When It Rains: Accidental Roots 8

by Elle Keaton

  Carsten rolled paint onto the waiting wall, a very specific shade of red that had taken Sara far too long to choose. He appreciated his boss trusting him to help her get her newest café up and running, he did. But she was uncharacteristically scattered, and things were not going smoothly. The guy she’d hired on a provisional basis to manage her first cafe was … he was fine, he’d just never been in food service before, no matter what he’d told Sara.

  Carsten believed everyone on the planet should be forced to do food service—much like some countries required military service—but this guy was starting from the very beginning. As far as Carsten could tell, he’d never even run a lemonade stand. Even Carsten’d had a lemonade stand back in the day.

  Anybody with eyes could see that Deke Horton had the hots for Sara. The problem was, that meant instead of asking for direction, he acted like he had it all together when she was there—but he was absolutely fucking clueless. Sara mostly acted like he didn’t exist except when she was bossing him around. Carsten suspected this meant she was interested in return. He was going to enjoy being on the sidelines of their romance. If he didn’t drop from exhaustion first. Or disappear, like Troy.

  * * *

  Carsten clicked off his phone. The grand opening for the Perk was in ten short days. Ten days: The interior wasn’t finished, the tables and chairs hadn’t arrived, and Carsten had just learned some of the fixtures Sara had special ordered were now on back order. Not a conversation he was looking forward to.

  The headache he’d been fighting for a few days was beginning to take its toll. He was lucky it hadn’t blossomed into a full-blown migraine. Taking a deep breath, he called the Booking Room. He might as well get it over with, tell Sara that the opening would likely be delayed if she wanted the correct furniture. Deke answered after three rings.

  “Deke, can you have Sara call me?” He’d tried her cell but it had gone straight to voice mail. He suspected she’d turned it off.

  “Uh, sure.” Deke’s voice was filled with stress, and Carsten could hear the clatter of plates and silverware in the background. “When I see her.”

  “She’s not there? It sounds busy.”

  “It is busy! I don’t know where all these people came from, and Tanya called in sick. Sara went to Seattle to pick some things up.” Deke sounded like he was close to having a panic attack.

  Carsten sighed, reaching for patience he didn’t feel, but he wasn’t the type of person to let another fail. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Really? Oh my god, thank you so much.” The line went silent.

  Carsten washed the rollers in the double sink, tapped the lip of the paint can shut, and locked up the half-finished café behind him before running across the street through the continuing deluge. Since he’d parked, a huge puddle had formed next to his driver’s side door. Wonderful. It proved impossible to get into the car without stepping in the puddle, so he had the joy of driving into downtown Skagit with one wet sock and sneaker.

  He’d grown up in the Pacific Northwest, not Skagit but close enough, and he’d never experienced this much rain before. There were pictures of times the Skagit and other rivers in the region had jumped their banks, but it hadn’t happened recently. As he headed downtown, he switched the radio on, listening to the dire warnings from both the National Weather Service and local announcers. Towns closer to the point where the Skagit and Skykomish Rivers met were calling for volunteers to help stack sandbags in front of their schools and churches, and along the rivers themselves.

  He tuned out the radio chatter, letting his thoughts drift as he drove. Unbidden, they headed to Detective Hernández. Hopefully, not hearing from him was good news. Carsten hadn’t been completely open with the cop, but it was a dangerous game he and Troy were playing. Carsten didn’t want to be the one to bring everything crashing down on Troy’s head—on both their heads. How long it would be before Hernández uncovered Carsten’s lies? How long before the two men he’d seen at the hospital figured out who he was?

  Then he remembered the other thing: the way Hernández had looked at him, stroking his cheek. Carsten had been caught unaware. Seeing the men who’d set fire to the cabin had him off balance. If the cop had wanted to kiss him, Carsten would have let him—anything to not feel the fear he’d believed exorcised years ago.

