The Way Things Are (37 page)

“Your boss? The one who showed up at your place after the break-in?”

“Yeah, I know, kind of stupid not to be suspicious about it at the time. I’d roll my eyes right now, but opening them hurts.”

“Why? Why did he do any of this?”

“You, I think.”

“Me?”

“You look a lot like your big brother. And your name’s Atkins. Now that I can think again, I figure he must have assumed you were the detective investigating those stowaways. And you’ve been at the terminal with me a few times now.”

“Why would he care?”

“He was the one smuggling those people in. He told me he shot his partner too. He was so fucking calm about it, like he was talking about stepping on a spider or something.”

“Jesus.” Ken sat down on the bed beside him and felt the tension inside of him finally unwind. Patrick’s head might be wrapped in bandages, but he was lucid, talking, and otherwise in one piece. Ken felt like he could finally breathe again.

“And Jay. He….” Patrick squirmed beneath the thin blanket, trembling. “I feel like I’m going to be sick just thinking about it.”

“Jay’s okay,” Ken promised. “Brandon and Malcolm’s partner are in the waiting room. He’s safe.”

“He’s got to be safe.” Patrick’s voice was a little stronger. “He has to be. I swore I’d never let anybody hurt him again, and….”

“That’s what we were both saying about you out in the waiting room. When they took you away, I…. To be honest I’m really glad Malcolm insisted we go pick up Jay, because my ‘no freaking out allowed in front of teenagers’ mantra just saved me from a major breakdown.”

This time the light green and gold in Patrick’s eyes seemed lit with amusement. “No freaking out in front of teenagers?”

“Yeah, it never ends well.” Ken squeezed Patrick’s hand as hard as he dared. “When do you think they’re going to let you go home?”

“I keep asking, but the doctor keeps blowing me off.”

“I could take a day or two off if you wanted me to hang out and nurse you back to health,” Ken said softly.

Patrick groaned again. “You’re mean. I can’t move, and you go and whisper like that.”

“Incentive to get discharged, then. If they don’t let you go, do you want me to stay with Jay tonight?”

“I don’t want to put you out. I know—”

“I said you don’t have to do this alone, didn’t I? He’s relieved, but he’s likely to freak out if they don’t release you.”

“I was going to say Corbin would be willing, but after last time, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Jay would go to jail if he reoffended now, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes. Juvenile detention isn’t as bad as it sounds, but since I’m pretty sure all he needs is supervision and something to keep him busy, it might be better just to avoid the issue. I’m sure Corbin’s a fun uncle, but….” Ken rubbed Patrick’s thigh.

Patrick smiled at him and set his hand over Ken’s. “All right.”

“Mr. Connelly?” Malcolm leaned into the open glass door. “May I ask you a few questions?”

Ken dipped his head down. “Knocking a foreign concept now, Mal?”

“He’s in the ER. What can you possibly be planning that would make knocking necessary?”

“You sure you want an answer to that?”

“No, actually, I don’t.” Malcolm sighed. “It’s important to get a statement as soon as possible. I wouldn’t have interrupted otherwise.”

“Where’s Jay?” Patrick asked.

“I asked if he’d mind waiting a minute so we could get this out of the way.”

Patrick waved him in. “Well, you’re here. Ask away.”

“I need you to tell me everything you can about your day yesterday. Pretend you’re telling a story and try to be as detailed as possible.”

Ken expected Malcolm to kick him out, but he just stood there, listening.

When Patrick tried to describe the 911 call and how Ken had seemed to appear above him and taken the phone, Malcolm sighed and ran his hands over his face. “Mr. Connelly, do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive?”

“I guess.”

“The doctor said she’s pretty sure the dose of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid—”

“Gamma what?” Patrick looked up. As soon as he moved, he squeezed his eyes shut.

“That was the drug they found traces of in your blood. And it’s got a half-life of about seven hours, so for it to even be detectable means you received an insanely high dose. Didn’t she tell you she identified the drug? Either way, the dose required to knock a man your size unconscious would have killed most people. It depressed your heart rate and your respiratory functions so severely the doctor had to intubate you.”

