Josh spent the journey from Vegas to JD’s front door hoping he was wrong. He planned to have a little talk with her, confirm she was ignorant of the whole fucking mess, and then get on the road to find the real culprit. He had to focus on his mission, because if he forgot for just a moment what he was doing, he’d think about Cam and Sara, still asleep, still peaceful and warm. And if he thought about them, he’d lose his determination and turn his ass around and go home.
But as soon as she mentioned Vegas, he had all the confirmation he needed.
Josh sat on the couch, stretching his legs in front of him, and holding JD’s hand in a mockery of friendship.
“So, JD, where should we start?”
She was thinner than he remembered, with expensive highlights in her sand-shaded hair that didn’t do anything to enliven the color. Small lines were now etched around her mouth, evidence that in spite of all her protestations to the contrary, she hadn’t quit smoking. In hindsight, Josh wasn’t surprised. If she could lie so easily about things that were actually important, what would a oh, yeah, those nicotine patches are really helping mean to her?
Now, her narrow mouth was pulled even tighter, emphasizing the fine lines, and her fingers were tense as she obviously struggled with herself not to try and yank her hand away. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Josh,” she said, “but now’s really not a good time. Why don’t you go find a hotel and we’ll have lunch? My treat.” She laughed. It was high and reedy, her nervousness showing. “I think I’ll deserve a special something after facing the firing squad this morning.”
Josh barely tightened his grip, just enough to let her know he wasn’t going anywhere. “Firing squad? Is it time for the review? Don’t worry, JD, I’m probably doing you a favor. After all, you don’t want to be the one to explain why their favorite toy is missing, do you?”
She shook her head. “What are you talking about? Are you all right? You’re supposed to be off celebrating.”
Josh moved closer, until their bodies were flush, increasing the pressure of his grip. It wasn’t unusual to sit that close to her. They had never been lovers, but they had been close friends for a long time.
“Celebrating what, JD?”
She looked away. “Josh…”
“I saw the Iocor mark on her leg, JD. The one they use when cataloging lethal, toxic, or otherwise dangerous lab animals. And while I never did as well as you in our studies, I’m not a stupid person. There were two people besides me who were studying shifters, and only one person who ever saw my notes.” Now he pressed so hard the bones in her hand ground together.
Twin spots of color appeared high in her cheeks, but JD didn’t flinch. Her pale eyes fixed on him, her smile fading, and it was a long minute before she spoke.
“But you’ve got Sara back now,” she said. “That’s what’s important here, Josh. That’s what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?”
He eased back to friendly pressure. “No, that’s not what’s important here, JD. What’s important is you betrayed me, you kidnapped somebody I love, you nearly fucking broke her, and do you even have an explanation? Can you even defend yourself?”
“And I gave her back to you. Or were you really that naïve to think that a perfect stranger could lead you straight to a basement in a backwater Nevada town? I even made sure there were only two guards on duty that night, so you’d have better odds getting her out of there.” Her free hand reached out and touched his arm. “I know what it was doing to you, how miserable you were without her. If there had been any way possible for me to help you before now, Josh, don’t you think I would’ve done it? You’re way too important to me to hurt like that.”
The hell of it was, he knew she meant every single goddamned word. She really thought doing the right thing made up for the entire two years they systematically tore Sara apart.
“Who else was involved? And why now? Why did you decide to help me now, and not two years ago when I was about ready to jump off a fucking bridge?”
“I helped you as soon as I could.” Sighing, JD shook her head and leaned back against the couch. “You’ve been out of the game for a long time, Josh. And you never did learn all the rules.”
“What are the rules, JD? That it’s fair play to kidnap people and torture them? That’s not…that’s not a fucking rule. That’s not even good science. Who else is involved?”
“She wasn’t tortured. She was studied. That’s what we do, remember? We study shapeshifters, we don’t fuck them.”
Josh had his fist formed and halfway to her face before he realized what he was doing. She didn’t cringe or try to duck, but he stopped himself before he made contact.
“You know what your problem is, JD? What it’s always been? You’re book smart, but you don’t know fuck all about being a scientist. That’s why you spent most of your life in my shadow, and why you had to fuck half the board to get where you are now.” He stood, hauling her to her feet. She tried to pull away, but he wasn’t going to let her go. “Come on. We’re going to Nevada.”
Mention of Nevada made her react more violently. Her foot lashed out and connected with his ankle, surprising Josh just enough to loosen his grip for her to slip away. She darted behind the couch, fingers digging into the back as she glared at him.
