“Fuck,” he groaned, and then louder, “Fuck, Wade. Wade. Wade!”
And he let himself go. Wade hummed his triumphant approval, eased off enough to make swallowing easier, and kept working his fingers, demanding more from Jericho’s body, which was already so willing to give so much.
Jericho was slumped back against the tiles, only dimly aware of the water still falling on his chest, when Wade slithered up his body. “I win,” Wade said, and there was a moment of perfection before he pulled away and shoved Jericho’s shoulders, adding, “You need to get in gear, Junior! You’ve got a meeting to attend.”
Jericho wanted to stay in the shower, definitely for a lot longer, possibly forever, but he made himself climb out and towel himself off. Wade got out too, but didn’t bother with getting dry or putting clothes on. He just wandered to the kitchen and started puttering, and by the time Jericho was dressed in his goddamn awful beige polyester uniform, there was a beautiful naked man waiting by the apartment door with a travel mug of coffee and a toasted PB&J.
“Wow,” Jericho said cautiously. It was obviously a trap, and he was probably already completely entangled. “You are being really, really generous today. What’s up?”
Wade arched an eyebrow. “I’m feeling benevolent. Don’t get used to it.”
“I won’t.” A quick kiss, then a longer one, then a mug of coffee pressing against Jericho’s chest, Wade’s other hand shoving him toward the door.
“You’re up to something,” he said as he stepped outside. Wade gave him a beatific smile and shut the door in his face.
There’s nothing in the apartment he shouldn’t see, Jericho told himself as he headed for the car. Nothing in Jericho’s life Wade shouldn’t see. His laptop was sitting in the car beside him, and he didn’t have any department files at home. So snooping wasn’t a worry. But that didn’t mean Wade wasn’t up to something.
Of course, Wade was always up to something, and there was never any chance Jericho would figure it out, so he might as well give up and get on with his day.
There were reporters outside the sheriff’s building, with TV vans from the big networks and a couple of deputies looking a bit intimidated as they tried to keep the press contained. Jericho stopped the car beside Watson, a first-year deputy who spent most of his time writing traffic tickets for tourists.
“You doing okay?” Jericho asked without a glance toward the cameramen panning toward him. He’d worked enough murder cases in LA to know that the press should be ignored any time they weren’t being used.
“They’re saying this is a national story,” Watson whispered, eyes wide. “They’re filming stuff they’re going to show all over the country.”
Feds and militias? Yeah, that always got attention. “Make sure they get your good side,” he suggested. “And keep them off the lawn. It’s in bad shape as it is.”
“Yes, sir,” Watson answered, clearly wondering which was his good side. Jericho pulled into the parking lot.
He arrived at the briefing with moments to spare and snuck around the back of the room to stand behind Kay’s seat. There were about thirty people crowded into the station’s only conference room, most of them familiar, some not. And as he glanced around at their faces his light mood sank to the pit of his stomach. Sheriff’s department and state police were present, but everyone else was federal, mostly FBI. There were agents with tear-red eyes, agents with jaws so tight they looked like they were trying not to scream, and at the front of the room, an agent with his arm in a sling glowering like an avenging angel rather than a beat-up fed.
“Let’s get started,” he said, his voice a low rumble. He was a big man, maybe ten years older than Jericho, and he gave the impression of someone who didn’t take crap from anyone. “I’m Lawrence Casey, Special Agent in Charge. I was one of the men injured yesterday, so I haven’t been a part of this investigation since the shooting. But I’m back now.”
There was a murmur, not of voices but of movement, as the agents in the room shifted. Jericho couldn’t figure out if the reaction was favorable or not.
“We lost two good agents yesterday, Kanwal and Foster, and Agent Hill remains in the hospital. The long delay before evacuation contributed to the seriousness of her injuries, but a full recovery is—” He stopped, swallowed hard, as if the formal words weren’t quite enough to cover his emotions, then continued. “A full recovery is to be hoped for.”
There was a moment of quiet in the room. Then Casey said, “Six suspects were killed at the scene of the incident, and we have four more in custody.” He looked back and his gaze found Kayla, then Jericho. “It was good work from our local colleagues that ended the standoff,” he acknowledged, and Jericho had to push down a swelling of pride. There was no reason to celebrate, not with so many people dead, but yeah, damn it, it had been good work.
He kept his game face on and Kay did too, and after a moment Casey nodded at them and went on with his briefing.
Jericho stood and listened and tried to understand. The militia had barely been a blip on the radar before this. He’d visited Sam Tennant, the head of the group, on a few occasions himself, just checking in and making the police presence known. Tennant was a heavily bearded, camo-wearing good ol’ boy who didn’t care too much about things like hunting licenses or keeping his cars properly registered and insured, but that was a good description of half the population of Mosely County. Jericho had been sworn at and then run off the property every time he’d visited, but Sam had always seemed harmless enough as he brandished his shotgun and bellowed about his rights. He made a lot of noise, but never anything more; it might have looked bad from the outside, but it was a hell of a big step from yelling to laying a damn ambush and opening fire.
And Tennant hadn’t been one of the men at the shoot-out the day before—not one of the bodies, not one of the arrested men. But he was being discussed in this meeting like some sort of political reactionary, not just an antisocial redneck. The feds were thinking of him as a dangerous man.
“The arms shipment has been confirmed, and we’re tracking down more information from the supply side,” Casey told the room. “But based on what we saw yesterday and what we’ve discovered so far, we need to assume these guys are heavily armed and absolutely ready to use their weapons.” He scanned the crowd as if checking to be sure his message was being given proper weight, then continued. “We’ve got surveillance on the compound now and the access road is securely blockaded. We’re going to take our time with this and do it right.”
“That property’s five miles from the border, wooded most of the way,” Jericho said. “Have you warned the Canadians we might be flushing a few Long-Bearded Rednecks into an early migration?”
And just like that, Casey’s expression grew dour. Apparently he was happy to have locals do his shooting for him, but not so happy when they questioned his plans. “When I say we’ve got surveillance in place, I don’t mean a lone deputy in a squad car. The federal government has resources beyond those you’d be accustomed to, and we’ve brought them to bear in this case.”
“Yeah? So, what’ve you got? Some telecom stuff, maybe multilateration to track the phones? Doesn’t work that well when there’s only one tower in range, but it’s a start. Maybe UAVs, hopefully with infrared options. Satellites? You got one going geo-sync on this? That’d be nice. All that stuff is great, but when it comes down to it, information doesn’t do you much good unless you can act on it. And if those boys head out their back doors and start walking north, what exactly can you do? The forest is too dense to land a chopper—you got agents trained to be paratroopers? They sitting at the airport right now? Because once the boys go, you’ll have less than an hour to intercept before they’re across the border and everything gets ten times more complicated.” Jericho shrugged. “Unless you’re ready to carpet bomb a few hundred acres of American soil, catching these guys before they hit the border would be like catching a mosquito with a teaspoon. In the dark.”
“So what’s your point, Under-sheriff?”
“My point? Well, I started with a question. I wanted to know if you’ve contacted the Canadians—have you?”
“We’ve shared preliminary information,” Casey bit out. “An extended briefing will likely be forthcoming.”
