by Lanyon, Josh
Ryo was on top but was he in control? Kind of doubtful.
Did it matter? Even more doubtful.
“Oh.”
God. Was there ever such a fucking hot little word? Was it even a word? Or was it just the craziest, fuckingest, hottest, littlest sound ever yanked out of a pair of laboring lungs?
Ryo jerked his hips spasmodically, losing restraint, losing his rhythm, and with each thrust Kai made that broken oh sound.
“Oh. Oh. Oh. RyOh…”
It excited Ryo beyond control. He began to shove and strain, ramming into Kai over and over, without style, without skill, just wanting to possess, to own, to be part of this sleek, beautiful, weirdo.
And all the while in a dim shadowy recesses of his brain, was the knowledge that Kai had done this before, done it many times, done it with Mickey Torres.
Good thing Ryo wasn’t a guy who believed in happy ever afters.
Ryo opened his eyes.
Something white and filmy was floating above him. A ghost? Probably not. Although if Captain Louden found out what Detective Miller had been up to this night, he’d probably kill him.
Did that make sense?
Probably not.
How drunk was he?
Drunk enough, obviously.
The white drapes above him swept languorously out and in, like giant moth wings. No, butterfly wings.
Ryo turned his head. Moonlight through the glass doors illuminated the other half of the mattress. He was alone in this big, empty, raft of a bed.
He looked for a clock, but there didn’t seem to be one. He sat up. There was a glass of water on the low table beside Kai’s half of the bed. He picked it up and drained it in a couple of fuzzy-mouthed gulps. That was better. His head was still pounding, but it was a more manageable thump.
Where the hell were his clothes?
Oh yeah. On that stool thing near the kitchen.
There was a bar of light beneath the door. Ryo rose and went to the door, opening it a crack. Every other light in the condo seemed to be on. He winced at the brightness, listening.
Silence.
Was he alone here?
No. There. An impatient mutter and a noise like crumpling paper. Ryo followed the sounds down the hall.
Kai was working in his studio beneath the painted gazes of the sharp featured men in samurai and kabuki costumes. He had donned his jeans again, but he was barefoot and bare-chested. His hair was pulled back in a ponytail and he had a glint of red stubble on his jaw. Lost in his work, he looked older and serious. For a few seconds Ryo watched him thoughtfully in the harsh, white light of the swing-arm lamp. Kai worked on, oblivious, frowning at the drawing, making quick adjustments and then frowning again.
Ryo leaned on the door frame. “It’s late.” He swallowed a yawn.
Kai’s head jerked and he stared blindly past the glaring light. He cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
Ryo peered at his watch. “Three. Thereabouts. What are you doing?”
“Working.”
“Now?”
Kai shrugged. “Why not now?”
“Because now is time for sleep.”
Kai made a derisive noise. “I don’t sleep.”
“You mean you sleep in the day?”
“Sometimes, I guess.”
“You have…what’s it called? Insomnia?”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep.”
In other words, insomnia. Or maybe a guilty conscience.
Ryo sauntered over to Kai’s drafting table, aware that Kai tensed, unhappy with the intrusion, but so what? Kai Tashiro had too many secrets. It wasn’t healthy to have that many secrets.
Ryo stared down at the pencil drawing. It was a cartoon of an androgynous figure dressed in period costume, though what period would be hard to say. The figure had long white hair and long white fangs. The cartoon was done in the manga style. Or at least what Ryo thought of as manga style. He was no expert, though he’d bought enough copies of Vampire Knight for his young nieces. It was also similar in style to the framed paintings on the wall.
“I think I arrested that guy last week.”
Kai snorted. Then he frowned and erased a wayward strand of the figure’s hair.
“Is he supposed to be a vampire?”
Kai sighed then nodded. “Vampire ninja.”
“Ah. How’s that pay?”
“Better than manga-ka.” Kai put a hand to the small of his back and arched, stretching his spine.
“You didn’t mention you were a manga-ka when I asked what you did for a living.”
Kai curled his lip. “I get tired of explaining what manga is to people who don’t know the difference, anyway.”