  Fucking fear. He’d lied to Detective Hernández about not being afraid. He was so fucking sick of it. Sick of feeling trapped because some twisted fucks had stolen his life, his identity. This whole thing he and Troy’d planned was supposed to take care of the fear, let Carsten reclaim his life for real; Troy too. It didn’t seem to be working out that way.

  He parked behind the Booking Room and went inside to see what kind of trouble Deke was in this time. Two hours and one inexplicably busy midweek late-lunch rush later, Carsten was in the dish pit shoving the last of the plates into the dishwasher when he recognized Hernández’s low, sexy voice coming from the dining room.

  If Carsten hadn’t known the cop was gay from his careless touch yesterday at the hospital, he would have suspected it from the sideways comment about the photographs hanging on Carsten’s walls—and the fact that he hadn’t been put off by Carsten’s ogle at the bar. But Hernández was a cop, and a cop was not someone Carsten should be thinking about this way. Cop, cop, cop. Maybe if he said it enough times, his libido would look somewhere else.

  * * *

  Carsten’d never seen Hernández in the café before. But the person with him was familiar.

  Regardless of one’s opinion of the police, it was impossible to work, even occasionally, at the Booking Room—directly across the street from the SkPD station—and not know many of the police officers and detectives by name. Soren Jorgensen was in on a regular basis. He had a sweet tooth, which Carsten enjoyed teasing him about. He was good looking—both men and women drooled after him all the time—but he and Carsten looked too much alike. It would be like being attracted to his own brother, if he had a brother. Or family. Not to mention Jorgensen was also a cop.

  They looked exhausted and very wet.

  “Gentlemen.” Carsten nodded at them. “You’re dripping all over our floor.”

  Both men looked down to where their SkPD rain slickers had created a puddle on the tiles.

  “Shoot. Sorry about that,” Jorgensen said. Hernández grimaced and stepped back to the entrance, where Sara had a coat rack. He and Soren peeled off their wet slickers and hung them up.

  “Is there lunch left? Anything hot?” Hernández asked. “We’ve been outside all day.” That explained their condition. Carsten had really been looking forward to going home and crawling into bed, trying to sleep. His head was pounding, but Deke had a panicked expression Carsten was starting to recognize.

  “I’ve got this, Deke; you go in back and tally the lunch tickets.” If nothing else, the guy was good with numbers. Deke shot him a grateful look and disappeared down the short hallway to the office.

  Normally this late in the day the Booking Room only served coffee and pastries, but there was probably something left in the kitchen for two cold, hungry police officers.

  * * *

  When Carsten returned to the front room after inventorying what would make a decent lunch for the two men, he found them seated at a two-top next to the window. Beto watched him as he walked over. Carsten felt naked despite the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing.

  “When you’re not taking pictures, you’re making coffee?”

  Carsten bit his lips to stop a snarky reply. The less he did to antagonize Hernández, the better.

  “I help out when I can.” And photography was more of a hobby than a profession.

  Soren listened to the exchange with interest. “You two know each other?”

  Hernández’s gaze swung back to Jorgensen. “No.”

  Carsten narrowed his eyes at the older cop. Carsten didn’t want to advertise that the cop had been at his apartment looking for Troy or that Carsten had tried to sneak in to see Tr
oy—but why would the cop care?

  “There’s corn chowder, and I can put together a couple sandwiches. Roast beef okay?” He focused his attention on Jorgensen. “For you, there’s an apple fritter.”

  Soren grinned. “After today I won’t have to go to the gym. All that sounds good.”

  “It does, thank you,” Beto echoed.

  * * *

  Troy had warned Carsten not to trust anyone, but it was hard to imagine Soren Jorgensen playing a part in the ring of human feces they were trying to expose. There were strikes against him, though: He was both a local and a cop. Carsten didn’t know who he could trust, if anyone.

  “We can’t trust anyone, Car, no one. They have to think we’re just two losers in it for the money.”

