Page 59 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Been through the wars,” he sighed. Jo was surprisingly quiet.
Follow the Blue Linesaid the sign on entry. Nine at night and the waiting room had a considerable number of people already. They settled into chairs at the far corner, Jo at a diagonal and still watching him intently.
“I know you have a headache; do your ears ring? Do you feel dizzy? Blurred vision?” She inched forward to stare right into his pupils, “Your eyes are dilated.”
“It’s bright in here, Jo.”
“It’s notthatbright. What if it’s a mild traumatic brain injury? We need our brains. You and me especially,” Jo said, putting both hands in her lap. They were in little fists. He’d seen her do that before. Angry? No. Nervous. Anxious.
Worried.
“I’m... fine. I’llbefine,” he said, trying to placate.
Jo’s head darted up in a way his might never do again. “You might have been verynotfine! That guy—bigguy—” she aped a Herculean figure “—had an honest-to-God-Clue-murdererlead pipe! And I saw him, and I didn’t even stop him hitting you!”
Her fists returned to her lap, squashed between knees. She wasn’t looking at MacAdams anymore but at the floor, worry lines creasing her brow between strands of hair dislodged from her ponytail. MacAdams could blame things on the incessant pounding at the base of his skull or on the sudden influx of new case information, which included an apparent rare artifacts trade happening inYorkshire, of all places. Or maybe he was just too unforgivably thick to make the realization that—first—Jo just saved his life. Second, on some level, despite having absolutely no grounds in reality, she was blamingherselffor not preventing the attack. Often Jo baffled him, but especially in this moment. Five feet and a few spare inches of unaccountable behavior. She once jumped out the window of a (burning) building; tonight, she brokeintoone to keep him getting his head knocked in.
“Jo? Can you look at me?”
“Probably.”
“Try.”
Jo slumped her shoulders and looked up, and the semipetulant expression would have been funny except it wasn’t. MacAdams took a breath against his pounding headache.
“What you did was dangerous and reckless. And brave and selfless. Thank you for doing it. And—” There was a compliment swimming around in MacAdams brain.And, they would not have taken an interest in the butty van without her.And, they wouldn’t have known his assailant was connected to it without her. Fucksake, she made a better detective than half the people on the force. How did you wrangle that into words? Jo was still waiting on him to finish, perched forward on an uncomfortable chair with her knees together and her feet apart, all scuffed Doc Martens and dirty jeans.
“Honestly? I’m just glad you’re here,” he said finally.
“Really?”
“Yes. If I don’t look appreciative it’s because someone hit me with a lead pipe.”
“It’s not an improvement on you,” Jo said. And it was funny enough to laugh at, but he was afraid his brain might explode.
“James MacAdams?”the desk clerk announced, and he hobbled off to have his war wounds dressed, knowing Jo would be there to drive him back to the murder hotel. And that was just fine.
Chapter 19
Sheila Green pulled a long-sleeved T-shirt over her head and tugged on a pair of cargo pants. It wasn’t her usual workplace attire, but today wasn’t a usual day.
“You all right, babe?” Rachel asked. She was still in her sleep shirt, sitting cross-legged on their bed.
“Mostly,” Green said. She looked into the bureau mirror, past her own reflection to see Rachel’s. “Do I look enough like a Pennine Way hiker?”
“You look like a sexy lesbian.”
“I am a sexy lesbian.”
“No, you’remysexy lesbian,” Rachel said, getting up to join her. A good six inches shorter, she nuzzled her head against Green’s shoulder. Green always preferred her natural hair to extensions; the box braids were short and tight—except for the baby hairs along her neck. Rachel already had her fingers coiling around the stray strands.
“I’ll give you a call when it’s over,” Green said, turning around.
“Too fucking right, you will.” Rachel planted a kiss on her lips. “You got this. You’re the best there is when things get real.”
And they had definitely gotten real. When they got through with a building search, they’d found more than fifty boxes of looted history. It wasn’t quite as big as the Interpol raid a few years earlier, perhaps—that one turned up nineteen thousand stolen artifacts in an operation that spanned over a hundred countries. But when it came to precious objects of antiquity, size and number were no indication ofcost. Millions of pounds’ worth had been stored in the York building site. Where there was money, there was trouble—and that was before taking into accountwherethe artifacts came from. Even without Interpol, York Central was able to source some of the pottery back to Syria, and Gridley’s online search turned up plenty on the looting of cultural sites. War. Warlords. In a weird way, Green almost wished they were dealing with drug trafficking instead—less complicated, at least.
Green tied up her boots. She had been trained and licensed for firearms use but set that aside when she became a DS. Neither she nor MacAdams—nor much of anyone else—carried a gun, and she didn’t miss it. Except on days like today.
