by Hank Edwards
Trouble was, that was all he ever was.
But Russell had been different, nice. He was in an open marriage—at least in his mind—and he tipped really well for Dylan to sit on his lap. Naturally, the tips got bigger the more Russell wanted Dylan to do. He was kinky, that was for sure, but nothing painful, which was a nice change. Mostly just the standard creepy-old-guy stuff, like sticking his finger into Dylan’s crack as he walked by, Dylan’s hands too overloaded with a tray of shots to stop him, and then sniffing his finger and saying “Mmm, you’re fresh.” Or the perennial favorites: “C’mere, sit on my lap, and let me play with your nipples.” “How much for you to come on my face?” “Will you let me hold your cock while you take a piss?”
Russell wanted to see Dylan outside of the club, and eventually Dylan agreed because the guy was a rich and famous author, as Russell had told him on more than one occasion. Russell spoiled him with extravagant gifts, like Michael Kors watches, Gucci sunglasses, expensive dinners, weekends away. If Dylan had to do a striptease once in a while or let Russell eat a carrot out of his ass, who cared?
Finally having a chance to indulge in a forgotten but beloved old pastime, Dylan had devoured the Brock Hammer novels. With each adventure the sexy PI took Dylan on, he fell even more in love with Russell.
Russell was Dylan’s Brock Hammer.
But somewhere along the way they got off track. Russell changed after being deserted by Jazz, who’d found out about Dylan and the other side dishes Russell enjoyed—like Andy the bear, José the leather-clad Dom, and any number of other kinks Russell liked to dabble in. Dylan wouldn’t be surprised if he had a furry on speed dial. Dylan was just glad to be the pretty arm candy who made Russell feel young. Russell even let him move into his three-thousand-square-foot home with the lap pool in the basement.
Dylan thought he had it all.
Sadly, he looked at the book in his hands, taking in the dramatic cover art and Russell’s name in big letters along the top. Brand-new ARCs delivered to the festival, still warm off the presses. Fans were scooping up Russell’s new mystery with wild delight.
The Bitter Winds of Death, indeed. Might as well be titled The Bitter Winds of Betrayal.
He still couldn’t believe what Russell had done.
It was all so unfair, and Dylan could do nothing about it… or so he had first thought.
Dylan stared at that thinning blond head now, the head of a pathetic pervert.
You’ll get yours, Russell Withingham.
As if to strengthen that conviction, Norbert cleared his throat to get the audience’s attention.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Norbert began, “the signing is now over. Mr. Withingham and those of us at Printed Screams Publishing appreciate you coming out today. Don’t forget to stop by Mr. Withingham’s special reading tomorrow. He’ll be reading from his exciting new book, The Bitter Winds of Death.”
Dylan clenched his teeth so hard he was surprised they didn’t crack. He caught Russell’s gaze, then quickly schooled his features.
Russell gave him an apologetic smile, then jerked his head for Dylan to follow him. The signing was over, and they had the rest of the evening free.
Dylan didn’t. He had plans of his own that Russell would soon discover.
But that wasn’t until later, so Dylan plastered on a smile and followed Russell to the back office that the bar owner told Russell they could use as a private breakroom for the afternoon.
Russell hastily shut the door behind them. “Well, that was an eventful day.”
Dylan said nothing.
“Boo,” he began, holding out his arms, expecting Dylan to fill them. “Please don’t make that face. I’ll spend every penny the new book makes spoiling you. You know that, right? We’ll go to Paris. Wouldn’t you like that? Making love all night with a view of Gay Paree.”
He managed a weak smile and stepped closer. When Russell pulled him into a familiar embrace, Dylan actually felt his own shoulders relax, some of the tension washing away.
See? That was the whole problem.
Dylan still loved Russell.
Pathetic, he knew that, but he couldn’t help how he felt.
Maybe everything Dylan planned for tonight was a bad idea. Once he did it, there would be no going back. But… maybe, just maybe, it would all be okay. They could stay together, and it could go back to the way it was in the beginning….
Warm lips kissed Dylan’s neck, and he shivered.