“I’m not going anywhere with you. I’m going to walk out the door, and I’m going to go bullshit my way through my review, and when I get back, you’re either going to be gone or willing to talk about this calm and rationally.” Her eyes softened. “I know you’ve been under a lot of stress about this whole Sara situation, and I hate knowing that I was even a small part of that. But I am not your enemy, Josh, and I am not going to let you treat me as such.”
“No, JD, that’s not how it works.” He briefly wished he had his gun, but realized he wouldn’t be able to threaten her with it. Anybody else, yes. But not her. So he leaned against the door, blocking the only way out. “You’re not going anywhere. You don’t want to go to Nevada right now? Fine. You can tell me who else was involved.”
“Why? So you can go off and threaten somebody who won’t be as understanding as I am and have you thrown in jail for assault? What do you think you’re going to do, Josh?”
“I’m not going to threaten anybody, JD. But I am going to Nevada, and I am going to bring you with me.”
Her gaze flickered from the door, to Josh, to her watch, and then back to Josh again. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish. You want to know who else was involved? The better question is, who wasn’t involved. You were an Iocor employee when you left for that shifter community, and you were still an employee when you submitted your research. Sara Vail was an Iocor project, from the start all the way to the finish. Do you really think you’re going to take down an entire corporation?”
“She was not an Iocor project. Nobody at Iocor was even supposed to know her identity. Only one person did, JD. And that was you. So don’t you fucking tell me you’re sorry, this wasn’t your fault, you would never want to hurt me. You toddled off to tattle on me because you were never going to get anywhere if you didn’t.” Josh shook his head. “I’m not getting into this with you. If you’re really sorry, you’ll help me. Right now.”
It took several seconds of staring each other down for JD to exhale and shake her head. “I think this is a big mistake. I think…I think you’re asking for more trouble than you can even conceive. But you’re my friend, and I am sorry that you suffered at all because of this.” She came around the edge of the couch, slowly, as if approaching a wild dog. “The name you want is Nolan. David Nolan.”
Josh’s lips thinned. He wouldn’t have immediately suspected Nolan. When Josh was with Iocor, Nolan had been a little pissant, fresh out of school. “Since we had to stage a breakout, I’m assuming he’s not aware you were behind it, and didn’t think it was time for her to go?”
“I told you it wasn’t safe when you called me. Nolan needs her.”
“And it’s better for you if he doesn’t get her?”
She paused for a fraction of a second too long. “It’s better for me if you’re not miserable, Josh.”
Josh nodded. “I believe you. But you’ve gone this far, why don’t you go all the way and help me get him off her tail? You’ve had her to…study…for two years, and if there’s anything else you need to know, I’ll answer all your questions.”
The calculating gleam that appeared in her eye made him want to retch, but Josh kept his features impassive as he waited for her response. “I miss my annual review by helping you. You know how serious that is. I’m going to need a very good reason and plenty of material to show for it if I don’t want to lose my position.”
“It’s going to be a long drive to Nevada. And I won’t limit my answers to Sara.”
He straightened when she headed for the bedroom. “Then I’m changing my clothes. Something tells me jeans will be better for this trip anyway.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket, but he didn’t need to take it out to know who was calling. He had several missed calls listed now, all from Cam’s phone. A part of him wanted to answer so he could tell them to get the hell out of Vegas and go east. All the way to Maine, and maybe even beyond that.
“Do you have any food?” Josh called out, determined to seem as normal as possible. She couldn’t think he viewed her as the enemy. They were friends again, united against the common enemy and true bad guy—David Nolan.
JD came strolling back in, buttoning up her jeans. “We’ll grab something along the way.” She tossed him a heavy key ring. “Let’s go.”
Josh opened the door and gestured for her to lead. She walked like a woman who didn’t have a care in the world, like they really were just going on a bit of a road trip. “Just like old times, huh?”
She responded by flashing a smile over her shoulder, and Josh felt sick again. When the dust settled on this, he was going to lose everybody, and everything, he had ever really cared about. Given what Sara had been forced to endure, that seemed fair.
* * * *
The drive to Los Angeles was long and silent, both of them absorbed by their own thoughts. Cam didn’t know what Sara was thinking, but he was considering what he would do when he saw Josh again. He was torn equally between kissing him and killing him. Maybe kissing him, and then killing him.
