It was a lie. Tobias here, in his arms, snuggled up like a damn kitten, sleepy and warm and heavy against Sullivan’s chest, was a lie. Maybe Tobias wasn’t like his other dirtbags, pretending to be one thing while actually being another, but even if Tobias had the best of intentions, it was still a lie because nothing about what they were doing was his to keep.
* * *
Tobias was gone when Sullivan woke up, but was back, as promised, by eleven. He was wearing a blue suit and tie, his hair neatly combed, his shoulders straight, like something about the whole process had bolstered him, and Sullivan had to admit it: devout was a good look on him. And true to his word, there was no implication—spoken or otherwise—that Sullivan had failed him by staying behind.
Okay, then.
They spent the rest of the morning shopping in Aurora, buying clothes and gear before heading over to Spratt’s place to watch out for Tidwell’s afternoon visit. Tidwell rolled up exactly six minutes after he’d arrived the day before.
Once again, he made sandwiches. Once again, he was gone in roughly twenty minutes. Once again, no one came in or out of the townhouse until Spratt returned, this time at almost nine p.m. Ghost came upstairs with his wrists handcuffed again, apparently free to wander the place for an hour, but he instead haunted Spratt’s footsteps like, well, a ghost, trailing him from room to room, quiet and attentive. At one point, while Spratt’s back was turned, Ghost reached out as if to touch him, his expression was hard and soft at once, one hand knotted into a fist, the other outreached, tentative and slow-moving. But by the time Spratt faced him once more, Ghost had jerked away, his face tipping down and out of sight.
“We’ve got to get him out of there,” Tobias said from the passenger seat, his face shadowed in the dark. “That’s—none of that is him.”
“We will,” Sullivan said.
That night they got Chinese takeout and sat at the table to research which streets in Capitol Hill had traffic cameras so they could avoid them. In that way, they had some luck—as long as they avoided Speer Boulevard, West 6th Avenue and the highways, Spratt wouldn’t be able to track where they went. It meant they could park closer, too.
They also figured out timelines. Cops usually didn’t live in the jurisdictions they policed, but administration staff had more leeway. The Denver Police Administration building, where Spratt’s office was located, was roughly a mile from Spratt’s place—a six-minute drive in normal traffic. However, since Spratt frequently traveled to different stations in the city, they couldn’t assume he would be in his office. The chance was small but real that he would be at the Division 6 station, which was even closer and would have a more straightforward route on the one-way streets. They decided to give themselves the smallest possible window to ensure the lowest likelihood of taking longer than they should. For that reason, they would need to be in and out of Spratt’s place in fewer than four minutes.
It was after midnight by the time they finished, but Sullivan felt like sleep would be impossible. The hours until tomorrow pressed down with a near-palpable weight.
While they were cleaning up, Tobias said, “I can see why you’d be mad at me for all of this.”
“I’m not.”
“I know. That’s what I don’t understand.” Tobias fiddled with a napkin, tearing it into shreds. “I know it’s my fault you have to break the law for someone you’ve never met. If I hadn’t blackmailed you, none of this would be on your plate. There’s a lot at risk for you. That would make anyone mad. But you’re not. You’re...something, I can’t tell what, but you’re not mad.”
“No, I’m not mad.”
“So what are you?”
Sullivan scrubbed at a bit of spilled soy sauce while he tested possible answers. He couldn’t come up with anything, though, because he was too wrapped up in questions of his own: What would you do if I said no? Would you blackmail me again? Would you still stay afterward if I refused to help?
He wasn’t sure he wanted the answers. He wasn’t sure he could trust the answers. In the end, he didn’t say anything.
“You’re a good man,” Tobias said, and Sullivan jerked his head up. “To do all of this, risk so much, for a guy you don’t know? Yes, you’re a good man.”
I’m not doing it for him, Sullivan thought, but that would be admitting too much. “You think so?”
“Yes.” Tobias shrugged one shoulder, a self-conscious, perhaps even embarrassed move. “You push me to say what I think and feel and once you know those things, you respect them, and that makes it so much easier to share them. But you also don’t let me hide, and that’s—you’ve helped me be better and happier. You wouldn’t believe me if I said how good I think you are.”
Sullivan couldn’t hold the eye contact, couldn’t keep everything he felt off his face.
“I care about you a lot,” Tobias said, more quietly. He put the napkin down and came to stand in front of Sullivan, reaching up to cup Sullivan’s jaw, directing his gaze back up. He smelled faintly of soy sauce and spray cleanser, and Sullivan let himself be kissed, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was standing on a slippery slope. Tobias might think he was a good man, might care about him a lot, but it didn’t do him any good if Tobias didn’t stay.
Chapter Twenty-One
They dressed in the morning in the clothes they’d bought the
