by Keaton, Elle
Mat’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it. If it was an emergency, Dispatch would call the station. Birdy and Agent Richardson were there, having stayed back to interview Bonnie Cooper instead of accompanying Mat, Holstrom, Klay, and Ferreira to the Prescott residence. Someone needed to stay at the station with Cooper’s ex, and they might as well find out what she knew while they were at it. Mat had handed Richardson the black book, saying, “I know nothing about how this was discovered.”
Agents Gómez and Ferreira had left for the yoga center to talk with Raisa and Francine, and Deputy Radden, whom Raisa had asked to stay, would be sitting in. Birdy had stayed at the station with Bonnie Cooper, who wasn’t under arrest but was also not going anywhere. And somewhere on the island was a stone-cold killer. The was little doubt in Mat’s mind that Prescott had been gunned down by Franjo Petyr, and Mat thought he knew why. Until Petyr had put a bullet through his brain, Prescott must have been one of the few people left who could identify him. Mat suspected that Prescott had known more about Petyr than he’d admitted, and likely that knowledge had been his downfall.
The ambulance sat parked in Prescott’s driveway, its blue and white lights flashing, but it was too late for Paul. He lay in his front room, open eyes staring at the ceiling, a red dot in the center of his forehead. He must not have been expecting Petyr to show up at his house. Perhaps he’d thought Petyr couldn’t find him. Or maybe he’d hoped if he holed up at home, Petyr would forget he existed and just be on his merry way. Mat supposed it was possible the murderer wasn’t Franjo Petyr, but the chances seemed very slim.
Nope.
The lights flickered, and the power went out for a second time. Cody Prescott was waiting in the kitchen for Mat to interview him, while Holstrom guarded the front door. The kid was in a daze. He’d answered their knock without saying anything, just opening the door and pointing to the living room where his uncle’s body lay.
The EMTs, Foster Jennings and Meredith Asher, pushed the gurney inside. They would be transporting Prescott’s body directly to the morgue. There was no reason to bring Marshal out here on a night like this. Ferreira had been taking pictures of the scene, both with and without the body, while he and Klay talked quietly. Mat watched them work, envying their efficiency.
“What do you think, Agent Klay?” Mat asked just as his phone buzzed again. This time he glanced at it. “One second. I need to take this call.” He swiped at the screen. “Niall, we’re still working the Prescott—”
Niall interrupted him. “I’m at Shay’s. We had a bit of a situation, and you and the feds are going to want to get over here. Shay and I are private citizens, and I think there’s a good argument for putting this piece of shit out of my misery.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Franjo Petyr tried to throw a little welcoming party for Shay and me. We took care of it; don’t worry—we’re fine. He’s here and still alive at this point.” Niall rattled off an address the next block over.
“We’ll be right there.” Mat disconnected the call and turned back to Klay. “That was Niall. It sounds like Petyr was waiting for them. I hate being shorthanded like this.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. If only he could clone Birdy or make time speed up so Jorgensen was already on the island.
Klay pulled out his phone. “Sammy can process the rest of the scene and interview Cody Prescott. You keep your deputies with the witness.”
Mat nodded. He had no other choice, and the fact that Klay wasn’t just kicking him off the case was something to be grateful for, at least. Foster and Meredith finished securing the body to the gurney and began to roll it out to the ambulance.
“Let Marshal know you’re on your way.”
Foster nodded, and they disappeared into the dark.
Shay was waiting at the door for them. He opened it wide so Mat and Klay could enter.
Mat did a double take when he saw Niall. An hour ago he’d been fine, but now he looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Blood had trickled down the left side of his face and dried there, one of his eyes was swollen, and he was holding one arm at a funny angle.
“What happened?” Mat demanded, his chest filling with emotion. Niall had a triumphant look in his eye, though—he might be bruised and battered, but Petyr was the one in handcuffs.
“Petyr was waiting for us when we got here,” Niall responded. “He thought he could use Shay to get off the island—honestly, I don’t think he thought it through. And I was a surprise addition.”
