The Soldier and The Spy: Jay Halstead- Episode 4

Chapter 4

Present Day

He was tired.

Not the bone-deep exhaustion he used to get after too many days of active combat or the mind-numbing fatigue that came from staying up all night going over the details of a case. This was a tiredness in his heart.

I'm sorry I scared you.

That was what Tess had said when he'd finally gotten home last night, because of course they'd only just gotten her dressed after her 'shower' when Kevin had called and said they needed to get back to the district. Jay had been tempted to tell him to fuck off but he'd known that even if he had Tess wouldn't have stood for it. As it was she'd just put her hand on his cheek and made him look her over one more time to convince him, and maybe her too, that she really was fine and that they would talk more when he got home. Except it had been almost one in the morning by the time he'd gotten off work and when he'd finally trudged through the front door he'd found her passed out on the couch, having clearly failed in her attempt to wait up for him; if he thought he was tired it had to be nothing compared to what she must have felt because she'd been all but dead to the world. Normally they were both pretty light sleepers but she hadn't even stirred as he'd carried her upstairs, and only the tiniest bit as he'd tucked them in, though the tenacity with which she'd fought to wake herself had tugged at his heartstrings. And then snapped them when she'd mumbled her apology.

I'm sorry I scared you.

Jay couldn't get those words out of his head, for two reasons. One, she hadn't said she was sorry she'd done it and he didn't think she was going to. He may not have been able to read everything in that look she'd given him but he'd recognized the resolve. And two... Because of the way she'd said it. Sure she'd been half asleep and probably at least half-stoned but he'd heard the inflection in her words. Not just sorry she had scared him but sorry that she had scared him.

Like she was a thing to be feared.

She wasn't. There wasn't a thing about her that scared him except what she'd been doing to herself.

But he couldn't think about that now. Not only because he was at work but because every time he did Kevin seemed to notice and he kept giving him this look... It had been pretty obvious the moment he'd jumped back in the truck that something was bothering him, never mind that his shirt had still been halfway soaked but when he hadn't volunteered any information his partner hadn't pressed. And Jay didn't know what to think about that. He knew it wasn't fair- he'd been all but forcing Kev keep him in the loop on his problems only to turn around and keep his own shit to himself but this wasn't something his friend could help with. This was something he needed to fix, just... not right now.

Right now he had a job to do.

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Adam!

Kim's scream rang through his mind, the sound of her horror still crystal clear. Just like his memory of the fear and guilt that had filled Kevin's face, though he didn't have to look far to see it was still there, now with a reckless kind of fury building alongside it. Things had gone wrong so fast Jay kept replaying the events, like if he went through them enough times they'd start making sense.

It turned out Billy was telling the truth.

The man responsible for killing Isla had been Tim Rollins, her ex-boyfriend and dealer who'd gone looking for her after she'd relapsed and stolen his stash. He'd been the one to make the connection, first between Rollins and Hadley, the woman who'd been storing the drugs for him and who Isla had stolen them from and then between Rollins and Isla herself. Actually Tess had helped with that, though inadvertently- even when he was actively trying not to think about her she was still in the back of his mind. She'd always said that social media was the best source of civilian surveillance so he'd started the case by combing through Isla's, so fervently he'd immediately recognized Rollins when he'd ran his ID. They'd gone to his house to make the arrest and that was when everything had gone sideways. He'd made a break for it so the team had scattered to try and cut him off, hoping, relying on patrol to assist them but they hadn't come.