by Evelyn Drake
“I mean nothing to you?”
Kyle shrugged his shoulders again, struggling against Tobias’s harsh glare and doing his best to look anywhere than directly at him.
“Answer me!” Tobias pushed off the door to step forward. Then, he sighed and seemed to deflate. “I’m sorry. You should go.” He finally stepped out of the way of the door.
“What’s wrong with you?” Kyle whispered.
“Seriously? You can’t see what’s wrong with that? How much it hurts you? You don’t come with them. You don’t like it. You don’t like them. So why?”
Kyle moved for the door, but Tobias didn’t move out of his way.
“What does it matter?” Kyle snapped, his hands balling into fists.
“Answer the question,” Tobias said, moving away from the door to stand directly in front of Kyle.
Kyle was aware of how much he towered over Tobias, yet the smaller man didn’t flinch. Kyle could see his breath coming fast through slightly parted lips, and they were lips he wanted to kiss. “Answer what?” Kyle finally asked, his eyes fixed on Tobias’s mouth.
“Why do you fuck them?” Tobias asked.
“Because it’s what my body is for.”
“Then why did you suck me?” Tobias lifted a hand to drag his thumb over Kyle’s bottom lip. “It that what your mouth is for?”
Kyle captured Tobias’s thumb between his teeth and bit down with increasing pressure until he heard Tobias hiss. He didn’t release Tobias until he’d wrapped his arms around the smaller man and had pulled them together so that the entire length of their fronts pressed against each other. His bite of Tobias’s thumb turned into a teasing suck that went on until Tobias moaned.
Kyle finally released Tobias’s hand so that he could say what he needed to say. “My body doesn’t want them. It never has. I’ve always known that. But that’s what it’s for, what I’m for.”
“What do you want, though?” Tobias pressed, urgently, like he was coming close to the heart of the truth.
And he was. Kyle’s heart raced. “You. My body wants to fuck you. It wants to make you scream my name. It wants to be deep inside of you.”
Tobias’s breathing grew shaky.
“But,” Kyle continued, “my body wasn’t made for you. It wasn’t made to be shared with another man. It was made for a woman. I can’t change that, can I?”
Tobias’s body went slack in Kyle’s arms, and Kyle felt all the sexual tension that had been growing between them drain away.
Kyle released Tobias and stepped away. “I should go.”
A flash of something that Kyle couldn’t quite put a finger on flashed in Tobias’s eyes. It stopped him from moving toward the door. Instead, he stood, staring at Tobias.
“What?” Tobias asked, dipping his head and shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. His shoulders were held high, defensive.
“Are you okay?” Kyle looked—really looked—at Tobias. There were dark circles under the man’s eyes, his skin was pale, and he looked to be about ten pounds skinnier than he should be.
“I’m fine.” Tobias’s voice instantly fell to a deeper tone as he lifted his head and dropped his shoulders. His body turned casual with all the tension gone. The flesh of his cheeks even seemed more full.
Kyle’s jaw dropped. “How’d you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Go from looking like yesterday’s corpse to someone without a care in the world?” He flinched at his choice of words but held out for an answer all the same.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” Kyle reached one, long strong arm out and slid his hand behind Tobias’s neck. He turned Tobias to face him fully.
Everything about Tobias deflated again. Once more, he went from vibrant to exhausted, all within a heartbeat.
“What’s going on with you?”
“I don’t want you to go,” Tobias whispered.
“You want me to fuck you again?”
“No. I mean, yes… but no. I…” His gaze moved around the apartment before returning to look at Kyle. “Everything’s more quiet when you’re here.”
Kyle glanced at the walls. “Your neighbors noisy?”
Tobias’s cheeks reddened. “The nightmares. The ghosts.” He shrugged, letting the movement fill in the blanks.
“The haunting…” Kyle said what Tobias was avoiding saying.
Tobias nodded his head, looking forlorn and more than a little embarrassed.
“It’s why I came over yesterday, but then I ran off,” Kyle said, his voice gentle. “What do you need?”
