Zeke nodded, his cheeks darkening the slightest bit. Sev grinned and decided to pass along the message he’d just gotten. “So, your mama says you two can be asses sometimes, but you mean well and she loves you both—and that you both better appreciate her giving Brendon more than just that one nudge in the hall the night you had your little tantrum, Zeke.”
Movement from the doorway caught Sev’s eye. Brendon stood behind Zeke, a silly grin on his face. Zeke had paled slightly and looked torn between suspicion and hope. Brendon came into the room and looped an arm around Zeke’s waist and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek.
“You’re mama loves me, you gotta keep me,” Brendon teased, and Zeke finally broke into a smile himself as he looked at his lover.
“Yeah, I guess I do, don’t I?” Zeke pulled Brendon into his arms. “Was planning on it anyway.” Zeke kissed Brendon so tenderly that Sev felt a pang of jealousy. He wanted that with Laine, and being jealous was stupid, because he knew they could have it. Zeke looked at him and nodded. “Thank you, Severo.”
Sev felt his skin heat with a flush, but his smile didn’t dim in the least. “You’re welcome.”
Brendon pulled out of Zeke’s embrace enough to offer his hand to Sev. “Come on. Let’s go talk about this whole ghost thing. You can explain to us how you do it.”
Sev took Brendon’s hand and accepted the gesture and words as the peace offering they were. “Okay, but I really don’t know the answer to that. Maybe we can figure it out, huh?” And maybe Sev could figure out how to tell Laine the things he needed to while he was at it.
Chapter Ten
Rich pushed aside the empty container that had held his breakfast and patted his stomach. “Despite that sour-faced bitch who delivered our food, that was pretty good.”
Matt and Laine nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, that was Virginia’s niece Irma. She has a bit of a problem, not a very tolerant person, and I suspect she’s a vindictive woman who would love to see me out of office,” Laine explained.
“That’s not gonna happen. I heard about her snit over you helping Zeke the other day, and while there may be other people who are as hateful as she is, most of the folks in this town learned their lesson when Zeke’s sister tried to kill him—and Irma is not well liked by anyone. That nasty temperament is applied liberally in many, many places on many, many topics.” Matt leaned back and stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankle. “I bet even the bigots wouldn’t side with her. She’s alienated just about everyone.”
“Great. Maybe we should have checked our food before we ate it.” Rich looked like he might be sick, and Laine wondered if his friend was thinking about some of the nasty food-tampering horror stories police officers loved to pass around. God knew Laine was.
“I did.” Laine and Matt proclaimed together, laughing at Rich’s irritated look.
“Well, you could have warned me!”
“Ah, now, I looked when you opened your food up. Everything was fine, and I didn’t want you to starve yourself, so I didn’t mention it before now.”
Rich snorted and glared at Laine. “Thanks. It’s much better that I puke after, huh?”
“I’d laugh,” Matt offered, earning him two glares. “What? It woulda been funny.”
“Behave.” Laine stood and gathered the empty containers then dumped them in the trash before taking his seat. “So what do you have, Rich?”
“Well, you might say it’s speculation, but my gut—” Rich shrugged, and for once, Matt didn’t toss out a sarcastic comment. Good cops learned to trust their instincts, and Laine knew Rich was a very good cop.
Laine rested his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers in front of him. “Go on.”
“You know we never found so much as a lead on Conner’s killer, and you left right after, didn’t tell anyone except, I’m guessing, the Chief, where you went?”
“I didn’t tell him where I was going because I wasn’t sure, but once I hit McKinton and decided to apply for a position as deputy, I had to tell him.”
“But no one else?” Rich’s dark blue eyes had a shine to them that told Laine his former partner definitely had a hunch that was burning to get out.
“No, no one, and I haven’t set foot in Houston since I left.”
“You could have called me.” Rich grimaced and shook his head. “Sorry. Now isn’t the time, I know, but after this is done…”
Matt let an agitated sigh slip from his lips. “Back on track, maybe?”