  Carsten found himself getting angry as he thought about Troy while he heated the cops’ soup and cut the bread for sandwiches. His knife banged against the cutting board. The kid running the espresso counter probably thought Carsten had a nut loose. Whack, the knife hit the board again, slicing cleanly through the sweet onion.

  He must have a nut loose to have agreed with Troy’s plan, to be involved in any way. Troy had made himself available to the men they suspected were part of the sex club (for lack of a better term). When he gained the men’s trust, he would gather evidence—photographs, names of other members, other victims if he could—and get it back to Carsten, who would protect it until they had enough to take them down, to bring justice for the Jessicas and Sophies, the Scotts and Emilios. Then they were going big: exposing the men to the entire city, to the world. They had to have evidence and names. Troy insisted there was no other way to stop them; they were too powerful.

  Cheddar, mayo, roast beef, onion, lettuce, one by one Carsten piled the ingredients onto the sliced bread. He didn’t know if their plan would work. The club, group, whatever it was had been around for at least a decade, probably longer. If Troy was dead, who could Carsten trust? Who would believe a past-due ex–street kid? Who would believe someone who didn’t exist?

  By the time the sandwiches and soup were ready, Carsten had worked himself into a state of anxiety. Anger and headache were never a good mix. With slightly shaking hands, he plopped the plates down in front of the two men. Tension had his stomach churning; he felt sick.

  “Anything else?” He needed to get out of there; he needed to get away from prying cop eyes.

  Again Hernández pinned him with his intense gaze, waiting a beat to let Carsten know he wasn’t fooling anyone before nodding. “I think that should do it. Thanks for the food.”

  10

  Beto

  * * *

  Late afternoon two days later, Beto and Jorgensen were headed back to the station, and Beto was looking forward to getting home and dry after a grueling afternoon on the assist for yet another body recovery from the swollen Skagit River. He guided their vehicle through the waterlogged streets, the windshield wipers barely making a dent in the cascade of rain.

  When it rained, it poured. Like the others, this body was as yet unidentified. Another young woman, and as far as SkPD knew no one matching her description had been reported missing in Skagit or the surrounding county. Nothing was good about this rain, and the forecasters didn’t see an end in sight. Jorgensen was flipping through radio stations and stopped on a local church leader’s diatribe declaring the rain a portent, that the end was coming.

  “Dios, turn that off. Just what we need, a bunch of panicked churchgoers going survivalist on us. There’re already enough of those around here.”

  “True.” Jorgensen complied.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Beto could see his partner gazing out the passenger window. Normally the younger partner drove, but Beto preferred to be behind the wheel.

  “That’s all? ‘True’?”

  Jorgensen cracked a smile. “What can I say? We have more than our fair share of fringe elements. I heard many stories growing up.”

  “You’re a native?” Beto knew Jorgensen was, but he wanted to hear what the young detective would tell him in his own words, not department gossip.

  “I’m sure you knew, but yeah, Skagit born and bred.”

  “You never wanted to leave?”

  “I went to Seattle after high school, to the UW. But I always knew I wanted to come back to Skagit.”

  After a pause, Jorgensen continued, “I wanted to help improve the SkPD from the inside. It’s not going to happen if everyone gives up and moves away. My uncle was the chief for over twenty years, and I’m certain he was responsible for the way things have been around here.”

  “Was?” Beto took a right, bringing them onto the street behind the station. Of course he knew the history of the SkPD—its checkered history was one of the reasons he was in Skagit—but interacting with someone who had a different angle on it was new. The old-timers, Dickson and his cronies, hated the changes Nguyen was making. They fought her every step of the way.

  “He died of a massive heart attack six months after retiring. He was dead before he hit the floor. I—” Soren cut himself off. “I was fourteen.”

  Beto was sure Soren had been going to say something else. He wondered what secrets had died with Jorgensen’s uncle. From Beto’s research and what Nguyen told him, the elder Jorgensen had been a good old boy who looked the other way regarding blatant racism, sexism, even petty theft from the evidence room (which had been a huge metal filing cabinet in the break room until Nguyen’s predecessor came along).

