Wages of Sin part 5

Danae

Disclaimers/ Warnings: see part 1

Senator Adams sat back in his desk and clasped one hand over his eyes for a moment. Pete shifted in his chair. “So, you see, Senator, we just got swept along in all this. Blair Sandburg lost his career and his reputation trying to help expose this—this…” Pete gestured to the open files on the Senator’s desk.

“Travesty? Mockery of democratic principles? Attack on humanity itself?” The Senator’s voice was gaining in volume. “My god! I knew that there was something going on over there but this! This is just a nightmare! It’s something out of Nazi Germany! Or Stephen King, maybe.” Adams closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he whispered, “MacNamara better be glad he’s dead. Bastard.”

“Senator, there’s nothing we can do at this point to give Jim or Blair back that time they spent as prisoners but we can at the very least make sure that Blair gets his good name back. We can let people know that he’s not a fraud. Please, sir.” Pete glanced at Jim who sat like a stone statue in the chair next to him. Jim did not turn to meet his eyes.

“Of course, of course! I don’t think we need to let all of this out, you understand? Can you imagine that backlash? But, we can and we will make it known that the boy was in the service of his country and that he did what he had to do to rid the country of a threat. I’ll get my aide on that right away. I must ask you though. You say he’s damaged, mentally?”

“Yes, sir. We are hoping that it’s only temporary though. He’s getting the best of care.”

“Perhaps we can get some sort of compensation for him. I’ll check on that as well.”

Jim started to say something, but Pete grabbed his arm and answered first. “That would be greatly appreciated, sir. Sir, you do realize that in order for this to do any good, it has to be pretty public. You know, a press conference or some sort would be quite helpful. I got in touch with Dr. Carter Meeks at Rainier. He was the only staff member that had any information on what we were doing. Even he didn’t get the whole story but he knew enough to know that Blair was working on something important. He told me that he could call a press conference there at Rainier. If you or your aide could be there and say a few words, it would go a long way in helping Blair get his life back. I plan to be there and Chad Ryan will be there, but sir, if it came from your office, no one would question it.”

Adams was nodding and Pete gave a silent sigh of relief. “I think that can be arranged. I can’t go, but I can send Ken. I have to take this to the committee. You and Ryan have done our jobs for us with the investigation but there are some things that we will need to discuss and actions we need to take. For example, I think that MacNamara’s estate should pay for Mr. Sandburg’s care, don’t you?”

Pete could not help the grin that spread over his face. “Yes, sir. I think that’s an excellent idea.”

Adams nodded. “And I suppose that this really isn’t completely over until Rose is in custody. I never liked that man. I met him a few times. He always made my skin crawl. At any rate, you arrange that press conference and I’ll discuss with Ken just what we can disclose and get him out there to Washington. He’ll be there tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Is that sufficient?”

“Yes, sir. More than sufficient. Thank you.”

“Peter, in the past, you have irritated me; you’ve done things that are quite questionable legally, but son, this time, you did good.” Adams stood and offered his hand across his desk to Pete. Pete rose from the chair and accepted it.

“Thank you, sir.” If the Senator thought the smile on Pete’s face was caused by his praise that was just fine and dandy.

“Mr. Ellison,” the man continued, “this country owes you a debt of gratitude as well.” He offered his hand to Jim. Jim rose as well and shook the man’s hand.

“Thank you, Senator.”

“Well, Senator, thanks for your time and your help with this. Jim is anxious to get back home.”

“I can certainly understand that. Good luck to you, Mr. Ellison. On behalf of the nation, my sincerest apologies.”

Jim nodded and moved quickly out of the office.

“He’s a little upset still. I’m sure you can understand. Blair is his best friend.”

The Senator shook his head and waved off the explanation. “You don’t need to explain. In his shoes, I’d be a little pre-occupied too. Get the man home and leave the rest to me.”

“Senator, your wish is my command. I feel better already, knowing you’re on the case.”

“Peter, save the bullshit for the people who don’t know you, son. I’m not buying it.”

Pete grinned. “Yes, sir. Been a pleasure to see you again, sir.”

“Right. Take care of yourself, Pete.”

