“Fine, if that’s how it’s going to be, then you’re both off the case. Turn in your notes, evidence, and badge to Gale tomorrow.” A patronizing smirk twisted his lips as he paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Happy early retirement, inspector. If you come to your senses, you know where to find me. And, Barlow, keep your trap shut.”
With a final disdainful look at Oliver, the head inspector slammed the door shut behind him. Felipe stood rooted at the base of the steps, listening as the other man’s heavy footsteps echoed down the hall. He had done it. His chest tightened against a ragged breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. He had put in his notice. He was done. Felipe covered his mouth and sank onto the steps as the full weight of what had done hit him all at once. He could still take it back, a little voice in his mind offered, but he didn’t want to. He had never been so certain of anything in his life apart from Oliver.Oliver. When he looked up, he found his partner staring at him. His wide greyeyes were full of tears, and his breath came in tight bursts. Felipe dropped the scalpel on the steps and wrapped his arms tightly around him. The second he did, Oliver burst into tears. Fear and sadness roiled across the tether in time with his heart. Felipe rubbed his back and held him close until the chaos inside him ebbed, and his breathing evened out.
“He shouldn’t have said that about you,” Felipe whispered into Oliver’s ear. “You did everything you could to help Mrs. Cutler. You gave her the chance to get help, and none of that was bad no matter what anyone says. Please believe that. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
After a beat of silence, Oliver nodded and drew in a tremulous breath. Pulling back, Oliver met Felipe’s gaze. “Did you mean it? Are you really leaving?”
“I did mean it, but I’m not leaving; I’m just retiring from investigative work.” Wiping Oliver’s cheek with his thumb, Felipe watched his partner’s features flicker with confusion. He kept his voice soft and steady as he added, “I’m not leaving the Paranormal Society, and I’m not leaving you. You’re stuck with me, remember?”
“And you with me,” Oliver peeped.
A small smile crossed Felipe’s lips. “For better or worse, the Paranormal Society is my home—youare my home—and I have no plans to leave either of you. I just I can’t keep doing this. There were things I overlooked for years because I didn’t think I deserved better or that change was possible.” And because he feared they would cast him out if he caused too much trouble, Felipe thought bitterly. “But I can’t overlook them now. The head inspector will keep doing this, and I refuse to let him talk to you like that or use you against me again.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. He’s lashing out at you because he can’t control me anymore, and I won’t let him use me to hurt you.”
“But you’re good at your job. I don’t want to take you away from that.”
“You’re not. I’m still going to come to crime scenes with you and help you in the lab when you need it.” Pushing Oliver’s hair out of his face, Felipe sighed. “I used to enjoy my job. Solving cases and getting what justice we can for the victims is fulfilling work, but ever since— ever since I died, I’m finding it harder to stomach all the violence. My role was always to hurt and be hurt, and I don’t think I can continue doing that. I don’t want to be a weapon anymore.”
Oliver leaned back to take in Felipe’s face. Warmth bloomed in his chest and the tether pulled taut between them as he searched his features. When he settled on Felipe’s eyes, he stared into them so intently that Felipe feared what Oliver might find. His heart fluttered at the intimacy of being laid bare by eyes the color of a stormy sea. Oliver’s hand traced his cheek, his enamel and gold ring leaving a trail of warmth across his skin. Oliver drew him closer until Felipe shut his eyes at the press of his lips. His kissed him gently at first, a tentative brush that tasted of tears, but when he kissed him again, he drew him in until Felipe couldn’t tell where Oliver began and he ended. Oliver’s fingers slid through his hair and cradled his hip, and with each slip of tongue and shared breath, the knot in Felipe’s chest loosened. When they finally pulled apart, Oliver ran his thumb along the edge of Felipe’s lip and gave him a gentle smile.
“I’m so proud of you, Felipe.”
Felipe’s heart kicked in time with a strange heat flooding his chest. Tears prickled his eyes, and suddenly, he was a boy in Señor Quintero’s study again. Turning his face from Oliver’s, Felipe quickly blinked them away.
“I still don’t know what I’m going to do, but I guess I’ll have more time to figure that out.”
“You will, and I’ll be there to support you every step of the way. Right now, though, I think we should clean and redress your arm before you completely contaminate your burns.”
