by Max Hudson
Jack’s hand blurred over Tyler’s cock, and he could feel his partner’s response to his own release. Hips jutted, Tyler’s cock flinched and flexed in Jack’s grip as Jack’s own wad inspired Tyler’s. It was as if Jack’s own white spike was passing through Tyler’s body and exiting through the tawny blonde’s long, pink cock. The two men were one, their juices combined, the moment shared between them timeless, suspended, everlasting.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning, beleaguered Rachel Cafferty was once again on the TV screen in Senator Sommers' office, Jack watching from the chair in front of the desk.
Rachel Cafferty was tearful, glum and huddled on her familiar couch.
“I understand that portions of a certain letter my husband wrote to me have been circulated, mostly by word of mouth. That’s not fair and it’s not accurate. So to help curtail this sad smearing of my husband’s good name, I will admit that, according to that letter, my husband was in fact seeing a lover on the side, outside of our marriage and without my knowledge.”
The reporters murmured but quickly hushed, cameras zooming in to catch as much of the widow Cafferty’s misery as possible. That was money in the bank.
She went on, “He did not say who this person was, or how long it had been going on. But it was his sense of shame, that he had violated the sanctity of our marriage, that drove him to do what he did. That’s enough for me, and it should be enough for all of you.”
One reporter asked, “Are you participating in the investigation?”
“Of course we’re co-operating with the authorities. But I don’t think anything further will come of the investigation. My husband’s death was a suicide and I believe that’s all there is to it. Now can you just leave me and my family in peace?”
Senator Sommers' hit the mute button again. “What do you think about that?”
Jack shrugged. “Not too surprising, I suppose.”
“Well it shouldn’t be surprising! I told you it was blackmail a week ago!”
“Senator, aren’t we jumping to that conclusion? If he felt ashamed, guilty —”
“Or if he knew for sure the truth was going to come out. That’s why people kill themselves, Jack, at least here in Washington. It’s not because they’ve done something wrong, but because they’re about to get caught.”
Jack gave it some thought. “It’s a big city. There are lots of people could have found their way into the senator’s bed. To assume it was somebody from Senator Douglass’ team —”
“I don’t think it was,” Senator Sommers said. “That hardly matters now anyway.”
“Glad to hear you say it.”
“I’m not saying he isn’t; we can’t be sure. What I do know? It’s Tabitha, Jack, obviously, it’s Tabitha!” Jack blanched, but Senator Sommers rolled his eyes. “Think about it, Jack; where the hell is she? People reported she was acting strangely, panting in the lobby, running around like a maniac.”
It only then occurred to Jack that he hadn’t seen her that day, or for a few days previous. “I’ve been out of the office on your … liaison project.”
“And she knew that. She knows everything that’s going on around here.”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck, muscles tightening as his brain only got more baffled. “I can believe she was sleeping with Cafferty, I suppose. But why would she be blackmailing him?”
“For money, for power, advancement, Jack! She was already making noise about leaving the team. And now she’s dropped out of sight entirely? No, it’s too much to chalk up to coincidence.”
“If she wanted power and advancement, why not just sleep with you?” Senator Sommers recoiled a bit, an awkward silence on his stammering lips. Jack said, “Really?”
The senator shook his head. “No, Jack, no, not that she didn’t try. That’s why I warned you about her. And it’s also the reason I stayed away, one of the many. C’mon, Jack, it’s bros before hos, you know that. Anyway, I’m pretty sure my wife wouldn’t have approved.”
Jack gave it some thought, scratching his forehead. “Then where do you suppose Tabitha is?”
“Don’t know,” Senator Sommers said. “Could be in an interrogation room somewhere, or she’s already cashed out and she’s on some stretch of beach in Mexico.”
Jack shrugged. “We should probably go to the Secret Service, tell ‘em what we know.”
“We don't know shit they don’t already know, Jack.” Senator Sommers shook his head as he paced around the office. “No, that’s no good.”
“Then what do you think?”
“Go to her apartment, I know you know where it is. See if you can find anything. A clue as to where she might be, anything.”
“You don’t think those special agents would have dragged that place with a fine-toothed comb?”
“Probably at one point. Who knows what they missed, or what’s changed since they were there last. It’s fifty-fifty either way you slice it. It’s gotta be worth a shot.”
Jack shook his head. “I dunno, isn’t that tampering with evidence, or what?”
“It’s not evidence if she’s not being investigated.”
“But we don’t know that she isn’t.”
“We don’t know that she is. And if we can find evidence that puts her behind all this, we have to do it before somebody else finds it. This way we’ll be the ones who solved it instead of the ones who caused it. Remember the court of public opinion. It’s the only way to save our own skins, Jack!” Jack sighed, unable to argue the point any further. Senator Sommers said, “Be quick about it, and come right back with whatever you find.”
Jack nodded and made it to the office doors before Senator Sommers added, “Good luck, Jack.” Jack tried to smile, but he had a terrible feeling that he’d need all the luck in the world, and even then, it wouldn’t be enough.