“You too, sir.” Pete backed out of the office. Outside the door, Jim waited for him. Pete winked at him and headed for the elevator. Neither of them said a word as they waited. The elevator arrived and they boarded it, still silent. When they reached the first floor, Pete led the way out of the building and to his car. Only then, inside the confines of the car did Pete allow himself a small celebration. He pounded the steering wheel and whooped. Jim was glaring at him. “What’s your problem, man? It worked! You get your life back, Jim, with the gratitude of the nation.” Pete did a pretty good imitation of the Senator, if he did say so himself.

“We just lied through our teeth to a United States Senator. Forgive me if I have a little trouble understanding your need to rejoice.”

“Actually, I lied through my teeth. You just sat there like a lump. Good thing I didn’t need you. Oh, and just for the record, that’s not the first time I’ve lied to help a friend and it probably won’t be the last. The government lies all the damn time. So this time they get screwed, big deal. But, you know, since we are on the subject, I’d just like to take this opportunity to point out that I had to lie because you wouldn’t let me tell the truth. I gave you that choice, remember? But, oh no, can’t have anybody think that Jim Ellison isn’t 100% normal. Heaven forbid! Although, who the hell knows what normal is? God knows, I don’t. One look at my employees would tell you that. You know what I think?”

“No, but I suppose you’re going to tell me.”

“Damn right I am. I think that you’re scared half out of your mind of losing Blair Sandburg. That’s what I think. You need him to be dependent on you. You liked the fact that he had nowhere to go and had to take you up on your generous offer of a badge and gun. But guess what, Jim! That wasn’t his only option! You were not the only one he could turn to. I offered him a job and if you hadn’t made that ‘hail Mary’ save right there at the end, he’d be in my employ right now. How do you like them apples, as my grandma used to say? So, big fat fucking deal, I lied. You lie whenever it suits you, I’ve noticed. So you sit there and hide your insecurities behind that pathetic excuse of ‘you lied, Pete’ and I’ll do whatever I have to to give Blair his life and his options back. And quite frankly, if I have to lie to every damn agency and every damn politician in this fucking town, so be it!”

“You scare me, Pete.”

Pete could not help but laugh. “Hey, you know what, Jim? Sometimes, I scare me too. I get over it. So should you.”

“Just get me to the damned airport, please. I want to go home.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome.” Pete shook his head and started the car.

Jim sat silent in the passenger seat as Pete pulled out into traffic. His jaw was clenched so tight that it hurt, but he could not seem to release the tension there. Pete had hit so many raw nerves that Jim felt as though he would fly apart at the seams if he even moved the slightest bit. He was afraid of being labeled abnormal. He was afraid of losing Blair. He did want Blair to be dependent on him but at the same time, he resented being dependent on Blair. But he was not dependent on Blair anymore. The sentinel senses were gone. So why the abject terror at the thought that Blair might move on? Pain sliced through his chest and somehow he knew that it had nothing to do with anything physical. The prospect of life without Blair was too painful to contemplate.

He had made a fatal error, the very one that his father had always warned him about. He cared. What was more, he let someone care about him. It was then that he realized that he was dependent on Blair and not because of his senses. Blair Sandburg had become so much more than researcher and guide. He had become the closest thing Jim had to family. Sure, his father was alive; he had a brother, but blood relations do not always a family make. Caring made a family and Blair was the first person that had ever cared enough about him to stick around.

Shame swept over him and his face felt hot. Blair stayed, in spite of everything Jim had done to drive him away. He stayed, despite the fact that he did not want to be a cop. Pete was right. Jim did think that he had offered Blair his only chance for a future. Jim also arrogantly believed that Blair stayed only because he had to. It was easier to think that because then Jim could say that Blair did not really care that much. He just knew he had no other choice. Now, Jim knew better and it made everything he had done seem that much worse.

“I’m sorry,” he heard himself say. “And thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Jim,” Pete answered.

“I don’t want Blair working for you.”

“That’s not going to be up to you, now is it?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m glad that you do at least realize that. I will say though, that I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that. I think he’ll want to finish his doctorate. After that, I don’t know but I don’t think I’ll be his first choice.”

“Thank you for giving him the choice.”

“Whoa, that had to hurt to say.”

“More than you know.”

Pete laughed. “You are such a jerk, Jim. You better be glad that, despite your many faults, your friends like you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome. So you know, we leave in the morning for Cascade. I have to tie up a few things here before we go and Chad can’t get away tonight.”

