A Mended Man (The Men of Halfway House Book 4) (26 page)

"Stay. Please."

Jessie nodded in response, unable to speak past the knot in his throat or the overflowing emotions blurring his vision.

Aidan pulled him closer and held him snugly in an embrace. "Good night, Jess," he whispered, then buried his face at the side of Jessie's hair, eliminating any sliver of distance between them.

As Jessie lay in the one place he wanted most, trying to settle his fast-beating heart, he realized no amount of teasing, hype, or fantasy could have prepared him for finally walking through the threshold of the iron gate of Aidan's defenses. In that moment, he confirmed what he had suspected all along—he felt safe, loved, and revered inside the iron fortress and would do anything to fiercely safeguard the tender heart that had been so carefully revealed to him.

Aidan needed somewhere quiet to zone out and focus on the dozen different cases swirling in his mind, demanding his attention. He'd taken on a heavier caseload than his teammates to offset some of their time spent on Jessie's case. It was the least he could do to help since he couldn't actively work the case.

He peeked into the conference room and Travis and Sunny quieted mid-sentence. Wall extended his arm, pointing a finger at him and—in not so many words—compelled him to get the hell out of the room.

Aidan took a deep breath. He'd learned that tell weeks ago. It meant they had a supposed lead in Jessie's case but refused to let him in on it to avoid getting his hopes up. After a few letdowns early on and his reaction to the disappointment, he certainly wasn't going to argue.

He shut the door and sighed, deciding to head over to the task force file room. The relatively new team hadn't had enough time to accumulate a full room of case files, so there had to be some space available there for him to work. He turned the corner and stalked down the narrow hallway, finally arriving at the file room.

The
non-empty
file room where Manny stood with crossed arms, staring at a huge map of Florida with a series of colored circles—almost all with red Xs—and several photos of missing children pinned in the margin.

"What's this?"

Manny spun on his heel, obviously startled by the interruption. "You're not supposed to be here."

"I was looking for an empty room."

"This room's not empty."

"Your brilliance is awe-inspiring. What is this?"

Manny quieted, as if debating a thought. "I shouldn't tell you, but screw it. I'm working a different angle."

"I thought you were looking into runaways and other cases?"

Manny crossed his arms and frowned. "We had narrowed down a list of missing persons who seemed to be runaways fitting Vega's same characteristics and situation between then and now for that same area. But we haven't found a connection or lead from that angle or from reviewing any unsolved cases where the victim had been held in similar living conditions."

A shiver traveled Aidan's body as he looked at each teenager's face staring back at him from the photographs pinned to the board. He didn't want to dwell on what Jessie lived through during that time in his life, the hardship, or the loneliness.

"Since none of that panned out, I'm looking for a pattern. I've already checked out all the neighboring businesses that would coincide with the drive time Vega mentioned the asshole would take to come home." He pointed to the various markers on the map. "I've also checked local banks and gas stations, trying to find out if any of them kept any sort of documentation or log back then we could reference, or find someone who could remember a local matching the description. Something. Anything."

"That's a Hail Mary."

"Yeah. But we're running out of options to keep the case current," Manny said, tightening his lips for a moment as a thought seemed to cross his mind. "I know that's not what you want to hear, but—"

"But you can't pursue a lead that's not there," he said, parroting the words his captain always repeated when his inability to let go of a case suffocated him. He glanced up at the map, thinking over Manny's plan. "People forget or sometimes don't realize they know some important detail. How viable is the hunt?"

"Seems I poked around enough to get some attention. I got a call from a man who owns a small grocery store. He actually kept surveillance footage from prior years. Literally, the guy has years' worth of footage from different angles, transferred from VHS onto DVD stored in a home library."

Aidan crossed his arms and frowned. "Why would he keep a library of old surveillance footage?"

"It's nothing nefarious. His son was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome years ago. One day he noticed his son watching the surveillance monitor in the backroom of the shop, replaying the footage at different speeds…over and over. It seemed to calm him. Every day, he'd take another tape home and his son would catalogue them in a notebook. He'd label and tag them by date, camera angle, he'd even log a count of how many people passed that camera angle for that specific day. He managed to build up a full library of videos over the years."

Manny crossed his arms and quieted, lost in thought for a moment before he resumed speaking. He walked over to the small side table and gently placed his hand on top of a stack of aged notebooks, seemingly careful with the worn surface as if they were sacred. "His son let us borrow a few of his notes as long as we promised to return them intact, by a particular date and time. And in order," he finished with a hint of a soft smile.

Aidan planted his hands on his hips and exhaled a deep breath. "It's got to be a shit-ton of stuff to review."

"I've already got people on it. We're filtering out customers with repeat appearances. The store is on the list Vega provided of logos and names he remembered while in the house. So this asshole must have visited that shop a few times, and maybe, if we're lucky, actually did all his grocery shopping there to give us enough visual references. We can show screen shots to Jessie to identify once we've narrowed it down a bit."

Aidan quieted. "How much time did this take?" Hours, days, hell, he imagined it had taken weeks to accumulate all this information.

"Doesn't matter. It had to be done."

"Bullshit. It matters."

Manny raised a stopping hand. "I wouldn't be here right now if it hadn't been for you saving my ass." He met Aidan's gaze, quieting for a moment before he continued. "You nailed a shot most people wouldn't even bother to attempt. Some would think damn near impossible considering the time of day and conditions. But I'm guessing you didn't even hesitate before firing. So step back and let me do this. I'm good at these types of cases. You're good at shooting."

