by Elle Keaton
The mountain and hills flew by. If there had been any color at all left on the trees, it would have blurred together like a child’s finger painting. The Duke and Buck roared down the highway like they owned it. Micah whimpered and crouched down in the passenger seat. He heard Bear crooning to Perla in broken English. It sounded like a prayer. They hit the top of a grade, and the enormous car lifted off the ground for a few seconds before slamming back to earth to continue its wild ride.
His back pocket was vibrating—someone was calling or texting, but Micah could not bring himself to let go of the oh-shit strap to drag his phone out of his jeans pocket. Thank God they’d only seen and passed that single RV. The SUV was lurking behind them but couldn’t seem to get close enough to cause damage. Micah had seen a hand out the passenger window, but if shots had been fired, the bullets had missed.
Buck tapped the brakes and laid on the horn—which, having been designed in the 1970s, was incredibly loud—as they screamed through a four-corner intersection, a closed-up inn on one corner and a tattered stop-and-go across from it. The two other corners hosted tiny espresso stands, hand-lettered signs declaring them closed for the season.
The SUV used that moment of hesitation to draw closer. Micah could see two men in the front seat now. Both were wearing dark ski caps; their faces were exposed, but all he could see were white smudges. His phone started to vibrate again. He knew it was Adam. Taking a deep breath, he swiped his finger across the screen to answer.
“This is when you tell me you are not in the Mercury Marquis wagon that has been reported speeding west on the Mt. Baker Highway. And by speeding, I mean they have clocked the driver going over a hundred miles an hour on the straightaways. Also,” Adam growled out, “I’d like it if you confirmed that the car is in fact not the Mercury Marquis that Buck Swanfeldt owns and Ed Schultz has assured me he would never risk in a fucking high-speed car chase!”
Micah was thinking he didn’t need Adam yelling at him while he was in actual danger of losing his life. He hung up without answering.
“Your boy isn’t too happy with us?” Buck murmured, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Yeah, no.”
Turning in his seat, he tried to see how close the other car was. Glass exploded and the beast rocked forward, swerving left. Buck fought the wheel, trying desperately to correct the path of the careening vehicle, as the lights of an oncoming police car hurtled toward them. Micah’s life flashed before his eyes. Bear was screaming, roaring even, in his guttural mother tongue. Micah couldn’t see, but he thought the Matveev thugs had managed to blow out the Duke’s back window, and maybe a tire, too, from the way the car was swerving. Buck was swearing. They’d been forced to slow down, but the speedometer still showed them going over sixty miles an hour.
Bear lunged from where he’d been crouching over Perla. He had the biggest handgun Micah had ever seen outside of a James Bond movie. He took aim out the back window. With no silencer, the shot was deafening. The windshield disappeared from the car behind them. It swerved, slamming into a drainage ditch along the side of the road.
Micah had never in his life been so glad for sirens and flashing lights. Buck had barely come to a stop before the patrol car reached them. Just another day.
Forty-Seven
FORTY-SEVEN
Nothing in his years of service responding to crime scenes had prepared Adam for the visceral terror he felt knowing Micah was in a car careening down a mountain being chased by paid killers. When the report had come that there was a car chase, the lead vehicle identified as an ancient Mercury Marquis, Adam knew somehow Buck had been roped into being Micah’s chauffeur.
Adam had liked Buck. Until now.
How stupid was it to suddenly understand, really understand, all the romantic crap people spouted? About hearts hurting, breaking, having your breath taken away just by looking at someone? Those college boyfriends had been right: he hadn’t been invested in them, hadn’t opened himself up to them. Something maybe others understood intrinsically had taken Adam thirty-five years to comprehend. Micah had done that to him. His heart no longer lived safely inside his chest; it lived outside his body, where it could get hurt, where it was vulnerable to whim—where it could, perhaps, disappear forever.
