Page 58 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

With that they took off across what was a reasonably vast yard, fenced off by hedges and peppered with picnic tables, empty now in the cold and damp wind.

“Not a bad place,” Cody panted at Jackson’s heels. “Can think of worse facilities to recover in.”

“Yours was better,” Jackson said, his wind better. “You running in the morning?”

“Yoga,” Cody replied on a burst of wind.

“Add some cardio,” Jackson told him as they scrambled around the hedge so they could loop around the block and get Jennifer. “If you only run when something’s chasing you, you’re gonna get caught.”

“My God, you nag,” Cody breathed after a few steps. “Do you nag Henry like this?”

“Henry was in the military for eleven years,” Jackson told him, his blood thrumming happily under his skin. “I do five miles in the morning to keep up.”

“Brag, brag, brag,” Cody muttered and then was silent as he struggled to keep up with Jackson.

Jackson used his time to think, mulling over the possibilities of what they’d learned from Cora, and the weird, oddly deep relationship Twitty (who would always remain Twitty even though Jackson knew her real name now) and Retty (whose real name hestilldidn’t know) seemed to have.

What would it take to do somebody’s dirty work for over thirty years? he wondered. Retty had shown no remorse, no worry for the people she’d been after. Her entire focus, even when the cleaners had come to get her, had been to finish up with Twitty’s orders.

Did Twitty share the same weird devotion? he wondered. Where did it stem from?

Hadsheissued the order for Retty to be the next “package,” or had that come from somebody else?

So many questions—Jacksonreallyneeded to check in with Ellery to see what he’d discovered.

He felt the pull strongly enough that he’d started the minivan and pulled out his phone before Cody even hopped in.

“Don’t leave without me—hey!”

Jackson took a picture, reveling in his surprise and, keeping his foot on the brake, dialed the number, putting the phone on speaker so Cody could be in on the planning.

Which they never got to because two sentences in, he could hear the glass breaking and Ellery’s obvious concern, and then the line went dead, and Jackson was standing on the accelerator,shoving Jennifer across town while Cody still scrambled for his belt.

Little Karmas

JADE HADgrabbed the fire extinguisher and was working on the small fire in the reception area before Ellery had even cleared the hallway. He took in the billowing drapes and shattered window with a glance, as well as a poor-man’s Molotov cocktail smoldering on their pretty blue-gray carpeting.

His vision washed red.

To his knowledge, this had only ever happened two other times in his life, and he hadn’t seen it coming now, but with a roar, he swung the door to the office open, absolutely hell-bent on finding whomever haddone this thingto this office that he and Jackson and Jade had painted, carpeted, decorated,loved,and shaking them until their teeth rattled out of their teeny tiny head.

What Ellery saw when he hauled open the door brought him up short, enough of his fury draining to allow for breath, thought, and—his best weapon—words.

There was a giant standing in front of the door.

Six feet, six inches tall if he was a centimeter, with muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles, the bodybuilding menace with the blond mullet standing on his doorstep would have been terrifying enough, but struggling in his grasp was….

Well, an urchin.

Filthy dirty—his stench filled up Ellery’s entire office, and his face was a study in dirt and blotches. His hair hung to his shoulders, and as Ellery stared, he saw not one butfivetiny creatures crawling across the matted locks.

His clothes were rags, and he had chafing sores at his wrists where his jacket had rubbed him raw.

On top of the stench of urine and trash and unwashed body, there was the overwhelming smell of gasoline.

“We saw him do it,” said a much smaller—thank God,familiar—man at the giant’s side. Lewis Barnard was a software engineer who worked at the headhunting agency in the corner of the upstairs complex. Five eight or so, with a mop of blond hair and an irrepressible smile, Lewis had done some piecework for Jackson and their friend Burton over Christmas.

Ellery stared at the behemoth holding the struggling urchin.

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