Trick Roller

by Cordelia Kingsbridge

  “What?” she said, her eyes going wide. “That’s impossible. I’d never keep that shit in my house, and definitely not where Mason might get to it—”

  “I’m sorry,” Levi said. “Diana Kostas, you’re under arrest for the murder of Stephen Hensley.”

  “Oh my God,” Dominic said, as Levi toppled off him and collapsed by his side. He stared at the ceiling for a few hazy moments before remembering he still had the condom on. Fumbling it off his softening cock, he tied it in a sloppy knot and tossed it at the wastebasket, making the shot more by virtue of luck than skill. Then he pushed his sweaty hair away from his forehead and looked at the panting man beside him.

  When they’d met up at Levi’s apartment twenty minutes earlier, Levi had torn into him, barely giving him a chance to drop the takeout on the kitchen counter before dragging him into the bedroom and shoving him onto the bed. Levi had been in a vicious mood, but since Dominic knew he wasn’t the cause of it, he’d been happy to let Levi work out his frustrations by riding him like a champion jockey.

  Now that Levi looked less like he was about to snap in half, Dominic rolled onto his side and skimmed a hand up Levi’s thigh to squeeze his hip. “What happened at work to stress you out?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Levi said, though not rudely. He nestled against Dominic’s chest, pressing a kiss to his collarbone. “I’d rather talk about your case. How was last night?”

  “Pretty good. You know how boring surveillance can be.” Dominic smoothed his hand up and down Levi’s back as he spoke. “We’re following this guy whose wife thinks he’s having an affair. He’s been telling her he has a standing Sunday night poker game at a buddy’s house, and that checked out—he went to the right house, there were a bunch of other guys there, and he went straight home after a few hours. No detours.”

  Levi pulled back far enough to look him in the eye. “A poker game? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” said Dominic. He couldn’t resist kissing the tip of Levi’s nose. “It’s not like I saw them playing or anything; I was in the car the whole time.”

  Levi was always concerned about triggering Dominic’s compulsive gambling. The truth was, if Dominic had been forced to watch the men playing poker, it would have been a big problem. At the very least, he would have needed to spend the rest of the night talking himself down. The urge to gamble was just as powerful now as when he’d gone into recovery over two years ago. But none of that had happened, so there was no point in thinking about it.

  “Your guy will turn out to be a cheater, just wait,” Levi said, his voice muffled as he buried his face back in Dominic’s chest. “This is Vegas.”

  It occurred to Dominic that now might be a good time to raise the question of exclusivity between the two of them. The desire for serious commitment in a romantic relationship was totally foreign to him, but he couldn’t deny it was what he wanted with Levi. In the end, however, he was too worried that Levi wasn’t in the same place he was, so he kept his mouth shut and just held Levi in silence while they both wound down.

  Last night really hadn’t been as tedious as it could’ve been. Aubrey had led a crazy life, as exciting and remarkable as her looks were mundane, and her stories had kept them entertained for hours. Plus, though the case seemed frivolous, it was actually quite high stakes—there was a multi-million-dollar prenup hanging in the balance. Dominic would be assisting with surveillance of Geoffrey Rhodes for the rest of the week, or at least until they caught him with his hand in the cookie jar.

  “I need to take a quick shower,” Levi said a few minutes later. He began disentangling himself from Dominic. “I’d invite you to join me, but I don’t think we’d both fit in there.”

  “No problem. I’ll get the food set up.”

  Dominic was on the side of the bed closest to the bathroom, but instead of exiting on his own side and walking around, Levi just climbed over him. This seemed to involve a lot more sliding and rubbing than was strictly necessary, and as Levi got out of the bed, Dominic smacked his bare ass. Levi squawked in mock indignation and retaliated with a back kick, pulling it so his foot only gave Dominic’s hip a hard nudge.

  Chuckling, Dominic watched Levi disappear into the bathroom, then got up himself. He pulled on his boxers and pants but decided to forgo a shirt for now—the apartment was too warm even with the air-conditioning on full blast.

