Theconcreteoftheporch held the heat.Cloister could feel it through his heavy sheriff's department issue uniform as he sat next to Javi on the steps.His brain focused on that basic physical fact as if it thought they should pretend not to hear what Javi had just said.
So the ex you thought was dead is alive—maybe, at this point—and yourotherex and your mentor were running a decade-long covert op.But have you considered that this step is almost uncomfortable?Maybe ten degrees hotter and I’d move.
“Fuck,” Cloister settled on saying instead.
Javi gave a dry bark of laughter and scrubbed his hand through his hair, dark, usually tidily styled hair sticking messily between his knuckles.
“Concise,” he said.“I like it.”
Cloister rubbed his nose.He didn’t often.It felt odd under the skin, the cartilage that should have run straight separated and lumpy and tender in odd spots.Right now, it just felt like the only gesture that expressed how he felt as he tried to shuffle all the new information in with the cards he’d already held.
“Why tell me now?”he asked.
Javi glanced at him.“Not going to ask why I didn’t tell you?”
“Because Kincaid got in your head?”
Javi started to say something, but then just grimaced and nodded.“Again, concise,” he said.“And not wrong.My version made me sound better, though.”
“Why tell me now?”Cloister repeated.
Javi leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.He laced his fingers together and rubbed at his palm with one thumb, a slow, self-soothing gesture.
“I was reminded that I like being a ‘we,’” he said.“And that the only thing worse than being screwed over by Kincaid is knowing he’s going to do it to someone else.He’s given up on getting Eric—Miles—back alive.Now he’s just trying to work out how he can turn a corpse to his advantage.”
Cloister mimicked Javi’s position.He watched as Bourneville sniffed around the garden, pawing briefly at a patch of dead grass before she trotted away.
“And all of this because someone killed a woman he didn’t care about?”
Javi swung his head up and down in a slow, exaggerated nod.“I think he’s offended they thought that would hurt him.”
Cloister thought about that.It made his head hurt.
“It must be exhausting to be him,” he said.
Javi gave a soft “huh” in reaction.“That’s honestly the best description of Kincaid I’ve ever heard,” he said.He looked sidelong at Cloister and nudged him with a knee.“So, are we…OK?”
No.
Yes.
Fuck.
Cloister rubbed the back of his neck.There was a missing man.A criminal conspiracy.And Kincaid on the move behind the scenes.It didn’t feel like they had the time for him to come up with an answer that meant anything.He resented Javi a little bit for putting that on him in the middle of Javi’s mess.
And the step was still too hot.
“Ask me later,” he said.He grabbed the handrail and used it to haul himself to his feet.
Javi tilted his head back to look up at him.From the expression on his face, he’d not expected that, but somehow he wasn’t surprised either.
“I suppose that’s what I deserve,” he said and let Cloister yank him up off the step.He brushed off the seat of his trousers and turned and looked at the Fowler family home.“Maybe better than I deserve.I’m glad that I know I didn’t get Eric killed, even if the only reason I know is because some cop half-assed a wellness check so hard he didn’t clock that Fowler was decompensating, and the end result is Eric gets killed again.”
Cloister looked at him.
“What?”
Javi winced and rubbed his hand over his face.“Now, Deputy Witte,” he said, “I know you’re a better man than me.That means you can’t kick me when I’m down.”
