by J. M. Dabney
“I dunno. It’s still dangerous, but I think they may have some solid leads.”
“Good. You must be going crazy not working or anything. Any idea when you’ll be back?” I was already past my week off and pushing into the two-week territory. I was sure Augustine hadn’t hired anyone else, Elise would have mentioned it, but I did know how tired she must be covering my ass. But that did remind me.
“I’ll talk to Ray about work, but you know what I wanted to ask you? Was Gabin having an affair? Have you heard anything about it?”
There was a fairly long silence, then Elise released a breath. “I didn’t want to say anything to you with everything going on, but there’s been some serious shit going on at the restaurant.”
“Like what?” Was it more than just Augustine’s affair?
“Apparently Augustine had an affair with Trenton because Gabin has been sleeping with someone for, like, years. Auggie told Gab that the only reason he did any of it was to hurt him for the years of humiliation he caused him.”
It was all so heartbreaking. Two men I looked up to, men I’d hoped to have a love like theirs, were a mess.
“Jesus. So what happened?” I asked wondering how all this affected the restaurant.
“Well, I heard yesterday that Gabin’s lover was killed and it looks like this serial killer guy. Andy, it’s such a mess. Auggie has been talking about closing down for a few week and taking Gabin away so they can try and rebuild from all this.”
“Wait….” Gabin’s lover was killed. “Who was Gabin’s side piece?”
“Chad something, I don’t really know more because Gabin was hysterical over it. He kept going on about how he had just seen him and now he was dead.” I could hear Elise sniffle and it was no surprise, hearing the pain Gabin was in had affected her.
“And you didn’t want to tell me because you thought I’d blame myself for this. Like this guy somehow did this because I work for Gabin or something?” Was that it?
“I didn’t want to bother you. This killer is wiping out young gay men, Andy. The news started showing all the photos. They all resemble each other. Andy, you need to be careful.”
“I am being careful Elise. Look, let me talk to Ray about work and let me know if Auggie really is going to close the restaurant for a while.”
“Okay. Be safe. Talk to you soon.”
After I disconnected my call I sat back and let all the information wash over me. It was horrible what happened to Gabin’s lover. Terrible their marriage was in shambles, but I was certain neither Gabin nor Augustine had anything to do with the killings. Why would Gabin kill his lover? And why would Augustine do it after all these years? It didn’t fit since all the guys had a message on their bodies for Ray. No, it wasn’t Auggie’s style. He didn’t even like to watch the chef tenderize the meat in the kitchen.
Ray was still in his office on the phone, so I didn’t want to disturb him. I’d tell him what I found out later. I wasn’t sure if it would be of any help at all, but ruling people out was always a good thing.
My stomach rumbling made me realize it had been awhile since I ate. Ray would probably be starving so I rummaged through the fridge and cabinets to see what I could make. There was fresh ground beef in the fridge, an onion, some peppers, yeah, I could make some kick ass burgers. We could have chips on the side. Cooking took me away from my thoughts all the time.
I mixed all the ingredients in the bowl, but I wanted it to marinate for twenty minutes, so I sauntered into the living room and looked over the board Bradford, Ray, Richie, and I made with all the victims and information.
Epiphany was the hunting ground, that was glaringly obvious. We had two killers, one that grabbed, one that killed. One or both killers wanted Ray’s attention. All the victims looked like this Mikey guy. Unless this phone call Ray was making led to the Holy Grail of information, something seriously drastic was going to have to be done. Every second these killers were on the streets another innocent life was brutally ripped room it.
The egg timer went off telling me the meat was marinated enough. I went back to the kitchen and began shaping the meat into patties. There were three kinds of cheese, so I shredded all three creating a mix. I reached over to wipe my hands and accidentally knocked the egg timer over making it crash to the floor breaking in two pieces.
