Page 19 of But For You

“Yes.”

“ ’Cause you know if one of those marshals from Nevada wasn’t right, then maybe⁠—”

“I’m going to a family reunion in Phoenix—in Scottsdale actually—so why are you⁠—”

“We’ve only ever lost one witness here in Chicago,” he said. “And it was before you were in charge, but still, we all know you never got over it. So, when we see you—you, Sam Kage—not using regular channels to have stuff delivered, we know something’s up.”

Sam was silent.

“And you know us; none of us would say shit to anybody about what you’re doing or where you’re going, but we want you to know that we’re ready to move if you need us.”

“I’m not supposed to use you guys to follow up on leads, for hunches or wild goose chases. That’s a misappropriation of⁠—”

“But, sir, we would never say⁠—”

“You’re arguing with me, Marshal.”

White sighed deeply. “Come on, boss. I just mean if it turns out that those marshals from Vegas were dirty, even one of them … and the witness is in Phoenix now and something goes wrong … we’ll be there, all five of us. Just call. Promise to call. That last one was⁠—”

“I got it,” Sam cut him off.

Chandler White—I remembered his first name after a minute—narrowed his eyes and looked at me before realization dawned and he smiled wide. “Oh, okay. Didn’t tell your better half about the thing with Rico, huh?”

Sam growled at him, pointed at the street, and told him that he was excused.

“Yeah, but”—his smile got goofy—“maybe I should stick around and fill Mr. Harcourt in on the details of that shoot-out if you’re not gonna promise to⁠—”

“I’ll call,” he barked at his marshal before he grabbed my arm, yanked me back, and slammed the door in White’s face.

I was going to say something, but I could hear White laughing from outside, and I had bigger fish to fry anyway. I rounded on Sam.

“No,” he groaned, turning away from me, crossing the floor, and dropping the envelope onto the coffee table before falling face down on the soft cushions of our brown corduroy couch.

“Sam!” I yelled, charging after him. “What the hell was he talking about?”

He mumbled something into the couch cushions.

“Samuel Thomas Kage!”

His moan was pure agony before he rolled his head to the side. “I’m fine; you can see I’m fine. What does it matter?”

I flicked him on the forehead, and he chuckled instead of yelling.

“Shit.”

“Sam!”

Another groan before he smiled. I only saw the curl of his lip on the left side, but it made my stomach flutter anyway.

“It all makes sense now.”

“Oh God, what does?” he whined.

“Two weeks ago, when you crawled home at, like, one in the morning, said you had a shitty day, took a shower, and passed out naked in bed.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“You were almost killed that day, weren’t you?”