  Levi’s new place had hardwood floors and large windows that let in a lot of natural light, making it seem bigger than it was. The impression of space was emphasized by the fact that he didn’t have much furniture. He’d donated most of his old stuff when he’d moved in with Barclay two years ago, and he’d only purchased the bare essentials for this apartment.

  Dominic ambled into the kitchen to retrieve the sandwiches he’d brought over. He wouldn’t have minded just eating his straight from the wrapper, but he knew Levi would want his on a plate, so he rummaged around in the cabinets for dishes and water glasses. Since he didn’t come here very often—they usually went to his place instead—it took him a couple of minutes to remember where everything was.

  Levi’s taste in home décor ran to contemporary pieces with clean lines and an earthy, neutral color scheme. A sleek table and matching chairs stood in the small dining area off the kitchen, along with an incongruous armoire shoved against one wall—the tall kind with double doors that opened from the middle and two drawers beneath. Dominic had once asked Levi why he kept it out here, and Levi had shrugged and given him a vague answer about it being too big to fit in the tiny bedroom.

  That was true, but the armoire didn’t fit out here either, especially when someone Dominic’s size was trying to maneuver around the table and chairs to clear Levi’s work junk off to one side so they had enough room to eat.

  It might not have been a problem if he hadn’t still been sex-drunk and clumsy. As he was moving some of Levi’s file folders, his elbow caught another pile and sent it teetering dangerously over the edge of the table. He lunged and grabbed them before they fell, but his stumbling momentum carried him sideways, and he banged hard into the armoire.

  He winced at the thumping and rustling sounds of multiple stacks of paper falling over inside. One of the armoire’s doors popped open, creaking under the weight of papers and folders slipping out further every second. He dropped his armful back on the table and hurried to rescue the armoire’s contents before they could plummet onto the floor, shifting both doors wider so he could get a better grip. Of course Levi had to keep files in this thing instead of clothes like a normal person—

  Dominic lifted his head, blinked twice in astonishment, and gaped.

  The inner walls and doors of the armoire were plastered with graphic crime scene photographs, maps, and newspaper clippings, all focused on the Seven of Spades. There was the first-ever Las Vegas Review-Journal article on the subject, its headline blaring SERIAL KILLER LOOSE IN LAS VEGAS, and every related article since, including the one declaring Keith Chapman guilty of the murders. Colorful pushpins dotted maps of the Las Vegas Valley, tracking every known movement of the Seven of Spades—their five crime scenes, the hotel where they’d intervened to help Dominic protect Levi from Drew Barton’s attack, the community baseball field in Boulder City where he and Levi had found Chapman having a meltdown. Everything in sight was marked up and underlined and scribbled over with Levi’s spiky handwriting.

  More papers were heaped on the bottom of the armoire, some stuffed inside folders and others left loose. It was no wonder they’d unbalanced when Dominic had bumped into the thing; the stacks were haphazard and crooked, a few far taller than the others for no reason he could discern. Levi’s notes were even denser on these. He’d made himself goddamn spreadsheets and charts, for fuck’s sake.

  Dominic had known Levi planned to pursue this case on his own, even after his sergeant had ordered him not to, but this was no standard investigation. This was an obsessive shrine.

  He felt Levi’s presence behind him mo
re than he heard him; Levi moved like a cat when he was barefoot. Slowly, Dominic turned around.

  Levi stood a few feet away, dressed in trousers and a fresh shirt. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and a bead of water trickled down the side of his face from his wet hair. He glared at Dominic as if he were wishing he could burn a hole right through him by sheer force of willpower.

  “I didn’t mean to snoop,” Dominic said. Privacy was important to Levi, and if he wasn’t completely honest now, the results would be disastrous. “I accidentally knocked over the papers inside the armoire. I was just trying to keep them from falling out when I saw . . . this.”

  Levi’s rigid posture didn’t relax in the slightest. “I shouldn’t keep it out here, but I didn’t know where else to put it.” It wasn’t clear whether he meant the armoire itself or all the craziness inside. Probably both.

  Dominic glanced over his shoulder and then back at Levi, at a loss for words.

