Male/Male Mystery and Suspense Box Set: 6 Novellas

by Lanyon, Josh

  I felt like gravity suddenly slipped and I was about to float off into space.

  The Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA is a facility for patients who require medical assistance in stabilizing acute emotional psychiatric crisis. Residential treatment. Supervised activity from eight a.m. to eight p.m. Deck time and occupational therapy and exercise and medication. It’s a great hospital. I know. I once spent nine months there.

  There was a weird humming in my ears. I wondered if I was going to make a habit of fainting.

  My mouth was so dry I could hardly get the words out. “He wants to have me committed?”

  “No! God, no. He wants it to be voluntary. Voluntary hospitalization, you know. Just for rest and observation.”

  I swallowed so hard he must have heard it all the way in West Hollywood because he said quickly, “Like before. The second time, I mean, when you went in yourself for a—a rest.”

  “I don’t need a rest. I need to get back to work.”

  “We all want what’s best for you, Sean.”

  I wanted to scream at that kind, noncommittal tone. He sounded like Dan at his most aggravating. I said as calmly as I could, “You’ve known me a long time, Steve. Do you think I need to be hospitalized? Do I seem irrational?” I had to fight to keep my voice even, in case I sounded as irrational as Dan apparently thought I was. “Do I seem like a danger to myself or anyone else?”

  “Shit, no!” he said quickly and loyally. But then he said, “But I’m not living with you, Sean. Dan sees a different side, I guess.”

  I said tightly, “If anyone is crazy, it’s Dan.”

  He said, “Hey, he never used the C-word.”

  “Yeah, they’re not supposed to,” I retorted. “It’s not politically correct.”

  He did laugh at that, an unwilling snort of a laugh. “Well, you sound normal enough. Normal for you, anyway.”

  “I’m going to have this out with Dan,” I said. “I’m tired of his—” I bit the rest of it off. Despite Dan’s betrayal, whatever happened between us was still none of Steve’s business. “You can tell Bruce that he’s got his Laurie,” I said.

  “Is Dan going to go for that?”

  “Dan doesn’t have a say in this.”

  “Okay,” Steve said doubtfully. “Maybe I’ll wait to tell Bruce ‘til you talk to Dan, though.”

  “Tell Bruce I’m in,” I said tersely. “I’ll deal with Dan.”

  “Uh, sure, sure. But call me after you talk to him. I just…want to make sure you’re—well, just call me.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  I hung up and went downstairs. “I need some fresh air,” I told Markowitz. “I want to go for a run on the beach.”

  “Not a good idea,” he said.

  “You’ll be with me. I’ll be fine. I can’t stay cooped up here all day.”

  “Easiest thing in the world for someone to take you out with a scope and a high-powered rifle.”

  Maria dropped a cup on the granite countertop.

  The smash of china barely registered. I said, “This guy doesn’t want to take me out long-distance, or he’d have done it days ago. Whatever he’s planning, it’s going to be personal delivery.”

  I waited for Markowitz to pronounce his verdict. Waited to see if I was, in fact, already in protective custody.

  Markowitz considered. He shrugged. “You’re the boss.”

  Wobbly with relief, I went upstairs, changed into running shoes, met Markowitz on the deck.

  “Here’s the deal,” he said. “If anything happens—and I mean anything—you go into the water. You go out as far as you safely can, and you stay there until I give the all clear.”

  I nodded, doing a few warming lunges, while I listened.

  “If you hear me whistle—” He paused to whistle once, sharply. “Same deal. You go into the water and wait there.”

  I nodded and took off running.

  It felt good to give my anger this physical release. I needed time and I needed distance before I confronted Dan. I didn’t want to overreact. I realized that whatever he had said to Steve had been said out of concern for me. He cared for me; I didn’t doubt that for a moment.

  He wanted to shield me—whether from a bullet or a breakdown. He had been hired to protect me. So it would be a little ungrateful to be angry at him for doing that very thing now, especially since he felt he had a personal stake in my well-being.

