Page 56 of A Friend in the Glass

It took a few moments of struggle, but Sam let himself be corralled at the exit. He was panting, sweat glistening at his hairline in spite of the cold, and then he spun away from Rufus and put his hands on his knees like he might be sick.

Rufus had started after Sam, but if the painful pins and needles in his own extremities was even one percent of what his boyfriend was feeling right then, Rufus knew that touching Sam was a bad idea. He, instead, turned toward Lew. “Who were you referring to? ‘That bitch would find you.’”

“Baker. That CID cunt.”

“Who’d you tell that Shareed would find Sam?”

Lew shifted slightly against the crate and whispered, “Fuck.” The graze might not be life threatening, but it must have hurt like hell. Or maybe Lew was just feeling the pinch of finally having his ass on the line. But he finally said, “Del. Evangeline. Colonel Bridges.”

Quieter, Rufus asked, “Did you murder Colonel Bridges?”

The pause was almost nothing, but it was there. “What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? No. No, I did not fucking murder Colonel Bridges. What kind of half-assed op are you running here?”

Rufus crossed his arms against the cold, but it did nothing to deter the shaking and shivering that went deep, all the way past his rib cage. “You know, Lew, at the start of all this, I honestly thought Sam just had an ax to grind. I thought that maybe he hated you so much because of a past falling out that he was forcing all clues to lead back to you. But now that I’ve met you, Ican say, with all sincerity, I wouldn’t trust you to shake my dick dry. You were shit scared of Shareed contacting Sam, weren’t you? Because Sam knows you. He knows you’re a liar. You’re a fucking liar. And a piss-poor actor, too.”

“Fuck you.” Lew looked past Rufus to Sam. “And fuck you. And fuck whatever this bullshit is you’ve got going. I didn’t kill anybody, so if that’s what you wanted to know, can I go to a fucking hospital now?”

“What happened to Shareed?” Sam’s voice was rough, but he sounded like he was back in control of himself. “What did Del and Evangeline and the colonel say when you told them what she was going to do?”

Shaking his head, Lew said, “You don’t know these people. They’re insane. Look, it was one thing when—when it was an accident, all right? I mean, shit went down, but it wasn’t anybody’s fault. Everybody went on with their lives.”

“Not everybody. Not Went.”

“You know what I mean. It was fine until Shareed started poking around. Fucking junkie trying to squeeze cash out of the wrong people. Evangeline looked like a fucking ice queen, but she was psycho. She lost her mind when Shareed tried that shit. I told them to pay her off. It’d be cheaper in the long run. I told them they didn’t want Shareed telling—” He didn’t quite look at Sam. “—people what she’d found.”

“What’d Evangeline do, Lew?”

“I don’t know. I’m not saying she did anything. But I’m telling you, you don’t know these people.”

“What else don’t I know?”

Lew grimaced as he repositioned his hand over the wound to his leg. The drying blood made sticky noises. “You want to know who killed the colonel? How about Del fucking Jolly? Talk abouta nutcase. All he cares about is his fucking company. Stonefish? Who do you think wanted to make it go away? Jesus, he would have promised anything. And then when Colonel Bridges decided he was done with Conasauga, he had a meltdown.”

“And let me guess,” Sam said, “you’re going to try to tell me he killed Evangline too?”

“She was the one taking the colonel.” Lew offered a one-shouldered shrug. “What do you think?”

Rufus waved a hand irritably, interrupting with, “How wrapped up in this is Congresswoman Nasta?”

The redirect made Lew hesitate. “Who?”

Rufus frowned a little. “Jennifer Nasta,” he reiterated. “Or what about her husband—Kenny. He’s a lobbyist, right?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Sam said.

“I mean, I heard the name….” Lew trailed off. Then he grinned—a nasty little lightning stroke that vanished almost immediately. “Shit, they dragged her into this? How?”

“That’s what we want to know,” Sam said.

Lew didn’t respond right away, but the expression on his face suggested he was thinking. Almost absently, he said, “No clue. Sorry.”

Taking a few steps toward Lew, Rufus uncrossed his arms and said, “I think you’re feeding us more of that Grade A bullshit, Lew. Wanna try again?”

“Sorry, princess, I don’t know. But I’d love to find out.” Lew gave the unfinished building another scan. “If we’re done?”

As he started to push himself up from the crate, though, he slipped, and he slid toward the floor with a pained sound. Sam stepped past Rufus—it wasn’t clear if he was going to grab Lew to restrain him or to help him—and then everything went wrong.

Lew shot upright faster than should have been possible for someone who’d been clipped by a bullet. As he came up, something gleamed in his hands—a three-foot steel scaffolding support. The hollow length of metal whistled as he swung it through the air. At the last moment, Sam twisted back; reflexes saved him from being struck in the head, but the blow caught him on the arm instead, and Sam staggered back another step.

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