Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

They stood there, staring for a long moment, and then he let her go and she backpedaled at the same exact time. Even from where I was, I could see the awkwardness. She looked at her feet, checking on the black patent T-strap pumps and then up at him, curling her hair around both ears, smiling like she wasn’t sure if she should. He swallowed, took a breath, and shoved his hands down in the pockets of his coat. Together they made a nice picture, him in his masculine military alpha resplendence and her in the ivory turndown collar coat that made her seem delicate and alluringly feminine. They should have been on posters for why opposites attract, as good as they looked together.

“That would be funny,” Odell said, like whatever it was wouldn’t be at all.

I turned and looked at Odell and Bates, who had joined me, one on either side.

“What’s that?” I asked, turning to Bates because I liked him better.

“Doyle with Danita Stanley,” Odell answered, moving so he was on Bates’s left, facing me now. “He did tell you why he transferred out of our unit, right?”

I shook my head.

Bates made a noise.

“What?” Odell snapped at him.

He shrugged. “Maybe Doyle doesn’t want his new partner knowing all that shit. I mean, no offense, Jones, but, I mean, are you guys even close when you’re not working?”

“We’re close,” I said, holding my breath.

“See,” Odell said with a cackle, thumping Bates in the chest. “They’re tight, so Doyle wouldn’t mind us telling Jones here that the reason he left our unit was because he fucked the wife of one of the guys who was supposed to be his brother.”

I stayed quiet because, from the menacing look on his face, I could tell there was more.

“And so in return, we accidentally left him behind after a raid went south.”

Not at all what I was expecting.

“Oh shit, Jones, look at your face!” Odell crowed. “Were you under the impression that Ian Doyle wasn’t a total fuckin’ piece of shit?”

Bates winced and put his hand on my shoulder. “We only meant to leave him for a couple hours, just to scare him, yanno?”

The urge to smash my fist into his face and then turn my rage on Odell was almost overwhelming. It was like I was drowning. I could barely breathe around my desire to hurt him, to hear him cry out.

“But things changed so fast, and before we knew it, his position was compromised and he was taken into custody,” Bates continued.

It sounded so benign when he said it, not at all like the life-and-death struggle I was sure it had been.

“Thing was, even before we had to go back, Laird begged us to. He was the only one who refused to get on the bird when we left him. We had to pick him up and carry him.”

And that was why Ian and I were here paying our respects to Edward Laird.

Bates rambled on. “It was stupid, but—you get it, Jones. I mean, it’s the same thing with cops or marshals like you, it don’t matter. The guys you serve with—they’re your brothers. You don’t fuck your brother’s wife, no matter what.”

No matter what.

“And it’s not like we planned for things to get as bad as they did. Part of this was just dumb luck,” Bates said, his voice rising. I guessed me not responding was starting to freak him out just a little. “We never planned for him to be there that long.”

Everything was too tight: my clothes, my coat, but mostly my skin. I needed to peel everything away, flesh, muscle, bone, and unleash the furious hatred I could feel burning me up from the inside out, starting with the hole it was eating through the wall of my stomach.

“We got him back,” Bates choked out, sounding more like he was pleading with me than telling me. “Obviously.”

“How—” My voice splintered, hoarse with pain. “—long did you leave him?”

“We didn’t leave him. He got stuck. We left his ass for a couple hours, tops. He’s the one who got captured,” Odell answered snidely, the dare all over his smug, angry face. He hated Ian; I could almost smell it on him, like tainted meat rotting from the inside out. “And they had him for three days in all.”

My eyes met his and held.

“But don’t you go spreadin’ that around now, Jones, ’cause no one knows about that but us. That didn’t go in no report.”

Plus it was a long time ago.

Slowly, calmly, I drew cold, wet air into my lungs and then exhaled. “You guys should go on ahead to the house. Ian and I will catch up to you.”

“Aww, now, don’t be like that,” Odell cajoled, his words thick with rancid honey he was trying to spread around. “Don’t get mad on his behalf. That’s water under the bridge, that is.”