“Do you need medical attention?”
Niall shook his head. “Nah, he knocked me on the head, but I have a thick skull.”
“Your arm?”
Niall looked down. “Oh, my arm is fine.” He turned his palm outward and extended it for Mat to see. Curled up in his hand was a tiny, filthy kitten. It was so dirty it was hard to tell what color its fur was.
“A kitten?” Mat squinted at the ball of fur.
Niall nodded. “Fenrir found it and brought it inside.” Fenrir sat on his haunches next to Niall, a pleased expression on his doggy face.
“It’s… alive?”
“Yep. I think I’m naming it Hel. Which is appropriate, because I suspect Fenrir found it at the bottom of the ravine.”
“So it’s really Fenrir’s kitten?” No wonder the dog looked pleased with himself.
“Excuse me.” Agent Klay’s deep voice interrupted them, but Mat thought he detected a glint of humor in his dark eyes. “Let’s focus on this POS.” He nudged Petyr with the toe of his shiny shoe.
“Right.” Mat turned away from Niall. All he really wanted to do was make sure his fiancé was okay, but right now he needed to be the sheriff.
They were still at Shay Delacombe’s rental when the clocks ticked past midnight, and Mat was dead on his feet after a nearly twenty-hour day. He’d managed the last few hours on adrenaline alone—there wasn’t anything much more thrilling than putting a big case to bed. But it wasn’t fully put away yet. They needed to finish interviewing Bonnie Cooper and dig around in Paul Prescott’s finances to fill out the paint-by-numbers murder case.
“Sammy has locked up the Prescott house,” Klay was telling him, “and Gómez is transporting Ms. Cooper to the house we rented for the rest of the night. That way we can keep her safe… and make sure she doesn’t change her mind about sticking around to talk with us. Tomorrow we’ll bring her back to the station and finish interviewing her there. Might as well see if we can get any more information out of her before she lawyers up.”
Mat yawned and didn’t even bother trying to hide it. “It’s been an incredibly long past few days.”
“I imagine. We’d like to get this wrapped up as soon as possible. Can we meet at the sheriff’s office in the morning? Bolic will be here on the first ferry. He’s fluent in Ukrainian and will act as interpreter.”
It was nice of Agent Klay to ask and to keep Mat informed. The feds had total control over the case now. But Klay was playing nice and letting Mat feel like he had a say. And damn if Mat wasn’t glad things were almost over. There were a few loose ends, but he was starting to see the big picture.
“I’ll be there by eight at the latest,” Mat said. “I’ll have Deputy Radden bring Raisa.”
“Have him bring her to the house tonight. She’ll be staying with us as well. No offense, but I don’t want any witnesses to go missing—again. She eluded us once before, and I’d rather not spend another year searching for her. I want this piece of shit put away.”
Mat understood, he did, but it still rankled. He reminded himself that the important thing was putting the perp behind bars. Niall and Shay emerged from the bathroom, where they’d been attending to the kitten—which after a gentle rinse turned out to have faint gray and white stripes and, Niall said, was likely a girl.
“Shay, are you going to be okay? Do you want to stay with us tonight?” It killed Mat to offer, but he thought Shay might feel a bit odd after everything that happened and maybe sh
aky when his adrenaline wore off.
“It’s late. The feds are just across the street. Surely they can keep an eye on my house too. Besides, I think everybody’s been rounded up. There shouldn’t be anyone coming for a visit in the next few hours, right?”
Klay agreed.
Before tackling kitten-bathing duties, Niall and Shay had found some plywood in the garage and nailed it across the broken windows. The weather was being kept outside where it belonged, and there was no chance of an intruder breaking in—at least, not through those windows.
“Pretty sure that’s taken care of my damage deposit,” Shay joked.
Petyr was spending the rest of the night at the Piedras County Justice Center; his wounds weren’t serious enough to merit him staying at the hospital. Mat thought it fitting that Jeffrey Reynolds was getting to have a sleepover with him. They hadn’t connected all the dots yet—hell, the case still looked like a three-year-old’s line drawing—but he had a feeling in his gut that they were gonna have a nicely wrapped package when everything was said and done.
