On The Hunt: Gay M/M Mystery Romance

by Marina Lander

  “Why do you say that?” Hunter deliberately keeps his eyes leveled at his desk, refusing to scan the room.

  Furla gives him a sympathetic look. “Because the agent in charge has been barking your name for the past thirty minutes. Can’t believe he’s got the balls to come back here.” He knows he doesn’t have to say Stephen’ name out loud; Furla’s been around long enough to know better.

  “They just want to track this guy down, like we all do,” Hunter replies. “As long as we’re all on the same page on this, it’s not a problem.” He slips behind his desk without drawing any attention, boots up his computer as he keeps his head down. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Alyssa gesturing to someone, but Hunter doesn’t let himself look.

  But five seconds later a painfully familiar voice calls out, “Detective Morris! How lovely of you to join us this morning.”

  Like no time has passed at all, Hunter instantly feels the blood rushing to his head, his heart rate kicking into a higher gear. He keeps his eyes on his computer screen.

  “You guys weren’t supposed to be here until this afternoon,” he says as nonchalantly as possible.

  “Never let it be said that the Bureau is ever late to a party.” A hip comes to rest on the edge of Hunter’s desk, one broad, lightly tanned hand splaying against the edge of his keyboard. The soft purr of his accent wraps around every word, and Hunter can remember a time when he thought it was the sexiest sound in the world—

  He clenches his jaw. “This is still my case until then.”

  “Well, I certainly won’t dissuade you from that idea, but in the meantime my colleagues and I would greatly appreciate being privy to all your collected intel thus far.” There’s a condescending smile in his voice—Hunter doesn’t have to look at him to know it’s there.

  He can’t help replying sharply, “You’re the FBI. You can track down my intel yourself.”

  That gets him a soft chuckle, and finally Hunter looks up and meets Stephen’ eyes for the first time in three years.

  Stephen is a little thinner, his hair a little longer, and his cheeks and jaw look like they haven’t been shaved in at least three days. He’s scruffier than Hunter remembers, which seems ironic, given that his fed suit looks ridiculously expensive. His tie is loose, hanging crookedly at his throat just beneath the open top button of his shirt.

  Hunter prides himself on the glare he levels at Stephen. “Jesus, you look like shit,” he says with a smirk, ignoring the heat in his stomach, the slight ache in his chest. Stephen has always been unfairly attractive, and unfortunately, he still has the ability to make Hunter’s mouth run dry.

  “I could say the same for you—sleeping in your clothes again, I see. Old habits die hard.” Stephen’ cavalier tone makes Hunter want to put his fist through his jaw. He’s over due for a punch, anyway.

  “My habits are none of your business.”

  “Perhaps not, but here’s something that is: tell me, why haven’t you questioned the rest of the employees of this station about your mystery latte note?”

  “How did you—”

  “Your partner—darling girl, by the way, quite sharp—told me all about it. Your first correspondence from the Scholar in over three years, and yet you’ve done nothing to investigate its origins.”

  “There’s no direct proof it’s from the Scholar, and no one saw anyone bring it to my desk—”

  “So it simply magically appeared out of thin air? Marvelous deduction on that one, Hunter, well done.”

  Hunter shoves Stephen’ thigh off the edge of his desk. “It was dusted for prints and nothing came up, not to mention the handwriting doesn’t match any of my previous notes,” he replies tightly.

  Stephen clucks his tongue. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but it won’t work. We both know it’s him, and he’s toying with you again. Hide all the evidence from me you want, love. I’ll find it eventually.”

  Hunter gets to his feet, hating how frantic his pulse is beating in the face of Stephen’ cool indifference. “Don’t ever call me that again,” he whispers, then adds loudly, “Hey, Harrington, c’mon, let’s go.”

  “What is it?” Alyssa calls, grabbing her coat off her desk chair.

  “We’re going back to the college.”

