Page 2 of A Matter of Time

He barked softly, and I went to grab him.

When I reached him, the angle I needed to pick him up from was weird, and without meaning to, I accidentally pushed the drapes apart and stepped into the room. I immediately moved back behind them, and I was about to pick up George and go back the way I’d come when I heard a crash. George yelped and retreated behind my leg. My curiosity getting the better of me, I peeked into what looked like a massive den, the walls, floor, and furniture all done in shades of brown, maroon, and black. A moan drew my attention to a man lying on top of the remains of a heavy glass coffee table. The broken piece of furniture was one thing; the guy covered in blood and mumbling softly was a much bigger deal.

There are those moments that make it seem like a strobe light is going off in your head. You see pieces of things but not the whole picture. Like, I saw the shattered glass, the burnished black leather shoes of the guys standing on the brown-and-damask-colored Persian rug. I saw the polished marble floors and Brian holding a gun on a man. I heard the guy scream “No,” then saw him jerk as Brian fired. It doesn’t sound like it does in the movies. When a gun goes off, there’s no boom, it’s more of a firecracker pop. It was fast, like a jump cut in a movie, and then it was over. Brian unloaded the gun, then all the guys took turns spitting on the dead guy, and at that moment two things happened simultaneously.

First, my phone rang, playing “Karma Chameleon,” and second, George bolted through the drapes. I lunged for him and caught his collar, but not in time to stop my forward momentum. It was like being on stage. I came out from behind the curtain like, ta-dah!

My eyes swept the room. I saw every face before I settled on the one I knew the best—the guy who was married to my friend and holding an empty gun.

“Jory!” Brian roared, and because I have no fight reflex whatsoever, I went immediately to flight. I yanked on George’s collar, jerked back the drape, and whipped George into the hall. He ran, and as I bolted after him, I heard shots and Brian screaming my name. He hadn’t been all that crazy about me to begin with, and we were definitely not in a good place at that moment.

I felt a bit lightheaded for a second, but I got my legs under me and ran. I yelled for George when I got back to the space on the side of the stairs, because he went right, heading for the kitchen, but I needed us to go out the door together. Instantly, he course-corrected, running along beside me as fast as his little legs would carry him. I saw a guy in front of me, but instead of slowing down, I sped up. When he pulled his gun, I dropped to my knees and slid halfway across the polished marble floor. It would have been very cool if I hadn’t been running for my life at the time. He fell on top of me, but I got untangled and ran for the front door again. When I threw it open wide, I was faced with Darth Vader.

“Get down,” he ordered me, and the second I dove for the ground, I heard what sounded like a baseball hit him in the chest.

Immediately, someone stepped on me, somebody else kicked me, and then my arm got yanked so hard I thought my shoulder was dislocated.

Outside, someone dragged me to my feet before pulling me into the street where, like, a hundred police cars were, lights flashing everywhere. It was cold, and I registered that before anything else. There were more shots, and I got shoved back down to my knees, which hurt a bit when they hit the ground. I lost my balance because I got bumped and pushed, and then somebody covered me in a jacket that easily weighed a thousand pounds. I fell back, and then George was on me, licking my face as I tried to breathe. I was winded, and when I finally grabbed the dog and hugged him so he’d stop, I realized four men were standing over me. Not one looked pleased. One guy in particular looked like he wanted to strangle me right there in the middle of the street.

“Two years of undercover work blown in seconds,” he snarled icily.

What to say… “Sorry?” I offered, even though with the panting, it was hard to speak, and from his expression, I was guessing he didn’t hear me. But that was okay, because lying there, staring up at him, was actually really nice. He was easily the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life, and even the glaring that was happening as he loomed over me was good.

“Who the fuck are you?” he yelled that time, and the sound came up from his diaphragm. With a chest that wide, he had a lot of air to help with the noise level.

His scowl looked permanent. I coughed twice. My ribs hurt. “Jory Keyes.”

“What the hell are you doing here, man?” one of the others barked at me.

I tried to take in some air. “I came to get the dog,” I answered, which was really all the explanation I had. It had seemed like such a nothing task two hours ago.

“The dog?”

Their expressions were priceless, and even lying there on the cold pavement, I had to smile.

Now, if I didn’t watch so much TV, real life wouldn’t be so disappointing. As it was, I was expecting the interrogation room from Law & Order, and the reality was nothing like that. It wasn’t dark. It was, instead, really bright, and the metal table was bolted to the floor. The chairs were the same cold metal as the table, without any padding, and the room basically had no atmosphere or character to speak of. It was just plain anticlimactic, and as a result, I was bored. I had an ice pack on the back of my head, a Sprite for my stomach, which had gotten queasy when my adrenaline ran out, and a pen and paper so I could write down everything I remembered. I had recounted what I’d seen to a lot of different people ten different ways. When Anna had come to get George, they wouldn’t let me see her. She was being taken somewhere safe right that second. I couldn’t blame them. I didn’t want her to get hurt either. My head was down on my folded arms when the door opened for the four hundredth time that evening. So many people had been in and out that I didn’t even look up.

“Mr. Keyes.”

I rolled my head sideways and realized Detective Sam Kage was back. He was, I’d decided, the one who hated me the most. I had screwed up an undercover investigation with my need to be rescued. He and his fellow vice detectives had had to rush into the house, thereby blowing their op, and save me. The only luck they’d had all night was that Brian had actually killed a man in cold blood and they had an eyewitness to that. Me. He was going to jail for a long time. It was just as good, they said, as racketeering, bribery, blackmail, fraud, money laundering, extortion, and drug trafficking. First-degree murder had its own time frame that worked for them.

“Sit up and look at me.”

I lifted my head off my arms and leaned back in my chair, staring at him. He had changed out of his Kevlar body armor and was now in a shirt and tie. He was trying to pull off mild-mannered police detective, but I wasn’t buying it. I’d seen the beast inside of him already. The others—his tall but balding captain; his pale, muscular, tatted-up, sort of Eastern European-looking partner; and the two others who looked like poster boys for the Marine Corps—all of them were nicer than Detective Kage. I wanted anyone else but him in the room with me, even though, again, stunning man. Even his eyes, this perfect blend of blue and gray, were mesmerizing.

“Mr. Keyes, you⁠—”

“What kind of gun is that?” I asked, pointing to his holster.

“What?”

How was he not hearing me? “What kind of gun is that?”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I was just wondering.”

“It’s a Glock twenty-two.”