Page 46 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

The answer was somewhere in the personnel and finances of Moms for Clean Living.

After Jade left with their takeout trash, Ellery texted Jackson withAte lunch with Jade, talked to Mother—have much to discuss.

Jackson got back:I have backup. We’re doing things.He sent a picture that surprised Ellery as much as it gratified him. Of course.Of coursethat’s who Jackson’d had in mind.

But did you eat?he persisted, and the time Jackson spent trying to compose an answer told him everything he needed to know.Eat, or I call you in.

You’re not the boss of me.

Yes I am. It’s in the marriage rules, look it up.

We’re not married yet.

We’re common-law spouses—it still applies. Now eat.

Had a breakfast bar. Gotta run. Nag later.

Ellery checked the tracker on his app and saw Jackson was in one of the seedier sections of downtown, and he growled to himself as he set his phone down. Fine. Jackson would fill him in later—he had no doubt of that—but in the meantime, they all had to do their part.

Two hours later, as he’d begun to assemble a picture—a revolting one, but a picture nonetheless—of the finances and goals of the organization that seemed to be behind Henry’s shooting, his phone rang.

“Are you done running?” Ellery asked acidly.

“Yes,” Jackson replied, “and we’ve even eaten. My backup apparently took lessons from you.”

Ellery rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m glad he’s proving useful. What do you have for—”

And at that moment, glass shattered in the front of the firm, amid shouting and chaos and the smell of smoke.

“Ellery!” Jackson cried, obviously panicked. “Ellery, are you okay?”

“I’ve got to go,” Ellery replied with as much composure as he could. Then he tucked his phone in his pocket as he ran for the front of the office to see what in the holy fuck had just happened.

Backup

TOE-TAG’S OFFICES,which sat in the basement of UCD Med Center, were always cool and quiet—as well as small, underfunded, and very, very attached to where Toby Tagliare, father and doctor of forensic science, did his actual work.

Toe-Tag wasn’t the coroner or a forensic pathologist. They had their own office out on Broadway. Toby was attached to the hospital morgue—he was the gateway between the people who came into the hospital alive and the people who ended up at the coroner’s office because they died of special circumstances.

Given that he spent his days in a refrigerated room stacked with corpses waiting to be sent to their destination—be it crematorium, funeral home, or the coroner’s office itself—Toby was a downright cheerful little man with a plethora of curly gray hair, much of it in his ears, and a father to his furry toes, who had spent much of his and Jackson’s early acquaintance trying to match Jackson up with his son.

Toby had been there during one of the grimmest days of Jackson’s life, but he’d also come to Ellery’s house for some much more pleasant days of celebration.

He was always happy to see Jackson but also mindful that the basement of a hospital was Jackson’s least favorite place to be.

“Come on in!” Toby gestured to where he stood over a body, one of a stringy, tattooed young male who had obviously died violently. His flesh was peppered with scars, both round like bullet holes and long and jagged like knife wounds, including new holes in his flesh, presumably from whatever had killed him.

“Wow,” Jackson said on a low whistle through his face mask, taking in all the damage. “He… he doesn’t look like his death was a surprise,” he said as diplomatically as he could. He was well aware that if it washimon the slab, a stranger might come to the same assessment.

“Well, given that the last young man on my slab had the same sort of wounds—delivered by this young man—I’m going to say that it probably wasn’t,” Toby told him mildly, stitching up the bullet hole with a sigh of sadness. He’d once told Jackson that he mourned everybody who came through his corridors becausesomebodyhad to. But he also lived a surprisingly happy life, Jackson often thought, probably because he was very aware how quickly it could be taken from him.

“It’s a shame,” Jackson said respectfully. Even if the guy had been a dirtbag in life, he didn’t have any more chances now either for redemption or change, so mourning what his lifecouldhave been was part of the process.

“It is,” Toby replied, setting his needle and thread down and turning Jackson’s way. “But not why you are here, yes?”

“Yes,” Jackson said with a small smile. “Good to see you, Toby.”

“Me too. I’d say engagement and domestic life agrees with you, but you’re looking quite tired, my boy.”

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