“Which means he also has the resources to know Eli is dead, and that Digger is confined to the state,” Ty murmured. “He’s either here on company business, or he’s using those resources and gone off the reservation.”
“What does he have to do with the gris-gris bag?” Digger asked. “You really think he killed that girl last night?”
Nick’s brow furrowed. Ty grimaced and shrugged.
“Sneaking in as a maid and leaving towels on the bed is a little sloppy for Bell,” Kelly said.
Ty held up a hand. “We’re running off the rails here.” He rubbed at his face, massaging between his eyes.
“Why would he approach Zane first?” Digger asked. “He couldn’t know you’d find that note, or that Zane would tell you about meeting him. What’s his game?”
“Everything is a game to him. It’s like chess.”
“You don’t play chess,” Nick said.
“Yes, thank you!” Ty barked.
Nick shrugged.
“We need to take care of this, right here, right now,” Ty said. “While we’re all together.”
Nick nodded. He knew he wouldn’t feel safe heading back to Boston with a man like Liam holding a grudge. “What about Zane?”
Ty hesitated, breathing faster. “I’ll send him home.”
“Will he listen?” Kelly asked, looking dubious. “He’s pretty understandably pissed.”
Nick snorted. “Ty. He’s not going to leave you here, in danger, even if he is pissed at you. Even I know him better than that.”
Ty ran a hand over his eyes again. “You’re right.”
“We have to get him back here,” Nick said. “Use him as our sixth.”
“Is he up for that?” Digger asked.
Ty straightened and shot Digger a look. “I trust my life to him every day. He’s up for anything we throw at him.”
Digger pursed his lips. “Okay. So go fetch him.”
Ty growled. “And you two go find Owen and drag his ass back here.”
Kelly and Digger nodded and turned, almost synchronized in their movements. There was something comfortable about sinking back into that uniformity, into that chain of leadership and trust.
Nick watched Ty rummage through Zane’s jeans, looking for something. “What about me?”
“Stay here. If someone’s not back in an hour you’re the cavalry. Turn on the GPS tracking on the phones.”
“Great.”
Ty stood, holding a bronze sobriety chip. Nick’s father had dozens of them in a drawer at home.
“Zane’s?”
Ty nodded, looking grim and distressed. “He might need it.”
“Really? Is he that easy to knock off the wagon?”
Ty glared at him for a moment, but then he swallowed hard. “No,” he whispered. “No, he’s not.” He headed for the door and was almost out of the room before Nick called after him.
“Take your piece!”
Ty cursed and went back to his suitcase to rummage through it.
“Are you sure you’re okay to do this? I can go out there and bring him back. I wasn’t on a morphine drip all day and he’s not quite as pissed at me as he is at you.”
Ty checked the clip of his service weapon and jammed the magazine home, then stuffed it in the back of his jeans and covered it with his flannel shirt.
Nick watched him with a growing sense of unease. His movements weren’t measured, his mind was all over the place. “Ty,” he whispered.
Ty just shook his head.
“Ty, you’re not up to this.”
“I will be,” Ty growled. “A few hours for the drugs to clear, I’ll be fine.”
“Ty, I’m telling you as a friend. You’re not up to this, drugs or not.”
Ty turned to meet his eyes.
“Liam Bell. He’s the only person I know who was ever as good as you. And right now, he’s better than you are.”
Ty breathed out harshly and looked away. “I know,” he said, heading for the door. “He always was.”
There was no finding a quiet spot in the French Quarter, especially when half the revelers were wearing huge Easter hats, bunny ears, and layers of beads.
Zane had wandered toward the outskirts of the Quarter, looking for familiar ground. His steps tried to follow in those of the past, trying to find that little bar he and Becky had visited so long ago. His memory wouldn’t lead him there, though, so he settled for a little tavern on a side street with empty tables.
His mind was roiling, seething, replaying the look in Ty’s eyes when he’d refused to tell Zane what he was holding back. They had been living together for a year. Lovers for almost two. Partners for longer than that. The idea that Ty had been able to keep something from him, with so little effort, was staggering. And he could feel there was worse, lying in wait.
This Liam Bell business was only the half of it.
By the time he reached the bar, his entire body was shaking with anger and adrenaline. He ordered a whiskey straight and took the glass to sit at the corner table.
He placed it in front of him. A challenge. A test of how far he’d come. He’d done everything in the last year for Ty, trying to be worthy, trying to make himself a better, healthier man. He’d fought the withdrawal that had wracked his body and the cloying need that filled his mind every morning when he woke, all to prove to himself that he deserved to be happy, that he deserved Ty’s love.
Had Ty even been worth it?
He stared at the whiskey glass, letting the pull envelop him just to see how strong he was to fight it now.
Ty thumped into the empty chair across from him, rattling the table. The whiskey in Zane’s glass sloshed. He stared at it, not looking up to meet Ty’s eyes.
“Please don’t do this, Zane.”
“Go away, Ty,” Zane said without looking up from the glass.
“You’ve worked so hard to get past this, don’t do this now. Not like this.”
Zane glowered at him. “Who the hell are you to tell me anything?”
Ty recoiled like Zane had slapped him, but he jutted his chin out and squared his shoulders. “I’m your partner. And I’m your friend. And I love you.”
“You’re a liar.”
“You’re right. And you can hate me if you want to, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love you. And I’m not going to sit idly by while you do this to yourself because of me.”