  My feet pounded the sand, my muscles burned. I ran faster, stretching out, trying to out-distance the thing I couldn’t possibly outrun.

  I was afraid I was losing it; so why did Dan’s fear feel like such a betrayal?

  Why did I expect him to have faith in me when I didn’t have faith in myself?

  Sweat stung my eyes. I slowed, stopped. Wiped my face with my sweatshirt front.

  Markowitz was huffing and puffing a few yards behind, keeping an unhappy eye on the hillside above us. I realized that I was making his job a lot harder than it had to be.

  I could imagine what Dan would have to stay about this stunt. He’d probably program the guys in the white coats into speed dial.

  “I’m starting back,” I called. Markowitz nodded, his relief plain, although I thought that was more about his heart exploding than my safety.

  Turning, I started back toward the house at a lope.

  Why the hell did I care so much what Dan thought? Dan had been wrong. Twice. He had been wrong about there being no threat to my safety, and he was wrong about me. Maybe I wasn’t as calm and courageous as he’d be if someone was stalking him, but I wasn’t losing my grip on reality. I was still operational, still firing on most of my cylinders.

  For the first time I considered what would happen if I did collapse again. Would my parents be made my legal guardians? God help me. Or would I be placed in some kind of conservatorship? I’d been focused for so long on staying well and strong that the possibility had never occurred to me. I remembered Steve’s joke about my will.

  Not so funny, really.

  I took the steps to the deck fast, went inside, not hearing whatever Maria said to me, and headed upstairs to Dan’s office.

  I told myself it was my house and I had a right to search for anything I felt I needed to search for—but it still felt about one step lower than Bunny spiking Ralph’s drinks in The Charioteer. I opened the top drawer of Dan’s desk; it wasn’t locked and I felt another stab of shame. Either he had nothing to hide or he trusted me to respect his privacy.

  What had he said about having a few trust issues of his own? I guess the soup du jour was betrayal all around.

  I shuffled briefly through his mail. A couple of utility bills and a credit card statement. I scanned the charges. Nothing ominous—although I winced at the small fortune he’d paid for that Ella Fitzgerald record.

  I told myself I should drop it right then and there.

  Instead I opened the deep side drawer and hit pay dirt. Inside the drawer was a large clear plastic bag containing postcards. My hand shook as I lifted it out. Three postcards. I turned the bag over. In Paul Hammond’s spidery writing were the usual threats: You’ll be sorry; I haven’t forgotten; and, chillingly, Time is up.

  Paul Hammond’s hand and this week’s postmark. But Hammond was dead. Had been dead for over two weeks now.

  Cold sweat broke out over my body.

  Dan could have shot Lenny Norman believing he was helping me out, removing an obstacle from my path. Norman had been killed by a 9 mm and Dan carried a 9 mm.

  Nausea welled in my throat.

  But then reason reasserted itself.

  Dan had been home with me Monday night.

  And if Dan was my stalker, he would certainly have locked this drawer. And more to the point, if he was stalking me, he’d have made sure I got the cards. Not much point in hiding them from me if he were the one trying to terrorize me.

  In this five seconds Sean isn’t the best judge of what he needs.

  Sick horror gave way to rage. He had hidden
these cards from me, and whatever his reason had been, he’d no right to do such a thing. He had lied to me. Pretended there was no threat. Allowed me to believe that it was all in my head.

  He had withheld evidence.

  I sat down at his desk and picked up the phone. I dialed his cell. He answered right away.

  “Chief.”

  He sounded so normal. Like he was simply glad to hear from me and hadn’t a secret in the world.

  I had to steady my voice before I could get the words out.

  “Can you come home?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Where’s Markowitz? Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. When can you get here?”

  He did some mental calculations. “It’ll take me about an hour.”

  “I’ll see you in an hour,” I said and hung up.

  * * * * *

  He was home in fifty-five minutes.

