by Karen Rose
Dr Dani had been preparing to check his shoulder, but from the corner of his eye he saw her pause, her gloved hand slowly rising to touch his face, like she was afraid he’d bolt.
His gaze shot up to meet hers. Gentleness. That was what he saw and felt. All that he saw and felt. She was stroking his face gently, her oddly colored eyes so patient.
No blame. No mockery. No questions. Just . . . gentleness.
‘Breathe with me,’ she signed with her free hand, then placed it on her chest. He watched as she breathed in and out, realizing that he was matching her pace without even trying. The nausea slowly went away, leaving him . . . tired.
‘So tired,’ he signed, and she smiled sadly.
‘I know. You can rest later. I’m not going to leave you.’
He swallowed hard. ‘They’ll put me in jail. You can’t stay with me then.’
Her jaw tightened, not in anger, but in determination. ‘I’ll fight for you, but try not to worry just yet. I want to check your shoulder, okay?’
He thought about his bruises, the deep scratches from the night he’d fallen in the woods, Joshua in his arms. The bruises had faded, but some of the scratches were still there. They’ll think I fought him. They’ll think I did it. That I killed him.
His anxiety rose once again and his head spun.
Dr Dani’s hand cupped his face again, squeezing lightly so that he looked at her. ‘Breathe, honey. Breathe with me.’
He tried. He really did. But he was so damn tired. He felt the sob surging from his gut, clogging his throat. He tried to fight it, but he couldn’t. It broke free and he dropped his head, unable to keep his cries silent.
He hated to cry out loud. Hated the sounds he made. His mother used to tell him that he sounded like an animal when he cried. So he’d learned to cry with no sound at all.
But not today. He could feel the sobs coming out of his throat and the tears coming out of his eyes and he couldn’t stop them.
Dr Dani’s arms came around him and held him tight, rocking him gently, stroking his hair.
Like he wished his mother had done, every time he’d cried. But she never had. Not once.
Tentatively he reached around the doctor’s back and gripped handfuls of her white coat. She nodded against his cheek and he held on until he’d exhausted himself with weeping and was able to choke back the stupid sobs. They’d seen. All the women in the room had seen him cry.
Heard him, too.
God.
New humiliation washed over him. But he was too tired to panic anymore. Someone tucked some tissues into his hand and he pulled back from the doctor’s warm hug to mop his face and blow his nose, his eyes now fixed downward. He couldn’t face her. Couldn’t face any of them.
He drew a deep breath through his nose, hoping he wasn’t snorting too rudely. Then froze. He drew another deep sniff, realizing he could smell chocolate.
He looked up then, but all he saw was Dr Dani, dabbing at her own eyes.
She cried, too. For me. It was . . . a lot more than he’d expected.
His hands were moving before he realized it. ‘You smell like chocolate.’
She smiled, blinking away more tears. ‘My shampoo,’ she answered, then drew a breath of her own. ‘I’m not going to tell you that everything will be okay, because I don’t know what’s going to happen. Except that I won’t abandon you.’
‘Or Joshua?’
She nodded firmly. ‘Or Joshua.’
He chanced a look around, saw that the other women were waiting patiently. His interpreter’s eyes were wet, as were the nurse’s. And the cop’s. That surprised him. No one looked angry. No one looked disgusted.
They just looked sad.
He turned back to the doctor. He trusted her word, that she wouldn’t abandon his brother. Still, Joshua was not her responsibility. He’s mine. He’d do what he needed to do to get back to him. Starting with this exam. Nervously he ran his fingers through his hair, wincing when he brushed the stitches he’d all but forgotten with the arrival of the detectives. ‘Okay, I’m ready. You can check my shoulder.’
He just prayed she wouldn’t need to see anything more. That she knew he’d been hurt by a man was humiliating enough. Her seeing it? All the women seeing it?
That was too much.
Cincinnati, Ohio
Saturday, 16 March, 4.00 P.M.
Diesel looked up from the page he was coloring when someone knocked on Dani’s office door. Joshua’s gaze flew to his, frightened, the crayon he held breaking in two in his tight grip.
