Cause and Effect Read online

  “You might get in trouble for bringing me,” James points out, and Derek snorts as he stacks the papers and then dumps them in the drawer. “Did Sam say what we were having?”

  “Nope.” Derek pops the p and drops the highlighter in after the papers. “I’ll text Lydia when I get a cab. See you soon.”

  “If you get here quick enough we won’t have to leave right away,” James says, and Derek can hear the eyebrow waggle. “Kay should be gone for the day, and everyone else knows what a shut door means.”

  “No wonder your son banned you from dinner,” Derek says, hoping James can’t hear the grin in his voice. “I’ll wait for you by the elevators.”

  Daniel has only been on the sofa for half an hour, wrapped in his blanket and staring at the muted TV, when the buzzer goes off. Whoever is behind it is remarkably persistent, and manages to get into the building without Daniel even getting up to buzz them in. He’s begrudgingly impressed when a steady thumping starts at the door and drags himself up and across to open it. It’s important to reward persistence.

  There’s nothing at his eye level, so he looks down and sees a ratty blue baseball cap atop a disgruntled-looking face. The small man shoves a plastic bag into his arms with an unhappy sound. “Your soup,” he says gruffly, and turns on his heel to head back toward the elevators.

  “Thanks,” Daniel croaks out eventually, but the man is too far down the hall for it to reach, and he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t acknowledge it anyway. Especially if he hadn’t bothered to wait for a tip.

  When he gets back inside and puts the bag down on the coffee table, he realizes there are eight containers of soup in there. It looks like there are dumplings in the top container, and his stomach makes an eager gurgling sound. There’s even a spoon in there, so he doesn’t have to detour after shoving the entire bag in the fridge, before returning to his blanket nest with the top container of soup. His phone starts buzzing on the other side of the sofa, but a quick glance at it shows an unrecognized number and he ignores it, tucking the soup into the blanket pooled in his lap.

  When his phone rings, James is watching avidly as Derek and Sam face off over the battered chess set that Lydia had found in a pawn shop and brought home. He glances down at it, thinking about ignoring the call, when he recognizes the area code. Sam is waving at the board in disbelief, hissing “How long have you been planning that, you snake?” as James skirts the table and heads into the kitchen, answering it as he goes.

  “You’ve got Carter,” he says, bracing himself on the counter. He can hear Sam raging and Lydia laughing while Derek loudly explains the rules over the top of them both.

  “Sir, this is Robbie Mills from Green Haven,” the man on the other end of the phone says. “Sorry to disturb you so late at night, but I have some news about an inmate that we believe you’d like to hear.”

  James’s stomach drops to somewhere around his knees and he leans more of his weight against the counter. There’s only one person in prison that he’d be personally notified about.

  “Is he dead or did he escape?” he asks, pleased with how steady his voice comes out. Every fiber of his being is hoping for “dead” to be the answer.

  “He was being transported from Green Haven down to Rikers in preparation for trial,” Robbie says. “The van never checked in. It was found abandoned in Bridgeport earlier this evening. The bodies of the escorting officers and driver were recovered a short distance away. Fairhall and two other prisoners are in the wind, sir—the GPS signal stopped just south of New Canaan.”

  “Thanks,” James says after a moment of tense silence. He takes a deep breath. “Keep my department updated. Condolences on your colleagues.”

  “Yes, sir,” Robbie says. “We’re sending a full report through.”

  James lets his phone tumble to the counter, bringing his hand up to massage at his temples. When he looks up, unnerved by the sudden silence, he sees Derek, Sam, and Lydia huddled in the doorway. Both kings are clutched in Sam’s white-knuckled grip.

  2

  Peter Saracen is more familiar with the look of judgment on his best friend’s face than he’d care to admit. They’ve been friends for a long time and through many periods of judgment. Unfortunately for Peter, his enduring and somewhat-consuming crush on the belligerent Daniel Callahan has brought on another of those periods of judgment.