Jim did not want to wait another night but he sighed and resigned himself to it. He nodded and turned to stare out the window again and watch D.C. go by.

The cougar was back again. He watched it approach the temple. Silently, it ascended the steps. It came to a stop before him and changed. The shaman smiled at him. He smiled back.

“It’s time to come home, Blair.” The voice startled him. He had seen the shaman’s lips move but the sound seemed to come from everywhere all at once.

He wondered what the man meant. He was home. Here was where he belonged. It was where he wanted to be.

The shaman shook his head. “This is not your home. You can’t stay here forever. It was a safe haven for you but now you’ve made it a prison.”

He did not like the man’s words. He covered his ears with his hands but the shaman simply removed them. “You have to listen. See the wolf. You keep him close but you won’t let him in. You’re rejecting who you are when you reject him. That’s holding you here. Come with me.” The shaman held out his hand. He wanted to take it but he was afraid. The wolf nudged him. “Let the wolf in and then come with me.”

No, letting the wolf in meant pain. He could not be what the wolf wanted him to be. He could not be what the shaman wanted him to be. That path led back to the one who betrayed him, left him here alone to be hunted and trapped. He shook his head.

“Please. I’ll protect you. I swear it. You have people who care about you, out there. We will all protect you.”

He looked back at the temple. He did not want to be alone there anymore. He took the shaman’s hand.

“That’s it. Come with me.” The shaman led the way down the temple steps. He paused at the final step. He looked down to the wolf at his side. The shaman nodded. He closed his eyes and waited. That was when he heard it; the roar of a great cat. His eyes snapped open and he backed up the steps, pulling his hand away from the shaman. The wolf whimpered and followed him. The roar sounded again and he saw a flash of black in the jungle. The black jaguar was back. He glared at the shaman. The man had tried to trick him.

“No, no, Blair. It’s okay.”

He turned away and raced back up the steps, resuming his lookout.

“Damn it!” Kit shouted as he was thrown out of the dream state by Blair Sandburg’s rejection.

“What is it?” Jesse rushed into the room.

“Ellison’s back in town.” Kit looked at the figure of Blair Sandburg on the bed in front of him, seemingly unaware of his real surroundings.

“How do you know?”

“Saw him. So did Blair, unfortunately, before I could get him to come with me.”

Kit’s cell phone rang then and he answered it. “Chase.”

“Kit, just touched down at the airport. How are things? Any change?”

“No.”

“I can’t believe you two took him out of the hospital. Well, wait, yes, I can. This is you and Jess I’m dealing with, right? I haven’t told Jim, you know. He’s not going to be happy.”

“Where is his majesty?”

“Calling Banks from the pay phone. I’ll let Banks deal with the initial explosion. I’ll have to hear enough after he gets off the phone. We have to go straight to the university.”

“University?”

“Yeah, worked some magic. You guys pay attention to the television for the next hour or so. If I wrote books, I’d have the Pulitzer sown up right about now. Anyway, we’ll be where you are right after this press conference. You might want to prepare for Hurricane Ellison.”

“Couldn’t you just keep him in D.C. for just a little longer?”

“Kit, don’t ask me silly questions.”

“I almost had him, Pete. Then he saw Ellison.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing. We’ll see you when you get here.” Kit hung up. “Pete says we need to be watching the TV for a while. Go turn it on and I’ll be right there.”

“Gotcha.” Jess left him alone with Blair.

“You think I tried to trick you. I didn’t.” He sighed. “You’re so pissed off. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Never been quite this pissed off before and you scared yourself. You’re afraid of the pain, afraid of the anger. Afraid of facing what you are because you think it means you have to accept the hurt. It doesn’t mean that at all. You were born a shaman, Blair. You chose to be a guide. You can walk away. Especially now. There is no sentinel. I know you can hear me. You hear what you want to hear. You know what you want to know. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to kick his ass if you want. It’s okay to be scared and it’s certainly okay to choose to walk away.” He got up and walked out of the room, turning out the light as he went.

“Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming. I’m Dr. Carter Meeks and we are here today to right a wrong. With me, are Mr. Kenneth Russell, aide to Senator Adams, Peter Devereaux, private investigator, Special Agent Chad Ryan of the FBI and Detective Jim Ellison of the Cascade Police Department. I’ll step aside now and let Mr. Russell explain to you the reason you are all here. Mr. Russell?”

