The elderly man smiled. “He’s a lucky one. The bullet hit nothing vital. A clean in and out. Total miracle. As long as he follows my advice of first rest and then specific exercises, he will have no lasting effects after the wound is fully healed.”
Jay nodded, thanked him, then entered the room.
“You have about five minutes to explain exactly why you are now nursing a bullet wound instead of safely waiting for me in New Orleans. I won’t have a partner who can’t follow orders.”
Dave’s eyebrows rose at the command, but he nodded slowly. “Remember I saw you off? Well, as I was leaving the train station, I spotted someone. That scrawny woman with wine red hair.”
Jay kept his face smooth, arching an eyebrow in question, but inside his gut had begun roiling with what felt like acid. Why was Ruby popping up everywhere? Weren’t she and Frank meant to have left? He put the questions aside as Dave continued.
“I didn’t feel comfortable leaving you alone. I wanted to message, but nothing seemed to be getting through. Is your phone okay?”
Jay frowned and pulled out his cell phone. It seemed fine. “Try calling.”
Dave shifted and winced, but still reached over to where his phone lay on top of his shirt. Jay watched him find his number and hit call. The phone in his hands remained silent and the one in Dave’s showed that the call went straight to voicemail.
“Message me.”
Dave sighed, then grimaced and fingered the bandages stretching over his shoulder and across his upper torso to keep the dressing on the wound secure. One handed he sent a nonsense message. Jay waited for five heartbeats before Dave’s phone pinged, rather than his own. Dave tilted the screen to show Jay the ‘unable to be delivered’ message.
“So you came after me in person?”
Dave half smiled, setting his phone aside. “Of course. How could I go to New Orleans when my partner had become mysteriously uncontactable and was potentially being followed?”
Jay chuckled. “I don’t want you risking your life.”
“Then you should never have hired me.”
Jay’s eyes widened a little at the comeback. Dave had been quite docile, but apparently being shot had given a little steel to his backbone. “Fair enough. So you got here and…?”
Dave held his gaze a moment longer, then spoke. “I got to the main gates and found both guards dead.”
Jay let out a breath. “So you ran to the house like some superhero instead of calling the cops?”
Dave’s mouth tilted in a small smile. “I saw them there and all I could think of was to get to you, that I couldn’t let that be you too.”
Jay heard the sincerity in the words and took half a step back. “You hardly know me.”
Dave seemed to smother a fit of laughter. He met Jay’s eyes still dancing with secret humor. “Don’t be so big-headed, Jay. My life was boring before you strolled in and shamed my manager. It was dull and dead-ended. I would have spent my life going through the motion. Even when I achieved things, they didn't feel fulfilling. But this, this has been better than anything else. I love the thrill and I don’t want to lose this, but I know that I am not ready to be walking this road alone.”
“So, you’re saying that once I’ve taught you all I know, it will be okay to let me die?”
Dave’s eyes flew wide, and Jay laughed again. “I’m just messing with you. So you distracted the shooter?”
Faint color rose in Dave’s freckled cheeks, but he shrugged then hissed a profanity, but waved Jay’s concern away. “I saw them, dressed head to toe in black just like everything we’ve heard. They had a gun already aimed at a window,so I tackled them.”
“You what?” Jay asked, feeling truly incredulous for the first time since Dave had begun his tale.
“I knocked them to the ground as they fired. They turned the gun on me as I kicked. I don’t remember too much after that. There’s some blinding pain. Then I heard a man telling me to lie still and putting pressure on my shoulder.”
“That must have been Gary Peters.”
Dave’s eyes filled with surprise at the name, but then his face grew stern. “So, are you seriously going to send me packing for possibly saving your life?”
Jay watched him a moment longer then chuckled. “I think you’ve persuaded me to let you stay.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Where’s all your stuff?” Jay asked as he helped Dave shrug back into his bloodstained shirt. “You’ll need to change before we hit any airports to catch a flight to New Orleans.”
Dave began to chuckle but caught himself in time. “I dropped everything at the inn you said you were going to stay at.”
There was much more that he wanted to ask Dave, but this was neither the time nor the place. Jay just gave a nod. “Well thought out, considering you were in a panic.”
Dave threw him a mock glare but half way through, his expression changed to one of suppressed fear. Jay tensed and turned to face the door, only to find Ben leaning against the frame.
“Jesus,” Jay breathed. He took a quick mental note of some small details to pass onto Joe. Like the three black buttons on the left side of the high neck and the small embroidered ‘H’ on the shoulders. Visible only because the black thread that had been used was glossier than the fabric of the shirt. “Ben, are you officially throwing us out?”
Ben’s eyes shifted over Dave. “The doctor has told Mr. Haraby that there is no danger to Mr. Tiller being moved. He would like to