“Sorry to inconvenience you.” Rich rolled his eyes, something Laine had always found humourous when they were partners but he knew had the potential to set Matt off right now. Luckily, Matt didn’t rise to the bait. “We never closed the case on Conner, and there were never any more murders like his, so the general thinking was it was a one-time thing, maybe some serial killer passing through. God knows Houston has several of them, but there wasn’t any similar to his. Odd, but not unheard of. I kept digging through the reports, even up to last month, and I’d swear I have the damned things memorized, but I kept thinking I was missing something. Then you called out of the blue, asking me for info on your little ghost whispering guy—”
“Ghost whispering?” Matt made those two words sound like a contagious disease. “Are you serious?”
“Matt, let him finish.”
“No, hang on.” Rich got up and walked out of the office, returning a few minutes later with a briefcase and an apologetic shrug for Laine. “Here.” Rich tossed a file at Matt. “The file on Severo Adulio Robledo. And before you get all pissed off, Laine, let me just say that it’s better if Matt is with us on this than not, okay?”
Laine wanted to snatch the file away from Matt and beat the crap out of Rich while he was at it, but Rich was right. Laine clasped his hands together tightly, the knuckles going white, to keep himself from taking the file. “Okay, but one smart ass comment, Matt, and you’ll be at Mrs. Hawkins’ every damn day you’re on shift.”
The smile vanished from Matt’s face. “Yes, sir.”
Rich studied Matt. “Huh. I might just have to meet this Mrs. Hawkins. Anyway, you look through that file, and you’ll see that Mr. Robledo has consulted with several police departments and helped solve quite a few cases by doing what he does—and I don’t doubt that he does it. I’ve seen too many things that can’t be explained in this world to not believe something like this that’s backed up with solid proof. Now.” Rich flicked a hand at Laine. “The fact that Mr. Robledo came to McKinton could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. And the man is, I take it, your lover—which, in case you’re wondering, isn’t the way he usually works a case. Those records go on and on about how professional he is, so again, I’m deducing that you two are the real deal.”
Laine nodded. “He’s it, okay?” He felt Matt’s eyes on him but kept his gaze locked with Rich’s. “I loved Conner, but both of us… Neither of us were willing to step out, so maybe we didn’t love each other enough, I don’t know. But I won’t make the same mistake with Severo. If it costs me my job, so be it.” Laine let that sink in before continuing, making sure both men understood how serious he was about his lover. “And no, Sev showing up here wasn’t a coincidence. He stopped in Houston, and basically felt compelled to come here. He told me he knew he had to pass along a message to someone, but until he…saw me—” Here’s where I see just how much these two believe. “Saw that Conner was trying to communicate with me, Sev didn’t know who the message was for, or what the message was. I kind of flipped when he asked me who Conner Sutherland was.” Laine’s cheeks heated with the memory of how he’d fled, leaving Sev covered in spunk like a cheap trick.
Rich apparently still knew Laine as well as he had years ago. He laughed and shook his head while Matt looked on curiously. “Judging by the way your cheeks are flaming, that must have been a very, er, interesting disclosure.”
If you only knew. God, don’t let him figure it out! “Yeah, you could say that.”
“How exactl
y was Conner trying to communicate with you?”
As if on cue, Rich’s hair ruffled and the papers flew out of his briefcase. He looked terrified for all of half a minute before he burst out laughing. Matt had eased his chair a few inches farther from Rich and looked more than a little creeped out.
“Uh, Sheriff?” Matt had an almost pleading expression on his face.
“Sorry, but that would be Conner. I didn’t know until Sev told me.” Laine nodded at the papers Rich was gathering up. “If you help him out, we can continue here.”
Matt screwed up his courage and helped Rich out, too rattled to mouth off. They sat back in their seats, Rich grinning like a loon and Matt’s lips disappearing into a thin line.
