by Max Walker
Was she not believing me?
“Where’s Jesse now?” she asked, looking around the apartment.
“No idea. He just stormed out.”
“Can I see? Your bedroom?”
“Of course.” I walked with Hazel to my room. She stepped in first. Her gasp was immediate.
“And the rest are under the mattress.” I felt terrible. Hazel must have felt so violated.
She lifted up the mattress. “Jesus.” Dropped it back down. She turned to me, her eyes wide, her mouth open.
“You believe me, right? I didn’t do this.”
For a fraction of a second, I thought her answer was going to be no. Instead, she nodded, offering a weak smile. “Of course I believe you, Sam. I know Jesse has to be behind this.” She ran a hand through her wavy brown hair, the thick locks glistening like they were straight out of a shampoo commercial. “I’ll talk to the detective. I’ll tell him he has to focus on Jesse. The creep must have heard you two talking and ran into your room to dump these in here. Hell, I’m sure if we search his room right now, we’d probably find the rest.”
I straightened my back. “So why don’t we?”
“What? Search his room?” Hazel waved a dismissive hand in the air. “I don’t want to give him any more reasons to hate us. What if he finds out?”
“How’s he going to find out?” I didn’t give Hazel a chance to answer. “Just stay here. I’m going to take a look. We all pay rent, don’t we?”
She cocked her head and gave me a “this is such a dumb idea” look, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I felt like I had a solid chance of finding evidence that Jesse was the sick perve behind the thefts. I grabbed my phone and started to record, wanting to get every step on camera, from me walking out the bedroom and across the hall to Jesse’s closed door. He never locked it. Most of the time he barely even closed it. I reached for the doorknob and turned, immediately finding resistance.
He had locked it.
Shit.
I deflated like a balloon. There went my James Bond moment. I thought I’d for sure save the day by finally being brave, finally taking things into my own hands for once. I jiggled the knob some more, the door not budging.
“Move over.”
Hazel smiled at me, a bobby pin in hand, already bent so that it resembled a long, metallic finger. She crouched down and slipped the pin into the small pinhole-shaped lock on the door. She turned and twisted the pin with one hand, keeping the other on the knob, sucking on her lip as she concentrated. My heart started to beat faster and faster. The sooner we got in there, the sooner we could get out. Jesse could have gone for a walk around the block for all I knew; he could be getting home any second now.
“I think I’ve… got it.” The lock clicked, the knob turned, and the door creaked open.
Right there, on top of the chipped and broken drawer he had pushed up against the wall, were rows and rows of small plastic bags, filled up with white powder, some of the bags being filled up with blue powder.
My eyes bugged out of my head. “Holy fucking shit.”
Hazel looked over my shoulder, echoing my statement.
And then another lock clicked. Hazel and I looked at each other like two frightened squirrels hearing the sudden and terrifying purr of a hungry house cat.
I almost tripped as I grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Hazel jumped onto her feet and practically ran into my bedroom. I turned to follow, but Jesse entered before I could disappear, calling out my name.
“Sam! We need to talk.”
“Later, Jesse.”
I turned to see him standing in the living room, his friend at his side. It was Nick Ricks, a sketchy guy who always looked like he was running away from something, always throwing nervous glances over his shoulder, always with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his oversized jeans. He wore a wide-brimmed black cap almost religiously, leaving me to wonder what the majority of his face actually looked like. He had a tattoo of a bleeding angel wing on his forearm and a few tattoos of different cartoons around his neck, all of them appearing to be pretty new. There was a tattoo on his chest of a cross that appeared to have been done in jail; it was peeking over the low-cut and stained wifebeater he wore. He was already making the apartment smell like a bucket of lit cigarettes. He’d only entered Jesse’s circle recently, and from the start I never got good vibes from the guy. Today was no exception.
Still rushing with adrenaline from our failed snooping session, I shook my head and walked past Jesse, heading into the one bathroom we shared for all three of us.
“We can talk later,” I said, stuffing my hands in the pockets of my shorts so he wouldn’t spot them shaking.
“Where’s Hazel?” Jesse asked.
“She’s out!”
I went into the bathroom and shut the door, clicking the lock shut and turning the water on so I had some noise and my loud-ass breathing didn’t give me away. I knew Hazel would be safe in my bedroom, where I doubted she would come out from. I leaned on the dirty counter and looked into the toothpaste-dotted mirror. My hair had gotten unruly, and my glasses were dirty, while my beard was starting to grow unchecked.
I hadn’t realized how far I’d let myself go… and why all I could think about was what Rocky must have thought of me.
Even with him suspecting me, it looks like he’s still pursuing Jesse.
I splashed some cold water on my face, pushing all thoughts of the asshole detective out of my head. Outside of the bathroom, I could hear Jesse and Nick leave the apartment again, most likely coming for drugs. I wondered if calling the cops would be the next best thing, but the last time a detective was in here (not that very long ago), I was the one who ended up being a suspect.
Calling the cops could wait. For now. I’d check my room and make sure he hadn’t snuck in some kind of insurance policy. Watch there have been bricks of cocaine stuffed into my pillows and I had no idea about it.