  “Petey,” Tia says, long-suffering and determined to let him know about it. “You said this guy has threatened to arrest you. Multiple times.” She sighs. “It’s become obvious that you’ve developed some kind of justice fetish, possibly a handcuff kink, since being a suspected serial killer. My duty as your best friend is to make sure he doesn’t actually arrest you, so I really think staying out of his way is the best plan.”

  Peter thinks about trying to deny the blush that overtakes him, but if the heat he can feel is any indication, his cheeks are basically on fire. “I don’t—I don’t have a kink!” he protests anyway. He’ll deny that he immediately flashes back to Daniel bursting into the basement of the building with his gun drawn.

  Tia’s expression settles somewhere between disappointment and absolute disdain, and Peter feels his insides curdle a little. He hangs his head. “Maybe I have a little one,” he blurts out. “It’s just… I mean, have you seen those pants?”

  “Basically everyone has had an inappropriate reaction to police pants at some point in their lives, honey,” she says. The words are supposed to be comforting, he thinks, even if her tone doesn’t exactly make it that far. “Where you’ve gone wrong here is the fact that him seriously threatening to arrest you hasn’t killed that boner.”

  “He can’t arrest me for being places,” Peter says stubbornly. “Not public places, anyway.”

  “Are you seriously going to test this assumption?” Tia’s voice is as high as her eyebrows. “Jesus Christ, Petey. We don’t have the money to bail you out!”

  She’s right, and in his defense, Peter Saracen had done his best to steer clear of the NYPD since the whole Coy Fairhall ordeal. He’d gotten the all-clear from the hospital pretty quickly, left shaken but with little more than bumps, bruises, and a minor concussion. Tia had waited with him while a pair of grim-faced police officers took his statement, and then clutched his hand, white-knuckled, the entire trip back to her apartment.

  “You’re breaking the lease on that piece-of-shit apartment and coming home with me. Permanently.” She hadn’t looked at him while she said it.

  Too shaken to argue, Peter had just squeezed her hand. Flashes of memories kept filtering back in between the pounding beats of his heart. He remembered catching sight of James Carter disappearing into the alley, and waiting for him to come back out, only to walk into the alley himself and find it completely empty. The wait at the police station had been unbearable, seeing the fear and despair on the faces of James’s son and Derek Moore’s sister only driving home the point that Peter needed to make Detective Callahan see sense. Their conversation at the alley was still mostly a blur, but Peter is positive he’s never going to forget Coy Fairhall dragging him through the broken window frame and dumping him in the basement with an unconscious James. He’d been painfully aware of the fact that he was little more than an inconvenience and would probably be the first to go. James woke up in stages, groggy and unhappy, and Peter had been seized with panic about whether this would finally be enough for the detective to stop just threatening and actually arrest him.

  Needless to say, the relief when the officers had burst into the basement came with a healthy amount of trepidation. Peter will stand by that, no matter how many times Tia says that he was thinking with his dick at the sight of those damn pants and the bulletproof vest.

  He’d given his statement about what had happened at least ten times to different people. A few of those were police officers who looked at least as disapproving as Daniel, and a couple of lawyers who looked even more intimidating than the police officers.

  “Is Derek okay?” he’d blurte
d to one of them, a stern-faced redheaded man in a crumpled suit. He couldn’t remember his name for the life of him, even though he was positive the man had said it.

  The man’s face softened just a little as he nodded. “He’s going to be fine,” he said and leaned forward. “Are you feeling okay? You look a little woozy still.”

  “Just tired,” Peter admitted. His vision had started to blur out when he forgot to blink often enough.

  The man had reached out and put his hand under Peter’s elbow to ease him up to his feet. “It’s been a rough couple of days, I bet,” he said, and it felt like Peter just remembered to blink and then Tia was right in his face, her own face tight with worry. “Here’s my card. You give me a call when you’re feeling up to talking this over, yeah?”

  “He will, Mr. Hart,” Tia promised. “Thanks.”

  Peter waved, or thought he did anyway. Everything was a bit foggy.

