18. Like You Always Do

“W hat the hell―” The door shut. Locked. Detective Marcus De’Angelo steadied his hushed voice. He drew a breath and straightened his composure. “What the hell are you doing here, Eastland?”

Kellen dropped wordlessly into the chair across from Marcus’s desk. His hands settled on the arm rests. “I need to be there tonight.”

Marcus’s brows lifted, ear cocking. “Sorry? I thought we talked about this already.” He took his chair. Upright at first—then, like he couldn’t sit still, he crossed his legs under his desk and glanced at the blind-covered windows. He straightened again and folded his hands on the desk. “Eastland, you can’t come here. Someone could see you. It’s not even dark yet―”

“My CI is threatening to default on the deal if I don’t show at these locations,” Kellen cut him off.

“Say what?” Marcus’s face took on another look of surprise. He glanced again at the windows. Those were internal windows, Kellen silently registered. He wasn’t glancing at them because he feared someone outside the station might see in. “He wants to default on the deal because I said you can’t go?” A brief smile flickered across Marcus’s lips. “You made that up, right? Because you want to go?”

“He’s concerned for his safety,” Kellen responded dryly. “He’s going to be at the location tonight.”

“Okay…” For the third time, Marcus glanced at the windows. “Wha…What does…Does you…” He took his eyes off the windows and snatched a pen off his desk—proceeded to repeatedly click it. “Eastland. Eastland, now is really not a good time for this conversation. I—I have this…” He dropped the pen and swept both hands across his face. He looked up at Kellen. “He’s concerned for his safety?”

“Yes…” Kellen gave the detective a questioning look.

“Okay.” Marcus jerked back in his chair. He nodded. “Okay.” Several seconds of silence. “Fine. Fine, if I somehow manage to get a warrant, you can go this one time. We’ll figure out something better aligned with protocol going forward.” Another glance at the windows. “Stay here until it’s time for the op.” He stood up. “Not here, specifically. Don’t leave the station. There’s a meeting room off the hallway near the coffee station. Wait in there, not here in my office.”

“He gave me the address,” Kellen spoke up. “If that’s helpful for getting the warrant.”

“He did give you the address?” Marcus turned back, a look of renewed interest on his face.

“ 338 Sycamore.”

There was a pause. A slow grimace spread across Marcus’s face. “Is that a Greenville address?” He moved back to his desk and opened the laptop on it. There was some swift typing. Marcus sank back in his chair. “Fucking…” His hand slipped against his face, elbow pinned to his armrest. “Mother…fucker…It’s a goddamn Greenville address. Shit.”

Greenville. Outside the Winchester PD’s jurisdiction. Kellen’s eyes lowered.

“Shit,” Marcus repeated. He glanced at Kellen. “I need an affidavit from you. Get with Sarah at the counter if you don’t know how to write one.” He stood up and started again for the door. But he stopped yet again. “There’s someone important visiting the station right now. He may or may not be aware of yesterday’s details—please stay the fuck out of sight.” He stopped again, one step from the door. He glanced over his shoulder. “Thank you.” And he left.

Kellen lifted his backpack off the floor and followed out of the office.

The hallway outside was unusually quiet. There was someone sitting on a bench in handcuffs in the processing lobby on the other side of a glass door. Two lowered voices were coming from somewhere in the hallway behind Kellen.

“—don’t know what business he has parking his big ass here all afternoon.” A whisper, but still audible.

“He’s some kind of huge sponsor. An officer died yesterday, so maybe he’s here to support or something.”

“More like pick people to incriminate.”

“Is De’Angelo getting heat for this?”

“I don’t think so. I heard the bodycams showed no protocols were violated.”

Kellen turned off into the meeting room, and the voices became inaudible. He took one of the folding chairs and set down his backpack. He opened the zipper.

Kellen paused, and his eyes slowly lifted. He was sitting in one among a ring of empty chairs.

Silently, Kellen’s fingers finished parting the zipper. He lifted out a holstered handgun. He opened the snap at the top and removed the weapon, then dislodged the clip and checked it.

