Jericho didn’t say anything as he unlocked the building’s security door, just held it open and let that be his invitation for Wade to enter. They were silent as they shuffled up the stairs too, and even once they were inside Jericho’s apartment, they were quiet until Jericho had led the way to the little kitchen, opened the fridge, twisted the lids off two beers and handed one to Wade.
Jericho remembered the last time they’d been together in the apartment: Wade had pulled a gun on him, and then—well, then things had gotten significantly more interesting. But that all felt like a dream, somehow. There was nothing contiguous about his relationship with Wade, only isolated, confusing scenes. Jericho tipped some beer into his mouth, then decided it was time to start the current episode of the Wade Show. “Why were you in the alley today? Please tell me you’re not involved in this.”
Wade blinked. Surprised. An apparently genuine reaction, followed by a smooth, fake Wade smile that seemed to waver at the edges. Damn it, had Jericho just hurt his feelings? “Lorraine Mackey was a friend of my mother’s,” Wade said. “I just—I don’t know. I wanted to see it was being properly taken care of.”
“As a concerned citizen.”
“I guess so.” He took a swallow of his beer, then looked at Jericho with eyes that were too bright and saw too damn much. “You’re satisfied with how it’s going? You’re sure you’ve got the right guy?”
Jericho could physically hear the warning voice in his head.You can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with a known criminal, you idiot!The voice was right, obviously, but Jericho’s real voice said, “You give me your word, Wade? You tell me that this isn’t one of your games, it isn’t part of some new scheme to run drugs across the border using ex-athletes with brain injuries, it’s just—just you and me, having a conversation about my day?”
Wade was still for a moment, then nodded. “I give you my word.”
The word of a criminal, the word of the man who was the prime suspect in the death of Jericho’s own father—it was completely meaningless. Except it wasn’t, not with Wade standing there, staring Jericho right in the eye, unflinching.
“I’m not sure of anything.” Jericho leaned back against the counter, trying to collect his thoughts. “Will’s the logical suspect. He’s theonlysuspect, so far, unless we want to say frail old Mr. Appleby beat a woman to death and strangled her with his bare hands.”
There was something brittle in Wade’s voice when he said, “That’s what happened to Lorraine?”
Shit.“Sorry, yeah. Maybe you didn’t need to know the details.”
“She used to babysit me,” Wade said. “Back when she was a teenager and I was a little kid. She was pretty messed up, even then, but . . . she was nice to me. She was kind.”
“I didn’t know her until I got back to town, and I only saw her when she was drunk or stoned, causing trouble. But I never saw her hurt anyone but herself.”
Wade nodded, then raised his bottle. “To Lorraine. She never hurt anyone but herself.”
Jericho lifted his own beer and took a swallow. As epitaphs went, it wasn’t a bad one. “The problem is, it really looks like it was Will. Shit, Wade. Do you remember him in high school? He was a good guy. Just living his life, doing his thing, and then some drunk-driving asshole plows into him and turns him into Lennie. You remember Lennie, from that book we had to read with Mrs. Perkins?”
“Yeah.” Wade looked down at his bottle, clearly surprised that it had somehow emptied itself. Then he scanned the kitchen, and unerringly headed toward the cupboard by the fridge where Jericho kept a bottle of Jim Beam.
Jericho drained his own beer and pulled two glasses out of the cupboard, and for a moment they were cozily domestic, working together to prepare, if not a meal, at least another form of vital sustenance.
They were in harmony right until Jericho reached into the freezer and pulled out the ice cube tray. Wade raised an eyebrow in amused disgust, and Jericho shrugged. “I have to work tomorrow. Sipping around the ice slows me down, keeps me from drinking too much.”
“You got old.”
“We’re the same age, asshole.” He dropped a couple of cubes into his glass and held the tray out temptingly. “Can I interest you in a little something?”
“Don’t put yourself down, Jay. It’s not that little.”
It wasn’t awkward, and didn’t even make Jericho think of sex, not more than the shimmering haze of excitement he always felt when he was around Wade. It was Wade being Wade. So Jericho put the ice cubes back in the freezer and toed his shoes off, loosened his brown tie, and undid the first couple buttons of his beige shirt, then headed for the couch. He stopped halfway to undo his utility belt and leave it on the dining room table.
Yeah, he’d just disarmed himself and left the gun in easy reach of the known criminal who’d quite possibly killed his father. And he wasn’t worried about it in the least. Damn, he was stupid.
But Wade followed behind him quietly, ignoring the gun, and slumped onto the opposite end of the couch from Jericho without comment.
They drank in silence for a while before Wade said, “The world’s broken. That’s not news to you. Lorraine had a rough time, turned into a drunk and an addict and a whore, ended up welcoming men into her house where she wasn’t protected. And you know who hit Will? It was Sonny Quatrocchi, coming home from a hunting weekend with his two boys in the car. Had a couple beers as they were packing up their camp, got tested after the accident and blew just over the limit, ended up going to jail for it. Got out pretty quick but can’t get a job anymore, not with this economyplusa criminal record, so he sits around the house, drinking all the time. He ruined his own life just as sure as he ruined Will’s. And now his boys are growing up with a pissed-off drunk for a dad, so who the hell knows how they’re going to end up. Will got bashed in the head, turns into someone he never was before, keeps it under control for a long time, but then gets set off by something and kills Lorraine. Nobody’s a bad guy, nobody’s a good guy. It’s all just broken. And you can’t fix it, not with all the laws you could ever come up with.”
“So what are we supposed to do? Give up? Stop caring, stop trying to make anything better?” It wasn’t a rhetorical question; Jericho really wanted to hear Wade’s answer.
But Wade’s shrug was noncommittal. “Keep trying if it helps you sleep at night. But don’t get too worked up when it doesn’t do you any good, you know?” His smile was fond and gentle. “You were always too much of an optimist. I feel like I spent half my high school years trying to keep the world from disappointing you. You and your Laws of Jericho—even then, you wanted to impose order on chaos. And even then, I knew it couldn’t be done. But I wanted to believe, all the same.”
Jericho stared at him, and Wade stared right back. “Why did you send me over to that meth lab?” Jericho asked quietly. “What was that about?”
Wade was quiet for a moment, then smiled, the quicksilver grin that was his version of a wink. “I heard he kept snakes. Thought that might be useful for you.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Jericho said. “What the hell am I doing, talking to you? What possible excuse do I have for letting you in here, giving you drinks—”