“Dammit.” I gathered it all up, but the mechanism wasn’t clicking into place. “Crap I need the spring.” Grabbing a flashlight above the fridge, I turned it on and looked under the oven. There it was in all its glory. Just unreachable. I had to ask myself, what would MacGyver do?
On Ray’s fridge there were a bunch of flat magnets. I grabbed one, a piece of tape, and a straw creating a long handle. Slowly, I slipped it under the stove, excited when I saw the spring connect with the magnet.
“Yes!” I shouted in victory as I slid it out and grabbed the spring. “You thought you’d get away from me, Mr. Spring. Ha Ha. No one can resist a magnet…” It was like being hit with a ton of bricks.
“That’s it,” I whispered to myself. Quickly I put the egg timer back together. And while I knew Ray was still working, I also knew exactly how to lure out one of the killers. I may not get the one committing the actual crime, but if we got one, we’d likely get the other.
Without knocking, I opened Ray’s office door. “I got it! Use me,” I shouted at Ray who jumped and almost dropped the phone.
“Hold on,” he said to whoever he was talking to. “Use you, Andy, what are you talking about?”
“Epiphany. Use me as bait. He won’t be able to resist grabbing me.”
“Let me call you back,” Ray said and when he put his phone down, his expression didn’t show he was excited.
“It’s brilliant, Ray. You’ll be there, you won’t let anyone hurt me. I’m sure Bradford will help. He won’t use one of his guys, but the more of us there, the less chance of anything going wrong.”
Ray pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Andy, I get it. You want this to be over but risking you is a bad idea. Not to mention, what makes you think he won’t see this as a trap?”
He had a point. I wasn’t the detective type. Sure, I saw a lot of shows but….
“You’re right, but what if there’s a fake arrest? Make Green arrest someone, maybe they’ll get angry or sloppy. Seeing me will be too irresistible to them.” I didn’t know why or how I became so brave. Honestly, the thought of going there to bait a mass murderer had me practically pissing my pants.
“It’s not a bad idea, Andy. I need to talk to Bradford and everyone in the morning.” He sniffed the air. “Are you cooking something?”
“Yeah, burgers. Okay, Ray, we eat and sleep, but you have to consider this as an option. They can’t be out there forever killing people. No one has come up with a better idea or anything yet.”
“Let’s just eat. I learned a lot tonight.”
I wanted to ask Ray a million questions, but his body was slumped in exhaustion and the circles under his eyes got darker every day. When Bradford and everyone was here tomorrow I’d toss out my idea with everyone else’s and see if I had more allies in what I wanted to do.
22
Ray
As soon as Richie showed up, I’d left the house. We hadn’t had the talk Andy wanted to the night before, but I’d wanted to get my head straight before I tried to explain everything. Andy had argued, wanting to come with me today, but it was just a few errands and a stop to pick up the information I’d put in a request for. Unfortunately, the head of the squad had retired a few months before.
I stared across a desk littered with empty, crushed paper coffee cups. The detective in the cheap suit and greasy combover was trying to bust my balls about chain of command. I never thought I’d throw out Green’s name as a backup. He had told me whatever I needed, and I didn’t know how important these files were, but my gut said I had to look at them.
Finally, the files were given to me after a big show of signing a bullshit form. I barely made
it into the hallway of the basement of the precinct where Cold Case was located before I dropped the file box on a chair. According to the search parameters, a list of fifty cases came up. I was sure a serial murderer with that many kills would’ve come under scrutiny, but I had to go through each one. I didn’t know how I felt about this leading back to Mikey, and possibly Finn.
I respected Finn, even as a criminal he had a code about what he would and wouldn’t allow.
As I thumbed through the files in the box the beat of my heart picked up, and I could hear it echoing in my ears. The thrill of the hunt was back. That adrenaline rush I lived with for years. I couldn’t deny that I was addicted to it, and this aspect of my work is what I’d missed the most.
