Fish Out of Water Read Online Free Page A

blistering look of accusatory fury that made him think that Kevlar undies just weren’t going to be enough.
    “I think maybe you need to tell me what happened,” he said deliberately. “And don’t leave anything out.”
    Kaden Cameron met his gaze straight on, and Ellery wasn’t imagining the hostility there. “There isn’t much to leave out,” he said, voice flat. “Because I don’t remember crap .”
    Yeah. And if that was true, that was going to make things so much more difficult.
    “Well.” Ellery resisted the urge to shove his chair back and fidget. “This is going to be a real short meeting.”
    From the twin looks of disgust he got, he figured that was the wrong thing to say.
     
     
    TWO HOURS later he wished he could take it back. It wasn’t a short meeting, but what it lacked in brevity, it made up in supremely painful frustration.
    He’d given into impulse during the first hour and had stood up to pace. In the middle of the second hour, he’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. Jackson, who normally wore jeans and a sport coat, had shed his sport coat and—to Ellery’s mortification—toed off his dress shoes.
    Kaden had given him a ration of crap about it too—the first non business thing he’d said since he’d started to tell the sketchy, thin story that was making Ellery grind his teeth.
    “I’m trusting you with my life, son, and you can’t even keep your shoes on for me?”
    “Not for you, not for your sister—”
    “You’d keep them on for Rhonda,” Kaden joked weakly.
    Jackson rubbed Kaden’s bald head. “I respect Rhonda. I saw you throw up in the fifth grade. The mystery’s gone.”
    Kaden yawned and stretched then, and he probably would have tried to stand up, but his ankles were cuffed to a ring in the floor. “Yeah, well, that would bother me more if I was looking for a blow job, but since I’m all straight, I think I’ll live.”
    “You are all talk. Fact is, you never moved on me ’cause I was dating your sister and, you know, awkward.”
    “Yeah, Jacky. That’s it. That’s why I never changed teams.”
    Jackson smiled fondly at him and then met Ellery’s eyes. “Is there any way we can let him stand? His knees have got to be killing him.”
    Kaden’s grunt told them both that was the truth.
    “Yeah, sure,” Ellery heard himself saying. Normally, no. Not with the violence he’d seen in the picture at the beginning. But for two hours he’d grilled Kaden Cameron on the events of August 12, and all Kaden had admitted to was stealing a Red Bull from his own store.
    He’d been pissed during the interview, yeah. But Ellery couldn’t blame him.
    “I’ll be right back,” he said, and he summoned the guard outside the door to come in and unlock Kaden’s chains, citing physical discomfort. When the guard had left—after taking the ankle chain out of the loop but leaving Kaden’s ankles with a minimum amount of play between them—Ellery sat back down and nodded at him. “Okay, Mr. Cameron. You walk and stretch, I’ll sit and talk. I’m going to summarize this as I understand it, and if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong, you need to stop me as I’m talking, because otherwise that’s the story I’m building your case on, do you understand?”
    “Got it,” Kaden said, pushing heavily to his feet.
    “So, at eleven o’clock you were working behind the window at your gas station—now is that a time you usually work?”
    “No,” Kaden said, pausing as he clasped his hands in front of him and, with a clank of chains, lifted to work out his shoulders. “I’m usually out of there at nine, but our night guy—”
    “Connie Coulson—that’s the guy?”
    “Short for Conrad, yeah. Anyway, Connie, he calls up in the last five minutes of my shift and says he can’t make it. Doesn’t say why, and I’m like—”
    Ellery consulted with the notes and moved his lips in time to what Kaden would say next.
    “ Fuuuuck .” Kaden and Jackson met