Page 66 of Follows with Intent

“Jadon, what Barr did—it was before you were his partner. Before you were even a detective. You can’t keep carrying that around forever. And before you say something silly like ‘I should have known,’ let me remind you that I was face to face with him, that I was as close to him as you and I are right now, and when I met him again, years later, I didn’t know.” Jadon opened his mouth, but Shaw spoke over him. “You are a good detective. When Taylor and Waggener came after you, tried to scare you—” Shaw’s eyes slid to Jadon’s chest, to where the scars were hidden by his shirt. “—you didn’t give up. You went looking for them. And you found the money. And you found the evidence that led back to them.”

“And they tortured the shit out of me. They grabbed me in the middle of the night and—” His throat closed: the cigarette burns, the cuts, the kicks and punches, the piece of pipe they’d used as a club, the broken ribs. The bag over his face like a caul, every time he tried to take a breath, the plastic sealing around his mouth and nose.

“And you got away,” Shaw whispered. He was clutching Jadon’s hands so tightly that they hurt, but the pain was stabilizing. Jadon’s next breath was easier. “And you survived. And you didn’t give up that fucking money to those murderous fucking monsters. And we got them because of you, Jay. Because you left us a trail. Because you were careful and smart and an amazing detective.”

Jadon shook his head, but the rush of tears was real, and for a moment, all he could do was battle the tide of emotion. He wrested his hands from Shaw and wiped his face. Snot made it hard to breathe through his nose, so he sucked in air through his open mouth. The only clear thought he had was that he was not going to cry in front of North McKinney.

As though summoned by the thought: “Jesus Christ,” North said from the doorway. “What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything!” And then, without missing a beat, “I gave him a motivational speech.”

“Oh, because that went so well for you last time.” To Jadon—and without any visible regard for what he must have seen of Jadon’s distress—North added, “He gave a forty-five minute ‘inspirational speech’—” He drew the air quotes with his fingers. “—to this lady at the courthouse.”

“She was so nice to me! She kept saying I had beautiful skin!”

“Because she makes dresses out of people, shit-for-brains! The handcuffs might have been a fucking clue! He kept saying, ‘You can do anything you set your mind to’ and ‘I believe in you’ and ‘If I can help you, I’ll do whatever I can.’ Thank God I was there when he tried to give her a business card with our home address written on the back.”

“Her name was Suzette,” Shaw told Jadon proudly. “She had pointy teeth.”

North made a noise of disgust and then looked at Jadon. “He already told you you’re a good detective, and I’m sure as fuck not going to say it again. So, what the fuck is the real problem?”

The lunacy was enough to help Jadon master the worst of the storm of emotions. He dried his face one last time, killed his beer, and was surprised at how easy it was to say, “My captain is trying to get rid of me. Not fit for duty, that kind of thing.” And then it all came spilling out: Cerise’s warning, the symposium, the cutting accuracy of Nico’s final comments about all the ways he’d avoided dealing with what mattered in his life. “I mean, is he right? Am I that fucked up?”

“No,” Shaw said.

“Yes,” North said.

“North!”

“What? He is. You are.” North adjusted his Hobbes hood. Then he said, “Look, Jay, you’re in a bad place. That’s not your fault; you’ve been through a lot. But you need to get some help.”

“You’re not fucked up,” Shaw said. “You’re hurt, and you’re healing. I think you’ve done a good job finding healthy ways to cope with what happened to you. But I think Nico might be right that now those mechanisms are starting to be not so healthy. And that means you need to keep adapting, learning new strategies, checking your priorities.” Shaw flashed a grin. “Plus North is jealous that you have abs.”

“I have abs, motherfucker,” North shouted. “Every fucking one of you harping on the same fucking thing. It’s called muscle. Muscle is denser than fat. That’s science.” Rounding on Jadon, he added, “And eating lentils every day and working out and then having a gym bro tsunami of diarrhea in the locker room, that isn’t healthy. You need to eat a balanced diet.”

“Eight servings of cheese isn’t balanced,” Shaw said in an underbreath.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” Shaw said sweetly.

“I feel like I have to point out that I never said anything about diarrhea,” Jadon said.

“Yeah,” North said, “we read between the lines.”

“The point is,” Shaw said, “that it’s not fair that your captain is gunning for you. But that might not be the most important thing. The most important thing is, are you happy? Honestly, Jadon, the way you’re living right now—are you happy?”

A wet nose touched Jadon’s hand, and he flinched. The puppy—no longer a puppy—looked up at him, and Jadon smiled and scooped the dog up into his lap. After a few turns, the dog settled down, his head on Jadon’s thigh. Jadon stroked the soft fur, felt the warmth of another living body. He thought of all the nights he’d slept in a chair or in a car or in an empty bed. About what it had felt like, that one night (which felt like a million years ago) when Nico had pillowed his head on Jadon’s chest.

“I’m fine,” Jadon said, which he knew wasn’t an answer—and, in its own way, was. “I know there’s—there’s stuff I’m missing out on. But right now, that’s okay. I’ve got a job to do. It’s an important job. And yeah, I know, I’m replaceable, all that stuff. But it’s my job. And I want to do it well. I want to do it the best that I can, because I’ve let myself get distracted before, and it cost me.”

A quicksilver glimmer of pain crossed Shaw’s face and then was gone.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jadon said.

“I know what you meant.”

Jadon stumbled into the silence that came after, not sure what he was saying, only sure that it was better than the hurt he had seen on Shaw’s face. “It’s—I want a normal life. I want a balanced, happy, fulfilling life. I want a partner. Someone to come home to. But—but it needs to be the right person, and the right time. Someone who will understand I’m giving my best self at work because the job is important. And someone who will understand that it doesn’t mean I love them any less, even if I have to work late, even if I have to work weekends, even if I’m gone a lot. And I don’t know—I don’t know about Nico. He deserves someone who puts him at the center of their life. And even if I—” He almost said, again, love him. “—feel something for him, I don’t know that I can give him that.”

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