by Rhys Ford
“Those are good maybes.” The truck bumbled out into traffic, hitting a speed bump, more than likely dislodging more chunks of dirt. “The suicide note is from a Dear John letter he gave to some Korean boy who then was murdered right after you spoke to the deceased’s family. Those are some good maybes, Princess.”
“Don’t forget the cousin,” I reminded him.
“Definitely haven’t forgotten the cousin.” Bobby took the top off his coffee, blowing on the hot liquid before sipping carefully. “Shot in the head and then blown up. And who is now asleep in your bed waiting for a gentle kiss to wake him up.”
“I’m going to kick your ass.” Muttering, I slouched down in the seat. “When you’re done driving me home.”
“Yeah, that’s going to happen.” Bobby mocked me sometimes. It was a righteous mocking, but it was mocking just the same. He pulled up behind my car and whistled low at the sight of it. “I’ll be fucking damned.”
My Range Rover sat on punctured tires, tilting to one side where the road sloped in toward the sidewalk. Something red had been splattered over the hood and roof, dripping in long trails down its sides, pooling in the dents. I got out and walked around to the front of the car, shaking my head at its smashed headlights and battered hood.
A tire iron lay on the grass, its blunt end scraped with my Rover’s paint. I didn’t have high hopes for fingerprints. Its brushed-carbon surface wouldn’t hold dust, and the cops wouldn’t spend the time or money to drop it off at a forensics lab. They’d write it off as a gay-bashing and go about their business. Maybe even laugh in front of me, depending on their mood.
“That’s a lot of rage there,” Bobby said, finishing his coffee with a noisy slurp. “I think someone’s trying to tell you something.”
Panic hit me, closing in the air in my lungs. “Fuck. Jae. I’ve got to check on Jae.”
I sprinted up to the back of the house. The door was unlocked, the knob turning in my hand before I could fit the key into it. Did I leave it open? I didn’t stop to check the jamb, scrambling up the stairs and calling for Jae. Bobby was behind me, his heavier footsteps a thunder on the hardwood floors.
“Jae!” I couldn’t find him. The bed was empty, the sheets holding his scent. Screaming down the stairs, I headed to the den, praying he’d gotten bored and gone to look for something to read. “Bobby! He’s not up here!”
“Cole, he’s down here!” Bobby called to me from downstairs. “He’s okay.”
Relief dried my mouth, and I stumbled to get down to the first floor without falling on my face. Jae stood in the kitchen, a quizzical look on his face and a cup of tea in his hand. His fingers played with the white tag dangling from a string over the cup’s lip, folding its edge as he stared at me.
“What’s wrong?” Jae stirred the tea with a spoon. His tousled black hair stood up away from his face, a fringe falling over into his eyes, and the damp ends spotted a T-shirt he’d borrowed from my dresser drawer. Its stark whiteness glowed against his skin and turned the bruises along his neck and collarbone a vivid purple. Startled, his eyes got big in his face. “What happened?”
I couldn’t answer, not with the panic blocking my words. The cup went flying, dashed to the ground when I grabbed Jae, pulling him to me. I didn’t care if the tea made a mess or if Bobby laughed in my face. I needed to kiss him, anything to reassure me that he was real and whole.
He tasted like sex and wonder, his mouth opening under mine. My hand found his hair, cradling his head as he tilted back into my palm, arching his body against mine. With his palms flattened against my back, he molded into me, his hips rocking against me, sliding into me until we fit together. The kiss burned away the taste of coffee in my mouth, leaving Jae behind on my tongue.
“I’m okay, Cole.” Jae broke it off first, twisting slightly and touching my face. I held on to his waist, breathing the kiss into my belly where it burned hot. “I’m here.”
“You two are so cute,” Bobby commented, stepping around the ceramic shards on the floor. “There’s a room upstairs. I’ll clean up the mess.”
I was saved from having to come up with a snappy rejoinder when an enormous boom shook the house. The noise was deafening, rattling the windows in the kitchen. The dishes I’d left in the drainer toppled over, and I heard glass shattering from the front of the building, loud pinging noises followed by the rushing sound of panes falling into tiny pieces. Up and down the street, car alarms started to scream, whooping loudly from the blast.
