Orientation (Borealis Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  Chapter 35

  North rode with him to the hospital. He sat with him in the exam room, where the paper curtain rustled every time someone walked by. The past occupant had left a distinct smell of clove cigarettes. From time to time, North would twist around, checking the wall behind them as though expecting to catch someone sneaking. From time to time, North would grab part of Shaw—his shoulder, his upper arm, his thigh—his fingers clamping down so tightly that they left livid impressions when North finally seemed to realize what he was doing and pulled his hand away. And then, a few minutes later, he would do it again.

  “It’s too late,” Shaw said.

  North’s head whipped toward him.

  Jerking a thumb at the poster behind them, Shaw said, “You’ve definitely already got HPV.”

  A million emotions constellated on North’s face. Then he started to cry, turning his head away and wiping his eyes. It only lasted a moment, and before Shaw could figure out what to say, North cleared his throat and flicked tears from his fingers and said, visibly trying to sound like he always did, “Just thank God they don’t have to inspect that fucking Erie Canal you call an asshole.”

  North stayed with Shaw through all the questions. He didn’t say anything—Shaw appreciated that—but he stayed, listened, nodded his head. Once, when a bumbling nurse dropped the lidocaine solution, North shot to his feet, making a sound in his throat that on Animal Planet they would have called a growl, and the poor, white-boy nurse shot out of the room and an older black woman had to come and finish the job. North stayed through the stitches. North stayed until the curtain twitched back and Detectives Barr and Reck came into the room.

  When they asked North to leave, it turned into World War III. At first it was all three of them going at it, ferocious whispers that escalated into hard, jabbing demands, swooping up into half-voiced shouts. By the time Barr dropped out of the match, Reck and North were shouting in each other’s faces, bumping chests, looking more like two guys about to step into a cage match than anything else. It ended with Reck doing some sort of fancy cop move and getting North’s arm twisted behind him and marching North out of the exam room.

  Barr sat on a stool and rubbed his eyes. His hair, his eyebrows, the little goatee with the flecks of silver—they all looked about ten times bushier tonight, like he’d gotten caught in a static cloud. Then he sighed and started asking questions.

  Eventually Reck came back, without North, and he asked a few questions too, and then Barr left, and it was just Shaw and Reck, and there was something about the dark sandstone of his features—the bristle of gelled hair, the honey-dark eyes, the way it looked like someone had coordinated his coloring so he could go undercover with a gang of surfers, or something ridiculous like that—that made Shaw’s skin prickle when it was just the two of them alone. Or maybe it was just the way Reck’s tight, white shirt picked out every ridge and ripple in the hard lines of his chest and abdomen.

  For a moment, it was just the two of them, Reck poised at the curtain like he was standing guard in case North tried to come back. Then Reck crossed the room in two sharp clicks of his heels, and his big hands—an athlete’s hands, Shaw thought—came up, and he rumbled, “May I?”

  Shaw tried to swallow. He settled for a fractional nod.

  Reck cupped his jaw with one hand, the touch barely more than a brush of skin, and his other hand combed the long hair back from Shaw’s face. The rasp of Reck’s hand along Shaw’s skin, the gentle tug of his fingers through the thick hair, they put a hot point in Shaw’s belly that confused him, made him feel slightly sick. Then Reck tugged a couple times, doing something Shaw couldn’t see, and stepped away. The hair stayed up and back in a loose bun; Shaw reached back, testing.

  “You carry scrunchies?”

  “When I got the call, I thought you might need one.” Then those fine lines crinkled around Reck’s eyes. “I have four younger sisters, and I think any of them would kill for your hair.”

  He was still standing too close. The sporty cologne jangled in Shaw’s nose, and that hot point in his stomach had gotten worse, making Shaw dizzy.