“Thank you, Dr. Meeks. Ladies and Gentlemen, as Dr. Meeks has told you, I’m an aide to Senator Adams. Most of you know that the Senator is the Head of the Intelligence Oversight Committee. The Senator has been concerned about internal problems in the CIA. He has been in the process of investigating these problems for a while now. To aid him in this investigation, he enlisted the help of the FBI and Mr. Devereaux. Mr. Devereaux then enlisted the help of Detective Ellison and his civilian partner, Blair Sandburg, a consultant to the police department and doctoral student here at Rainier. Mr. Sandburg, Detective Ellison, and Mr. Devereaux then set up a sting operation in conjunction with the FBI to capture what they believed to be a mole. Mr. Sandburg was a main part of that sting operation as he was to write a false dissertation to bait the mole into making a move so that he could be captured. That dissertation, as most of you have guessed, claimed that Detective Ellison was a genetically enhanced human called a sentinel. Given the fact that Detective Ellison has, on occasion, shown an enhanced sense of hearing, and that Mr. Sandburg has studied other individuals with one or two enhanced senses, it was not difficult for him to put together enough evidence to make the dissertation credible.” Russell paused to take a breath.

“There was just one problem,” he continued. “The dissertation was inadvertently released to the press and in order to save the operation, he was forced to recant it publicly while, through certain channels, maintaining its validity. The operation is now over. The threat has been eliminated. Further details of the operation cannot be discussed at this time. However, we can now exonerate Mr. Sandburg of his supposed fraud. We can only hope that Mr. Sandburg’s advisors here at Rainier will reinstate him into the doctoral program where he can finish his real dissertation. I will take questions now, just be aware that there are some things that I cannot and will not discuss.”

The resulting cacophony was deafening even without sentinel senses. Finally, Russell pointed to a reporter and the others settled down to listen to the question. “Mr. Russell, where is Blair Sandburg now? Why isn’t he here?”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Sandburg was injured during the course of the investigation. He is unable to be here at this time. Yes?” He pointed to another reporter before the noise could start up again. Jim was grateful for that. He was getting a headache.

“Mr. Ellison, why did you participate in the investigation? Why were you chosen?”

Jim looked to Russell then spoke. “There were rumors that there were groups, foreign and domestic, who were interested in genetic engineering using people with enhanced senses as their starting point. The discovery that someone in a government agency was apparently obtaining data in such an area, where there was no legitimate basis for the interest, concerned Sandburg, because he had studied many people with one or a few enhanced senses and felt an obligation to provide them with whatever protection he could. Mr. Devereaux is a personal friend of ours and knew of Blair’s work. It fit with what the investigation needed and asked for our help to pull it off.” Jim said what Russell had told him to say and stepped back. There were more questions but he was not called on to answer any more of them. Instead, he focused his attention inward. He still had to figure out how to make all this up to Blair. Since he had ceased to pay attention, he almost missed it when someone asked a question of someone not behind the podium.

“Chancellor Edwards, what does this mean for Blair Sandburg? Now that the university knows that he was in the service of the country and that the paper you fired him for was not his dissertation, will he be reinstated or not? And will he get his job back?”

Jim turned to look at the woman who stood off to one side glowering at them all.

“Well, we will have to actually speak to Mr. Sandburg and meet privately with the gentlemen here but, um, of course we will seriously consider this new information.”

Jim wanted to tear into the woman but Pete grabbed his arm and shook his head at him. Pete grinned at him as a reporter did what Jim wanted to do.

“Ms. Edwards, are you saying that the university may NOT choose to reinstate Mr. Sandburg even after he risked his career and apparently his life for his country? Surely that won’t be the case.”

“Well, there are other considerations besides the dissertation. Mr. Sandburg lied to this university. He hid his involvement with this from…”

“Let me get this straight. You think that he should have told you about a secret government investigation because--?” Pete cocked his head at her in inquiry.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Chancellor, weren’t you involved in some small way in the release of the dissertation? As I recall, you called a press conference to announce Mr. Sandburg’s work, despite the fact that he had tried to suppress it and told you and everyone else that he did not want it released.” Jim saw the glitter in Pete’s eyes. The man was so very good at manipulation. The woman did not dare deny Blair his chance now.

