by Aiden Bates
"Not really." Sam sat back down behind his desk and got back to work.
He had his appointment with the therapist that Langer had recommended the next day. Lucia Trujillo was a neat and trim woman, maybe forty years of age, who had an office in a huge old house in Arlington. She had a digital recorder, "So that I'm not focused on writing things down, but on actually talking to you while we're together. Is that okay?"
"I guess." It wasn't okay. Sam knew that those recordings were going to come back to bite him in the ass someday. Still, what choice did he have?
"I need you to be honest with me, Sam." She looked at him over the horn rims of her glasses. "Otherwise we're not going to get anywhere."
Sam rubbed his hands together. "Okay, then. I'm not comfortable with it. I know that those recordings are going to come back on me someday, because I've had similar recordings used against people I was investigating. That said, you're the expert. You know what works for you, with this fixing people's heads stuff. I don't. I'd be pissed as hell if you came in and told me how to investigate a cold case. So I'm going to sit back and let you do your job."
Trujillo nodded. "Okay. That's actually pretty good, Sam."
He laughed and put his hands on his thighs. "I've never had a problem being honest. You could say that it's always been kind of the opposite for me."
Trujillo sat up a little bit straighter. Someone else might have missed it, but Sam had been trained to look for little cues like that. "Is that why you're here today?"
"Yeah. Actually it is." Sam bit his lip. "I'm kind of an asshole, doc. I mean, kind of a lot."
One corner of her mouth twitched up. "We try to avoid making value judgments like that, especially about ourselves. This is your story, though. We can work on editing some of the descriptions later. Go on."
Sam huffed out a little laugh. "Even the other guys in my unit refer to me as their troll. They say I hate everything, and I probably don't do a lot to correct that impression. I have a long history of being kind of nasty to everyone around me. I chased one of my sons away years ago—chased him right out of town, in fact. We haven't spoken in years. His twin just moved out in a rage, and let me tell you it's hard to get Jake to walk away." He took a deep breath and let it out, overcome by the bleakness of his empty house.
"I get the sense that there's more."
He licked his lips. "There's this omega. I'm into him, and I'm pretty sure that for some reason he's into me. He's Jake's best friend."
Trujillo frowned. "Your son."
"Yeah. They both work in the lab. I mean, I know he's an adult, he's twenty-four, but it's still wrong on so many levels, you know? I'm old enough to be his father." He closed his eyes. "Anyway, we were assigned to work together as partners for a kind of a weird case, and it went about as well as you could expect." He folded in on himself.
"You claimed him and you're afraid you won't live up to the promise of your honeymoon period?" Trujillo blinked owlishly at him.
"Er, no." Sam scratched at his head. "I mean, we did sleep together once, but that was dumb of us. But through this whole thing, I've been pretty rude to him and the folks at the lab have taken it personally. They're putting everything from my department on the back burner. Everything. It's my fault—I don't try to be an asshole, but I just can't help it and now it's affecting more than just me."
"Okay. I see a lot of law enforcement officers coming through here. That concern for the rest of your team is admirable, and it's very normal for men like you. I see it in a lot of soldiers, too, and firefighters. In order to help you to curb the behavior that you want to change, though, I think we're going to have to explore what's causing it. I can already see some potential suspects, but we're going to have to talk about some of the things that've been going on with you. Some of that discussion will probably be uncomfortable."
"Lady, I'm already uncomfortable."
"Excellent. Let's move on. You mentioned your team first and last, but most of your words were spent talking about your more intimate relationships—your relationships with your sons and with the omega. Let's talk about those. You're free to claim an omega now, correct?"
Sam understood what she was suggesting. "My prior omega died." He swallowed. He could feel the sweat dripping down his back. "He was murdered."
Trujillo bowed her head. "I'm very sorry."
"Me too." Sam turned his head. "I mean, I should've been there, but I wasn't. It was a long time ago. There was supposed to be someone else watching him, it's not like we didn't know there might be retaliation, but he got distracted." His foot bounced up and down, more or less independently of him. "So is that it? Am I cured?"
Trujillo hid her laugh behind a hand. "No. But you're making a good start. Does this new omega remind you of your late partner in some way?"
"No." Sam shook his head, and then he tilted it to the side. "I mean, me and Chris had an arranged thing. It was good, and I loved him, but it wasn't like this. It wasn't this, this need." He squirmed in his seat and looked out the window. "He can't come into a room, or even walk by an open door, without me wanting him."
"So working with him must be difficult." She leaned forward, just a bit.
Sam blushed. "You could say that." How was it possible that he was just blurting all of this stuff out to a stranger? He guessed that was what he was paying for, after all. "I mean, maybe it was inevitable that we slept together, but he'd been saving himself for his alpha, you know? Next thing—bam. There we are. He said he didn't regret it, but he sure seems to."
"Do you?" Trujillo met Sam's eyes.
