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knew, but he was smart, savvy, and tough. He was good company most of the time; the best partner -- the best friend -- Will had ever had. He’d missed him badly these last six weeks. Hospital visits, even stopping by Taylor’s apartment once he’d been released, hadn’t been enough; in fact, it felt like he’d barely seen Taylor since the shooting.
    The shooting.
    It had been a routine op. Scratch that. It hadn’t even officially been an op. They’d received a tip-off that a passport counterfeit ring was operating out of the back of a nail salon in Orange County’s Little Saigon.
    A nail salon fronting a ring of counterfeiters? How dangerous could they be?
    Will had been up front chatting pleasantly with the teenaged pink-haired receptionist, and sizing things up. Taylor was supposed to be out back scoping the alley and neighboring businesses -- just getting the lay of the land. They had nothing to move on at that point; it was just intelligence gathering. But Taylor had wandered around to the back of the salon and slipped in through the delivery door, apparently deciding all on his own to take a look around. And whatever he’d spotted amidst the boxes of acrylic powders and foam rubber toe separators had encouraged him to poke around a little more in the stock room -- which is where two juvenile members of the local Phu Fighters gang had found him.
    The first clue Will had was the sound of shots from a back room in the salon. Two shots -- and neither of them the familiar and distinct bang of Taylor’s .357 SIG -- and he’d known. Known instantly that Taylor had been shot.
    He’d mown through the screaming, hysterical women, racing for the stockroom, and finding it -- for one bewildered moment -- empty. Then his gaze moved past the wall of boxes and metal shelving units and he’d spotted Taylor slumped on his side, blood spilling out of his chest, pooling on the cement floor.
    Taylor’s face had been bone white with shock, his eyes huge and black and stunned. Will had knelt down beside him, kneeling in the puddle of Taylor’s blood, and for one instant of sheer blind terror, he couldn’t think beyond the fact that Taylor was dying. That any one of those shuddering, faint breaths might be his last.
    It had never crossed his mind to go after the shooters. Not until later.
    “Hang on, Taylor,” he’d said, and he’d yelled at the terrified faces grouped in the doorway of the stockroom to call 911. His voice shook when he said, “Stay with me, Taylor. Stay.” The words had seemed laden, charged with fears and feelings he’d never considered -- never allowed himself to consider. And he’d shrugged out of his sports coat, putting it around Taylor, shouting at the women to bring him towels, clean towels to try to stanch the bleeding. And the frightened women had scattered, a couple of them returning with freshly laundered towels that he jammed up against the bullet wound in Taylor’s chest.
    Taylor’s lashes had flickered. His colorless lips parted but no words came out, and Will didn’t even know if Taylor could hear him or not. Taylor’s eyes were open, pupils huge and black, but there was no other sign of consciousness in his chalky face, no response to Will. Will had taken Taylor’s icy hand in his and chafed it, feeling the long, lax fingers twitch feebly; maybe it was response, maybe it was just…a dying nervous system shutting down for good. And it was the worst day, the worst hour, the worst moments of Will’s life waiting for the paramedics -- waiting for Taylor to stop breathing, for his eyes to fix and glaze before help could reach them.

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    But then, afterward, when it was clear that Taylor was going to live -- and recover fully -- Will had been…angry. Why not admit it? He had been angry. About as angry as he’d been terrified -- which was about as terrified as he’d been in his life.
    Because the truth was