The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,106

my job.”

“You’re not—”

“We found the hatchet in her garage,” Ammon shouted over him. “Right in Hannah’s garage. And someone had tried to clean the blood and the prints off it, but you can’t ever get rid of all the blood. It’s Joy’s. We already matched it. So there’s your means, motive, and opportunity. And I did it with warrants and by the book, Tean. Don’t whine about how mean I am just because the truth hurts. And the truth is that your friend is a murderer. I’m sorry. I know that hurts you,” Ammon’s voice dropped now, “and I’m sorry. I really am. I would never hurt you, not ever, if there were any other way.”

Tean squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he looked at Jem. The blond man’s head was down, and he was staring into his coffee.

“You’re not going to say anything?” Tean asked.

Jem didn’t even move.

“Fine,” Tean said. “Let’s go.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Ammon said.

“Don’t bother.”

“Tean, I have to walk you out. Please don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

When Ammon reached for the doorknob, Tean said, “The bite marks won’t match. You won’t be able to match them to any animal Hannah’s ever owned.”

“She’s a biologist who works for the Division of Wildlife Resources. She could have planned a dozen different ways to stage that attack.”

“You can’t prove that.”

Ammon scrubbed his face with both hands. “Yeah, well, that’s for a jury to decide.”

Kat was waiting for them, and she took up position next to Jem, with Ammon at Tean’s side, as though the detectives were escorting a pair of prisoners back to their cells. They moved through the homicide unit’s offices, past cubicles, past messy desks, past a coffee station where a drip machine was spitting and hissing. Someone had put out a Nutpods creamer and taped a note to it: Do not touch – Ammon’s nut cream.

Tean glanced at him.

Shaking his head, Ammon said, “It’s fine.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“During which conversation? At what point was I supposed to interrupt you shouting at me and tell you how things are going now that people at work know I’m a great big honking cocksucker?”

Kat snorted.

“Ammon, why didn’t you tell me?”

They were approaching the lobby door now, and Ammon just shook his head. “Get some sleep. Get something to eat. What comes next isn’t going to be easy for anyone.”

Tean studied his friend, the first boy he had ever loved, the man he still loved: the bloodshot eyes, the slight hint of blond scruff, the hollow weariness.

“Go on,” Ammon said with a quiet laugh, pushing Tean toward the door. “Before I do something dumb like kiss you.”

Kat snorted again, this time adding an eye roll.

Tean let himself be hustled out into the lobby, Jem stumbling behind him, and then the door shut. He glanced back. If Ammon came through that door. If Ammon said he was sorry for all the years they’d wasted. If Ammon asked him, in that moment, to forgive him. Tean could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.

Then he saw Jem, his face waxy, wobbling as though he could barely stay on his feet.

“Jem?”

Jem shook his head.

“Jem, what’s wrong? What’s going on? Are you ok?”

His blue-gray eyes, the color of deep ocean squalls, were glassy. “I don’t know,” Jem mumbled. “Tired.” And then his knees folded, and he went down.

30

The blackness only lasted a moment—or so it seemed, anyway—and then Jem was blinking his eyes against harsh fluorescents. His head ached, as did his shoulder and hip, and he realized he was lying on the floor. The smell of cleaner adhered faintly to the cement: lemony, chemical. He still felt like he was underwater, those glass bricks on his chest. Somewhere above him, Tean was saying, “I don’t know what’s wrong with him; that’s what I keep trying to tell you, he just collapsed.”

“I’m ok,” Jem said.

“Oh my gosh,” Tean said, dropping down next to him.

Jem pushed the glasses back up his nose.

“Lie down,” Tean said. “You need to lie down. We’re getting an ambulance.”

“No,” Jem said. The look of shock on Tean’s face made him laugh. “Nope, no way.” He was sitting. When he went to stand, exhaustion kept him pinned to the ground. “Give me a hand, would you?”

“You passed out,” Tean said. Behind the doc, a dour young woman in a blue uniform was watching. She looked more worried that Jem might try to make off with one of those chained-down pens than that he