by Gregory Ashe
With a whine, Scipio turned in a circle, all four paws finding new pressure points on Jem’s back. Something popped ominously, but it felt surprisingly good. Then the dog dropped down, his body stretched out across Jem’s. A warm, wet spot formed between Jem’s shoulder blades, and then the snoring started.
“He, um, might be asleep.”
“Go away. Go back to vet school for twenty years.”
This time, Jem drifted, his mind racing while his body tried to crash. When he came back, his neck was wet. He tried to push the dog’s head away.
“Oh my God, oh my God, that’s my neck! Stop cleaning my neck.”
The Lab settled for a long last swipe of his tongue, and then he heaved his weight off Jem and moved to the end of the bed. Jem pulled the pillow from his head and looked around. The room was empty, and Tean’s bed was made.
“Where’s your dad?” Jem asked the Lab. “Did he go off to find his daddy?”
Scipio answered with a languorous stretch, inviting Jem to scratch his belly. After a moment, Jem obliged. The bathroom door opened, and Tean stepped out, naked except for a white towel wrapped around his waist. Jem didn’t move except for the slow, lazy stroke of his hand over Scipio’s flank.
What did Tean see when he looked in the mirror? Jem wasn’t sure. Not reality, that was obvious. Too many years of Ammon, too many years of bad first dates, too many years of his family. Maybe it went deeper. Jem considered the doc. Wiry dark hair in a stripe down the center of his brown chest. The taut lines of his hips, his ribs, his throat. He still hadn’t seen Jem yet, his attention fixed on the bundle of dirty clothes that he’d dropped when he came out of the bathroom. He stooped to pick them up, twisting at the torso, exposing the long, lean curve of his spine. Second grade was hazy for Jem, but he remembered they’d written Valentine’s poems—dedicated to their moms, of course. I think you’re pretty like a book. Jem had forgotten the rest of it.
“Oh,” Tean said, red flooding his face. “I’m sorry, I thought you were still asleep.”
“I don’t mind.”
Tean blushed harder, grabbing clean clothes and heading back into the bathroom. When he emerged again, he was dressed, his hair sticking up in wild clumps.
Jem patted the bed. “Either Scipio gets to fix your hair, or I do.”
“I choose Scipio.”
“Don’t you fucking dare. Grab the pomade and a comb from my bag.”
“Twenty-seven combs to choose from. How will I ever decide?”
Tean was so pleased with that joke that he was still smiling when he came over with a comb and the pomade, and that meant Jem was smiling too. To Jem’s surprise, Tean sat on the floor, his back against the bed. Jem moved to sit with his legs straddling the doc. He ran his fingers through wet hair. Then he warmed a small bit of pomade between his hands and worked it through the dark strands. He took the comb next. Rigid at first, Tean relaxed by degrees until his cheek rested against Jem’s knee.
“You’re really good at this. Have you ever thought about being a barber?”
“Still trying to fix my life?” Jem kept his voice light as he teased out a snarl with the comb.
“No. Trying to find a way to keep you in mine.”
Jem had absolutely no idea what to say to that, no idea how to tease out that snarl of a statement, so he worked in silence for a few minutes.
“You should let me fix your hair before you go on dates,” Jem said. “You’re a sex machine no matter what, but the hair would be a nice touch.”
The silence that followed was even longer, and when it broke, Tean’s voice was so quiet Jem had to lean forward to hear him.
“Jem, what am I supposed to do to help you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You were making noises last night, and I was going to check on you, but Scipio beat me to it. It—it scared me, how you sounded.”
“I’m fine.” He ran the comb through Tean’s hair one last time and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re all set.”
“I really don’t think you are fine. I want to help—”
“What did Ammon call about?”
The silence was a rebuke that made Jem’s face heat, but he didn’t back down. After a moment, Tean answered, “He told us not to leave the lodge until we hear from him again.”
