Cut & Run (Cut & Run #1)(106)
Author: Abigail Roux

“Not everything needs to be planned, Zane,” Ty answered with a tinge of frustration. “Not everything needs a why or how.”

“So we just see how it goes?” Zane asked. Ty answered with a nod and smiled. Zane smiled slightly in return, the vise that had been around his chest finally eased. “I’ll try.”

Ty reached out and patted his knee almost delicately and then hefted himself off the floor.

Zane’s hands almost itched with the need to touch Ty again, but he curled them into fists and cursed his nerves. See how it goes. Well, it wasn’t going anywhere right this moment. He clambered off the bed and walked over to his jacket, poking through the pockets for his cigarettes. Ty was watching him silently, a crooked smirk curling his lips.

Zane turned around. When he saw Ty watching, he didn’t move; he just stood there with his cigarettes in one hand and lighter in the other.

“Those things’ll kill you,” Ty advised in amusement.

Looking at Ty ruefully, Zane shook his head and flipped him off as he walked to the door. “Leave me at least one of my vices?” he requested.

Ty sighed and watched him as he reached the door. “The pills are in my bag,” he offered quietly.

Stopping at the door, Zane looked back over his shoulder at Ty. Yeah, he wanted the damn pills. Just a single thought and he was dying for them, for the artificial high and confidence he got from them. Having them around was like a burr stuck in his shirt, scraping his skin raw. He turned around. “Give them over, please,” he requested quietly.

Ty waited for a moment and then walked over to the bag to rummage through and find the tin. He held it up and rattled it, then tossed it to Zane without a word. Zane caught the tin deftly and looked down at it for a long moment. Then he moved, walking past Ty and into the bathroom, where he worked to pry the tin open. Ty lowered his head, listening intently and hoping to hear the flush of the toilet instead of the running of the water to fill a glass.

Zane stared down at the little pink pills. How big a deal was this?

They didn’t hurt anyone but him … and Ty. Zane turned his chin toward the door. Because Ty didn’t want him doing the drugs. Caught in that thought, he turned the tin over and watched the pills fall into the toilet and sink to the bottom to land on white porcelain. Stone-cold sober, he flushed them down and tossed the tin into the garbage can with a clink.

When Zane turned around, he saw Ty standing there. He took two steps and captured Ty’s mouth with his own, his hands closing gently about his face.

Ty returned the kiss with feeling, sliding his hands around Zane’s hips and pulling him closer. “Good boy,” he murmured between kisses.

enninger called promptly at nine that morning, just a few hours after Zane flushed his pills. The young agent told Ty he’d arranged to have Hone of the earlier crime scenes opened for them, because he knew how much Ty liked to go and stare, and they had to meet him as soon as possible before anyone got wind of it. He also had the personnel files for them, and there were some interesting things in there.

“Like what?” Ty asked curiously.

“Like the number of people involved with this case that were in Baltimore in 2001,” Henninger answered wryly. “You and me included, Special Agent Grady,” he added.

“Ah, f**k,” Ty muttered into the phone. “Bring them anyway, kiddo,”

he requested as he gestured for Zane to hurry and get his shit together. “We’ll see you in thirty.”

“Yes, sir,” Henninger answered before ending the call.

As soon as the call was over, Zane and Ty scrambled, got down to their rental car in record time, and set off to drive across town to meet the other man.

Ty found himself pondering the way Tim Henninger had come through for them as he drove in the seventy-mile-an-hour traffic. He had seriously underestimated the kid. He would have to buy him dinner or something in apology.

In the passenger seat, Zane paged through a notepad of his own scribbling that he’d grabbed on the way out the door. “I’m still unhappy about the evidence missing,” he said.

“What?” Ty asked flatly.

“Different things from each case,” Zane said. “No pattern I can see.

ME supplementary notes from one. Skin scrapings from another. Time notations from a third.”

Ty looked over at him and frowned. “And?”

“Large assumption: If he’s making a different mistake each time and managing to clean up after himself, we might be able to create additional profile information,” Zane said. “Areas he’s weak in. That’s assuming it’s all not just human error.”

“Could be,” Ty drawled. “It’ll be like trying to see a puzzle that’s all been painted over.”

“You can still match the edges,” Zane said distractedly as he started making notations on a yellow legal pad in his lap.

“Is there anything missing from the murders that occurred after the computer exploded?” Ty asked.

Zane flipped through his notes, frowning. “No. Why?”

“I still think he removed that shit as bait,” Ty claimed.

“I’m not convinced,” Zane muttered.

The loose papers scattered across his lap as their car was thumped hard from behind.

Ty was thrown forward with the impact, but he kept the car straight as his head jerked. He glanced into the rearview mirror and frowned at the yellow cab behind them. The windshield had been illegally tinted until you could barely see through it, and the call numbers had been removed. “Uh oh,”

he muttered.

Turning around in the seat, Zane tried to look as the cab hit them again, harder this time. “What the hell?” he hissed. Before they could react, the cab swerved slightly to ram the back passenger quarter panel of their car, pushing them toward the concrete median wall.

Ty tensed, his mind going blank and relying on training and instinct rather than common sense as he handled the nearly out-of-control vehicle. He watched the cab out of the corner of his eye in order to anticipate the next attack, and he kept his attention on the concrete barrier and his hands on the wheel.

Zane pulled his gun out, looking back at the looming vehicle as it hit them again, this time actually revving the engine and pushing them. The collision was hard enough to jostle them both, and Zane had to grab the door handle. Other cars in the two lanes to their left honked and swerved wildly, skidding to keep from hitting them or the wall.

“Fucker,” Ty growled. This was the f**k who’d been killing. This was the f**k who’d tried to kill them. He was sure of it. “Hold on,” he said to Zane with a dangerous glint in his eyes, and he slammed on the brakes, sending the rear end of their vehicle crashing into the front of the cab in retaliation.