  “Your uncle was …?”

  “Knut Jorgensen, my dad’s brother.” Jorgensen gave him a look like he knew Beto was fishing for information.

  “Your dad in law enforcement too?” They arrived at the parking garage, and Beto pulled the car into its assigned spot, waiting for Soren’s answer.

  “No. My dad and my uncle never got along. Dad’s in timber. Not actual logging, although it’s part of what he does; he’s into sustainability. Dad manages a couple of big tree farms and the guys who do the logging.”

  Beto set the parking brake. “See ya tomorrow, kid. Maybe it will be an easier day.” He doubted it, but a man could hope.

  * * *

  When Beto came through his front door, the dog danced around him. It was nice coming home to a being. He wondered why he’d never considered a pet before. The answer, of course, was the hours he worked, plus Jerry had supposedly been allergic. Now that he thought about it, more likely Jerry just hadn’t wanted to show up somewhere else with pet hair on his clothing he couldn’t explain away.

  Freya continued to wiggle excitedly while he filled her bowl with crunchies. As she ate, he took his coat off and hung it up. Then he kicked his shoes off and tucked them under the coffee table. It was already dark, though it was hard to notice the onset of evening, what with the nonstop rain and gloom.

  It was entirely possible Nguyen had found someone Beto could work with for more than just a few weeks or months. Soren was obviously smart, he was polite, and he had no trouble taking direction from Beto.

  The few times he and Jorgensen had been in the station over the past few days, Beto hadn’t seen Dickson around. The other officers seemed to be keeping their distance from Beto as well. It wasn’t easy being part of the city’s campaign to make SkPD more diverse. Good thing he didn’t give a flying crap about making friends.

  SkPD was changing. Beto and Nguyen were only the tip of the iceberg—though Beto didn’t really count, because who knew if, after the dust settled, he’d be staying. Dickson and his ilk were on their way out, but they weren’t going easily. Beto’s gut told him Soren Jorgensen was part of the new, not the old, which was why Nguyen had partnered them. He just didn’t know for certain. And trust didn’t come easy to him.

  “I don’t know, dog, I think I like being on my own. At least, when I fuck up, I know whose fault it is.” He skritched between her ears, and her long tongue drooped out of her mouth in pleasure.

  “Yeah, I like getting a scratch between the ears too. Come on, outside with you
.” While Freya dashed out to do her business, Beto considered what to do with the rest of his evening. He wished the damn rain would let up. How did people here not have actual gills? He felt like he’d been half underwater for the past week.

  He thought back to the late lunch at the Booking Room the other day. It had been a surprise to see Carsten Quinn there—a nice surprise, if he was going to be honest with himself. Beto hadn’t considered that photography probably didn’t pay the rent, although that was stupid of him. He’d known he would see Quinn again after the incident at the hospital, but he’d never thought it would be somewhere like the Booking Room. His plan had been to stop by the apartment and question him again about his roommate.

  Beto had talked to the hospital again that morning. Bakker had somewhat regained consciousness, but he wasn’t coherent enough to be questioned. Beto was impatient to hear what the man had to tell them; if he remembered anything about what happened—and what were he and Carsten Quinn up to? Bakker had at least been moved to a different room now, and Gómez had sent protection as she’d promised.

  Carsten Quinn. Beto’s thoughts kept circling back to him unbidden: white-blond hair long enough to brush his shoulders, those blue eyes … and since he hadn’t been wearing a shirt that morning at his apartment, Beto knew exactly what was hidden under his clothing. He didn’t want to think about the other man, but he found himself wondering what his story was. What the hell was he mixed up in?

  Carsten was one of those people Beto instinctively knew had had a hard life. Wary eyes, guarded body language. Carsten said he was twenty-four, if he could be believed, but that hardness—at least, when he wasn’t tipsy—made him seem older. It had been nice of him to make Soren and Beto lunch, though, definitely over and above the call of duty.