Cut and Run 08 Ball & Chain (26 page)

“Director Burns,” Zane said, continuing with his questioning despite the surprise of learning that Burns had actively sought Nick out as well as Ty and Elias Sanchez. “Why would someone take the watch off one of your operatives? Is information stored in it?”

Burns frowned deeply. “No. No, all it has is the GPS. And that’s all a live feed; it doesn’t store information. For that, you’d need the accompanying software system.”

“And where is that?” Zane asked.

Burns shrugged. “My office.”

“Is there any way to reach it remotely?”

“I suppose you could go through my tablet or laptop. Neither of which I have here. I’ve honestly never tried.”

Zane nodded, even more confused than he had been. “Would breaking the watch corrupt the GPS?”

“Not the information that’s already been sent. Why crack the watch open?” Burns asked.

“We have no idea. The watch makes no sense right now, and it’s gone, so . . .” Zane ran a finger over his nose. “Who would even know it was special?”

“The watch?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone who knew it had GPS. Another operator. Anyone who’s done black ops or dark ops and used a similar system, including Grady and O’Flaherty. I would suspect even you would have known to do that, had you recognized the watch for what it was.”

Zane narrowed his eyes. “So, whoever knew the watch was a tracking device is who we’re after.”

“I would suppose, yes.”

“And you didn’t think that was need-to-know?” Zane asked through gritted teeth.

Burns sat forward. “Zane, you’ve always been a big-picture kind of guy. That’s a unique ability. You shouldn’t lose it.”

Zane couldn’t find his voice to respond.

“Is that all?”

Zane met his eyes. There were so many things he wanted to say to this man, and most of them would probably end with a punch being thrown. He almost wished he’d unleashed Nick just so he could witness it. He had to remind himself, though, that Burns was also the reason he and Ty were together at all. The reason they had remained partners long enough to solidify their relationship, even if it had been for ulterior motives. Burns was the one who’d given Zane his second chance. He couldn’t find it in himself to truly hate the man even though he wanted to for the underhanded things Burns had done.

He swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s it.”

Nick practically pounced on Ty and Kelly as they were making their way through the great hall toward the kitchen stairs. His sudden appearance damn near kicked Ty’s instakill into action.

“What’d you find?” Nick demanded.

Ty examined him with a growing hint of apprehension. He was as taut as a bowstring, and Ty could tell the next person to pass in front of Nick’s target area was going to seriously take one for the team. “Did you do violence to anyone?”

“Only in my mind,” Nick growled. “What did you find?”

Kelly held up the laptop. “It’s password protected. We’re going to let Zane take a stab at it.”

Nick stared at him incredulously. “Take a
stab
at it? Really?”

Kelly blinked. “Oh. Oh, that was an unintentional pun. That was bad form, I’m sorry.”

Nick just shook his head.

Ty snorted, though, feeling guilty for doing it. “We were heading for the meat locker to get Milton’s phone, see what we could pull off it,” he told Nick. “What’d Burns have to say?”

“Milton was one of his.”

Ty’s blood seemed to run a little colder. “Seriously?”

Nick nodded curtly. “Garrett made me leave before I heard anything else.”

Ty could imagine why Zane had kicked Nick out if he’d been half as wound up in there as he was now. “Okay,” he said carefully. He and Kelly shared a glance. Ty’s eyes drifted down to Kelly’s little bag of medical tricks, still slung over his shoulder. Kelly gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “You two go see what you can do with the phone, I’ll take the laptop to Zane, see if he can get past the security on it.”

“That really the best use of our time right now?” Nick asked.

Ty came up short, frowning at Nick. “You got something better to do?”

Nick snorted and turned to stalk off toward the kitchen stairs. Ty hissed at Kelly and pointed to his bag as Kelly handed off the laptop. “Sedate the fuck out of him if he goes off the rails.”

Kelly snorted and gave him a smart salute, then jogged after Nick.

“Holy shit,” Ty whispered to himself before turning and going off to find Zane.

“Ty.”

Ty skidded to a halt on the slick marble floor. He’d walked right past Zane, coming out of the parlor door. Ty turned on him, eyes wide. “Milton was one of Dick’s guys?”

Zane nodded grimly.

“What’d he tell you?”

“Okay, so Burns says Milton was guarding some sort of new technology or information, he isn’t sure which.”

“That’s what they cut him open to find, huh? Thinking he swallowed it? Has to be a memory chip or . . . a flash drive wouldn’t go down easy.”

“Likely not. Abbott’s convinced they didn’t find it, though. That’s why they took the watch.”

“For the GPS?” Ty guessed.

“Yep.”

“Because he probably stashed it somewhere, and the watch can tell you where he’s been.”

“Yep.”

“But they can’t read it without the proper equipment. Why would they take it? And why fucking smash it?”

Zane shrugged. “They might not know any of that. Thought it was a transmitting chip. I don’t know. What’s with the laptop?”

Ty held it up for Zane. “It’s Milton’s. Password protected. You think you can get into it?”

“Yep,” Zane said again without hesitation. He took it from Ty and glanced around the great hall. “Let’s go find somewhere quiet.”