“Sleep,” Tobias said. He swayed a little bit, but Kyle’s hand held him steady.
Kyle glanced around the apartment, and then, with his hand still on the back of Tobias’s neck, he walked them both over to the sofa. “Take off your shirt.”
Tobias hesitated and then moved to do as he was told as Kyle did the same. “You’re going to fuck me again?”
“No, we’re going to sleep. Come on,” Kyle said, sitting down on the couch and raising a hand for Tobias to take.
Tobias took it and sat down next to Kyle. With an arm around Tobias’s shoulders, Kyle guided them into a spooning position with Tobias in front. Three breaths later he felt all the stress and tension drain from Tobias’s body.
Running the tips of his fingers through Tobias’s hair, Kyle whispered, “sleep,” before giving him a kiss on the temple. Wrapping his other arm around Tobias’s torso, he pulled the man snug against him, soaking up the smaller man’s warmth as his back pressed against Kyle’s bare chest.
It didn’t take long for Tobias’s breath to steady as he fell asleep. Kyle wanted to hate himself for laying as he was with him.
But he was giving comfort, which wasn’t wrong. They’d never told him that. Providing for the care and wellbeing of another human being… that seemed right.
But I love him. That was what made it wrong. Yet, instead of pulling away, Kyle snuggled against Tobias so that his lips rested against the smaller man’s thick, dark hair. He breathed him in deep, flooding his senses with memories of their years together.
I never stopped loving him. He’d tried. He’d tried for years. He’d wanted to save himself by keeping Tobias shut out. But he no longer had hope of getting Tobias shut out of his heart. And he was losing hope of keeping Tobias away from his body.
“I love you.” His lips moved silently against Tobias’s hair, but he needed to say the words—or half-say them, at least.
13
Tobias
A chill slowly crept deeper into Tobias’s body, sinking in past his skin to settle into his muscles. He’d been warm all night, but the familiar chill was back.
Giving a small shiver, Tobias gave in and opened his eyes. He groaned against the soft morning light that filtered into his living room. Sleeping had felt so good that he hadn’t wanted to give up its gentle embrace.
Why had it felt so good? What was different?
Reaching behind himself, Tobias felt of the firm back of the couch that now cradled him, and his heart sank a little as the memory of Kyle holding him highlighted the man’s absence.
“He left…”
Tobias glanced around himself despite knowing better, searching for some note or item left by Kyle as a love-token for being left alone. Finding none, he closed his eyes and turned his face into the couch’s throw pillow.
I’ve got to quit doing this. I’ve got to quit projecting a future for us. That died when I thought he died. Let it go. Let him go.
With a groan, he pushed up with his arms to a sitting position. Instead of feeling rejuvenated, he felt tired and heavy and his head pounded from a headache caused by sleeping too hard. Yet despite all of that, the underlying fatigue no longer threatened to consume him. While he still felt like shit, he no longer felt at risk for being hospitalized for exhaustion.
Rubbing his temple while keeping his eyes closed, a smile pulled at his lip
s as he embraced the memory of what it had felt like to fall asleep in Kyle’s arms. It had been the best, and he hadn’t slept like that—that well and that deep—since he was a kid, sleeping in Kyle’s arms.
He moaned his happiness and then took a deeper breath, willing his blood to pump its oxygen to his brain to wake him up. Standing up from the couch, he stretched his arms over his head until he heard and felt his back pop, meeting the release with a satisfied groan.
Walking with the animated focus of someone a level above zombie, he made it to the kitchen. Opening the cupboard, he froze. He blinked. Then he woke up, shaking of the remainder of sleep as a smile lit his face.
There before him was a note stuck to his box of Twinings English Strong Breakfast. It said, “I figured you for a coffee guy. Good morning, sunshine.”
Tobias beamed, his smile stretching from ear to ear. He bounced on his toes with energy and suppressed the urge to sing.
