The Movie-Town Murders (The Art of Murder 5)

Jason nodded, pulled out the chair across from Sam, and sat down. “Yep. Just…surprised.”

About everything. The truth was, he felt shaken in the aftermath of all that adrenaline. The way you did after any close call. He’d been braced for the worst. He was still trying to absorb that the worst hadn’t come to pass.

Sam nodded to the bartender, who crossed the little dance floor to them. “What are you drinking?” Sam asked Jason.

“Whatever’s on tap,” Jason told the bartender.

She nodded. Glanced at the empty rocks glass next to Sam’s elbow. “Another?”

Sam nodded. As the bartender walked away, he said to Jason, “What happened?”

Jason said cautiously, “Kapszukiewicz said you phoned her?”

“We talked on Friday. She hadn’t come to a decision yet.”

Jason offered Sam a crooked smile. “Then you’ll appreciate the irony. Per Kapszukiewicz, both my grandfather and Roy Thompson are deceased and therefore have—had—no active ongoing ‘interest’ in the case.”

Sam’s brow furrowed as he processed.

“Had Thompson still been alive and facing prosecution, the possibility that my grandfather allegedly ordered him to steal artifacts could have created conflict on my part, since my grandfather could, again allegedly, have been materially involved in the conduct subject to my investigation.”

Jason could see the moment it clicked. Sam’s eyes—the same uncompromising blue of the FBI seal—flickered. His mouth curved wryly. “Your investigation was into ownership of the art, not whether Thompson was guilty of theft.”

“Yes. Right.” Jason expelled a long breath. “Whether my grandfather ordered Thompson to take the art and other items—which he’d never have done—or Thompson ‘liberated’ those things on his own, the bottom line is the treasure was still stolen.”

Sam looked thoughtful. “How the art was acquired wouldn’t affect the outcome of the investigation.”

Jason laughed, wiped his eyes because this was still painful. “Right. In a nutshell. Which is what I must have been. Nuts. What concerns Kapszukiewicz isn’t the ethical conflict. It’s that I believed there was an ethical conflict—and acted accordingly.”

Sam said, “It’s always the cover-up, never the crime.” He added, “Not that you committed or would commit any crime.”

Jason appreciated that Sam felt that way now. He hadn’t seemed to feel that way three days ago.

“Right. I just…short-circuited. I don’t know why.”

“I do,” Sam was curt. “You do too. So does Kapszukiewicz.” Sam had made no bones about the fact that he believed Jason was suffering from nervous exhaustion. He’d probably shared that belief with Kapszukiewicz. Which Jason did not appreciate, but, given recent events, could hardly argue with.

Sam must have been reviewing his own actions and reactions because he added, “This is why speaking to an ethics official ahead of time would be helpful.”

“Yes. Agreed.”

Sam had viewed Jason’s actions as negatively as Jason had. It was never going to be funny, but it was a lesson to both of them. About a number of things.

Jason flicked him a rueful look. “So when you phoned Kapszukiewicz on Friday, that was before you left Montana?”

Sam’s pale brows rose in polite inquiry.

“Before you arrived in LA. Before we talked.” The hours during which Jason had believed their relationship truly was over. And, he would have bet, the hours during which Sam had also believed their relationship was at an end. Because he had ended it.

Or at least that had been Jason’s takeaway because then, like now, Sam had said nothing.

And continued to say nothing.

“Thank you.” Jason steadied his voice. “I mean it. You didn’t have to do that. Especially given your feelings about…everything.”

“I shared my thoughts with Kapszukiewicz. But I can’t tell another unit chief how to handle their team. I wouldn’t if I could.”

“No, I know.” And yet, per Kapszukiewicz, Sam had, in his own way, interceded on Jason’s behalf. That alone had shaken Jason. It was like discovering the sun could occasionally, when it chose, rise in the west and set in the east.

They had traveled a very long distance since that final confrontation in Sam’s temporary office at the Bozwin RA. A distance that had nothing to do with the thousand-plus miles between Montana and California. In fact, most of the journey had happened over the weekend in Jason’s little bungalow on Carroll Canal.

“Personal feelings aside, you’re a good agent, West. You’re ACT’s superstar. I think firing you would be a huge miscalculation. For a lot of reasons.” Jason opened his mouth, but Sam added, “And as far as my personal feelings?” He gave a funny smile. “I think you know there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you.”

Jason really didn’t want to get caught crying in his beer—especially when the beer had yet to arrive. He said briskly, “George phoned too, also asking for clemency.” He was trying to joke, but mild-mannered Supervisory Special Agent George Potts’s attempt to save him meant nearly as much as Sam’s.

The bartender arrived then with their drinks. It seemed Sam was running a tab. So was he not heading out to Quantico after all?

Jason picked up his frosted beer mug. Sam lightly knocked the heel of his glass to Jason’s. “Welcome back, West.”

Jason dipped his head in acknowledgment—the weirdest things choked him up lately. “Geronimo.” He took a long swallow of beer.

“Anyway, like I said, you’re a valuable asset.” Sam sipped his drink. Yet when his gaze met Jason’s, there was a look that got to Jason in some hard to explain way. Not sympathy exactly, but a sort of utter and complete understanding that gave Jason a peculiar feeling in his belly, left him feeling warm and weak.

Maybe—well, no maybe about it—it wasn’t fair or even accurate, but he’d always believed there were conditions attached to Sam’s…affection for him. Now they seemed to have crossed into a no man’s land of awareness and acceptance. He had no idea what their future held, but he felt confident of Sam’s feelings in a way he never really, fully had before.

Jason sipped his beer, watching a plane flying into Regan International. In a few hours he’d be flying out himself. But he was not going to look beyond this minute, this stolen time with Sam. God only knew when they’d be in the same town at the same time again.

Suddenly, he remembered something from the interview in Kapszukiewicz’s office and made a sound of amusement.

“What?” Sam asked.

“I almost forgot. Kapszukiewicz said J.J. phoned and told her he objected to having three different partners during his field training period and would prefer that I remain at the LA Field Office.”

Sam choked on his whiskey sour. “Jesus Christ.” He hastily wiped his chin.

Jason laughed.

They had a couple more drinks, talked about nothing much. Jason’s thoughts kept pinging back to the meeting with Kapszukiewicz, reliving every excruciating minute. He was torn between abject relief he still had a career, and mortification that he had come so close to losing it.

By the time five o’clock rolled around, the bar was filling up, the noise level rising accordingly.

Sam raised his brows. “Did you want to order dinner or…?”

Jason’s heart lifted. That was one question answered. Sam was staying over. He smiled. “Or. Definitely or.”

Sam’s mouth quirked. He pushed his chair back.