Cut and Run 7 - Touch and Geaux

the one with the dead girl?” Owen asked.
    “He thinks he’s cursed.”
    “He wants us to report it to the police,” Zane said with a grimace. The bag was in his pocket, and he pulled it out to look at it.
    “He wants to report being cursed to the police?” Owen’s voice had gone flat.
    Nick stood and stretched. “I’m going out on a limb and guessing they get that a lot down here.”
    “So what do we do? Are we really going to call the police?” Kelly asked, smirking. They were all looking to Nick to make the decision. Zane supposed that was their habit, since Nick had been the team’s second-in-command.
    “He does have a point. The dead girl had a hoodoo bag, and whoever put that shit in Ty’s room was slick enough to get in and out without either him or Zane noticing.”
    “Did you two stumble into the room groping each other?” Owen asked Zane.
    Zane glared at him for a second before deciding it didn’t warrant a response.
    “Anyway,” Nick said loudly. “I’ll call the number they left me when I gave my statement last night. Let them decide if they want to pursue it as a lead.”
    “What are you going to do about Ty?” Zane asked.
    “What about him?”
    “You can’t let the cops come here and interview him. They might recognize him.”
    Nick glanced toward the doors, chewing on his lip. “We can’t report it without him.”
    “Do we have to report it at all?” Kelly asked.
    “Ty is drugged up to his asshole right now; can’t we just tell him we called it in and let it drop?” Digger said.
    Nick stared at him for a long moment, then met Zane’s eyes with a shrug. “Works for me.”
    Zane rolled his eyes. “We’d be withholding evidence in a homicide investigation.”
    “It’s either that or run Ty right into a whole load of questions with no answers.”
    “How do we know this bag thing is even connected?” Owen asked. “Are we going on Ty’s assessment? Because he didn’t even see the other one.”
    “A valid point,” Kelly said. “He’s also high. I mean . . . y’all remember the last time he was high?” He began to laugh, then cut himself short and schooled his expression when no one else laughed with him.
    Nick had his hands stuffed in his pockets, not reacting as each man offered up his opinion. He glanced to Zane again. Zane found himself nodding. He was tired of finding himself embroiled in problems that weren’t his.
    He immediately chastised himself. Truth and justice were part of his job. What the hell was he thinking? If that bag had any possibility of being linked to the murder of that girl, they had a responsibility, not only as officers of the law, but also as human beings, to report it.
    Nick seemed to read his expression, and it wasn’t the first time Nick had done so since Zane had met him. The man was perceptive as hell. “Okay. You and I will go down there and turn this thing in. If we can keep his name out of it, we will. If not . . . maybe we can use the FBI thing to slip past it. You have your badge?”
    “Yeah. What about Ty?”
    “We’ll stay here. Make sure he doesn’t die,” Kelly offered, smiling widely.
    “That’s . . . that’s comforting, thank you,” Zane drawled.
    Kelly shrugged. “I do what I can.”

    Ty faded in and out of sleep after Zane left him. It was easier to let whatever was in that IV do its work than to fight it trying to stay lucid. He dozed, never quite sure when he was asleep and dreaming, or when he was awake staring at the ceiling and listening to the beeps and thrums of the busy emergency department.
    At times he dreamed of visitors coming to see him. Zane holding his hand. Nick sitting on his bed to laugh at him. Kelly bending over him to check his vitals. Sanchez begging him to wake up and move before they were blown up. Deuce sitting by his bed with his brand new baby girl in his arms. Chester waving a shovel at a nurse.
    He would sort out the reality from the hallucinations later.
    Something jostled the bed and Ty forced his eyes to open. There was a man sitting on the side of the hospital bed, dressed in blue scrubs and sunglasses.
    “Hello, Tyler,” he said, British accent steeped in sarcasm. “Fancy meeting you here.”
    Ty jolted in bed, adrenaline racing through him when he recognized his visitor.
    “Liam.”
    Liam Bell’s lips curved into an evil smirk. Ty tried to sit up, but Liam put a hand on his sternum and shoved him back to the mattress.
    “Don’t make a fuss, love, I won’t be