He picked up the paper that had JD’s address scribbled on the margins, along with directions. They still had about twenty miles ahead of them—which was nothing in the early afternoon traffic—but it seemed more like a hundred. Especially since Cam had never been to Los Angeles.
“How are you doing?” Cam asked, eager to have something other than his own thoughts and anxiety to focus on.
She stared out the window, her hands knotted in her lap. “Okay, I guess,” came the noncommittal answer. “I was just…” But her voice faded away, and she shook her head as if changing her mind about speaking.
“You were just what?” Cam prompted.
“Thinking too much.” Sara took a deep breath and shifted, gazing at him more directly. “Remember when we had to drag him to your parents’ going away party? How he kept arguing that he wouldn’t fit in? You don’t think…he’s thought all along that we’d split up, do you?”
Cam frowned. Josh had always been hesitant to mingle with their families and the broader community. He was always self-conscious about being the outsider, though Cam thought after two or three years, people stopped thinking of him as that, first and foremost.
“No. I really don’t think he ever had any intention of leaving. He quit his job and moved six hundred miles from his home. People don’t do that for relationships they think will end. Well, not smart people like Josh, at any rate.”
She nodded, though she still looked dubious. “And…while I was gone? Did it get easier for him, being around Delta?”
Cam shrugged. “He didn’t try to avoid anybody who came by to see us. And he was less hesitant to go out and run errands by himself. I think…I think once everybody saw how hard it hit him, they were more willing to welcome him into the community, you know?”
“I hope so. I’d like to think we’re not as closed-minded as the outsiders he knows, but I’d hate for him to have another excuse not to come home with us when we find him.”
Cam tightened his grip on the wheel. “He’s probably going to think everybody is going to be as angry at him as he is at himself.”
“But they wouldn’t be, right?”
“Are you?”
She blinked. “Am I what? Angry with Josh?”
“Yeah. Everybody will take their cues from you. At least, publicly.”
“But it’s not his fault. Why would I be angry with him?”
Cam shook his head. “You shouldn’t be. What are you going to do if we do find him, and he doesn’t want to come with us?”
Even with the sunlight streaming through the window, Sara visibly paled. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.”
Cam didn’t want to say it, or think it, but Josh was stubborn. And Josh also had a honed sense of morality. If Josh believed he was doing the right thing by leaving and cutting off contact, Cam wasn’t sure how they could convince him otherwise.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Her brows drew closer and closer together as they sped along the highway, her eyes never wavering from his profile. She finally broke the silence with, “You’re still thinking it.”
“I am,” Cam admitted. “I don’t like it any more than you do. It’s hard for me to even remember what our life together was like before him. And it’s not fair. It’s not fair that we get one single night with the three of us together.”
Sara seemed to fold in on herself as she returned her attention to the window. “Maybe. But I’m glad I got it, just the same.”
“Yeah, me too.”
They passed through another long silence. Cam couldn’t stop thinking about the way Josh smiled when he watched Sara and he thought nobody was looking. A sort of confused joy lit his face, like he wasn’t quite sure how he got to be so lucky. That wasn’t a new smile. It had been reserved for her since the night he officially moved into their house.
“You know,” Cam said, “I don’t think Josh will be able to resist coming home with you. But he might insist we can’t go back to Delta. Where have you always wanted to live?”
That pulled her back into the conversation, and her gaze was curious as she regarded him. “Would you consider living outside a shifter community?”
“If it made you happy, and Josh comfortable, I’d consider living on the moon. Or even Arkansas.”
“It’s not as hard as you think it is.” The shift in subject matter brought something back to life in her, like Cam had given her hope again in their futures. “What about San Francisco? It’s a big city, and it’s pretty liberal. It would be easier for us to live there as a family than most other non-shifter places. Plus, artsy. You and Josh would love that.”
“San Francisco?” It was a big city full of non-shifters, both of which were major problems for Cam. On the other hand, she had a point about how it would probably be easy for them. And both Josh and Sara would thrive in the sort of environment that San Francisco offered. Plus, he made good money, Sara could be a teacher anywhere, and Josh would love to be in California again. “I like the sound of that. I like it a lot.”
She smiled and began chattering about the advantages of the city, how it would be nice to be in the same state as her family even if it was a long drive south to San Diego, and how it would be nice to have green around again instead of the arid brown of the desert. The more she spoke, the faster her words came, her excitement about the possibility almost contagious.
And for a few minutes, it felt like nothing had ever changed.