Ryo hooked a thumb at the framed portraits. “Those are your work?” Now that he had time to examine them, he could see they featured the same two impossibly handsome, sharp-featured characters. Each poster represented the cover of a different volume. There were seven all together. Kai threw a dismissive look at the row of scowling samurai and haughty kabuki actor. “Yeah.”
Ryo squinted at the kanji. “Blood Red…Butterfly?”
Kai nodded curtly.
“What is it, a series? Like Vampire Knight?”
Kai made a strangling sound. “Vampire Knight? Seriously?”
“Hey.” Ryo spread his hands. “So? What is Blood Red Butterfly?”
“What does it look like?”
“Manga.”
Kai sighed long and loudly in the manner of one who was once again going to have to explain himself to people who didn’t know the difference, anyway. “It’s Shōnen-ai. Yaoi. You know what that is?”
“Nope.”
“What they call Boy Love or BL now.”
“Boy Love?”
Kai grimaced. “Don’t worry, Mr. Police Man. They’re not boys, as you can see. Oniji Zenji is a Seventeenth Century actor in the yarō-kabuki. He’s onnagata. I suppose you don’t know what that is either?”
“You lost me at kabuki.”
“I wouldn’t be so proud of it. Anyway, he falls in love with Kato Kiyomori, a famous samurai.”
Ryo eyed the two scowling figures in the nearest poster. Zenji was pointing his fan at Kiyomori who had him at sword point. It didn’t look like it was going to be much of a duel. “And they live happily ever after?”
“Oh, hell yeah. They take out a mortgage and adopt three adorable kids and a puppy.”
Ryo laughed. He was thinking. If Kai was habitually sleepless, there went another theory—the theory that Torres had figured out the security code and somehow sneaked out while Kai was in Dreamland—and then sneaked back, in time for breakfast. “Sounds like heaven. Come on back to bed.”
“No point. I don’t like lying there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to come up.”
“We don’t have to lay there.”
Kai gave him a withering look. “It’s going to take me a day or two to get over what we already did.”
Ryo blushed. “I guess I got kinda—”
“I liked it,” Kai cut across coolly. “It hit the spot. In every way. But that’s enough for one night. You should go now.”
It was kind of surprising the way his heart sank at those words—what was he expecting? Kashi cereal at the least. Damn. But Ryo was not a guy who gave up easily. He rested his hand on the back of Kai’s neck and squeezed gently, feeling the network of overstrung nerves and muscles draw tighter still. A lot of tension there.
“Come to bed,” he coaxed. “I’ll help you sleep.”
Kai tossed his pencil down. “I said no—”
“Dude, I’m offering you a backrub, that’s all.”
Kai’s expression changed, irritation giving way to wary curiosity. “A backrub?”
“Cross my heart.” Ryo held his hands out and flexed them for Kai’s inspection. Kai’s strange blue eyes studied him. “Permit the maestro to work his magic.”
Kai shook his head, but it wasn’t refusal, more like he thought Ryo was c
razy. Probably true.
They padded back into the bedroom. Kai stepped out of his jeans and flung himself face down on the bed. Ryo sat on the edge of the mattress, gazing down. Kai’s skin was pale and mostly smooth, with the usual amount of nicks and scars. Nothing to indicate a particularly tough life. He was built as lightly as a kid but he wasn’t a kid. There was nothing innocent here.
Ryo rested his hands on Kai’s shoulders and squeezed lightly. Bare, warm, supple skin. Kai was nice to touch. He smelled nice, too, an exotic blend of sex and flowers.
“Go ahead,” Kai said shortly. “Ask your questions.”
“About what?”
“Come on. That’s what this is about, right? Get me relaxed and comfortable and then start in again.”
“No.” Ryo dug his thumbs in, kneaded the tight shoulders. He had kind of been thinking vaguely along those lines, but Kai seemed so vulnerable like this. Such a slight, flimsy body to contain all that energy and tension. Unexpectedly, Ryo found he really did just want to help him wind down, relax.
“Yeah, right.”
“I do have one question.”
