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“Michael said that? After what I did?” Todd shook his head in disbelief.
“Well, maybe he didn't call you Mr. Wonderful.”
“Unfortunately, I rather doubt it.”
“And then when he was killed and Jeff told me what Michael had found out about Rick, well, I wasn't going to let go of it. I had to find the proof. The department would have pulled me from the case if they'd known Michael was such a close friend.”
“And you were. In the end you were the best kind of friend to him.”
“Thanks.”
Across the yard, Cindy Wilson shouted, “Todd, we're almost live!”
“Okay,” he called back.
Todd turned, started to go. But then Rawlins caught him by the arm.
“Wait …” Rawlins glanced at the ground. “You remember what I said about my first lover being the best?”
“Sure.”
Rawlins shook his head, looked away with a shy grin. “Well, actually, my last one was pretty special.”
“Are you saying …”
“Shit, you been playing dumb so long that you got it down to an art.”
Todd managed a small laugh. “Okay, so maybe we need to talk.”
“Todd!” shouted Cindy. “Thirty seconds!”
Rawlins quickly asked, “What are you going to say?”
Todd shrugged. “The truth—that Cindy Wilson is really a male chauvinist pig in drag. Determined, I might add, to take my place at the feed trough.”
As Todd started toward Channel 7's camera, he heard a ghostly voice, the one that had chided him about finding room in his heart to love himself, the one that had urged him to let go of the fear, the self-hate, that gentle, wise voice that had lectured him on how others would perceive him, saying, “Just remember, people are going to take their cues from you.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
R.D. Zimmerman is the Lambda Award-winning and Edgar-nominated author of numerous mysteries. Under the pen name of Robert Alexander, he is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Kitchen Boy, and other historical novels. For more info: www.robertalexanderbooks.com