“I’m going to level with you, everything after seeing Ethan fall is kind of a blur. And the machine thingy beeped a lot,” he said, pointing toward the monitor beside him. “Beyond that….” He shrugged. “Assume I’m going to fuck up pronouncing whatever it was you said and tell me what it is?”

“GHB,” Ken explained. “The club drug. I’ve typed the full name thousands of times while writing up probation violations.”

“Ethan mentioned it,” Patrick whispered. “Isn’t it a date-rape drug? Man, that’s lame.”

“You’re lucky. Damn lucky. The effective dose changes based on weight. Four years ago one of my kids went into a coma after using it and never woke up. He was just trying it for fun, but he lied to his buddies so they wouldn’t think he was only a hundred and ten pounds.”

“Did Mr. Price say anything else?” asked Malcolm, his tone serious. “I still don’t understand why he attacked you. We’ve searched his home. Way too expensive for the money he was pulling in, and we found millions in hoarded cash stacked in a gun safe. We even found records of shipments we’re guessing he and his partners used to move people into the US going back nearly ten years. But the only thing we found that had anything to do with you, Mr. Connelly, was your address. It was scribbled on a piece of paper in the trunk of his car, along with a crowbar that looked like it had traces of paint and wood on it. If you’ve been honest with me about not knowing any of this was going on, why did he attack you?”

Ken thought about the night when Patrick had taken him up to the top of the gantry crane and the way the man had glared at him when he’d brought Patrick coffee. All those times Ethan had glanced his way, and Ken never thought twice about it.

“Apparently you and I look a lot alike,” Ken said. “I went to the docks with Pat late Saturday night, when the port was still shut down, and his boss was there. I’ve brought Pat coffee in the mornings a couple times, and his boss called out my last name when he saw me there.” Ken looked at Malcolm nervously. “He thought I was you. He thought I was a police officer and Patrick was helping me.”

“And Connelly’s place was broken into two days later.” Malcolm nodded.

“He was there too. He was the guy who sat down to talk to Patrick while you were being a dick.”

“I was not being a dick. I know you. I know you wouldn’t do anything that would put one of your kids in danger if you were thinking straight.”

“You could have asked me about it!”

“Whatever!” Patrick snapped, then hissed and squeezed his eyes shut. “Fucking hell, you two make me glad Jay’s an only child.”

Malcolm took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m sorry. For raising my voice and for how I acted that day. Let’s back up a little. Price was there when the port was locked down?” Malcolm asked incredulously. “You were there? What the fuck, Ken? It’s called a secure crime scene for a reason!” Another hiss from Patrick made Malcolm lower his voice sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It was after the cops were finished searching that terminal,” Patrick said. “They still had the storage yard roped off, but that was it.”

“But I’m betting it was before we got a look at the cargo manifests we wanted,” Malcolm said. “The reason we backed off on that was because the manifests said the weight of that first container hadn’t changed since it was shipped from Bangladesh, so we handed it off to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. You—” He pointed an accusing finger at Patrick. “You going there I can understand, but Ken’s supposed to know better.”

“I’m not a cop,” Ken said innocently. “And I thought it wasn’t a crime scene anymore, otherwise I’d have said something.”

“Technically, it wasn’t. We were waiting on electronic copies, and I assumed there was no way they could be tampered with.” Malcolm shoved his hands into his pockets.

“What about Ethan?” Patrick asked.

“I can’t tell you what hospital he’s in.”

“But he’s alive?”

“Alive and in police custody,” Malcolm assured him. “Kenny, could you go check on his son? Tell him he can come back in?”

Ken wanted to argue. He wanted to tell Malcolm he’d hurt him if his brother dared say anything to make this harder on Patrick than it already was. But he also knew there could be elements of the investigation that were still open and Malcolm would need to discuss them privately. He glanced at Patrick, who squeezed his hand and offered him a reassuring smile. No macho threats or overprotective lectures were going to faze Patrick. Not much of anything fazed Patrick except Ken himself. “I’ll go check on him.”

Jay wasn’t anywhere near the vending machines, but he’d left his backpack and sketchbooks next to Jeremy Hollis in the waiting room.

