Police Brutality (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 2)

by Gregory Ashe

  “No,” Dulac said, loudly, the drunken edge to the words, “I’m going to tell him.”

  The brief sounds of a struggle, mixed with Somers stage-whispered: “No, no, dude, stop it,” and Dulac’s repeated: “I will, I’ll tell him, I’m going to tell him.” And then it all dissolved into laughter.

  Hazard smoothed out the spackling, trying to get it perfectly even with the wall on either side. He might have pressed the trowel a little too hard. He might have scored a little line in the plaster with the trowel’s tip.

  “You’re a stud,” Dulac was saying now, and it sounded like a drunken frat boy’s refrain. “You’re a fucking stud, and if he can’t see that, he’s a fucking moron, ok? No. No, I’ll tell him. I’ll say it right to his face.”

  Somers said something Hazard couldn’t hear. That might have been because his own breathing had accelerated. It was this stupid, fucking spackling. It was impossible to smooth out; every time Hazard thought he was close, he spotted another place where he’d fucked the whole thing up.

  “No, no, no. I’m going to tell him. I’m going to say, ‘If I were you, I’d treat him a hell of a lot better.’” Even in the kitchen, Hazard could feel the strange charge in the sudden silence, like lightning about to strike. “I would, John-Henry. I’d treat you a lot better. I’m not really a fuckboy. Swear to God.”

  Hazard couldn’t tell what happened next because the blood in his ears had become a drumline. He stabbed the trowel through the spackling, once, twice, a third time, and then he left it there, hanging out of the wall, and pressed the lid back onto the bucket.

  When he could hear again, Somers was saying, “We are way too drunk. I’m going to get you an Uber.”

  It went on like that for a while, both of them protesting, both of them laughing, both of them sliding into whispers. And then, eventually, footsteps moved toward the front door, and then the door opened and closed.

  When Somers got to the kitchen, he stood in the doorway. Hazard was still on his knees, the bucket of spackling in front of him, his hands still wrapped around the lid.

  “Hey,” Somers said, still too brightly. “What happened? We missed you in there.”

  Hazard got to his feet. He stalked past Somers, heading toward the stairs.

  “We had a nice night,” Somers called after him. “Why didn’t you come eat with us?”

  Don’t answer, Hazard told himself.

  “It’s too bad,” Somers said. “Gray really wanted to hit it off with you.”

  Hazard spun on his heel.

  Somers’s eyes were wide and knowing and not at all drunk. “What?”

  Hazard turned away and took the stairs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DECEMBER 18

  TUESDAY

  9:48 PM

  SOMERS STOOD AT THE SINK, letting the warm water and the dish soap mix. He felt deeply satisfied with the whole night. And, if he were honest, a little bad. But sometimes, there was only one way to get Hazard’s attention. Sometimes there was only one way through all the walls that Hazard put up. And, if Somers were a little more honest with himself, he kind of hoped it had hurt. Just a little. Because, after all, Hazard deserved it.

  It had been touch and go there for a while. Not letting it get too serious. Not letting it go too far. Somers had expected Dulac to be easy, but Dulac had surprised him with how quickly he tried to accelerate. And then Hazard had come in and made a mess of everything: Dulac, you should probably take off your shirt. Dumbass. And then, a little later, Dulac had tried to—

  Pushing the conversation away, Somers trailed a hand through the soapy water. Better to chalk it all up to beer and Dulac’s frustration with his most recent heartbreak. Better not to remember the conversation at all, in fact, since they had to keep working together. Dulac couldn’t have meant anything by it. He’d just been drunk. He’d just been swaggering, his automatic setting.

  Only it hadn’t sounded like swagger. I would, John-Henry. I’d treat you a lot better.

  Oh fuck, Somers thought, slapping one hand down onto the water’s surface.

  Maybe the sound covered the footsteps. Or maybe Hazard simply moved more quietly than Somers remembered. Either way, all of a sudden Hazard was there, standing behind Somers, pressed against him. Hard.

