by Lynn VanDorn
“Where is it?”
Tyler gestured with his head. “Jacket pocket.”
Not taking the gun off Tyler, David snagged the phone out, turned it off, and tossed it behind him. The phone hit the rear windshield with a crash and fell somewhere far out of reach. The screen was probably all fucked-up now. He was going to have to get yet another replacement phone.
Fuck David. Fuck David so hard. Tyler wasn't sure how, but he was going to make David pay.
They weren't even out of Evanston before Tyler’s nerve broke and he spoke. He couldn't help it. “Why now?” he asked. He did, at least, manage to keep his voice meek.
“Serendipity, babe. Pure serendipity. I was going to wait until November, but there you were, right in front of me, and I couldn't resist. It's like it was fate.”
Tyler’s stomach churned. Serendipity. That must mean he hadn't been there for Tyler at all. It wasn’t a great leap to conclude that David had been waiting there for Josh, and it made his blood run cold. He'd nearly taken a taxi to the airport. Instead, because the day was so nice, he'd decided to walk to Josh’s office. It had given Tyler time to think, not that he'd come to any satisfactory conclusions, but the walk had taken longer than he'd expected. He’d been running late even before Josh had delayed him, and then David had snatched him. By now, Purvi would be frantic. Would she call Josh when she couldn't reach Tyler? Did she even have Josh’s number? Tyler couldn't remember. She was bound to call Ryan, though. Ryan would call Josh, and—
Josh. David had a gun. David had been waiting with a gun for Josh. For Josh. With a gun.
Bile rose in Tyler’s throat and he swallowed it down.
“Right, Tyler?”
Tyler forced himself to focus. “R-right. Yeah. Fate.” Thank God, he’d decided to walk and get the car. Thank God, the day had been nice. Thank God, Purvi was flying in today and needed to be picked up at the airport. Josh was safe and Tyler would figure this out, somehow, but the important thing was that Josh was safe. It must indeed be fate.
It also meant David didn't have a plan in place. That was good. Another point in his favor.
“I've missed you so much, baby. Did you miss me, too?”
Like a raging case of herpes. This would take a certain amount of delicacy. If he sounded too eager, David would get suspicious. If he sounded too diplomatic, David would get suspicious. What he needed here was fear mixed with desire and the tiniest flare of defiance. David lapped that shit up.
“You hurt me,” he said, injecting what he hoped was the right amount of wistfulness into his tone, then he bit his lip for effect.
“Babe, I wanted to explain. You never gave me a chance.”
Ah, yes. That was David’s first violation of the restraining order, the one he didn't get caught doing because he'd left before the cops showed up. Tyler had watched the whole thing play out over his security camera, and later Brad and Ryan, who had intercepted David, had filled him in on the missing audio.
“They didn't let me. They made me stay in the house.” Tyler cut his eyes over to David to see if he was buying that bullshit. It seemed he was.
“It was all for your own good, Tyler. You have to see that. Everything I ever did was for you! Ever since I saw the video, I knew we were meant to be together. You have to see that, too.”
“The video?”
“Yeah. I didn't want to share it with everyone, but you didn't give me a choice. They had to see. You’re mine. You've always been mine. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?”
That didn't make any sense at all, but Tyler wasn't going to question him. Poking at the crazy man's delusions seemed like an unhealthy option, but getting him to monologue might be helpful. Tyler had seen enough movies to know that you always got the villain to talk if you could to buy time. He had no idea if it worked in real life, but it seemed plausible.
“I think… I think maybe I'm beginning to,” he said instead. “A little.” Come on, dude. Spill your crazy-ass guts. You know you want to.
“I grew up near you, you know. Or you didn't, because I never told you. Needed to keep it a secret, but I can tell you now. The cat’s out of the bag, right?”
What? “Um, sure.”
“Not here, though.” David waved his hand at the window, referring, Tyler supposed, either to Kenilworth, which they were leaving, or Winnetka, which they were entering, or both. Maybe the whole damn North Shore. “I dreamed of living somewhere like this. I used to drive down Sheridan sometimes and look at the huge houses and think one day, I could live in one of them. But that doesn't happen for people like me. We don't get mansions on the lake, or country club memberships. I grew up in Highwood, you see.”
