School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,132

was over, he would be spending a good year at the California Youth Authority Boys Ranch. Out in the boondocks, it was like juvenile hall except with a focus on rehabilitation. Police were still looking for the gun he’d used to shoot at the school with, but Ellery and Jackson suspected it was long gone.

But Ellery had put in a request to Boys Ranch to let them know if Klaus was released early—or escaped—so he and Jackson would know to watch their backs.

Baldwin’s cousin Kurt, the SRO at Capitol Valley, had simply failed to come in to work the first day of school and disappeared. At first they’d thought maybe he’d gone into hiding with Dima, but the more they thought things through, the less sure they were of that. It was possible that the Schroeder family had a different set of loyalties.

“What about Alexei Kovacs?” Jackson added. “Because Ziggy and Baldwin are actually small potatoes if he’s wearing the family name. But yeah, we would really love it if some of this rampant speculation was confirmed.”

Although some of it had been. Some of the surviving gang members in the SUVs had told them that Ziggy had aligned with Kovacs, and that some of them were Kovacs’s men that Ziggy had co-opted, and some were Siderov’s men who had been either lured or coerced to turn on their boss.

But one last interview, to tie up loose ends, to get a feel, maybe, for where Dima Siderov would go, where he could come from next. And who the mysterious confidential informant had been, the one who had called Lindstrom and Craft to tell them where their small busts would be but kept them away from the real action.

Christie had told Ellery and Jackson privately that the two policemen’d had their financials thoroughly investigated. They were too poor to be dirty, just not smart enough to get promoted. It wasn’t going to make them any friendlier, but knowing they weren’t on the take had made Jackson, at least, feel a little better about the last ten years since he’d been on the force.

“I hear you,” Christie said now about the interview with Kovacs. “I’d love to be in on that, but me and Sean have some shit to do here.”

Jackson nodded, and Ellery felt better for poor Kryzynski. No, Andre Christie wasn’t a lover, but he was a brother, and sometimes that was what a person needed.

Jackson and Christie cleaned up the rest of Sean’s breakup mess, and Jackson ordered pizza for lunch. The moment the delivery person left, Henry knocked on the door.

Standing behind him was one of the most beautiful—and haunted-looking—young men Ellery had ever seen.

“Heya!” Henry barged his way in, the young man coming in on his heels with a backpack over his shoulder. “I understand you’ve got a job for Billy?”

“Billy?” Kryzynski said, brows furrowing. “Why do I know that na—”

And then he saw the young man—dark haired, sloe-eyed, with a blocky build and muscles that could have been chiseled from marble. Billy had a lean mouth and thick, dark lashes that most women would kill for.

He also had a square jaw and a chiseled chin, and altogether, as a package, he looked like a model for one of those military magazines that seemed to fetishize guns as much as they fetishized muscles.

Ellery’s eyes grew wide, and he glared at Jackson over the couch while Jackson looked blandly back.

“Hi, Billy,” Jackson said, reaching out to shake the kid’s hand. “Pleased to meet you. Did Henry tell you what you’d signed on for?”

“A little bit of nursing, some light housecleaning, and basically making sure Detective Kryzynski here is okay before we leave him to his own devices.” Billy gave a brief smile then, the kind that indicated he was as competent as he was good-looking and valued the competence more. “I’m getting my degree in engineering, but I’ve been in sports all my life so I’ve got some basic first aid knowledge, and I’ll be good at giving baths and helping with physical stuff.” His smile changed, became kind and professional. “And not much shocks me, so you don’t have to worry. Your secrets are safe with me.”

Sean gazed at the young man with a slightly opened mouth and blue eyes that had gone as round as a cartoon character’s.

“Uhm….”

Jackson grinned, so full of himself that Ellery wanted to smack him. “Well, our job here is done. Ellery and I need to go question a scumbag, but you all