Redemption (8 page)

He dashed into the bedroom to tell Bo.

Bo let out a muffled snore. The news would have to wait.

But Bo wasn’t sure yet about what he wanted. Only one thing to do then: move in together and help him decide to stay. Make him forget about leaving.

Worth it.

***

“Wanna go for a run?” Johnson strolled into Lucky’s cube at quitting time.

“’Fraid not.” Lucky lost the battle to keep the smile off his face. “Bo came home.”

“He did? Great! How’s he doing?”

“Fine.” Lucky wanted him to be fine, therefore he was fine, right? “But I gotta get home.”

“Don’t blame you there. Well, later then.”

Before Lucky managed a reply, Johnson traipsed back down the hall. Bo. At home. May the cops all be busy somewhere else, ‘cause speed limit signs were mere suggestions when too much road kept Lucky from his man.

In record time he pulled up in his driveway.

“Hey, Mrs. Griggs!” Lucky threw his hand up at his landlady and took the front steps in two leaps. For the first time in weeks more than a cat waited for him. With any luck Bo’d even fixed dinner. Damn, but Lucky missed the home cooking.

He burst through the front door, ready for a welcoming kiss.

Oh dear God! Call the cops! Lucky dropped low, pulled his gun from his laptop bag, and clicked off the safety. “Bo!” No answer. Should he call Walter?

Stephan Mangiardi’s men had come. Books lay on the floor. By the front door.
Please, let Bo be here and okay.
“Bo!”

He glimpsed broken plates smashed on the kitchen floor. And in the living room… not one of Bo’s dragon statues! Shards of red, blue, and green littered the rug. No time to look now.

Muscles tensed, Lucky cleared the kitchen and living room. Flat against the wall, he crept down the hall toward the closed bathroom door—the bathroom where he’d found a “Did you miss me?” note from Stephan before waking up with a headache in Mexico.

Fuck! Why did Lucky stay here? Why did he leave Bo here alone? Behind the door, water ran.

One hand on the doorknob, he turned. Deep breath.
Here goes nothing.
He flung the door open. A full bath sat empty, no Bo, water gurgling down the overflow pipe. One eye trained on the door, he turned off the water. He’d been around the block too many times to fall for a distraction.

What if someone took Bo while he’d been waiting for his bath? Lucky toed off his shoes to sneak up on the bedrooms.

The guestroom was empty, or as empty as it ever was, full of things Lucky never got around to putting away. His room, then.

Gun at the ready, the twisted the doorknob and pushed. Bo lay face up, hugging a pillow.

Lucky was on the bed without realizing he’d moved. “Bo? Bo! Are you okay?” No blood, no obvious hurts. He grabbed the pillow to check further, but Bo clung tight.

“Bo, what’s wrong?”

In a flat monotone, Bo replied, “I lost it today. Totally fucking lost it.”

“What? Why?” And was this what the Magnolia Center receptionist meant when she said Bo’d had a bad day?

“I was watching the news, about disgraced DEA agents in Columbia. Then they interviewed a few people on the street who lumped all narcotics agents into the same group. Said the government ought to do away with us.” Bo’s knuckles whitened where he gripped the pillow. “Every time we go out there we put our lives on the line, now folks are saying we shouldn’t even exist. Do they understand how much crap would be on the streets if we weren’t?”

“I don’t even want to imagine.” Last year synthetic drugs cost a businesswoman her mind and her freedom, and a few other folks their lives. Doctors handing out meds like candy racked up kills. Without the SNB, DEA and other watchdogs, death tolls would rise.

And a dipshit reporter with too few facts went stirring things up.

“The more I watched, the angrier I got, until… I lost it.” Bo sniffed.

Damn, he must’ve been out-of-his-mind pissed. “Are you okay?”

“Lucky, I destroyed your house! Aren’t you afraid of me yet?” His voice rose a few decibels. Bo stopped and continued in a softer tone. “The doctors were wrong. I’m not ready to be home. I can’t control this shit anymore. Why do you want me here?”

“You didn’t destroy the house. You broke a few things. Nothing that can’t be replaced.” Now might not be the time to mention the dragon statue from Bo’s collection.

“Will I ever make it through the day without going crazy?”

Lucky tugged the pillow from Bo’s chest and lay down, pulling Bo’s head onto his shoulder and slipping his gun onto the floor along with the pillow.

