The place itself was nothing awe inspiring and Adam hadn't been to this particular safe house before. Clearly built as a summer house some time back, the edges of the house blurred into the forest and the small area in front of it had been cleared for parking the 4x4. Adam was out with gun drawn as soon as the vehicle stopped and much to his irritation Lee followed suit. Together they checked the perimeter and Adam noted the few paths up and away from the back of the place. As usual there would be some kind of way out of the house if they needed to run.
"How is it the military doesn't know about this place?" Lee mused out loud. "Given the local air force base then surely the set-up has been spotted at some point."
Adam pushed his irritation with Lee to one side and didn't answer. Perimeter secure and with Ops telling him in his ear that everything was quiet it was time to move everyone inside.
Back at the car Maggie was leaning against her son and she looked very pale. Her countenance worried Adam. This retrieval had been on the fly and so damned fast he had nothing on any medical history. She looked old enough, maybe late fifties, to suffer from all manner of ailments that Adam wasn't qualified to handle. Every safe house had medical supplies but what if what she needed wasn't here? First things first, he needed intel on this situation. Then he had to bed down and get his head around this change in his day. From interviewing for a lead to escorting people to a safe house was one hell of a switch around.
"Grab your bags and let's get your mom inside," Adam said gruffly. He strode up to the front door and pushed it open. The house was out of lockdown and he sent a mental thank you to the eye in the sky that was trailing their every move. He didn't have to check the inside. If there had been anyone or indeed anything indoors that shouldn't be then Sanctuary ops would have stopped entry and warned them.
Josh and Maggie were next and Lee brought up the rear. He still had his gun drawn. He always had been the cautious one. When everyone stood in the open hallway Adam approached the small keypad on the wall and entered a code. Lockdown was immediate. Bolts shot and windows locked. Maggie flinched, Josh looked resigned and Lee curious. Jeez, he bet Lee was going to ask questions. He was never happier than when Josh asked where Maggie could lie down.
Adam brushed past Lee and indicated a corridor. "I don't know what's down there. Pick a room. There are showers and spare clothes of all sizes in the closets."
Josh guided his mom down a corridor and took the first door on the right but he didn't stay in there with her. He moved with purpose towards them and Adam dreaded what was coming next. Questions. Demands. It was always the same. He braced himself but was surprised when Josh moved past them to the small kitchen.
"I need coffee. Is there coffee in these places?" Josh was opening and shutting doors. Each cupboard was full to bursting with dried goods and cans and finally with a triumphant "yes" coffee was located. Only instant, nothing fancy, it was enough to distract Lee who joined Josh in the kitchen to help.
Everyone was occupied and Adam turned in a half circle to gauge where everything would be. There was a flight of stairs leading up from the hallway and he took them two at a time eager to find the comms room and to check in with Ops.
The place where the computer and communication hub was housed was smaller than what he was used to in other safe houses. However, it was at the front of the attic space and the wall of trees outside the small window was pretty reassuring. The forest was threatening to encroach on the house and it served to block anything that could approximate a view. Lee had asked about the place being obvious. With Manny's blocking systems and various other under the table processes houses like this one, old holiday homes, were proving to be perfect safe houses.
He logged in to the system and booked himself in. Immediately he had access to case files on the Bullens and also temporary folders for both Maggie and Josh. He opened the one on Maggie and was relieved when it showed no known medical history. From the dates and notes she seemed like the perfect cop's wife and there in black and white was the fact that she had turned down witness protection. The file on Josh was a little fuller but other than the academic stuff, there was little about the man himself. A couple of family photos were in each file. He looked closely at the man at the center of all of this, Gareth Headley, and pulled the photo out to sit it on the surface next to a photo of Alastair.
Was it possible to bring to an end to the years of organized crime and to finally bring Alastair Bullen to justice? He checked who was assigned to this safe house; knew it wouldn't be him. Jennifer Sweeney. He smiled; she was a cool person to know. Handy with her fists and as quick with her mind, she was a friend. They'd worked a case before and he knew Maggie and Josh would be in safe hands.
"Do we have an ETA on Jennifer?" he asked as soon as he connected to Ops.
"She's coming in from one of our west coast houses, she'll be with you mid-morning."
"Josh Headley is talking about a boyfriend—can we put a heads up to him to warn him to keep safe? Then let me know."
"Do we have a name?" Adam thought back to some of what Josh had said in the car. He may have looked like he was concentrating solely on driving but he had heard enough from the back.
"Eric, I don't have a surname, I can get one if you need one. I know he's a lawyer."
