Welcome to Blissville

by Walker, Aimee Nicole

  “Can you tell us where you were between the years of your birth and 2014 when you magically appeared in Louisiana?” I asked.

  “Don’t answer that,” Spizer informed his client. “Detective, that’s completely irrelevant and none of your business.”

  “I don’t agree, counselor.” I leaned forward and pinned Silver with a damning glare. “Your client surfaces out of nowhere with no past to speak of, and his wealthy brother gets killed within months. Now he owns his brother’s business, drives an identical car, and has access to his fortune. Do you live in his house too? Sleep in his bed?” I asked Silver.

  “That’s enough, Detective!” Spizer said firmly.

  Silver didn’t move, not even to blink when I threw accusations at him. I knew damn well that I was looking at a man who’d been trained to hide his reactions. CIA? Elite Special Forces? Did he kill his brother to get access to his wealth or had his past actions possibly gotten Nate killed?

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Silver finally said after a long silence. “I was ecstatic to find my brother, and I had no reason to hurt him.”

  “Nate’s homicide was very personal,” I told him. “Someone stalked him, threatened him, ran his car off the road, and put a bullet in his head. We’re talking about a trained killer who leaves behind no evidence. Someone knows something, and they better start talking before whoever killed Nate decides to start eliminating risks.”

  “Is this an example of how you deal with bereaved family members after a loss, Detective?” Spizer asked. “If so, I’m not at all impressed.” The attorney put his hand on his client’s shoulder then said, “We’re done here, Jonathon.”

  “Just one more thing,” I demanded. Both men halted from rising from the chairs and looked at me. “Where were you the night of January twenty-second?” I asked Silver.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” Spizer told his client.

  “It’s okay, Rick,” Silver said, patting Rick’s arm before he reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. “These men can attest to my whereabouts that night and morning.” The wink he gave me said they hadn’t been playing poker all night long.

  I looked at the list and was surprised to see the names of four men and their phone numbers. Yeah, my mind went there, and I wondered if he entertained them individually or all at the same time. The dark chuckle that rumbled from his chest told me it was the latter.

  “What can I say? I have a very healthy appetite.”

  Both men rose to their feet and started to exit the room. “I’ll let you know if I have any more questions,” I said to their retreating backs. Neither man responded in any way.

  “What do you think?” Dorchester asked me once I shut the recording equipment off.

  “I don’t know what to think,” I replied honestly. “We need to find out more about Nate’s adoptive parents and the details of the adoption. Maybe what he suggested has merit. We can’t afford to ignore any avenue if we want justice.” Silver’s tone had turned chilly when he mentioned Nate’s adoptive parents. It said to me that he knew—or at least suspected—more than he let on. His unwillingness to talk about his childhood or the reason his mom gave up one child and not the other was bizarre.

  Dorchester looked at his watch and said, “At least we’re down to our final interview for the day.” I could tell he was as ready to head back home as I was.

  Marlon Bandowe appeared right on time. He dressed like a man who was as conservative as he was reported to be and looked extremely nervous. I introduced myself and Dorchester and saw how badly his hand shook when I extended my hand to him in greeting. He greatly resembled a timid mouse.

  “Have a seat, Mr. Bandowe,” I said. “Thank you for coming in today. This meeting should be brief.”

  “Thank you, Detective Wyatt. This whole thing has been completely unsettling.” I found it odd that he referred to the slaying of his former partner as unsettling. We were talking about death, not an ill-prepared meal.

  “Forgive me for saying so, but you and Nate Turner seem like improbable business partners,” I told the man, which earned a small smile.

  “I imagine so,” he said. “Our families were great friends, and we grew up together. I knew the man my entire life, so I didn’t hesitate when he asked me to be a silent partner in his club.”

  “See here’s the thing I don’t understand about that,” I told Bandowe. “Nate Turner had plenty of money, so why did he need your startup capital?”