Alcoholics Anonymous used this room. “Professional help.”

Kellen’s thumb ran down the cutouts at the bottom of the clip, silently counting off seventeen rounds.

Separate things.

He snapped the clip back in. Rotated the weapon and checked the barrel. The slide. Then the safety switch on the trigger. The flashlight attachment. He replaced the gun in the holster and closed the snap.

Someone stepped into the doorway of the meeting room, and Kellen looked up to see a man in a police uniform.

“Are you Eastland?” the man asked. He glanced across the meeting room as if checking for someone else.

Kellen dropped the holstered gun into his backpack with a thud. “Yes.”

“De’Angelo wants you in the blue room.” The man started to turn away.

“Where’s that?” Kellen zipped his backpack and stood up.

“Uh…end of the hallway,” came the response. The officer jerked his thumb in the vague direction before walking away.

Marcus looked like he was sitting on a cushion full of pins. He sat at the circular table in the middle of the room, a plush rest at his back, one leg uncomfortably extended under the table in front of him. His hand jerked away from hovering close to his mouth when Kellen entered the small room.

There was someone sitting closer to the entrance, back to Kellen. Smoothly combed white hair was the first thing Kellen registered of the stranger—before the man turned, and Kellen was slammed with the overwhelming feeling that he knew this person from somewhere.

Marcus rose abruptly from his chair. “Andy, this is the agent, Kellen Eastland.”

Botox. Forehead pulled so smooth, it was shiny. Tiny beady eyes that looked Kellen up and down for almost four seconds before the man extended a hand.

Kellen robotically accepted the handshake.

“Kellen. Can I call you Kellen?”

And suddenly, Kellen’s stomach did a full turn. That voice. That voice. Inexplicable panic shot up across every nerve. Suffocating heat gripped Kellen’s ribcage. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t draw a single breath as he watched the man in front of him gesture to an open chair.

“Have a seat. I’ve been hearing all about you, Kellen. It’s a very interesting operation Marcus has going, trying to infiltrate the XI drug gang. It sounds risky. Very noble, of course.”

Kellen’s eyes darted helplessly in Marcus’s direction. His mouth was filling with saliva. Nausea was climbing in his throat like a slow-moving worm. That voice.

“I’m curious to know more about the CI you’re working with. This one must be different, hmm? Someone who actually knows something?”

“We can’t—share details, unfortunately,” Marcus began. Something must have been visible on Kellen’s face. Marcus’s eyes froze on it.

“Of course. I understand. But surely there’s a little something you can share to satisfy an old man’s curiosity.” He smiled up at Kellen. “Who is this highly mysterious informant?”

You fucked him. And it finally clicked. Kellen’s fingers lifted feebly to his lips, covering his mouth. He took a step backward to the door. Another. Swallowed. “That’s confidential.”

The door behind him came open under Kellen’s trembling hand. He backed out of the meeting room. Watched as the door swung shut in front of him.

The hallway was swimming. Ripples. Ripples like brine water. Darkness, like that room. Hide me. God, hide me.

There was someone in front of him. Several paces away. Then suddenly closer. She was familiar.

“Kellen?”

The floor tipped to the right, and Kellen fell against the wall. He caught himself. Lifted a hand to grip his forehead. Shut his eyes, trying to steady the movement. And like it was simply pulled out from under his feet, he completely lost his balance.

“Kellen!”

She was beside him in an instant. Her hand on his shoulder, the other lifted to his face. “Oh my god, Kellen, are you okay!? Say something!”

His head hit the wall at his back, his eyes lifting to hers. Blurry. Steadying. Blurry. “Lila.”

“What’s wrong? What do you feel? Where does it hurt?” She turned to look over her shoulder. “Howy? Howy!” Her eyes refocused on him. “Howy’s gonna—I’m gonna have him help me get you to the cruiser, okay? You—You’re…”

Kellen raised his hand unsteadily and took her wrist. Silently, he lowered her hand away from his face. “Lila.”