"On it. I'll track him down; let you know if I need more info."
"Also. We need to get in and see Gareth Headley now. I'm scanning the notebook we recovered from his wife. It's not big but it has dates and names. Manny will probably be able to match some of this up. None of it means anything without Gareth. With his son and wife safe we have leverage to get information and maybe persuade him to talk."
"Jake is arranging a meet. Anything else?"
"Nothing."
"You know where we are." The disembodied voice was an operative's only connection to the outside world when in lockdown. The support was reassuring. What they had said though, that Jennifer wouldn't be with them until tomorrow, meant one night in the safe house where he could do nothing except sleep. That sounded good.
"What now?" Lee said from the doorway. Adam didn't have to wonder how long he had been standing there. He had heard him arrive about the same time he connected with Ops.
"We wait for the meet to be arranged, for another Sanctuary operative to relieve us here and then we go and see Gareth."
"He's stayed quiet for this long. We can't expect him to suddenly agree to give evidence."
"We have his family and they are safe."
With this Adam logged off of the computer and deliberately waited until Lee moved aside before going downstairs. Lee followed him with yet another one of his patented disappointed sighs and Adam stopped dead on the fourth stair from the bottom. Very carefully he turned to face Lee who had no choice but to stop.
"Whatever you have against me, whatever shit you have in your head that you think I did, you leave it all outside this place." Adam gestured around him. "People who need us need somewhere safe and calm. They do not need pseudo cops with sticks up their asses blathering on about how Sanctuary isn't as good as their beloved FBI." Lee opened his mouth to answer and then shut it again. Adam concluded his warning had been heeded, and he turned sharply to take the remaining stairs to the living room.
Josh sat cross-legged on the sofa. He looked much younger than his twenty-five years.
"Mom says she's going to try sleeping," he said softly.
"Good idea." Adam crouched in front of Josh. "Is there anything you need?"
"Me?" Josh looked confused. "No, I'm fine."
"I'm sorry you had to go without talking to your boyfriend."
Josh shrugged, "'S okay. I know the kind of life I should be living. I was fooling myself thinking I could have anything else. The day my dad killed that girl, no—way back when he did whatever made him Bullen's pet cop—that was the day I wasn't going to have normal."
Adam didn't like the acceptance in Josh's voice, nor the sheen of tears in his eyes. The man had given up everything to do this. His job, his lover and any sense of normalcy. "When we get him behind bars maybe you can get back some of that life."
Josh quirked a smile. He really was a gorgeous guy. Ordinarily he would have ticked every single one of Adam's boxes. Slim, shorter than Adam, green eyes and dark haired. In a way he reminded Adam of a younger Lee. The thought of that twisted like a knife in his chest. Were he and Lee ever this young and why did being thirty-two make him feel so damn old?
"I wanted to be a cop like my dad, but he always said he wanted me somewhere I could help the little guy, the kid with no choices or the guy who was stuck in a corner. I never imagined for one minute he was talking about himself with that last one. I was never going to do either. School showed I was good at science. Hell, all that studying and it's wasted." He laughed softly, "I'm thinking I need to reevaluate my options here."
"Not always a bad thing, Josh, to have the decision in your hands."
"Yeah," Josh huffed a low laugh and grabbed at Adam's hand that rested next to his thigh on the sofa. He gripped it hard and Adam gripped back. The people he looked after in these safe houses, they just needed a connection that spoke of safety and reassurance. He was being deadly serious with Lee when he had said that. Lee himself was hovering just out of Adam's peripheral vision. His brooding presence made everything here so much more difficult.
"Don't think for a minute that me and Mom thought Dad was anything other than a criminal," Josh began earnestly. "We didn't understand what he did or why. We hated it but I just wanted to keep her alive."
"Your mom is safe now." Adam couldn't imagine the fear of looking over your shoulder twenty-four-seven; if just for that, Alastair Bullen needed a smack down.
Josh released the grip on Adam's hand. "Thank you. I'm going to grab a room and some sleep." He gestured behind him at the corridor with the bedroom doors. "Sort myself out." He looked over Adam's shoulder at what he imagined was the hovering Lee.
"I think the Fed wants to talk to you," Josh said with a smile
"He can wait." Adam couldn't help but return Josh's smile. It was infectious.
Adam stood and extended a hand to help Josh to his feet. As Josh turned to leave he evidently had one last question. "Be honest about something. You're not a cop, are you?"
Adam shook his head and shrugged. "I'm a bodyguard of sorts."
"Okay." Josh didn't say anything else. He simply picked up a cup of coffee from the small table next to the sofa and made his way down the corridor selecting door two as his particular home away from home.