I’m pretty sure that was an entirely different kind of tooth fairy.
After that, I wanted to get a haircut so I could look like a human again. Then I wanted to take Jesse up on that conversation he wanted to have with me.
6
Rocky Hudson
A loud honk blared through the air. “Fucking asshole!” I shouted at the car in front of me, which had decided to stop suddenly for some unexplained reason. The car behind me swerved and avoided rear-ending me by a fraction of an inch.
I drove around the beat-up Mazda, the exhaust sounding like a damn rice can.
“What the fuck?” I said out of my window.
A little shit of a teenager who must have gotten his license three hours ago had his phone in his hand, clearly taking pictures for his Instagram.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I could see cars coming up from behind us. I peeled off, leaving a cloud of dust and dirt behind me.
Fucking Miami.
I loved this city, but they handed out drivers’ licenses like fucking candy. My commute to work topped twenty minutes at most, and in those twenty minutes, I’m guaranteed to see someone shaving, a girl blow-drying her hair while trying to read the news, and a little Chihuahua sitting on a booster seat with his paws on the steering wheel.
Shit was crazy here.
I pulled into my parking spot, just down the street from Stonewall Investigations. The offices were located barely a street away from the beach, so there was constant foot traffic with tourists and beachgoers carrying their chairs and coolers. I walked around a family of five, the kids already kicking around a soccer ball.
Stonewall Investigations was tucked between two taller buildings. The path leading up to the front door was welcoming, with a trickling fountain and perfectly maintained bushes and flowers, a rainbow flag waving in the breeze. It was a great place to work. I didn’t mind having to come into the office, something I used to dread in my other jobs. I had come from a job in finance and found that my days had been drilled down to the boring
core. Nothing excited me besides the few hours I had scheduled for my other interests.
Speaking of.
I glanced at my watch as I entered the main lobby. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. I had a meeting with Jesse scheduled in the next ten minutes, but the rest of my evening was free, so that would hopefully give me enough time to get home and prepare for tonight.
The last few days had found me overly wound up, and tonight, I planned on releasing all that tension. My Velvet Room was clean, and my body was thirsting.
“Hey, Holly,” I greeted Holly Barrios, the curly-haired and always smiling receptionist. She beamed at me and waved before turning her attention back to the phone between her ear and shoulder.
“Mhmm, yup, we’ve got someone who can help you out. Yep, absolutely.”
I walked by her desk and into the well-lit hallway, a river of Miami sunlight streaming in through the windows. I passed by a couple of closed offices, hearing the detectives speaking to their clients in muffled tones. A phone rang as I passed Shiro’s office. His door was open, his feet thrown up on his desk. He gave me a casual smile and a friendly wave and threw his feet back on the ground, reaching for the ringing phone on his desk.
That was another thing I liked about Stonewall. All I had to do was say hi to the other detectives, and then we all pretty much focused in on our own shit. Sometimes I noticed a few detectives working together and taking things in a more collaborative direction, but that wasn’t me. I didn’t like collaborating. It only led to connecting, and I fucking hated connecting. Only one other detective managed to break through—Angel—and even then, I wouldn’t say we were best friends or anything.
I liked sticking to my own lane and getting shit done.
And today, that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
I reached my office and unlocked the door.
The space wasn’t the fortieth-floor corner office with a wraparound view out to Miami Beach, but I liked it more because of that. I enjoyed the coziness of it, the hominess. It didn’t feel like a regular office, with fluorescent lighting, uncomfortable and squeaky chairs, and an ugly brown desk. No, my office had plenty of natural light coming in, especially since it was one of the only offices to have two windows that looked out to the street, where there were no other tall buildings to block the sun. The walls were painted a welcoming and soft light gray color, with all the furniture sleek and modern and black, with silver accents catching the sunlight. The blue-and-white rug I had imported from Morocco took up half the room and tied everything together, making it feel more like a home than an office.
I went to my desk, rolled back my leather chair, and sat. My desk was clean, as it usually was, with only a small succulent sitting on the edge of the desk inside a white ceramic pot. I liked to have things organized and under control in all aspects of my life, and that extended to the cleanliness of my desk. Life had taught me that there were many things out of my control, but keeping my desk clean? That I could control.
I opened a drawer by my legs and pulled out a simple manila folder. Inside it were the few things I’d been able to compile on Jesse, Sam, and Hazel since yesterday’s incident. It was mostly notes I’d written down from sifting through their social media accounts, but there were also a couple of other golden nuggets of information that I thought could be helpful.
Example number one: the article I’d discovered on Jesse’s parents winning the lottery in their small Texas hometown. They’d taken out the total lump sum of seven million dollars, and from what I could tell, they picked up and moved to a beach house in central Florida. The win had happened six months ago, and yet Jesse still lived in a three-bedroom apartment without so much as a bread crumb thrown his way.
Why was that? Did his parents know something about Jesse? Something that stopped them from supporting him?
