Lincoln spun back around and through his wet, stinging eyes saw their assailant had escaped. “Fuck, go.” He shoved at Carter’s side. “Go get him!”
Carter wouldn’t release his wrist. “Not leaving you either! Let’s go!”
“The phone, the files . . .”
“Lost cause. You’re not!”
An explosion rocked the building, and flames crept through the door along the ceiling. That was all the convincing Lincoln needed. “Let’s go!” They hit the hallway and slammed on brakes. The bullpen was in flames, no exit that way. A door slammed the opposite direction and cold air gusted around Lincoln’s ankles. Glancing down, he noticed the drops of blood leading the same direction. He shifted his grip, hand in Carter’s. “This way!”
Arms above their heads, buffering the encroaching heat and smoke, they raced around the corner and spied the emergency exit ahead. Running flat out, they hit the door at the same instant another explosion rocked the building, the momentum and force shoving them the rest of the way outside, into the cold, dark winter.
Nine
Lincoln stayed in Carter’s arms an embarrassingly long time. Long enough for a police car to come screaming from a different direction than the burning police station. For the fire truck to likewise arrive from across town. For the ambulance to arrive from the hospital.
Selling the cover, right? Nothing to do with how Carter had curled his warm body around Lincoln’s once they’d made it through the snowdrift back to the car. Nothing to do with the calming effect of his steady breaths ruffling Lincoln’s hair or his steadier assurances rumbling behind his ear.
Even more embarrassing, not realizing his partner was injured until a paramedic approached them and said to Carter, “I need to clean up that cut, sir, and bandage your hands.”
Lincoln rocked back, out of Carter’s arms. “What cut? I thought the knife missed you.”
Carter captured his flailing hands, and Lincoln noticed the backs of his knuckles were split and oozing blood. As was the cut on Carter’s outer shoulder, a dark streak of blood creeping down his sleeve. The knife hadn’t missed him completely.
“Fuck,” Lincoln cursed. “I’m sorry.”
Carter lifted his hand and cradled Lincoln’s cheek, same as he’d done in the dark. “I’m fine. Are you?”
Lincoln nodded, and Carter erased the distance between them, nuzzling his temple. Lincoln didn’t draw away, not even when the Barry-Jerry lookalike joined them.
“You boys okay?” the too-familiar stranger asked.
“Got out just in time,” Carter said, shifting to Lincoln’s side and sliding an arm around his waist. “Chief Petticoat, this is my husband, Lincoln Polk. L, this is Larry.”
Lincoln shook the chief’s hand, déjà vu walloping him hard. Larry wasn’t Barry’s twin, but the resemblance was uncanny; the genetics were strong in the Petticoat clan.
“What happened?” Larry asked.
The brothers also shared the same inquisitor voice, probably inherited from their father.
“Sir,” the paramedic said, reminding them she was still there. “Can we please move them to the ambulance? Mr. Polk needs to get that wound cleaned up.” She gestured at Carter’s shoulder, and Larry’s eyes grew wide.
Lincoln’s stomach wobbled. He was hard as nails at crime scenes. He was never the one who almost lost his lunch. This was what he did, what he understood, what he was good at, but he had also never been the one involved in said crime scene. Which included fire. Which resulted in his partner—Carter—injured.
The paramedic cleared her throat. “And the other Mr. Polk looks like he needs to sit down.”
Yes. Sit. Good.
“Let’s go, then,” Carter said, shuffling them toward the ambulance.
They moved as a unit, Carter’s good arm around his waist and Lincoln helping to brace his weight, while his mind continued processing what had just happened in a series of horror-movie snapshots. The power outage plunging them into darkness. The flare tumbling, end over end, into the records room. The fight between Carter and the assailant. The smoke, a lighter shade of dark, snaking through the black. The rising flames reflected in the knife. The building shuddering around them. Lincoln shivered from the mental film reel and from the cold wind that blustered around him, Carter’s big body no longer shielding his. But he couldn’t tear his gaze from the burning building to see where Carter had gone.
Didn’t need to. Carter tugged at his bag, dragging it off his shoulder and demanding his attention. “Don’t look, L.” He set the bag behind him and urged Lincoln down onto the ambulance fender next to him, holding open a woolly blanket. Lincoln snuggled into the offered warmth, while the paramedic worked on Carter’s other side.
And while Larry continued to interrogate. “Okay, then,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
“I came in to set up a few things for Monday,” Carter said. “Lincoln came with me, and I showed him the records room for his research like we talked about. We’d been here about twenty minutes when the power went out and we were attacked.”
“Attacked?”
