by Aiden Bates
He stepped on his own toe. People didn't do that anymore. They probably hadn't done that then.
He examined both of the jewelry pieces. Unlike the remaining outliers, these two items had no evidence of the fire on them. The silver watch bore some tarnish, but no ash or smoke. There were only two explanations. Either the crime scene technicians had cleaned these pieces of evidence, contrary to every protocol that had existed even back then, or the items hadn't been in the fire.
Someone had come back to the fire and put them there.
He exhausted every means at his disposal to get fingerprints from either find, but none showed up. He didn't expect them to. Fingerprints had about a forty-year shelf life, and these had been sitting in plastic for fifty. If the techs in 1967 hadn't been able to pull prints then, he wasn't going to be able to get them now. Still, there had to be some kind of clue there.
Well, he didn't have to find it today. He took several photos of the outliers, returned everything to storage, and returned to his desk to document his findings. By the time he'd finished, and cleaned up after himself, nine o'clock had come and gone. He yawned and stared at his monitor for a moment.
He had two options here. He could wait until morning and present the information to Sam in person, showing off his work and his knowledge. Or he could just send his report to Sam, and to Nina. That way he could leave a paper trail to show that he had indeed been working, that he hadn't just spent the entire day sulking.
He decided that sending the report electronically was probably the better option. He hit send and took his bike home. Jake was out by the time he'd gotten home, leaving a note on the bathroom mirror telling him not to wait up.
Oliver fixed himself some soup and headed to bed. If he'd had any illusions about Sam, or his intentions, or any future they might have had together, they were gone now. The only person to reach out to him on his phone had been Jake, inviting him to come out with him.
Oliver huddled alone in his bed, pressed against the red brick exterior wall. He'd acknowledged that he needed to grow up, but he hadn't realized how cold it would feel.
***
Sam's hand hovered over his phone a dozen times the day after he and Oliver made love. He pulled it away every time. What was he supposed to say to him? Sorry I took your virginity; you shouldn't have done that? You gave me the best sex of my life, and I can't stop scrubbing myself because I feel like such a dirty old man? Thanks for the sex, let's never do it again?
He needed to find someone he could talk to. Unfortunately, he had no confidants. His time with Internal Affairs had blown up every good relationship he'd had at the state police, and these guys in Cold Case were so incredibly young. Ideally, he'd find someone who could also talk to Oliver and explain the situation to him, but the thought of another alpha speaking to Oliver ever again made Sam want to punch things and maybe kick a few doors down. He didn't suggest it.
There wasn't anything to say, anyway. He'd been mooning around after Oliver for three years now. None of the things that had kept him back then had changed now that he knew what it felt like to hold Oliver in his arms. Oliver hadn't magically gotten older. Sam hadn't found the Fountain of Youth in the sweat on Oliver's smooth skin.
He needed to stay away.
When he got a text from Jake, just after quitting time, he cringed. You're a dick, his son told him.
Sam couldn't argue. He still wasn't about to take that attitude from his son, and his omega son at that. I'm your father. You'll show me some respect. And stay out of my love life.
I'm not in your "love" life, and you can't call what you did to Oliver love.
Sam called Jake after that, torn between terror and rage. "What the hell is he telling you?" he snarled into the phone.
"Nothing. He's certainly not disparaging you, anyway." Jake yawned. Sam wasn't fooled. "Let me share a quote with you though. 'I've been thinking of sex as some kind of big, special, wonderful thing. It's time for me to grow up. There's nothing special about it at all, is there? There's not even really any emotion attached, not for anyone over eighteen.' He's gone from feeling positive about saving himself for someone special, who would appreciate what Oliver was giving him, to thinking that only children think that there's any emotion attached to sex at all. In one night. Let me guess what changed in that one night? Oh, right. That would be you."
Sam sat down with a heavy sigh. "I'm so not talking about this with you."
"You called me." Jake's voice was colder than ice. "He's the sweetest guy I know. And he just about thought that you hung the moon. And you treated him like a throwaway. Just… ugh."
"I didn't mean to. I just—I don't have to justify myself to my son." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to think of some way to calm his racing pulse.
"Replace that don't have to with can't and you'll be a little bit closer to the truth. Got to go." Jake hung up.
Few things infuriated Sam as a parent more than being hung up on by his son, and at another time he might have called Jake back and lit into him. Right now, though, he couldn't deny that Jake was right. There wasn't likely to be much that he could do to justify his behavior in his son's eyes. He could barely justify it in his own.
He'd never hoped that Oliver felt the same way about him that he felt about Oliver. In the few moments when he'd allowed his fantasies to go there, he'd had to admit that no good could possibly come of it. When they'd been in the heat of the moment, he hadn't thought beyond the now or his need. Once the moment had passed, he'd thought only of his own remorse. He'd thought only of how wrong it was, to keep Oliver around for himself when Oliver should be with someone younger.