Adam’s actual heart, a muscle he had never appreciated before for more than doing its job pumping blood around his body, felt like it had been ripped out of his chest without anesthesia, stomped on, then set on fire when he realized Micah had left the motel room. It was such an intensely visceral feeling that Adam kept looking down at himself to make certain he wasn’t bleeding out in front of his team. The aching hole where his heart had been almost floored him. He was in agony. Literally. He kept trying to take a breath, but he couldn’t get his lungs to expand enough for more than short, tight gasps.
Weir, of all people, finally interrupted the briefing, telling everyone to take five. Grabbing Adam by the elbow, he pulled him out into the hallway of SkPD headquarters.
“Dude, you have to get a hold of yourself. What is wrong with you?”
Adam could hardly hear him over the rushing sound in his ears.
“Seriously, what’s wrong? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“Micah.” Adam jammed his hands in his jeans pockets to hide the trembling.
“Okay.” Weir trailed off for a second. “Don’t, ah, take this the wrong way. Did you just figure out that you care for him? Maybe even—”
“Do. Not. Say. It,” Adam ground out, cutting Weir off.
“I’m going to take that as a yes. It will be our little secret for now. But lemme tell you something else. You better tell him when you see him, or you’ll never forgive yourself. Focus on seeing him again so you can tell him. Try not to think about the things you can’t control.”
Adam couldn’t believe Weir, man-child-surfer-dude, was having this conversation with him.
“I haven’t known him long enough to feel this way. It’s … it’s …”
“Scaring the shit out of you? You thought you were in control? And now your guy has gone off all badass, and you finally had your come-to-Jesus moment? All I can say is, it’s good to know you have a human heart. There’s been an office pool for years that starts up whenever you start seeing somebody.”
By the time Adam arrived at the spot where the speeding Marquis had thumped off the road, the EMTs had carted Micah, Buck, and some other passengers to off St. Joe’s, leaving a dead guy and the driver of the SUV. Another set of EMTs were taking care of him, although by the looks of his face he wouldn’t be talking anytime soon.
Even though Adam was still technically on leave, he had to take point for the investigation along with a detective from SkPD. Darren Chambers seemed like a decent investigator, but if he took any longer looking at skid marks and measuring distances, Adam was going to Taser the guy and toss him in the trunk of his car. Which was funny because normally, as much as he griped about it, Adam was the one who left no stone unturned.
He needed to see for himself that Micah was okay. Chambers obviously had nobody waiting at home for him. Then some other industrious crime-scene investigators discovered a second abandoned SUV. No bodies, but there was significant blood both in and outside the vehicle. No sign of Matveev. It was several hours before Adam could remove himself from the scene and head to the St. Joe’s emergency room.
Forty-Eight
FORTY-SEVEN
Adam stalked into the hospital waiting room, a panther amongst pigeons. Micah saw him coming and wanted to run the other direction. He knew it had been impulsive to go up to the cabins. He should never have put Buck in danger like that, either. Couldn’t Adam just chalk it up to insanity? That’s what Micah was going to do. Besides, did Adam care? Micah wasn’t foolish enough to think that a couple of nights in bed and Adam feeling vulnerable because his father had died would make the difference for him. He steeled himself for a lecture as Adam strode closer.
He wasn’t prepared to be grabbed by
the shoulders and pulled tight against Adam, fingers digging desperately into his flesh, squeezing so tightly there would be bruising. Adam’s face pressed into Micah’s neck, and his body shook. Micah found himself soothing Adam, rubbing comforting circles on his back. Murmuring nonsense.
It could have been a minute or it could have been an hour before Adam pulled himself together enough to yell at him the way Micah had expected.
“Never, never do something like that again.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I just found you. I just now know what it feels like to have someone. I don’t care about anything else.”
Oh
Ohhhhh.
Weir had followed Adam into the waiting room at some point, though Micah hadn’t seen him arrive. He was watching them with a guarded fascination.
“Klay, I hate to interrupt but, uh, we’ve still got work to do.” Weir’s oddly deep voice shattered the moment. Micah kind of wanted to kill him.