“Corbin heard Pat wanted something to drink, so he took Jay to the food court,” Jeremy explained. “They’ll be back in a minute.” He was flipping through one of Jay’s newer sketchbooks and held up a drawing for Ken to see. It was a sketch of Patrick dressed in shorts and a pair of boxing gloves, looking exhausted, sweaty, and elated all at the same time. “The kid’s got talent,” Jeremy said with a sad smile. “Not in the ring, but still….”

“Talent or not, that’s more likely to end up on a brick wall than a canvas.”

Jeremy nodded. “It just might. The kid paints the world the way he wants it to be, the way he wants other people to see it. How can the world see his point of view unless it’s right out there in public?”

“Canvas would keep him out of jail, though.”

“There isn’t anything wrong with painting on walls. Hell, I’ve got four brick walls that he could probably improve on.” The old man carefully pulled the sketch out and winked at him.

P
ATRICK
WAS
stuck in the hospital for the next two days. He was moved to a private room where Ken, Jay, and Corbin all ended up camping out in awkward recliners for the first night.

When Jay and Corbin were both asleep, Ken took the opportunity to try to mitigate any damage his brother might have done. “Malcolm didn’t threaten you or anything when I left, did he?”

Patrick laughed at him. “He asked if I was serious about you. And whether or not I had any family around who Jay could stay with while I’m stuck in here.” Patrick nodded toward the boy, who was curled up at an awkward angle in the chair. He was snoring, but he didn’t look comfortable. “I think he was hoping to spare the kid having to sleep here.”

Ken was surprised. “He asked that? If you were serious about me?”

“Yeah. He cares about you.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him the truth. I’ve spent so many years living for Jay, I haven’t felt alive in a long time. But when I’m with you, I do. You’re like being up in the crane.”

“You lost me there.”

Patrick grinned. “You make me feel excited and safe at the same time. When I’m up there and I look down, I feel like I’m in a constant state of freefall. It’s a rush, and it’s engaging and it’s a little terrifying, but it’s also safe because I know it’s secure. Thinking about you is like that. It’s like falling all the time, but never having to worry about hitting the ground.”

“Like flying? You make me sound like a drug,” Ken teased him.

Patrick shrugged. “Maybe you are. You are addictive.” Patrick ran his thumb over the back of Ken’s hand. It was all the physical contact they could manage with the angle of the bed. “I told him I love you. I know it’s way too soon to say shit like that, but….”

Ken glared at him. “The hell it is. I’ve been in love with you since that first day in the gym, when you nearly hauled Corbin over the counter for talking about your ex. And I’ve fallen for you a little bit more every day since. Freefall sounds pretty damn accurate to me.”

T
HE
SECOND
night, Ken took Jay home so they could both get a decent night’s sleep and get cleaned up. From Thursday morning on, Jay was quiet, withdrawn, and so uncomfortable he couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Ken knew he should be getting back to work, that every other JPC in the office was probably scrambling to cover his caseload, but it felt wrong to not be there for Patrick and Jay. He texted his boss once to see if she could e-mail him a list of things he’d missed, but she hadn’t even responded to the text.

Thursday afternoon, once Jay was settled into one of the hospital room recliners, drawing, Ken dozed off in the chair beside Patrick’s bed, his head pillowed against Patrick’s shoulder. He slept there for nearly an hour until the din of several naturally loud voices all trying to be respectfully quiet woke up him. When he opened his eyes, he realized the room was suddenly crowded.

“I told you to be quiet.” The soft yell came from his mother. She was standing near the small tray table, glaring at his brothers. His stepdad was leaning against the far corner, chatting with Corbin and his father like they were all old friends.

“You too, boys. You’re going to wake them both up if you can’t keep it down.”

“Mom?” Ken shot up from the bed. Patrick’s head had somehow become propped up against his, and Patrick startled awake when he moved.

His mother used the plastic spatula she was holding to swat Brandon’s hand away from the tray table.

“What?” Brandon whined. “I’m hungry. And since they’re both awake, we can eat anyway, right?” Brandon asked.

“I brought paper plates. You don’t need to pick at the marshmallows.”

“What’s going on? What are you all doing here?”

“Kenny,” his mother said sternly. “You haven’t been home for dinner for three months. If you think I’m going to let you and these boys eat fast food on Thanksgiving, you’re dead wrong.”