“I think you and Scipio should go home.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. You’ve got work tomorrow, and anyway, this is dangerous. Tanner has killed three people now. It’s time for you to go home. I’ll be back in Salt Lake in a day or two.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“You want to stay here so you can kill Tanner.”
“I want to find him because he’s a murderer, and he ought to pay for that.”
Tean still rested against Jem’s knee, his body warm where it pressed up to Jem’s. “You want to be the one to make him pay, though.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jem said. “You don’t like lying.” Jem traced the line of Tean’s neck. “Go home. Tonight. Scipio is sick of this hotel room; he told me.”
Through the window came the sound of outraged shrieks, a boy’s laughter, a man bellowing, “Lincoln, give your sister back her tampon!”
“No,” Tean said.
“She might need it,” Jem said.
“I’m not going back. I’ve got plenty of personal time, and we’ll figure out something better for Scipio. I bet they’ve got doggie daycare around here.” His voice steadied. “I’m not leaving until you’re ready to go.”
“That means a lot to me. Nobody in my whole life would do that for me except you. And Tinajas, I guess, but she’d bitch about it so much that I’d rather do it on my own. But you’re going home tonight. That’s what’s safe.”
“No.”
“You’re going—”
“Don’t say it again,” Tean said. Quiet. Firm. Even. Jem had heard him use that voice when he’d talked to the foal caught in the juniper.
“You realize this was actually easier when I just lied to you all the time and slurped your bone—ah! Jesus Christ, how the hell did you learn how to do that? You actually broke my leg.” Jem massaged his thigh, where Tean had driven his knuckle into a nerve, the whole leg gone to pins and needles.
“I’ve got four brothers, dummy.” Tean stood, pushing his glasses back into place. “Now, tell me what we’re going to do about Blake?”
“Well, not much, considering he’s dead.”
“Our initial theory doesn’t make sense anymore. We’d assumed that Tanner had killed Andi, come back to Moab, and faked his own death by murdering Blake and disfiguring the remains. Now, it’s easy to see why there are some problems with that theory. First, we found Blake, and he’s definitely dead, but he’s not the one Tanner left in the canyon.”
“So who is? That’s what I don’t get. According to Ammon, they don’t have any tourists missing. Nobody local has disappeared. We don’t have any candidates for our third dead guy.”
“Either there’s nobody to report him missing—he was traveling alone, for example—or nobody’s noticed he’s missing. In that case, he could be a local, a loner without a network of people who would quickly notice his absence. Or he’s here because of Tanner, Blake, and Antonio. That seems to be the best option, but we haven’t had any signs that a fourth person was involved.”
Jem shook his head. “I honestly have no idea. It could be any of those things. It could be something totally obvious that we’re overlooking.”
Tean’s phone buzzed; he pulled it out of his pocket and made a face.
“Ammon?”
Dismissing the call, Tean said, “Timmy. Apparently, brother number three got tapped this time to try to emotionally blackmail me into a fun weekend.”
“I really wish you could hear yourself sometimes.”
“I hear myself per
fectly fine.” The phone buzzed again, and Tean looked like he might dismiss the call again. Then his face changed.
“Ah,” Jem said. “This time it’s Ammon.”
“What does that mean?”
“Glasses,” Jem said.
Tean caught them as they slid off his nose. He answered the call, putting the phone to his ear, and angled his body away from Jem.
Scipio sat up at the sound of the voice on the other end of the call. His body vibrated with a growl that was barely audible.
“You and me both,” Jem murmured.
With a harumphing noise, Scipio flopped onto his side, kicking at the blankets until he had satisfied some hidden doggy need.
“I hear what you’re saying. I’m trying to validate what you’re saying. Yes, I’m telling you that I hear you. Ammon, I’m really trying to understand where you’re coming from, but if I have to say the words ‘I hear what you’re saying’ one more time, and you don’t listen to me when I say them, I’m going to throw my phone into the Colorado.” A long silence. “Yes. I understood you the first three times. I don’t—” Tean cut off, pulled the phone away, and stared at it. “He hung up.”