"You need to leave him alone," Lee said firmly.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" Adam had half an idea what Lee was harping on about but that didn't mean he was going to let the other man know that.
"He's vulnerable." Lee stepped forward. Adam copied the movement which put them near toe to toe in this small room.
"I know."
"Holding hands with the guy? What was that?"
"You're jealous?" Adam couldn't believe the tone in Lee's voice. Lee was actually commenting on how Adam did his job? What the hell?
"Fuck you, Brooke." Lee narrowed his gaze and crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't fuck him over. Like you… shit, Adam."
"Like I fucked you over you mean?" Adam completed the aborted sentence. His breath stilled in his lungs and his stomach heaved at the sorrow that settled in the pit of it. Nothing else mattered than hearing what Lee was going to say back. Lee said nothing. He just set his lips in a stubborn mutinous line and pushed past Adam to get to the kitchen.
"I need a fucking drink."
The computer screen filled the room with an eerie glow as it churned through the pages of information Manny was collating back at Sanctuary Ops. Adam liked the little guy with his glasses and his brilliance and the edge of a complicated tattoo that disappeared under his collar. He was irreverent and snarky, clever and innocent, all wrapped up in about five foot eight inches. He was also scarily good with guns and where that had come from for a computer geek was anyone's guess. Most Sanctuary operatives had back stories. Nik Valentinov had been invalided out of the FBI, Dale MacIntyre was an ex-SEAL and as for Kayden? Well, he was some kind of freaky ninja-trained kid with a past, although you would never be told any of it. Jake Callahan himself had seen enough in his life to make him sink every penny he had into Sanctuary but Manny gave nothing away about his own past.
"Is that it?" Adam asked tiredly.
Manny's perpetually cheerful voice echoed down the line. "We're about ninety-five percent. It's looking good."
"What do you have so far?"
"Definite matches with the police reports that Beckett got from Alastair's computer to the list of names and dates in Gareth Headley's notebook. Some recurring notes and names. I'm running them through databases as I find them."
"Is it enough to take to the DA?" That was what this was all about; links and notes that made the case against Alastair watertight.
"I'm thinking only Headley's testimony will tip this," Manny offered. "Jake messaged me he's pulled strings with that FBI liaison guy and between them they've moved him to a solitary wing straight from the hospital wing. He's there tomorrow. I'll mail details. Okay one hundred percent in five… four… three… wait… okay I have it all."
"We're out of here as soon as Jennifer arrives."
"I'll make sure you get this analysis in full."
Adam glanced at the clock, it was one am and the house was quiet. Josh and his mom hadn't come out of their respective rooms and after a mostly silent preparation of toast and jam Lee had taken the first room on the left at around eleven. "Go to bed, Manny."
"Will soon," Manny confirmed cheerfully and then signed off. Manny appeared to be perpetually awake. Tiredly Adam stretched and yawned. Logging out he left the attic space room and made his way to the kitchen. Coffee had kept him going so far but, hell, today, or strictly yesterday, had been too much of a mind fuck for his liking. Lee back in his life in such a dramatic way, an extraction based on an adrenaline-fuelled reaction. Jeez, that was one day he was happy to consign to the 'hopefully never happening again' bin. His stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten since they stopped at the gas station and rummaging he located a bag of cookies. Cookies and hot chocolate and bed sounded like a good thing to be doing.
Finally under the covers he considered safe house eight. Small, but adequate, not for a family maybe, but it was secure, remote, and had a feel of the safe house he had spent so long in up over the border in Mirabel in Canada. He didn't fall asleep quickly. He never did in a strange place. Unconsciously his hand travelled south and closed around his dick. More comfort than anything as his head was too screwed to imagine pulling one off now. Fucking Lee and the confusion and anxiety that his presence brought to the table. His dick went from soft to semi hard in seconds as images from the day pushed into his head. This morning, Lee pushed over the table, and the single word the man had uttered as he complied with every push Adam made. Please. Releasing the moving hold he had on his dick he deliberately shuffled to lay on his front and turned his head to face away from the door.
He wasn't going to think about his ex-lover but sleep had only just begun to pull him under when Lee's voice broke into his thoughts. He rolled on his back expecting there to be nothing in his room and that Lee's voice was a figment of his imagination. Instead he felt the corner of the bed depress as Lee sat on the end in the dark.
"What the fuck?" Adam bit out. He blinked to accustom himself to the dark. The door was shut and Lee was sitting on his bed in boxers and a T.
"Why?" Lee said softly.