“There was a misunderstanding. I’m sure that once everyone sits down and works through this mess, he’ll be allowed to continue his studies.” She gave the assembled audience a strained, fake smile and made a show of sitting down in an empty chair and straightening her dress.

“It’s always better to let someone else do the dirty work, Jim.” Pete winked at him.

Russell was thanking everyone for coming. The press conference was over. Jim was inordinately relieved. It was getting harder and harder to keep the ever-changing stories straight. Pete told it one way. Adams and Russell told it another. Everybody wanted credit; nobody wanted blame. Was that not just the way of the world? At least it was in Jim’s world lately. Now that this was over though, Jim had to prepare himself to face his own responsibility in the hell that had become his life. He had to once again face Blair and this time, he had to try to repair the damage. There was no more putting it off. He was not feeling relieved anymore. It suddenly occurred to him that what had gone before was the easy part. Now, the hard part began. Now, he had to regain the trust and friendship of Blair Sandburg. Something told him that it was not going to be easy. He wondered if it would even be possible.

The jaguar was coming closer. He watched it from the temple door. Part of him wanted to kill the animal before it could hurt him again. The jaguar had hurt him before. He could not let it near again. Another part of him felt drawn to the animal, however. He could vaguely remember a time when he and the jag hunted together. The conflicting feelings warred within him. The wolf was becoming restless. It stood and circled him before stopping in front of him and placing its nose against his chest. He pushed it gently away and covered the spot the animal had touched with his hands. It whimpered but relented. Its sad eyes stared at him. He understood. It would not leave him but his rejection had hurt. Guilt cut him. He knew how the wolf felt. He shifted his gaze to the jungle again, his eyes automatically searching out the intermittent flashes of black amongst the green. A voice came to his ears, a voice from his memory.

I have a guide, Sandburg. He angrily wiped the tears away. He had to be vigilant. He did not have time for tears. The jaguar was out there and it was not his friend. It wanted to hurt him. He would hurt it instead. He would kill it if he had to. He desperately hoped he would not have to do that. Still, he let his anger burn away the sadness that had almost consumed him. The cat roared and he answered it with a growl, a warning to stay away. He would not be hurt again.

Simon considered using the siren as he sped through the streets of Cascade. He needed to be there when Jim got to his house. He knew that his detective was very angry over the stunt that Chase and Riviera had pulled to get Blair out of the hospital. Despite the fact that Simon had explained why they did it and that he would have done the same thing, Jim was still furious. Simon had been tempted to tell him to shut up and get over it, but he did not. He knew why Jim was angry. Even if Jim did not know himself, Simon knew. The man was upset that it had been Chase and Riviera to Blair’s rescue this time instead of him. He was upset, too, that he had put Blair in the position of needing to be rescued from the hospital in the first place. Yet, Simon knew that he would take his anger with himself out on the two men that, in essence, took his place. It would not be a pleasant situation. Devereaux would take up for his men well enough, Simon realized, but at the same time, it would be his house that took the brunt of the fallout. Yes, he needed to be there. He buzzed by a blue haired old lady in a ’72 Buick moving all of 30 MPH and pushed his foot to the floor once again.

As he turned onto his street, he saw a rental car pulling into his drive. He zipped in behind it and got out. Jim and Peter Devereaux got out of the rental at the same time. They were already arguing.

“They did what they had to! Hell, Jim, they did what you would have had you been here! You’re just pissed that you weren’t here.” Devereaux was voicing Simon’s own opinions.

“Jim, he’s right.” Simon approached the man.

“Simon,” he greeted.

“Nice to have you back, Jim.” Simon extended his hand for a handshake then, when Jim accepted his hand, pulled the man into a brief hug. He slapped Jim on the back and released him.

“Thank you, Simon. Are they in there?”

“Yes.”

“Blair?”

“Of course.” Simon watched as Jim’s jaw clenched and he turned to stare at the house.

“How is he?”

“The same. No change.”

Jim nodded.

“Captain Banks, thanks for looking out for my guys.” Devereaux circled the car and offered his hand.

Simon took it and grinned. “You should be thanking me for not throwing their asses in jail. I may agree with the spirit of it but it was still fraud.”

Devereaux cleared his throat. “Well, that too. Of course, you know I could have found Naomi Sandburg and had her swear that she really had adopted Jess while putting together all the necessary documentation to have it look all legal. That paperwork would just magically appear in court records and no more fraud.” The man was grinning at him. It irked Simon.