“You okay, baby?” I checked Jae over, trembling when I ran my hands over his shoulders and arms. “Stay here, okay?”
“I’m not helpless,” Jae said, frowning. “I can go with you.”
“No.” I ran my thumb over the pout of his mouth, taking the taste of him with me on my fingers. “I need you to call the cops. And stay in the house. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“What if something happens to you?” he asked, turning his pout onto Bobby. “Are you going to take care of him?”
My supposed best friend melted under Jae’s sensual parted lips and soft brown eyes. He turned to me, halfway beseeching me to help him. He was on his own. After teasing me that I’d gone soft for Jae, I let him stew in that erotic mouth and pretty face. See how he liked it. Scratch that. From the cow-eyed look on Bobby’s face, he’d like it a lot.
I poked Bobby in the ribs to get him going. “Jae, find Neko. If we’ve got to get out, I don’t want to hunt for her.”
“Cops first, cat next,” Jae agreed with a nod. “Go.”
Sirens were echoing against the buildings, a fire truck heading in our direction. The Range Rover was a smoking mess, scattered apart into little bits of metal and glass. People were gathering around the carnage, staying a few feet away in case something else happened. Bobby’s truck had taken collateral damage. A large piece of the Rover’s ski rack jutted up from his hood, a giant phallic kiss-off to the world in general. The blast had shaken off most of the dirt, but the truck’s windows were gone, sparkling bits of glitter on the sidewalk, road, and all over the interior.
“Fuck.” At times, Bobby’s clear vision and succinct words astounded me. I repeated his wisdom with an answering echo of profanity, staring at the shattered windows in the front of the brownstone. He stepped back onto the sidewalk, watching the fire truck pull in next to the smoking front end of my car. “Cole, I think you pissed someone off.”
The second explosive went off before the firefighters could get off the truck. A fireball erupted from the remains of the Rover, blowing up the rear axle and shooting flames straight up in the air. The gas tank ruptured, sending me flying.
I hit the bushes hard, tearing through the branches and slamming into the cement facing on the stoop. Tasting blood, I tried to stand, my legs buckling under me. The air was still, a slight wind carrying off the plumes of black smoke rising from my ruined car. People were talking, or shouting by the looks of their faces, but I heard none of it. Their voices were lost in a rush of ocean waves in my ears.
Blinking, I tried standing again, looking frantically about for Bobby. He grabbed at me, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket as he pulled me up. Soundlessly yelling, he furiously patted at me, and a hot sear sliced over my shoulder as he put out the flames on my shirt.
“I can’t hear you,” I shouted back, wondering if he was as deaf as I was. Except for the tenderness in my knee and the aches forming over my thighs and back, I was in one piece.
The same couldn’t be said for the Rover. Or, sadly, Bobby’s truck.
Flashing lights cut through the smoke, and an ambulance jerked to a stop. Its siren could have been on full volume for all I knew, but nothing was slicing through the buzzing in my head. My back felt alive with scratches. The mock orange branches had scraped me raw when I’d hit, and my shirt was now beginning to soak through with blood. I tried moving again, felled by the stinging pain in my left knee.
Jae appeared, shoving at Bobby as if his husky body was nothing.
Cupping my face, he spoke to me, soundlessly worried and strained. He gave Bobby a poisonous look, and I tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault, that we couldn’t have known there was another device under the Rover, but Jae wasn’t having any of it. I knew what he was saying, his mouth moving around a word that I should have known. I mimicked the motion of his lips, and a wide grin spread over my face. I couldn’t help but smile, the ends of my mouth tugging upward until I was sure they hit my eyebrows. If I still had eyebrows.
“Agi?” I repeated, jerking their attention back to me. My voice was probably too loud, but I couldn’t hear myself. “Jae, did you just call me baby?”
Chapter 13
“WHAT are you doing out of the hospital?” Jae met me at the stoop, holding the door open for us as Mike waddled me in. He looked like I felt, drawn and pale, but at least he was on his own power. My leg hurt from walking, and my hearing kept flaring up with a round of cymbals.