Adam inhaled. “Yeah, I know.” Loosening his grip on Micah, he continued, “Matveev and his driver haven’t been found yet. The two guys that were following are not going to be talking for a while, especially since one is dead. The big guy with you clammed up. Nobody seems to know who he is or how he fits in, except that he is Eastern European. The woman is still unconscious; docs aren’t sure why. We had to put the big guy in a holding cell because of the gun and the no speaking.”
Micah nodded, emotion making it difficult for him to talk. He didn’t even know her. He only knew that Bear cared for her. “Bear,” he whispered. “She called him Bear. Her name is Perla.”
“Weir and I need to take care of some things. Will you please be here when I get back?” Adam asked.
“Can I go home?”
“We need to find Matveev first. He is dangerous, and his nest has been disturbed. He’s not going to go down without a fight. I need you safe.”
Micah still wasn’t entirely sure what Adam meant by that. But if actions were an indicator, he hoped it was a substitute for something stronger. A clammy hospital waiting room with yellow walls and fluorescent lighting was probably not the place for deep conversation. And Weir was still standing there listening.
He knew he was going to capitulate even before he said the words. “Okay. Where, then?”
Adam sighed with relief. “The rest of the team has arrived. Mohammad had Weir here working another side of the case; if you hadn’t figured out about the cabins, we would have been there in just a few hours.” He shook his head. “Anyway, they’re setting up at the motel. You’ll be safe there.”
Weir’s phone rang. “Yeah? Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, we’ll be right there. Five minutes.” He ended the call. “Come on, lover boy, we have work to do.” Weir snickered.
An agent Micah hadn’t noticed moved to his side. She gestured toward the exit. “I’m Hannah Rourke. Let’s get going. I have to say, while I am not pleased to be babysitting you, it’s nice to see that Adam Klay’s heart does actually beat.”
Weir let out another inelegant snort.
Not even the chance to eavesdrop on a team of real CSI-type investigators could keep Micah’s eyes open. The adrenaline had long since left his bloodstream, and he crashed hard. Once Agent Rourke deposited him back in the suite, he ducked into the closest unoccupied room and passed out. The next thing he registered was the mattress dipping and a warm body spooning up behind him. Adam pulled him close and settled the covers over them both. Micah slept like the dead.
Adam was gone when he woke up, but Micah could hear his voice in the main room. There was a cup of lukewarm coffee sitting on the nightstand. Glowing red numbers told him he had slept through the night. He hadn’t even had the energy to take his filthy clothes off. A shower was top priority. He couldn’t believe Adam had held him all night; he smelled like a twelve-year-old boy who believed hygiene was a concept and not a necessity.
He dropped his crusty shirt and jeans on the bathroom floor in disgust. If he didn’t need clothes to wear home, he would have thrown them in the trash can. The shower felt incredible, the hot sting of water on his shoulders and face flushing away the terror of the day before. He turned the water off just as the bathroom door opened, revealing Adam holding a pair of jeans and some other stuff Micah didn’t care about. He would never get tired of Adam looking at him like that.
“No funky stuff in there, Klay!” he heard Weir yell through the bedroom door.
“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Adam grinned wickedly, moving toward Micah with intent.
With nothing to cover him, Micah’s desire was on display for Adam. They both looked down and watched as Micah’s penis filled and stretched, pointing directly toward Adam.
“Fuck me, that is incredible.” Adam adjusted himself in the confines of his slacks and groaned when Micah twitched and a drop of moisture pushed out from his reddened tip.
Adam went down on his knees in the steamy bathroom, grabbing Micah’s ass with one hand and his dick with the other, licking it like it was the most delectable ice-cream cone he had ever had. He slurped and nuzzled until Micah thought he might explode. Just one more pass and he would come, and he hadn’t even gotten into Adam’s mouth yet. Adam must have felt him, because he grabbed the base and squeezed until Micah could hold back—but he still felt his balls tighten; he was hot inside. The sensation of Adam’s tongue again made him pulse, and he had to grab the shower door so he wouldn’t collapse. Finally, Adam put his molten, wet mouth around Micah. It was so incredible he almost screamed. He had to shove his fist in his mouth. Adam was looking up at him with a glow in his eyes that Micah could not, would not, deny.