Ty trailed after him, a smile playing on his lips. “You’re kind of sexy when you take charge like that.”

“Shut up, Ty,” Zane said, but his voice trembled with laughter.

The kitchen had mostly been cleaned up by the time Nick and Kelly got back down there, but Nick still hesitated, just as he’d done that morning at breakfast. It was embarrassing as hell to completely lose it like he had, even if it had happened before in front of Ty and Kelly, even if he had pulled both of them through similar episodes of their own. Nick didn’t like not being in control of himself, and he definitely didn’t like the idea that he’d taken a swing at Kelly without even realizing what he was doing.

Kelly placed a hand at the small of his back in silent support before he made his way over to the freezer where all three bodies were being stored. There was no guard down here, but why would there be? Milton’s body had already been picked clean of everything the perpetrators wanted, the cook had merely been collateral damage, and Nikki had just been placed in there. Who would have thought to guard the dead bodies in the first place?

For that matter, who would have expected dead bodies at a wedding? Ty and Zane, that’s fucking who.

Nick wandered into the pantry, scanning the shelves. He grabbed a glass canister of white rice and stuffed it under one arm, then went off in search of a mixing bowl.

“I wonder why they didn’t take his phone, too,” Kelly called from the freezer. “I mean, they take a broken watch and slice him up on a guess that he’d swallowed whatever it is, but they don’t take his phone just ’cause it’s waterlogged?”

“We’re obviously looking for someone who’s never dropped his phone in a toilet,” Nick said. He poured the rice out into a stainless steel mixing bowl.

“Ha. Ha ha.” Kelly came up to stand beside Nick at the counter and placed the phone beside the bowl. “Considering you’re the one who told me to put it in the rice, you shouldn’t make jokes.”

“I live on a boat; I can get water out of anything.” Nick absently reached across the counter for a small glass jar of toothpicks and plucked one out to put in his mouth. He began taking the cell phone apart and shoving each piece into the rice separately.

Kelly leaned over the counter to rest his chin on his hand. Nick glanced at Kelly as he shoved the SIM card and battery deep into the rice.

Kelly was watching his face instead of his hands. “Are you okay?” he asked, voice gone soft and intimate.

Nick swallowed hard. “I don’t know. If Garrett hadn’t been up there with me, I would have taken Richard Burns’s head off.”

“Whether he deserves it or not, that’s not like you.”

“I know.”

Kelly straightened, then pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the counter. “It’ll take a while for that rice to do its thing. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you, Lucky? Maybe I can help.”

Nick stared at the counter, at Kelly’s hand resting against the white tile, his eyes tracing the lines of Kelly’s long fingers. Kelly tapped them against the tile, and Nick met his eyes.

“My dad,” he started, but he lost his voice before he could go further. He shook his head in frustration.

“Because he’s sick?” Kelly guessed.

Nick nodded.

“What did he say to you when he called for you to come see him? You haven’t been right since.”

Nick didn’t answer, chewing on the toothpick as he stared at the rice.

Kelly was silent for a few moments, then took in a deep breath. “When I was going through the foster system, I saw a lot of kids who were there because they’d been abused. This one kid, he was a few years older than me. Close to aging out of the system. He got word his mom had died of an overdose. He was all torn up about it, and I just couldn’t understand why. His scars were still healing. So I asked him. And he told me he was glad she was dead. He was mourning the mother he could have had. Should have had.”

Nick was silent, his eyes on Kelly the entire time.

Kelly patted his cheek and smiled sadly. “It’s okay to mourn. You do it for you, not him.”

Nick nodded and forced himself to swallow past the knot in his throat. “We’re not at the mourning stage just yet. He needs a new liver. He wants me to get tested to see if I’m a match.”

Kelly’s expression changed from one of gentle sympathy to something else entirely. His eyes sparked, and the lines around his mouth grew hard as he squared his shoulders. “He wants you to donate a piece of your liver?”

Nick nodded, unable to speak.

“Are you going to do it?”

“I don’t know,” Nick whispered. “I don’t want to. I want to let him die.”

Kelly nodded, frowning in sympathy. But then he shook his head. “You’d never forgive yourself. Even if everyone knows he deserves it.”

Nick lowered his head. “I know.”

Kelly grabbed at his shirt front and pulled him sideways until Nick was standing right in front of him, between his legs. Kelly hugged him fiercely, and Nick buried his face in Kelly’s neck.

“The decision you make, you make it for you. Not him,” Kelly whispered into his ear. “You make it for you. And I’ll be there.”

Nick gripped him hard, hugging him for dear life.

Kelly sniffed and smiled against his neck. “You do you, boo boo,” he said, his voice shaking with laughter.

Nick pushed away from him, fighting back tears with a surprised snort. “There’s something so wrong with you.”

“That’s why you love me.”

Ty couldn’t sit still. He bounced his knees, he tapped his toes, he cracked his knuckles. He finally picked up a pen and began twirling it around his fingers just to give his hands something else to do as he watched Zane fiddle with the laptop.