The hell of it was, Tyler did see. A little. Enough to almost feel pity for David. Then he remembered the gun, and that he'd been waiting for Josh, and his pity was incinerated away.
“Highwood,” David went on. “So close, but yet so far, right? Sandwiched right between Lake Forest and good old Highland Park, because the rich people need somewhere for their servants to live, right? Isn't that the old joke? Anyway, I ended up with a decent job, and maybe one day I'd make it into Highland Park, but not in one of those mansions by the lake. I was doing okay, though. Then I saw that damn video and I was that kid from Highwood again, wasn't I, nose pressed to the glass, seeing things I wanted but could never, ever have.”
He saw the video? I don't think he means that he saw it three weeks ago. It's like he's talking years ago when he saw it. How? Doesn't matter. Keep him taking. “What things?”
“Growing up, it wasn't safe for me to be gay. Mom would've thrown me out of the house while praying for my immortal soul. My brothers would've kicked my ass and helped her. Some of us aren't as lucky as you, Tyler, and you don't see me being all emo about it. I learned how to get by, how to pretend, and I was doing just fine until that fucking video.”
Again with the video. “I don't… I don't understand.” Tyler didn't have to fake his confusion on this one.
“It fell into my hands, and I saw you, and you were everything I ever wanted. Those other boys, the ones who fucked you, I hated them. I wanted to make them disappear. But you? Oh, babe, you were perfect, and nothing I could ever have. Like that mansion on the lake. I watched you over and over and over. And then, years later, I saw you again and I knew it had to be fate. We were meant to be. Why can't you see that?”
They were already at Glencoe. After that was Highland Park and then Highwood, which had to be their destination. Tyler was running out of time to think of a way out of the mess he was in.
“Answer me, dammit,” David insisted, his voice rising to hysterical levels. “Why can't you fucking see that?” He pounded on the passenger window with his right fist hard enough that Tyler thought the glass might break.
Don't hurt me don't hurt me don't hurt me.
Tyler shoved down his instinctual response, which was to pull into himself and wish he was far away. He couldn't indulge in that right now. He had traffic to contend with and a lunatic to outwit. He was glad he had the steering wheel to grip. He was sure that otherwise his hands would have been shaking too much to be of any use.
“You hurt me,” he blurted out, his voice sounding like a wounded child’s. A dispassionate part of himself thought he'd managed, on accident, to get the perfect note of terror mixed with entreaty.
“I never meant… it was for your own good, baby, always. You’ve gotta see that. Everything was for you, and for us, so everything could be perfect. Now we're together again and it will be perfect again, just like it was before. I'll be able to go home.”
No no no no no no no.
Memories swamped him. His arm twisted painfully behind his back. The time David had tied him up and left him that way for hours, how everything had hurt and he'd thought that maybe David would never come back, and when he did, he'd cried with relief and shame and anger. He remembered all those decorative bruises, and how David would press them to get a reaction out of him. Tyler thought of how it h
ad all escalated, slowly, how he kept crossing lines and then redrawing them, until that night. That last night, filled with so much pain, and the next morning, waking up with every breath an agony and blind in one eye and wondering if he would ever be able to see out of it again.
Tyler remembered every shot to his confidence, the sneers, the carefully worded insults. He also saw how he'd gone along with it so easily because it felt so familiar, so natural, so deserved. It made him sick now to remember how eagerly he'd let David ensnare him. He'd been such a naive little fool, and he'd paid dearly for his ignorance. He was still paying for it. He'd end up paying even more if he wasn't careful.
Tyler gave himself a mental shake. He needed to stay alert. They were already in Highland Park, driving past Ravinia. Time was running out. He was good and trapped, and he didn't have many options.
What do trapped animals do? They chew off their own captured limbs. I should know, I've done it before when I was sure there were no other options left. Maybe it'll work this time, too, and anything is better than letting him win. He's going to hurt me; there's no reason why I can't beat him to it.
