Page 19 of Fish in a Barrel
“I’ll be wearing my pajamas,” he snapped, because it would take that long to drive there through the rain.
She paused for a minute, as though remembering he was doinghera favor. “Half an hour?” she hazarded.
“Sure. Don’t get pissed if I’m a little late.”
“Bring Rivers with you.”
For a moment, Ellery was going to tell her that Jackson was out doing law enforcement’s job for them, but then he realized that this was supposed to be covert. “Jackson’s a big boy,” he said. “He’s got his own errands to run.”
Herrera’s response was immediate and frustrated. “Dammit!”
“I’m sorry?”
“Not five fucking minutes, can you? Not five fucking minutes without one of you getting into the thick of it. Goddammit. Okay. Fuck. See you in half an hour. Don’t wreck the goddamned car. Fuck. Me.”
And then she hung up, leaving Ellery puzzled—and not a little afraid for Jackson.
And also relatively sure he shouldn’t be going to the meeting alone.
JADE ANDMike lived close to the location, but from another part of town, so Ellery met Jade in front of the “coffee shop,” which was more like an upscale bar.
“Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” she muttered. “Cute.” Unlike her usual professional attire, she was dressed in thick leggings and a long tatty brown sweater, topped off by a magenta rain slicker. Ellery wouldn’t have dreamed of correcting her fashion sense even under ordinary circumstances, but tonight he was wearing a pair of his own jeans and one of Jackson’s new hooded sweatshirts and definitely had no room to talk. He hadn’t been able to explain it as he’d gone to pick out casual clothes after removing his dinner from the burner. He just wanted to feel closer to Jackson, whose last communication had been a text to call Annette Frazier and arrange for a conference early in the morning, nowhere near the courthouse. Ellery had done that before his call to Jade, liking the sound of Ms. Frazier very much, but Jackson hadn’t been forthcoming about his next stop, only texting that he was likely to be—in his words—“bringing home a can of worms.”
Fantastic. That was a wonderful thing to have in the guest room, right? Everybody wanted a can of worms; they were the latest in sheets and comforters.
“Yeah,” he muttered, shaking off his unease about Jackson. “It’s hysterical. I hope it’s okay that I ripped you away from Mike—”
“What ripping away?” she asked and gestured with her chin toward the familiar pickup truck cruising the parking lot. “He’s going to park and do some reading.”
Ellery tried and couldn’t get past the lump in his throat. “He volunteered to come?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? That man loves me.” She gave an impish, almost adorable smile then, and Ellery was charmed.
They pushed their way into the “coffee house,” which smelled more of beer than caffeinated brew, and Ellery glanced around, looking for Siren Herrera in the dark corners of the establishment—and there were a lot of corners. Decorated in “classic bar,” the place had dark paneling, redbrick tiles, and brass fixtures. It came with coasters proclaiming the name of the joint with a howling wolf over the word “lawyers” and some top-notch alcohol on the shelves, none of the bottles dusty, so it wasn’t a dive. The clientele was mostly dressed well, and Ellery had seen a lot of Mercedes, BMWs and Jaguars in the parking lot. Mike’s truck had looked like a battered pit bull among poodles.
Ellery and Jade, in their hanging-around-the-house clothes, looked poor and, in spite of the CSUS logo on Jackson’s hoodie, uneducated.
As they searched the shadows, Ellery was bumped from behind by a man in a silk suit, holding three drinks.
“I’m sorry, are you just going to stand there?” he snapped.
Ellery’s eyes narrowed and his lip curled, and he eyed the man up and down with disdain. “Second year out of law school,” he deduced. “You’ve lost that perpetual studying squint, you’ve had a couple of good paychecks and can afford the suit, and you’re young enough to be out drinking on a Thursday night. But you’re not old enough to know who’s who in your town, and you think it makes you look tough to go bullying people in bars.” He sniffed. “Walk around.”
The man’s jaw dropped right when Jade tugged on his elbow. “Ellery. In the corner.”
Ellery turned his head and spied a familiar face, but not the one he was expecting. He turned to walk toward a woman who was most definitelynotSiren Herrera and missed part of what happened next.
All he knew was that a large body fell past him to the ground, the crash of the glassware on the brick flooring loud enough to stop the entire bar.
“Aw, did you drop your drinks?” Jade asked, standing a little bit behind the guy. “That’s too bad. Maybe next time you shouldn’t threaten to throw one on a guy with his back turned. He was right about you, wasn’t he? Were you stung? Thought you’d teach him a lesson? Yeah.” She kicked the guy almost gently in the thigh as he was struggling to get up. “Fuck off.”
Then she stepped over his back, taking Ellery’s offered hand, and the two of them made their way to the corner where Arizona Brooks sat, hiding her face behind her palm.
They slid into the relatively clean booth, and she eyed them both with disgust.
“You couldn’t have brought Rivers with you, could you?”
“Oh, like Jackson would have been any more discreet,” Jade said, rolling her eyes. “The only difference between me and Jackson is that boy’s going to be able to stand up and finish his evening now that I’m done with him. Jackson would have taken him out. There would have been ambulances. Nobody threatens Ellery. You know that.”