“He’s not lying, Simon. If anybody could, it would be him.” Jim glared at Devereaux.

Simon frowned. “I don’t think I want to hear anything else. Just be thankful and when this is over, stay out of my city.”

“That’s gratitude for you,” Devereaux laughed.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, both Jim and Blair are back safe. Everything, or almost everything is back to status quo,” he said, glancing at Jim, “I’m a grateful man. That’s why I want you gone. Eventually, you would do something stupid and I don’t want to have to be the one to arrest you. Now, Jim, are you calm enough to go inside and deal with this like adults or do we stand here on the lawn all night?”

“I want to see Blair. I won’t say anything to them. I’m calm.” The jaw was still clenched, the eyes still hard.

“Right. Sure you are, Jim,” Devereaux remarked sarcastically.

“Devereaux, you are not helping,” Simon snapped.

“Sorry, sir.”

“To use your own words, right, sure you are.” Simon turned back to Jim. “Let’s go then.” He put one hand on Jim’s shoulder and gently steered him toward the house. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Simon asked as they walked.

“I’m fine. I said I wouldn’t bother them and I won’t.”

“That’s not what I meant. Physically, all that? We had other things to worry about last time I saw you so I honestly forgot to ask.”

Jim almost smiled but given his current mood, it more resembled a grimace. “I was a valuable commodity, Simon. They didn’t hurt me.”

Simon did not know quite what to say to that.

“Too bad that protection didn’t extend to Blair.” Jim stopped at the door and turned to look into his face. “I swear, Simon, I never meant for him to be hurt. I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing. What’s that famous saying? About evil triumphing because good men do nothing? I had forgotten that.”

“That was Lincoln, I believe.”

“Nope!” Devereaux spoke up. “It was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

“How the hell would you know, Devereaux?” Simon asked.

“Because Alex plastered the damn thing on my office wall once when I pissed him off. No need to go into details, right? I’d rather not.” The man looked sheepish all of a sudden and Simon decided that one day he would like to go into the details. “Anyway, it goes, ‘the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.’”

“Yeah. That’s it.” Jim sighed. “Well, I’m stalling. Let’s do this.” He reached for the doorknob and swept into the house like a man with a purpose.

Ten minutes later, he was standing at the patio doors, one hand on the glass. It was where he had been since Riviera had told them that Blair was on the patio with Chase and Jade. It was like he was transfixed, stuck there, unable to move forward or back. Simon had gone out to greet Jade but returned to his friend’s side. “Jim, aren’t you coming outside?”

Jim shook his head. Simon allowed his gaze to follow Jim’s back to the patio table. Jade was attempting to get Blair to draw on paper with a blue crayon. Mostly, she was doing the drawing, her hand wrapped around Sandburg’s and moving it around the paper. Amazingly enough, Kit Chase sat across from them, drawing himself. Simon had sneaked a peek at the drawing while he was out there. Chase was drawing a wolf. It was a pretty good rendering, too. He had some talent.

“I can’t do it, Simon. I can’t. I’ll only screw it up worse than it is already.”

“Jim, you’re doing nothing again.” Simon hoped throwing the man’s words back into his face would help.

Jim shook his head again. “No, in this case, I think I am the evil.”

“Jim, don’t do this. That kid needs you.”

“Is Chase a sentinel or not? Have you noticed anything?”

“No. Why don’t you ask the man, Jim?”

Jim chuckled but it had a bitter edge. “He’d just as soon shoot me as look at me. Besides, I don’t suppose it matters. I’ll get Pete to take me home. I’ll be back in to work tomorrow. Unless you have any objections, that is? Hell, do I even have a job anymore?”

“Of course, you have a damn job, Jim!” Simon took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “You can come back to work whenever you’re ready. But Jim, I don’t like this. You have to at least try to reach him!” Simon pointed to Blair. “Don’t walk away from him.”

“I don’t have the right to stay.” He turned and headed toward the front door.

“Bullshit! You don’t have the guts to stay!” That stopped him in his tracks but Simon did not stop there. “Okay, you say you caused this? Then I say it’s your responsibility to fix it. Time to face the music, Ellison.”