Tyler glanced at David, who gave him a lazy, knowing smile. Chew off his foot to escape. How was he supposed to do that?
Then he remembered that Melissa Anderson’s house was coming up and he knew.
He felt a little bad about the Volvo, but only a little, because he’d always hated it. Sometimes he thought the sole reason his brother had bought it was so he could foist it off on Tyler when he was in town. He'd never seen his brother drive it, and the mileage on it never seemed to increase in his absence. Maybe Ryan would replace it with something better. One could only hope.
As he drew nearer to Melissa’s house, Tyler wondered if he was doing the right thing. There were so many things that could go wrong. Tyler was pretty sure this was an idiotic idea, suicidally idiotic, but it was the only idea he had.
Idiotic plan or not, I'm in control now, David. Me, not you.
He shot another quick look at David. He was still pointing the gun at Tyler, but his hand had sagged. If the gun went off, Tyler thought it might graze him, or maybe even miss him altogether. David seemed lost in his own world, and God knew what the color of the sky was in there.
The house approached and Tyler waited until he had a perfect trajectory, then he gunned the Volvo’s engine, calling on every bit of the 400 horsepower the thing was supposed to have, and headed straight for the massive oak tree in the middle of the Anderson’s front lawn. There was a noise he felt on a cellular level, then what sounded like an explosion, pain, and then everything went white.
Chapter 38
Josh Jumps off the Cliff
Monday, October 3rd 11:10 a.m.
A dermatology practice
Evanston, IL
Josh was finishing up charting his previous patient when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID and frowned. It was Ryan. He considered letting it go to voicemail, but he couldn't imagine Ryan calling merely to chat, so he picked it up.
“Hey. What’s up?”
Ryan cleared his throat. “I tried calling Tyler, but he's not answering his cell.”
Josh glanced at the time. “He left here about twenty minutes ago to pick up his PA at the airport, so that's probably why he's ignoring his phone. Is there anything I can help you with?”
Josh couldn't help but remember the last call he'd had from Ryan, asking him to be his groomsman. Josh had been vibrating with nerves while on the phone that day, his heart in his throat, palms sweating so much that he'd nearly dropped his cell. Today he felt, well, not nothing, but nothing like the emotions that had swept over him just three weeks ago. His not-Ryan was still there, in the background, but it had faded into near obscurity, and the feelings it engendered now were closer to a sort of wistful nostalgia as opposed to the heartache he'd felt before.
“How’s Tyler?” Ryan asked. “How's he doing?”
“He’s coping remarkably well, all things considered. I think I might have him nearly talked into trying to see a therapist again.”
“You… really?”
“I think so, yeah,” Josh said. He started doodling on a prescription pad.
“No… um… incidents?”
“As far as I know, Tyler hasn't sliced himself open, no.”
Ryan cleared his throat. “That’s good to hear. Things are likely to get more stressful for him in the short-term rather than less. What we've uncovered in relation to the video is troubling. How much do you know about Tyler’s former relationships?”
Josh tapped his pen against his desk. “A bit. The most recent one was Ethan, he's some sort of reporter, I gather, and he and Tyler are still friends. Before him was David, who from what I can tell was an abusive psychotic asshole of mega proportions. I have no idea who he dated before that.”
“This concerns David. He lives here now, in the area. Did you know?”
“Not exactly,” Josh said. “But we did have the dubious pleasure of running into him here. Tyler thinks he's the one who went after my car.”
“That’s probable. He's done that sort of thing before. We’re certain, well, nearly certain, that he’s the one who leaked the video.”
“What? Really?”
“We discovered he worked for the Highland Park police during the time of the video incident. David wasn't one of the police officers involved, but it's telling that he resigned shortly after the video disappeared. There were rumors at the time that he was forced to quit or face charges of theft. It seems he was likely stealing from the evidence lock-up.”
“So, he stole a sex video with Tyler in it and years later ends up dating him? That's not at all creepy and disturbing.”