  Stephen beams at him. “Ah, brilliant, mind if I tag along?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. I don’t give a shit what your fed rules say, this case is mine for another few hours. I’ve got some witnesses to interview.”

  As he’s leaving the squad room with Alyssa at his heels, Stephen yells after him, “You know I’ll just follow you anyway!”

  “Ignorance is bliss sometimes,” Hunter mutters, slamming the door behind him.

  ~

  “We need to question Gellens’s students, see if there was anything out of the ordinary, if maybe someone was lurking his classes—”

  “Hunter.” Alyssa holds up her hand. “Look, you don’t have to give me the whole story if you don’t want to. But it’ll help me out a lot if I have at least some idea of what it is that makes you despise Agent Stephen so much. I need to know what to expect here, because I’m totally at a loss. The Scholar I can handle, but this weird thing that apparently exists between you two is really distracting. And he’s only been in the station for a few hours.”

  Hunter drums his fingers on the steering wheel and doesn’t respond for several minutes. He knows Alyssa well enough to know she’ll wait him out; silence has never been a deterrent for her, unlike his old partner.

  “It’s...kind of a long story,” he finally says.

  “We’ve got another ten minutes until we get to the college. Start talking.”

  Hunter sighs, rubs a hand over the back of his neck. Alyssa’s not an idiot, she knows what’s going on, or has a general idea. Frederic may not have filled her in on all the details, but she’s scarily quick on the uptake. She’ll figure it out eventually, with or without Hunter.

  It doesn’t make the story any easier to tell.

  “Okay,” he says with a sigh. “The fact is, Stephen was...he was, at one time, my partner.”

  Alyssa’s mouth drops open. “He was a detective?”

  “For a long time, yeah.”

  “But then he just—up and left you for the Bureau?”

  Hunter looks out the window at the passing cars. “Pretty much.”

  “Hunter, I had no idea, I didn’t think—”

  He shrugs, says, “It’s over and done with. And that’s the whole story.” Funny how it still hurts like it was yesterday.

  Alyssa says softly, “That must’ve been tough for you. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried, I just figured you two had crossed paths at some point and had some petty beef going on.”

  Hunter huffs a laugh. If only that were the case. “Don’t apologize. I’ve been over it for a while now. Partners come and go and you move on.”

  They ride in silence for a moment before Alyssa reaches over and lays her hand lightly on Hunter’s arm.

  “I’d never leave you like that,” she says.

  He’s known this since the day they were assigned to each other. It’s always been a comforting thought, but then, Hunter’s never been in danger of falling for her.

  “I know,” he replies, wishing he didn’t sound so damned wistful.

  ~

  Hunter can’t quite remember how he’d gotten it in his head, but at some point early in his life he’d decided he was going to be cop and go after bad guys—basically every young boy’s stereotypical heroic dream. He joined the Chicago police academy straight out of high school, worked his ass off to get to the very top of his class, and within a handful of years he made sergeant, all before his twenty-fourth birthday.

  A year later, Hunter became the youngest officer in the Chicago police force to make detective, a distinction he wore like a badge of honor.

  Not long after, he got assigned to his new partner, a star of the Chicago PD with enough cocky swagger and sharp brilliance for t
he both of them. Hunter had secretly watched him for years, followed his cases and envied his smarts; by the time he finally met Detective Stephen face to face, Hunter was already a little starry-eyed.

  And then Stephen had smiled at him, said, “So you’re the boy wonder everyone speaks so highly of,” and Hunter fell a little bit in love.

  ~

  Interviewing Gellens’s students turns into a dead end. Everyone swears the professor was behaving perfectly normal the day before the murder, nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  “You expected this, didn’t you?” Alyssa asks as they walk through the campus grounds.

  Hunter shrugs one shoulder. “Just covering the bases. If this is the work of the Scholar, there won’t be any link with the victim besides the fact that he was a professor.”

  “But surely he was watching Gellens, or knew where to find him—”

  “More than likely, Gellens was a target weeks ago.” Hunter thinks about the note left on his desk. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Scholar wrote it long before Gellens was murdered.