“Did he want to know how to do a wash and set?”
“He kept saying ‘Don’t use this as an excuse to get into any more trouble.’ I don’t know why he suddenly felt the need to call me and say that. He delivered the same message about fifty times last night and again this morning.” The phone buzzed again almost immediately, and Tean glanced at it. “Unknown number.”
Jem’s phone buzzed at the same time. He didn’t recognize the number on the screen. They answered at the same time.
“Son.” Jem recognized McEneany’s chipmunk voice. “This is the sheriff speaking. I want to make it perfectly clear that your vacation in Grand County is at an end. I want you and your friend out of here so fast your feet don’t have time to touch the ground. Understand?”
“Got it.”
“Don’t make this anything more than it has to be, son.”
This kid, Jem thought. This kid who wasn’t even old enough to shave. But what he said was, “Abso-tutely.”
McEneany disconnected with a grunt that was probably supposed to be masculine.
On the other bed, Tean was saying, “I understand, Chief. Yes, we’ll leave right away.” When he put down the phone, he said, “Nobles.”
Something prickled in Jem’s gut. He glanced over, surprised to see that it was barely nine o’clock. “Something happened. Everybody wants us to leave because something happened.”
“What?”
“Something else happened. That’s why they’re all freaking out.” Jem opened his phone’s browser and felt the familiar wave of helplessness threaten to capsize him. “You do it. Look for what happened.”
“No. You can do it.”
“Tean, this isn’t the time for grammar lessons.”
“First of all, I would absolutely love to have grammar lessons with you, but that’s not the same thing as reading practice.”
Whatever the noise was called that Jem was making in his throat, it woke Scipio.
“Ok, ok,” Tean said. “I’ll look at Salt Lake news. You look at Moab.”
It was the first headline, and it wasn’t hard for Jem to understand. He recognized the picture: the stucco villa, the cliffs banded in red and orange. HOTEL SHOOTING. “Someone attacked Kalista and Nick. I think, anyway. There was a shooting at their hotel.”
“And I think I know who it was,” Tean said, turning his phone toward Jem. The headline said MURDER SUSPECT ESCAPES.
Antonio’s picture stared back at him.
24
They found an independent doggy daycare; a woman named Martha ran it out of her house. She was middle-aged and wearing a leather corset, her hair electric blue and shorter than Jem’s. Her two fat old hounds shuffled around, crooning with delight as they met Scipio. As soon as Scipio was off the harness, he sprinted in circles, teasing the hounds, trying to get them to chase him. The hounds did some more delighted howling, but they seemed content to let Scipio handle the running side of things.
“But what if they’re mean to him?” Jem said as they drove away.
“What?”
“What if they bully him?”
Tean blinked several times. “Martha will separate them.”
“I didn’t raise my goddog to be a coward. If they bully him, Scipio isn’t going to roll over.”
“That might be literally what he does. He’s a cupcake.”
“What if they don’t play with him? What if they don’t include him in their doggy games?”
“I’m sorry, I need you to help me out. What is going on right now?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Tean. You are the worst dog dad I have ever met.”
After that, they drove past the Tafone, with its crumbling stucco and its red-tile roof. A Grand County Sheriff’s Department jeep was parked across the access road leading back to the villas, so Jem motioned for Tean to keep driving. A quarter-mile down the highway, they flipped around and came back. Jem squinted, trying to make out the villa where Kalista and Nick had been staying. If anything was happening back there, he couldn’t tell.
“What the fuck was Antonio doing?”
“That’s one good question,” Tean said, eyes fixed on the road as they headed back toward Moab. “A couple more are: how did he escape, and why did he come here?”
“He came here for Tanner. He wants revenge. Easy peasy, baby.”
“Please don’t call me baby. And I’m not sure it’s that simple; he might want the drugs.”