Pulling the note away from the box and staring down at it, Tobias said, “No way. He can’t be the killer. I won’t let it be him.” There was no lying to himself about the conflict of interest that had developed for him. But it didn’t matter. Kyle wasn’t the killer. Tobias had no proof to back that up, but his heart would not accept that the boy he’d loved was a monster.
Tobias walked into the precinct station just over an hour later. Officer Roberts plopped a file down on top of Tobias’s desk as soon as he sat down.
“Coroner’s report is in. I printed it out for you.”
Tobias raised an eyebrow at Roberts, knowing from his actions that there was something in the report that Tobias needed to see. Flipping open the front cover, he leaned over and started to read. He was halfway down the page when he saw the piece of information that Roberts was reacting to.
“Chloramine gas,” Tobias said, leaning back in his chair.
“Yep,” Roberts said. “Ammonia and bleach.”
Tobias took a deep breath and put his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair even further. “So Victoria was in the supply closet.” He closed his eyes, envisioning the scene. “What if the door was locked? What if she couldn’t get out? There’s gas, she can’t breathe, and she claws at her own throat.” He remembered the thin, fine scratch marks crisscrossing the pale skin of her slender neck. The shelves that had been swept clear came into his thoughts next. “She starts looking for the source of the gas. She sweeps off the contents of a couple of the shelves and whatever container was holding the ammonia and bleach splashed against the door and fell on the floor.” He remembered the scene, bringing all the details back, including the bleached spot on the floor and the door.
“She doesn’t die right away. She fights it, longer than the killer expected. Maybe she was making too much noise. So the killer opens the door and hits Victoria on the head hard enough to send her falling backwards.”
Opening his eyes and sitting up in his chair, Tobias scanned the coroner’s report again. Included are pictures of the closet after Victoria’s body had been removed.
“Here,” he said, finding what he was looking for. “She fell onto the corner of the utility drain’s low rim. It only sticks up an inch, but the back of her head hit the corner of it when she fell backward.” He scanned more of the report and found the information he needed to back up his theory, and then flicked the page with his finger when he found it. “That’s it. The back of her skull was cracked with a single point impact. It was the killing blow.”
“Would she have died anyway from the gas poisoning?” Roberts asked.
Tobias skipped down to the coroner’s inconclusive notes. “ ‘Highly likely,’ is what’s stated here.” Tobias looked up at Roberts. “It was a murder gone bad. The killer had never intended to have to hit her.”
“Maybe trying to cover up an accidental poisoning?” Roberts asked.
“I don’t think so”—Tobias shook his head—“but it’s time to pay a visit to the club’s janitor.”
Parking his unmarked sedan at the curb, Tobias took his time walking up the inlaid red brick sidewalk that led from the road to the front door of Mrs. Trizola’s cottage home. It was small and one of the city’s older cottages, but the outside was painted a festive canary yellow and the door and trim were painted a dark, vivid salmon with accents in a baby blue.
The front door opened even before Tobias reached the steps leading up to the tiny front porch that only extended half of the house’s width.
“May I help you?” said a small woman of maybe five feet. Her back was badly bent forward at her shoulders. Probably advanced osteoporosis.
“Mrs. Trizola?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Detective Sohbier. I’m investigating the death of Victoria Bergman.”
“Oh yes, yes!” Mrs. Trizola said, pulling the door open wider. “Come in!”
Tobias stepped in and then took her lead on where to sit as she waved him toward a love seat cornered with a straight-backed chair. Both were covered in tapestried linen, the rich design of gold and red holding Tobias’s eye as Mrs. Trizola disappeared around the corner of the room. She reappeared a near heartbeat later with a plate of chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies. She sat the platter down on an adjoining end-table held captive in the corner of the seat combo.
“Now then,” Mrs. Trizola said, clasping her hands and laying them in her lap. “You have questions about Victoria.” Her expression was somber and focused.
“What was your relationship with Victoria?” Tobias said, pulling out his notepad and flipping its cover open.