  “It just doesn’t make any sense,” Alyssa says, flipping through her notebook. “Why would he just disappear off the map only to come back three years later and kill a random guy?”

  “He’s still holding to pattern, though. The notes, the college, everything’s the same. He’s flexing his muscles is what he’s doing, getting into the swing of things again—”

  Alyssa stops abruptly. “Is that Agent Stephen?” She points to a bench near the center of the small quad, and sure enough, Stephen is casually reading the day’s paper, sunglasses perched on the end of his nose.

  Hunter rolls his eyes, although deep down he fully expected this. “Just head back to the car, I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  She raises an eyebrow at him. “Are you sure you just need a minute? Because I can drive back to the station—”

  “Only a minute. Any longer, send a search team.”

  “Right. I’ll just call Frederic, let him know our status.” She gestures with her phone, giving Hunter a skeptical look as she turns to walk back to their car.

  He takes a deep breath, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. Stephen hasn’t looked up once, but Hunter knows he’s completely aware of his surroundings, of them. No one fakes an air of obliviousness like Stephen.

  “Going for the obvious,” Hunter says when he’s a few feet away.

  Stephen doesn’t glance up from the paper. “I’m not hiding from anyone, so why bother? You knew I was coming, anyway. There’s no fun in being expected.” He finally puts the paper down and smiles at Hunter, but it’s an extremely guarded smile. The sunlight reflects off his sunglasses, and Hunter thinks, Sure, you’re not hiding.

  “We didn’t learn anything new, so your trip was a waste. If the Scholar was stalking our victim, he did it days ago, if not weeks.”

  “Maybe. Or this could be just like the Yarborough case and the Scholar was one of the students.”

  Hunter frowns. “We never proved that, you’re the one who kept insisting—”

  “I never insisted anything, I merely tried to point out to you that it seemed the most logical course—”

  “And I kept telling you there would’ve been a pattern—”

  “Ah, yes, there we go again, Hunter and his patterns—”

  “Damn it, Stephen, I’m not going to just stand by and let you—” He bites his tongue, cupping both hands over his face for a moment. He swallows a few times, trying to get himself back together.

  Three years later and he still lets Stephen crawl under his skin like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Hunter’s not a kid anymore, he’s a professional.

  When he lowers his hands, Stephen is watching him with an odd expression, something that might be vague regret if Hunter didn’t know better.

  “I’m sorry,” Hunter says quietly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did.” Stephen scrubs a hand over his cheek. “Hunter, I—I’m not here to railroad your investigation. To be honest, being sent was the last thing in the world I wanted.”

  Hunter hates the way his stomach drops at that, like he cares.

  “But here we are, and I know how much this case means to you. I respect that, and I still respect you, even if you don’t feel the same for me.” He ducks his head slightly, staring down at the paper in his hands.

  “Just let me do my job,” Hunter says.

  Stephen nods slowly. “If you’ll let me do mine.”

  “Fine.” Hunter clears his throat and tentatively holds out his hand. “Truce.”

  Stephen looks at Hunter’s outstretched hand, then his gaze trails back up to meet Hunter’s. “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Hunter says, a bit too sharply to hide the tremor in his chest. He never could take any sort of hesitant, vulnerable look from Stephen, real or fake. He feels so young pinned under Stephen’ gaze, like he’s twenty-five all over again and learning from scratch. Like the world never really existed before Stephen showed it all to him.

  Stephen tilts his head to one side, says, “All right, truce,” and reaches out to slide his palm against Hunter’s, his fingers wrapping tightly around the back of Hunter’s hand. His skin is warm, smooth, and Hunter is knocked breathless for a split second as memories of the lines and angles of Stephen’ hands flash unbidden through his mind.

  “I will say this,” Stephen says, leaning a little closer, their hands still clasped together. “I did miss Chicago something awful.”