He'd suspected that Oliver would be hurt, mildly, when Sam let him go. Heartbreak like what Jake was describing hadn't been something he'd considered at all. He hated the thought of giving pain to Oliver, someone who had given him such perfect trust, but he couldn't see a way around it.
He lay awake a long time that night, staring at the ceiling.
He got to the office the next morning and found Oliver's message in his inbox. For a moment he bristled. He'd figured that Oliver would be too professional to go sending messages on work systems. Then he noticed the subject line—Outlying Items Found at Cooper Block Fire—and that Oliver's supervisor had been cc'ed on the message.
Sam needed to get his head out of his ass. Oliver knew his job better than anyone else. Sam needed to figure out a way to focus on his.
He read through the report. Oliver was almost obsessive about documenting his process, but that was par for the course for these crime scene guys. Jake had explained that to Sam once. If they didn't document even the tiniest part of the process, everything they'd done could be challenged and thrown out in court. Once Sam had mentally tuned out all of the parts where Oliver described how he'd cleaned the workspace and changed his gloves over and over, he could cut to the part that he needed.
Apparently someone had found, among other things, two pieces of men's jewelry among the ruins of the Cooper Block. Crime scene photos showed that the watch and ring hadn't been found on any of the human remains, or in a position to indicate that they'd been in a pocket. Instead, they'd been placed carefully on a brick, after the fact.
Sam's blood ran cold after he read those words. The watch and ring were expensive. No random wino had just stumbled over and tossed the jewelry onto the ruins just for giggles. Those pieces would have been placed there to send a message. The person sending the message would have had to slip in with all of the first responders, once the fire had been contained enough to keep the metal intact.
He sent both Oliver and Nina a meeting request to discuss the new information. Before he hit send, he added Ray Langer to the meeting request. He could use a good, steady presence to help him keep his behavior on the right side of the line between appropriate and offensive. He knew that he could be churlish at the best of times, and he was so twisted up right now he didn't think he could trust himself.
Nina and Oliver a
ccepted the request without further comment. Langer accepted the request, but then he walked over to Sam's desk and sat on it.
"I sent a meeting request, not a request for a close encounter between your ass and my blotter." Sam glared up at his friend.
Langer gave him a cheesy grin. "Aren't you just a lucky little troll? I like to give a little something extra to all of my clients. Look, Sam, it's not like you to ask for a chaperone. Especially when your objet d'amour's boss will be right there."
Sam grimaced and pushed his chair away from his desk. "Can you please never refer to him that way again? He's an omega, not a fleshlight."
"Oh ho! Sensitivity from the notorious Sam Nenci! Who would have thought?" Langer flipped his pen up into the air, but failed to catch it and let it clatter to the floor.
"It's complicated, okay?"
"It's probably not half as complicated as you think it is." Langer smirked. "And it's not worth giving yourself a permanent hunch. Relax. Unhunch those shoulders. There you go. Talk to Uncle Ray. Tell me all about it."
"I'm not here to give you a fresh source of gossip, Langer." Sam scowled, but he rolled his shoulders. He hadn't realized just how much he'd bunched them up.
"Of course not. It's not like you four didn't gossip amongst yourselves when I claimed Doug. And it's not like we haven't been gossiping about you and Oliver for three years." Langer waved his hand. "Talk to me. I realize that you're not a big fan of others' opinions, but it does help you to get some clarity."
Sam grumbled, but he could see Langer's point. He was too close to the situation. He explained what had happened the other night, and how Jake had told him how Oliver had responded. As Sam spoke, Langer's face grew grave, and then it darkened. "Okay, so you just basically kicked him out after you acknowledged that you were his first time."
"Why is everyone hung up on that?" Sam leaned his chair back and stared at the ceiling. "I mean, he was awfully eager. He can't have been that attached to it, or that committed to saving himself for his alpha."
Langer snorted. "Anyone who's spent five minutes in this place knows how he feels about you. He'd have done anything for you. Doug picked up on it in like half a second. And by the way, when Pretty Boy finds out about it, I think you might want to take to wearing your vest around the office full time. He's awfully protective of Oliver, and he uses a picture of you for target practice."
Sam snorted. "I can take Pretty Boy. And okay, I didn't handle that well. But better that I should let him be a little hurt now than let him be too attached later, right?" He picked his head up. "I mean there's no way I can claim him. He's younger than my sons."
"By a few months, Nenci." Langer shook his head. "That's not the important thing."
"Isn't it? I can't claim him. When I die, he'll die within a few weeks. He's so young! He's got his whole life ahead of him!" Sam stood up. "I can't do that to him. I can't do that to any kids we have between us, if we did have any. That's just cruel."
Langer snorted. "And any alpha cop takes that same risk when he goes out to work. Try again. You've been mooning around over that guy for years, literally. You finally get it together to do something about it and you blow it so spectacularly that you need two chaperones just to keep you from Nenci-ing yourself into a suspension."
Sam scratched his beard. "Am I really a verb?"