“Did it feel like a cardiac event?” She moved her hand to his chest. “Are you dehydrated? Have you been eating okay?”

“Lila, I’m fine.” He drew his shoulders inward, half-shrugging off, half-shying out of her touches.

Their eyes met in the seconds that followed. “You’re not fine. ”

Silence.

Kellen shifted against the wall. His arm moved, and he reached for his backpack. “I am, Lila. I am.” He put one hand to the wall and stood up. Blinking back the dizziness, Kellen started down the hallway again.

Lila was right behind him when he glanced over his shoulder.

Kellen let out a short breath and kept walking.

He took the same meeting room chair he had sat in before and set his backpack on the floor.

Lila took the chair across from him in the circle.

Silence ensued.

Kellen took out his phone. He pulled up the Tracks app and set the phone on his knee. While the app loaded, he lifted his hands behind his head and loosened the tie out of his hair. He dropped the elastic on his other knee and swept his hair back, gathered it in a fresh half-up ponytail—

“Are you sleep-deprived?”

Kellen’s eyes lifted, the edge of his teeth gripping the hair tie he was stretching. The elastic snapped around his thumb and forefinger. “No.” He finished tying back his hair.

Lila crossed her arms.

The tracker dot had left the Joanna Capris. It was on the move, now. And not just around the block. It was on I- 40 . Kellen set his elbow on his knee and brushed his hand along his jaw. The dot was headed out of Winchester.

“The least you could do is check in with the station nurse.” Lila’s sharp voice broke the silence again.

Kellen’s eyes lifted. His brow wrinkled. “No.”

“Kellen―”

“I said, I’m fine.”

Their eyes met again.

Lila crossed her legs. “You’re overworking yourself. Like you always do. You’re not even forty, Kellen. Your health is going to start deteriorating―”

“God, can you just leave me alone?” It snapped. Like a broken rubber band. As easily as if the last time had been only days ago, not the better part of nine years. Kellen’s hand shot out in an empty gesture toward the door. “Can you just leave? Don’t you have shit to do?”

Lila let out an exasperated scoff. “Fine, Kellen.” Hands in the air, she stood up. “Just keep doing what you’ve always done. Push everyone away. Work yourself to the bone. At least then you’ll be too exhausted to remember how miserable you are.”

“The fuck?” Kellen’s lip quirked with a grimace, eyes pinned up at his ex-wife.

“You’re fucking lonely, Kellen!” she cried. “You have been since the day I met you. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the connection you needed to heal from everything you’ve been through. But that doesn’t mean no one can. What’s not gonna help is burying yourself in work and—getting a fucking dog. ”

“You’re making up problems right now,” Kellen murmured. His eyes lowered to his phone again.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might be exhausted? ” Lila said sharply.

“I’m not exhausted.” His eyes shifted to look up at her again.

“Kellen, you collapsed! ” She was standing there like a statue. Struck by lightning. As if amid everything she saw in her police work, the scariest thing she could’ve witnessed that day was her ex-husband losing his balance. “Has that happened before?” she asked suddenly.

Kellen blinked. His gaze drifted to the left, settling briefly on a poster on the wall.

“I wish you would live, Kellen,” Lila said, her voice quieting.

Kellen’s fingers slipped a few centimeters on the phone in his hand. “I wish you would mind your own business,” he whispered.

“I care about you, and I’m here for you,” was the last thing she said before walking away.

“I think we should separate,” she had said nine years ago. “I think it will be easier for both of us to move on—not having to see each other’s faces every time you’re home.”

“Move on?” he had said. “So you’re giving up? This is something we just need to ‘move on’ from now?”

“Kellen, she’s been gone fourteen months.” How her voice broke. “I can’t keep—I can’t keep—existing—floating—fucking clinging to survival—on this hope for something that’s never going to happen!”

“I love you,” he had said. And it made her cry.

“I know, Kell, but it’s not the kind of love I need from you.”