All Kinds Of Tied Down

I considered it a win if I got Ian Doyle to put on a Kevlar vest before he kicked down a door or charged headfirst into the unknown. I saw the looks we got from the other marshals when we returned with bloodied suspects, recaptured felons, or secured witnesses, and over the years they had changed from respect for Ian to sympathy for me.

When I was first partnered with him, some of the other marshals were confused about it. Why was the new guy—me—being partnered with the ex-Special Forces soldier, the Green Beret? How did that make sense? I think they thought I got an unfair advantage and that getting him as a partner was like winning the lottery. I was the newest marshal, low man on the totem pole, so how did I rate Captain America?

What everyone missed was that Ian didn’t come from a police background like most of us. He came from the military and wasn’t versed in proper police procedure or adherence to the letter of the law. As the newest marshal on the team, I was the one who had the book memorized the best, so the supervisory deputy, my boss, assigned me to him. It actually made sense.

Lucky me.

Doyle was a nightmare. And while I wasn’t a Boy Scout, in comparison to my “shoot first, ask questions later” partner, I came off as calm and rational.

After the first six months, everyone stopped looking at me with envy and switched to pity. Now, going on three years, marshals in my field office would bring me an ice pack, pass me whatever pharmaceuticals they had in their desks, and even occasionally offer advice. It was always the same.

“For crissakes, Jones, you need to talk to the boss about him.”

My boss, Supervisory Deputy Sam Kage, recently called me into his office and asked me flat out if there was any truth to the rumors he was hearing. Did I want a change of partner? The blank stare I gave him hopefully conveyed my confusion. So it was no one’s fault but my own that I was running in the slushy melting snow down the forty-seven hundred block of Ninety-Fifth Street in Oak Lawn at ten on a cold Tuesday morning in mid-January.

Arms pumping, Glock 20 in my hand, I saw Ian motion to the left, so I veered off and leaped an overturned garbage can as I headed into an alley. I should have been the one on the street; my partner was better at leaping and running up walls like a ninja. Even though I was younger than his thirty-six by five years, at six two and 185 pounds, he was in much better shape than me. While he was all lean, carved muscle with eight-pack abs and arms that made women itch to touch, I was built heavier at five eleven, with bulky muscle and wide shoulders, more bull than panther. Ian had a sleek, fluid way about him; I was all sharp angles and herky-jerky motion. We were as different as we could be, though people often commented that we had a really similar irritating way of carrying ourselves when together, an unmistakable strut. But I would have known if I was doing that, if I puffed up when I walked beside my partner. No way I swaggered and didn’t notice.

The second I emerged from the trash-strewn alley, I was hit by a 250-pound freight train of a man and smashed onto the pavement under him.

“Oh!” I heard my partner yell as my spine splintered and every gasp of air in my body was trounced out of my frame. “Nice block, M!”

The escaped convict tried to lever up off me, but Ian was there, yanking him sideways, driving him down on the sidewalk beside me with a boot on his collarbone. I would have told him not to go overboard with manhandling—I took it upon myself to caution him against all manner of infractions during the course of a normal day—but I had no air, no voice, nothing. All I could do was lie on the cold, clammy cement and wonder how many of my ribs were broken.

“Are you getting up?” Ian asked snidely as he rolled Eddie Madrid to his stomach, pulled his arms behind his back, and cuffed him quickly before moving to squat next to me. “Or are you resting?”

All I could do was stare up at him, noting that he was scowling, as usual. That scowl was permanently etched on his face, and even when he grinned, the creases above and between his eyebrows never smoothed all the way. He was tense, just a little, at all times.

“If I didn’t know you were tough, I’d be starting to worry,” he said gruffly.

The fact that neither I nor Eddie was moving should have clued him in.

“M?”

I tried to move and pain shot through my left wrist. What was interesting was that the second I winced, his light eyes darkened with concern.

“Did you break your wrist?”

As though I was responsible for my own bones getting snapped. “I didn’t break anything,” I groaned, a bit of air finally inflating my lungs, enough to give me a hoarse, crackly voice. “But I think your friend over here did.”

“Maybe we better get you to the hospital.”

“I’ll go by myself,” I groused. “You take Madrid in.”

He opened his mouth to argue.

“Just do what I say,” I ordered, annoyed that I was broken. Again. “I’ll call you if I can’t make picking up Stubbs from lockup.”

His scowl deepened as he took my good hand and hauled me to my feet. I went to move around him, but he leaned forward and his prickly dark brown stubble grazed my ear, the sensation making me jolt involuntarily.

“I’m coming with you,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t be an ass.”

I studied him, the face I knew as well as my own—maybe better after looking at it for the past three years, straight on or in profile as he drove. His gaze on the ground, suddenly flicking up, colliding with mine, startled me with its intensity. He was utterly focused; I had every drop of his attention.

“Sorry.”

I was stunned, and it must have shown on my face because the furrowed brows, the glower, were instant. “Holy shit,” I teased. “It’s a little early for spring thaw.”

“You’re a dick,” he flared, turning away.

After grabbing hold of his shoulder, I yanked hard, fisting my hand in the half trench he wore, stepping in close. “No, I’m happy––actually, really happy. Come on. Relax.”

He growled at me.

“Take me to the emergency room.” I chuckled, holding on to him.

His grunt made me smile, and when I squeezed his shoulder, I saw how pleased he seemed to be. “Let’s go.”

He heaved Madrid to his feet—which was interesting since our fugitive outweighed him by a good sixty pounds—threw him up against the car, opened the back door, and shoved him in. It took only moments, and then he was back to facing me, stepping forward into my space, so close I could feel the heat rolling off him.

“You should never question that I’m gonna go with you. That’s what partners are for.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Say okay.”

He never demanded things of me. Normally there was browbeating, teasing, derision—but not concern. It was strange. “Yeah, okay.”

Nodding quickly, he walked around the side of the 1969 Cadillac deVille we were currently driving. Whatever was seized during drug raids or other criminal activity was what we got. The last ride had been a 2000 Ford Mustang I was crazy about, either driving—which I scarcely ever did—or riding in. It was a sad day when it became the victim of heavy machine-gun fire. The grenade tossed through the window had been the final straw. Ian kept saying it was fixable up until that point.

The bow-chicka-bow-wow car we were in now, all whitewall tires and green metallic paint, was a little much for the US Marshals Service. But we were supposed to travel incognito, and cruising through the worst parts of Chicago, no one gave us a second look.

“Get in,” he barked.

“Yessir.”

And as usual, we were off like a rocket, no gentle merge into traffic. Ian always drove like he was fleeing a bank robbery and I had learned to simply buckle up.

“What the fuck,” Eddie Madrid yelled from the backseat, having lurched forward and then been hurled back in a whiplash maneuver. “Someone belt me in.”

I started laughing as I turned to my partner, who was swearing at the people sharing the road with them. “Even our prisoner fears for his life.”

“Fuck him,” he snarled, taking a corner like he was a stunt driver getting ready to jump out.

Eddie slammed into the partial window on the passenger side of the sedan. “Jesus Christ, man!”

I just braced for impact, hoping I’d make it to the hospital in one piece.