by Kathryn Silverstein
The absolute worst part about being a consultant for the Criminal Investigation Section of the Metropolitan Police Department—and Daniel Horowitz could regale you with many, many reasons why he should really just give up this joke of a working relationship, from the lack of street parking to answering to Alistair Dupont, of all people—is filling out the draconian nightmare that is Section 423 of Form 56B, or, as it’s better known, Undercover Operations Inventory.
And yet, at this particular moment, Daniel is happy to scrunch his brows together over Item 23 and its demand for exact specifications of bullet casings and gunpowder residue, because a familiar voice that sounds like high school fencing and rainbows is echoing down the hallway from his guest office.
He stares at his own handwriting, small and crooked, catches the wish to be alone, far, far away from this, in his teeth, and bites down.
When Aiden Galinsky walks through the doorframe—Daniel notes with irritation that he has to stoop slightly to fit because, of course, everything about him is inconvenient—it’s with the same grin that had Daniel waking up in cold sweats eleven years ago.
Any words that Daniel might have held onto have sunk back beneath his consciousness, and so he pins Aiden with a stare that he hopes is eviscerating.
It only makes the grin widen. “You look great,” Aiden says, completely unabashedly.
Daniel considers climbing out the window, but settles instead for making a break for the door, loping down the hallway in long strides to confront Dupont.
“You told me this morning that you were bringing someone else in on the Salito Diamonds heist,” he accuses.
Dupont tilts his head. “Yes, I recall. Problem?”
Daniel hisses through his teeth. “You neglected to mention that it would be Aiden Fucking Galinsky. What department is he even from?”
“Public Safety,” says Aiden, from behind him, having ill-advisedly placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
Daniel shrugs him off, with a look warning imminent retribution. “What did they ever do to deserve you?”
Aiden blushes as though it were a compliment, ears blooming red, and Dupont counters, “We could say the same about you, Daniel, darling.”
Daniel grinds the palm of his hand into his forehead. It’s a habit he’s picked up with the growth of his consulting business and the concomitant idiocy he puts up with on a minute-by-minute basis. “Fine,” he says, “whatever. You’ve done surveillance?”
“I know how it works,” Aiden says, smoothly.
Daniel snorts. “In theory. Dupont, honestly, what the hell?”
The Superintendent is cutting and shuffling a massive stack of paper like it’s a card deck. “Joint operation. Not my idea.”
“Yeah, well,” says Daniel, “You could sound a little more put out about it.”
Papers assembled, Dupont hands them each briefing files. “All right, children. Play nice, now.”
Fortunately, Daniel has the excuse of digesting six hundred and fifty-eight pages of background information on the Salito case so as not to bother with anything so disgusting as “catching up” while Aiden drives them downtown in his inconspicuous car, the both of them dressed innocuously in business attire.
Aiden, of course, doesn’t seem to have gotten the memo.
“So,” he says, one hand tapping idly on the dashboard, “funny, us getting into the same line of work.”
Daniel has to read the same dangling modifier twice—-when would these lackeys learn how to write—before he realizes that Aiden has said something. “I would punch you for talking, but you’re driving, and I’m not in the mood to die.”
“You always had a way with words,” says Aiden, under the auspices of a laugh, and Daniel nearly does punch him then, because Aiden hasn’t had any cause to let his memory linger on the finer aspects of Daniel’s personality in over a decade.
Their operation takes them into the west end of the city, and while Daniel is loathe to admit it, Aiden proves more or less useful in helping to identify the plant matter found at the crime scene as possibly traceable to the Public Gardens. “More specifically,” says Aiden, while they’re walking through a field of peonies, Daniel kicking listlessly at the bright blossoms, “to a particular grove of plum trees by the fountain near the park’s south border.”
“They have you working on forensic botany at the Public Safety Bureau?” Daniel says, voice tight with disbelief.
Aiden’s face is bright with what looks like genuine amusement. A breeze stirs the peony blossoms into motion around his frame, and tousles his hair in a way that makes him resemble nothing more than a stupidly overgrown pop star.
Daniel spits on the ground.
“Not exactly,” says Aiden, seemingly unperturbed, and continuing to walk in the direction of the plum trees, “it was more of a hunch.”
Daniel stops, and frowns. “A hunch. So, what exactly is your job, then, at Public—”
But the second half of that sentence collapses in his throat because Aiden is taking his hand. “Idiot,” hisses Daniel, as they pass a gaggle of schoolchildren, flocking together like geese, “you call this inconspicuous?”
“You were taking too long,” Aiden chides, as gentle as his grip on Daniel’s hand is strong.
It’s grounding, Daniel thinks as they skirt the rest of the field. Grounding, and it may actually be enjoyable were it literally anyone else with him and if his entire hand didn’t feel like it was about to fall off.
The grove reveals nothing of consequence—Daniel had shaken Aiden off once they had reached the perimeter—and they return to the car in relative silence, Daniel flexing his hand and feeling the negative space of absence.