Most of all, Mat was looking forward to at least four hours’ sleep, in his bed, with the man he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Mat wrinkled his nose at the odor permeating the cruiser. “Fenrir needs a bath. What the hell did he get into?”
Niall grimaced, settling himself into the passenger seat of the cruiser with the kitten tucked into his arm again. “No idea. The whole time Shay and I were dealing with Petyr, apparently he was on a mission of his own.”
“Are you sure I shouldn’t be calling Marshal to take a look at your face?”
“My face is fine.”
“It really isn’t. I like it without all the extras. You have a sort of black eye, and there’s still blood in your hairline. Tell me again I shouldn’t call Marshal.”
“You shouldn’t call Marshal. It’s late. Don’t you think he’s been busy enough? We keep bringing him dead bodies to look at. We’re as bad as cats.”
As he turned the key in the ignition, Mat glanced at the kitten again. It looked quite comfortable, blinking sleepily back at him. “I take it we’re keeping it?”
“Its name is Hel. And yes.”
Mat backed the cruiser out of the driveway. “I don’t like it when you get hurt.”
“I don’t like it much either. At least I didn’t get blown up.”
“You’re splitting hairs,” Mat protested. “You did almost get blown up.”
“A building fell on us. Totally different.”
“Are we really arguing about this?” Mat asked.
The empty roadway was half lit by the cruiser’s headlights, the few streetlights doing their best to light the roadway. The wind had died down a bit but was still strong enough to cause branches to slow dance above their heads. A lot more debris had fallen to the ground. Mat saw something in the road ahead. He stopped and got out to pull a cottonwood sapling out of the way.
“No, I’m not arguing. But I think what you were really saying,” Niall said when Mat climbed back into the car and got them going again, “is that you love me.” Damn if the man didn’t sound smug about it too.
“I do.”
26
Sunday–Monday—Niall
“Go shower. Seven is only a few hours from now. I’ll get Hel settled and take a shower when you’re done.”
Really, what he needed was to take Mat into their bedroom and make sure he understood how much Niall loved him, how much he needed him. Mat was something Niall had never expected to have in his life—or even thought he wanted. Before Mat, Niall had been existing. Now he was living, and dammit if some of the living part wasn’t hard shit to process.
The kitten squirmed in his hold. Niall set it down on the floor and watched as it wobbled toward Fenrir’s bed. After sniffing a few times—the dog seriously did need a bath, but Niall wasn’t giving him one tonight—the kitten curled up next to his chest, looking very pleased with herself.
Fenrir let out a whuff and rested his head on his paws, careful not to squish Hel. He didn’t shut his eyes; instead, he watched Niall as if he could sense his inner turmoil.
“What?” Niall said to the dog as he heard the shower turn on.
Fenrir didn’t answer, of course, although most of the time Niall half expected him to. Niall’s gaze fell to the kitten again. The thing was tiny and definitely underfed. Next to Fenrir it was miniscule, and yet it trusted him completely. Hel understood already that Fenrir was its safe place.
“Are you trying to set an example for me? I’m not the one who disappeared into a canyon to rescue a kitten—but yeah, I’d do anything for Mat, so I guess you’re right.”
Niall crossed to the fridge, opened the door, and stared at the contents. Even though Hel appeared to be sleeping, she was probably hungry—and he was going to have to set up a makeshift litter box. He remembered a time when he was ten or eleven and his grandmother had found a kitten. She’d fed it scrambled eggs. The damn cat had grown to be twenty pounds and had still been alive when Niall left for Seattle.
He’d just finished scraping the egg onto a saucer to set on the floor when Mat emerged from the shower with only a towel wrapped around his hips and—Niall hoped—nothing on underneath.
“That’s a good idea,” he said when he saw what Niall was doing.
Niall picked up Hel and placed her next to the dish. She sniffed at it and then began to delicately eat the egg.
“You’re good at that,” Mat said.