  “Shit night,” Reck said. “And totally inappropriate, and you’ve been through hell, and I’m probably the last person you ever want to see again.” Shrugging, he caught Shaw’s hand. His touch wasn’t as gentle as North’s, but there was something about the bump, the force, the casual roughness as he jostled the cuts on Shaw’s arm that sent wildfire rushing into Shaw’s face. Then Reck pressed something into Shaw’s hand. “I hope you’ll call me, though.”

  “If I need something?”

  Another shrug of those massive shoulders. “I just hope you’ll call.”

  Then Barr came back, and the curtain rings rattled along the rod, and the crinkles deepened around Reck’s eyes for a moment before they vanished.

  Sometime later, North pushed through the curtain like he was fully capable of—and intended to—kick down a wall if it got in his way. He had his arms full, and he elbowed a stand of pamphlets on deep vein thrombosis off the countertop and sent them scattering across the floor. He had a split lip; that was new since Reck had forced North out of the room.

  “Did those assholes hurt you?” North said as he unpacked the bags he was carrying. “Kombucha. A glass water bottle—I know you don’t like plastic, and don’t worry, I already washed it out. Those tofu bars, like the ones you had in the fridge. This is a nut- and dairy-free milk, I think it’s hemp and something else, so good fucking luck. About eight pounds of RX bars—just the blueberry ones because Christ fucking help me if you ever have to eat another flavor.”

  “Did Reck hit you?”

  “That fucking pretty boy? Please. He can’t make a fist without damaging his manicure.”

  Then Shaw knew. It was Tuck. Somehow between now and then, North had seen Tuck, and he and Tuck had gotten into it again, and now here North was, unpacking all of Shaw’s favorite food with a split lip because his husband had clocked him.

  North seemed to hear something in Shaw’s silence that he didn’t like because he began speaking again, the words rapid and overly enthusiastic. “And they had this organic rotisserie chicken, and I bought it because I am so fucking out of my head tired that I can’t remember if you’re eating meat right now, but I’m hungry, so if you aren’t eating meat, I’m going to fucking swallow this thing whole.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Shaw said. “That’s exactly how I remember you telling me about your first time giving head.”

  North spun on him. He put one hand against Shaw’s cheek, a frantic, possessive touch, and his whole hand was shaking, but at least he wasn’t crying this time. After a moment, he said, “What happened to your hair?”

  “Of course, I remember Nick Navarra told it differently. He said he’d practically been skinned alive down there.” Shaw grinned and tapped his teeth. “Gotta watch out for these guys.”

  North’s hand had gone still against the side of Shaw’s face, and the touch was so hot that it was cooking. “Where did you get a scrunchie?”

  “I noticed Tuck kind of limping and adjusting his pants after your anniversary. Maybe you need to invest in a mouth guard.”

  North stared at him for another long moment. Then he pushed, gently and firmly, shoving on Shaw’s face until Shaw started to grin and butted back against North’s hand. With a snort, North turned away and opened the kombucha, saying, “Tuck doesn’t have any complaints. Trust me.”

  Chapter 36

  Barr and Reck still didn’t want Shaw to leave, and after Shaw had nibbled on a blueberry RX bar—he wasn’t hungry, but North was about to jam it down his throat, so he picked at it and swallowed a few crumbs—Shaw knew what he had to do. He kept looking at North. He kept seeing the split lip. He was seeing, too, a wall of glass in the darkness, and the muffled shouts, and the soft pop of the strap. He threw the rest of the RX bar in the trash.

  “Do you fucking mind?” North said. “I paid for th
at.”

  “You need to go get the flash drive.”

  “No way.”

  “Right now, North. They’re going to have a million more questions—you saw them—and they’re not going to let this drop until they’re satisfied about why Matty tied me up and wanted to—” Shaw’s voice caught for a millisecond and he tried to finish smoothly. “—get information out of me.”

  “Not a chance in hell.”

  “Please, North. We need to get that flash drive.”

  “We need to turn it over to the cops. I don’t even know why you—”

  “Quiet.”

  North finished in a hiss. “Why you fucking hid it in the first place.”

  “Because I want to know.”

  “What? What’s so important that you need to know?”