"Oh hell yeah." He looked down. "I mean, he's all sitting there waiting for The One, and then along comes me. I'm supposed to be stronger than that. I'm supposed to know better. I'm his best friend's dad. And we're working together, for crying out loud. I shouldn't be touching him." He shrunk in on himself, as though his shame could consume him.
Trujillo cleared her throat. "And your sons. How would you characterize your relationships with them?"
"Well I don't have a relationship with Joey anymore, so that answers that question for you." Sam let his head fall back until it rested on the back of the chair. "Jake and I have always butted heads, but at the end of the day he always stayed by me. I mean, he was an omega; he couldn't live on his own. Or so I thought."
Trujillo raised one eyebrow. "I see."
"He took exception to the way I was treating the omega. His friend."
Trujillo nodded. "Is there any part of your life that isn't bound up in the rest of it?"
"Um… no." Sam had to admit that after careful consideration. "I don't think that there is."
"My first piece of advice is that you get a hobby. Something that no one from your other connections is involved with. That way you have some way of disconnecting for a little while. I honestly don't care what it is, as long as it doesn't involve cops or your family in any way. Knitting. Quilting. Fly fishing. Just go do something. Now. Let's talk about some of these other potential issues."
Trujillo steered the conversation toward his work on the force, but Sam knew that wasn't the real issue here. Sure, his time on the force had made him bitter. It did that to a lot of cops. The fact was, they could turn it off when they left the office. They could live as full, functional human beings after work.
Sam needed to get to that point too. He couldn't see a clear path for himself, but maybe Trujillo could help him to blaze one.
Chapter Seven
Oliver yawned and retrieved the results from the DNA sequencer. Okay, so he was using work to block Sam from his mind. So what? It was a perfectly healthy mechanism to keep him going until time numbed the hurt, and it helped to bring justice to some of the victims whose cases were brought to the Crime Lab too.
Sometimes it even helped to clear the names of the mistakenly accused. That helped a different kind of victim. Oliver was just as proud to help that type of victim as he was to help the first. Justice wasn't justice if just any old person got sent up for the crime, after
all.
He could see from the printout that the DNA from the sample was a match to the DNA in the other cases. His eyes weren't foolproof, of course; he'd use the computer to verify the match. And, of course, they didn't have a suspect against whom they could compare the samples. Still, it was just a little bit more information that would help to nail the guy when they did catch up to him.
He picked up his desk phone when he got back to his cubicle. He knew that Sergeant Tran would still be at his desk. "Hi, Sgt. Tran. It's Oliver, in the lab. I'll send you the full report once I get it written, but it's like you suspected. The Academy Street case was the same suspect as the other three. You've got a serial rapist on your hands."
Tran let out a long, low sigh. "That's just awesome. Love those serials."
Oliver cleared his throat. He liked Tran. He liked Tran on a personal level, and he liked the fact that Tran wouldn't let his omega status stand in the way of doing what he wanted. He hated to hear him sound so sad. "Okay. So I can tell you that you're looking for a white guy, most likely with brown, wavy hair and hazel eyes. The hair color and eye color are a little unreliable, though, so take those with a grain of salt. I can tell you that he's likely to be lactose intolerant and that his skin will be light in tone. Also, he's had a vasectomy."
Tran sounded a lot more awake when he finally responded. "You can tell all of that just from a stain on a kid's skirt?"
Oliver grinned. "So the stuff about his appearance, is just what's more likely than not. I know a woman who's got blonde hair and gray eyes, whose genes tell me she should have black hair and brown eyes. I wouldn't go arresting every guy with brown hair just yet. The lactose intolerance has a higher probability of being right. The vasectomy is a hundred percent right, because that's something I could see with my own two eyes when I looked at the sample."
"You're a god among men, Oliver. I'm going to reach out to the locals and see if they have anyone on the list of potential suspects that matches that description." Tran hung up, and Oliver sat back and smiled. He'd done well.
He cleaned up after himself before heading out to write up the report. Suspected serial rapists always got bumped to the top of the line. Part of Oliver cringed from that. If he were a victim whose case risked going over the statute of limitations thanks to the backlog, he'd be livid. To go through all of the misery of reporting, and the shame and degradation of submitting to police questioning and the rape kit itself, only to lose any possibility of justice because of a higher profile case would be infuriating. At the same time, a serial rapist could be stopped. Furthermore, the risk of a serial rapist escalating was too great.
He sat down to work on his report when his phone buzzed. He had an incoming message from Jake. I can't help but notice that you haven't come home yet. I don't know if I should be worried that you're still at work, or worried that you're not still at work.
Oliver took a selfie over by the DNA sequencer. Fun times.
Dude, you know you don't have to be there. Go home. Watch some Netflix. Check out some of those terrible movies you like. You'll have the house to yourself tonight; I'm going out.
Oliver leaned back in his chair. You don't have to go out just so I'll come home.
He could almost see Jake's leer, which just proved that they spent too much time together. Ah-ah. The agreement was no hookups in the house. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow. Dinesh is outside.