“That’s kind of cool, but kind of creepy, too. I won’t even ask for specifics—”
“You wouldn’t get them anyway.” Laine cut Rich off. “Conner’s message was that someone was coming after me, and he did. He broke into my house while Sev was there asleep in my bed. Sev said that Conner woke him up and warned him, otherwise…” The image of his desecrated bed flashed before Laine’s eyes and he couldn’t quite suppress his shudder. “Matt took photos of the crime scene. We don’t have a forensic unit out here—or, rather, we are the forensic unit, us and the two deputies that work the night shift. Here.” Laine pulled the file from his desk drawer and handed it to Rich. “Everything’s in there.”
“Everything?” Rich’s eyebrows drew together as he tapped the file on the edge of the desk.
“I wrote up most of that.” Matt gestured to the file. “I tried to keep the sheriff’s personal life out of it, and I didn’t know about Conner then, but…”
“But,” Laine slipped a hard edge into his voice as he looked at Matt, “I want every bit of information in that file, nothing left out, no matter how minute, because it could be important. Which means—”
“Which means”—Matt’s sigh sounded much put upon and not as cowed by Laine’s attempt at intimidation as Laine had hoped—“that I have to go back and rewrite the damned reports, I know. I’ll do it when we finish up here.”
Laine noticed Rich was looking at Matt as if the deputy was barely a step above pond scum. “What’s the problem, Montoya?”
Rich arched his eyebrows as he met Matt’s gaze, then he seemed to shake off his attitude as he turned back to Laine. “Not a thing. Getting back on track, I caught a murder case a few days before you called, rape and strangulation of a dark-haired gay man. He was kind of similar to you in build, Laine, reminded me of you even though I hadn’t seen you in years. The guy could have been your brother, and then you called. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, I guess, and I started digging around and found that there’ve been three other murders similar to my case. No one either cared enough to connect them, or just didn’t catch it. Personally, as much as I hate to admit it, I’m thinking that no one cared.”
“That’s fucked up.” Matt’s voice dripped with disgust. “I’d think a big city like Houston, it’s gotta have a lot of gays. Surely people are more tolerant.”
Rich shrugged one shoulder. “It’s like most places, depends on who you talk to. We do have a large gay population, and a lot of people accept it, some even embrace it. But there’s always going to be those people who hate anyone and anything that differs from their idea of the norm.
“The three other men were also raped and strangled, no DNA evidence though there was proof that he’d used condoms, and all of them were obviously similar in body type, build and looks. There were small differences, like eye color, or an inch or two in height, things like that, but every one of them reminded me of you, Laine. And that made me wonder. The day you called, there was another detective in the pen. Do you remember who the responding officers were that showed up when you called in Conner’s murder?”
There wasn’t anything about that day that Laine thought he’d ever forget, no matter how much he might wish to. “Yeah, McAlister and Juarez were the first to arrive, why?”
“You ever been talking to one person and someone close by is listening intently but trying not to be obvious? I mean, you just know they’re straining to hear every word?” Rich’s eyes were gleaming, his excitement at having a suspect making him fidget enough that Laine started to feel twitchy as well.
“I think so,” Matt finally offered when Laine only nodded.
He thought he knew where Rich was going with this, and the idea that the man could be right made it impossible for Laine to force words past the knot in his throat.
“That’s how I felt the whole time I was talking to you, Laine. It was bad enough that I swear every hair on my body was damn near standing on end. I wrote down the information you gave me, and when we were done I asked Detective McAlister if he had any idea who I was on the phone with.” Rich shuddered, his eyes darting around the room before meeting Laine’s gaze. “You remember James McAlister? Well, he said he didn’t know who I was talking to, but he did, and he had that look, so carefully blank but his eyes just… I always said it was a dead look, like there wasn’t a soul behind those eyes, you remember, Laine?”
