School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,35

shit down south that you don’t even want to know about. So don’t fuck with me here. I gave you solid details on a 245 with a cop, and I’m going to get that kid out of gen pop if it kills me.” He grimaced. “And it might. Believe me, my boyfriend is fucking tired of me ending up in the hospital here, so if we could avoid that last one, that would be great. So yeah. We’re going to clean up a mess. It would be fantastic if we had some help from the good guys instead of having to worry about them fucking with us instead.”

They went eyeball to eyeball again, and Jackson had had enough.

“Don’t look at each other,” he snapped. “Look at me! You guys can excuse anything you want to each other in the name of department solidarity, but I’ve seen past that curtain, and you know what’s behind it? Blood and fucking despair. I’m the guy who didn’t jump on the fucking bandwagon, and it almost backed over my head here. You got a guilty conscience, you own it up to me!”

“Oh my God,” Hardison muttered, and his hair was short enough that he could run his fingers through it. “You are not going to let up, are you?”

“My friend’s in the hospital and there’s a kid in jail!” Jackson shouted, and both of them flinched.

Fetzer held her hands up. “Okay,” she said after a moment. “You’re right. You’re totally right. Tell us what you need, and we’ll see what we can do.”

Jackson held up his hand and ticked the points off on his fingers. “Kryzynski needs people,” he said. “I need to know what Lindstrom and Craft were supposed to be doing when they were busting Ty Townsend. I need you guys to run Sergio Ivanov, and if your lieutenant isn’t going to do anything about him, I need his fucking information because I will.”

“We don’t need a fucking vigilante!” Fetzer snapped, showing the spine he’d known she’d possessed when he’d walked in the room.

“Do you think he’s working alone?” Jackson said, remembering Ellery’s text as he’d entered the building. “Do you think these incidents are just isolated mayhem? There is something going on that we don’t know about, and that kid is the key. If you’re not going to investigate, we will.”

“Sergio Ivanov,” Hardison said quickly, “we’re on it.”

“And if you can get me the name of Lindstrom’s CI, I need to hear it. Any info at all. Because they were manipulated away from something by this guy, and it would be helpful to know what.”

He blew out a breath, and his phone started buzzing. He checked it and saw Henry with: Where the fuck are you? She’s going to ask me to be this baby’s godfather and then deliver it on my feet if you don’t get me out of here!

“That’s all I can think of for now,” Jackson said, his mouth twisting up. Thank God for his punk-ass partner who was not going to let him take things too seriously. “Now we gotta go. Our next stop is the jail, and we can not let Tage Dobrevk down.”

“Isn’t Tage a Swedish name?” Fetzer asked.

Jackson blinked hard. “You know, that’ll be the first thing I ask him,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve got my number. If you can get Chambers up to speed, do that. God, you guys—there’s a line where incompetence gets criminal, and you all are riding it hard, aren’t you?”

“Fuck you too,” Fetzer muttered, but the words lacked heat, and he saluted her behind his back as he walked away.

HE FOUND Henry surrounded by cops, all of them looking hopefully at him for ice cream. Lucky for Henry, he’d bought a small ice chest and filled it with Popsicles, as well as the desk sergeant’s cookies and cream.

Henry gave out the last of the free Popsicles, and the crowd thinned out, leaving an almost tearful Sergeant Kensington forever in their debt.

“Oh my God,” she gushed to Henry. “You have no idea. That was the nicest thing anyone has done for me in… I absolutely can’t remember. I can’t even tell you how much I needed that.”

Henry grinned at her and winked. “My sister was pregnant in August. I was told I was lucky I was deployed, because the family isn’t sure how they survived.”

Kensington laughed, but Jackson’s heart gave a little ping. Henry’s family had pretty much disowned him when he’d come out, and that was before