Adam’s mouth moved up and down, slick dripping from his lips. Micah felt his ass cheeks being parted and Adam’s finger teasing his hole, and just like that Micah was right there again. The fingers that had been rubbing his balls were pushing into his ass. He felt his hole clench, but Adam kept pushing and there was a flash of pleasure-pain.
“Ah. Adam. Adam.” Micah could feel himself sparking and knew he couldn’t stop. Adam brushed Micah’s prostate at the same time he loosened his jaw and practically swallowed him whole. The pressure of his throat pushed Micah all the way over the edge, a beautiful release pumping into Adam while Adam kept stroking his gland. One hand wasn’t enough to hold Micah up; he collapsed onto Adam.
“Oh, yeah. Come here, baby.” They slumped against the bathroom wall, Micah straddling Adam’s lap.
He could feel Adam’s erection against his hip. He managed to shove his hand into Adam’s stupid khaki slacks and grab it while he shoved his tongue into Adam’s mouth. It wasn’t pretty, and there was no come shot, but it only took three tugs before Adam spilled all over Micah’s hand, shaking with the aftershocks as Micah kept rubbing his softening penis. Adam sighed. Micah laid his head on Adam’s shoulder and shut his eyes.
Someone pounded on the bedroom door. Micah heard Weir shout, “You have got to be kidding me! Did you fail ‘How to Be Quiet’ class?”
Adam escorted Micah to his house a few hours later. It felt like someplace he had lived in another time. Yes, the remaining photos and knickknacks were still there. Still in the same places they had been for years. But it felt different. Or Micah felt different. He felt aware, alive, scared as hell, happy. Adam Klay had showed up out of the blue, jolting Micah from his years-long fog.
On the drive over, Adam had told him what he could. They had found Matveev’s vehicle ten miles farther up the highway on a Forest Service road. Lots of blood and discarded clothing, but no bodies nearby. It was clear that another car had picked them up.
Bear had broken his silence when he spotted Officer Parks in a cell. Parks had vehemently denied any connection, but Lieutenant Nguyen had called for a young female officer who spoke Ukrainian.
It turned out that Bear recognized Parks from a few visits to the cabins, which, he confirmed to the translator and Adam, were part of a “men’s club.” As much as Weir seemed
to grate on Adam’s nerves, he was a computer genius. He’d discovered hidden links on the club’s public website that led to aliases where a person could download any kind of porn they wanted and could even order “special services” and, it appeared, have them delivered.
The cabins were currently vacant, except for the one Bear and Perla had been living in. Once a month or so a group of young people had been brought in for the club members to . . . enjoy. Bear said they had been expecting an event anytime.
Micah’s pressing question, what role did Bear and Perla play, could not be fully answered. The translator didn’t speak the same dialect as he did and was having trouble with some of the finer points. At a minimum the two of them were glorified janitors, facilities maintenance. At worst, they might have been jailers.
Bear was still at the station. They didn’t know what to do with him. He was a witness as well as a victim, although the victim part was proving difficult to pin down. Parks remained in custody. He had been the last person seen with Jennifer Verdugo before she turned up dead. Some community liaison officer he turned out to be.
The current plan was to try to interview kids from the shelter. Jennifer’s involvement implied a connection that no one wanted to make. The conversations ahead were going to be very difficult.
Adam sighed and moved away from Micah. Micah frowned, immediately missing the warmth of Adam’s touch.
“I need to get back to the station. There’s someone out front, and there will be another agent here in a little while. Not sure who, but I’ll call and tell you who to expect. Please stay here and don’t go anywhere.”
With those words, he left, leaving Micah cold, alone, and unsure about everything. The cat jumped up onto the cushion next to him and plopped down, a small warm body against his thigh.