Russell pulled back, looking down at Dylan with a hungry smile. “Jasper was so jealous when he saw you.”
“You think?”
“Oh yeah.” Russell walked forward, forcing Dylan to take a few steps back.
Dylan’s heart skipped.
“You’re so hot, every man is jealous of me because I get to fuck you.” He punctuated the word with a sharp pelvic thrust. Then he ran both hands over Dylan’s chest, tweaking his nipples and making Dylan hiss in surprise. “Fuck, you’re so hot!”
Dylan darted an anxious look at the door, needing to derail horny Russell before things got out of control. “We can’t,” he said quickly. “Not here.”
“You know how hard I get after a signing. All the fans, the adoration. I’m like a fucking rock!” Russell groped his dick in illustration, swollen and hard beneath his velvet pants. Grinning wickedly, he pulled Dylan closer and slipped his hand down the waist of Dylan’s jeans. “I think you need a little finger-fucking before dinner, don’t you?”
Panicked about discovery, Dylan pushed on Russell’s chest. “Someone might come in.”
“Then they can watch you come unglued while I diddle this hole just the way you like.” And as he said it, that hand dove deeper, one finger jabbing into Dylan’s asshole.
Dylan gasped.
“Oh my my my,” Russell purred. “What a tight little hole you have. Seems like it could use some stretching, don’t you agree?”
Chapter Three
“MURDER?” MICHAEL repeated into the receiver of his desk phone.
Kitty Musgrave looked over at Michael from the open door that connected their offices. His secretary was thirty-something and married to the sheriff’s younger brother, Marty. The buxom blonde had a 1940’s era mystery-novel-heroine vibe about her, drank straight tequila, and had an uncanny knack for catching Michael being weird—like having conversations with the deceased or stretching his hamstrings with his foot on the desk while on the phone.
But she was a valuable member of his team and possessed the serene quality so vital for this line of work.
“Looks like it,” Sheriff Hilton Musgrave said on the other end of the line. “John Doe washed up on the beach just south of the lighthouse. Missing hands.”
“Missing hands?”
Kitty’s eyes went wider, and she jerked her head back in shock.
“Yup,” Musgrave said. “Chopped clean off.”
Lacetown and their county hadn’t had a murder in ten years. Not since Mrs. Briarwood caught her husband in bed with Abigail Smithers from the Marathon station and shot him with a crossbow in the scrotum. He died of an infection a week later, and she was now off probation, living somewhere in Arizona.
“All right. I’ll get Steve and Ezra. We’ll be right over.” With a sigh, Michael hung up the phone. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead to rub his eyes, hardly able to believe what the sheriff had told him.
“Someone was murdered and their hands are missing?” Kitty clarified, standing in the adjoining doorway, hand on a curvaceous hip.
Michael could see her in black-and-white, swanky mystery music playing as she sauntered into Brock Hammer’s office with a half-empty bottle of tequila in one hand and a tiny hat with a feather and a veil covering one eye.
Dismissing his everyday imaginings—sometimes life was more fun in his imagination—Michael righted his glasses and pushed to his feet. “Yes, apparently a man washed ashore on Hardscrabble Beach. Some tourists found him. His hands were severed.”
�
��I just can’t believe it,” she gushed, eyes wide. “Hands cut off? It sounds like some gang thing, don’t you think?”
He shrugged. “Guess the sheriff will find out.”
She let out a harrumph. Kitty had a low opinion of her sheriff brother-in-law, and had once told him to his face that he had an ego the size of Lake Michigan. Michael thought the sheriff was honest and fair but crass in that way of high school quarterbacks who went to State and stayed the hometown hero their whole lives. Over the years he’d encouraged everyone in town to call him by his last name, more than likely embarrassed by his parents’ choice of first name, which paid homage to the hotel where he’d been conceived.
