Outside in the hall, Eli was there waiting to lead Ian and me to the large meeting room. Kage was there, along with Stigler and Ryerson and Adair and many others, all of them taking up one side of the enormous table and fanned out around the room.
Once I was sitting between Ian and Eli, I looked up at Ryerson, who was leaning forward, hands clasped in front of him on the table.
“How is your son, sir?”
“Scared but fine, thanks to you, Marshal.”
I nodded. “I hope that you checked on Kelson before your men got close.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He did maybe have a bomb in him after all.”
All eyes lifted to Kage, who was standing somewhere behind me. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel him there.
“I told you when I got there to call the bomb squad first, as you will recall.”
Ryerson turned first to Stigler and then swiveled in his seat to Adair. “Did someone do as the chief deputy suggested and call them?”
Stigler leaped from her chair and bolted from the room.
“You people run the biggest clusterfuck I’ve ever seen,” Kage informed Ryerson. “From how many times Hartley got away to this latest debacle. I swear to God, if I ran my office like this, there would be bodies stacked up to the sky.”
“Chief Deputy, we—”
“Oh dear God,” Stigler yelled as she rushed back into the room. “No one was hurt, but because the bomb squad wasn’t on-site to check and defuse the device inside Kelson, his body exploded and destroyed two of the SUVs parked on-site.”
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Eli snorted, and I did a slow pan to him.
“What?” he said, gesturing with both hands at Ryerson. “Are you kidding?”
“And Hartley’s body?” Ryerson asked.
“Destroyed,” she whispered.
And suddenly everyone was talking at once.
I couldn’t even deal. It was too ridiculous. Who didn’t listen to the goddamn chief deputy of Northern Illinois? What kind of idiots just blew him off? How did they not call the bomb squad first fucking thing? It was… insane.
Leaning my head in my hand, the tears came again even as I started laughing.
“Marshal?” Ryerson asked.
How much would Hartley have loved this? His legend was growing already.
“He’s done,” Ian informed him.
“But we have questions.”
“Put it in a memo,” Kage said flatly, patting my shoulder at the same time. “You get up, go home. I don’t want to see you until Monday.”
“Yessir,” I said, getting to my feet.
“You too, Doyle. You’re relieved.”
“Thank you, sir.”
We were out in the hall, where I could breathe, when Eli joined us. Even through walls that were supposed to be pretty damn well-insulated, I could hear Kage yelling.
“He’s going to eat them,” I told Ian.
“I certainly fuckin’ hope so.”
As we walked by the break room on the way out of the office, Eli ducked in and grabbed a couple of kiwis from the enormous basket Mrs. Guzman still sent monthly for Ian and me.
“I sent her an email again,” I told Ian as Eli caught back up with us. “But I don’t think she’s ever gonna stop sending us fruit.”
“No,” he agreed, slipping his hand into mine, “I don’t think so either, but that’s okay, right? She can send the fruit if she wants to.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“We think we were just doing our jobs, but that’s not what she thinks. She’s allowed to feel how she wants. We all are.”
And I got, then, that when I thought before Ian wouldn’t understand how I felt, I was wrong about him. He could read me like a book.
In the elevator I leaned into him, kissing the side of his neck, inhaling citrus and leather, gun oil, a trace of cedarwood, and just Ian. He smelled like home, and that fast my eyes were swimming again.
“I really need to take a shower,” I said gruffly, my voice breaking as I rubbed my eyes hard, trying to grind the tears away.
“Don’t do that,” he cautioned, turning so I could put my cheek down on his shoulder, wiping my whole face on his wool peacoat. “Just hold on, we’ll be home soon.”
But I was about to dissolve all over again. Everything felt unsteady, like there was nothing underneath me and I wasn’t tethered to anything. I could float away so easily.
“Can you drive us?” I heard Ian ask Eli.
“You bet.”
It was a fog I was walking through, and only Ian’s hands on me, guiding me, steering me forward, kept me moving.
He got on the phone with someone, but I couldn’t tell who, and honestly, I hardly cared. He was there with me, and that was all that mattered.
There was snow falling outside my window as I sat in the back seat, my face against the cold glass, wondering what would happen to all of Hartley’s shoes. He had so many.
And his suits.
And his art collection, and everything else. If a life came down to what was accumulated, where was it all?