Jem opened his mouth to say something, but his phone vibrated. He pulled it out and saw Brigitte’s name on the screen. Mommy Dearest’s message was a reminder about the Pioneer Day party. Can’t wait for you to meet your brother and sister. Gerald is looking forward to getting to know you too.
After clearing his throat, Jem said, “Let’s try Jager while we wait for the Keystone Kops to clear out.”
“Who was that?”
“My sex guru. He’s worried I’m not having enough level-ten cosmic orgasms.”
Tean muttered something that sounded like dry spell.
“What was that?”
“I said do you want to go back to the BLM building? Because I’m not ready for that. And honestly, I’m not sure you are either.”
“No,” Jem said. “If there was anything left there, Jager would have moved it. I’d really like to go through his jeep and his house.”
Ahead on the left, a red, board-and-batten shed was painted with the words WICKED BREW. Jem pointed at it. Tean shook his head and kept driving.
“Where are you going?”
“To get you something real to eat while we figure out where he lives.”
“Just park and let’s do this.”
“Jem, you pushed the eggs around your plate for half an hour this morning, and when I asked you if you were getting enough protein, you ignored me and chewed on your napkin. I don’t know when you last had any decent sleep, and my usual wisp of air that has floated delicately between the leaves of a prickly pear isn’t filling me up.” Tapping the signal, Tean guided the truck across traffic and into the parking lot of a McDonald’s—a reno job, with pale brick and crisp yellow paint, huge plate windows, and a green lawn shady with poplars and cottonwoods. “Please eat one million hash browns so I can stop worrying about you. I’ll have half of one. No salt.”
Jem stared at Tean as they sat in the drive-thru until the doc shifted in his seat, running his hands along the steering wheel, the soft sound of his thumbs bumping along the ridges of molded plastic filling the car.
“Will you cut it out?” Tean said.
“No. Come here.”
“Oh my gosh.”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
“If you do, you can walk home.”
“I’m going to kiss you exactly on the mouth.”
“Too bad,” Jem said, unbuckling himself and climbing up onto the bench. “McDonald’s talk always gets me going.”
It was fun. It was easy. This, being silly, letting Tean push him away one-handed while laughing, pretending to fight until they both dropped back into their seats. The cab was too hot now with the sun pouring through the glass, even though the A/C was roaring. Sweat gathered under Jem’s arms. Tean was still smiling, his cheeks flushed, the glasses crooked. Jem thought about touching his face the way he had last night, the way it fit in the hollow of his hand, and kissing him for real. I think you’re pretty as a book.
When Tean buzzed down the window, a staticky voice asked for their order.
“A million hash browns,” Jem shouted, plucking at his shirt to cool himself. “And one hash brown cut in half, no salt.”
He grunted when Tean slapped his stomach. After Tean had placed their more reasonable order and picked it up at the next window, they pulled into a patch of shade. The bark on the poplar in front of the truck had pulled loose in places, waving in stray currents of air, so thin in places it was translucent. The heat hammered at the truck; it shimmered up from the asphalt.
While Jem demolished the breakfast sandwiches, Tean nibbled at a hash brown before sliding most of it back into its paper sleeve. He tapped on his phone. Jem was halfway through the second sandwich—a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit—when Tean said, “Jager’s not in any of the white page sites I’ve used.”
“Anything—”
“I already checked Facebook; he doesn’t have an account.”
“God, I’m so proud of my morally bankrupt homosexual.”
“Please finish chewing before you talk.”
“My deviant genius.”
Tean made a face and wiped invisible—and probably imaginary—flecks of food from his arm.
“My criminal mastermind.”
“Sausage gristle.” Tean tapped his own front teeth. “Right here.”
“Finish this,” Jem said, passing the remains of the sausage biscuit.
“I’m really not—”
“Eat it, and finish the hash brown that you desecrated by asking for no salt, or I’m shaving your head and painting a butt on it.”