There was still a sign on Route 551: “Welcome to Lacetown, Home of State All-Star quarterback Hilton Musgrave,” with a list of the tournaments he’d won and the dates. The sheriff parked his cruiser across the street from the sign—Lacetown’s worst speed trap—but Michael suspected Musgrave was admiring his own prowess. Michael and the sheriff had been in the same grade at Lacetown High, but they hadn’t been in the same high school social class. At all. Along with his younger brother, Marty, Musgrave had been a typical meathead jock who’d never acknowledged Michael with anything friendlier than a spitball, even though they’d only had thirty-two students in their graduating class. Kitty’s husband had matured to run M&M Auto and Tire and treated Michael kindly when he took his vehicles in. Musgrave, on the other hand, always seemed to be waiting for another chance to hit Michael in the face with a dodgeball.
As the county-appointed coroner, Michael had to deal with Sheriff Musgrave here and there, but Michael shared Kitty’s harrumph of doubt as to the sheriff’s competency.
Of course he didn’t say that out loud.
“I’ll text Steve,” Kitty offered as she headed back to her desk. “I think he’s spreading mulch out by the sign.”
Steve Childress handled all the parlor’s general maintenance and was the second set of hands Michael needed when collecting a body, setting up services, filling in as a pallbearer when required, or doing any other task that might be needed. Michael couldn’t run the place without him.
“Is Ezra here today?” Michael asked.
Kitty barely suppressed a groan at the mention of Michael’s apprentice. “Yes, he’s downstairs cleaning. Again.”
Michael smiled, unsure why Kitty didn’t like Ezra—maybe she felt his presence threatened her job. Part of every funeral director or mortician’s education was a one-year apprenticeship, though Michael had never taken on an apprentice of his own before. When Wayne State—where he’d obtained his bachelor’s in mortuary science—reached out to him about a recent graduate, Michael had agreed to take on Ezra. He’d only been there two weeks, but he was a quick study and did excellent work. And Michael loved how fastidious he was about cleaning up.
He glanced at the novel on his desk, Brock Hammer in Slip of the Tongue. Jazz had been right. The newer books weren’t as good. Then he retrieved his black windbreaker that said Coroner across the back and his evidence collection kit. He’d been the county-appointed coroner for thirteen years now, after Grandpa had resigned from the position, but this would be his first murder. Mr. Briarwood had died of his arrow wound in the hospital, so his case had been no real mystery.
A shimmer of excitement went through Michael. Death was always a sad business, but he was excited to be involved in a murder investigation. After the autopsy, he might skype his old friend Josh Zimmerman, a forensic pathologist in Miami, and let him know he’d finally hooked a murder. And with Michael’s doctorate leaning heavily on science, he might need to pick Josh’s mind about the obvious criminality of the case.
“Is it true?” Ezra asked in a rush, meeting Michael at the door to his office. “Do we have a murder?”
Kitty muttered something about Ezra’s overexcitement, but Michael couldn’t blame him. Not many outside their industry would understand.
Rather than say that, he nodded to Ezra. “Decorum, and yes, it would appear so.”
Nodding back quickly, Ezra schooled his features.
Michael gestured Ezra out of his doorway and into the arrangement room. The open space had a comfortable conference table where they helped guests with arrangements, while samples of various caskets and liners were displayed along the opposite wall. Ezra followed Michael out through the service entrance, which guests never got to see.
Steve was leaning against the driver’s door of the coroner van when they stepped into the sunshine. He gave a low whistle when he saw Michael.
“Sharp-dressed man in your coroner windbreaker,” Steve said. “I’m going to have to put crime-scene tape around you to keep the men back as you work.”
“That’s not even close to a thing you might have to do,” Michael said. Had Steve just outed Michael to Ezra? Not that Michael was in the closet or anything, but he had not told Ezra yet that he was gay. Steve should think before blurting out statements like that.
Michael sighed and waved toward the van. “Let’s just go, please.”
Steve was very masculine, very handy, and very straight, but not narrow. He had to be the most laid-back man Michael had ever met, and the most sarcastic. Because Steve maintained a continuous level of sarcasm, Michael never knew when the man was being truthful versus insulting. It was due to this uncertainty that Michael often became flustered when interacting with Steve.
“Where are we off to, Captain?”
“Hardscrabble Beach.”
“Fun place,” Steve said as he maneuvered the van out of the funeral home drive and onto the road.
