Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 13
Everyone was at work the next morning. Bradley was back, sitting on the couch under the window instead of at his usual computer station. He sat across a couple of cushions with a pair of crutches leaning against the armrest. There was a heavy knee brace on his injured leg, strapped over what looked like blue pajama pants. He had a laptop awkwardly balanced on his uninjured leg and barely looked up as Gabriella came in.
“Welcome back,” she said anyway.
He smiled tightly. “Thanks.”
“Alright,” James said from the front of the room. “Band’s back together. So let’s assess where we are. Gabs, Madelyn, any updates?”
“We met with Jessamyn’s contact yesterday,” Madelyn said.
“Yeah?” James said. “How’d that go?”
“He had information,” Madelyn said, clearly choosing her words carefully. “And two years’ worth of emails that might help.”
James continued to look at her, an amused smile starting on his face. “And?”
Madelyn sighed. “And I think if he had been more surprised to see me and Gabriella on the screen, his eyes might have fallen out of his head.”
James shook his head. “Jesus Christ, I’m sorry.”
Madelyn looked at Gabriella who laughed slightly. “It’s nothing new.”
“Still,” James said. “Was he shitty?”
“No,” Madelyn said quickly. “Not shitty, no. Just…”
“Patronizing,” Gabriella finished.
“Very,” Madelyn said.
“Not mean,” Gabriella added quickly. “Just… Like we couldn’t possibly be doing this without a huge team behind us. And I feel like if we were two guys, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”
She waited for James to push back on that, but he just glanced at Amelia. “Do you want me to do anything?” he asked Gabriella and Madelyn.
“I’d rather just keep going, honestly,” Madelyn said. “It wasn’t anything awful, just annoying.”
“Same.”
Gabriella wasn’t sure how much of her answer was based on not wanting to get in trouble, which was silly and she knew it. But more than that, she wanted to just do her job.
“Alright,” James said. “So what’s next?”
“I’m going to have two years worth of bi-weekly emails to sort through for clues,” Gabriella said. “I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for, but I hope I’ll know it when I see it.”
“A promising approach,” James said. “Unfortunately, I’m going to need to pull you away for a little while today. You’re going to St. Christopher’s.”
She groaned, more out of reflex at being told she was going to church than anything else. “Can it,” James said with a laugh. “You and Graham will be retrieving cameras and checking energy levels. We’re close to done with that one. We have that, Orson Road, and a couple out in the woods. Graham, buddy, your friend slithered back over the line.”
Graham groaned now. “When am I going?”
“Only if it doesn’t slither back to New Hampshire while you’re at St. Christopher’s. So take your time.”
Graham shook his head and turned to Madelyn, who was laughing slightly. James glanced at his notes. “They want us to shoot for three today. So let me think…”
He trailed off, eyes focused above them all as he considered. “Brad, what’s your schedule like today?”
“I got here ten minutes ago.”
“And you weren’t checking your email every twenty minutes last night when we were watching TV?”
“How would you know? You were snoring the whole time.”
James looked at him expectantly and finally, Bradley relented. “It’s not bad,” he admitted. “I have about an hour or two’s worth of work to make up so far. But not as much as I expected.”
Gabriella thought back to the administrative tasks on James’s to-do list, but said nothing.
“Any interest in detective work?” James asked.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Great. I’ll have you on comms for Orson. And if you have time, have Madelyn catch you up on the details of Sixteen Roses.”
Gabriella felt that tiny shiver of defensiveness again and tried to ignore it. She wasn’t in charge of the case, Madelyn was. It wasn’t anything personal.
“And how long until you can drive?”
“Probably another week and a half.”
“Hmm…”
James drummed his hands on his knees while he thought again. “So we’ve got the whole team for about six hours,” he said, almost to himself. “Them on St. Christopher, us on Orson…”
The printer churned with another case, which James ignored as the paper got jammed. “Bradley,” he said again. “Let’s have you on comms for all the cases today. Does that work for you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Mads, are you feeling up for going out in the field?”
Madelyn’s eyes lit up. “Definitely!”
“Great, you’re with me for Orson. We’ll brief on that shortly. Bradley’s back, everybody, in case you didn’t notice that extra sparkle in the room. We missed you. So you’re cleared for desk duty for now.”
Bradley nodded, scowling slightly. But the hand he was rubbing briskly over his injured leg didn’t help any case he might be building against desk work.
“That’s for the time being,” James continued. “The decision to put you back in the field is a joint one between Dr. Oliver as the team’s assigned physician and, well, me.”
He smiled brightly at Bradley, who narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. “You sent everything over to Oliver?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll meet later to talk about it. Or if we don’t get a chance before you leave, I’ll be home at midnight. Not that you should be up then, but if you are, we can talk.”
“I’m going to stay here until I can drive again.”
James almost looked hurt just for a second, then laughed. “Bud, that’s sad,” he said, as though he didn’t do that exact thing three times a week. “Stay with us, you’re welcome to.”
This was almost the opposite of the fights last week in that it was sweet, but still derailing the meeting. Bradley shrugged, then turned to the laptop. “I have the Orson presentation ready,” he said.
“Great,” James said, pulling down the presentation screen and gently shooing Fang away from it. “Let’s see what we’ll be dealing with.”
He ran through the cases, the slides made quickly, but not nearly as spitefully as before. “The on-call program sucks, but I get the feeling it’ll be permanent,” James said after wrapping up that part of the meeting. “I don’t like the idea of having people from other branches on call instead of having people nearby, but it beats having no coverage at all if our solo person is in trouble. Which reminds me. Amelia, what are your thoughts on Riley Carrigan? You like her?”
Madelyn spit out her water, barely catching it in the cup as she choked. Meanwhile, Amelia had turned a shade of red that Gabriella had never seen on her before. James looked from one to the other. “What is it?”
Amelia was clearly trying to get around this, but there was no way. Especially not as Madelyn coughed beside her. “I’m dating her,” she said finally.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m dating her.”
“No, I don’t think I heard you right.”
“I said she’s my fucking girlfriend.”
James gave her a long look, barely holding back a grin, then shook his head. “Seriously? For how long?”
“A month, maybe? I didn’t know she was going to be assigned the coverage.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, there’s no rule about that. But a month, seriously? You didn’t tell me?”
He didn’t actually look mad as he shook his head. “I asked Madelyn not to tell anyone,” Amelia said.
He looked at Madelyn, who smiled and shrugged, even as her shoulders still shook. “Unbelievable,” James said. “My relationship gets fucking NFL play-by-play coverage in the Cohen-Arroyo household. And then there’s this.”
He was laughing as he shook his head in mock anger. “Is it something I have to, like, report or anything?” Amelia asked.
James looked over to Bradley. “No,” Bradley said.
“Nah, you’re good,” James said. “Congratulations. Um, wow, okay. I’m thrilled for you. Anyone else have anything they want to share with the class? No? Alright, let’s get to work.”