  “Well, he… uh…”

  “Was his money tied up in a trust at the time?” Dorchester asked while the man was still stuttering out an answer.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I didn’t ask him,” Bandowe replied.

  “That doesn’t make sense either,” I said, leaning forward so I could enjoy watching the man squirm. “I’ve read many articles about your ‘Christian family values’ and your stance on issues involving LGBTQ equality. You’re not an ally to the LGBTQ community, yet you finance and are part owner of a gay nightclub.”

  “It was a good business deal,” he said defensively. “I kept my personal beliefs out of the business dealings.”

  “I call bullshit,” Dorchester said.

  “Believe what you want, but it’s true,” Bandowe replied.

  If this guy was telling the truth, then he was a real jerk. He privately took money from the LGBTQ community while he worked against them publicly. It was my experience that the more a straight man railed against homosexuality, the higher the odds were that he too was gay. Sometimes I just had to throw out a random net and hope to catch a break.

  “When did your sexual relationship with Nate Turner end?” I asked.

  Bandowe’s body tightened and bowed like an invisible string was pulling on him. All color leached from his face until his skin took on an unhealthy pallor.

  “Breathe, Mr. Bandowe, then answer my question. Honestly,” I added.

  The man closed his eyes briefly and swallowed hard. “It didn’t end,” he said in a voice so soft I barely heard him. His eyes filled with tears and his body began to shake. “Nate and I have had a relationship on and off since high school. I could never give him what he wanted from me, and we would break up for a while, but we always found our way back to one another. He had his conquests when we were apart, and I tried to fill my loneliness by making myself into something that I wasn’t. I hadn’t realized how much he meant to me until he was gone. He’ll never know how much I loved him.” I felt sympathy for the man right then.

  “What do you know about his brother?” Dorchester asked.

  “Not much,” Bandowe said with a shrug. “He appeared in Nate’s life last summer and rocked his world. He started questioning everything he knew about his parents when he discovered that he had a twin brother.”

  “Why didn’t you mention Nate having a brother to police during your first interview?” I asked.

  “The cops asked me about our business dealings, not about anything personal. I would’ve told them about Jonathon had they asked, but they didn’t,” the man said. “I got the impression that the cops thought something illegal was going on inside the club and Nate died as a result. I don’t agree.”

  “Can you tell me if Nate had any other business dealings besides the club?”

  “The last time we were together he mentioned something about investing in a casino deal, but no specifics of with who, when, or where. His comment was so innocuous that it slipped my mind until you asked me that question,” Bandowe replied. I sat up straighter in my chair because that was the first time anyone mentioned the prospect of a casino. “Are there any other questions, Detectives? If not, I have another meeting to attend.”

  I looked at Dorchester, who shook his head that he didn’t have any questions. “You’re free to go,” I told him. I slid him my business card and asked him to call me if he thought of anything else or if news of the casino reached his ears.

  Dorchester and I met with the task force
to discuss what we’d learned and I assigned duties for the next day before we headed back home.

  “Casinos can be a cutthroat business,” he said once we were on the road. “Things got ugly in Carter County a short time back when there was a discussion of building a casino there.”

  “I didn’t hear about that,” I told him. “When was this?”

  “I’m going to say about four years ago, so probably before you moved here,” he replied.

  “What happened?”

  “Developers felt that Carter County was the perfect spot to build a casino due to the proximity to several highways and because it was about an hour away from three major cities—Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus. The religious groups didn’t agree and talked about how gambling destroyed families and brought in prostitution and other crimes to an area. The county commissioners didn’t approve the casino, so the developers collected enough signatures on the petition to get it on a statewide ballot.”

  “The entire state got to decide if you guys got a casino built in your county?” I asked. “That sounds underhanded to me. ‘You don’t want us to build in your county so we’ll find another way’ probably wasn’t well received.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Dorchester replied. “It was a hotly contested issue, and the measure failed on election night.”

  “You think it’s possible that talk has started back up?” I asked.

  “Anything’s possible,” he replied.