  Somers let a little smile play at the corners of his mouth, hoping Hazard might catch it in the watery reflection of the window. Leaning forward, he grabbed a plate from the soapy water, ran the sponge over it, and rinsed it. As he stacked it in the drying rack, he ground back against Hazard, against that hardness. He didn’t miss the catch in Hazard’s breathing. Somers was getting hard himself. Jealousy turned him on, and it sure as hell revved Hazard’s engine. Somers had been looking forward to this all night, to winding Hazard tighter and tighter with the whole performance until Hazard was ready to explode and then putting it off, incremental delays, micro excuses, until Hazard was so blue-balled that he couldn’t walk. And then, if Hazard apologized, Somers might take pity on him.

  “I really wish you’d spent more time with us,” Somers said. “Dulac—”

  He never had a chance to finish. Hazard grabbed him by the back of the neck and pushed. For a startled moment, Somers thought Hazard was going to dunk him, some kitchen-spin on the classic swirly. But instead, Somers’s stomach came to rest on the edge of the counter, his face inches from the warm, soapy water. Hazard held him there.

  With his other hand, Hazard reached around and undid Somers’s belt and the button on his waistband. He shoved until the tangle of clothing was low enough, and then he used one foot to push it down the rest of the way. Cold air slid along Somers’s legs and ass. His heart thudded wildly in his chest. He tried to rock back into Hazard again, tried to regain control of something, anything, but Hazard had all the leverage, the mass, and the strength to keep Somers pinned.

  “Ree,” Somers said. The breathiness of his own voice caught him. The raw, ragged need of it. He struggled then, frightened by his own reaction to this, by how hard he was.

  Hazard’s fingers flexed once, like a man adjusting his grip, but Somers recognized the movement: if he pushed, if he fought a little harder, Hazard would let go.

  And it would be surrender. Somers would have to admit he’d been an asshole tonight.

  Instead, Somers did the opposite. He tried as hard as he could to sound normal, master of himself, and said, “I think we should have Dulac over for dinner again. I think we should—”

  Hazard’s fingers tightened again.

  Behind Somers, Hazard’s belt jingled, and then came the unmistakable sound of clothing hitting the floor. Something thumped on the counter, and Somers wanted to turn, wanted to see, but Hazard had shifted his position, forcing Somers forward. His nose brushed the surface of the water now; warm wetness climbed his shirt, soaking the fabric over his chest. Somers smelled Dawn dish soap. He could see his face in the water, blurry and shifting in the tiny ripples caused whenever he moved. Hazard’s hand ran down his back, his touch raising the hairs on Somers’s arms, sending a sudden contraction through Somers’s gut and crotch, his balls pulling up against him. When Hazard’s fingers came back, slick, and touched Somers again, Somers’s explosive breath shattered the surface of the water, wiping away his face. Wiping him away completely as those fingers entered him.

  Somers tried to go up on tiptoe; Hazard tightened his grip on Somers’s neck and forced him to stay in place. He worked his fingers steadily, Somers struggled to control the raw gasps, to control himself and not give Hazard what he wanted, not this easily. But it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy at all, and after another minute, maybe less, Somers tried to slide back. Hazard chuckled, the first sound he had made, low and black like thunderclouds, and pinned Somers against the cabinets with a knee.

  Frustrated, bucking, trying to find some way to control this encounter, anything, Somers let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

  He wouldn’t beg.
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  Not yet.

  But it was close; it was so close. Hazard knew his body, knew it better than maybe anyone, and he knew what carried Somers closer and closer to that white heat. He touched. He licked. He bit. His fingers stroked on and on, curling, pressing. Somers canted his hips; he rutted against the cabinets. Or, better said, he tried. The best he could do, with Hazard bearing down on him like this, all that big, brooding mass directed now to containing Somers and restricting his movements, was tiny, pathetic humps. Hazard laughed at this too, the micro-thrusts of Somers’s pelvis. Somers’s face burned with humiliation. He wanted to come. He wanted not to give what Hazard was taking—and he wanted to give it, wanted to give it more than anything. And Hazard hadn’t left him the choice, not after that initial opening, that silent option of surrender at the very beginning.

