The Way Things Are (35 page)

“I didn’t take anything! I never have!”

“Technically you did. And honestly, I think you’ve used before, because otherwise you’d be out cold right now. I put enough in your coffee that I’m surprised you’re not dead yet. It’s just a matter of time, though. Even making you weak as a kitten didn’t help much. You’re fucking heavy.” Ethan shoved him forward toward the open container door, twisting his arm farther when he hesitated. He thought the throbbing in his head was bad, but it was nothing compared to the agony that shot up his right arm as his wrist was bent back until it couldn’t move any more.

Patrick gasped and tried to focus on the pain in his wrist and elbow. It was the only thing he could focus on that didn’t make him feel like he was on a psychotic carnival ride that would never end. He was vaguely aware of Ethan’s hands digging through his pockets. The man tossed his keys and multitool away. “Hey, where’s your phone, Pat?”

“I don’t know! Probably in my truck where I left it! Why the hell are you doing this?”

“Because you just had to play the hero,” Ethan said, his tone casual. “Sixty grand is what that kid would have been worth! Obviously the girls are worth a lot more. But Nate fucked up when he let the little shit get away. When you busted him, he couldn’t stay on with the Port Authority.”

“But he was just charged with assault!”

“It still got him fired, which made his ass worthless to me. If he would have just taken off while he had the chance, things wouldn’t have been so messy.”

“Ethan, I’ve got a kid. I’m all he has.”

“From what you’ve told me, the kid is a pain in the ass, anyway. Don’t worry, I’ll put the little punk out of his misery.” Ethan shoved him into the dark container hard.

A rush of dizziness flooded over him as he collided with a stack of cardboard boxes. He shoved off of the boxes, propelling himself back toward the door. This time he didn’t catch Ethan off guard, but he did manage to push the door open far enough that Ethan couldn’t get the latch to close. Even with the world spinning and his brain trying to shut down, Patrick was bigger and stronger than Ethan. He shoved the container door open hard and smacked at Ethan’s hands until there was a large enough gap he could slip through.

Patrick’s body moved on instinct, driving the man back with a series of three sloppy punches that would have made Corbin laugh at him. Ethan stepped back, evading each sloppy punch easily. The pain and exhaustion mixed in waves, and Patrick felt like he was going to throw up, but he kept punching. He shook his head to try to focus, but somehow that just made everything worse.

When Patrick nearly toppled over, Ethan laughed and bent over, reaching for the gun.

Knowing there was no way he could win a fight in his current condition, Patrick took the moment he had while Ethan’s back was turned, and ran. He ran around the outside of the shipping container, then past two more that were stacked behind it, looking for any way he could duck into the maze of narrow rows between them.

The stadium lights that lit up the wharf at night were almost two blocks away, and rows of dark shipping containers rose up between him and the shipping terminal like dark buildings in a tiny city. The rows between them were tight, just wide enough for the spreaders of the midsized mobile cranes to reach between, so he had to keep running until he found an open lane between the stacks.

There was a loud pop behind him and something pinged off of the container to his right, so he ran faster, despite the way the world kept spinning around him. He pushed through, desperate to make it back to Jay. He reached the end of stack and veered to the right, trying to remember the layout of the stacks from when he’d last looked down on them from the crane. It hadn’t even been five hours, but when he tried to focus, he couldn’t call the image to mind. He couldn’t remember the manifests either, or even if he had actually unloaded these or not. Everything from the moment he’d taken his break onward was a blur.

The only thing he was certain of was that he needed help. He dug his cell phone out of his pants and kept running, trying to turn the screen on while he moved. The front of the touch screen was shattered, but the phone itself still turned on. Patrick paused long enough to dial 911 without cutting himself on the glass, then kept running.

At the end of the stack, the access road branched off in three different directions. Patrick turned toward the shipping terminal, then stumbled as the call finally connected. He the crunch of gravel not far behind him and shoved the phone back into his pocket.

A tiny patch of gravel exploded to his right. Patrick kept running toward the end of the nearest shipping container and scurried up to the top, climbing the long vertical latch. He had to shove himself up with his feet to reach the latch on the second container, but once he had a decent handhold, he managed to pull himself up. He rolled onto the roof of the top container, fighting to catch his breath and praying that Ethan hadn’t seen him climb. Maybe if Ethan thought he’d kept running, he’d have time to call for help.

When he heard the crunch of boots on gravel on the ground below, he forced himself to stop panting. Ethan was panting, gasping for breath. The sound was so loud, Patrick knew Ethan would be able to hear him too. Even taking slow, shallow breaths, he was sure Ethan would notice.

“I told you there’s no point!” Ethan shouted. “Tell you what! Come down and stop being a dick about this, and I’ll forget your little boy exists!”

Patrick bit his tongue.

“Of course, if you make this harder than it has to be, I’ve got to recoup my losses somehow,” he said, as if he were talking about playing the stock market. “How much do you think I’d get for a little redhead?”

“Pat!”

Patrick felt his heart stop as Ken’s voice reached him from somewhere far away. He tried to sit up, to scream, but the pain in his head felt like someone was trying to crush his skull with a jackhammer.

Below, Ethan’s steps move away from the side of the container. “You called that fucking detective?” he laughed.

Patrick fumbled with his phone. The screen was cracked, but it showed the call to 911 was still connected. There was also a text message from Ken announcing that he was in the parking lot. Patrick ended the 911 call and tapped out the letters, heedless of the way the broken glass cut his finger
. Run.

“Christ, you are a pain in the ass. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to leave you up there. I don’t know how long it’s going to take before the GHB knocks your ass out or how long it’ll take before it stops your heart, but it will. And while you’re sitting there waiting to die, I’m going to go deal with this fucker. Then I’m going to go find your little boy. And since I’m not going to be able to come back here after this, I’m going to have to find a way to make a lot of money off him.”

