Page 73 of Shades of Henry
Lance had seen Kryzynski before, when Jackson had stood bleeding over the building super, the day Lance had stitched him up. He was a midsized man in his early thirties with sandy brown hair and ice-blue eyes. Lance had to admit he’d be a little tempted, at least to crush on him, if Henry hadn’t been standing right next to the guy wearing purloined scrubs and an almost transcendent expression of triumph on his square-jawed face.
Kryzynski rolled his eyes. “And how is everybody’s favorite pain in the ass?” he asked. “I haven’t seen him since that night.”
Henry gave an epic eye-roll. “Still planning a party next weekend. You’re still invited. If he doesn’t drop dead, I think it’ll be fun.”
“Oh my God. He’s such an asshole. He’d better not fucking die.”
Henry nodded. “Thatisthe general consensus. See you there?”
And Henry got a brilliant smile and a hand extended in return. “Looking forward to it. Thanks for the assist, Mr. Worrall.”
Henry took his hand and pumped firmly. “I’m looking forward to doing some more of that,” he said happily, and Detective Kryzynski dropped his hand like a hot rock.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m taking criminal justice classes next semester,” he said smugly. “I’m going to go after my PI license. You know, maybe help Jackson out when he needs it.”
“Oh, dear God.” The friendly look of camaraderie had changed to slowly dawning horror. “That is a very bad idea.”
Henry grinned sunnily at him. “Well, between you and me, I think Jackson’s going to teach me everything he knows.”
“Oh God, I do not need this in my life!”
Lance could only look at the guy in sympathy. He’d met Jackson Rivers too—the idea that Henry might be training to be a PI in Mr. Rivers’s image could hardly be a comfort.
Henry clapped him on the shoulder. “Just say thank you, Detective. It’s really all I need.”
Kryzynski’s low growl of irritation was hardly reassuring.
IT TOOKan hour of paperwork and answering questions before Lance and Henry got to leave, and part of that was spent tracking down Summer Frasier’s immediate supervisor. Lance hadn’t missed the fact that Summer thought she’d been helping because Dr. Scheideman was too liberal with the opioids. And while the argument of a woman under arrest for all sorts of charges wasn’t necessarily gold, Lance thought it was at least enough to have Mara put in an inquiry.
“Is it going to go anywhere?” Henry asked quietly after Mara had sent off the email, and Lance shrugged.
“It usually takes more than one complaint to start any sort of proceedings,” he said, knowing the red tape got even worse than that. “It’s not a perfect system.”
Henry let out a deep breath. “Well, we do our best, right?”
“Yeah. It’s going to take someone weeks on the computer with clearance to see if Summer Frasier was telling the truth. But we won’t let it drop.” In-house investigations could get ugly and heated—but Lance was pretty sure Dr. Schearer had his back.
Henry had winked at him then, and they’d resumed the paperwork part of their day.
Lance had to admit he was glad Henry had insisted on packing a change of clothes after that. It was hisday off,for heaven’s sake. He’d love to spend itnotwearing scrubs and his ID lanyard. They changed before they left the hospital.
“Where to now?” Lance asked.
“Mm… how about the office.” Henry was staring at his phone. “You can swing by and meet everyone. Jackson’s sister works there as a paralegal, their friend AJ might be there, as well as Ellery. You can see I’m not being befriended by wolves.”
“They couldactuallybe wearing wool sweaters that make them look likerealsheep, and I would not be convinced,” Lance told him acerbically. “Oh my God, Henry, you scared the crap out of me.” That moment when he’d realized Henry was facing an armed suspect was not going to leave him alone.
“She wouldn’t have used the gun,” Henry said, pausing as they neared Lance’s car in the lot. “She wasn’t even holding it right. It was fine.”
“Have you ever seen a gunshot wound close up?” Lance asked, knowing the answer was probably yes and not caring. “I’ve seen what a gun can do, whether or not someone knows how to use it—it’s all fucking bad!”
“Well, yeah,” Henry said, and he had the same absurdly gentle tone in his voice that he’d used when talking Summer down from the ledge. And goddammit, it was working! “Yeah, guns are bad. But that’s why we need to talk people into giving them up and not shooting them, right?” He turned toward Lance in the bright hot of what was still an early morning. “C’mere.”
Lance tried to resist, but Henry tugged on his hand and pulled him close. “You think this makes it okay?” he asked, wanting to melt against Henry anyway.
“Yes.” And there, in broad daylight under an unforgiving sun, Henry leaned in and kissed him. “I do,” he whispered, smiling. “This makes everything okay.”
