But Ty didn’t even seem to hesitate as he led Zane to his room. Odd.
Maybe Ty just wanted him in the room to throttle him quietly. Or he wanted to get his things and then go back to his own room. Still, Zane’s shoulders relaxed a little, and he let the death grip on his thoughts and actions ease just a bit as he opened up the room’s door. Ty’d had the chance to shoot him. More than once. He hadn’t, but Zane still didn’t trust the crazy bastard.
“I think, tomorrow, we need to start with a fresh canvass,” Ty was saying as he trudged to his bed and held his jacket up to examine it critically before tossing it down in disgust. He began unstrapping all his weaponry as he spoke, looking down at the bed and trying desperately to sink back into the case instead of the pain of old memories and new bruises. “So far, he’s made only one mistake, and that was going after Sanchez and his partner. Why would he kill them if they had so little on him? Why would he tip his ace and let us know he was aware of the Bureau’s movements?”
Zane watched Ty as he talked. Apparently he planned on staying.
Shaking his head, Zane wondered what the hell the whole point of the damn fight had been, and how the hell Grady was already getting his brain in gear.
The short fight had certainly shown him that Ty was more than a handful and more than capable of taking care of himself. It had also shown him that he himself could still scrap after some years of soft work.
Ty was anything but soft.
Sighing, Zane wiped one hand over his face, dropping a slightly bloody hand; he obviously had something other than work on his brain, and he consciously pushed it away. It was not the time to be unfocused.
He shook himself and let his jacket slide off his shoulders. His back screamed all the way down, and Zane hissed as the weight caught on his sore wrist. “If I were undercover, I’d kill them if they found out who I was.
Depending,” he murmured.
“Right. If they found out who you were,” Ty responded as he stripped off his sodden shirt and tossed it at the corner. “But they obviously weren’t close to finding that, or they would have let someone in on it. Sanchez wasn’t the type to play without a net.”
“Unless they hadn’t made the connection yet,” Zane answered quietly, dropping his sheaths on the table and sitting down to pull off his boots. Damn, this was awkward. And everything hurt, no matter how gingerly he moved. He glanced up at Ty, trying to gauge if the other man had walked away with any damage.
“So, what connection did they make but not make that caused him to move on them?” Ty asked wryly as he placed his hands on his hips and watched Zane idly. It bothered him that even now he couldn’t quite find it in himself to despise the man or not be slightly attracted to him. It wasn’t fair.
Not even the recently earned aches and pains could make those things happen.
Bent over to unlace the Timberlands, Zane’s brow furrowed. “A lead on who had the missing files?” he put out there, since that was something he wanted to pursue. “Maybe someone was somewhere they didn’t need to be.
Or shouldn’t have been. Or couldn’t have known about. And the agents thought it was odd. He got scared.”
“Do we know how long the files were missing, though?” Ty countered doubtfully. “Maybe they were removed to lure us to the records room and the spontaneous exploding computer.”
Sitting up and sprawling back with his legs spread out, Zane frowned as he chewed on that idea, shrugging off the discomfort of the situation and the throbbing pain of nearly his entire body. “That means some sort of detonation, then. Something to make it go on purpose. So he either had to be there, or he was watching.”
“Who else was there? Did you see anyone else in the room?” Ty asked with a frown as he sat opposite Zane.
“Just Henninger,” Zane answered, rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “It was lunch time. No clerks.”
“And he was hurt almost as bad as you,” Ty said dejectedly.
Grimacing, Zane shrugged again and winced as he moved his shoulders. He looked up at the photos stuck all over the walls. “It strikes me as unusual just how clean it all is.”
“How do you mean?” Ty asked distractedly as he turned and looked up at the pictures. His immersion in the case was working, the lingering tension and the aftereffects of the fight cast aside for the moment.
“No scrapings. No DNA. No fibers. No fingerprints. No trace of foreign substances. No pattern of injuries. No rhyme or reason. No way to track him. Not at any of the scenes at all. Everything has come back totally clean of anything useful. He knows what we look for,” Zane murmured as he became very aware of Ty’s proximity.
