by A. M. Arthur
“I believe you, but I still need to take you down to the station. You were targeted tonight, Mr. Zachary, and we need to find out why in order to keep you safe.”
Targeted. The word struck as sharp as any bullet, and Taz gasped. He wasn’t safe, and he didn’t know why. “I need to call my dad. Can I call my dad first?” Peter would want to know what was happening. Maybe he’d come home where he belonged.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Morrell said.
“Why not?” Taz had his cell on him, and he wasn’t under arrest, so he didn’t need the detective’s permission to make a phone call.
Morrell frowned. “Because right now your father, Peter Callahan, is being held for the murder of Christopher Mayes.”
Chapter Twenty
Taz rode in the back of a police car for the first time in his life, not as a suspect or anyone under arrest, but as a witness. And victim, considering the guy who’d held him at gunpoint—he’d overheard Morrell refer to him as Greene—had at the very least been trying to abduct him. Taz didn’t want to think too hard about why.
He stared out the window as the city went by, seeing none of it, until he was escorted into the police department through a side door. Up a set of stairs. Into a bull pen not unlike the movies, which only added to the surreal vibe of his night. Morrell planted him in a chair next to a desk. Someone left a bottle of water for him, but Taz didn’t drink. He didn’t understand anything.
His dad couldn’t have killed Mayes. It didn’t make any sense.
Except if Taz let himself think on it too hard, it did make a kind of sense. And that horrified him.
So he didn’t think about it. He waited for someone to tell him what to think/feel/believe.
I want Will.
He couldn’t possibly call Will. Not until he knew what was happening. How the hell was he going to tell Will that he was in the police station right now because Peter had murdered a man who’d assaulted Will regularly in the past? And how did they even know Peter had done it?
Eventually another detective—Sutherland, Overland, he didn’t pay attention—came over to record Taz’s statement about the evening. He repeated his steps as best he could, up until the two officers showed up and chased Greene off. When he expressed surprise over the good timing of those officers, the detective shook his head.
“We’ve had you under surveillance for two days now,” he said. “Ever since Callahan came forward.”
Taz startled. Peter had come forward two days ago? He’d confessed to murder? And no one had thought to tell Taz until now?
His expression probably said a lot, because the detective added, “Once Callahan started talking, we needed to keep his boss in the dark as long as possible. Interrupting your daily movements would have been a dead giveaway, but we didn’t want you to be unprotected.”
“I want to see my father,” Taz said. Maybe Peter could make sense of all of this for him. “Is he here?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? I haven’t seen him since July. Please.”
“We need to finish this interview first. How much did you know about his criminal activities?”
“Nothing!” Taz hadn’t meant to shout. “Look, I didn’t even know Peter had been arrested in his early twenties until Detective Morrell told me. Peter didn’t talk to me a lot about his work, and what he did tell me, I took him at his word that it was true. And now you’re telling me he’s a murderer and a drug dealer? None of this makes any sense.”
“That’s because your father is a very gifted liar and con man who was able to lead a double life for a long time.”
Taz raged against the idea that his father had been playing him this whole time. The love had to be real, right? Why do everything he’d done for Taz, from medical support to getting him a job, if it was all an act? “I need to see him. Please.”
The detective pursed his lips, then said, “I’ll see what I can do. Wait here.”
As if he had anywhere else to go in the middle of the night.
People buzzed all around him, the bull pen oddly busy for so late. Then again, they had an active case, and it wasn’t as if he’d ever been inside a police station before. Not like this. Even when he pressed charges for the acid assault, the interviews had either happened at the hospital or his lawyer’s office.
Every once in a while, someone glanced his way, but Taz got good at ignoring them. He pulled out his phone and brought up a picture of him and Will. Jaime had taken it for them a few hours ago, and it was a great picture. The only one he had of the pair of them together. Will was sitting on his lap, and they both had birthday cake crumbs on their faces, but they were smiling.
They were both smiling so hard.
Would Will ever smile at him again after this?
He lost track of time. Eventually Morrell appeared and asked him to follow. He took Taz down a hallway, then opened a door. “You have fifteen minutes,” Morrell said.
Taz blinked, not understanding—until he looked in the room and spotted Peter. He was handcuffed to a metal table, dressed in street clothes, and he looked as worn-out and upset as Taz felt. Taz almost didn’t go in. For as much as he’d demanded this, talking to Peter would make it all too final. Too completely true, and he didn’t want any of this to be real.
Somehow he made his feet move. They carried him to a chair opposite Peter, but he couldn’t make himself sit. Someone shut the door behind him with an audible click.
“I’m so sorry, Taz,” Peter said. “I am so goddamn sorry about all of this. I never meant to hurt you, I swear. Not once. All I ever wanted was to make up for not being there when you were growing up, and now I’ve fucked up your life even more.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening.” Taz looked around the mostly bare room, seeking answers on the blank gray walls and water dispenser in the corner.
“I know.”
He’d asked Peter about his criminal history, about going to jail as a young man. “You lied to me. You said you weren’t a criminal anymore.”