Niall frowned and looked at his partner. “Good at what?”
“Taking care of people. Taking care of those you love.”
“I don’t really feel like I am. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done a good job taking care of… people.”
Mat looked at him. His dark blue eyes were guileless and, as was so often the case, seemed to see right down into Niall’s soul—even the parts he tried to hide, the parts he wasn’t proud of, the parts that were scary that he didn’t like to think about. “But you do. You’ve been taking care of me. I’d argue I don’t need it, but I like that you take care of me. Does it bleed over a bit into my job as sheriff, which does put me in some danger? Yes. My job is inherently dangerous, and I like knowing that you have my back, Niall Hamarsson.”
“I thought you were angry with me.”
Hel had finished about half the egg and was waddling back over to tuck in next to Fenrir.
“Oh, I was.” The towel started to slip from his hips and Mat caught it, tucking it in again. “I was angry, but then I thought… if our roles had been reversed, I would have done the same thing. And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, that you would maybe have not felt quite so protective if it hadn’t been Duane Cooper who showed up dead.”
“Maybe.” He picked up the saucer, intending to put it on the counter.
“So, here’s what I want you to do.”
A certain tone in Mat’s voice had Niall swinging around to stare at him.
“I want you to go take a shower and know that I will be waiting for you in bed. There’re only a few hours before I have to be back at the station to meet with the feds and try to sort the rest of this mess out, but I’m fairly sure we’ll be wrapping the case up. It feels like it to me. And if I’m going to be tired anyway, I’d like to also be recalling the epic sex we’re about to have.”
Hell fucking yes.
Mat was waiting, as promised, with his arms crossed behind his head, the covers only half covering him. Niall hadn’t bothered wrapping a towel around himself. He climbed into bed completely naked, sliding his body next to Mat’s and slotting himself where he belonged. “God, you feel good,” he whispered.
“No, you feel good,” Mat whispered back, tugging Niall so he lay partially on top of him.
The lovemaking started slow, as if Mat was new to Niall again. He wanted to remind himself of the valleys and dips of Mat’s body. Tracing and relearning each individual scar, from the old one barely visible under Mat’s chin to the newest
ones from April—even though Niall hated them, they were a reminder Mat was still alive and in his life.
Niall ran his nose along Mat’s shoulder to his neck, breathing him in, filling his lungs with Mat’s essence. One hand drifted downward, seemingly of its own accord, and Niall rubbed one of Mat’s nipples until it was taut.
Mat’s hands caressed Niall’s shoulders before tracing his spine and ending up at the top of his ass, where he teased Niall’s crease. Niall shifted so their erections were lined up against each other.
“Niall.”
Maybe his adrenaline was still elevated from the fight with Petyr, but all Niall wanted was to be inside Mat, making sure he understood how much Niall desired him—needed him. Wanted to mark him as his own. And, as much as he would like to make this last all night, Niall wasn’t going to make it; his cock was already rock hard.
“Niall,” Mat said, a tad more demandingly, “hurry the fuck up. I need you.”
Having his own thoughts mirrored by Mat was like dumping gasoline on a fire. His cock pulsed, and he ground down against Mat’s body. “Prep yourself. I’m too worked up.”
Niall lifted himself onto his knees, fisting his erection as he watched Mat ready his body. Grabbing the lube from the nightstand, Mat dripped some of the liquid into his palm before reaching between his legs. Niall had never been into this type of voyeurism before Mat, but watching his fingers rub around and into his hole as he stretched himself made Niall even harder.
While he was pushing a second and then a third finger inside himself, Mat teased one nipple with his other hand. His cock bounced, and a bead of precome oozed out onto his abs.
“It’s my turn.”
Mat, the love of his life, smiled at him and moved his hand. Crouching, Mat’s legs half draped over Niall’s thighs and Niall’s hands gripping Mat’s hips, he began to slowly push inside. As always, it was incredible: the pressure, the heat of Mat’s body.
“Fucking hurry up—I thought we talked about this,” Mat ground out.