Oliver frowned. Isn't Dinesh the guy from that medical device maker?
Yup. Gotta go.
Oliver didn't reply, but he grinned. Jake had been out with Dinesh three times. Oliver had met him once, when he'd stopped by to see Jake at the office. He seemed nice, and he was clearly besotted with Jake. If Jake was staying with him the whole night, maybe he was thinking about getting serious. Good for Jake. He deserved good people in his life.
Oliver finished writing up his report and sent it on for review, with a flag that marked it as high priority. Then he looked around. He could probably go ahead and start work on another case. There were drug cases to test and three new murders to work. Even if those failed, there was always the backlog.
Jake was right, though. Those would still be there on Monday. It was nine-thirty on a Friday night, and here he was being a pathetic loser working himself half to death just because of an alpha. He locked his workstation down, got onto his bike, and headed home.
Once home, he fixed himself some ramen and sat down to eat it. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he walked in the door. He couldn't wait long enough to actually cook; he needed food and he needed it quickly. That was why he had the ramen on hand, he guessed. Just as he lifted the first forkful of noodles to his lips, though, someone buzzed his apartment.
He checked the security camera. He expected to see one of his neighbors had forgotten their keys. Instead, he saw Sam Nenci.
"What is it?" he asked.
Sam looked around and found the camera. He looked up into it, right into Oliver's eyes, before he replied. "I'd like to come up and talk to you, if you don't mind. I'd like to explain a few things, you know, out of the office."
Oliver pursed his lips and glared at the screen. He was hungry, he was tired, and he was still hurting. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to the one who had hurt him. Still, he doubted that Sam would go away. He wasn't sure he wanted him to, either. "Fine." He buzzed Sam in.
Sam was dressed casually when he got upstairs, so he'd gone home and changed before coming over. Oliver could have wished he hadn't done that. At least in the suit he usually wore at work, Oliver could pretend that he didn't remember the solid, well-developed muscles of Sam's body. "Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to eat in front of you. I just got home and I'm starving."
Sam scowled. "Quitting time was hours ago. And where's Jake? He should be taking care of you."
Oliver rolled his eyes and sat back down to eat his dinner. "That's not Jake's job. And he had a date."
"That Dinesh guy?"
"Yeah." Oliver finally got to eat a little bit of his food.
"Oh. Good. He's not too bad. I mean, I'd rather see him with a cop who can protect him, but other than that I like Dinesh." Sam pulled out a chair.
Oliver didn't look at Sam. He wouldn't. Sam's scent was bad enough. "So did you have something you wanted to share about the case?"
"No. No, I wanted to talk to you about us." Sam cleared his throat a little. "About me, really. It's been brought to my attention that you might have gotten the wrong impression from some of my behavior after that night."
Oliver pushed his food away. Damn it, he'd gotten a whole two bites. "I'm pretty sure I got the right impression, Sam. I was wrong for hoping that I could be more to you than a one-night stand."
"Oliver, no." Sam reached out and put a hand over Oliver's. "I mean no, we can't be together, but it's not because of you. It's entirely because of me. You shouldn't waste your time on me. I'm old enough to be your father. If I claimed you, you'd die a good twenty-five years before your time."
Oliver snorted. "You do realize that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, right? So could you. You're in a risky profession and it's something anyone knows when they get involved with a cop."
"Okay, but the risk is higher. Like, a hundred percent certain. I'm going to die before you." Sam shook his head. "I can't do that to you."
"So you'll just go ahead and make my decisions for me." Oliver pulled his hand away. "You won't actually be my alpha—which by the way, we never discussed—but you'll go ahead and make decisions for me, regarding my life."
"I'm the alpha. And the older one in this situation." Sam licked his lips. "It's probably not great of me to phrase it like that. I'm trying to do better, Oliver. But some things are just ingrained, and you can't unlearn them in one therapy session."
Oliver blinked. He hadn't expected that at all. "You're in therapy?"
"I said I'm trying, okay? I mean look, it's not like I want to hurt you. I don't want to hurt Jake and I never wanted to hurt Joey, ei
ther. I've only ever wanted to keep the people I love safe. I only seem to hurt them when I try, though." He hung his head. "Some days I just want to retire, stick to my place in Hopkinton, and not come out again."
Oliver huffed out a little laugh. "You'd never be able to pull it off." He tried to tuck a lock of his hair behind one ear, but it wasn't long enough. "You're too driven." He paused and after a moment of silence he said, "I'm not your son, Sam."
"Well no, that would be pretty gross." Sam grimaced and pulled away. "What I'm trying to say here is that I'm not pulling away because I don't want you. I'm fighting myself here, because I do want you. I want you in so many ways, Oliver. I just shouldn't."
Oliver stood up. "Sam, no one can help who he loves. Alphas and omegas are even less able to help it than other people. Is it a little weird that we have this age difference between us, sure. That doesn't mean that it's not something that we could have worked with." He walked toward the closed door of the bedroom.