Bo stiffened, then relaxed. Lucky held on until hunger forced him from the bed. Bo picked at his sandwich—eaten in the bedroom to avoid the mess in the kitchen and living room.

But the niggling of worry from earlier took root in Lucky’s heart.
What if? What if? What if?
circled his brain.

After Bo fell asleep, Lucky ventured out of the bedroom, put to right the shambles, and searched the guestroom for the cameras and alarms he’d bought and never installed. He’d deserved to get conked on the head and hauled to Mexico for letting his guard down.

Never again. Using a hand-held screwdriver instead of power tools to keep the noise down, window by window, door by door, he secured his home as he should have long ago.

He poked his head into the bedroom. He’d get those windows tomorrow. Bo lay curled up on the bed, Cat Lucky snuggled in the crook of his knees. Lucky pulled the cover up to keep him from getting cold.

Room by room he surveyed his work, leaving the testing for when Bo wasn’t home. No need scaring the guy with alarm blasts. He made a pot of coffee to keep him company while he kept watch. Tomorrow he’d take Walter up on the offer of a day off.

God, but he needed… Bo wouldn’t approve, but sometimes… Glancing over his shoulder to make sure Mr. Healthy wasn’t watching, Lucky dug through the hall closet, reaching way, way up on his tiptoes to grab… got ‘em.

Gun beside him, Lucky sat at the kitchen table, munching his secret stash of Oreos and gluing together the broken pieces of Bo’s dragon.

Now if only they made glue for people.

***

“I said I’d take you and that’s that.” Lucky got in the car and shut the door. After last night, leaving Bo alone wasn’t an option.

“And I said I could drive myself.” Even as he argued, Bo folded himself into the passenger seat.

Please, let the four-wheeled sumbitch start.
The engine sputtered a time or two, then rumbled to life. Sooner or later, it’d need a major overhaul.

They traveled in silence, anger pulsing off Bo in waves. Lucky’s youngest brother Daytona had been in rehab a time or two, so the swinging moods were nothing Lucky hadn’t dealt with before, though, as a teen, Day’s had been a whole lot worse. And he hadn’t taken pains to hide them like Bo did.

Had the kid ever beaten his habit? By unspoken agreement, Charlotte rarely mentioned the family. Better that way since they’d all disowned Lucky at his arrest over twelve years ago. He didn’t blame them.

He pulled the Camaro up to a plain brick building a block from the hospital. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Bo could’ve lit a fire with his hot glower. “You didn’t have to come at all. Didn’t you trust me to keep my appointment?” He got out and slammed the door.

Lucky watched Bo dragging his feet to the front entrance. When he’d disappeared inside Lucky got out of the car, zipped up his jacket, rammed his hands into his pockets, and rounded the corner to another building.

He signed his name and took a seat. Two other people came in, but a scowl kept them away. How did nature say, “Do not touch?” Be a hard-assed son of a bitch.

“Mr. Harrison? You can come back now.”

Lucky followed a far too cheerful woman into the confines of the building. She handed him a cup and pointed to the bathroom. “Just leave the sample on the sink.”

If Lucky earned a dollar for every cupful of piss he’d deposited over the years, he could’ve made the down payment on the house with drug test money alone.

He went about his business and left the filled cup on the sink. The woman waited for him outside the door. “Follow me, please.”

They marched past several closed doors until they came to an open one. “Have a seat and make yourself comfortable. The doctor with be with you in a few moments.”

The woman closed the door and he paced the room. Atlanta landscapes hung from the walls. Yeah, he’d been to that park. And that one. The SNB conference room offered a better view of Stone Mountain though.

He sorted through magazines, discarding them one by one: housekeeping, cooking, golf, piloting. The SNB expected him to spill his guts. The folks on his favorite soap opera confessed all their sins to their counselors and left the session blubbering.

Lucky didn’t blubber.

The door clicked open. “Good afternoon, Mr. Harrison, I’m Dr. Libby Drake. It’s very nice to meet you.”

Blonde, petite. Held herself like someone to be reckoned with. Now if she’d get out from between Lucky and the door. She crossed the floor to a chair and sat. There. Better. “Now, I want to assure you that anything you say in here is confidential. You can tell me anything. Let’s start with a little background information. Why are you here?”