  “Were there any local people in Blissville or the surrounding county who did support a casino?” I asked. If so, chances were high they’d been contacted again.

  “There were a few that I can recall. Your mayor and a few county commissioners were for it,” Dorchester told me.

  I wasn’t surprised to hear that Rocky Beaumont supported the casino initiative. The man hated my guts, and there was no way that I could get him to talk to me. Rocky threatened to sue us if we leaked his affair with County Commissioner Jack Wallace. I love how he thought I had the time or inclination to out his stupid ass. It seemed that Rocky didn’t mind being known as a player when it came to the ladies, but not when it came to men. “Was Jack Wallace one of the commissioners?” I asked Dorchester. I figured if Rocky was for it then maybe his boyfriend was too.

  “He was, how’d you know?” he asked.

  “Just a guess.” Jack Wallace wasn’t a big fan of mine either, but I figured I had a better chance of getting him to talk to me. “We’ll want to have a chat with Jack to see if there have been any murmurs of building the casino again.”

  “Good idea. We’ll do that in the morning before we head to Cincinnati,” Dorchester replied.

  I dropped him off at his car and headed home. I loved Monday nights because Josh was off and we got to spend a nice quiet evening together. I had plenty of ideas on how to make the best of our night too. As I drove down the street, I noticed a tall man standing on Bianca’s porch drinking from a coffee cup. It looked like her landlord had finally found someone to rent the place. Damn, I guessed that meant no more lovemaking with the curtains open so that I could see Josh in the moonlight.

  The eerie feeling I got after observing the new neighbor stuck with me for the rest of the afternoon. His presence felt foreboding, and that made no sense to me at all. I had already been attacked and stalked, so what else could be left? I didn’t let my mind linger on an answer to my question. Instead, I kept myself busy preparing for my big night.

  I had the bedroom looking sexy and romantic, I manscaped my boys for their big night, got some pointers from watching gay porn, and I planned a delicious dinner. Gabe had yet to eat my homemade ravioli stuffed with ricotta and herbs. I added a salad, bread sticks, and cheesecake to make it memorable in case my bedroom skills sucked and not in a good way. I knew he was going to love at least one of my surprises.

  Gabe texted me once he dropped John off at his car and what little calm I’d found evaporated. I told myself I was being ridiculous because Gabe loved me and he wouldn’t laugh or ridicule me. I also knew he was a pleaser and would never tell me if something I did wasn’t good for him. Gabe was the most amazing lover I’d ever had, and I wanted to be the same for him in every way.

  By the time Gabe got home, and I’m talking the trip probably lasted a whopping seven minutes, I had downed a huge glass of red wine on an empty stomach. I was a lightweight drinker in the best of circumstances and that day wasn’t one of them. A wave of dizziness hit me hard, and I leaned against the kitchen counter for stability, but I convinced myself I was striking a sexy pose.

  “Hey, Sunshine,” Gabe said, coming through the door. “How was your day?”

  “Pretty damn good, but it’s about to get great,” I said in what I hoped was a seductive voice. I even added a suggestive wink in case I didn’t get my message across.

  Gabe’s brow furrowed as he assessed the situation by raking his observant eyes over my body before he turned them to my surroundings. I knew the minute his eyes latched onto the half-empty, open wine bottle and empty glass on the counter. “Hitting the bottle already?” He came to me then and cupped my face in his warm, large hands.

  “Your hands are as warm as your heart,” I told him. Sweet baby Jesus, I sounded so fucking sappy.

  “Sunshine, what’s wrong?” Gabe brushed his thumbs over my cheekbones, and the concern in his dark eyes brought tears to mine.

  I blinked away the tears and attempted to blind him with a smile. “Nothing is wrong. Everything is right, and I’m afraid of ruining it. You see, tonight is the night I’m going to be all up in your ass.” There were hand gestures that might’ve confused Gabe as to exactly what I had in mind. Fisting sure as fuck wasn’t one of them.

