It was encouraging, Gideon had thought, pleased.It meant that his and Harding’s faith in the little shit wasn’t misplaced.But it was also reassuring to hear that ice-cold intelligence coming into play.While Carlyle had been upset his human instincts hadn’t picked up on Schumer, it was that cold analytical side of him that had come rushing to Gideon’s aid and helped them recover the bodies of Schumer’s victims.
Carlyle had come to them lacking certain skills but proficient in others.If he could pick up what he was missing, he’d be a superlative agent.
He was already a decent partner.
Reluctantly, Gideon shook off that moment when the three of them had been listening to Harding’s takedown of Arnold.He and Joey had been face-to-face, breath mingling, and the heat in those obsidian eyes….
Gideon had felt it in his gut, hard, warming…warning.
He’d taken enough chemistry classes to know some combinations were explosive.He had to be careful—very careful—of not allowing the two of them to mix in the wrong way.
He wasn’t sure there was a device made that could pick up the fragments if they exploded.
But for now Carlyle was reserving his cold, predatory side for analysis and strategy and allowing some warmth, some human connection, to seep in regarding his colleagues.Gideon would take it.It was a win.
Especially because Gideon hadn’t ever had a partner he’d enjoyed as much as Joey Carlyle.
Ruthless and predatory?Absolutely.But he was also funny, curious, and as excited about learning as a child.That first odd venture to Broadway hadn’t been their last.Once a month—sometimes once a week—they saw a show.Or live music.Or listened to buskers in the park.Stakeouts and travel times were filled with battling playlists and discussions as to what the lyrics said, how the songs were put together, how the musicmattered.
And Gideon now knew more about monkeys than aWild Kingdomspecial.
Gideon had to admit he’d been having a lot of fun, but it was good to know he wasn’t having fun with a complete sociopath.Watching Carlyle slowly learn to care about his teammates had been a huge relief.
“What about Arnold?”Carlyle prodded during the staff meeting, his reserve of judgment proof of everything Gideon had come to believe about him.
“For Arnold I suspect blackmail,” Gideon had responded slowly.“What do you think, Clint?”
“Why do you say that?”Harding returned—one of his most irritating qualities, actually.
“Because he’s only now on the payroll,” Kylie said promptly.“Like, he’s resisted being on the payroll for years, and what he’s getting now?It’s not very much.”
“And he was sweating through his suit,” Gideon added, remembering that encounter in the hospital.“He… he was fixated on shooting the dog, because helikesdogs.It was like the legal implications had gone to the wind.He was going to bully a man under anesthetic because we shot the dog.”
“Well, then,” Harding murmured, “if we think it’s blackmail, we need to find out what Garber has on him.Which means….”
“Aw fuck,” Carlyle muttered, seeing the implications for surveillance.“Goddammit.”
“Half of us are out for active duty anyway,” Clint said with a shrug, which was true since GideonandCarlyle were out for another week, until their shooting cleared Deavers’s desk, and Crosby was still laid up.Technically, the whole squad should have been doing paperwork, but they were pissed.They felt used, and one of their own was down, and they’d killed two men and one whacked-out Rott-something because a businessman had a gambling jones.
They wanted some payback.
And, as Carlyle had intuited, the only way to get it was….
“I fucking hate stakeouts,” Carlyle muttered now in the car that had been their home in the last week, ever since that meeting.During normal work hours they rode their desk and did paperwork.After they’d ostensibly clocked out, while the others chased down leads relating to Halsey Garber and his tentacle-like hold on the gambling industry in the state, Gideon and Carlyle sat here, keeping an eye on Jay Arnold, hoping to see Garber in person.The man was oily and rancid, but all accounts said he stuck his oily and rancid fingers into all his personal pies.
“You only hate stakeouts because it’s my turn with the playlist,” Gideon said with satisfaction.
And here they were, stretched thin but reluctant to call it a night.Jay Arnold had been closeted in the three floors of his Upper East Side apartment for the last week after working hours.It was not the biggest or fanciest of the buildings in the area, although the size of the space was quite impressive.Apparently Arnold had tried for five years to buy property in the neighborhood, and the sale had come through about a year after his appointment to his current job.
Next to Gideon, Carlyle spoke, and as he often did, he sounded as though he’d been reading Gideon’s mind.“Do you really think he felt bad about the dog?”
Gideon grunted.“Yeah.Why?”
“Because it’s… it seems so out of character for a man who has all this money and shit.”He paused, and Gideon let him search for words.“In my experience, men with that sort of bling have removed conscience from the equation.”
Gideon should have let the matter drop, but he couldn’t.Not after watching Carlyle grow these past six months.
“Was that your father?”he asked quietly.