Then there were the photos I discovered of Jesse and a friend appearing to be mocking Hazel. The photos seemed to have been taken without Hazel knowing. One photo had Hazel coming up the stairs to her apartment, Nick at the bottom holding up a middle finger and aiming it directly at Hazel, another hand holding his crotch. It made me sick. I wondered how the photo hadn’t been reported yet. I screenshotted it and set it aside, finding another photo with Nick inside the apartment. He was up against Hazel’s door, and he seemed to be spitting on the handle. Jesse must have been the one taking the photo.
Fucking shithead. I wanted to knock both of them out.
And clearly Jesse had an obsession with Hazel. I wondered what other photos he had that didn’t make it online. My stomach twisted.
There were also some questionable comments left on Jesse’s wall, most of them by two girls who both wore big silver chains and wifebeaters in their profile pics. Kendra Fernandez and Monica Silverman. I found one photo of them kissing, Jesse giving a thumbs-up off to the side of the photo. They seemed like they were good friends, up until Nick came into Jesse’s life. There were photos and comments by Kendra and Monica pretty much posted every day on Jesse’s wall, until there was a notification about two months ago that said Nick and Jesse became friends. After that, Monica and Kendra seem to disappear.
I jotted their names down, along with where they both worked. Monica was a bartender and Kendra was a bouncer, both at the same dive bar in Downtown. If they’d had a falling-out with Jesse, then they might be willing to divulge his dirty secrets.
I glanced at the round white clock on the wall. Ten minutes until Jesse arrived for the meeting. I leaned back in my chair, letting my head fall on the cushioned headrest. I stared up at the ceiling, and, as my mind had been (annoyingly) doing recently, I started to think about Sam Clark. Not for any reason in particular, just… well, I didn’t really know why. I couldn’t understand why I kept thinking about that damn smile of his or the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he squinted, or how he smelled like cedar and ocean spray. I caught myself wondering how he’d taste. Would it be just as intoxicating as his scent?
My dick pulsed between my thighs. I squeezed them together, only making the problem more pronounced.
Sam, without even being in the room, could somehow make me rock hard in seconds flat.
Christ on a fucking saltine cracker.
I adjusted my boner, sitting it on my thigh, my black pants straining to hold it down.
This wasn’t the first time this had happened. And frankly, it wasn’t even the worst thing that’s happened since Sam infiltrated my every waking thought.
No, that happened on the day I met him. Even though I briefly suspected him of stealing his best friend’s underwear, for some reason, I still couldn’t stop fantasizing about his underwear.
Sam had dropped to the absolute bottom of my list of suspects. Not that there were many to begin with, but I could say with 90 percent certainty that Sam was innocent. Not only did I have a chat with Hazel, who assured me that Sam must have been framed, but I also spent hours looking through Sam’s internet footprint and one thing was very clear:
Sam loved Hazel with all his heart. He always threw her big parties for every birthday, and he always wrote long and sappy status updates on the day of their “friendaversary.” They had hundreds of pictures together, and they constantly commented back and forth on each other’s posts. They truly seemed like best friends.
And, aside from that, I genuinely didn’t believe Sam was the kind of guy who’d do something like that. I barely knew him, but after years working this job and talking to guilty people face-to-face, I’d developed a good sense of character. Sam didn’t send up any red flags. He spoke with conviction and emotion, the kind of emotion that only comes from someone who’s innocent, scared they’d be accused of an act they’d never commit.
So now, my sole focus had turned to Jesse.
Well, at least when my cock wasn’t trying to grab hold of that focus.
A knock on the door pulled me out of my thoughts. Moments later, Holly’s face appeared in the crack of the opening door. “Rocky, I’ve got Je
sse here to see you.”
“Perfect,” I said, Holly opening the door all the way. Jesse walked past her and stepped into the office. He wore a forest-green shirt that had a small hole near the neckline and a pair of khaki cargo shorts that offended me just by looking at them.
He walked over and took a seat across from me. Thankfully, I didn’t have to stand to shake his hand, seeing as how the thoughts of Sam still had me up at full mast.
“Thanks for coming in today.”
“Sure,” Jesse said, shrugging. “I just want to get this over with. You’re going to see Sam’s a fucking creep.”
Good. Jesse still thought he was coming to Stonewall so that he could further incriminate an innocent man. I knew there’d be no other way of getting him here, so that was the bait I had laid out, and he happened to greedily snatch it up.
“So, let’s start with what you can tell me about Sam and Hazel.”
Jesse didn’t waste a second. He started rattling on about how they’re both freaks who got off on making him feel uncomfortable.
I stopped him midsentence. “So why don’t you just move out?”
He seemed a little stunned by the question. As if the thought had never occurred to him.
Maybe because you’ve got an obsession with Hazel and don’t want to live apart from her?
“I, well, the lease. I can’t break it. Plus, moving is difficult. I don’t want to be bothered with that shit. And I shouldn’t be forced to move either.”
I nodded, pretending to accept all the bullshit he was shoveling. “Have you tried talking with them then? Figuring out why you three don’t get along?”
“They just don’t like me.”
And it sounds like they have good reason not to.
“Listen, I came here to talk about Sam.” Jesse was getting agitated. A large vein pounded on the side of his forehead. “I don’t want to talk about me. He’s the one with the panties under his bed.”