“Yeah. But that’s not hard in this day and age,” Ty grumbled as he reached up to rub at his side. He didn’t know if it was the kick he had caught or the gun pressing into him when he hit the wall and the ground, but his 132
fucking ribs hurt all the same. “He’s an organized perp. They tend to be cleaner and smarter than disorganized ones. He may even stage the killing field before he takes the victim. Ten years ago the sterility might point to a cop or forensics expert,” he sighed. “Now, it could just point to someone who watches too much CSI or bought a Forensics for Dummies book.”
Zane sighed, dropping his jaw to work it a little. Ty had an incredible left jab. “God. Sometimes I hate modern technology.”
“Yeah, well,” Ty offered with a small, slightly vacant smile. He cleared his throat and looked down at his scraped, slowly bruising knuckles, pursing his lips as he flexed his fingers. He felt the sudden urge to apologize to Zane for sucker-punching him, but he just couldn’t find it in himself to do it.
“There’s got to be something.” Zane carefully twisted in the chair and reached back behind him to the far edge of the table. It meant he had to stretch to put his hand on the bag of notes he wanted, and he hitched and flinched again along the way as his back complained. He frowned as he turned around and looked at his notes.
Ty found himself watching the movement thoughtfully. He sighed heavily when he suddenly realized what he was thinking—again—and he shook his head and looked away with a little snarl at himself. He would have thought the several instances of fighting and fucking recently would have soothed that particular urge.
He glanced back at Zane and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry I hit you,”
he offered grudgingly.
Zane looked up, surprised to hear it, and he nodded slowly, carefully considering what to say. “I’m thankful you didn’t just snap my neck,” he finally said, looking down at the bag in his hands.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Ty responded as he watched Zane, enjoying his discomfort with a small smirk. “Got a bum shoulder; it would hurt like a bitch.”
Zane made a face and looked back up at him. “Gee, thanks. Feeling the love. Really.” Ty just raised an eyebrow at the response, and Zane shook his head. “You could have killed me, Grady. Probably with one hand. I know that. Just leave me my delusions of lasting a handful of minutes in a real fight with you, would you?”
“If you say so, Hoss,” Ty responded, leaning back in his chair and propping his booted feet up on the bed.
Zane glanced up at the former Marine, a little furrow between his eyes. Was Ty saying Zane had been a decent match? No way.
Ty looked him up and down slowly and cocked his head. “You got the size advantage.”
Sighing, Zane leaned over, elbows on his knees. “Not that much.
You’re close to the same size. I’m just bulkier, is all. There have been times it’s been more a hindrance than a help.”
Ty snorted and shook his head. “Whatever, man,” he muttered.
Zane narrowed his eyes. “What? You’d rather be a beast like me?” he asked, disbelief clear. While he knew there were disadvantages to his size and bulk, after years of training, he wouldn’t give it up. He’d gone through hell in the academy to develop it, and despite the desk jobs of years past he’d kept himself up with weights and a workout regimen.
“No,” Ty laughed softly. “But I’ve been thrown across rooms by brutes like you,” he said as he unconsciously rubbed his side again and his brow furrowed. “Hurts,” he added, as if he needed to clarify that being tossed over someone’s shoulder in a dive in New Orleans and splatting against a dartboard like a bug hurt.
“Yeah,” Zane muttered, rubbing at his jaw while he carefully rotated his wrist, thinking about what Ty did to him in such a short time with very little effort. The concept that his partner hadn’t even been trying to hurt him was both impressive and frightening.
Ty noticed the movement and pursed his lips. “Might want to put ice on that,” he suggested with a gesture to Zane’s wrist. “It’ll hurt worse ’fore it gets better.”
Zane looked down at his wrist where Ty had squeezed that pressure point. There was no mark, other than perhaps a reddening of the area where Zane rubbed. But it hurt like hell. He knew he’d left bruises on Ty, although the man showed no signs of it bothering him. “Yeah,” he said, and he walked over to the low dresser where the ice bucket was buried, digging it out from under a few stacks of folders.