"And interrogating assholes."

Manny pursed his lips. "Fine, yes. I admit it. And interrogating assholes," he said with an eye roll.

Aidan inwardly smiled. "Give me a stack of notebooks. I'll go through them."

"I've already been going through them and I have a few analysts working on them as well. I've got the rest of the team working on a few outstanding details."

"So give me a stack and we'll speed it along."

Manny hesitated.

"What?"

Manny's lips thinned. "I was given strict order to keep you in the field. You're not even supposed to know about this, especially
if
there's a chance we might get a hit here. I can't risk it. This case is too close to home for you."

Aidan raked a hand through his hair. If there was a chance to end this nightmare for Jessie, he needed to help. He hated feeling helpless at the hands of this fucking monster. He didn't want to explore the different possibilities of what all this was doing to Jessie if he, himself, couldn't keep his cool in the midst of this storm. "If there's anything…I mean anything I can do. I don't care if you think it's menial work—"

"You don't even need to say it." Manny gave him a knowing look. The team chattered about the what-ifs of his relationship with Jessie, but at least they didn't ask or joke about it. Even the occasional homophobic jab from Manny had ceased—as if a silent truce had been made that night in the alley. He was still a hard-ass where Aidan and the other team members were concerned, but Aidan imagined that wouldn't change and could be attributed to heading up the team of hard-headed detectives who usually jumped first then asked questions. "Now I need you to get out of here and focus on all those other cases so we can work on this one."

Aidan refused to argue, especially with the one man who seemed to have uncovered a microscopic speck of hope in a field of darkness.

Son of a bitch Detective Reyes. He was starting to like the fucker.

* * * *

Aidan shut the door behind him, closing his eyes with a heavy exhale as the tension slowly evaporated from his body. He loved getting home. Correction…coming home to Jessie, especially after a long day. He threw his keys and wallet on the table by the door and shrugged out of his sport coat, walking over to the dining room area to drape his jacket on one of the chairs. He turned toward the living room and spotted the new floor lamp tucked in the corner. Simple, stylish, and refined. Just like Jessie.

A smile tugged at his lips. Details… Jess was all about the smallest of details. Over the last couple of months, Jessie had managed to add a small sprinkle of items throughout the house to make it feel more like a home—a picture frame here and there, a plant, a simple decorative sculpture.

In the back of Aidan's mind, he figured the lamp was Jessie's solution to the television white noise he found annoying but refused to complain about. He never delivered a complaint, only alternatives. If having a lamp on in lieu of the television white noise meant keeping Jessie in his arms through the night…done. Lamp could stay.

He had hoped his earlier text to alert Jessie he wouldn't be late would allow for a chilled out night of vegging out on the couch. "Jess, I'm home."

"Hey!" Jessie responded, his voice traveling from his bedroom. "Be right there."

Aidan withdrew his firearm and shoulder holster and set them on the dining room table. He twisted his neck from side to side until he heard the relaxing pop, then glanced up into the dark kitchen. He sharply turned and stilled when Jessie emerged from the hallway wearing a sharp, fitted, dark blue pinstripe suit and baby blue shirt with dark sapphire tie. The mix of blues against his fair skin and dark hair only served to accent his already alluring crystal blue eyes.

Aidan swallowed heavily, his now-hardened dick pushed against the zipper of his jeans. Jessie was dressed up and ready at this time of night. For what?

Shit
.

Jessie greeted him with a wide smile. "How was work?"

Aidan shrugged, unable to swallow or respond past the knot in his throat. No sense trying to sound enthusiastic. He'd taken too damn long to make the first move. Or was it second? It had been about two weeks since that kiss on the couch,
hell
, he could count down to the number of hours and minutes with the memory so deeply etched into his brain. He should have done something. Should have made a move by now. He'd promised to try and all he'd done was sit on his ass and argue with himself and come up with a zillion different ways this whole
us
thing could fail.

He'd obviously blown his chance and Jessie now looked elsewhere.

Jessie cocked his head, his eyes narrowing, scrutinizing Aidan's features. "You're really quiet. What's on your mind?"

Aidan shrugged again, not really sure what the hell to say. He had no claim on Jessie. If he wanted to go out on a date, Aidan couldn't stop him. He cleared his throat before attempting to speak. "You look…nice."

"Thank you," Jessie said, raising an eyebrow. "But that's not what was on your mind."

Aidan looked away, clasping his hands behind his back. He pivoted back and forth on the balls of his feet, trying to think of something nice. "New lamp?"

"Yeah. I figured it was worth a try to see if it worked instead of the TV at night. It's got a backup battery inside that charges while it's connected. So it'll work even if there's an outage."

Aidan pursed his lips and nodded.
Details
.

"So why don't you tell me what's really on your mind?"

Aidan returned his focus to Jessie. Damn, he looked good in that damn suit, which brought him right back to the thought that had pissed him off. "You look like you've got a hot date."
And it's not with me
. There, he'd said it, sort of. He'd voiced the words in his head…and it stung to think of it.

"Hopefully. I guess we'll see how it turns out. Did you remember to grab something to eat?"

The doorbell chimed, sparing Aidan a need for a reply when Jessie stepped away to answer it. No, he hadn't remembered to grab something to eat for himself. All he could think about was getting home to Jess and being with him. He clenched his fist, internally cursing himself and biting back the anger that began to simmer. He wanted to twist the head off whatever smiling asshole was on the other side of that door to take Jess away from him. He turned when Jessie opened the door and spoke.