  “What is it with this city’s law enforcement and justice department only employing movie stars and supermodels?” Tia muttered as she led Peter out of the building. “Goddamn. Is there even a loser table we could go sit at? Whatever, Petey, come on. Let’s go home.”

  He slept for about sixteen hours after that. Tia had finally felt like she could punch him for scaring her once he woke up.

  While moving in with her has improved Peter’s quality of life by approximately 300 percent, he hasn’t managed to make ends quite meet for a while. Since the whole Alex and getting fired as a courier thing, he hasn’t really found his feet again. Breaking the lease on his old apartment had cleared his pitiful savings out, but Tia tackles him to the sofa and pokes at his face and chest relentlessly every time he tries to put whatever he can scrounge up toward rent or utilities.

  “Not until you’ve got a proper job and can afford to replace your shitty jeans,” she says sternly, and he doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on when she sticks her entire middle finger through a hole in the thigh.

  “You’re the worst,” he says, looking up at her with the biggest puppy-dog eyes he can muster when he really just wants to throw his arms around her and cry with gratitude.

  She grins at him, big and bright, and leans in to lick up the side of his cheek. “You know it, buddy.”

  “Why are you so gross?” he wails, swiping at his cheek and squirming out from under her until they both get tangled and topple to the ground in a heap.

  Volunteering doesn’t pay any bills, but Peter spent more time at the community center growing up than he thinks he’s ever going to be able to give back. Whenever he can, he likes to help supervise the daycare or after-school programs. The kids span the spectrum from hostile and prickly, all the way to clingy and desperate for any attention and affection they can get. Peter feels for all of them.

  The owner of the pizza place around the corner from Tia’s apartment had agreed to let him wash dishes during the dinner rush period as a trial, and as grateful as he is to have been given a chance there, he’s even more grateful that he can keep spending a few hours a day at the community center. Keeping busy is the best way he knows how to keep from dwelling on the way that, when his life had flashed before his eyes as he’d been dragged through that broken window and realized that the only police officer around was unarmed and unconscious, there hadn’t been much to be proud of. The community center kids and Tia would be the only people who missed him. He’s almost embarrassed to admit how long Daniel’s face had lingered in his mind’s eye. Peter’s had crushes before, even a couple of more-or-less serious relationships. Alex had been an educational experience. He doesn’t know what it is he feels for Daniel, just how strongly he feels it. That feels scarier, somehow, than losing something he understands. The possibility of losing this unknown potential… something. He hasn’t seen Daniel since the last time he’d been at the station, for one final debrief with some faceless officers and the stern redheaded lawyer, and even that was just a glimpse across the bullpen. It’s been a solid eight weeks, and Peter still keeps catching himself drifting off into a repetitive loop of “what-if” scenarios.

  It’s incredibly frustrating because Peter has no idea what to do about it. As much as there’s a part of him that wants to go storming into the police station, and maybe do something drastic like punch Daniel in the face with his own face and hope their mouths ended up in the same vicinity, he thinks that’s probably a terrible idea. He just doesn’t have any better ones.

  “I’m a good person,” Peter says to himself while he watches the kids run around in the gated courtyard. “A good adult.”

  Alysha sidles over to him. “Why’re you talking to yourself, Petey?” she asks, sliding her hand into his and looking up at him with warm, concerned eyes.

  Peter squeezes her hand, still too conflicted to even be embarrassed. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk to yourself instead of other people,” he says. “Helps you get all the facts straight and figure out what you have to do. Like making lists.”

  Her eyes light up. “I like lists.”

  An overwhelming wave of love crashes over him and he smiles, using his grip on her hand to swing her up into his arms. “I know you do,” he says, pressing a smacking kiss to her cheek. “Let’s go make some now, how does that sound?”

