Page 15 of Angel's Share

“Don’t go there,” he said as he slid onto the couch beside him. “That was three years ago. She’s back on her feet now. Angel too, even if he doesn’t want you to think that.”

He curled his hands around Jamie’s, soaking in some of his steadiness while Aidan felt anything but. “What about the truancy and suspensions?”

“He’s a queer, Latino kid at a Catholic school. Probably too smart for his grade, so he’s bored out of his mind.”

“Was it the same for you?”

“I’m white, that’s a privilege Angel doesn’t have, but make it a small southern town, giant county school, and yeah, I can relate to most of it. If not for the diner and basketball, that could have easily been me.” He looped an arm around Aidan’s shoulders, giving him more of that steadiness he needed. Aidan was sure Jamie would stay by his side all day if Aidan asked him to, but he’d already done more than expected, especially when there was a whole team depending on him today who needed his steadiness too. He laid a hand on Jamie’s thigh. “Thank you for all of this, but you need to get to work.”

“I know.” Jamie laced their fingers together and gave him a quick kiss. “And so do you. You got enough to go on here?”

He jutted his chin at Angel’s file, then at White’s and Parsons’s. “The thing that doesn’t make sense. Angel has no connection to them.”

“Exactly.” Jamie stood, and, using their joined hands, hauled him up too. “Now go be Agent Talley and solve the case.”

“Yes, Coach.”

That earned him a swat to the ass and another kiss, this one a little longer, a lot more lingering, before Jamie drew back and held his face in his hands. “You’ll get through this. We will. And we’ll get Izzy and Angel through it too.”

TEN

The conference room door swung open, and Aidan glanced up from the printouts he was filing into Jamie’s colorful folders. Dressed in jeans and a horrifically glorious ugly sweater, Agent Kim was the picture of holiday harassed, all the way to the grimace that turned down the corners of his mouth.

“Not one word about the sweater,” he said as he yanked off the lime green, orange, and beige tiger-adorned tufted travesty and tossed it in a chair. “Breakfast with the family this morning.” He pushed up the sleeves of the shirt he’d had on underneath. “Then on my way here I had the loveliest phone call with the prosecutor on Angel’s case.”

Not lovely at all judging by his tone. “He wouldn’t budge?”

Matt dropped into the chair across from him. “Not without more.”

“Angel’s just a kid.”

“With a record.” Matt held up one finger. “Who committed a felony.” Held up a second.

“Superficial,” Aidan said, waving them away. “Both counts.”

Matt leveled him with his dark gaze. “Not everyone is besties with their local US Attorney.” And didn’t flinch at Aidan’s answering glare. “Facts, Talley.” He wasn’t wrong, said bestie of Aidan’s married to Matt’s former Bureau partner, who was Jamie’s best friend. Yes, it was a tangled web that usually worked in Aidan’s favor. None to be had here, it seemed.

“Do I need to call said bestie?” It wouldn’t be the first time Nic had flexed outside his jurisdiction.

Matt shook his head. “Save the juice for a battle you can win. Rooster won’t budge.”

“Rooster?”

“Henry Roos,” Matt explained. “The AUSA assigned to Angel’s case.”

“Is his last name the only reason he’s called Rooster?”

“Unfortunately not,” Rick said as he entered the room. “He’s got the big hair, puffed-out chest, and strut to match.” If the maybe-former model with a headful of blond waves and a chest almost as broad as Jamie’s was saying that about someone else, Aidan could only imagine the prosecutor they were up against, confirmed as Rick carried on. “He’s also meaner than any of the real roosters we have on the farm back home.”

“Lovely.” Just what Aidan needed on a case that mattered more than most, at least to him. “So, then, we need to get Angel talking.”

“Which Tricia won’t let him do without a deal.”

“There’s a tipping point for everyone.” Leverage. Aidan had used it before to turn suspects into sources. “We need to solve for why.”

Matt nodded to his folders. “That what you’ve been printing all morning?”

“A certain consultant went hacking for us overnight.” Aidan spread the folders out, same as Jamie had done that morning, then spent the next twenty minutes walking Matt and Rick through Jamie’s findings and the connections they’d already drawn that morning.

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