  When Hazard entered Somers, a long, low note played through the kitchen, and it was only after the initial thrusts, when shards of clarity reassembled for Somers, that he realized that noise was him. Hazard’s fingers gripped his neck; one hand bruised Somers’s hips, immobilizing him against the cabinets. It was probably awkward as fuck—that was the last coherent thought Somers had—but Hazard was somehow using that to his advantage. Deliberately slow, deliberately long thrusts. Everything controlled. Everything precisely tuned to fan all of Somers’s fires and then give the heat no outlet. It just kept building in his chest, the pressure rising higher and higher as Hazard thrust again and again. Somers could hear himself swearing. He could hear himself begging.

  Then Hazard’s hand was in his hair, giving sharp, short tugs, and the pace picked up. Somers couldn’t swear anymore. Couldn’t beg anymore. All he could do was stay where he was, wanting, needing, until Hazard grabbed under his chin and yanked his head back, forcing his body to bend like a bow, the back of his head now on Hazard’s shoulder, and drill up into him.

  The combination swept Somers up, carried him onto a crest like the blade of a knife, and he had one moment to shout a strangled, “I’m coming,” as Hazard went at him harder. Ferociously.

  And then he wasn’t anywhere, for a moment. Wasn’t anything.

  When Somers came back, he was bent over the sink again, elbow-deep in the soapy water, supporting himself with hands braced on the bottom. His breaths stirred puffs of dish soap, carrying the bubbles up into the air.

  Behind him, the belt buckle jingled. A very distant part of his brain told him Hazard was getting dressed again.

  “I’m going to read,” Hazard said, like they’d just been talking about the weather or the grocery list. “If you need help with the dishes, just let me know.”

  Somers couldn’t answer. He couldn’t even shake his head.

  Emery Hazard, the huge asshole, walked away and left him there, wrecked.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  DECEMBER 18

  TUESDAY

  10:15 PM

  AS SOON AS HAZARD LEFT SOMERS in the kitchen, he staggered upstairs, stripped, and got into the shower. Resting his head against the tile, the spray pounding his shoulders, he jerked off in three hard twists of his hand, coming against the wall with a violence that left his legs rubber, his whole body soft like he could get washed down the drain if he weren’t careful.

  Taking huge, shuddering breaths, Hazard tried to stay upright for a few minutes. Then he scrubbed himself down and turned off the water.

  Normally, Hazard would go to their home office and look over files, cases he was still working. It was often the last thing he did at night. It was one of the fictions he permitted himself, and he was grateful that Somers hadn’t yet called him on it.

  As he stood in the office, looking at the desk they shared, the PC with its screen dark, the locked filing cabinet where they both stored anything they brought home from work, Hazard had to admit he didn’t have cases, plural, that he brought home from work. He had one case that swallowed all his nights. He had one case that ate up his waking moments, the tiny free spaces when he ought to have been thinking about Somers or about the future—marriage; the word slid past his defenses like a fillet knife—or anything else that made up his life.

  But all those moments, all those dark hours when Hazard couldn’t sleep, he was thinking about the Keeper of Bees.

  It was a stupid name that a psychopath had given himself. A few months before, Hazard’s first client had been abducted along with two other men: Sheriff Engels’s son, and the young man’s husband. At first, Hazard and Somers had believed the abduction had been part of an ongoing investigation into a murder. It wasn’t until after the murder was solved, when they had confronted the killer, that they had learned that the abduction was unrelated. When they had found the three men, one had already been dead. The other had died within minutes of being found. And the third, Mitchell Martin, had survived after hours of surgery and weeks in the hospital.

  Days and weeks of forensic examination of the victims and the underground room where they’d been held revealed nothing. Everything recovered by Missouri Highway Patrol forensics had been eliminated—every bit of DNA evidence belonged to the victims. Somehow, the killer had made himself invisible.

  Unlocking the filing cabinet, Hazard drew out the folder that held the results of his work so far. He had made a career out of turning the invisible visible. And this asshole wasn’t going to be any different.