  “And you’ve been back how many times in the last three years?” Hunter snips before he can stop himself.

  “It’s been a while,” Stephen replies, having the decency to look sheepish.

  “That’s one way of putting it.” Apparently Hunter isn’t capable of a truce while holding Stephen’ hand. He jerks away, waving in the direction of Alyssa and the car. “Harrington’s waiting on me.”

  “Yes, wouldn’t want to keep the missus waiting.”

  Hunter catches Stephen’ wince. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’ll meet you both back at the station.” Stephen grabs his paper and pushes his sunglasses up his nose, giving Hunter a curt nod as he brushes past him.

  Alyssa’s on her iPhone when Hunter gets back to the car. “I don’t know how you made heads or tails out of the Scholar’s clues,” she huffs. “They all seem like random cases to me, like he’s just giving you lessons on the history of the judicial system.”

  “They mostly are.”

  “Did you know the Scholar has his own Wiki page?”

  “Doesn’t surprise me.” He can see Stephen disappearing down the sidewalk through the trees, his elegant topcoat billowing slightly behind him.

  Alyssa nudges his arm. “Hey, you okay? What did you two talk about?”

  Hunter shakes his head. “Nothing important,” he replies, and starts the car.

  ~

  Stephen had always been surrounded by an air of mystique, that special something that drew people to him like gravity. Hunter used to think it was the accent; until they became partners, the rumor was that Stephen was an orphan who stowed away in a cargo plane to America when he was a boy. Of course, the real story was far less like a Steven Spielberg movie.

  “Your parents are diplomats?” Hunter asked as they sat in a squad car outside an apartment building in the middle of the night, waiting for a suspect to leave.

  “Ambassadors, really. My mother traveled to the States against doctor’s orders during the tail end of her pregnancy and ended up having me at a hospital in New York City.” He flashed his crooked teeth grin at Hunter. “So no, I’m not something out of a Dickens novel, no matter what you’ve heard.”

  “You have dual citizenship.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why stay in Chicago? I would think London would be way more exciting.”

  Stephen laughed, bright and affectionate. “Really, Hunter, am I that much
of a stereotype? I enjoy Chicago—I daresay it’s my favorite city in the States. London gives me rain and a boring monarchy. Here I get deep-dish pizza and the Cubs.”

  Hunter smiled and said, “You forgot ten feet of snow at Christmas.”

  “Quite right, my mistake. To be honest, there’s really nowhere else I’d rather be than right here.”

  A flutter of something knocked against Hunter’s ribs, and not for the first time, he felt a giddy excitement that nothing to do with the case or anything, really, but having Stephen smile at him like that, or hearing his voice grow soft and almost intimate, as if he were sharing a closely guarded secret.

  Hunter leaned his head against the passenger window and sipped his coffee. “Yeah, me, too,” he replied softly.

  ~

  They’ve been very careful about the details of the Scholar being leaked to the press, but a year ago a reporter for The Tribune started her own investigation, and eventually the whole city knew about the serial killer who was never found. Hunter tries not to think about what could happen if that same reporter gets wind of another cycle of killings.

  But then the mother of one the Scholar’s earlier victims shows up at the station a few days later. Without even asking, Hunter knows the story’s out.

  “Detective Morris?” she asks, coming to a stop beside his desk, clutching her jacket in her hands. “I...I heard there was...another murder. By the Scholar.”

  Hunter immediately shakes his head and gestures toward the empty chair beside him. “Where did you hear that?”

  She sits down carefully, her expression grim. “It’s in the papers. That professor was murdered on campus, just like—”

  “We don’t know for certain it was the Scholar, Mrs. Anders. We’re tracking all possible leads at the moment.”

  “I just...I want to know if you catch him. I want to see his face.” Mrs. Anders wrings her hands, and Hunter can still remember with vivid clarity the day he and Stephen told her that her daughter, Melissa, was found dead outside her dormitory. She was a political science PhD candidate a year away from graduating.