Kai sounded bored. “I figured.”
“Are your eyes really blue?”
Kai gave a smothered-sounding laugh. His head moved in negation. “No. I wear contacts.”
“Ah.” Ryo had figured. According to his DMV records, Kai had brown eyes. Ryo continued to squeeze and ply Kai’s shoulders. He couldn’t get too enthusiastic in his ministrations given that there was no meat on Kai’s bones. Even so, Kai had decent musculature for a guy who clearly didn’t take very good care of himself. Maybe he swam. Maybe he jogged. Maybe he still practiced kendo. He stopped himself from asking.
“Next question?”
“This would work better if you’d shut up.”
There was silence and then Kai gave a huffy laugh. Some of the rigidity went out of his shoulders.
Ryo continued to work over him using long, slow, relaxing strokes. He’d dated a masseuse for a few weeks and he’d learned a few tricks along the way. The surprising thing was that it was actually kind of relaxing to give massage. Not as relaxing as getting one, true, but it was pleasant to touch and caress, especially when the body being touched and caressed was as attractive as this one.
Kai’s flanks rose and fell in slow rhythm as he breathed more deeply and evenly.
Ryo was nonplussed to hear himself say aloud, “My obaachan used to give us backrubs when we were little and couldn’t sleep.”
Kai chuckled, sleepily. “That’s sexy. Talking about your grandma.”
“I’m not trying to be sexy. I’m trying to give you a peaceful night.”
Another one of those abrupt silences. Kai lifted and turned his head to stare at Ryo, though it was doubtful he could see much in the gloom.
After a moment, he lowered himself to the mattress again. He did not speak again. In time, Ryo knew Kai was sleeping. He rose, went around to the far side of the bed, and lay down, careful not to disturb the other man.
Chapter Four
Kai Tashiro and Esther Martinez lived on different planets.
Or at least that’s how it seemed. Remembering the crystal glasses and pale blue koi and veils of white gauze, comparing all that to the shabby cleanliness of his crime scene, Ryo found himself wondering if he had dreamed the night before.
For forty-five years, the Martinez woman had lived in the little Spanish-style house on Nebraska Avenue. She had raised her children and buried a husband and grown old in this house, and though she had been well into her seventies, everyone who knew her agreed Esther was still as spry and sharp as a tack.
Oh, yeah. They had interviewed everyone on this block and the next one over. For all the good it had done. But that was the job. You spent hours and days just talking to people, collecting and then sifting through all the bits and pieces of information that might eventually form the picture—though usually the bits and pieces amounted to a lot of funny shapes that never quite fit together. Jigsaw puzzles were the same, the world over.
The only thing Ryo and his partner Eddie Mayer had gleaned from Esther’s neighbors was that she didn’t miss much and that everybody had thought she’d be good for another seventy years.
It was that sprightly sharp-eyed quality that had made Esther such an excellent witness in the Revelez case eleven years earlier. One ordinary June morning she’d been walking back from the grocery store. She had to pass Stoner Park, which in those days had been located in a much worse neighborhood than it was now. Back then the park had been a hangout for gangs, home turf to the Sotels. You could still read fifty years of gang graffiti on the surrounding sidewalk. As Esther had marched along, toting her brown grocery bags, she’d looked across what was now the skate plaza in time to see sixteen-year old Mickey Torres march up to fifteen-year old Humberto Revelez, who happened to be dating Torres’ sister without Torres’ permission, and shoot him five times in the chest.
There had been other witnesses, but none of them had been willing to come forward, let alone testify. Only Esther had had the guts—despite living in such close proximity to the park and the Sotels—to ignore the advice of family and friends, and speak out. And her testimony had been key in putting Torres away. Not forever, sadly, because Torres was a juvenile offender and this was L.A., home to bleeding hearts and misguided social activists. But for over a decade Torres had been safely locked up, and the streets of West Los Angeles had been a little less mean and a lot prettier.
But all good things come to an end, and last month Torres had been released from prison. And apparently, once on the outside, the sick bastard had nothing better to do than even old scores, including murdering old ladies.
