“I fucked up. I lost mytemper with him. And before that, I just… I got a little… overprotective.”
Fox’s eyebrow climbed a littlecloser to his hairline. “Can you, uh… can youbeoverprotective,as a bodyguard?”
“I don’t think that’s evenwhat I did wrong,” I said. The whole thing was a mess, and I knew Miles wasn’tmad atme. Not really. Hewas mad that all of this had been dumped on his doorstep, that it’d happened tohim in the first place.
Hard to deny him a littletantrum after everything he’d been through.I’dscrewed this up.Bringing up his mother was the wrong thing to do, no matter how attacked Ifelt.
I should have been thebigger person. The solid one. The one who was supposed to beprotectinghim.
“Would you care to tell mewhat’s been going on from the beginning? I can lend an ear.”
“Generous, coming from you,”I joked, but if he was offering…
It was hard to say no. Myhead was a mess, and what I needed most right now was to talk it out and letFox help me untangle everything.
“Oh yes, make jokes at theexpense of the half-deaf man.” Fox grinned at me. “I’ve neverheardthat one before.”
Again, Fox managed to makeme laugh despite the fact that I felt like I wanted to crawl into a drain anddisappear. He wasgoodat that. That was half of why I liked him somuch.
“I’ll tell it into your goodear next time,” I responded, feeling a little lighter already. At least he wasn’ttreating this like it was the end of the world.
“Okay, so, you know this guywas a hookup, you know he hired me after, you know his apartment was brokeninto.”
“And well and truly goneover,” Fox said. “They took some files, you said?”
“Yeah. And then last night,they returned them. After knocking on Miles’ door and disappearing a few times.That was why he called me, the knocking, and then it turned out his lock hadbeen busted. Turns out the guy doing it had a fake keycard. Homemade, even.”
“Clever of him, but simpleenough.” Fox nodded. “Unreliable, electronic locks. Did you know you can open afingerprint lock just by putting a piece of low-tack sticky tape on the sensorand pressing something blunt against it? Picks up the fingerprint left behindby the last person, about half the time.”
Part of me reallywantedto be surprised that Fox knew that, but I wasn’t. I’d seen his lockpickingkit.
They trained the SAS alittle differently. Or that was just a hangover from the misspent youth Fox hadtold me a couple of stories about.
For the most part, he wasquiet about his life pre-service. I’d often wondered why, but we had anunderstanding that we didn’t pry into things with each other. If he wanted meto know something, he’d tell me.
“Anyway, the files wereslipped under the door a little while later,” I said, deciding not to offer thedetail that I’d, uh…comfortedMiles in the meantime. “Miles wasscared, so I stayed the night. In the morning, I took a look at them and founda note demanding a meeting.”
“And you went alone,” Foxsaid.
I sighed. Predictableprobably wasn’ttheworstthing I couldbe. It was almost comforting to hear that what I’d done wasn’t out ofcharacter.
“Obviously,” I responded. “Turnedout to be Miles’ college sweetheart, though I use the term sweetheart here inthe loosest possible sense.”
“Take it you’re not a fan ofthe ex?”
“I’m not,” I admitted,though maybe my distaste for Jimmy was partly rooted in jealousy. I wasn’t surehow rational I was being there. “But that’s the least of my problems right now.I’m still wrapping myownhead around the rest of it. Remember howMiles is heading up that cancer research project? Well, some asshole calledJohn Bryant has been… messing with the results.”
Fox raised an eyebrow. Yeah.On the one hand, it made perfect sense. As long as no one talked, it was acunning plan.
On the other hand, what kindofmonsterwould intentionally tamper with cancer research for kids?
“The idea, as Jimmy—Miles’ex—tells it, is to publish the study with the mistakes in it—inflated numbers,making the new treatment look better than it is. And then expose it once it’s public.”
Fox’s mouth fell open.
“Right?” I said.
“The man missed his calling,”Fox said. “Counter-intelligence would have loved him.”