  “I thought you believed me that the Seven of Spades is still out there,” Levi said. His voice was sharp and cold.

  God, Dominic hated seeing him like this. He and Levi had known each other in a distant, professional sense for years before the Seven of Spades case had taught them that they didn’t really know each other at all. It had been months since Levi had subjected him to this frosty-eyed, prickly façade he wore around everyone else—around people he didn’t trust. Dominic couldn’t bear it.

  “I do believe you,” he said. “I’ve always believed you. But Levi . . . part of you must know that this isn’t healthy. How much time have you been spending on this?”

  “All of it,” said Levi, his gaze unflinching. “Whenever I’m not at work, or the gym, or with you, I’m here, working this case.”

  “Oh my God.” Dominic scrubbed a hand down his face. When he looked up, he saw Levi retreating even further into himself, opening his mouth, no doubt about to kick Dominic out on his ass. “Wait. I’m not judging you, and I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job or control what you do with your time. I’m just worried. I want to understand—help me understand.”

  A muscle jumped in Levi’s jaw. He glanced away, his aloof aura cracking a bit. “The day after Keith killed himself, Martine said I couldn’t accept he was the killer because it meant I’d never have closure—he’d never be able to tell me why he specifically singled me out. She had a point. You and I agreed that the Seven of Spades is probably someone I know, or at least someone who knows me.” He drew a shaky breath. “Every single day, I have to wonder if each person I’m talking to and working beside is a serial killer. It drives me crazy that I could be looking right at them and not know. It gnaws at me all the time, and people make jokes but it’s not funny—”

  “I know,” Dominic said, stepping forward to put his hands on Levi’s shoulders. He wanted to hug him, but he didn’t know if Levi would accept that in his current state. “It’s awful. I’m sorry.”

  Levi stood still for a moment, vibrating with tension. Then he sighed and tipped forward against Dominic’s chest, his arms falling to his sides as he rested his head on Dominic’s shoulder. Dominic wrapped him up, gave him a squeeze, and kissed the top of his head.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s sit down and eat, and you can tell me what you’ve been working on.”

  While they settled at the table with their sandwiches, Dominic berated himself for being so oblivious. How could he not have realized how deeply this case was sucking Levi under? This obsession had been building for months, and he hadn’t noticed. He’d known the Seven of Spades’s clean getaway troubled Levi—hell, it troubled him too—but he’d had no idea Levi’s anxieties had become so all-consuming.

  In the course of his investigation, Levi had reinterviewed every witness even tangentially connected to the five murders, reanalyzed every piece of evidence, reevaluated every lead. One of the victims, Benjamin Roth, had been left in a car full of empty liquor bottles—the killer’s pointed reference to his drunk driving—and Levi had contacted every liquor store in the area looking for anyone who’d purchased in bulk. He’d compared each name on the building security logs from one of the crime scenes to a list of people in the Las Vegas Valley who had a history of committing violence motivated by justice or self-righteousness. He’d personally run down every person who had known about the supposedly secret investigation into Phillip Dreyer’s embezzlement and fraud, looking for a leak, only to discover the investigation hadn’t been so secret after all.

  Levi had even delved deeper into Los Avispones, the street gang the Seven of Spades had paid to knock over several veterinary clinics in the Valley for their ketamine. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s a dead end, though,” he said, after swallowing a mouthful of roast beef. “That arrangement existed purely to frame Keith. I suspected from the beginning that the Seven of Spades might be obtaining their ketamine through legal channels, and I still believe that’s the strongest possibility.”

  “How difficult would that be?” Dominic asked.

  “For someone this intelligent?” Levi shrugged one shoulder. “Not very. Ketamine is a legal substance; it’s just controlled. If you were able to forge the right paperwork, maybe have someone on the inside to grease the wheels . . . a clever person could pull it off. I’ve been looking into it, but it’s the proverbial needle in the haystack. I can’t even be sure they’re getting the ketamine in Nevada instead of another state. Plus . . .”

  “You don’t know they’re still getting it at all,” Dominic finished for him. The Seven of Spades hadn’t killed anyone since Keith Chapman’s death—at least not with their old MO.

