Page 47 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Jackson let out a groan, feeling weirdly flushed. God, how was he going to convince his backup toback him upif he was this strung out?

“Last night was rough,” he said vaguely, but Toby had known him since he’d been a prisoner, erm, patient in this very hospital. Jackson would escape his ward, erm, unit, searching for a quiet place, and the morgue qualified. It also, when his body was a constant patchwork of leaky pipes and shredded fabric, reminded him that he’d survived. Hewasalive. He needed to stay that way.

“I heard about your friend,” Toby said softly. “Dave came down when his shift ended to give me the heads-up. How’s he doing?”

“So far so good,” Jackson said, not wanting to think about Henry, pale and still, groggy and spitting out facts because he knew he’d be sleeping again soon. “We’re looking into who shot him—”

“Who’s the detective assigned to the case?” Toby asked.

“No idea.” Shit. One more thing on Jackson’s to-do list. He and Ellery had been so rattled he’d forgotten to ask Fetzer and Hardison the night before. “It could be Christie, but I sent K-Ski out of town. The thing is, there are some… well, vulnerable parties here. People who shouldn’t end up on law enforcement radar.”

Toby snorted. “You mean your porn friends? Yes. I can see how that might be misinterpreted.”

“John does a lot of good in his community,” Jackson told him. “And he treats his models like professionals, not like meat.”

“I agree,” Toby said. “I’ve met the man, remember? How was Henry injured, may I ask?”

“John and Galen were, uhm….” Jackson felt a blush steal over him at the oddest time. Poor Cowboy. He remembered the advice he’d given Billy that morning, and his heart twisted. No fourteen-year-old should have to pin his life and his hopes on his ability to hustle. “Solicited,” he said after a pause. “They were solicited by a fourteen-year-old boy. And while they were getting him to a friend’s place to be cleaned up and possibly placed in foster care or in a shelter, the kid let it slip that he’d seen something awful. They called Henry, because Henry comes to watch over their friend in case the person they’re helping turns out to be dangerous, and somebody tracked the boy down. Henry was shot giving the kid and his new guardian a chance to escape.”

Toby—who could concentrate on his work during almost any distraction imaginable—had set his needle and thread down and, using the back of his wrist, lifted up his headband light. His homely middle-aged face was still masked, but he was staring at Jackson with rapt attention.

“Oh dear God,” he said in horror. “Is the boy safe?”

Jackson nodded, his own mask reflecting the heat from his blush, making it worse. “Yes, and the guardian too. They’re… well, they’re not here, if you know what I mean.”

“Understood,” Toby said. “So I get it. This case is tricky, but so far everybody is still alive. I mean, not that I don’t love your company, but….”

Jackson laughed a little, his face still hot. He put out a hand to steady himself, and Toby huffed out in exasperation. “Josh!” he called, stripping off his gloves and stepping away from the body on the table. “Josh, are you there?”

Toby’s assistant, a tall, blond, beefy ball of cheer, stepped out from behind a divider where, Jackson assumed, his own preliminary autopsy was in session.

“Right here, boss. Waiting for the dieners to come help move my latest patient.”

“Where’s he going?” Toby asked curiously.

“Oh, definitely the funeral home. The only thing questionable about this guy’s death was why it didn’t happen sooner. I’ve never seen such a liver.”

Toby’s eyes went wide behind his mask, and Jackson couldn’t help smiling from behind his own. Josh had his degree in medicine—what hedidn’thave was a bedside manner. But he and Toby seemed to get along well, although Josh was, sadly, devoted to his girlfriend and not a match for Toby’s son.

“Okay, then,” he said. “Could you please close this one up? He needs to go to the coroner—the bullets killed him, but the intestines full of product might need to be investigated.”

“Oh! Another Francis.” Josh pulled off his gloves by the gowning station and recovered himself in another paper gown as he spoke.

“Francis?” Jackson asked, still feeling hot and a little queasy, which was odd because with one notable exception he wasn’t usually squeamish in the morgue.

“The talking mule,” Josh said absently, studying him. “Doc, is he gonna topple?”

“Not usually,” Toby said as he finished stripping his own gear. “I suspect he hasn’t eaten today. It’s sort of a thing with him.”

And with that, Toby took Jackson’s elbow and guided him out of the autopsy room and into his own tiny, cluttered office.

Jackson sat down on the hellishly uncomfortable guest chair with a thump, right as his headreallybegan to swim, and Toby thrust a bottle of water into his hand first.

The mask came off—thank God—and the water went down blissfully cold. The protein bar was not his favorite, but he found he’d destroyed it before his taste buds had a chance to protest.

For a moment after his last swallow, he just sat, panted, and watched curiously as the spots stopped swimming in front of his eyes.

“Well,” he said after a moment, “that was embarrassing.”

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