‘Don’t worry,’ Diesel said. ‘No one will hurt you here.’
Joshua nodded, but he bit his lower lip with his tiny little baby teeth. He looked at the broken crayon in his hand, his scared eyes filling with new tears. ‘I broke it.’
‘Dr Dani won’t be mad,’ Diesel reassured him, cupping his cheek, his own hand looking like a bear’s paw next to the small boy’s face. ‘Let me see who it is,’ he said when the knock came again.
He’d expected it to be Dani or her nurse, but Adam and Deacon stood outside the door. The much shorter social worker stood in front of them, her fist raised to knock again.
Diesel threw a look over his shoulder when he heard a thump behind him. Joshua had backed away, knocking his chair over. He was trembling, his face pale.
‘I won’t go with her,’ the boy said defiantly, but his voice broke. ‘Or them. They lied. They said Michael was bad. They lied.’
Diesel cast a glance at Adam and Deacon before turning fully to face Joshua. ‘Hey,’ Diesel said, as soothingly as he knew how. ‘They never said Michael was bad. They said they wanted to talk to him. That’s not the same thing.’
‘But you called a lawyer.’ Joshua pointed a finger at Diesel accusingly. ‘You said he didn’t do it.’ He lifted his little chin, even as it quavered. ‘Did you lie, too?’
Shit. Why did this kid have to be so smart?
Diesel fought back a wince, forcing himself to smile. Convincingly, he hoped. ‘No, Joshua, I didn’t lie. I don’t think Michael did this, but the police have to talk to everyone when they find a body. Anyone who is asked to talk to the police needs a lawyer. That’s just common sense.’
‘Gee, thanks,’ Adam muttered, but Diesel ignored him.
Joshua swallowed. ‘Even me?’
Diesel wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or cry. ‘If they talk to you, Miss Maddie here will be like your lawyer, okay? Dr Dani and I are going to keep you safe. I know you don’t know us very well, but you can trust us, Joshua. I promise. Now, give me a minute to talk to the detectives.’
He turned back to Adam and Deacon. ‘What’s up?’ he asked calmly.
‘We need to ask you a few questions,’ Adam said. ‘In private.’
‘No!’ Joshua shouted. ‘You said you wouldn’t leave me.’
The social worker entered the room. ‘He won’t, Joshua. Coach Diesel’s going to be just outside this door. I’ll wait with you, but he’ll be right back.’
Joshua blinked, sending tears down his face. He said nothing and Diesel felt like dirt. He made himself smile. ‘If you get scared, yell for me and I’ll come back, lickety-split. That’s fast, Joshua.’
‘Okay.’ The mutinous look on Joshua’s face said that he wasn’t buying any of this, but he still righted the chair in which he’d been sitting and dropped onto it, his thin arms crossed over his chest.
Diesel cleared his throat, feeling helpless. He wanted to assure the child that it would all be fine. That Michael would be all right. But he didn’t know that for sure.
‘Fine. I’ll be outside this door.’ He moved back as Maddie stepped forward to sit at the table with a scowling Joshua.
Closing the door behind him, he blew out a breath. ‘Shit.’
Adam clasped his shoulder and gave it a hard squeeze. ‘You
did good, Diesel. It’s hard for all of us when kids are involved. We’ll try to make this quick.’
‘Thanks. What do you need to know?’
‘Everything you know about these two kids,’ Deacon said.
Diesel frowned. ‘I don’t think Michael killed anyone, for starters.’
Adam and Deacon shared a glance. ‘Neither do we,’ Adam murmured softly.
Something in Diesel settled. ‘Why not?’
Seeming to hesitate, Deacon ran a hand through his spiky white hair. ‘Off the record? I don’t want to see this on the front page of the Ledger.’
‘Off the record,’ Diesel promised, and was filled with a kind of pride when Deacon took him at his word.
‘Okay,’ Deacon said. ‘A fisherman pulled a head out of the river this morning. That started the investigation.’
Diesel recoiled. ‘God. You said a body.’
‘Actually we said remains,’ Deacon corrected. ‘We found John Brewer’s remains.’