"You're a verb. Doug called me up last week to tell me that his client had just Nenci-ed himself into Solitary. You're not even a cop-specific verb." Langer shook his head. "Look. I love you, we all love you except maybe Robles, but you've got to admit that you've got a problem here. You have to get this case closed, and you haven't just shot yourself in the foot, you've shot yourself in the knee. You think maybe you should get some help?"
"I'm not crazy, I'm an asshole!" Nenci glowered at him. He knew he wasn't popular, and that his attitude wasn't the best sometimes, but what could he do? He was who he was, and at his age he wasn't likely to be able to change it.
"That you are, my friend. Didn't you tell me that you'd had a blowout with Jake that was so bad he's sleeping on Oliver's couch? And there's Joey. How long's it been since that son even spoke to you?" Langer put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Look. I've got a buddy, a therapist, who specializes in helping alphas. I'm not here to out anyone, but you do know a few of her patients. I'll give you her number, okay? It's up to you if you think it's worth giving her a call."
Langer passed him the number and they went about their own business until the meeting with Forensics. Sam only gave it a couple of hours before he snuck off and called. He didn't know if the woman could help him, and he wasn't sure that there was anything wrong with him in the first place, but he knew that he should probably give it a try.
When the time for the meeting with Forensics came around, Sam collected Langer and they made their way to a neutral conference room. Sam was startled by the change in Oliver. For as long as he'd known Oliver, the slender omega had been there with a ready smile and a little blush every time Sam saw him. Now he greeted Langer cordially enough, but simply gave Sam a cold nod. "Detective Nenci." Then he sat down.
Nina looked between Oliver and Sam. She didn't seem to know what had happened between them, not that Sam could make out, but she narrowed her large gray eyes at Sam. "All right," she said, and sat down. "Interesting. We're here today to discuss two pieces of evidence that Oliver found collected from the Cooper Block fire."
Oliver produced the jewelry. It was still in evidence bags, where it would stay throughout the meeting. "There's still a great deal that we don't know about these pieces before we can draw any definitive conclusions, but they should be considered unique items. Similar items have netted substantial sums at auction."
Sam cleared his throat. "These were never in the fire. Someone snuck in with the first responders to place them at the scene. That's a cold act."
Nina glared at him. "We don't deal in emotion in the lab, Detective. We can't measure a person's motive for leaving these things behind, nor can we provide empirical evidence for their mindset at the time. We can say that the person who left them behind most likely would have had to prepare to do so, and seek an opportunity. The photographs show deliberate placement rather than haphazard deposits."
The scent of myrrh made Sam want to cry. Oliver was so close, close enough to touch, but Sam couldn't let himself do it. "What else would you need to know?" he made himself ask. He had to speak through the lump in his throat.
Oliver glanced coolly at his notes. "It would be most useful to know if anyone had ever filed an insurance claim for these pieces, obviously. Finding out if the items had ever been insured would be adequate. It's too late to get any biological information, or fingerprints, from them but the historical record may be most useful."
Langer cleared his throat. "I'm not overly familiar with the case, but from what it sounds like you have two feuding families. Maybe if we brought photos of the watch and the ring to people from those families to see if they had any recollection of them, any family stories about the day Uncle Ole's watch went missing or something like that, they could generate some leads for us."
"Sounds good." Sam could have kissed Langer for that, if he didn't think that Langer's omega would have sued him into the next galaxy.
"All right then. Excellent meeting." Nina rose, and Oliver rose with her. Neither of them looked back as they left the room.
Sam looked at Langer. "That was…"
Langer shook his head. "Oh yeah. You blew it, Alpha. He doesn't want to be anywhere near you now."
Chapter Six
Oliver could not have been happier when the workweek drew to a close. He was tired, profoundly tired, and he knew that the best thing for him would be to stay away from the office for a couple of days. Spring was finally giving way to summer, and Oliver had every intention of taking full advantage of everything that the MetroWest area had to offer for the next two days.
Jake approved of this plan, in theory. "You know," he said, "you don't have to s
pend the whole weekend on grueling hikes and dangerous bike rides. You can distract yourself with relaxing picnics and maybe a boat ride or something."
Oliver laughed at him. "What's wrong with pushing myself a little, Jake? I like to ride. I like to hike. Why not come hiking with me? It'll be fun. We'll go to Garden in the Woods. It's local, the 'hiking' is actually pretty easy and it should be stunning this time of year."
Jake wrinkled his nose. "It sounds like something that would be more fun with an alpha to hold hands with. But you know what? Why not? It's something different."
They headed out to Garden in the Woods and walked around the trails. The day was perfect for it, sunny and warm, and just as Oliver had suspected most of the flowers were in full bloom. Just being there put him into a better mood.
"So how are you holding up?" Jake asked him, as they took in a flowering meadow.
Oliver stuffed his hands into the pockets of his shorts. "I'm holding up. I mean, how am I supposed to hold up? I'm mostly mad at myself." He walked on down the trail.