Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“Thank you, sir.”

“For?”

I cleared my throat. “Understanding that not everything has to be exactly by the book.”

“We get as close as we can.”

“Yessir.” I exhaled, feeling how down deep in my bones tired I was. “My plan is to have the new kid over for turkey as well.”

“Again I have no issue with that. You and Doyle are very professional in the bulk of your dealings with witnesses. The young ones without families, the orphans.… I didn’t have any of those. All the kids I dealt with had parents.”

“Well, Doyle and I get all the fun stuff, sir.”

“Oh yes, you do,” he said snidely, stepping up to the window and smiling wide, which I never saw him do normally. “Good afternoon, Iris.”

The young woman there absolutely melted, but not in the way a woman would over a handsome man. It was more like he was just too dear for words. “Uncle Sammy, your regular?”

“And one for him too.”

Her eyes flicked to me and now there was interest, which was nice since lately I’d been feeling like yesterday’s leftovers. “Hi there.”

I smiled up at her. “Hello back.”

“I’m Iris,” she said, offering me her hand. “Do you work for my uncle?”

“Miro, and yeah, I do.” Her hand was delicate and warm in mine.

“You must be special. He never brings anyone around.”

“Enough of that,” Kage grumbled.

The warm chuckle told me he didn’t scare her one bit. “And are you a fan of Vietnamese coffee too?”

“Sure,” I said, because I did not want to disappoint the cherub with her dark-auburn hair, great big long-lashed emerald eyes, and alabaster skin. She should have been modeling somewhere, not working on a food truck.

Kage gave her a twenty, which she shook her head over, and then his brow furrowed and she took the money. We then walked over to one of the stone benches and sat down.

It was funny, us being there together, because there I was with my boss and I couldn’t remember the last time Ian and I had just taken a walk out to the food truck in the middle of the day. We were either working or he was gone. When was the last time we just hung out? Went to a quiet dinner? I also couldn’t recall the last time we just sat together and watched football or soccer or went to see a baseball game. All we did was work and argue when we weren’t. How had that happened? How did everything become so hard?

“Jones?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I just wanted to tell you that Cochran and his partner are both being loaned out to a DEA task force in Plano for the next month.”

“Where is that?”

He squinted at me. “That’s in Texas, Jones.” The way he said it, like I was just too stupid for words, was not nice. “So do you want to be reassigned to another city due to Hartley’s escape?”

I shook my head. “No thank you, sir. It didn’t work that well the last time.” And I didn’t want to go anywhere without Ian being there to discuss it with. If he got home and I was gone…. “If he wants me, he’ll find me, but maybe this time he’ll actually stay away. He might be ready to get back to something other than revenge.”

“Is that what you think it is?”

“Sir?”

“You do realize that Hartley has never come after you for revenge.”

“I’m sorry?”

“He admires you, Jones. You caught him, and then you saved his life. He worships you.”

“It’s not that I doubt you, sir, but he keeps trying to kill me.”

“And you keep eluding him. Again there’s a lot to admire there.”

“I don’t think so.”

“In his own sick, twisted way, he might even love you.”

“Where are you getting this?”

He shrugged. “If he wanted you dead, couldn’t he simply have shot you?”

That was true.

“Instead he took a rib from you. He needed something from inside your body, that’s how much he needed to have a part of you.”

“He’s a psychopath. Nothing he does makes any sense.”

“Yes, it does,” he argued, straightening a bit as Iris walked over with filled paper plates and napkins and delivered one to Kage and the other to me.

“I’ll grab the coffee,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “And Dad says that the lure he wants is on sale at Park, and you better get over there soon.”

He cleared his throat. “You tell your father that it’ll be a cold day in hell before I replace that lure.”

She giggled. “Seriously. What was it, like, six bucks?”

“So not the point, little girl.”

Shaking her head, she left to get us the coffee.

“That girl is your niece, sir?”

“She’s my buddy Pat’s oldest. She just graduated from college and already she owns four of these things. She started it with her boyfriend when they were freshmen, and they added a truck a year.”