“You just started chasing some random guy on the street?”
“He went by me too fast,” Ian clapped back defensively.
“Seriously?”
“And look at him,” Ian gestured at the tracksuit as though that, in and of itself, was enough of a reason.
“Listen,” I began, turning my head to regard Corin. “Why can’t you remember your own name? That’s not normal.”
“Hold up,” he choked out, clearly relieved, smiling wide, pointing at the star hanging from around Ian’s neck. “You guys are marshals?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked incredulously, because really, how had he missed the badge?
“My name is Shawn Pelham. I’m in witness protection.”
Ian’s face crumpled like he was in serious pain, and I grunted. He did a slow pan to me.
“This is what you get for running after random people,” I told him.
“And from having idiots on the team,” Ian growled.
Oh, somebody was dead meat.
It turned out that Shawn Pelham had come to us from California, placed into WITSEC after testifying against Cristobal Tremaine, who had killed a whole family there. I didn’t get the specifics; I didn’t need them. Whatwasimportant was the fact that he had a cocaine habit, was running around in expensive clothes and without, he told us, a job. What that meant was that someone on our team had not followed up. Witnesses were supposed to sink seamlessly into society, and nine times out of ten, that meant providing for themselves in a way that did not make them stick out like a sore thumb.
Ian moved the phone away from his ear to look at the guy, who I was guessing was in his early twenties. He was about my height—a bit over six feet—with blond hair and blue eyes and a spray of freckles across his nose and cheeks. “Gabe Brodie and Leo Rodriguez are the guys who check in on you?”
He nodded like a happy golden retriever. “Yes, though I haven’t seen them for a while, and I don’t think they know I moved to a studio in Hyer Park.”
“HydePark,” Ian corrected.
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Hyde. As in Doctor Jekyll and. I keep messing that up.”
Ian was rubbing his forehead as he got back on the phone with Mike.
Shawn turned to me. “Was I supposed to tell them I moved?”
He shouldn’t have been allowed to move until they knew where he was going. They should have had to give him permission. “Yeah,” I replied instead of saying all that.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No,” I said, gesturing at Ian for the cutter he had to be carrying in one of the many pockets in his cargo pants. “And we’re sorry we cuffed you.”
“Oh, it’s fine. I’ve been cuffed a lot. On the trip here from Sacramento, I had to wear the metal kind on the plane.”
“The whole time?”
He nodded.
I didn’t look at Ian. I didn’t have to. He heard him just as well as I did. It was too bad about Rodriguez. I’d liked him. He seemed cool under pressure and was engaging. Brodie, on the other hand, had started out promising, but transfers always went one of two ways: either great or total crap. Brodie, who had been a deputy US marshal with the Southern District, was a complete dick. No one noticed the chip on his shoulder until six or so months in. When Ian eventually murdered him, I wouldn’t feel bad. Rodriguez I would miss if our big boss, Chief Deputy Sam Kage, sent him packing.
The only good thing Rodriguez had going for him was that he was a probationary marshal, new to the service, and was still learning the ropes. He had an excuse for not knowing all the protocols. Because six months of training wasn’t quite enough time to go over the ins and outs of every situation. That was why they always put a probie with a vet so the learning curve was mitigated. But Brodie didn’t like how we did things in Chicago. There were too many rules, too much paperwork, and he was definitely not a fan of our boss. He didn’t like that Kage checked up on him.
“Does he not think I can do my job?”Brodie would often complain.
“He thinks you can until you prove you can’t,”I’d told him when we were all out at a club a couple of weeks ago. Brodie had come with Lopez and Cho, both new transfers from Brodie’s old district, but they were sitting away from him.“He inspects what he expects. He’s that guy.”
“He’s a fuckin’ dick is what he is.”