  Shaw bit his lip. He rested his head in his hands for a moment. Then he blew out a breath and met North’s eyes. “Please?”

  For a moment, another constellation of emotion shone on North’s face. Then he gave a lousy imitation of a smirk and said, “Because your little soy-boy arms are too weak to pick up the flash drive, is that it?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t spend the first five years of my life crawling around a construction site.”

  “Do you need help with the water bottle? Should I pour more kombucha before I go?”

  “Yoga builds core strength and important muscle groups—”

  North made a vomiting noise and moved to the curtain. Over his shoulder, he said, “If you need to pee, I bet Detective Reck can hold your weiner for you. You know. If those chicken arms can’t do the job.”

  “I’m generously endowed. It’s not my fault.”

  North gagged again and left.

  A moment later, the curtain twitched back, and Jadon Reck stuck his head into the room. “Did I hear that I have a job to do?”

  Groaning, Shaw lay back on the examination table and covered his face.

  “You just let me know, ok?”

  “I’m going to fucking kill him,” Shaw said into his hands.

  “Was that the sign? Here I come.”

  Launching upright, Shaw stabbed a finger in Reck’s direction. “Not a chance. Get out. Get the hell out.”

  But he was grinning. And Reck, hands in the air as he backed away, was grinning too.

  The grin lasted until Reck was out of sight; then Shaw slid off the examination table. He was wearing a massive pair of cargo shorts that kept sliding down and a blue-and-white rugby shirt that had probably been North’s at some point. He grabbed his jacket, parted the curtain, and looked out. He saw a few nurses, a pair of orderlies standing at a coffee maker, and a very, very old man holding himself upright on an IV pole. But no Reck. And no Barr.

  Shaw was out of the hospital in under two minutes, and no one looked twice at him, even with the bandages swathing his arms. He walked two blocks before requesting an Uber, and although the driver seemed curious about Shaw’s injuries, he was courteous enough not to say anything as they drove south on Kingshighway and merged onto Highway 40. Fifteen minutes later, they were slipping along the tree-lined streets of Webster Groves.

  The driver dropped Shaw at an intersection, and Shaw waited for the taillights to disappear before hiking two blocks back the way they had come. He knew the house he wanted. He followed the long drive. He tested the door on the garage; unlocked. The Beamer was unlocked too. Shaw popped the trunk. He selected a nine iron from Tuck’s clubs, and then he closed the trunk and closed the garage and walked around the back of the house.

  The door was locked, but Shaw knew where the spare key was hidden, and he let himself into the kitchen. Unlike that horrible night when Shaw had been forced to watch a nightmare behind glass, the house was dark. Or—no. Not quite dark. Not completely. A blue flicker came from the living room, and then a muffled burst of voices. The television. Shaw took a step in that direction.

  A shadow loomed in the doorway ahead, and Tuck’s drunken voice snaked into the darkness. “Baby?” Not just drunk. Wasted. “Baby, is that you? Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t—I can’t—” He was sobbing. He must have hit the lights because all of a sudden the room was bright and Tuck was blinking, tears streaming down his face, a bottle of Jack clutched to his chest where he bent slightly, as though his remorse had crippled him. “Shaw?”

  Shaw walked the length of the kitchen. The nine iron trailed on the ground, a low metallic skitter across the tile. Confusion worked its way through Tuck’s handsome face, but it moved like a glacier, and as Shaw drew close, Tuck said, “North’s not here. I thought he was with you. Is something wrong? He said—”

  As Shaw reached the other man, he swept the club up, back, and then swung down hard. Even years after Tuck had last played a sport demanding an athlete’s reflexes, he still had some of his natural grace and speed. Shaw had a flicker of a thought that Tuck might have even been fast enough to dodge the blow if not for the booze. But, of course, there had been lots of booze tonight, and Tuck was just starting to stagger back when the nine iron connected with his shoulder. Shaw couldn’t hear the bone shatter, not exactly, but he thought he pinpointed the exact moment by the pain flooding into Tuck’s face.