Aiden’s phone rings just as they’re pulling away from the curb. Daniel looks out the window, eyes glazing over flower bushes and evergreens until Aiden says, “we’ll be right there” and hangs up.
“Salito alarm system just went off. Must be another break-in.”
They’re whizzing through the city now. “I should’ve expected this,” grumbles Daniel, “hell, we should’ve expected this.”
“Yeah?”
“I’d considered that whoever’s behind this was also behind the other break-ins, but I thought it was unlikely at the time. Guess I was wrong.”
“Wow,” says Aiden.
“What?”
Aiden slams on the brakes so they don’t go through a red, and Daniel’s head nearly goes through the dashboard. “Put the siren on, idiot!”
“My car doesn’t have one.”
Daniel stares. “You don’t have one.”
Aiden chuckles. “We don’t usually have emergencies at Public Safety.”
“You’re a cop! Don’t tell me no one uses it just to get food.”
“Not really my style,” says Aiden.
“It’s not breaking the rules,” says Daniel, “when we do it.”
When they arrive at the Salito jewelry vault, ten minutes later than expected, the main entryway is littered with glass; door swinging faintly from its hinges. The interior armored door is wide open.
Aiden draws his gun—an almost elegant movement, extending the lines of his body into the weapon—and moves to enter first.
Daniel blocks him.
Attempts to block him would be more accurate; he’s reasonably sure he isn’t really keeping Aiden in place with this headlock, can feel Aiden’s superior strength pulsing against his own. Daniel can also feel that it’s strength in stasis—Aiden isn’t moving because Daniel doesn’t want him to. “Do you have any idea how much paperwork you getting injured in there would create for me?”
Aiden grimaces—really, it’s not too different from his smiles—and lightly pulls Daniel’s hands away. “You shouldn’t go in first.”
“I have literal years of field experience on you, asshole.”
“We don’t know what’s in there.”
Daniel huffs a sigh. “Fine. We’ll go together, if it makes you stop bitching about it.”
They’re through the vault door, and there’s no sign of anyone. More broken glass across the floor; a couple of storage cases emptied and overturned.
Daniel turns to Aiden. “Maybe if you hadn’t decided to be so conscientious back there, we’d actually have caught—”
Aiden barrels his full weight into Daniel, pinning him to the floor just as a bullet whizzes by, barely missing his leg.
Daniel registers the shock of hitting the floor. His eyes blink open—he hadn’t realized they were closed.
The ceiling features surprisingly intricate moulding for a storage vault. He’s momentarily distracted—it’s the shock, it must be, and that’s why he just watches as Aiden lunges forward, eyes hard and glinting, and steps on the man’s injured thigh.
The thief screams, and so does Daniel, albeit less agonizingly, as he stands up. “Have you completely lost your fucking mind?”
“Where’s your partner,” Aiden shouts, shifting more weight onto the leg that’s digging into the man.
“Stop, stop,” he begs, “I’ll tell you.”
Aiden stares at him. Daniel can see the calculations running through his brain. It occurs to Daniel that cunning is a good look for him before he files that thought into a little corner of his mind, never to be disturbed again. And Aiden lifts his foot and stands back.
“He’s going to fence the diamonds. Downtown. By the docks.”
“When?”
“He said half an hour. That was about ten minutes ago.”
“Shit,” says Aiden, and Daniel stares at him.
“We have to follow him,” says Aiden, “call in the injury.”
“Didn’t think it was in the team spirit to order each other around,” says Daniel, “especially considering that I obviously outrank you.”
He knows as he says it that it’s ridiculous, as a consultant he can’t pull anything like rank. For the first time in years, he misses his fencing captaincy.
Aiden looks at him for a moment and then bursts into laughter. He claps Daniel on the shoulder, goodnaturedly. “I’ll make the call.”
They don’t have time to wait for Dupont’s people to arrive, so they handcuff the man to a storage case, divining the exact location of the drop in the process. And they’re off, threading through narrow streets and back alleys. Daniel knows this part of town the best of both of them, but even he isn’t prepared when they reach the docks and come up against a fence meant to curtail trespassers.
“Must’ve just put it up weeks ago,” he mutters, with a kick that does nothing but stir up dust.
“I can make it over,” says Aiden, eyeing the height.
“Absolutely not,” replies Daniel, “You’re not going on your own.”
Aiden’s smile claws under Daniel’s skin. “I can give you a boost.”
And he sinks down in front of Daniel, like a man proposing, mouth stretching just slightly to telegraph the solidity of the concrete under his knee.
Erratic laughter fills Daniel’s chest. He chokes it down and leans against the fence, tangling his fingers through the wire links, and tries to look at anything else.
“You planned this somehow,” he says finally.
Aiden lets loose a little half smile, this time. “Built the fence myself.”
He pats his thigh. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”
Daniel’s sigh is quiet, resigned. He puts his hands on Aiden’s shoulders to steady himself and steps up.
Standing like this, he can see clearly over the fence and pulls himself up and across the top with minimal difficulty, and Aiden follows.