  Lost in thought, I was startled when I heard the front door. Heard Dan’s deep tones and Maria’s lighter ones. Heard his footsteps on the stairs, coming down the hall. He started to walk past his office, then looked inside. He seemed puzzled to find me sitting at his desk.

  “What are you doing in here? What’s going on?”

  “You tell me.”

  He looked confused. Not guilty. Not wary. Just confused. “What’s wrong?”

  “I had a talk with Steve. He said they’ve found a new director for The Charioteer, and if I want the part of Laurie, it’s mine.”

  Dan’s blue eyes studied my face. “So that’s good news, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Do you think I’m well enough to take the part?”

  He said slowly, “Do you think you’re well enough?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  He considered me for a long moment. “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Did you tell Steve that I wasn’t well enough to work?”

  “Hell, no.”

  That caught me off guard. I didn’t expect him to lie about it. I expected him to simply say what he obviously thought, that I needed to be locked up in a psych ward as soon as conveniently possible.

  “You didn’t tell him that I was emotionally fragile?”

  His face changed. “I might have asked him to go easy on fanning your fears about Paul Hammond.”

  “You used the term ‘emotionally fragile’?”

  “I may have,” his tone was guarded—obviously not wanting to rile the maniac too much.

  “Did you tell Steve that the two of you should try to convince me to check myself into UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Hospital?”

  “Huh?” He looked utterly taken aback. “Of course not.”

  “You didn’t try to get Steve to pull an intervention with you?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. Steve said that you told him that I was ill and needed to be hospitalized. Voluntarily if possible.”

  “I don’t know what the hell Steve is playing at, but I never said anything like that. Ever.”

  “Are you saying Steve lied?”

  “Are you saying I would?”

  I’d expected him to waffle a bit; claim that maybe Steve had misunderstood, although as far as I could tell Steve had got it right in every way that counted.

  “Steve has no reason to lie.”

  I could see that hurt him; his face went stony.

  “Come on, Sean. Steve is jealous as hell of you—and he plays you like a pro.” And as though that weren’t enough of a red flag flapping in my face, he added flatly, “And for the record, if I thought you needed to be hospitalized, I wouldn’t waste time calling Steve for backup or trying to talk you into it.”

  I was so mad I could hardly get the words out without stuttering. “Now that I believe, you arrogant son of a bitch!” Dan’s eyes turned arctic-blue. Hard to believe I’d ever seen them warm with tenderness or alight with laughter. “You want to explain this?” I hurled the plastic bag of postcards at him. He caught them one-handed, barely glancing at the bag.

  “You went through my desk?”

  His contempt made me defiant. “Hey, it’s my house. And technically it’s my desk.”

  He went so still he didn’t appear to be breathing, and yet, despite the silence I heard something shatter. I didn’t let myself stop to consider what I was doing; that I was deliberately destroying something that might be irreplaceable. I just kept sweeping the counters and letting the valuables smash on the floor.

  “Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, but I never saw them. You want to explain that to me?”

  All at once he was totally calm. “Why don’t you tell me what you think it means?”

  I said, “I think you had Maria take them out of the mail when you weren’t here to grab them first.”

  “That’s right.” Zero apology or guilt.

  “How the hell dare you?”

  He snorted. “How the hell dare I? You sound like a B-movie. I’ll tell you how the hell I dared. You were coming apart at the seams. I tried to protect you—if only from yourself.”

  Well, there was pretty much the confirmation I was looking for. He might not have phrased things exactly the way Steve remembered, but the intent seemed to be the same.

  “I didn’t ask you to protect me!”

  “What are you talking about? It’s my job to protect you!”

  “Then,” I cried. “Before we were together. Not now. Not once we—” I couldn’t finish it because whatever we had been, it was ending now. Even if I’d wanted to pull out of this tailspin, it was too late. Our relationship was crashing and burning in front of us.

