School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,73
it out, but Ellery half laughed and they both slid into the sunshine. “Sure. But, you know….”
And distraction time was over. “We’ve got work to do,” Jackson said soberly. “Let’s go catch some bad guys.”
Extra Credit
“HAVE YOU eaten?” Henry asked as he got behind the wheel. “It’s one o’clock. I’m starved. Let’s stop some place—my treat.”
“I’m fine,” Jackson said, because truthfully, eating anything after that conversation with Ellery about human traffickers and the kind of mentality it took to strip a person of their humanity and make them cattle had seriously done a number on his stomach. By the time Jackson and Ellery had gotten to the office and had their meeting with Henry, lunchtime had come and gone. Ellery had asked Jade to call out for sandwiches, but Jackson had been just as happy to miss that action.
“Jackson.”
Jackson ignored the warning in his voice and kept talking.
“So, did you ask Jenny to call Arizona and tell her what she knows about Suzanne Mayer?” Henry’s morning had been pretty productive as well. It turned out that Jenny Probst had identified the picture of Ziggy Ivanov from Henry’s phone after she’d told Henry that she’d caught one of the bailiffs who worked the courtroom she was often assigned to looking through her briefcase when Jenny had left it with a friend to use the ladies room. Jenny had snatched it back, and later that day she’d seen the bailiff with “a blond high-school-looking kid with serial-killer eyes.”
And she’d ID’d the bailiff as Mayer, and Arizona had a solid case and more leverage, and that was always helpful.
It also helped to know that the leak didn’t go beyond the Mayers and that the link was damned clear. Jackson had enough leads in this case already.
“Yes, I did,” Henry said in exasperation. “You were getting phone numbers and addresses, and I was talking to Arizona Brooks, who, I have to admit, makes Herrera look like a kitten.”
Jackson snorted. “Give Herrera some seasoning. She’ll be a tiger soon enough.”
“You sound like that’s a good thing,” Henry said.
“Well, not everyone who shows up in court deserves an Ellery Cramer defense,” Jackson admitted. “For example, these assholes at the high school.”
“I can’t believe they’re out there playing football,” Henry muttered. “From one to three?”
“Yes, but that’s because they’ve been there since nine already,” Jackson responded. “God, this heat. It’s barbaric.”
Henry gave a mean chuckle. “You forget I spent eight years going on and off deployment to the Iraqi desert. This is bad—I mean, I know it’s bad—but twenty miles, full kit, in 120-degree weather….”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re tougher than me,” Jackson admitted freely. “Well done, Junior. You go to the corner store and talk to Nate Klein.” Ty Townsend’s bestie just happened to be working today. “I’ll talk to the asswipe football coach.”
Henry grunted.
“You disagree?”
“Mm… well, for one thing, Rivers, and forgive me for saying this, but your poker face sucks, and you’re an asshole to the people you don’t like.”
“No, I wouldn’t find that offensive at all. Why would you think that?”
“Ouch,” Henry said, voice arid. “I think your sarcasm slapped me in the kisser. And for another, you get kids. They trust you. I don’t know, you have that look or something. Whatever. The kid you should talk to. I look like an Aryan asshole who might sympathize with another Aryan asshole.”
“I look like an Aryan asshole,” Jackson said, offended for Henry.
“Rivers, take it from someone whose father was a real Aryan asshole. You smell like a bleeding-heart liberal. I don’t.”
“So you put on your monster odorant, and you think you’re ready to roll?” Jackson asked, stung.
Henry narrowed his eyes, and his lips moved. “Monster odorant….” The snort of laughter he made was so sharp, Jackson honestly worried about whether or not he could drive. “Oh my God. To make me smell like a monster!” Henry hooted. “Good one.”
His grin then was so sunshiny bright that some of Jackson’s sour mood evaporated. Henry had been a stereotypical redneck when Galen had dragged him into Ellery’s office a couple of months back. Or he’d worked hard to appear that way. The truth was, he’d been lost, having just cut himself off from every toxic life pattern that had tried hard to shape him.
The person he’d shaped for himself was, in fact, kind and funny, if a little bit grumpy and bluntly spoken at awkward times. Making him laugh like that—at the person he’d worked so hard to be—was something of a victory.