Ty smirked as he watched him. “If you lose feeling in it again, don’t worry too much. I only know one guy who ever lost a limb from it.”
Zane flipped him off before picking up the key card and heading to the door.
“Hey!” Ty called after him in slight alarm, moving his feet and letting the legs of his chair clunk down loudly.
Zane turned back, his hand on the door latch. “What?”
Ty frowned and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Watch yourself,” he cautioned quietly. Zane looked at him for a long moment, then nodded once and left the room, pulling the door firmly shut behind him. Ty cursed disgustedly and slumped back into his chair, covering his eyes with a hand as he kicked his feet back up onto the bed and muttered to himself. He would not let that priss get to him. He wouldn’t.
Rubbing at his eyes as he walked down the hall to the ice machine, Zane thought about the roller-coaster of the last hour. More days like this, and he wouldn’t need the drink or the drugs to drive him over the edge. Laughing wryly, he stuck the bucket into the machine. When he tripped the switch, it made a loud, grinding noise that tried to drown out his thoughts, and he looked over his shoulder instinctively as if someone might try to sneak up on him from behind while he couldn’t hear them. But the only other thing in the little alcove was the ice machine, and it couldn’t drown out what stuck with him the most; what he wanted to forget was the feel of Ty’s body under his, if even just for a few seconds. He squeezed his eyes shut and told himself again to forget it. That was one territory that would have to remain unexplored.
Left alone in the room that wasn’t actually his, Ty stood up quickly and decided to take the opportunity to change. He didn’t think it was a good idea to stay in this room tonight, for several reasons, but he would be damned if he suggested they split up. He was getting more and more nervous about the man they were after, and neither of them needed to be alone. He thought about his new partner and frowned as he moved. Zane had lasted longer in a semi-fair almost-fight than Ty would have given him credit for. He had upended Ty not once, but twice. And that was damned hard to do, even when Ty was hurt and laughing uncontrollably.
As Ty slid his damp jeans down, he realized that for the first time since meeting his partner, he was genuinely curious about him. He was also beginning to grudgingly respect the man’s abilities—and the sheer nerve it took to stand up to a Marine in a dark alley. He cursed quietly to himself and tossed his jeans and briefs into the corner with the rest of his dirty clothing as the electronic lock clicked.
Zane walked in to see the absolute last thing that would help him forget what was on his mind: a lean, wiry, nude Ty Grady, muscles shifting under tanned and scarred skin as he shifted to grab his clean clothes off the bed. Zane blinked a couple times as the door shut behind him and changed direction to retreat into the bathroom, where he grabbed a hand towel for wrapping some ice. If he was breathing a little harder, who would know other than him?
Ty pulled up a fresh pair of briefs and reached for the thin white T-shirt he scrounged out of his bag. “You okay?” he called out evenly.
Zane swallowed. “Yeah,” he answered, voice amazingly steady as he looked at himself in the mirror. “No problem. Besides these goddamn bruises you gave me. And my hand fucking hurts.” He tried to make himself focus on the ice. He pulled out the plastic bag, dumped half back into the bucket, and tied up the bag before covering his whole hand with the towel.
“Whine about it some, it’ll make it go away,” Ty suggested.
“Bite me, asshole,” Zane replied. But there was no heat in his voice.
He had worked any anger out in that alley, for the moment. He took a deep breath and walked out, free hand holding the ice, and he stopped to lean one shoulder against the wall.
Ty sat on the end of the bed, pulling on a new pair of socks, looking up at Zane expectantly. “Did you bring me any?” he asked finally as he held out his bruised and bloodied left hand. When he moved, the words on his T-shirt were more visible. It was a plain white shirt with brown print on it. It read, “You Have the Right to Remain Silent ... SO SHUT UP.”
Zane glanced at Ty’s hand and shifted his own jaw back and forth. He held out the ice he had prepared. He could make himself another if Ty accepted it.
Ty snorted and smiled slightly. “Fuck it,” he sighed as he waved Zane off.