Jack took a cab to Tabitha’s apartment. He happened to have a key, but it was strictly for emergencies. Neither he nor Tabitha anticipated that he’d ever be coming or going that often, or ever on his own.
But he did call her on the way over, casually suggesting that they meet somewhere for a chat so he wouldn’t accidentally tip off that he was on his way over there, just in case.
Jack’s stomach turned as she rode the elevator up to the sixth floor. Once there, he peered out of the opened elevator door before stepping into the empty hall.
Jack stepped closer to Tabitha’s apartment door, his nerves jangling under his sweating skin. Jack arrived at the door and knocked, a bit too quietly. Getting no answer, he knocked again and said, “Tabitha, it’s me!”
Still no answer, so Jack pulled out his keys, and took one last look around before opening the door and sliding into the apartment, quick to close the door behind him.
Tabitha’s little apartment was pleasant, modestly decorated with a few plants in the corners, a few prints on the walls. The place was quiet and still, the hairs on the backs of Jack’s arms standing on end as he stepped into the living room.
Something told Jack that he wasn’t alone in that apartment, but he didn’t smell Tabitha’s distinctive perfume, which made him think that she wasn't there, at least not anymore.
Jack stepped quietly into the hall, peering around the dark, empty apartment. He approached the bedroom, blood running cold to imagine what he was going to find on the other side of that door.Did they already get her, rape her and leave her body beaten on the bed?
But … who are they anyway?
Jack ran out of time to think about it, the bedroom doorknob cold in his sweating palm, slippery around the round metal. Jack steadied himself and twisted the knob, pushing the door open in front of him and ready to face whatever or whoever was on the other side.
Jack sighed to peer around and see the room, empty and quiet, nothing out of sorts. Jack crept over to the closet, hand reaching for the handle. He hesitated, knowing there could be somebody hiding in that closet, somebody who wouldn’t hesitate to kill to protect his identity, or for
any number of other reasons.
He slid the door open and jumped back, but there was nothing but several dresses and skirts hanging on plastic hangers.
Jack sighed and peered into the closet, then to the shelf above the clothes.No suitcase,he reasoned. Still, doesn’t mean she left of her own free will.
Jack walked around the bed to a nightstand with two drawers. Inside the top drawer,he found several pens, paperclips and rolls of Scotch tape. In the lower drawer, he found a pink book with a matching strap across the open side and a small metal lock, the wordsMy Diary printed in golden letters on the cover.
Jack slid the diary into his jacket pocket and glanced through the bottom drawer for anything more, but a thunk in the living room got his attention, and Jack stiffened, blood running cold in his veins.
Jack crept slowly down the hall.If it’s Tabitha, she’ll have every right to be pissed off, not to mention terrified. If it's not, then I’m the one who should be terrified.
And once Jack stepped into the living room and those cold guns clicked, cocked and ready, Jack knew which alternative he was facing. Certain that those guns were about to go off, Jack could only raise his hands, feet still and motionless beneath him. He had no reason to think it would save his life.
Chapter Twelve
The two men wore black suits, one with brown, well-kept hair and the other with a jagged scar across his left cheek. Each held a gun on Jack, the one with the scar saying, “Hands behind your head.” Jack complied, and the man instructed coolly, “turn around.”
Jack knew what was coming next, and when he felt one of the man’s hands lock around his wrist to crane it backward, he knew he’d be cuffed. But the men hadn’t announced themselves as officers or special agents, and they hadn’t shown any ID.
Jack was confident they weren’t going to be taking him downtown for questioning.
So just before that cuff closed on his wrist, Jack spun. A windmill pass with his other arm knocked the scar’s grip loose. Once both his hands were free, Jack could grab the scar’s gun with one hand and knock him back with a strike to the sternum, the ball of his hand sending the scar-faced man stumbling backward.
Jack’s foot leapt out from below, a roundhouse kick that sent the gun flying out of the other man’s hand. Jack smashed the butt of the gun he’d retrieved into the second agent’s face and his neat, brown hair was suddenly flecked by droplets of his own blood.
The man snapped back and Jack looked around, the last man standing. He knew it was suicide to finish off either one of those men, as they were almost certainly government spies. Getting out with his life and the diary would have to do.
Jack ran down the hall and into the stairwell. He tripped over his own feet, nearly toppling and rolling down the stairs but barely managing to stay on his feet.
Jack made it to the lobby of the apartment building and ran across, past the desk, not daring to look back. He tore out of the front door and onto the street, one hand on the diary in his jacket pocket, one hand wrapped around that stolen gun.
Bam! Bam! People screamed and Jack ran faster, knowing his adversaries were on his tail. He turned to aim and fire back, but here was nobody in sight. He knew then that they were shooting at him from Tabitha’s apartment window, and that he was completely exposed.
Jack turned and ran just before several more shots rang out, kicking up chunks of concrete from the sidewalk where he’d just been standing. Jack turned and cut down a smaller street, ninety degrees and a beeline headed away from Tabitha’s apartment. Jack’s heart was aching, blood threatening to burst through his veins, his lungs dry from panting. Being more or less on the run for days was taking its toll, and Jack knew it.