Peter flinched. “I dodged your questions and was vague, so I didn’t have to lie to you. I said I wasn’t that man anymore, and I’m not.”
“How are you not? They arrested you, didn’t they? You’re going back to prison, aren’t you?” Taz hated the slightly hysterical rise of his voice, but his emotions were zinging all over the place.
“I told you the truth when I said I never wanted you to see me as a criminal. I wanted to shield you from all of it, Taz, I swear. Our relationship means the world to me.”
Taz wasn’t sure he believed him anymore. Oh, sure, Peter had shielded him. He’d shielded him from the entire world, teaching Taz to depend on Peter for his every need. Keeping him isolated by supporting his desire to hide from the world. A horrible truth sat in front of him, mocking him with its sharp, biting teeth.
“You kept me like a rat in a cage,” Taz said. “You got me a place to live, a job that let me stay inside. You were my only friend for two years. I needed you for everything, including food and emotional support. I was dependent on you, and I was grateful, because you didn’t look at me like I was a freak.”
Peter looked at the table, and that was all Taz needed to know his words were true. He wanted to believe that Peter had loved him, but he’d also used him. He’d created a son he could visit and dote on and then put away when he was finished so he could go about his regular, daily life.
His criminal life.
And Taz had been oblivious the entire goddamn time.
A fresh kind of anger bloomed hot in his chest, squeezing tight, making it hard to breathe. For the first time in two years, he saw Peter as the stranger he truly was. A man with decades of history he’d kept from Taz. History Taz had, on some level, been afraid to ask about, becau
se he didn’t want to push. He didn’t want to find out the man he hero-worshipped was less than perfect.
He’d known Peter had a past, but he’d never expected it to be so bloody. Or to be connected so strongly to Taz’s relationship with Will.
He knew about Will the whole time.
The thought nearly bowled him over for the second time that night. “You knew Will,” Taz said. “When I said his name the first time, and later when I introduced you two outside Carter House. You knew who he was.”
Peter raised his head, having the decency to meet his eyes when he nodded. “I’d never met him, but I knew the name. I knew his history.”
He knew Will’s past before Taz knew.
“Why did you kill Christopher Mayes?” Taz snapped.
Peter glanced behind him, at the door and a mirror that had to be two-way.
“I’m not wired, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Taz said, his anger compounding. It buzzed across his skin like static. “Tell me. Why’d you kill him?”
“Mayes was a fool,” Peter replied. “After Marjorie Madden was arrested and several of our dealers were taken down with her, Mayes was told to stay out of the city. I didn’t know what he’d been doing to Will, I swear to you. No one in charge did, and when we found out, we nearly killed Mayes then. But we’d lost too many trusted men, so we sent him away. We told him to stay away, and he stayed gone for three years. He came back against orders, and Will recognized him. That made Mayes a liability to the organization.”
Taz tried to wrap his brain around the idea that his father was in charge of other drug dealers. It was just too much to process, so he packed the emotions away for later and focused on the words. “Did your boss order you to kill Mayes to protect your business?”
“No.” Peter blinked several times, leaving his eyes wet. Shining. “I did it for you.”
He reared back, the unexpected words as effective as a slap. “Me?”
“You’d just begun seeing Will. You were happy, son, happier than I’ve ever seen you. My boss hadn’t made a decision on how to handle Mayes going against orders, and I couldn’t risk him deciding that Will needed to be silenced to protect the organization from a new police investigation, so I removed Mayes from the equation altogether. I was trying to protect you both.”
“By killing a man? And then fleeing the state?”
Peter’s shoulders drooped. “I had to leave. My boss was pissed that I acted without his say-so. He wanted me out of the business for a while, so I left.”
“Why’d you come back at all?”
The venom in Taz’s voice made Peter flinch. “Because my boss sent someone to kill me on Friday morning. He failed, but it sent a message. I came back because I was scared he’d target you. I’d been careful to keep you apart from my other life, but I couldn’t be sure. I knew that by turning myself in, I’d secure you police surveillance, at the least.”
Taz snorted. “Guess I should thank you then, huh? Since someone tried to snatch me at gunpoint tonight, but the cops who were following me stopped him.”
Peter shot out of his chair but was kept in place by the handcuffs attached to the metal table. He thumped back into his seat, his eyes wide with shock. “Are you serious?”
“Why the fuck do you think I’m here? The cops had to make sure I didn’t know all about your bloody past.”
“Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right! Are you insane?” Taz gripped the back of the chair in front of him. “I feel like I’m going insane. This is not real life. This kind of shit doesn’t happen out of the blue.” Except it hadn’t been out of the blue. Peter had been a careful con artist, creating a reality for Taz that had become a bubble and a shield.
Until Will had come along and burst that bubble, allowing the real world back in a little bit at a time. Peter claimed he hadn’t known about Will’s abuse while it was happening. It could be another lie, but he seemed sincere. Taz didn’t know what to believe. All he knew for certain was his father was a murderer, and he was connected, however tangentially, to what had happened to Will for two years.
