 by Mary Calmes.jpg)
Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
It’s a disaster all around, and all Josiah sees ahead of him is pain—and not only from getting shot.
But what he thinks he knows for sure isn’t exactly all there is. Turns out, he’s not the only one who’s missing his touchstone, and Bodhi might be fraying at the edges, coming undone. When two people have been tied together over and over for so long, it’s not so easy to get loose. And maybe neither wants to be free of the other, and that could be their future, as long as no one comes between them… with a gun.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
Though I hated all those movies where the main character said he was too old to do whatever shit he was doing, I had to admit I was, in fact, too old to be running down guys half my age. Like the fucker I was chasing at the moment, Stanislav Loginov, who looked to be in his late twenties. At forty-three, I should not have been running. At my age I should have been promoted by now, but I was still an investigator with the marshals service, nothing more. Not that being more seemed fun. All the guys I knew who’d been promoted looked like hell most of the time, and at least I wasn’t chained to a desk like the higher-ups. But really, the running was overrated.
Loginov took a turn down a delivery tunnel—those ramps between office buildings—and following him was ill advised. Because if he all of a sudden stopped, and had a knife, my momentum would carry me right into him, and I’d be gutted like a fish. The good news was, with how hard he was running, arms and legs pumping like he was an Olympic hopeful, I was betting his brain was in full flight mode; no fight in his noggin at all. The only thing he was trying to do was outdistance me, which was likely, except I wasn’t alone. My temporary partner, Eric Pazzi—six months out of rehab, two riding a desk and four with me—was circling back around in our, I had to say, pretty cool 1987 Pontiac Firebird that had the actual bird painted on the hood. Investigators drove whatever had been seized by Asset Forfeiture, and because I was always the first one down when new cars came in—I had learned my lesson driving a Gremlin a few years back—I had jumped on the Firebird.
As soon as Loginov came up through the tunnel, Pazzi cut him off, having driven up on the sidewalk, and my fugitive hit the car, his momentum taking him over the hood. He might have gotten up and run on—he was clearly in great shape—but that same moment my partner was out of the car, yanking him back across the hood and down onto the ground. I couldn’t see, I was hunched over, trying to breathe, but I heard a thud as Loginov made contact with the concrete, and then the zipping sound of plastic handcuffs.
“The fuck were you thinking?”
For a moment I thought Pazzi was yelling at our fugitive, but the voice wasn’t his and the question was directed at me.
And then there was more yelling about how stupid I was. Loud, loud yelling as I was questioned about how far up my ass my head was.
Not Pazzi.
First off, Pazzi never shouted. They taught him in rehab how to stay calm. Apparently, that had been one of his triggers—his anger and frustration. No way the newly rehabilitated marshal would have ever raised his voice to me.
Turning my head, not ready to straighten up yet, I looked at my partner. Not the current one, but instead the real one. The old one. The forever one until one of us was promoted. The guy I’d been with for five years, whom I’d transferred to Chicago with, sort of, three years ago. I’d come to the Windy City maybe a week ahead of him, trying to give him time to decide if he wanted to stick with me. I knew better, though; he’d been right behind me as usual, and pissed that I hadn’t waited for him.
Whereas Pazzi had black hair, like me, my regular partner had a dirty-blond, sun-streaked mane and bright turquoise-blue eyes that were now set in a glare that should have killed me with its fury. He was going to murder me. And that was funny, in a weird, psychotic way, because he’d been worried for my safety—I got that from the stream of obscenities shouted at me—and because of that, would now end my life. It made no sense other than to show he cared.
“Are you fuckin’ listening to me?” he yelled again because I’d been zoning instead of answering him which he’d always hated.
Shit.
I said the only thing I reasonably could. “Where the fuck is Pazzi?” I shouted like I was the one who should have been mad.
“Standing wherever the fuck I left him, waiting for you to tell him where you are.”
“What?” I straightened up and pointed at my ear. “I talked to him on comms.”
He shook his head.
“I did! I said where I was going.”
“No,” he snarled. “As far as I can tell, your earpiece is dead.”
“I just used it!”
Again with the headshaking.
“Then how the hell are you even here?”
“Because I fucking know you, idiot!” he roared.
Godfuckingdamnit.
The worst part was, it was true. No one on the planet knew me better than Bodhi Callahan. He knew everything, from how I liked my eggs scrambled to why I hung up all my shirts, including T-shirts, to the fact that I was useless in the morning without coffee. Some people needed it, enjoyed it, but for me, my blood didn’t pump, my brain didn’t turn on, nothing. He also knew that a fugitive would choose to run down a long tunnel between buildings since they hoped it would open up into a parking garage and give them more room to maneuver. Even more importantly, Bodhi knew I would always follow wherever that fugitive went. I might not be the fastest guy, but I never gave up. I had great stamina, and I never stopped until I ran out of pavement or someone went down. How many dark alleys and strobe-lit clubs and abandoned buildings had he followed me into where, honestly, it would have been very easy for anyone to get the jump on me? The thing was, he was always there, so even when people stopped and shot at me, he was the one who returned fire or tackled me to the ground before I was hit. It was not a surprise that he had appeared out of thin air. I expected nothing less of him. He was my partner after all.