Adam grimaced. ‘We think we have all that body’s parts.’
Diesel swallowed against the images in his mind. He’d seen headless bodies. He’d seen disembodied heads. He’d seen bodies in all kinds of pieces. Because war fucking sucked and his brain never forgot anything he’d seen. ‘There were more?’ he forced himself to ask.
Adam nodded. ‘The divers pulled out two heads, but a number of arms and legs – enough for more than two men. So definitely more than one victim. They’re still searching. So far, none of the parts have gunshot wounds, so Michael having a gun under his pillow isn’t a definitive connection. We’ll do DNA testing to match up the parts, to make sure we have all of Brewer’s remains. The ME will issue cause of death at that point.’
Diesel swallowed hard, bile rising in his throat. ‘Jesus. Poor fisherman.’
‘Yeah.’ Adam shook his head. ‘Not anything that he’s likely to forget.’
No, it wasn’t. For the fisherman or the divers or the cops forced to watch. ‘How do you know it was Brewer?’ Diesel asked.
Deacon lowered his voice even further. ‘His is the only body part we’ve ID’d so far. He had a plate in his head, we’re assuming from an earlier injury. It was . . . visible.’ He made a face. ‘Fish.’
Diesel choked back his need to gag at the image of the fish consuming the man’s flesh. ‘Fuck.’
Adam nodded. ‘That’s what we said. But the plate had a visible serial number, so we took a photo and made some phone calls.’
‘Anything implanted into a person’s body has a serial number,’ Diesel said quietly. This he knew from experience. ‘For traceability in case of a recall or other problem.’
Both men gave him measuring looks. ‘You know this how?’ Deacon asked.
‘Because I’ve got my share of metal plates and pins.’ Diesel shrugged when their eyes widened. ‘Shrapnel. Anyway, that’s what they told me at the VA hospital. That every piece they put in me has a serial number. They keep my contact info, just in case, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a recall and I was never notified.’ He didn’t place much trust in the VA hospital. His experience hadn’t been so good.
He felt the pressure on his chest before realizing he was rubbing the worst of his scars with the heel of his hand. He dropped his hand to his side, both men following the movement with curious eyes.
No, his experience hadn’t been good at all. The surgeons had done their best, he supposed, but in his case their best hadn’t been nearly good enough. Some days he almost forgot about the bullet they hadn’t been able to remove.
Almost.
It would kill him someday. He needed that day not to be today. He had work to do. Kids to help. And maybe a doctor to woo.
She’d said no again today, but her beautiful mismatched eyes had said yes. So he wouldn’t push. He’d wait patiently, just as he had for a year and a half. And if she never actually said yes, he’d still come whenever she needed his help.
Until the bullet moved. It wasn’t something he could change, so he tried not to worry about it. Yeah, right. Every day was a ticking clock.
‘So,’ he said, and Adam and Deacon returned their attention to his face, questions still in their eyes. ‘The kids. I know that the mother never stays to watch Josh practice. I know she’s late every week. I know she’s tried to come on to me in very inappropriate ways, despite being married.’ He looked over his shoulder at the exam room. ‘Joshua said that she threw a bowl at Michael’s head this morning. Michael said he ran six miles to pick his brother up.’
Both men lifted their eyebrows at that. ‘With a head injury?’ Deacon asked.
Diesel nodded grimly. ‘And I know that when he saw me, he nearly passed out from fear.’ And that when he sat down for lunch, the boy had winced. And when he rose from the table, he gave the seat a quick swipe with his fingers, surreptitiously checking his fingertips as if he worried he might have left something behind. Like blood. ‘I think that he’s been hurt by a man, in addition to his mother throwing things at him.’
Deacon blew out a harsh breath. ‘He didn’t want either of us in the exam room. He specifically asked for Kendra. Did he tell you who the man was?’
Diesel shook his head. ‘No. He never actually said there was a man. That’s my opinion.’ Based on my own experience. But there was no way he was revealing that to these men. Only one other person in their circle of friends knew his secret – Decker Davenport, an FBI agent who’d been investigating a child pornography ring.
