Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“Fuck that,” I groused, spitting out a mouthful of blood. “Nothing’s broken. Just take me home.”

“We’ll call Kage on the way.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

Chapter 3

KOHN EXPLAINED to our boss what had happened as I lay on my couch at home with an ice pack on my face. I got to hear it all and add in a few details of my own since he had Kage on speaker. The part about Cochran accusing him of being dirty he didn’t react to at all, but me getting hit while his partner held me—that he took issue with.

“I’ll have them both brought up on charges.”

I was not innocent in the whole exchange. “I shoved him.”

“You defended yourself,” Kohn argued. “I saw the whole thing, so did Jer. We just missed his fuckin’ partner going out the back.”

“Yeah, it would’ve been a fair fight,” I explained, trying to sit up, but Kowalski snapped his fingers, shook his head, and went back to flipping channels on my TV. He had the volume down for the time being, but once the call was done, ESPN would be loud in my Greystone. Not that either of them would stay once my friend Aruna got there with her one-year-old and Ian’s dog—technically my dog now too—Chickie Baby.

“Jones?”

“Yessir,” I answered.

“You realize,” he growled in that way he had where there was no confusion—even on the phone—that he was a great big scary man, “that you don’t have to defend my honor, right?”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” I said, taking a breath and thinking of all the things my boss had personally done for me that no one else ever had. “No one is allowed to say anything derogatory about you in my presence.”

It was quiet in my living room then.

“That’s true,” Kohn concurred, his voice sounding loud in the silence.

“Agreed,” Kowalski chimed in.

After a moment Kage exhaled sharply. “They’ll be brought up on charges, Jones. Your old partner isn’t allowed to kick the shit out of you just because he’s frustrated over missing evidence.”

“Kicking the shit out of me would imply it was one on one,” I pointed out defensively, certain that I could have defended myself if it had been just him. “That was not the case.”

“I’ll be sure to put that in my report.”

“Just me and Cochran, I would’ve killed him,” I added, wanting that on the record.

“Duly noted,” he said, and I recognized the patronizing tone. “And by the way, do they actually have any evidence that the gun they’re looking for is even with us?”

“I dunno.”

“Do they have a signature of whoever it was that signed the gun into our property room?”

“Cochran didn’t say.”

“Well,” Kage sighed, “according to what I’m seeing here in the log, the only firearms that were signed into evidence within the last month are all Glocks from the Chicago PD that ballistics are being redone on for their open officer complaints.”

“So the gun he’s looking for isn’t even with us.”

“Not that I can tell.”

“Well, that goes along with his story. He said that the gun is there, but we’re saying it’s not.”

“He needs to realize that we’re saying it’s not, because it’s not.”

“Of course.”

“I almost wish we could let him and his partner into our property room so they could see that the gun’s not there,” Kohn snapped. “Almost.”

“Never happen,” Kage said flatly. “So I need an official statement from start to finish of the incident, Jones. Don’t leave anything out, and I want it e-mailed within a couple of hours, tops.”

“Yessir.”

“Be ready to give your report to the department liaison, Chicago PD IAD, and OPR.”

Office of Professional Responsibility. I so loved talking to those guys. They would go over everything with a fine-tooth comb. “Or we could just not report it at all.”

“I’m sorry, Jones. They’re not allowed to think that hitting you is okay.”

“Doesn’t Chicago PD have enough problems without me adding to the mix?”

“Two hours, Jones, start typing.”

Fuck. “Yessir.”

“Kohn, Kowalski, you too, whatever you saw.”

“I’m on it,” Kohn assured him.

“Working on it now, sir,” Kowalski echoed.

“Good,” he said, and I thought he was going to hang up, so I was surprised when he didn’t.

“Sir?”

“Are you sleeping, Jones?”

Shit. “I will now that I’m home, sir.”

“See that you do,” he commanded and then hung up.

How did he get away with ordering me around in my personal life? “This is not how I saw my homecoming going,” I griped.

“What homecoming?” Kohn asked as he got up to go to my kitchen to get me more ice. “Doyle’s not even here?”

But his question was answered a moment later by a knock on the door, a jingle of a key in the lock, and one of my oldest friends, Aruna Duffy, coming through the door with her one-year-old daughter, Sajani, my dog, and her husband.

“Ohmygod, Miro, who hit you?” she shrieked right before 150 pounds of werewolf came barreling across the room and landed on me.