“So did you get all your books signed yesterday, sir?” Ezra asked from the fold-down seat behind Steve. His dark hair was smoothly combed to one side with a very precise part. Dark eyes gleamed with excitement, and his half-smile made Michael think of a child waiting for ice cream and entertaining naughty thoughts.
Michael couldn’t stop his grin, and it had nothing to do with Russell Withingham or Brock Hammer. “Yes, I did.”
“Excellent,” Ezra said.
“Was he cool?” Steve was in his early fifties but still fit and handsome, probably from all the manual labor.
“He was… interesting,” Michael replied, and looked out his window to hide the unstoppable smile that came along with thoughts of Jazz.
As they drove toward the lakeshore, Michael replayed yesterday afternoon in his mind, trying to recall every nuance of his interactions with Jazz. He could all but feel Jazz’s business card burning a hole in his pocket. Last night he’d taken it out and stared at it, wondering if Jazz’s suggestion of getting ice cream had been a joke or not. It was hard to imagine a hunk like Jazz would be interested in a nerd like Michael.
Then again, Jazz had called Michael a hot guy.
Or had he just meant Russell would think Michael was a hot guy?
He still didn’t know the answer to that, and his frustration over the question had driven him straight to his toy box. A little fun with his Fleshjack and anal beads while dreaming of Jazz and all that luscious blond hair had cooled his frustration and finally allowed him to sleep.
But it still hadn’t given Michael the courage to call Jazz today.
It had only been a day. That was too soon, right?
“Fun fact,” Steve said, interrupting Michael’s hamster-wheel thoughts. “Todd Witlow, my best friend in high school, lost his virginity on Hardscrabble Beach after the prom.”
“Oh?” Michael felt a flush of embarrassment because he’d been thinking about Jazz and anal beads while Steve was driving them to a crime scene.
Would Jazz be into anal beads?
“Todd didn’t have a blanket or anything to lie on, so his date made him lie on his back.” Steve chuckled and shook his head. “Todd was picking rocks out of his back and shaking sand out of his ass for days after prom. But he did it with a big ol’ smile, I can tell you that.”
Ezra chuckled. “I’ll bet.”
“That beach has No Swimming signs p
osted all over it because of the undertow.” Michael mentally cursed himself for saying it even as the words left his mouth. It felt sometimes like Steve’s easy-going masculinity fed into Michael’s insecurities, which in turn amped up the prissy, rules-were-made-to-be-followed-not-broken side of his personality.
“Oh, they sure as shit weren’t swimming.”
“Oh.” Michael turned away to hide his blush. “Well, yes. Of course.”
“You went to your prom, didn’t you?” Ezra asked Michael from the back seat.
“I did. I took Christy James.”
“Did you, you know…?” Ezra hesitated. “Go to Hardscrabble Beach with her?”
“I…. No, I didn’t.” They had been crass and done it in the back seat of his old Bonneville. That night Michael had realized, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was gay.
Telling Christy how that night changed his life, however, had been the proverbial nail in the coffin on their friendship.
Steve cocked his head to the side. “You didn’t? Christy used to be a real looker. I know you’re gay and all, but surely you tried another part of the buffet at one time or another, right?”
“What? Buffet? What are you…?” Understanding hit Michael, and his stomach clenched as if somehow Steve was thinking the same thing Michael was. He fussed with his glasses. “Oh.”
Ezra could barely contain his snickering behind them.
Good night, nurse! Are we actually having this conversation? And why are so many people equating sexual activity with food, like buffets and side dishes?
“Sorry, Captain, we didn’t mean to upset you, did we, Ezra?” Steve said. “Just making conversation. I’ve got no problem with who you sleep with or in what position. Unless it’s one of the corpses. Right there I’d have to draw a line.”
“I do not sleep with corpses,” Michael managed to say without sputtering, or least with sputtering only a little.
Damn Christy with her petty jealousy and rumor-mongering ways for spreading that story about him and the bodies in the funeral home. She got it in her head after prom—and her first husband leaving her for a man—that somehow she was man-repellent and men turned gay after sleeping with her. So she took it out on her only target left in Lacetown, Michael.