The Magician Murders (The Art of Murder 3)

He didn’t remember being shot.

He didn’t remember…

Wait.

He’d been back at Quantico for in-service training. He’d been staying with Sam. He’d…

What?

What had happened to him?

His heart jumped at the sudden flash of memory: a dark figure bursting through a wall of wet leaves and dead branches.

“…the hell?” Jason’s eyes flew open. He blinked a couple of times.

Yeah. A hospital room, all right. Neutral walls, luminaires, acoustic ceiling panels…a lot of monitors, some in use, some not…and Sam.

Sam rising from a chair near the window and coming to lean over the bed railing. He wore jeans and a black sweater. He was smiling, but it didn’t warm the wintery glitter of his eyes or soften the hard, almost harsh lines of his face. It was not a reassuring smile. “Hi. How are you feeling?”

“Hi…”

How was he feeling? Not great. He began to take quick, worried inventory. Fingers, toes, hands, feet, arms, legs…everything was still there and seemed to be working…some parts more painfully than others.

“You’re okay,” Sam told him. “You’re going to be fine.”

Was he? Because the expression in Sam’s eyes was more assessing than reassuring. Not that Jason didn’t believe him. He did. He knew he was not dying. He had nearly died in Miami, and this did not feel like that. It did not feel good, though. And he suspected painkillers were masking the worst of it.

“What happened?” He tried to read Sam’s face.

Why didn’t Sam kiss him? Or if he couldn’t manage a kiss—since when?—how about a pat on the hand? Or one of his famous shoulder squeezes? Something. Why were they—Sam—being so… So formal? Jason felt more confused by the minute.

A muscle moved in Sam’s jaw. “That’s what we need to figure out. Feel up to answering a couple of questions?”

Kind but brisk. As he would be with any victim of violent crime. Getting down to business. Was that the real reason for the bedside vigil? Sam had been waiting to interview him?

Well, hell.

It hurt. Jason did not want a lead investigator; he wanted—embarrassing to admit, but the truth—his boyfriend. The guy who had once told him he was “irreplaceable.” The guy who had once said he wanted him—and only him—all the time. The guy who presumably gave a fuck what happened to him, and not merely in his professional capacity as BAU Chief.

“Sure,” Jason said stiffly. Not like he couldn’t be a professional too.

Sam’s gaze flickered, registering whatever he heard in Jason’s tone, but remained steely, as intent as if he was trying to skip the middleman and scan Jason’s brainwaves for himself. “How much do you remember?”

Now there was a question.

Jason closed his eyes, tuning Sam out, forcing himself to focus.

Night. Cold. He remembered the rain and the smell of the parking lot, the smell of Chinese food… No. No, rotting onions.

His stomach roiled with unexpected nausea. He swallowed the sourness, opened his eyes and faltered. “Can I— I need a glass of water.”

“Of course.” Sam pressed the button to raise Jason’s bed and poured water from the plastic pitcher into a plastic cup with a straw. He seemed ready to hold the cup for Jason too, but Jason took it from him and sipped a couple of mouthfuls of flat water.

“Take your time.” Sam sounded gruff. Awkward.

Jason ignored him.

The water helped. So did having a minute or two to pull himself together. He belatedly noticed he had an IV stuck in one arm. The knuckles of both hands were scraped and cut. Was that it? Had he been in a fight? Had someone tried to mug him?