Diesel had given Decker some evidence that he’d gathered from a related Ledger investigation, evidence that had hit way too close to home. And for some reason he still couldn’t fathom, he’d unloaded his sick baggage onto the agent, who’d promised not to tell anyone. And he hadn’t, because Diesel hadn’t detected a change in the way the rest of their friends looked at him.
There would have been a difference, had they known. They wouldn’t have been able to help themselves. Decker had earned his trust, not something Diesel gave easily. He sensed Michael didn’t give it easily, either.
‘I hope I can get Michael to trust me enough to tell me,’ he murmured, then froze at the sound that suddenly exploded from behind the closed exam door.
His eyes slid closed, his chest suddenly tight. He knew that sound.
Sobbing. Desperate, uncontrollable sobbing for a pain so deep that nothing could help it. Nothing could heal it. It just went on and on and on until it clawed out of a person’s throat. Michael’s throat. My throat.
Because he’d made that same sound right after he’d spilled his secret to Decker Davenport. The man had simply grabbed his shoulders and let him cry until he’d cried it all out.
But he hadn’t cried it all out, because new tears burned his eyes. Tears for Michael. Tears for himself.
Tears that he couldn’t blink back. They rolled down his face and he wiped them away with the heel of his hand, just as the tortured sobbing quieted. His mind cleared enough to realize he’d just cried in front of two cops.
Fantastic.
No, he told himself. Deacon and Adam were far more than cops. They’d become his friends over the last year and a half. He let out a shaky breath and forced himself to open his eyes, not exactly sure what he’d see in their expressions. He knew it wouldn’t be scorn. Pity, maybe? Embarrassment on his behalf?
But that wasn’t what he saw. Not at all. Deacon’s jaw was clenched as he stared at the door, and Adam was swiping his hand across his own eyes.
Adam gave Diesel a sad glance. ‘It’s hard when it’s kids,’ he whispered. He squeezed Deacon’s arm. ‘You okay?’
Deacon nodded, finally tearing his eyes from the door. ‘That might account for the gun under his pillow,’ he murmured. He drew a breath and straightened his spine. ‘Regardless of what happens, we need to get that kid into therapy.’
‘What are you go
ing to do with him?’ Diesel set his jaw. ‘Please say you’re not going to drag him downtown now.’
‘We have to,’ Deacon said quietly. ‘I don’t want to, but we need to do this by the book. When we do catch the person who did this, we need to show that we didn’t play fast and loose with the investigation. Michael is, for now, my sister’s foster child.’
‘And my cousin’s,’ Adam added. ‘We’ll be lucky if we aren’t asked to recuse ourselves. We can’t let any defense attorney say we looked the other way with Michael because of his age, his disability, or his foster home.’
‘We’re just going to question him about his stepfather,’ Deacon said. ‘At this point we don’t have any evidence linking him to Brewer’s murder other than his mother’s claim that he’s responsible.’
Diesel swallowed back new rage. ‘She blamed Michael?’
Deacon shrugged. ‘But she’s in custody for possession. Michael’s story is more believable than hers. We’ll likely release him into Dani’s care.’
And mine. But something still nagged at him. ‘What did his stepfather look like?’
Deacon frowned at him. ‘Why?’ he asked suspiciously.
Diesel’s temper flared, but he held his tongue. ‘I’m curious,’ he said mildly.
Deacon’s expression said that he wasn’t fooled. ‘Brewer was about five-ten, a hundred eighty pounds, dark hair.’
So . . . nothing like me.
‘Why?’ Adam repeated, equally suspicious.
Diesel shrugged. ‘I told you that Michael nearly fainted when he saw me. I got the impression that he thought I was someone else.’
‘Ah.’ Adam’s eyes sharpened with understanding. ‘Someone who wasn’t five-ten with dark hair.’
Diesel nodded. ‘Exactly.’
‘We’ll keep our eyes open for someone big and bald then,’ Deacon promised. He frowned again, glancing up at the clock on the wall. ‘Dani’s taking an awful long time with that exam.’