by Lissa Ford
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
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DOUBLEBACK
By Lissa Ford
Copyright © 2015 by Lissa Ford
All Rights Reserved
ASIN: B00VCEEHR0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art © Marianne Nowicki.
Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
Copy editing: By The Book Editing.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, and where permitted by law. Reviewers are welcomed to quote brief passages in a review.
Acknowledgements
It takes a village, as they say, and while I didn’t have access to a village, I was fortunate to receive wonderful feedback from beta readers Michelle Campbell and Linda Elmer, and well as Elena Greene. Editor par excellence Beth Balmanno cleaned up my creative use of tenses and also provided a keen eye when it came to plotting. Cover artist Marianne Nowicki captured the right mood with her cover artistry.
Finally, I must thank the red-headed dude who shares my life, for providing, ahem, inspiration.
CHAPTER ONE
The night before had been pretty shitty, but the day after promised to be even shittier when Jude Anderson opened the front door to his cabin and nearly stumbled over the body of a man lying face down across the doorway.
Disbelieving his eyes at first, Jude stared at the crumpled form. Blood oozed sluggishly over the reclaimed barn wood porch, puddling in a tacky mess under the man’s head. Once Jude got past the shock to register what he was seeing, he went for the firearm that at one time would have been holstered at his hip. Then he remembered he no longer carried.
He whirled to scan the surrounding woods for movement. The October sun was rising peaceably over the treetops. Birds chirped. Squirrels scrabbled. The horses placidly cropping in their paddock meant that whoever dumped the body was long gone. Shiloh, his German Shepard, would have barked herself hoarse if anyone set so much as a toe on the property, but Jude had had to rush Shiloh to the vet’s the night before, sickened by her habit of eating dead wildlife.
In the midst of his tumbling thoughts, Jude wondered if whoever dumped the body on his front porch knew that.
Willing his heartbeat to slow, Jude bent over the figure. The victim’s face pointed away from him to stare sightlessly out toward the magnificent autumn-tinged foliage. Jude took in the details: gray tee-shirt, well-worn jeans. Expensive running shoes. Cheap watch. Black hair matted with blood clots, medium height, built. His stillness communicated death in a way Jude was sadly familiar. The peculiar stink did too, blending with the scents of pine and wood smoke. Awkwardly, the steel pins in his right thighbone telling him it was a bad idea, Jude crouched, two fingers out to check the jugular anyway, just in case…
“Shit!” He jumped back.
The man crumpled at his feet was Travis Gruber, the bartender from Eight Ball nightclub.
The guy he’d hooked up with last Thursday night.
When Jude surfaced to awareness again, it was while he was vomiting his first cup of Folgers into the toilet. He heaved until his stomach folded in on itself, and when the spasms subsided, rested his forehead against the cool porcelain. Somebody killed Travis. Somebody wanted him to see.
Somebody was making a point.
Eyes burning, Jude fished his cellphone out of his sweatshirt pocket, thumbed 9-1-1, and wondered why he thought he deserved sanctuary. No one else thought he did.
It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
Jude’s attempt at a so-called sanctuary was a luxury cabin buried in the northeast corner of Bear Swamp Forest, smack in the middle of Upstate New York. He’d bought the property in a foreclosure auction after the shitstorm of the trial died down and the settlement check came in. Ironically, the purchase of a four-bedroom cabin with its energy-efficiency, state-of-the-art kitchen, flowing floor plan, and stunning view of Skaneateles Lake made more financial sense than buying a sensible urban condo or tract home in a nondescript suburb of Syracuse. The bad economy had spread like a stain across Central New York, leaving foreclosed properties and shuttered businesses in its wake. For once Jude was in the right place, at the right time, and with a little bit of money to spend. He never once felt his luck.
From inside the cabin Jude watched the blue and yellow New York State trooper patrol car bump up the gravel road toward his cabin. Travis still lay on his porch, untouched. Jude knew better than to shut the glassy, staring eyes. Don’t contaminate the scene.
He headed out the back door and was standing on the flagstone walkway in his front yard by the time the two uniforms got out of the car. He didn’t recognize them. Small mercies.
They didn’t waste time on the preliminaries.
“Jude Anderson?” the female trooper asked. Her partner, a young guy probably just out of the academy, was securing the perimeter.
“Yeah.”
“Jude Anderson,” she repeated thoughtfully. Her eyes shadowed as memory invaded. “I hope this fatality isn’t the result of another messed up decision on your part.”
Accusation had saturated her voice, followed by disgust, then barely leashed revulsion. His breath stuttered as the familiar, awful burn started to bloom in his chest. Keep it together, man.
“Not this time,” Jude answered mildly.
The female trooper snorted. “Wait over there, Mr. Anderson. The BCI investigator is on the way to take your statement.”
Jude nodded and limped over to the horse corral, as she’d indicated. Since he lived on state land, jurisdiction would fall to New York State troopers. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation unit would send a plainclothes homicide detective to conduct the interview.