  The kitchen at the pizza place smells like a mix between heady tomato sauce and the sharp tang of citrus-scented cleaning chemicals. Peter kind of likes it. Marty, the owner of the pizza place, works the ovens himself, and Santi, the delivery driver, blows in and out of the kitchen as the orders come. Sometimes he stops and tosses around some dough rounds with Marty or takes orders over the phone if Bette is busy with customers at the front. There’s an energy thrumming in the air that makes the hours pass by quicker, and Peter likes working with people a lot more than he’d liked the solitary nature of being a courier. Driving in New York City was basically just asking for either an accident or a heart attack. Maybe both at the same time, knowing Peter’s nerves. The pleasant ache in his muscles and the constant smell of sauce and cheese over the cleaning chemicals is much better.

  At the end of the night, when Santi and Bette have gone home and Peter is peeling the elbow-length rubber gloves off before he dares to rub at his eyes, Marty pulls two last pizzas from the oven. They’re in the biggest pans the shop has and are covered in pepperoni, thick slices of mushroom, and a golden-brown melted cheese. He boxes them up and looks at Peter expectantly. Peter gapes a little.

  “Too skinny,” Marty says gruffly, shoving the boxes at him. “You’ll drop all the dishes if we don’t put some meat on those bones. Come back tomorrow night, same time.”

  The words stick in Peter’s throat, thick with gratitude, as he takes the boxes. It looks like Marty’s mouth twitches into a smile underneath the thick beard anyway as he turns back to flick the oven controls off.

  Tia crows with delight when he stumbles through the front door, trying to balance the boxes and wrestle the door open at the same time. “I knew this was going to be the best idea,” she says, taking the top box and leaping over the back of the sofa with it. Her next words are garbled through a mouthful of pizza but Peter doesn’t bother trying to understand them, dropping the second box on the kitchen counter and heading for the sofa too.

  When he manages to snag a slice out from under Tia’s arm, he thinks it could be the best pizza he’s ever tasted. Everything in his life is the best it’s been for a long time.

  The next morning, Peter realizes he should have known better. There is a voicemail and a text from an unfamiliar number. The text asks him to listen to the message and then call a vaguely familiar number. He feels like he should know the voice when he starts the message, but it isn’t until a few seconds in that it clicks.

  Peter bursts into Tia’s room, waving his cell in a shaking hand. “He escaped!”

  Tia jumps, arms halfway through her sleeves and head stuck somewhere in the middle. “What?” comes out, muffled by the fabric.

  Peter yanks at it until her head appears, thr
usting his cell into her face. “C—Fairhall!” he spits. The back of his mouth tastes like bile, and all the blood drains from Tia’s face in what seems like barely a second. He barely registers her taking the cell from his hands and then guiding him down to sit on the foot of her bed.

  “Breathe,” she says, and he blinks at her. “Dammit, Petey.”

  He sucks in a breath, suddenly aware that his vision is dotted with white spots.

  “Better.” She sounds pleased, even though his breathing feels shallow and more than a little useless. “I’m going to go and find my pepper spray, okay? Dad gave me a Taser when I moved here, that’s gotta be somewhere too. You stay here.”

  “That thing is illegal, Tia!” Peter yells after her when the words sink in. “I’ll get arrested!”

  “Like that isn’t what you’ve been trying to do anyway!” she hollers back. “Officer Tight Pants will be delighted!”

  Peter lets his head fall forward, going with the momentum until he could put his head between his knees. The dark when he closes his eyes reminds him too much of the basement, the thudding of his heart in his ears the only thing he can hear. He jerks up again so fast that his head spins.

  “Whoa, okay.” Tia crouches in front of him. When his vision clears, he can see the concern on her face and the pepper spray in her hand. She smiles. “You with me now?”

  “Are you sure giving me that is a good idea?” he asks. “I could end up using it on myself by accident.”

  “Counting on it.” She kisses his cheek with a wet smack. “Come on, up you get.”

  Daniel wakes up on the sofa, with the blanket tangled around his neck and leg at the same time, a crick in his neck, and a clammy spot right in the curve of his hip where he’d fallen asleep over the leftover dregs of his soup. It’s still about a 60 percent improvement from the day before.