“She was a dear, dear friend.” It was said matter of fact but with conviction. Yet Mrs. Trizola didn’t seem to be emotionally distressed at the loss.
“Do you have any idea how it was that Victoria died in your cleaning closet?” It wasn’t Mrs. Trizola’s cleaning closet, it was the strip club’s cleaning closet. But Tobias wanted to see Mrs. Trizola’s reaction at the implication that she was responsible for anything that happened within that small room.
“I don’t know why that poor girl was in there,” Mrs. Trizola said, and this time her eyes grew shiny with unshed tears. “She sometimes left me little gifts in there. That’s the only thing I’ve been able to think of.” Her face was tight with what Tobias could only describe as grieved frustration. It was like she had words or thoughts on the tip of her tongue that she just couldn’t find as needed information eluded her.
He knew the feeling.
“What kind of presents would she leave you?”
“Oh, nothing special. Little knickknacks to put a smile on my face.” Reaching over to the platter of cookies, she picked it up and held it out. “Take one.”
It didn’t feel like a request, and not fully knowing why he would follow her orders, he picked out one of the oatmeal cookies. It was a good four inches wide and cooked to a golden brown. It smelled slightly of brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
On faith, he took a bite and then had to close his eyes. If the cookie was laced with poison, it was the best damned poison he could ever hope to have. When he opened his eyes again, Mrs. Trizola wore a large, happy smile.
“Those were Victoria’s favorite. Here then, look,” she said, leaning forward a little more as she held the dish out and adjusted the position of the cookies that covered the platter. Beneath them was a frog holding out a yellow daisy to a bashful little girl. “This was a gift from Victoria.”
Mrs. Trizola put the platter down and then pointed at something sitting on the edge of the windowsill across the room. Tobias squinted the slightest bit to see it better and then finally gave in by getting up and crossing the room to it. It was a frog built of little pebbles glued together and painted, and the little guy sat at the very edge of the windowsill with his legs hanging over.
“She gave me that, too,” Mrs. Trizola said and then did a wave to the rest of the room. “It was our thing,” she said, beaming with pride. “Everything she gave me had something to do with frogs.” She straightened the h
em of her housedress, looking thoughtful as she stared down at her lap. “She was nervous that first night she started dancing, and I came in earlier than usual that night in order to get a jump start on things. I had an early morning appointment, you see.” She lifted her gaze to Tobias’s and gave a little shrug as best as her bent shoulders would let her. “I told her a little frog joke to help her with her nerves. She gave me a hug and that was that. We became best friends. She came to visit me every day in the hospital when I had pneumonia,” she said with pride. “My Henry passed away years ago and we were never blessed with kids, so it’s just me. But,”—a tear escaped to slip down her cheek and her voice broke—“I wasn’t alone with Vickie.”
A tingle of concern crawled its way up his spine as Tobias resumed his position on the couch. There was something that had been said when he’d interviewed the dancers at the strip club. Victoria had been leaving. She was leaving the dance club—and Mrs. Trizola, too?
Holding the cookie in his mouth, Tobias’s memory sparked as he flipped back through his notes. Victoria had been leaving for an internship.
Maybe Mrs. Trizola didn’t want her to leave—not the club and not her.
Tobias bit and chewed the cookie, using the pause as an opportunity to frame his next question. “It’s my understanding that Victoria had been picking up some extra dancing shifts, and that she was in need of extra money. Do you know why she was needing extra money?”
Mrs. Trizola’s smile grew bright as she slapped her thigh. “That girl was sharp as a tack. I knew that dancing for years would ruin her. It doesn’t ruin all girls, but it wasn’t the way for her. I could see it. So, I set up an internship for her with my nephew. He manages an architectural design firm in Kansas, and they’ve got customers from all around the world.” She waved her hand before her to give emphasis to her words. “Danny—that’s my nephew—he owes me a thing or two for covering for him with his parents when he was a hard-headed teenager drinking and partying too hard.” Her eyes held a sharp glint. “I figured it was time to collect on those favors.”