  It took a surprising amount of time before Tuck screamed. Fifteen seconds. Maybe twenty.

  Plenty of time for the second blow, which Shaw swung sideways, and the head of the club caught Tuck low in the belly. It gave Tucker’s second scream, which was just starting to break from his throat, a breathless whoosh at the end.

  Tuck was still trying to back away. His arm swung out, and it wasn’t clear if he was trying to ward off a blow or use the bottle of Jack as a weapon, but either way, his injured shoulder betrayed him. With a shriek that sounded betrayed, Tuck lost his grip on the bottle, and it spun through the air, a brown tongue of whiskey lapping at the air before glass cracked against the wall.

  “Shaw, what the fuck—” The words broke off into another scream as the nine iron came down across his thigh. Wailing, Tuck toppled back, hitting a flight of stairs at the third step, his head bouncing hard off the next riser.

  “Shaw.” It wasn’t even a scream. It was trying to be a question, but there was so much pain in it, so much confusion, that it fell apart into a whine. “Why—”

  “Be quiet.” Shaw stepped to the stairs and rested the nine iron’s face against the inside of Tuck’s knee. “I need you to listen to me, Tuck, because the next few minutes are going to decide some very important things. One of those things is whether or not you’re ever going to be able to walk again without a cane. Are you listening to me?”

  Tuck was crying. He’d bit his lip or his cheek or something—blood pooled at the corner of his mouth—and snot and tears mixed with the blood to turn the lower half of his face into a pink, gory mess.

  “Tuck? Are you listening?”

  “What the fuck?” he screamed. “Shaw what the—”

  Shaw didn’t hit him. It wasn’t a legitimate blow. He just drove the head of the club into Tuck’s solar plexus and listened to the whoosh of air as Tuck’s screams turned into gasping, desperate moans.

  “I should have warned you, Tuck, that I’m tired of listening to you. I’m tired of everything, actually. I think I might be going a little crazy.” Shaw grinned, resting on the nine iron like it was a cane, studying Tuck as the other man tried to draw a full breath. “From here on out, it’s in your best interest to answer my questions and keep your mouth shut otherwise. Yes or no will be sufficient. Understand?”

  Tuck was really crying now. Sobbing.

  Shaw dug the club into the long strip of damaged thigh where he had landed an earlier blow, and Tuck squealed and tried to twist away. His broken collar bone seemed to be slowing him, though—along with the whiskey and the other injuries Shaw had delivered.

  “That was a question, in case you missed it.”

  “Yes, yes, fuck, yes!”

  “Perfect. And did you h
ear me, earlier, when I told you that I need you to pay very close attention?”

  “Yes.” Tuck was taking long, wheezing breaths between silent sobs that shook him.

  “And you understand that if things don’t go the way I want, I’m going to break both of your knees. Bad, Tuck. I’m going to break them really, really bad.”

  He nodded, trying to wipe the blood from his face.

  Shaw drew back the club.

  With another squeal, Tuck said, “Yes, Christ, yes.”

  “That’s perfect. Tucker, here’s the absolute most important thing I want you to take away from our conversation: you are never, ever going to touch North again. If he comes to work with so much as a paper cut, I’m going to come back here, and I’m going to put you in the back of my car, and I’m going to spend a week taking you apart with a crescent wrench and a flathead. Do you understand?”

  Another sob shook Tucker, and his face screwed up into a terrified mask. Before Shaw could raise the club, though, he nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  “That sounds pretty awful, doesn’t it?”

  Tuck was crying again.

  “That was a question.”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “I really think I’m going out of my head. But it’s hard to know, Tuck. I’ve had a bad night. A bad couple of nights. I had my heart ripped out of my chest. Twice, kind of. And suddenly, nothing really seems to matter very much. You, specifically, don’t matter to me. You’re not a human being to me, Tuck. The way you’ve treated North, that makes you a roach. And I will feel absolutely nothing about crushing a roach. Do you understand?”