And Peter had allowed Mayes to get away with it for the past three.
“Tell me what I can do,” Peter said. “What can I say or do to make this up to you?”
“Make it up to me?” Taz stared at the man he no longer knew. A sad, rumpled shell of the man he’d called Dad. “You let Mayes run free for three years, knowing what he’d done. You fucking make it up to Will, you son of a bitch.”
“How do I do that from a prison cell?”
“Do you know any of the other people who abused him? Names?”
Peter’s face went blank; he didn’t answer.
Taz wanted to fling his chair across the room, because silence was as good as a yes. “You flip on those people. You make sure they pay for what they did. Then maybe, maybe, I’ll speak to you again.”
“Taz?”
“Goodbye, Peter.”
He spun on his heel and stalked toward the door. It wasn’t locked, so he barged out and down the corridor, back to the bull pen. He paused near the closest desk, confused and overwhelmed and angry. So twisted around he didn’t know what to do next.
“I take it your chat didn’t go well,” Morrell said. He came over with a foam cup of coffee he handed to Taz.
Taz didn’t really drink coffee, but he took it anyway. Something to do with his hands. “I can’t believe how much I didn’t know about him.”
“I know it’s late, and you’re probably exhausted, but do you feel up to a few more questions? Mostly it’s background on your relationship with your father. You’re not a suspect, and you’re not under arrest, but we need this information for our records.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
They returned to Morrell’s desk, and Taz sat through a litany of questions, everything from Taz’s upbringing to the acid attack and meeting Peter to how he first met Will.
“How do you know I’m seeing Will?” Taz asked.
“We’ve had you under surveillance since Friday, remember?”
“Oh.” Right. Fuck, but he was exhausted. He squinted at a clock on the wall. Almost four in the morning.
“To be perfectly honest,” Morrell said slowly, “at first, I didn’t take you dating Will Madden for a coincidence. Considering.”
“I don’t blame you.” It was a huge, horrible coincidence that only added to the surreal nature of his entire night. “Hell, Will didn’t even tell me about his whole past until recently. I can’t believe my dad did this, you know? He lied every time he didn’t tell me the truth. It’s all such a mess.”
“It’s certainly complicated.”
Another topic of tonight’s mess flashed in Taz’s mind. “What about this Greene guy who tried to take me? If the big boss is in custody, who gave him orders?”
“We aren’t certain yet. We suspect he acted alone, but it’s possible he’s been in contact with other associates within the organization. Our theory is that Greene was going to kidnap you and use you against Peter. Perhaps threaten you in order to get Peter to recant his statements and stop cooperating.”
“Thanks for stalking me, then, I guess.”
Morrell kind of smiled. “I’m glad our officers were able to respond quickly and to apprehend the suspect.”
“So what happens now? To me?”
“Under other circumstances, I’d suggest you go home and get some sleep. However, it’s become clear that your father’s enemies know where you live. Is there somewhere else you can go?”
He wanted to see Will, but the sun wasn’t even up yet, and he was pretty sure Carter House had rules about visitors this early in the morning. But he didn’t really know anyone else, other than the people he’d met tonight. And he sure as hell didn’t want to wake his new
friends up at an ungodly hour to ask for a ride to their place so he could crash on their couch for a few hours. Until a reasonable time. Until he could get to Will and try to tell him all about this, because no way was that happening over the phone.
“I don’t have anyone to call,” Taz said.
“No friend or acquaintance who can pick you up?”
“Nobody I’d feel comfortable imposing on.”
“I’m pretty sure you’d be even less comfortable trying to sleep in an interrogation room. There has to be someone.”
In the end, Taz swallowed his pride and called Brendan. He apologized over and over for the random favor of picking him up from a police station at four in the morning, and again for begging the use of their couch. Brendan didn’t ask many questions—are you safe? Can I call anyone else for you?—and then he was on his way.
They didn’t really talk in the car on the drive back to Brendan and Romy’s house. A place he’d left less than seven hours earlier, and now his entire world had shifted off its axis.
Romy was waiting for them in the living room, the couch already done up with sheets and a blanket. “Get some sleep,” he said without any digging or demands for answers. “We’ll talk later.”
“Thank you,” Taz said. “Sincerely, thank you.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
He and Brendan went back upstairs, somehow totally comfortable with allowing a near stranger to crash on their couch for reasons unknown. Taz toed off his sneakers, then stretched out on his back. A glare from the streetlights cast funny shadows on the ceiling that seemed to mock him for his inability to sleep. He was mentally exhausted and emotionally drained, but if he closed his eyes, he’d awake to a brand-new world. A world in which his father was a killer and his boyfriend might never look at him the same way again.
At some point he closed his eyes, because the distant scent of cinnamon woke him to streaming sunlight and soft voices nearby. His entire body was stiff and achy, but his bladder demanded immediate action. Sitting up was easier than he’d anticipated, and he shuffled like an old man to the bathroom under the stairs.