Even as I felt myself succumb to the old spell there was one thing troubling me. I wasn’t happy about the plan Andy came up with, but I couldn’t disagree with the validity of it. Chasing shadows would only get us so far. We needed something bold that would draw the deadly partners out of the dark. The disorder of their new pattern proved they were on the edge, but I still didn’t understand what that had to do with me.
Yeah, I had enemies, no cop made it through their career without collecting a few. I just wasn’t all that comfortable with setting Andy up as bait. He wasn’t a client. What he was, I wasn’t quite sure. We’d become so mired in the case and the unpredictability of it that he and I hadn’t discussed it.
I put the top back on the box so that I could get home to Andy. The sting had to be planned down to the smallest detail and because it was Andy, I was even more cautious. I’d made a few stops before I’d headed to the precinct. I wondered what he’d say about the vest I’d bought for him.
The one thing I didn’t want to do was make Andy more fearful than he already was, and I needed to give him his life back. We hadn’t discussed what would happen after the case was over, but I didn’t want to let him go. The case, Andy, the what-ifs, all the unknowns were a fucked-up maelstrom of madness, and I felt like I was losing my mind. I returned to my car and stowed the box in the trunk.
Every decision I made as I drove back home was colored by what I thought was best for Andy. I pulled into the garage and hit the remote to close the door. I pushed a weary sigh through my compressed lips and got out of my car. I retrieved the box and bags, then headed inside.
When I walked through the back door, I smiled at the sight of Andy and the welcoming look on his beautiful face. I set everything on the table and leaned in to kiss him. His lips gave perfectly under mine.
“Hey, did you get everything you needed?” Andy asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
I rubbed his back and nodded. “I’m going to send Richie home. I know I kinda left you in the dark so we’re going to talk.”
“Okay.”
I hated that I caused the nervousness in his voice I gave him one more kiss and then headed to the living room to find Richie staring at the boards.
“Hey, man.”
“You know, all the shit I’ve done and seen…shit like this, I just can’t get my head around it.”
“Your humanity is showing.”
“Fuck you, Clancy. You and your man good?” Richie asked as he stood.
“Yeah, tell Bradford that we’ll get together tomorrow and get a plan in place.”
I’d put off the talk with Bradford that morning only because I knew he would agree with Andy’s idea. Yeah, I was more cautious than my former boss, but I’d lived under the weight of different rules since I became a cop. Sometimes I bent them, and I’d admit that. Yet I tried leave my old life behind.
“I know this…I know that kid in their means something to you, but we gotta do it. He ain’t like us, he shouldn’t live looking over his shoulder.”
Richie slapped me on the back and then left without giving me a chance to respond. I’d always had a poker face. No one could ever tell what I was thinking. Richie had known me too long for secrets to exist between us.
“Richie looked funny when he left.”
I turned at the sound of Andy’s voice.
“I know you have a lot of questions, and I don’t even know where to start.”
“How about with who Mikey is?”
As Andy took a seat on the couch, I closed the distance to lower onto the coffee table. I curved my hands around the back of his calves.
I took a minute to gather my thoughts. “Just a small-town kid in a bad situation. Coming to the city to find a better life.”
“Were you involved with him?”
“No. I just had a bit of a soft spot for him. Daniels liked to give me shit over the extra attention I paid some of the street kids. Said it looked bad with me being gay. I didn’t announce that shit at work, but I sure as fuck didn’t hide it. That’s not important now.
“Mikey eventually got off the street and joined a service. It was safer for everyone, or so he’d assured me. And like I said, Mikey called me when a date went wrong. It took some doing but I got him to file a report, but after that I sent him home. I wanted so much to close that case.”
“Ray, I’m sure you did everything you could. But why—”
He paused like he was trying to figure out how to phrase the question, but I sensed what he wanted to know.
“Most serials escalate over time, and Mikey was pretty carved up, but he survived. I think Mikey was the first, or at least an early victim. Our killer hadn’t reached the point where he got off on the kill yet. Side by side, these kids could be siblings. When I called the Cold Case squad I asked them to look for cases that fit Mikey’s and the current ones. I need to know when he’d escalated from torture to murder. The kids that he’s picking, they’re street smart and know how to handle their own.”
