“I’m fine,” he said in a thready, unconvincing voice. He reached up and wiped his fingers under his nose. “I tripped. It’s nothing.”
The car alarm persistently droned its insistence that somethingwaswrong. Bass squeezed Nathan’s shoulder again until he felt the collarbone shift under his grip.
“Keep your mouth shut,” he told him. “Until Shepherd tells you to talk.”
He let go. The sudden cessation of pain made Cochrane stagger. Bass steadied him and then gave him a shove back toward the hospital.
“And clean yourself up,” he said. “You look pathetic. Even a junkie doesn’t want to see that at her bedside.”
Nathan wiped his face again, on his sleeve this time. “Go to hell,” he tossed back over his shoulder as he walked away.
The guard shifted his flashlight to Nathan’s face as he got closer. “Damn,” he blurted in alarm as he made out the mess of Nathan’s face. “Do you need to go to the ER or something?”
A sharp jab of panic caught under Bass’s ribs at the thought. He could hardly pretend he didn’t know why. The last thing he wanted was to drag Tag back into this and push his luck on being able to explain it away.
It wasn’t like he could justify the state of the good urologist with an explanation. Even if he could admit he worked for the Feds, Tag would probably want more of a reason than “He was probably involved in a hit-and-run… peripherally.” That was dangerous thing about real life for a UC. Even if they were okay with you pretending to be someone else for 80 percent of your day, it mattered what they thought of you for that other 20 percent. It leaked into the job, into your head, until it was time to do something shitty to push the operation forward and you hesitated.
If you were lucky, that got you bounced back to uniform, a lifetime of disciplinaries in your future as you struggled to get used to rules and regs again. If you weren’t…. Bass had no idea what happened to some of the guys he had worked with. Well, he could guess as to the what, but he’d probably never know where their bodies ended up.
Stick to name-optional hookups and run the hell away if someone talked about house hunts—those had always been Bass’s rules of engagement. He should have known that would bite him in the ass one day. He’d always broken the rules. It’s why he ended up a UC and not in IA.
At the other end of the parking lot, Nathan put up his hand to block the guard’s light. “No,” he said harshly. He exhaled and cleared his throat before he tried again. “No. No, I’m fine. Thank you. My, um…. He broke my fall.”
Bass inhaled in relief. Any explanations to Tag wouldn’t be tonight, at least. He let his breath out on a short, controlled sigh and smirked.
“Don’t mention it. I’m just being a good friend,” he said with dark humor. Nathan glanced over his shoulder, and Bass raised a hand in casual salute. The strobe of the BMW’s headlights picked out the bloody spots in bright relief. “See you soon, Nathan. Give your boy my best.”
Anger and fear blanched Nathan’s face. Hopefully in the right proportions for Merlo to use as a lever.
Bass flipped his fingers and sauntered back to his bike.
“Sir,” the guard said. The tone of his voice wobbled uncomfortably between demand and request. “Sir, could you wait for a minute? We’ll need to make a health and safety report.”
“Sorry,” Bass yelled over his shoulder as he gunned the bike. “Can’t hear you over the alarm.”
He turned hard out of the spot and coasted down the ramp as the guard yelled at his back.
“DID YOUhave to break his nose?” Merlo asked.
Bass leaned against the frame of the one-way glass, arms crossed, and watched as Nathan folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them. Black bruises had spread out from his nose and settled under his eyes in livid smears.
“He actually did trip into a car.”
Merlo gave him a skeptical look from under a raised eyebrow. “Really?”
“He saw me leaning against his car, tried to run for it, and bang.” Bass punched his fist into his palm. “Right into the wing mirror on a pickup. Did it work?”
He didn’t get an answer right away. Merlo tilted his head and studied Nathan for a moment.
“I’m hopeful we’ll be able to get something out of him,” Merlo said finally. “Or that he’ll at least incriminate himself so I can put pressure on the wife.”
That was the sort of cold calculation you had to do on an operation like this. When evidence never quite made it to court and witnesses either clammed up or disappeared, you had to build a case the best you could, even if it rolled over some people who weren’t all that bad. You couldn’t care what civilians would think about it because they didn’t see the full story.
Except when you couldn’t help but wonder what a soft-touch doctor with nice eyes would think about it.
“Some days I miss being a uniform,” Bass said. It was a lie, but like the best lies, there was a bit of truth to it. He didn’t miss the starched collars or hours spent in a car so soaked in piss and puke the smell got into your hair and followed you home. But sometimes he missed the person he’d been. “Back then I still thought I could make people’s lives better in the job.”
Merlo took off his jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt and folded them back.
