Page 57 of Walking the Edge

Justin stuck his hands in his armpits. “Tell Les I’m sorry.”

“Will do.” Mitch clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Stay away from drugs. You don’t need that stuff.”

Cath offered Les’s friend another ride back to campus, but he declined and took off. He rounded a corner and disappeared. She shook her head. “Why do I get the impression he didn’t want to be seen with us?”

“He didn’t want to be seen, period. Because he thinks a cop will arrest him.” Mitch scanned the sidewalks in all directions. “I don’t see any police, but we’re only a block away from the Quarter substation.”

“Probably.” Cath tapped a finger on her lips. “Les never told me he hadn’t understood what he was getting into. When he went to make the buy.”

“Guys your brother’s age are too proud to admit mistakes. Just look at Justin.” Mitch pressed a fist to his chest but the tension there wasn’t physical.

The banjo and sax players started up a new song, and Mitch moved Cath down the sidewalk past the magnolia trees. “I can see now why you’re so worried about him. It’s easy for someone like Justin or anyone else with their own agenda to take advantage of your brother—or mine too.”

“I don’t know that worrying is helping.”

“But this whole situation is like a teaching moment. Jack and Hal and I talk normally around Kurt. Even behind his back when we forget he can’t understand us. He never complains, but we should do better. I know I can make a better effort to be sure Kurt understands.”

“Kurt looks old enough to admit mistakes. Doesn’t he interrupt and ask what you’re talking about when he doesn’t understand?”

“Not all the time.” Mitch pursed his lips. “Problem is, he’s plenty proud of being the oldest.”

“Don’t let that stand in your way. My signing might embarrass Les sometimes. He obviously didn’t say anything about signing to Justin.” She shaded her gaze and looked where the student had disappeared. “We never got his last name.”

“What’s it matter now?”

She plastered him with those icy blues. “I feel I should know his name.”

“We were done. Let’s go home.” Mitch looked for a gap in the stream of cars moving up the street. This had been a waste of time. A confessional for Justin. Nothing else.

“I want to go by my office again and see if everything is still intact. It’s on our way.”

He fell into step. He braced himself the way he had before entering an enemy mud hut. Her one-block street closed in like the walls of a village. Small offices on one side, warehouses on the other. He opened his windbreaker to half-mast in case he needed to quick-draw his weapon.

Cath dragged down the sidewalk, head down. “I don’t know why I get my hopes up.”

She sounded like a funeral dirge. Mitch meant to give her only a brief tap, but his fingers lingered on her shoulder, seeking her body heat through the thick fabric. That silken heat slipping and sliding over his. Merging. Nothing in between.

Hell, where had that picture come from? Mitch blinked and flicked sweat from his temple. “We’ll think of something. What’s the proverb about two minds?”

“Two minds think alike?” Her blue eyes drenched him, stripping away his armor as if in floodwater. “With you and me that’s unlikely.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mitch said. She looked at him as if she could see inside his mind. He tugged the collar of his windbreaker higher and crossed her arms. “I meant the one about two minds being better than one.”

But in a way they did think alike. Now, anyway. They both believed in doing the right thing. Otherwise they would not be working together. Sometime during the day, they’d become more in sync, and they had more in common then he would ever have imagined when Kurt had assigned him this particular arrest. That could be why Cath finally seemed to believe he could help her find her brother and keep her safe.

A tight thing started in his chest. He hadn’t kept Eddie safe. The constriction grew claws and crawled into his throat. He hadn’t kept his buddies safe. If he failed with Cath…

In her eyes, he would fail her when he arrested her brother. Because he would arrest her brother.

He’d separated from the army months ago, but he would always think like a soldier. A soldier executed the team mission. There was no time to deliberate on shades of gray. Or even see them. Big Easy Bounty was his team now, no question. His mission was to arrest Les Hurley. It didn’t matter who Les’s sister was.

“Do you think Les really went to see the drug dealer?” Cath stopped at the crosswalk and looked up at him.

“You know your brother better than I do.” If he could read her brother’s mind, he never would have let Hal go off after Les on his own.

They turned the corner onto the street with her office. Mitch moved right up next to her, but she raced ahead to the glass door they’d taped. He checked his back. Nobody had followed them, and none of the pedestrians crossing the intersection ahead looked their way.

She peered inside. “I need to get this fixed.”

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