“What would any of this have to do with you?”
“I don’t know, baby, I really don’t. I picked up all the files and I’m going to go through them, see how many of them have me as the lead. In no way can I figure out how someone could hate me so much they’d take it out on innocents. And it’s fucking killing me.”
I lowered my chin to my chest and inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly as I tried to calm myself. The guilt was too much, and I didn’t know what to do with it. All I could do was find these fuckers and get them off the streets.
“This isn’t your fault.”
I didn’t look up and kept my gaze focused on Andy’s lap. I tested the soft texture of his well-worn jeans under the rough pads of my fingers. I needed something to ground me and bring me back to the Ray I used to be—the one I understood.
“No matter how much I tell myself that, it doesn’t bring those kids back.”
“What about using me as bait?”
“Fuck, I don’t want to do that. I promised to keep you safe and putting you in danger doesn’t sit right with me. But the rational part of me knows that we have to do something big to draw them out.”
“You’ll be there to watch me; I trust you.”
Andy sounded so sure of me, and I hoped I didn’t fail him. His soft hands cupped my cheeks and gently forced me to look into his blue eyes.
“Ray, I trust you. We’ll get through this and when it’s all through, we can go back to life as normal. I need my life back. My job. My friends. I need to be normal again.”
“I know, I know, I understand and there’s nothing else I want for you, but—Andy…”
Everything I wanted to say sounded idiotic.
Andy bent over and rested his arms on my knees. “Just say it.”
“When we find them, and I mean when, what happens with us? What the hell is going on?”
23
Andy
The vulnerability in Ray’s eyes, and the slight wobble to his words when he asked about our future almost took my breath away. Through the midst of murder, he was worried about us. Admittedly, the question bounced around my head just as much as I questioned whether I would or wouldn’t die. I didn’t want to say I didn’t know because that wasn’t true. I did know, I wanted to stay w
ith Ray, try and make us work. The fact he wanted that, too, was obvious just by looking at him.
“My whole life men didn’t look at me with desire just while filling my coffee cup. Sure, they wanted a fuck here and there, but in the end they were gone without a glance back.” Ray winced at my matter of fact tone, but it was truly the life I’d lived.
“Until you, Ray, I never felt handsome, lusted after, hell, I never felt—if I’m being honest.”
He took my hands in his, tenderly he placed kisses on my knuckles. “Andy, I’m sort of glad other men haven’t swept you away, otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you wondering if you liked me half as much as I like you.”
His words filled me with so much warmth I practically giggled. “What I want is to be with you, Ray. Long after this case is done, but only if that’s what you want, too.”
He tugged me to him and without hesitation pressed his lips to mine. I felt every emotion flow through me as our tongues tangled, his arms wrapped around me, and his moans vibrating into the lustful air. Want, protection, need. I could fall head over heels in love with Ray Clancy, and it didn’t terrify me at all.
The amazing make-out session was interrupted by the buzz of Ray’s phone in his pocket.
“Damn,” he mumbled against my lips. “Hold that thought.” His expression was almost relaxed, I loved the carefree smile he gave me as he said hello to the caller.
Watching his happiness morph into anger and sadness was not something I wanted for this moment.
“I see. So we have no idea where he is or how to get a hold of him. Do we even know if he’s still alive?” Ray spoke urgently to the caller. “Okay, you’ll stay on it? Great. Thanks.”
“Who was that?” I asked as I gripped his shirt, desperate to hold on to the good moment.
“Bradford.” With a sigh he broke our embrace and relaxed in the chair. “Because Mikey was alive we thought he’d may be able to give us something on the person who attacked him. At the time he said it was fuzzy but something about it told me he knew. With all these killings and the similarities to the victims we, meaning Bradford and me, thought Mikey would see the situation as dire and talk.”