As if on cue, an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria crunched up the gravel drive and parked on the grass next to the blue and yellow. Somehow through his misery, Jude felt his spidey sense of fucked up coincidences tingling, which was confirmed when a man wearing an impeccably-cut gray suit unfolded out of the driver’s side of the sedan. Jude wouldn’t have had to look at the label to know it was an Armani and cost the guy a half month’s pay. Latte-brown hair flopped rebelliously over the detective’s forehead. The unsmiling corners of a generous mouth curled upward. The detective carried his muscular body with the confidence of a guy who knew he was good-looking and didn’t mind other people knowing it too. First impressions would have been that the detective was more interested in his grooming than his job, but Jude knew this dude was all business.
Out of the passenger’s side, another detective emerged, this time a man of around fifty, his paunch pushing against the buttons of his polyester suit. Behind them, an EMS vehicle rolled up the gravel
drive, as well as another blue and yellow. Jude saw those two vehicles come onto his property via his peripheral vision because at that moment it would take a crowbar to pry his eyes from the sight of Rowan Muir in his expensive suit, looking hotter than ever with a confident swagger that hit Jude just the right way—straight in the cock.
For his part, Rowan locked on Jude like a hunter sizing up a deer through a sight line. The thick fringe of sable lashes surrounding Rowan’s tawny eyes weighed his lids to half-mast. Jude remembered that Rowan had a tendency to do that when he was either turned on or in a cold fury.
“Jude Anderson,” Rowan said, his deep voice cold and crisp.
Fury, then. Jude gave a nod of acknowledgement.
Rowan approached with an easy grace that made Jude wonder if he’d earned that black-belt yet. Jude knew how he must look, standing at the horse corral, gripping the top post until the weather-sealed wood dug into his fingertips. Rumpled, red-eyed, chin covered in rusty-colored stubble. Thick-limbed and lumbering in his flannel shirt and jeans, even though he’d lost a good fifteen pounds since the incident.
Rowan halted at arm’s length. The detective’s shorter stature forced his head back and to the side as he looked up at Jude. Jude swallowed hard. The movement was so damned familiar. It used to be a prelude to a kiss. Now it was that of an ex-lover sizing him up to see if he were capable of criminal intent. The nova living inside Jude’s chest began to burn hotter. Moisture slicked his palms and armpits. He was sure he looked guilty as hell under Rowan’s calculating examination. He took a deep breath and felt his heart take a dive against his ribs.
Christ almighty, don’t let me lose it now.
Rowan opened his mouth and Jude steeled himself for a cold, official law enforcement opening, as if Jude was just another suspect in a long line of endless cases. A file number. A stranger.
But what Rowan said was: “Where’s your cane?”
Jude blinked. What?
Rowan waited.
“I don’t use it anymore,” Jude answered slowly.
Rowan turned his dispassionate gaze to Jude’s freckled paw gripping the corral bar with white knuckles. “Maybe you should.”
An unexpected surge of cold fury washed through Jude. It had a side benefit of chasing out some of the burn crackling in his chest. So Rowan thought Jude was still a cripple, goddamned useless without his cane. A weakling. A burden. Fuck you, Rowan. Fuck. You.
The corner of Rowan’s mouth deepened, but the shuttered expression never changed.
The moment spun out while Jude struggled to keep it together to the sound of law enforcement buzzing over his property. Rowan impassively watched Jude’s struggle with his temper. The other detective gave Rowan a side-eyed glance of puzzlement before he shrugged and held his hand out to Jude. “Detective Nick Natsios,” he said. “We—”
“—need to ask me a few questions,” Jude finished, tearing his eyes away from Rowan’s. He gave Natsios’ hand a business-like shake. “Of course. Out here, or inside?”
Detective Natsios glanced at Rowan again. “Inside,” Rowan said, his eyes shifting to the horses in the paddock. One of the geldings had wandered over, curious at the newcomers, and lipped at Jude’s hair.
Jude gave Blue an absent pat before pushing him away. The breeze shifted and brought the faint scent of Rowan’s cologne to him. Jude almost howled in rage at how the indistinct aroma of sandalwood, cedar, and Rowan made Jude’s olfactory nerves twitch to life as they remembered the scent of the cologne mixed with sex and sweat. He turned toward the house, gesturing them to follow while the two uniforms wrapped his front porch in crime-scene tape.
Travis, he saw, was being lifted into a body bag.
CHAPTER TWO
They sat around the farmhouse table in the kitchen. Jude struggled to hold himself back from making a beeline for the Zoloft in the medicine cabinet. Instead, he surreptitiously applied his breathing techniques while Rowan and Natsios settled in for what promised to be a long morning of punching holes in Jude’s alibi.