“Tyler’s relationship with David was very troubling. In retrospect, we should have done more at the time to help him, but Tyler hid how bad the situation was for a long time. And that's neither here nor there. The important thing is that I'm going to make sure David is adequately punished for his crimes this time, but in the meantime, you and Tyler need to stay alert. Have you talked with the police about your car yet?”
“Yes, yesterday. We told them about our suspicions, and Tyler let them know about the restraining order. I guess it moves with Tyler, so it's active here, too. They told us that he might need to seek another one once the current one expires.”
“I'm hoping it won't come to that,” Ryan said. “I think we’ll have David arrested long before then. But in the meantime, you need to keep your eyes open. I'm glad Purvi’s coming into town. I don't want Tyler alone until we get this taken care of.”
“Fine by me. Should we hire some sort of security, do you think?”
Ryan paused, thinking. “Maybe. I don't think Tyler would be happy about it, but it might be a good idea. I'll discuss it with him this evening.”
There was a knock on his door. “Come in,” he called out.
Nik poked his head in. “Your next appointment is in room twelve,” he said, and left.
“I've got to go,” he told Ryan. “I've got a patient.”
“Give me one more second,” Ryan said. “It's been brought to my attention recently that I treated you badly.”
“I…” Josh stopped, at a loss for words.
“I'm sorry. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. I just need you to know that I realize I treated you poorly and I am very sorry for all of it.”
Josh sat there, stunned. “It wasn’t all… you don't have to be sorry for everything.”
Ryan was quiet for a second. “Okay,” he finally said. “There are some things I'm not sorry about. And Josh?”
“What?”
“I’m glad you’re with Tyler.”
“Yeah. I’ll take care of your brother.”
“I know you will, but I meant… you and my brother…he’s good for you, too.” Ryan cleared his throat. “I just want you to know that I’m happy for both of you.”
Josh thought he could hear a smile in Ryan's words
, and smiled himself. “Thank you. I'll be your groomsman, by the way. That is, if you're still getting married.”
“I… thank you. We'll discuss it later,” Ryan said. “Didn't you say you had a patient to get to?”
“That I did. Goodbye, Ryan.”
Josh sat there, dumbfounded. Ryan had apologized to him. Ryan. Apologized. He might have sat there indefinitely, lost in his thoughts, except Nik stuck his head into his office again and reminded him of his patient.
When he returned later to his office, Josh glanced at his phone and noticed he had three missed calls from Purvi. What the hell?
He returned her call and she picked it up almost instantly. “What the fuck did you do with my boy?” she snarled at him.
“What?”
“Where. Is. Tyler?” she bit out.
“Hi, you must be Purvi. I'm Josh. It's nice to finally hear your voice. Are you insane?”
“This is serious. Where the fuck is Tyler? He isn't answering his phone. No texts, no calls, nothing. He said he was going to pick me up at the airport and he hasn't shown up. I already called Ryan and he told me to call you. Brad isn't answering his phone. I don't know what to do!”
The last word ended in a wail.
Josh’s heart started to pound. Calm. You need to stay calm. Tyler is fine. His phone is probably fucked-up, but he's fine. But what if he wasn't? What if… stop it. Stop it right this fucking minute.
Nik opened his office door after knocking and not getting a response. “Your next patient is here.”
“I need a minute, Nik. Something’s come up. Stall for me?”
He pursed his lips. “Okay. I'll let the patient know there's a delay.” With a frown on his face, he walked out.
“Okay, Purvi?”
“Yeah?”
“Tyler was here about an hour ago to get the keys to the car so he could pick you up. When did you hear from him last?”
“We texted right before I got on the plane in LA, so hours ago.”
Josh remembered Ryan saying that he hadn't been able to reach Tyler, either, and he started to panic. “Okay, so I was the last one to talk with him. Let me at least make sure he took the car, and I'll talk with the garage security. Maybe someone saw something. Then… I don't know. I'll call the police, I guess. You should probably get a taxi. Do you want to meet me here at my office?”