Page 59 of Flesh and Fury
“That’s because there aren’t any,” Ari said. He had to agree with Eoghan. McGillis was a terrible person.
“Look around. What do you see?” Kellen asked. “I see that the chief was so desperate to abandon her job, that she made it look like her apartment was trashed. That’s my opinion.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Ari said.
“Sticks and stones, Ari, dear,” he sneered.
“You don’t think she was kidnapped?” Eoghan scoffed.
“No, I don’t think so,” Kellen said with a laugh. He waved his hand around. “This is totally staged.”
“God…what could I have ever seen in you?” Eoghan asked.
“Let’s see,” McGillis said, tapping a finger on his chin. “What on earth could the perfectly gorgeous blue-eyed devil Eoghan Sapphire have seen in me?” He suddenly grinned. “Oh, yeah, I remember. It was my big cock.”
“Shut up, Kellen,” Eoghan warned as Ari’s heart did a flip-flop in his chest. He knew they’d dated and even slept together but the very idea of them in bed together made him ill.
“Why? Don’t you want me to talk about how you loved getting on your knees every chance you could? How you loved it when I came in your mouth.” He smirked nastily at Ari. “Does the little bitch bend over for you? Eoghan loves taking it up the ass.” He laughed.
Ari couldn’t take the taunts anymore. He ran at him, grabbed him around the waist, and slammed him onto the ground so hard his breath came out in a whoosh as he landed on top of him. He leaned back, snarling as McGillis gasped for breath and pulled his fist back, ready to smash it into the too perfect face when there was a loud whistle. All three of them turned to find Doctor Patterson standing in the doorway with two fingers in her mouth, glowering at them.
“What in the hell is going on here?” she shouted, rushing forward. “Hey, you, get off that man…oh—” she said as she realized it was Ari straddling Kellen, about to beat the crap out of him. “Brown! What are you doing. Stop that immediately and let that man up.”
Reluctantly, Ari rolled off him, feeling surprisingly unapologetic about being found ready to take out all his frustrations on a coworker. Unfortunately, both he and—earlier in the week—Eoghan, looked like the ones who let emotions rule their lives. There was just something so shitty about the personality of Kellen McGillis. The man brought out the worst in people. He got up and then held a hand down to him, encouraging him to take it.
Kellen ignored it, batting his hand away dramatically before rolling to his knees and letting out a loud groan. He picked up the helmet he’d let roll away when he’d been tossed to the ground, and stood, brushing off his hazmat suit as he made the most of his victimhood.
“What in the hell did you think you were doing, Brown?” Doctor Patterson asked, frowning deeply at him. “It’s a damned good thing the chief isn’t here right now because if she was, I’d make sure you were brought up on assault charges,” she said, shaking her finger in his face. “You can’t just attack people!” She whirled on Eoghan, stomping over to him. “And as for you…where were you when your partner was trying to give a beat down to a coworker?”
“Look, Doc,” Eoghan said. “Ari was provoked. Kellen all but accused the chief of faking her own kidnapping and making this mess.” He was so tempted to say something else to the doctor about what Priest had been dealing with and all the secrecy around everything she’d been hiding over the last six months. Unfortunately, they still didn’t know who their mole in the office was, not to mention the fact that someone hadto be a mole deep within the Agency. Their traitor could be anyone…sadly, even the doc.
“Well, there’s no excuse for physical violence of any kind and no excuse for attacking a coworker,” she said, sounding slightly calmer than she had. Turning away from Eoghan, she looked over at him and McGillis. “I know you and your partner have an issue with McGillis,” she went on. “Everyone knows about his supposed slip and fall in the cafeteria earlier this week. The chief witnessed it, and she should have done something about it then but I’m here to tell you, there will be no more nonsense like that in my presence. Understood?”
“Yes, Doc,” Ari said, feeling shitty about losing his temper and hating McGillis who always seemed to push his buttons.
“Yes, ma’am,” Eoghan echoed.
Ari watched him walk over to where the door stood open. She’d dropped her kit just inside the door when she’d rushed in, so Eoghan went to pick it up.
“Leave it,” she snapped.
She walked over and opened it, withdrawing a roll of yellow police tape, and handed it to Kellen.
“When we’re done, you’ll tape off the doorway, so the apartment isn’t disturbed, understand?”
“Yeah, Doc,” Kellen said, bobbing his head as he took the tape.
Ari watched her pull out a fingerprint kit and hand it to Kellen as he shoved the roll of tape into a large pocket in his yellow suit. He took the kit and walked over to the kitchen table, starting to get to work on collecting prints. It appeared the doc was ignoring them.
He glanced at his partner, feeling bad for his role in all the mess today. Ari knew he shouldn’t have snapped but he’d seen red when he’d pictured Eoghan and Kellen together. He hated that such a vile man had been his ex. Eoghan must havefelt the weight of his stare because he looked up and it was only then that all the stress of the past hours really sank in. Eoghan had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked totally miserable, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. He walked over to stand by his side when the doctor looked up.
“You can go. We’ll take it from here,” she said harshly.
“Go?” Eoghan asked. “You don’t want us to hang around and help or wait until you finish here?”
She set her gloved hands on her hips as she turned to face them. “I think you’ve both done quite enough here. We have the chief to find, and we need to get the fingerprints and whatever physical evidence I find here back to my lab as soon as possible. So, no, I don’t need you and your partner getting in our way. Go now.” She shooed them like they were kids being scolded.
Ari felt himself blushing and when he chanced a glance at Eoghan, his pale skin was bright red. He felt sorry and angry and embarrassed for Eoghan. He didn’t deserve to be talked to like that by anyone. And they still weren’t any closer to finding their boss than they’d been this morning.