Rowan’s sleepy gaze was flicking over the interior, taking in the open floor plan, the river-boulder fireplace, the fly fishing rods leaning against the cedar paneling, assorted reels, and fly tie kits scattered everywhere. The mismatched furniture leftover from Jude’s Syracuse apartment. His expression remained dispassionate even when he eyed the old leather couch where he and Jude had fucked until sore one sultry summer night. Natsios’s fingers twitched like he needed a cigarette.
“Let’s start with the basics,” Natsios said. “Your name and occupation.”
“Jude Anderson. I run guided fly fishing tours of local streams.” He saw the surprise roll across Rowan’s face. Jude’s lip quirked in response. Jude had started the business after he and Rowan were done. The extra time left on Jude’s hands surely had been a blessing for someone launching an entrepreneurial startup, he’d told himself then.
He told himself the same thing now.
“Is business good?” Natsios continued, missing the byplay between them.
“It’s not bad. Fall is a busy time. Right now the landlocked Atlantic salmon and trout are running.”
“Running?”
“Migrating from the lakes to the rivers to spawn. It’s prime angling season.”
“So you should be busy now, that right?”
“I am busy now,” Jude answered.
“How long have you been in business?”
That curt question came from Rowan.
“One year,” Jude answered, pleased at his composure. Maybe he’d be all right after all. “I got into fly fishing after the…accident with my leg. It can be calming, the act of casting line. The sounds of the river, nature, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds boring,” Rowan remarked.
Said the man who likes to glacier snowboard. “You’d find it boring,” Jude admitted.
Rowan’s brows snapped together.
“Why do you need to pursue a calming profession, Mr. Anderson?” Natsios asked.
Here we go.
Jude took a deep breath. “I used to be in law enforcement,” he said. “New York State deputy sheriff. I was shot in the line of duty. But you know this already.”
They both stared at him, Natsios’ black eyes speculative, Rowan’s leopard gaze unreadable.
“Okay, then you know the drill,” Natsios said when Rowan remained silent. “Tell us what happened.”
Through his tight chest, Jude related how he found the body. They listened with every appearance of attentiveness, both occasionally making notes in their little spiral notebooks.
They went into Jude’s alibi for last evening. Jude had taken Shiloh to the vet’s emergency room around 8 p.m., then got home around 10 p.m. He stayed in for the rest of the night, watching an episode of the Walking Dead on his tablet, listening through his earphones before going to bed at midnight. He heard nothing, saw nothing that would clue him into anything amiss.
Jude knew forensics would come up with a plausible window for time of death. He also knew he’d be one of the early suspects. That didn’t bother him. He didn’t kill Travis. But someone wanted to make sure he knew Travis was dead, and that did bother Jude. The crime felt oddly…personal.
“Did you know the victim, Mr. Anderson?” Natsios took up the lead again.
Jude cleared his throat. “Yes.”
They waited.
“He’s the bartender at Eight Ball. I…go there sometimes.”
“For drinks?”
Jude nodded tightly.
“Just drinks.” Rowan’s voice reached out and prodded.
“Eight Ball,” Natsios mused out loud. “That the gay bar on West Fayette Street?”
“Yeah,” Rowan answered grimly. “So you know the victim from Eight Ball. Why is that?”
“Sometimes I…” Jude fell silent. He rubbed his aching leg.
Rowan made an impatient sound. “Sometimes you what, Mr. Anderson?”
“Need to get laid,” Jude blu
rted. Happy, Rowan?
Rowan didn’t look happy. He didn’t look sad or mad or jealous because as far as Jude could tell, zero emotion bubbled its way past Rowan’s professional façade. Rowan had always been good at hiding what he was feeling. The only time Jude was ever really sure that Rowan felt anything at all for him during their time together was when they were having sex, and even then, Jude wondered.
Jude, however, never learned the trick of turning emotion on and off at will. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here now, praying that the floor would swallow him up while Rowan gazed at the humiliation surely written all over Jude’s face as he settled in to pick the scab off the wound holding Jude’s life together.
“Okay,” Natsios said after the moment spun out to this side of uncomfortable. “That guy laying out on your porch was someone you used to date?”
“I didn’t date him…Travis. It was a hookup. One-night stand-type thing.”
Natsios snorted. “Yeah, I hear hookups are prevalent among the queers.”
Rowan jerked his head to stare at his partner.
“It’s prevalent among the straights, too, last I heard,” Jude responded evenly while noting Rowan’s reaction. Still in the closet, Rowan?
Rowan cleared his throat. “When did you last see him—Gruber?”
“Last week. Thursday. I don’t remember when I left his apartment, but I was home before dawn.”
Rowan snorted faintly.
Natsios scribbled all that down in his notebook. Rowan said, “Do you have any reason to suspect someone would want Travis Gruber dead?”
“No. None. I mean, I don’t know. He was a bartender, he would have come into contact with a lot of people. Maybe he was up to some sketchy shit. He seemed like an okay guy, though. I didn’t notice anything suspicious in his apartment. Then again, I wasn’t looking.”