“I don’t know how! I don’t even know where to begin! How do you fix this? How do you take back a betrayal? Especially one this big? How do I even start to make it all up to him? Tell me, Simon, because I need to know! I fucked this up so badly. I accused him of betrayal, Simon. More than once. All the while, I was the one doing the betraying. I’ll bet Jade would say that I was projecting. Heard that one before, Simon? Where you accuse others of what you are guilty of to ease your conscience? Yeah, that’s what I did. I accused, I belittled, I insulted, I hurt him. For what? Why? Pete’s right. You’re right. You’re all right! This is my own damn fault. My pride could not accept the fact that I needed somebody, anybody, so I pushed him away, I shut him out. I didn’t want to be thought of as a freak so I hid and let him take the fall for my weakness. I even had the audacity to say to myself and you and anybody else who knew the real story that I didn’t ask him to do it so it wasn’t my fault. No, I didn’t ask but I certainly didn’t give him another choice, now did I? It was my way or no way at all. Then, to add insult to injury, or injury to insult, how ever you want to look at it, I let them do that!” He flung his hand in the direction of the patio. “While I did nothing. Did you know that I got whatever I wanted to eat in that compound? I wonder what he got? I got outside and I exercised and even enjoyed some of it. I bet he never got out of that room, except for his escape attempt. Nobody touched me; I was the golden boy, not so much as one bruise. I watched as they tortured him, drugged him. I stood right there and never flinched. Couldn’t let them know I cared. I had this crazy notion that if they thought I didn’t care, they’d leave him alone. I mean, wasn’t that his purpose there? To keep me in line? I was wrong. I didn’t know. God help me, I didn’t know. And now, you think that I can help him? You think he’d even want my help? If I were Blair, I would never want to see me again. I might even hire Pete to kill me.” He burst out laughing then and Simon began to seriously worry about the man’s sanity. He caught Devereaux’s eyes and saw the same concern there.

“Jim, it’ll be okay. Just give it some time. Blair cares about you.” It sounded pathetic, even to Simon’s ears as he said it.

“Sure it will. Pete, take me home.” Ellison walked out of the house then without a backward glance.

“Don’t worry, I’ll stay with him tonight,” Devereaux told Simon before leaving as well.

Simon stood in the middle of his living room floor for long moments before he felt as though he could move without his legs giving out on him. He was so very tired. He made it to his recliner and sat down heavily.

A cup of coffee appeared under his nose and he took it gratefully. “Thanks.” He looked up into the face of Jesse Riviera.

“Welcome.” An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Jesse broke it. “Pete will take care of him.”

Simon nodded. “You were scarce while he was here.”

“Didn’t want to get into an argument with him. I’m not sorry about what I did.”

“I know. I’m not sorry you did it, Jesse.”

“Cool. I’m going to go outside with Kit and Blair. I think Jade’s coming inside. We’ll give you guys some privacy.” Riviera grinned at him and winked.

“Gee, thanks.” Riviera’s antics only served to remind him that he and Jade would not have much true privacy for a while.

“Dude, we can take Blair to, like, the zoo or something.”

“No, no, that’s all right. Just go outside.”

Jade entered the house then and Jesse slipped by her and out onto the patio, still grinning at him.

“What was that about?”

“Just Riviera being annoying. How’d it go with Blair?”

“It didn’t. That is until Kit finished that wolf picture he was drawing and put it in front of him. The reaction was immediate. Blair grabbed for it, but Kit reached out and touched his hand and they were gone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Blair is almost always gone, right? But for a few seconds there, Kit was gone too. I may as well not have been there. I don’t know how to explain it any other way. It was over in seconds. There is something very strange about Kit Chase, Simon.”

“No kidding.”

“What happened to Jim? I expected him to come outside.”

“So did I, baby. So did I. He’s having a hard time facing what’s happened to Blair.”

“Well, avoidance is very unproductive.”

“Jade, honey, Jim Ellison has made an art of avoidance. We can only hope that he’ll come around.”

“I have an idea, my big strong police captain. Let me take you out for an early dinner.”

“I need to get back to the station. I left in the middle of my shift because I expected a bloody conflict here. At least I was spared that, huh?”

“Hey, I say you’re the captain, take an hour or two. You have a doctor’s appointment.”

“You are a genius.” He put his arms around her.

“Yes, I know.” She leaned into him and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the end of his nose.

Part 5b