Patrick managed to roll over and crawled to the edge of the container’s roof. He stopped just short of looking over the edge because he didn’t hear Ethan’s footsteps moving away. The end of the container below him clanged. Ethan huffed and struggled to haul himself up.

Patrick tried to sit up, tried to move, but his head was worse now. He shouldn’t have stopped running, he realized. He’d rested a moment too long, and the rush of adrenaline that had been helping him push through the pain and whatever the hell Ethan had drugged him with was beginning to ebb.

Ethan hoisted himself up, his head peeking above the edge of the container. He held the gun out straight in his right hand and hooked his left elbow over the top of the container. “Just because I hate climbing these doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“Wait! Wait a second!” Patrick groaned. “You can’t hurt Jay! I’m right here, just leave my kid alone.”

Ethan barked out a harsh laugh. While he was laughing, Patrick rolled toward him and kicked the gun hard. The gun flew from Ethan’s hand, tumbling back to the gravel below. He kicked Ethan in the face, hard enough to whip his head back. If Ethan really had drugged him, if he really was dying, there was no point in holding back. There was no point wondering if there was a way to get help, or if there was another way. He kicked Ethan’s elbow off the edge of the container.

The look of rage in Ethan’s eyes morphed into fear and shock as he reached for the edge of the container. His fingers brushed the edge, but he was too far away to get a grip on the metal. He teetered on the top lock bar and fell back. There was a faint thud twenty feet below, and then there was nothing.

Patrick crawled toward the edge, not trusting himself to stand. Below, Ethan’s body was crumpled in an awkwardly shaped heap. Ethan rolled onto his side, drawing a slow, gurgled breath.

“Well, fuck.” Patrick sat up and picked up his cracked cell phone again. There were no new messages from Ken, so Patrick dialed 911.

“Pat!” Ken’s voice was closer now.

Patrick sat up and turned in the direction the voice was coming from. “Ken?”

Ken came around the corner of the stacks carefully. Patrick watched him scan the darkness and shadows around the containers, and saw the fear pale his face when he caught sight of Ethan. Ken rushed toward Ethan’s prone form.

“No!” Patrick shouted. “Gun! He had a gun! Get the hell out of here!”

Ken froze. He produced a flashlight from somewhere and swept the ground near Ethan, then shown the light up toward the top of the stacks. “Pat?”

“Call 911,” Pat said, stunned by how quiet his voice sounded. He meant to shout, but it came out as a whisper.

He thought he’d heard someone answer when he called 911, and the screen still showed that the call was active. “Hello?” he asked, holding the phone a bit away from his cheek to avoid getting cut on the screen again.

The voice on the phone was calm and confident. “Hello, do you have an emergency?”

Patrick was so relieved he almost laughed. “Oh, man, I’m so glad you didn’t hang up. I need help.”

“Pat, I’m coming up!” Ken shouted.

“Sir, I can help you. What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“I….” Patrick tried to remember anything other than fear, pain, and running for his life. Patrick swallowed hard. “He fell.”

“Someone fell? Can you tell me what happened? Where you’re at?” the operator asked with a practiced ease.

Patrick let himself roll onto his back and took a deep breath, hoping his head would stop spinning if he could just sit still. “I can’t…,” he breathed, ignoring the dispatcher for a moment.

Ken’s face came into his line of sight. “God, Pat! What happened to you?” Patrick tried to take his hand when Ken tried to check his pulse.

“Ethan happened. He slipped me some kind of drug. Hit me on the head. Tried to shoot me. He fell.”

“Christ,” Ken hissed. He took the phone carefully from Patrick’s hands. “Let me do this, okay?”

Patrick tried to listen as Ken answered question after question for the 911 dispatcher, describing their location and what Patrick had reported to him. Patrick hoped the ringing in his ears was the siren of an ambulance, but from the way the 911 guy kept interrogating Ken, he doubted they’d gotten that far.

“Pat, are you bleeding?” Ken asked.

Patrick hesitantly brought his hand up to the back of his head. His hair was wet and sticky. “Looks like blood.”

“You said he drugged you? Pat, are you going to be able to climb down?”

“My chest hurts.”

“No,” Ken said into the phone, “I don’t think he can get down on his own. He says his chest hurts.”

Ken shook him by the shoulders. “No! Pat, I need you to stay awake! They’re sending help!” Patrick shut his eyes against the pain and the dizziness and clung to Ken’s hand.

Chapter 16

K
EN
HAD
never felt quite as helpless as he did in the few moments after he watched Patrick be loaded into the back of a waiting ambulance. He didn’t know if he should climb into the ambulance beside the gurney or if one of the EMTs would kick him out if he tried. He figured he could at least ride up front, but Malcolm stopped him, grabbing him by the shoulder as the ambulance door closed. “Come with me. We need to talk.”

Ken glared at him, stunned his brother could be so cruel as to try to take his statement when he’d just watched a herd of EMTs cart his lover away shouting about cardiac arrest.

He took a deep breath. “Mal, tell your partner he is welcome to call me and set up a time for an interview. Or any other detective in Seattle. But not you. Don’t touch me.”

“Ken, now is not the time for—”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Ken said. “You are going to do this now, aren’t you? Since you couldn’t get me fired, you’re going to try and keep me here when he…!”

A flicker of hurt shot through his brother’s eyes. “You think I’m trying to keep you away from him?”

Ken rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what to think. A week ago, if someone had asked if I thought you’d ever try to destroy my life to protect your status on a case, I’d have said there was no chance. I’d have been dead wrong. For now, I’m not going to venture a guess about what you might or might not do.”

“I wasn’t trying to ruin your life.”