Page 27 of The Fixer

“Can I…?” Niles grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the door. When he stopped abruptly, Jet nearly crashed into my back. “Eliza, what is going on?”

“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” Jet responded before I could say a word. “With his extensive talents come extreme oddities.”

“You know I can hear you, right?” Mathieu called from across the room. “I’m literally standing right here.”

Jet closed in on Niles, his height causing my uncle to tip his head back at an awkward angle in order to see him, and he lowered his voice. “I know this isn’t ideal. But I assure you, Mr. Murphy, this,” he said, tapping the packet of papers in Niles’s hands, “will more than cover anything Mathieu may find. He’s the best of the best, and he’s never steered me wrong.”

“Ha!” Mathieu cried out before Jet cast him a hard stare. He lowered his head slightly, nodding as he did. “Shutting it now.”

Niles gave a tight smile, glanced toward Mathieu, toward the table covered in stacks of files, then back to me. “How long are you planning on being here today? You should be home, resting.”

A sigh left me. Niles kept telling me to stay home. To rest. Brooke, on the other hand, wanted me out of the house, working toward anything that might help me overcome my grief. I looked to Jet, the only one who had listened to what I had to say, who had supported me without pushing an agenda onto me.

Jet’s hand touched my back, his eyes glittering like they had earlier, and he smiled. “We’ll stay as long as you want, Eliza. That’s a big pile of papers to go through. You don’t have to do it all today.”

“We’ll see how it goes,” I told Niles. “Right now, I’m feeling fine. I really don’t want to go back home.”

With a blink, the man frowned, and recognition seemed to crash into him like a truck. “I understand. I’m so sorry about Mr. Jingles. Let me know if I can help. And let me know when you’re leaving,” he said, darting a glance over my shoulder before giving me that tight smile. “I’d like to see you out.”

“I will.” I pulled the door closed behind Niles as he left, then returned to the table and all the files.

Mathieu let out a groan, rubbing at his chest and mumbling something under his breath. He pulled out Dad’s chair and sat down, then muttered, “Call me old one more time and I’ll spank your ass.”

Jet’s face pinched briefly, and he sat on the edge of the chair Niles had been in earlier.

“Is he okay?” I questioned, leaning in close so Jet could hear my whisper.

He raised his chin. Pursed his lips. Then gave a subtle nod of his head. “He was shot a few months ago. It’s been a tough recovery for him.” Jet rolled his shoulders, then tugged at the sleeve of his shirt.

“Booyah!” Mathieu hollered, slapping his hand against the desk. “I told you. Didn’t I tell you? You owe me big.”

“What,” Jet snapped, “are you talking about?”

“Ah, don’t get your panties in a bind, big guy. Shaw and I had a bet going on, and I won.”

“A bet?”

Mathieu leaned over the desk, his dark eyes going wide behind his glasses as he tugged at one of his sleeves. “How long until you started fiddling. I was right. Under ten minutes.”

Jet pressed a knuckle to his forehead and took a long breath. “Don’t you have anything better to do? Like getting into the computer?”

“Pssh. Oh ye, of little faith. I was in before Ol’ Niles left the room.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us?” Jet asked, rising from his chair. I followed after him, stopping when Mathieu rose and stepped in front of me.

“Hi,” he said, the smile on his face oozing with the kind of unconcealed leering I’d too often seen back in college.

An icy cold chill raked my spine. I backed away, backed into Jet, who hadn’t been behind me a second before.

Those dark eyes went wide and Mathieu’s lips formed an O. “My, oh my.” He pushed his glasses up his nose, then rubbed at his beard. “Let me start this over. Hi. I’m Mateo.”

“Mateo?” I asked, eyeing the man’s extended hand as, behind me, Jet muttered something under his breath.

Mathieu took my hand again, shaking it like a normal human being. “Porco Giuda,” the man said quietly, turning his attention to Jet. “You got that right, brother. We’ve known each other nearly the whole of our lives and this is the first time—”

“Just stop.” The snap I’d heard before in Jet’s voice was there again. I flinched, ducking away as if his words were a fist. Jet squeezed his temples between his finger and thumb, eyes closed as he took a long breath. “I’m sorry. This isn’t going as planned.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, hugging my arms across my chest.