“Heh, I said the same thing to you. I’m fine. Just some ringing in my ears.” I tried moving carefully. My ribs ached, and the scar tissue along my side twinged every time I took a step.
“They kicked him out.” Mike dumped me on the couch, giving my shin a light kick before stepping back. “Dick.”
It was good to be home. The smells were familiar, lacking that harsh perfume of sickness, death, and astringent. I was speaking to Mike’s back as he headed into the kitchen. “Get me a Diet Coke while you’re in there, okay?”
“They kicked you out?” Jae sat down on the couch next to me, stretching out his long legs. “Suppose something is wrong with you?”
His bare feet brushed mine and the warmth in my belly spread down, thickening against my thighs. Feet weren’t supposed to be sexy. Bobby was probably right. Jae was getting to me because I hadn’t been laid for a while. Another glance at his face brought that argument to its knees. His tongue wet his lower lip, and I pulled my gaze away before Mike learned more about gay sex than he ever wanted to know.
“Yeah, you don’t have much room to talk. You left,” I said, clearing my throat. The room felt warm, almost a prickly heat on my face. “Really, I’m okay.”
“My brother’s an asshole. No one wants him to stay.” Mike passed me a cold plastic bottle. “Jae, did Bobby leave?”
“Miss Claudia was here for a while,” Jae said. “Bobby left a few hours ago but said he’d be back. Nuna said that she wanted to come down before she went on stage.”
“Bobby gone is a good thing,” I muttered, wincing when my brother poked me in a sore spot. “Hey, I’m injured.”
“You going to be okay here?” There were some murmurs of assent from me and a suspicious nod from Mike. “Stay put. No wandering around.”
“Yes, Dad,” I replied with a false smile.
Jae watched us, silent amid our teasing. A few minutes later, my brother’s car started up and left the driveway, leaving us alone. His breathing sounded better than it had that morning, but it was clouded, a faint wheezing sound when he inhaled. I wanted to lean over and kiss him. My body wanted a hell of a lot more. Twisting off the top of the plastic bottle, I took a swig and let the cold bubbles rush down my throat.
“I’m sorry about your car.” His touch was gentle. “Do you want help getting upstairs? Maybe get some sleep.”
“Sorry, no sleep for me just yet.” I handed him my soda and reached for my phone. “I’m going to call Bobby and see if he’s up to a little snooping around Jin-Sang’s life. When I get back, we can talk about you calling me baby.”
“I called you an idiot,” Jae snorted, pulling away. “Well, if Bobby goes with you, at least he can catch you when you fall flat on your face. I’m going to stay here and make dinner. There’ll be food if you make it back. If you don’t, then more for me tomorrow.”
“THIS is the cousin’s number?” I asked, sitting in the air-conditioned comfort of the rental Bobby had been given. “Joshua Yi?”
“Just dial the damned number.” He was grumpy, rousted out of bed and muttering about my ungratefulness. “I’m burning favors for you doing this.”
Bobby had done some of the legwork while I was busy being poked by the doctors. Since he’d left the force in much better graces than I had, he still had people behind the badge that were willing to do things for him, small things like peek into an ongoing investigation and see where things were at. Jin-Sang’s murder investigation was already stale. Branson and his partner, Thurman, weren’t exactly dragging their feet, but there was little to glean from Bobby’s peeking. At least it gave us something to go on.
The crime scene had been turned back over to the apartment managers. Businesses usually took precedence over police work, after all was said and done. Once everything vital had been collected, rentals were quickly released back to their owners. Branson was done as far as he was concerned. A few pictures were taken, and pieces of carpet were ripped up. The dead’s personal effects were, for the most part, handed over to a relative. The cousin’s name and number was ours from the police report, and he’d been more than willing to let Bobby talk him into letting us see Jin-Sang’s things for a few hundred dollars.
Yi’s cousin answered on the third ring, his voice clipped and hurried. He agreed to meet us at his house, giving me directions at a machine-gun pace. I repeated the address as I wrote, hoping I didn’t miss anything. A dial tone joined the persistent ringing in my ears.