  In bed, he propped himself up with pillows, spread the folder on his knees, and stared at the pages. The most substantial part of the file was a photocopy version of everything MHP and the Wahredua PD had assembled; Chief Cravens had provided this to Hazard as part of his employment, a contract specialist for the department. The report was almost a hundred pages long: transcripts of statements from Mitchell Martin, the only survivor; transcripts from Hazard and Somers and other first responders; transcripts from a few witnesses who had contacted the police and seemed only 95% batshit crazy.

  Hazard’s only real addition to the file had been his own typed transcript of another conversation, one that he already knew by heart because he had been part of it. It was his conversation with a killer. And only three short statements mattered.

  Your friend says, “I’m very disappointed. I left you a map.”

  Your friend says, “Next time, you’ll have to be faster.”

  Aristaios. The Keeper of Bees.

  That was all. Some nights, Hazard wanted to rip the pages. Some nights he wanted to growl and stomp down to the office and put the whole thing through the shredder. Tonight, his brain still smoking with what had happened with Somers, Hazard just stared at the pages and drifted in the nightmare landscape of the Keeper of Bees.

  Hazard spent a long time that way. He pretended not to notice when Somers crossed the bedroom, his shirt soaked with dishwater, a strange expression on his face as he cast sidelong glances that Hazard ignored. He pretended not to notice after the shower ran on and off, when Somers came out naked and climbed onto the bed.

  But it was hard not to notice when Somers took his arm, lifted it, and slid up against Hazard, tucking Hazard’s arm around him. Somers lay his head on Hazard’s chest; his wet hair soaked through Hazard’s shirt, and he smelled like tea tree oil and mint.

  Hazard did some contortionist feats and managed to get the blanket over Somers.

  He tried to keep his eyes on the page, but they kept cutting toward Somers, and Hazard would have to drag them back. Somers, because he was Somers, didn’t do anything. He just lay there, curled against Hazard, warm and wet and smelling so damn good that it made it impossible to think about anything else.

  Finally, throwing the folder on the floor, Hazard looked at Somers.

  “Oh,” Somers said. “Hi. Didn’t see you there.”

  Hazard ran his hand over Somers’s head, the wet strands gliding under his fingers. He wriggled down into the pillows, into more of a reclining position. For a long time, they lay like that.

  “I know tonight I was an asshole,” Somers said. “But can
we ever talk about it? Getting married, I mean. Or should I just accept now that it’s not a possibility?”

  Hazard combed the damp locks again and again. He thought about polarization, binaries: black and white, yes and no, Hazard and Somers. He wanted to say yes because he could feel the way Somers hugged him, the tension in his body, and because he remembered the look of hurt on his face both times they had tried before.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  He didn’t answer; he just kept drawing his fingers through Somers’s hair.

  After a while, Somers sighed, his breath rolling hot over Hazard’s chest, and he said, “Ok.” Then he squirmed and wiggled until he seemed to have found a more comfortable position and said, “Tell me about the case.”

  “You know as much as I do. Everything with Hoffmeister is a mess, it doesn’t—”

  “No, dummy. The Keeper.”

  For a moment, Hazard’s whole body went still. “I haven’t really gotten anywhere.”

  “That’s ok. Just talk about it.”

  “You were there, that night. You know how messed up it is.”

  “But tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me where your mind is going. All the paths you’ve traced out. All the ones you’ve closed off.”

  “It’s not—” Hazard stopped. Sometimes, when he thought too deeply about the case, it was like coming to the edge of a cyclone: the sheer force of the emotion dragged him into its spin, choking him so he couldn’t speak or breathe. He could only see Rory’s face as life left it. Could only hear the bees.

  Somers’s hand traced invisible lines on Hazard’s chest and belly, the touch soft and soothing. “It’s ok. You can be upset about it; it’s ok.”

  “I’m not upset about it,” he said, and then he broke the lie by running his hands across his eyes, and then running them over his whole face. “I am fucking furious about it. When I find who did this, when I find them, I’m going to do it all to them. Every last thing. And I’ll do it slower. And I’ll make it worse. Because I’m better than this son of a bitch, so I can make it hurt more.”