  “Ah,” he replied. “You’re nervous.”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head as vigorously as his hands allowed. “I’m going to rock your world, Gabriel Wyatt.”

  “Sunshine, it doesn’t give a guy warm and fuzzy feelings to know that his lover needs to get drunk to work up his courage to have sex with him,” Gabe said humorously, which was in direct contrast to the chastising words. “And, baby, you rocked my world the minute you came into it, so I have no doubt that this will be any different.”

  “Not drunk,” I corrected him. “It was just one glass of wine, but I drank it too fast on an empty stomach,” I explained. “Okay, I’m a little nervous; a little tipsy too.”

  Gabe released me and walked to the fridge. He selected a block of cheese and some grapes from inside, then removed a box of crackers from the cabinet and pulled a knife out of the butcher block. I watched as he sliced the cheese to make a snack for me. “Come sit with me,” he said once he piled everything onto a plate.

  I followed him into the living room and sat on his lap rather than beside him on the couch. I ran my hands through his silky dark hair and thought to myself that he needed another trim. I wasn’t tipsy enough to suggest it out loud because he already had a haircut phobia and the last thing he needed was to think of me coming at him with scissors in my inebriated state.

  We talked about mundane things like the weather and how his drive to and from Cincinnati went while we snacked on cheese, crackers, and grapes. I saw Gabe’s determination to return to our original topic once we emptied the plate. I did feel better after my stomach absorbed some of the liquor sloshing around inside.

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you so that I can put your fears to rest,” he told me.

  “The economy, global warming, waiting on my newest Andrew Christians to arrive, and…” The stern look he gave me silenced the rest of my typical smartass response. “I think it should be obvious what worries me.”

  “It’s not obvious to me, so you’re going to have to spell it out.” It appeared that he wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

  “Alright, fine.” I took a deep breath for courage and said, “I’m worried that I’m going to suck and not in a good way. What if I only last ten seconds?”

  Instead of making light of my
concerns, Gabe said, “It’ll be the best ten seconds of my life.” When I looked at him in disbelief, he asked, “Do you want to know why?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “It’s very simple, Josh.” Things always got really serious when he used my name. “It’ll be because you’re inside me. There has never been another living person who’s touched my soul as you have, and there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll light my world on fire once you’re inside me.”

  I was just about to make a snarky comment about Gabe comparing sex with me to a case of raging hemorrhoids, but I wanted to prove that I was beyond that knee-jerk response stage in our relationship. The wall I had built with my acerbic tongue to protect my heart didn’t crumble overnight nor did I lose my initial reaction when emotions built inside me until I felt like I might explode from the pressure. Savage started singing lines from Katie Perry’s “Firework” just when I opened my mouth to say something mature and adult-ish. Gabe and I both burst into laughter over Savage’s uncanny timing. I swore that the bird was more perceptive than humans.

  “You were going to say,” Gabe prompted me.

  “I honestly don’t remember, but I know it was going to be amazing and impress you by how much I’ve grown since we started dating.” I leaned forward and brushed my nose against Gabe’s.

  “You have absolutely nothing to worry about,” Gabe replied. “Everything you do is amazing, and the way you move your body is criminal.” Then my man kissed me with purpose, and I forgot to be worried.

  “You don’t want dinner first?” I asked when he lifted me from his lap and rose to his feet.

  “Nope, that will only allow you time to get worked up all over again,” Gabe told me. “I want to feel you inside me, and I want it right now.”

  “So demanding,” I said, but I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I turned and headed for the bedroom but stopped when Gabe didn’t follow. I looked over my shoulder and said, “I’m not carrying your big ass to the bedroom.” That got him moving.

  Gabe chased after me with a roar and caught me before I reached the bed. He scooped me up and tossed me on the bed like I weighed nothing because to him I probably didn’t. He followed me down to the bed fully dressed. We made out like horny kids until the whys and hows of what we were about to do faded, and until every breath I took was shared with Gabe, every beat of my heart matched his, and my only thought was how incredible it would be to know him in every possible way.