  “Kid, you’ve got some weird ideas of what happens when people get together.”

  He had developed a knack for pushing all the wrong buttons.

  “Like you’re an expert on relationships?”

  He opened his mouth and then bit back whatever he started to say. Unreasonably, his restraint further goaded me.

  I sneered, “I don’t have your experience, that’s for sure. And I don’t want it.”

  “Yeah, that came through loud and clear.”

  Not like I hadn’t asked for that one, but all at once the heat went out of my anger. I felt numb. I said, “What else did you lie about? Obviously Hammond isn’t dead, is he? I’m still getting postcards from him.”

  “The postcards aren’t from Hammond,” he said with acrid satisfaction. “I didn’t lie about him being dead or about getting the cards analyzed. The writing isn’t his. It’s not even that good of a forgery.”

  “Then who sent them?”

  “I’m not sure. Yet.”

  It took a second for that to register. He didn’t say he didn’t know, he said he wasn’t sure. So he thought he knew. He had a suspect. Another piece of information he wouldn’t be sharing because he didn’t trust me with the truth. The arrogant son of a bitch actually believed that “protecting” me meant keeping me in a state of blissful ignorance. Only ignorance wasn’t bliss. It was dangerous.

  “Really? I thought you had all the answers.”

  Dan said wearily, “I thought I had one or two of them figured out. I guess not.”

  I understood that we were no longer talking about Steve or Hammond. My chest rose and fell as though I’d raced to get to this moment with Dan, and now here we stood with a chasm growing wider and wider between us. I could feel the ring he’d bought me resting on my breast bone like a weight on my heart.

  I heard myself say, “I guess it’s over.”

  I waited for him to say something. Anything.

  He said nothing. His eyes never wavered from mine.

  “I can’t be with someone I don’t trust. And I can’t trust someone who doesn’t trust me.”

  To my amazement he laughed. Not a very pleasant laugh, granted.

  His gaze moved deliberately from the plastic bag of postcards to the desk I had searched. “I can see that might be a problem.”

&n
bsp; Heat flooded my face.

  Dan shrugged. “You got one thing right. It’s over.”

  Chapter Seven

  I watched the Sebring crest the hilltop and wind down the road leading to the beach house. The car disappeared from sight.

  I checked my watch. Four thirty. Steve was late as usual. He’d be late to his own funeral.

  Over the distant crash of waves I heard the faint slam of a car door and my nerves tightened. Show time.

  I caught a glimpse of a blue shirt and the top of his head as he hurried along the side of the deck. He started up the stairs, checking when he noticed me sitting at the patio table.

  “Dude! What are you doing out here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “Yeah? Well, I got here as soon as I could.” He glanced past me toward the open glass door. “So where is everybody?”

  “Maria’s gone for the day. Markowitz was recalled.” I shrugged. “With Hammond dead, the cops didn’t want to waste any more of the taxpayers’ money.”

  “How weird is that?” Steve shook his head. “I mean, to think he was dead the whole time.” He eyed me speculatively. “But what about Lenny Norman’s murder?”

  “It wasn’t connected. The cops are holding his neighbor.”

  “So it’s just us? Dan really is gone?”

  “Yep. That’s over.” I drained my glass. My hand shook a little and I watched him note it. The pain was real and raw; I couldn’t hide it, but I couldn’t let myself think about it for even a moment.

  “Is he going to be stopping by later to pick his junk up?”

  I shook my head. It had seemed like Dan’s stuff was everywhere, but it had taken him exactly seventeen efficient minutes to collect his things. He’d left nothing but his fingerprints. He sure as hell hadn’t left any excuse for coming back.

  Straddling the bench across from me, Steve smiled that guileless smile I knew so well. The smile he wore when things had gone well at the race track.

  “Shit, man. Just like that? True, I can’t pretend I ever liked the guy, but I know you…” Despite the smile he couldn’t bite back, his mournful brown eyes looked sadder than ever. “How are you doing?”