“Cut the crap, doctor. The last thing you need is another crazy person telling you their problems. Why don’t you write in your little book or whatever that I came here, I’m bat shit crazy, and save us both some time.”

Her smile wavered, but didn’t fall. “And are you, as you say, ‘bat shit crazy’?”

“I work for an outfit where getting shot at is a given, most folks think I’m a thug, and the average life expectancy is six to seven years after retirement. Isn’t that crazy enough for you?” Not that many SNB agents lived to retire. And if they did, they’d made so many enemies they’d have to watch their backs for the rest of their lives.

“Then why are you here?”

Like she didn’t already have a report from Walter. “Because, since I might have shot a man, I’m more crazy than even
I
can take.” No need confessing too much on their first meeting. Besides, with his tired brain and lack of sleep, his memories played tricks on him.

“Might have?”

Not remembering details sounded stupid, even to Lucky. And talking about his
feelings
did no good. Ever. “Actually, I’ve got a more pressing problem.” He flopped down on an ugly gold couch. The doctor sat up taller in her matching chair.

“What type of problem?”

“A fellow agent’s going through rehab for a forced drug dependency, on top of PTSD from his military days. He’s not very… stable right now. What do I need to do?”

***

“You didn’t have to bring me and pick me up.” Bo folded his arms across his chest though he didn’t fight when Lucky steered him to the Camaro and buckled him in. Therapy must have gone to shit today.

Lucky’s had been… informative. Scared him too, but forewarned was forearmed and all that. But keeping an even temper no matter what Bo said or did might be beyond Lucky’s abilities. Lord, help him try. The “don’t let him be alone too long” might be harder to solve.

“What’s wrong with me looking out for you?”

Bo’s scowl would make any dope dealer in Atlanta shit bricks.

“I could take a leave, go hiking with you, spend time together.”

“Don’t you dare.” Bo’s glare should’ve burned Lucky to embers.

“What? Don’t wanna see my ugly mug day in and day out?”

“I don’t want you to treat me like I might break. Tell me, if I was still in rehab, would you take time off?”

“Well, no.”

“Then I don’t need you burning up leave time or whatever. I don’t need a babysitter!” Bo sank against the door.

Lucky hooked up his iPod to the stereo and played a song about sexy tractors. Bo didn’t flinch. Lucky tried Billy Ray Cyrus’
Achy Breaky Heart
, screeching to the top of his lungs, more or less in time with the music.

Bo said nothing. This wouldn’t do. Not at all.

“Wanna get a sub?”

Bo shrugged.

“We passed a field back there. Wanna stop and graze?” Normally, those were fighting words.

Vegetarian Bo didn’t respond.

Lucky turned the music down. “What happened wasn’t your fault. You had no control over what Stephan forced on you.”

Bo snapped, “Don’t you think I know that? That’s the part that sucks. Here I’ve been working my ass off, trying to stay on the straight and narrow, not let anything rile me enough to get me tempted, and some asshole sets me back to square one. I’m mad as hell, and if I start punching, I won’t stop, so please, whatever you do, don’t remind me it’s not my fucking fault!”

It might take a few more sessions with Dr. Libby before Lucky learned the fine art of foot/mouth avoidance. Still, something had to be said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too.” Bo scrubbed a hand down his face. “Look, I’ll admit I should be grateful for all you’re doing for me, but right now I’m too pissed off to appreciate it.”

Even with the apology, Bo’s words stung. Where was the sweet guy Lucky had met two years ago, the bleeding-heart liberal who trusted too much?
Damn you, Stephan. You took Victor away from me, I’ll be damned if you get Bo too.

At the house Bo faked happy enough to get inside without incident. “Hey, Mrs. Griggs. How are you? Is that Tigger? My, how’s he’s grown.”

The moment Bo stepped inside the door, all pretenses fell. He collapsed onto the couch. He’d never even mentioned Lucky swapping out his old one for Bo’s new one to make Bo feel more at home.

“Want dinner?” Lucky’d stocked the refrigerator with hummus, tofu, portabella mushrooms, and anything else he’d ever seen Bo buy. No wine, though, or any other alcohol, and no drugs stronger than ibuprofen.

“I’m worn out and wanna go to bed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Your things are mostly in the closet and the top two drawers of the dresser. You know where I keep everything.” Well, duh! Even before they’d made the move official, Bo had practically lived here. At least on weekends. “I’ll clean up while you shower.”