Felipe grimaced at the damp stains across Oliver’s back and side. “I think most of the petroleum ended up on your shirt.”
“My shirt has been covered in far worse. Come on, let me fix you up.”
Giving into Oliver’s ministrations, Felipe followed him back to the forgotten stool and pile of supplies. Oliver stepped over the spilled water to refill the basin; they would clean up after. As Oliver washed off his arm again and reapplied the antiseptic and petroleum to his burns, Felipe turned over what they needed to do next. He would retire when the case was over, but for now, he didn’t trust the head inspector. The case had attracted public attention, which meant more attention on the society and on him and Oliver. The perpetrator or conspirators would either be scared off or emboldened now that they knew they had an audience, and it would be too easy to toss him or Oliver to the wolves if their boss needed to shift the blame. Felipe wasn’t about to let that happen, especially when he was certain they were close to figuring out who would want Enoch Whitley dead. The men of the Guttenberg club had given them more than enough information, and buried somewhere in Enoch’s past was the answer. He was sure of it.
Felipe watched Oliver methodically weave the gauze between his fingers and up his hand with the same concentration he would give an autopsy. He had to protect Oliver in all of this. Workplace politics were not something that even seemed to occur to Oliver, but Felipe had been groomed to be the Patrón’s heir. His grandfather had taught him how to wield a weapon, but he had also taught him how to wield power,how to tip the scales back in his favor, and how to make someone regret ever crossing you without ever lifting a finger. Felipe had had little use for it at the society as he had never wanted to be anything but an investigator. Now, he was going to make the head inspector regret ever crossing him or even thinking about sacrificing Oliver for his own ends. Most investigators didn’t last twenty years on the job, but he and Titus Williams had worked together from the beginning. They had begun as fellow investigators and then boss and subordinate. After two decades, Felipe knew where the skeletons were buried, and he was more than willing to dredge them up on his way out the door if he had to.
“I’m trying to decide if I should be petty or not. Do you think I should write up a summary of our case notes and the connections between everything, or should I just hand over all of our evidence as is?” Oliver asked as he tied off the end of the gauze and tucked it in. “I don’t want to hinder the investigators taking over the case even if I’m mad at the head inspector. I know my ink experiment will probably take some explaining as will the autopsy notes. I never thought someone else would have to read them.”
“And they won’t.”
Oliver stared at him wide-eyed. “But the head inspector said we’re off the case. We’re supposed to turn everything into him tomorrow.”
“Yeah, we’re not doing that.” Felipe flexed his fingers to loosen the gauze a fraction and winced at the gnawing pain in his gut as he headed for the pile of mail. “The head inspector can say all he wants about reassigning us, but we aren’t going anywhere. He can’t take all of our paperwork, and even if he did, no one knows this case better than we do. Short of holding us prisoner, he can’t stop us from investigating, and with the way the building responds to you, I don’t think he could keepus here for long. I told him I’m retiring when the we finish this investigation, and that’s what I plan to do.”
Felipe flipped through the pile of letters before turning to the unopened mail in the pneumatic tubes. It had to be there somewhere. “Do you still have that letter from the reporter? The one fromThe Society Chronicle?”
“I threw it in the trash, but it should still be in there. Why?”
“Because I think the public deserves to know that the head inspector was warned about a possible second attackbeforethe bazaar happened and chose to ignore it.”
Oliver’s eyebrows shot to his hairline. “Felipe. You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am dead serious, Oliver.” Grabbing the wastebasket, Felipe turned it over on the floor and picked through the debris. He found the first half of the letter covered in coffee grounds but still legible. “The head inspector threatened you, and he needs to be reminded that of the two of us, I’m the real threat. We warned him, he chose to ignore it, and two people lost their lives because of it. I said if anything happened because we were ignored, I was going to lay the blame directly at his feet, and now, he must face the consequences. I’m done being a party to his negligence; it ends now.”
Grabbing the second half of the letter, Felipe found what he was looking for: a telephone number. He could send a telegram or a note, but using the telephone in the telegram office would be faster. Slipping the paper into his pocket, he kissed Oliver, threw on a shirt, and left the lab before he could second guess himself. Inspector Galvan had appeared in the papers numerous times for feats of daring he would rather forget, but if this was to be his last time, he hoped it be for something he was actually proud of.