Jack turned hard and shot down another long, lean street, putting more and more distance between himself and men who were hunting him down to kill him, right there and then.
Jack turned and bolted down another street, feet slipping in the gutter as he tried to cut another corner. Pedestrians glared at him, but most just went on about their day, completely disinterested.
But Jack turned another hard right and smashed right into a cluster of dogs, each on its own leash, a young woman holding the leashes. Jack hit the leashes hard, pulling the dog walker off her footing and causing the dogs to throw out a cacophony of barking and howling.
“Sorry,” Jack stammered as he tried to pull himself free, glancing behind him as the dogs kept barking. A police siren was soft in the distance, but it was getting louder fast. “Shit! Sorry, sorry!”
Jack managed to get himself loose and run like hell down yet another street, every angle giving him some slender hope of escape.
Jack spotted a bus stop not far off, a big transit public bus just pulling up to it. Jack’s legs sprang him toward the bus, mind scattered as he crossed against a traffic light, cars skidding and honking around him. But even though one little roadster came close to hitting him, Jack made it across the street and to the bus just as the doors were closing with that fateful hydraulic hiss. But Jack pulled at the doors and the driver had mercy on him, opening the door just as the police sirens became nerve-shatteringly and ear-splittingly close.
He climbed in and the bus pulled off. Jack checked through his pockets, pulling out his wallet. He only had fives and tens. Jack asked, “How much is it?”
The driver looked at him, impatient and disinterested. “Dollar sixty-five.”
“Um, okay, I’ve got five bucks. Will that do?”
“Exact change only, sir.”
“Yeah, I get that, but I don’t carry change like that, I didn’t really think I’d have to take the bus. And who carries change around, right?”
The driver just looked Jack up and down. “Exact change only, sir.”
Jack looked at the driver, then back at his own wallet. Still holding the five, he pulled out a ten as well. The driver looked at the bills, then grabbed them and shoved them into his pocket.
“Back behind the yellow line, sir.”
Jack was happy to accommodate.
Chapter Thirteen
“Jack!” Tyler stepped back as Jack stumbled into the apartment. “What’s going on?”
“I wish I knew,” he said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Oh bullshit, you’re fine. What’s going on here?”
Jack told Tyler everything, from the fight at Tabitha’s apartment backward, through the theories of her disappearance, Senator Vance’s suicide, and back to what they were going to do next.
Tyler looked at the diary on the coffee table. “I don’t know about this, Jack. I think it’s criminal somehow.”
“It is,” Jack said. “But it could be the only way we’ll know for sure what happened to Tabitha.”
“What do think might have happened to her?”
“Murder, Jack, I think she might have been murdered. And before she was, I think she and whoever killed her set me up to take the fall. And I think that diary tells the whole tale.”
Tyler looked at the diary, eyes wide, breath short. “Maybe we should burn it.” Jack looked at Tyler skeptically, but Tyler said, “If we tear it open, there’ll be signs of tampering. But if the whole thing just disappears —”
“I don’t know, Tyler. Why didn't the special agents find it before? They searched the place, they definitely would have found it.”
Tyler gave it some thought. “Unless they planted it for you to find?”
“How would they know I’d be there?”
“What difference does it make who finds it?”
“Then why would they take the chance that I would find it?”
Tyler could only shake his head. “Wish I could tell ya, buddy.”
Jack ran his fingers through his black hair, Tyler setting his hand comfortingly on his shoulder. “I’m glad to see you again, feels like it’s been a while.”
Jack shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”
“So I see.” After a quizzical moment, Tyler asked, �
��Who were those men, do you think, who attacked you?”
Jack shook his head. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Whoever hired those goons has something to do with Senator Cafferty’s infidelity, the blackmail, poor Tabitha’s murder.”
“We don’t know that,” Jack was quick to say. “She could be hiding out somewhere. Or she could be kidnapped, tucked away in some closet or the trunk of somebody’s car.” Jack shook his head to rid his imagination of that horrifying thought.
Instead, Jack reflected on something even more unsettling. “Senator Sommers thinks you or maybe Senator Douglass is behind it.”
Tyler sighed, looking way but unable to resist facing Jack. “Senator Douglass thinks the same about you and your team.”
The pounding fell hard on the door, muffled voices shouting on the other end. But the time Jack and Tyler were on their feet, the door flew open and several uniformed police officers spilled into the apartment. Special Agents Hathaway and Sellars brandishing guns and badges.
The officers fell upon Jack and Tyler, and neither one resisted.
To Jack’s surprised relief, the Special Agents didn't simply open fire on them, as they certainly could have gotten away with doing. Instead, two police officers entering the apartment behind them rushed Jack, spun him around and smashed him up against the wall.
“You have the right to remain silent,” one of the officers said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have a right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided you free of charge. Do you understand these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Do you know what you're being arrested for?”
“I do not,” Jack said, dreading the answer.
But it was Special Agent Hathaway who answered, as if he couldn't wait to do so. “Obstruction of justice, evidence tampering, conspiracy to commit blackmail, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder in the first degree.”