Ryo walked slowly from room to room of the dark, silent house.
The kitchen was due for a remodel. The appliances were all that scary avocado color so popular in the seventies. The table was set for one. A box of corn flakes sat next to a small vase with artificial daisies.
Ryo thought about his own breakfast that morning—an English muffin eaten over Kai Tashiro’s sink in the condo’s large kitchen with its quartz counters and stainless steel appliances. Kai was already back in his studio working when Ryo had stumbled out of bed. It was Saturday and Ryo had the day off, though technically he was on call. That didn’t mean he would get called in. He’d have been willing to hang around for a while if Kai had been interested.
But Kai had told Ryo to help himself to a shower and whatever he could find for breakfast. And that had been that. Not so much as a good-bye kiss. Hell, he hadn’t stopped long enough to take off his headphones.
The fact that Ryo even noticed made him uneasy. He’d gotten exactly what he had wanted—a night with the Ice Princess. And yeah, it had been better than he’d imagined, given that he’d previously pretty well convinced himself Tashiro was just a prick tease.
But, no. Wrong there. Tashiro clearly had his issues, but not putting out wasn’t one of them.
So what was Ryo’s problem? It wasn’t like he was looking for a relationship. It was his experience that cops and relationships were not a good fit. In fact, the only happily married cop Ryo knew was his partner, Mayer, and in his opinion, Mayer was in the wrong line of work. And even if Ryo had been looking for a relationship, Kai Tashiro was not the kind of guy you brought home to meet Mother. Or, as Kai would no doubt call her, kaachan.
Anyway, back to the job at hand. He opened Esther’s fridge and studied the rapidly spoiling contents. He had been through this house, combed the processed crime scene, a couple of times already, but if Torres’ alibi couldn’t be broken, then maybe he needed to take another look.
Maybe his contempt for gang bangers like Torres was clouding his perspective. He doubted it, but…it never hurt to take another look.
It wasn’t like there were no other possible suspects. Esther had left fifty thousand dollars worth of CDs and stocks to her daughter, Graciela. She had left the house to her son, Oscar. Fifty grand wasn’t a fo
rtune, but like a lot of people these days, Graciela was drowning in credit card debt. As was brother Oscar, who was trying to put his own kids through college. The house wasn’t large but it was now sitting on prime real estate.
Money was always a motive. No question. But in his initial interview with Graciela and Oscar, Ryo hadn’t caught a glimmer of anything but the shock and grief you would expect from the recently bereaved. Both Graciela and Oscar had separately brought up Mickey Torres and the threats he’d made a decade ago. In fact, those accusations were what put Ryo on Torres’ trail, but once he’d read the case files, done a little background checking on Torres, and finally personally interviewed Torres, he’d had no doubt he was talking to the perp.
Not that Esther, a bit of a busybody and the kind of old lady who turned the sprinklers on people who cut across her lawn, hadn’t managed to make her fair share of enemies. Well, enemies was a strong word, but everybody had people they rubbed the wrong way, people whose hearts wouldn’t break if you fell off the planet, who might even give you a push if it seemed safe enough. A lot of people liked Esther, a few people loved her, but it was safe to assume a couple of people hated her. Everybody made enemies.
It was the violence of the crime that caused Ryo to zero in on Torres.
Strangling was personal. It required strength—or at least know how—and in this case it had required being the special kind of person who could look your victim in the face as you choked the life out of her. And then lifting that heavy statue of the Virgin Mary that had formerly sat on the dining room credenza, and bashing it over the old lady’s head a few times. That wasn’t your average every day citizen. Or even your average every day burglar.
And while it was always possible that money-hungry offspring might commission a murder, this hadn’t been a professional hit. There had been nothing professional about it. This was animal-like rage and brutality.
The killer had come in through the dining room window during the wee hours of the morning. The other windows were secured by iron grille, but this particular window was ornamental. It had been high and round and made of stained glass. At one time it had probably been inaccessible, but the trees in the front yard had grown tall over the years, and if you were lean and agile and determined, it was your access into the house.