Daniel definitely doesn’t stop to watch him launching over the top, muscles bunching and rippling, because they’re running really late now.
They walk as quickly as they can without drawing attention to themselves, which isn’t as fast as Daniel would like. It’s quiet between them for a couple blocks, and then Daniel can’t hold it in. “You didn’t have to go berserk on that guy back there.”
Aiden keeps pace with him, studying the ground as they walk. “He wasn’t a good man, Daniel.”
“He would’ve told us, anyway.”
“Maybe,” says Aiden, “honestly, I didn’t think you, of all people, would particularly care about my methods.”
Daniel scoffs. “I care when it means more work for me later. Which, thanks to you, it will.”
Aiden has the good sense to look sheepish at that. “Nice vault, though. Pretty ceiling. Shame we had to damage so much of it.”
As they walk onto the pier, he lets his body draw back to back with Aiden.
It feels as natural as fighting.
They inhale together, and Daniel barely thinks about the potential dangers of this position, how vulnerable he is to Aiden right now.
“Clear on my side,” he says, and there’s no one around but the adrenaline is rushing through him, anyway.
“Mine, too,” says Aiden. “Guess we’re early after all.”
They face each other, guns still cocked. There’s something sharp about Aiden’s mouth now, still and pointed with potential.
Water laps against the piers’ foundations. The sun is setting into the ocean, red blurring into an infinite blue.
“I quit fencing after we broke up,” Aiden says, lowering his gun.
Shaking, Daniel’s hand traces the contours of Aiden’s cheekbone. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he almost means it.
“No, you’re not,” says Aiden, and he leans down and crushes their mouths together.
The full breadth of Aiden’s hand threads through Daniel’s hair, caressing the outline of his skull, and Daniel exhales into the kiss. He opens his mouth to let Aiden in, narrowing the confines of his world to the slide of their tongues; the brush of their lips. His nerves blister as though under high heat.
Pretty ceiling.
The thought hits him slantwise and he almost freezes. Instead, he wraps his arms around Aiden’s neck, gun in hand, pressing open-mouthed kisses to his jaw.
Aiden had gone in and opened fire almost immediately. How the hell could he have gotten a look at the ceiling? Daniel had only noticed the moulding because he’d been on the floor.
Daniel nips Aiden’s ear and softly draws his gun hand to Aiden’s temple. “You’d been there before.”
Aiden blinks. He doesn’t smile.
“There’s no one coming here to fence those diamonds,” says Daniel, “is there?”
“He wasn’t supposed to shoot at you,” says Aiden.
Daniel lets the laughter hovering in his esophagus come spilling out. “Is that what makes him a bad man, Aiden?
Aiden drops his gun onto the dock. “Come with me.
The sun vanishes into the sea, leaving the sky a dimming red. “Oh, you have got to be kidding.”
“You’ve changed,” says Aiden, surprise lilting his tone into wonder, and Daniel has to bite down on the anger that slams into his cerebral cortex like an incoming tide.
It’s not very effective. “What kind of man does that make you,” he spits, standing back with the gun still pointed right at Aiden’s head, “to expect me to drop everything and just . . . I don’t know, run off with you to Singapore or Paris or wherever the fuck, and live off of your stolen diamonds and spend the rest of our lives never stopping for breath?”
Aiden is as calm as a winter lake. “I haven’t stopped for breath since I met you.”
The waves against the pier thrum into the silence between them, split by a seagull’s cry.
Daniel clicks the safety off. “Get on the ground.”
“You saw me drop my gun, Daniel.”
“Now.”
He bends down to get onto his knees. Daniel looks away.
Aiden charges forward and headbutts Daniel in the stomach.
Daniel falls onto his back, and his gun skitters into the ocean. They roll down the pier, darkening sky flashing into wood, locked in a kinetic embrace. Before they run over the edge, Aiden grabs Daniel’s shoulder and hauls his body back on top of him.
Aiden’s chest heaves under Daniel’s hands as he laughs, weakly. “This really isn’t what I expected, after all these years.”
Daniel, now straddling him, moves his hands to Aiden’s throat. “Now that I did expect,” says Aiden, but his smile wanes quickly.
“You really thought this was going to work,” Daniel says.
Aiden raises an eyebrow. “Which part?”
His hands are around Aiden’s throat, and the moon is rising. The breath is coming back to him in fits and starts, and his heart rate is leveling out.
“You have a siren in your car,” says Daniel, the thought clunking into the side of his brain, “don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
He squeezes Aiden’s throat, lightly. “You wanted to buy some time.”
Aiden’s eyes widen at the pressure. “Something like that.”
Daniel lets go. “Then do it.”
“What?”
Daniel makes a face and rolls off of him, squatting. “You have half an hour,” he says, and then, “or you did. About ten minutes ago.”
Aiden sits up. “Why?”
“Think of it as an apology.”
Daniel stands. “You’re not sorry,” says Aiden.
“I know,” says Daniel, “but now you’ll owe me.”