  Levi glumly pushed his half-eaten sandwich away. Dominic almost protested, but thought better of it; Levi hated being pressured to eat.

  “These are your suspects so far?” he said instead, picking up a thick sheaf of stapled papers. It was a printout of an Excel spreadsheet with each included person’s connection to the case thoroughly documented. Still, he didn’t know how helpful it would be, because it looked to contain half the LVMPD and a third of the DA’s office.

  “Yeah.”

  Dominic frowned as he flipped through the spreadsheet. “Hey, how come that loudmouth asshole you work with isn’t on here? Gibbs?”

  “Oh, come on,” Levi said with a contemptuous snort. “He’s an impulsive, tactless idiot. No self-control at all.”

  “That could be an act.”

  Levi rolled his eyes, but Dominic lifted a hand before he could respond.

  “I know I said the same thing about Chapman, and I was wrong then. Nobody could fake being that ill for so long. A personality like Gibbs’s, though? That could all be for show. It might even be fun for someone with a certain type of psychopathy.”

  Levi’s brow creased as Dominic’s words sank in. He chewed on his lower lip and stared into space, obviously deep in thought, while Dominic returned to the list.

  “That rookie cop you liked isn’t on here either,” Dominic said a couple of minutes later. “The one who leaked the Seven of Spades story to the Review-Journal.”

  “Kelly Marin? Be serious, Dominic.”

  “I am.” He dropped the spreadsheet and met Levi’s eyes. “You can’t rule people out based on your personal opinions of them. You have almost nothing to go on to begin with. The only people you can really exclude safely are—”

  “The ones who were in the room when the Seven of Spades called me. Yes, I know that.”

  “Were either Gibbs or Marin there the first time?” Dominic knew they hadn’t been there for the second call, because he’d been present for that one himself.

  “No.” Covering his face with both hands, Levi let out a low, frustrated groan.

  Dominic reached out and tugged one of his hands away. “You’re an amazing detective, Levi, but this case is too personal for you. Most of these suspects are people you work closely with every day. You’re gonna miss things if you don’t have someone helping you out.”

  “Sounds
like you’re volunteering,” said Levi.

  “Of course I am. I won’t pretend to be impartial myself, not after everything that happened, but I’m not emotionally invested in these people the same way you are.” Dominic hesitated, then asked, “Did you really think I wouldn’t help you?”

  “I . . .” Levi toyed with the crust of his abandoned sandwich. “No. I knew you’d help me if I asked, no matter what you thought of it. I kept this a secret because I was embarrassed. I can’t control the way this whole Seven of Spades thing is affecting me, and I don’t like that about myself.”

  Dominic understood. How much had he told Levi about his compulsive gambling, after all? Nothing more than the most basic details—not because he was worried Levi would reject him, but because he was so ashamed of his addiction and the things it had driven him to do that it was painful to talk about even with people he trusted.

  “I get it,” he said, and left it at that. “What’s your next step?”

  “Dr. Tran.”

  It took Dominic a second to place the name. “Chapman’s psychiatrist?”

  “Yes. I’ve always thought it was suspicious that she kept him on those antipsychotics even though he was so physically ill. We know now that he was being poisoned—she would have had plenty of opportunity to do that, and even if she didn’t, why did she ignore his side effects? She brushed off all of Natasha’s concerns every time Natasha reached out to her. Apparently that’s not such an unusual dynamic between psychiatrists and social workers, but still.”

  Dominic nodded thoughtfully. “You have a plan?”

  “Six weeks ago, I made an appointment with Dr. Tran for myself under a fake name.”

  “What?” Dominic said with a startled laugh. That sounded like something he would do. “Really?”

  “I figured I could subtly feel her out, get a sense of who she is as a doctor and a person. See if there’s anything there that merits further investigation.”

  Dominic imagined Levi sitting stiffly in a psychiatrist’s office, pretending to be someone he wasn’t, and cringed. No way that would end well. “Nobody there knows what you look like, right? Maybe I should do it instead.”