Page 52 of Constantly Cotton
Jason had been given so many advantages—good family, good education, good ethos—and he’d cursed them so many times in this last year. He could have had a promotion, or been retired, or been rich, dammit, but instead he was tracing crimes across the planet and trying to pin down the one rabid soul responsible who had been twisted beyond humanity, and then sanction his death. His own soul had been withering, disintegrating under the pressure, but watching Cotton, he felt like he hadn’t understood the depths of his own self-pity.
Cotton should have been loved. He should have been nurtured into adulthood. He should have never been forced to sell his sex, or his body, or his control over his own life. But he had been. And he wasn’t bitter, and he wasn’t vindictive, and he wasn’t crying in a corner. Instead, he’d taken the scant blessings in his life and was looking forward to forging a better tomorrow with them.
And Jason found his only bitterness was that he wouldn’t get to see what Cotton’s better future might be.
But he refused to think about that right now. Instead he splashed some water on his face and made it to the kitchen, where Cotton was pulling dinner out of the oven and Briggs was setting the table.
“He must love us,” Briggs said as Jason emerged from the living room. “He baked potatoes and had me buy butter and sour cream when I was in town today.”
Jason made an ecstatic little “Ooh” with his lips, and Briggs laughed. Jason glanced up to where Cotton stood after setting the broiler pan on the top of the stove, and Cotton winked.
“I didn’t say I was eating potatoes!” he protested. Then relented. “Okay, potatoes, yes, but not with butter and sour cream.”
“I’ll take it!” Jason said happily, and Briggs held his hand out for the down-low five.
Jason didn’t leave him hanging.
He sat down in his usual spot—the one with his back to the corner of the kitchen and the full view out the wraparound window—and looked at Daniels, who was typing furiously on his laptop as he sat.
“Important?” he asked softly.
Briggs replied quietly, “Burton started listening for chatter on your mob guys, Karina and Dietrich Schroeder. Swear to God, Colonel, it’s like listening to the same chatter when we’re chasing down a target. Same stuff. We’re looking for bodies, bodies are showing up. We’re looking at drug trafficking to fund the criminal activities, and bingo. There was a murder at a meth lab in Auburn three days ago—methodical and clean, three bullets to three foreheads, the bodies lined up neatly out of the way. A substantial amount of product disappeared, and suddenly Coloma is flooded with overdoses. What does that sound like to you?”
“They killed a meth operation to take over the product and make enough money to keep moving,” Jason said. “And they’re headed this way. Why do you think they stopped to crime spree if they’re only coming to take me out?”
Daniels paused to mull it over, and Briggs glanced at him with troubled eyes. “How would they know you’re here?” he asked.
“We sold the car,” Cotton said, surprising him. “Remember? Burton was afraid they’d tracked it somehow. We traded it in for whatever that was Burton used to get us here.”
“We stayed in Roseville an extra eight hours,” Jason recalled. “I remember. We were hoping that would throw them off track.”
“And also hoping Burton could catch up on enough sleep to not crash the car,” Cotton recalled. “You were both pretty wrecked.”
“Now see, Colonel,” Briggs said, grinning, “we need to keep this kid around more. He gives usdetails.”
Jason sent him a killing look. “I’m sure he’ll be excited to tell you about the night they had to lance my wounds too, but you may want to wait until after dinner.”
Daniels and Briggs both groaned, and Jason went back to trying to figure out the conundrum.
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” he said as Cotton brought a platter of steak cuts to put in the middle of the table. Briggs followed up with salad and a basket holding potatoes, and he set them down as Cotton went back for fixings. Distractedly, Jason noted how Cotton seemed to blend seamlessly into any situation. He was smart—so smart—and he’d been devouring paperbacks at the rate of two a day. Jason didn’t want to probe sore spots, but he suspected that when Cotton had been a high school student, he’d been in the academic track, probably headed for college. He was smart, personable, and he thought on his feet.
And kind. So kind.
All of that.Allof that glorious potential, and it could have been flushed away. The thought made Jason want to cry.
“The beginning where?” Cotton asked, setting the last of the plates down and joining them. Jason took one of the baked potatoes onto his plate and cut a disk from it, setting it on Cotton’s. Cotton smiled at him, and tapped a jar of salsa, and Jason got a lightbulb. Aha! Baked potato, no butter. So clever.
“I was shot by a gang faction from a gang that no longer exists, technically,” Jason said in the clatter of people serving themselves. Cotton had already set aside a dinner for Medina. He’d done that every night as well, because he was Cotton.
“Yes,” Daniels noted. “But part of the gang slivered off and is after you.”
Jason frowned, and then Briggs frowned, and then Cotton frowned.
“What?” Daniels asked. “What am I not getting?”
“They would have no reason to pursue him this far,” Briggs said thoughtfully. “But that’s what it looks like they’ve done. Daniels, you and I have to comb the last week’s news articles to see if there are any more crimes that look like that one. But we also need to figure out why they’d go to so much trouble. I don’t think it’s revenge. The mobsters wouldn’t have any reason to know who drove the damned bus!”
“Unless someone told them,” Cotton said guilelessly. “I mean, you’ve got someone working on the inside, you know that. So what if, instead of trading guns for children, they offered to trade guns to get rid of Jason? I mean, he got in everybody’s way. Win/win.”