“Grab the map book from the back,” Bobby said. I moved too quickly, and my head spun, the bulgogi in my stomach threatening to spill onto the car’s interior. Glancing at me, Bobby grunted his disapproval. “You should be in bed instead of wandering around Garden Grove. Mike’s going to kill you when he finds out you’re doing this.”
“What can happen?” I asked. Sure, trouble seemed to be following me around, but I blamed that on Hyun-Shik. Once I found out who killed him, all of it would go away. “Besides, I’ve got a murder to solve.”
“A murder you should leave to the cops,” he reminded me. “You worked Vice, not Homicide, and you never made lead before… shit, Cole. You scared whores off of street corners and popped kids for carrying pot. Hell, did you ever even see a dead body on the job?”
“Not like that,” I said. The demons in my brain whispered: just Rick. “But thanks for your support, Bobby. I feel the love.”
“Love for you, I’ve got. Faith that you’re not going to get yourself killed doing this?” Shaking his head, he turned off the highway and onto the surface streets. “That I don’t have, Princess.”
With nothing to add, I pointed out the next cross street, concentrating on giving directions. I had to agree with him on several points. Murder was outside of my comfort zone. If it weren’t for Jae, I would walk away from Hyun-Shik’s death, especially since I seemed to be the only one who thought he’d been murdered. My gut told me that I was doing the right thing. Someone had to do right by Hyun-Shik. It might as well be me.
Josh Yi looked nothing like his cousin. For one, he was alive. Secondly, he took the SoCal wannabe thug culture to heart. He wore white socks and flip-flops, long, brown, baggy shorts trailing down past his knees. Yi’s head was shaved nearly bald, a scrawl of blue ink tattooed on the back of his neck. I couldn’t make out what it said, then realized it was Korean, a pop of circles and lines against his pale skin.
“Yi?” I approached with my hand out, keeping my smile tight. “We talked on the phone.”
“Yeah, you’re the guy his club hired?” He repeated the lie Bobby had told him earlier. Spitting on the cement, he chin-nodded a greeting to Bobby. “You can take the leftover shit with you for a couple of hundred. The clothes and kitchen stuff are already gone.”
“Wouldn’t his parents want his things?” I asked as Bobby handed money over to Yi.
“Nah, he’s been dead to his parents for years. They don’t want his crap. I’m just going to throw it out. You might as well take it.” His shrug was a dismissal of Jin-Sang’s life. We loaded up the trunk with boxes from the gara
ge, their cardboard sides smelling of apples. Yi stood over us, watching but not helping. Within a few minutes, his cousin’s life was on its way to my house.
“It’s kind of sad,” Bobby said. His rugged face was smoothed with a solemn look that I rarely saw. “Kid’s been dead for a few days and he’s already nothing.”
“Not to me,” I replied. “Whoever killed Hyun-Shik probably murdered Jin-Sang, or at least is connected in some way.”
“Well, like I said,” he grunted. “Don’t get killed doing it.”
“WHERE’S Jae?” Bobby lugged the last box in from the car, forbidding me to carry anything in my delicate condition. Adding it to the stack on the floor, he flopped down on the couch, gratefully accepting the cold beer I’d left for him. I had to admit, I was ready to call it a day. My body was sore, and the crackling haunted my hearing with a ferociousness I’d not thought possible. Going out hadn’t been one of my best ideas, and my bruised limbs were letting me know it.
Jae had dinner waiting for us when we came back, and I resisted the urge to tease him about being domesticated. At least not before I ate. I wasn’t exactly sure what we were eating, but it was flavorful and had meat in it, all signs of a good meal. Bobby crooned over the spiciness, and I spent the better part of the meal plotting his demise after Jae gave him a brilliantly warm smile.
“He went upstairs to lie down,” I said, cursing the bump on my head. Alcohol was off the menu for a few days, and I grudgingly sipped my water. Then again, a beer would have knocked me on my ass, and we still had boxes to go through. “Said he was tired, but I think he doesn’t want to deal with any of this. Considering the last time he saw Jin-Sang, I don’t blame him.”
“Shit, we probably shouldn’t have been doing this here.” Bobby exhaled softly. “He’s okay with this?”