Laine didn’t answer, his stomach had pitched as soon as Rich had said the other detective’s name, and now, though neither of the two men in front of him had noticed yet, there was a distinct chill to the room. Laine knew that look, though, and he had no problem picturing Detective McAlister—the man was easily as big as Laine was, with pale skin and dark blond hair.
“I remember thinking he used to watch me, but I was pretty paranoid.” Laine had worried that the man knew his secret, and that was why he watched Laine. “I worried he’d found out, and was going to say something. I wish he had, God damn it! I wish that was all he’d done.” So many thoughts and emotions were pulsing through him that Laine couldn’t seem to focus on any one. He was vaguely aware of the two men across from him muttering and rubbing their arms against the dropping temperature. “You going to tell me that McAlister is still in Houston?”
Rich scrubbed his arms harder and shook his head. “Nope. I came back later that day we first talked, and my notepad was gone, and McAlister’s desk looked too neat and clean. Asked around the next day when the guy didn’t show up for work, turns out he took an emergency leave of absence. That set off the rest of the alarms in my head. And with that file there that Matt gets to rewrite, I’m betting, though I wished to God I was wrong, that the son of a bitch has already found you—and Severo.”
Laine had his cell phone out and was already punching in Zeke’s number before Rich finished. He needed to let him know that they were all in danger now.
“Is it just me, or is it freezing in here?” Rich directed the question to Matt while Laine spoke in low, urgent tones on the phone.
Matt looked around the room, his eyes widening with a sudden insight. “Shit! This is what happened to Severo in his hotel room! Uh…” Matt felt the flush crawl up his neck. “Conner? Could you maybe back off a bit? We can’t go after this fucker if we’re Popsicles.”
Rich started to say something snarky, Matt could see it in the man’s expression. Then he noticed that the room had warmed, and he still said something snarky. “Well, lookie there, McKinton’s got its own homegrown ghost whisperer. Maybe you’ll get a show on Syfy.”
Matt wanted to knock the jackass’s teeth down his throat, or maybe ask Conner to freeze Montoya’s balls at the very least, but Laine finished his call and smacked a hand on the desk. That was the only reason, Matt told himself, that he didn’t kick Mr. Houston PD’s stuck-up ass.
“Let’s get moving. Matt, hurry up and fix that report. Call me as soon as it’s done. We’ve got to get McAlister before he hurts anyone else.”
It was on the tip of Matt’s tongue to tell the sheriff the report could wait, but he saw that determined look in the man’s eyes and nodded. He’d get the damned report fixed in record time. He had a feeling catching this son of a bitch was going to be harder than any of them suspected.
* * * *
&nbs
p; He watched through binoculars as Detective Montoya walked out of the Sheriff’s Department with Laine and felt a fury rising up inside that threatened to make him act rashly. Discovering Laine had a lover had nearly tipped him over the edge, but he was, in retrospect, glad he hadn’t hurt the little fag—he wasn’t the type to be savored. When that burst of anger had died down, his path had seemed so clear. Let Laine worry that his lover was in danger. That would be a distraction that would make Laine vulnerable.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake he had years ago, though. Laine’s lover was safe, for now at least. This time, no one but Laine would do. And his former partner wasn’t going to be able to do a thing to stop it.
So, Montoya thinks he’s come to save the day. Not gonna happen, asshole. The Houston detective might have figured out who and what he was, but there was no proof, he’d made sure of that. Nothing incriminating would be found if his home or office was searched, no trophies or mementos from past conquests. He’d been meticulous when the need to satisfy his hunger had to be met. Three years he’d waited, finding poor substitutes for the man he really wanted, but he’d finally have Laine, and he’d take his time. When Laine Stenley gasped his last breath, he’d know without a doubt who he belonged to, who had stolen his soul and mastered his body.
I’ve learned so much more in the past three years, and oh, Laine, I’m going to enjoy showing you the ways I can bring you so close to death and then pull you back. It will be good for me, and so bad for you—and it will be very soon, I promise.
Chapter Eleven
When the Dead Speak Page 14