increased pulse rate, irregular respiration, probably from the adrenal cascade—”

“I mean, what are you feeling?”

I tried to take his hand, but he jerked away.

“Trey?”

He was cornered, the table right behind him, me in front. I reached for him—slowly, very slowly—and lay one hand flat against his chest. His breathing quickened at my touch, but he didn’t move.

“Don’t,” he whispered.

“It’s okay. I’m not afraid.”

“But I am. I think.” He closed his eyes. “I can’t breathe.”

“Yes, you can. You are. Deep in and deep out, you know this part.”

He took a deep breath, shaky but deliberate. Beneath my palm, I felt the gallop of his heart, the one muscle he couldn’t train into submission.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Anger? Pain? Nervousness?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Keep trying.”

“I am.”

“I know.” My voice surprised me. Husky, ragged, whispery. “Trey?”

He finally met my eyes. “Yes?”

“It’s happening again.”

He swallowed hard. “I know.”

“Is this a kink in your programming or in mine?”

“It’s not a kink. It’s just adrenalin.”

“Not just adrenalin.”

I moved my fingers to the hollow of his throat, a delicate butterfly touch. Before I’d known him, I’d never known how much the body revealed. Despite our words, our careful composure, the truth slopped over the edge of whatever bucket we hid it in.

I ran a finger down his breastbone, and his breath caught. I felt it too, the anxiety and anticipation mixing together in a heady hormonal cocktail. I moved closer, stomach to stomach. He closed his eyes…and then the door flew open behind us.

I jerked around to see Rico standing there. He swore in a particularly colorful manner.

“Not that you two care, but the team took second place. And I’m moving on to the individuals.”

“Rico! That’s—”

“So I gotta get back, and you two gotta find a different room. This one here is freshly tricked out with video…right up there.”

He pointed. Sure enough, a camera’s red hot light glared at us. “Come out front when you’re decent. Or dressed, let’s shoot for dressed.”

He shut the door, and I turned back to Trey. Our bodies still touched, but the rest of him was once again separate, the breach plugged, the whitewater tamed.

I put my hands on my hips. “You’re premises liability and you didn’t know there was a camera in here?”

“I knew. But I didn’t remember.”

“I thought you were the guy who didn’t forget.”

He straightened his tie and stepped around me. “There’s a difference between forgetting and not remembering.”

He was calm again, surface-wise anyway. But I knew the underneath, could still feel it singing in my own veins. I smoothed my shirt nice and tidy, and still it sang.

“Just adrenalin, huh?”

“No. Adrenalin followed by dopamine and acetylcholine in the secondary cascade. A completely different scenario, one I don’t fully understand.” He went to the door and opened it, once again a vision of tidiness and precision. “Let’s go. I really do have to get back to work.”