by A. J. Thomas
Alejandro cocked his head, smirking. “After that stunt you tried yesterday, I knew you had balls. Or a single-digit IQ. But I never expected this. Do you have any idea who I am, Mr. FBI?”
“What stunt?” Elliot asked, hoping to keep Alejandro talking to buy himself a bit more time. He’d been hearing sirens for what felt like twenty minutes, but no one had stormed into the house yet.
“You tried to lure me into an open confrontation, all by yourself. No backup, no cover, just you and me. At the time, I thought it was beyond stupidity. But you took him out like it was child’s play.”
“That Lexus outside is yours, then?”
“Nice, isn’t it? You can relax. If I wanted you dead, Mr. FBI, I’d have cut you to pieces yesterday afternoon.”
“If you don’t want me dead, you can put the gun down.”
“Again, no.”
“What do you want, then? Why were you following me?”
“Because these dogs want Raymond dead. And the rumor is you’re the one hiding him.”
“Why would they want Ray dead?”
“Why else? Retaliation. Esteban Garcia sent his brat to seduce my sister so he could fuck us over. He thought they could make me out to look like a traitor and a worthless thief. He didn’t think to send someone with more than half a fucking brain cell, so I really consider his death a kindness. Esteban thinks that Raymond killed him, though.”
“What? Esteban Garcia? Luca’s father?”
“He’s a smart man,” Alejandro said simply. “But his son was a waste of flesh. I did the man a favor, putting him down.”
“You killed Garcia?”
“The boy used my sister, turned her against her own flesh and blood. He disrespected me. And he disrespected Raymond, too. He violated his home, destroyed his property. If I let that kind of disrespect go unanswered, what kind of man am I?”
“A sane man?” Elliot knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help it.
“A weak man. I wasn’t cruel about it. After the way he used Sophie, I should have been, but I didn’t want to offend his father.”
“Killing him wasn’t supposed to offend anyone?”
Alejandro shrugged. “I left him in one piece, and I left the body so his family can bury him, all out of respect for his father. I even told this to his associate. But I suspect he orchestrated his son’s game here anyway, so he must have known what would come of it.”
“Associate?”
Alejandro shrugged. “One of Garcia’s men, I’m sure. He has them everywhere. I am the only thing keeping Esteban Garcia himself out of San Diego, and what better way to make room to move in than to convince my uncles that my sister and I have betrayed them? The only thing I can’t believe is that she was stupid enough to get taken in by him.”
“Mr. Munoz, I don’t care what kind of pissing match you’re involved in with other drug cartels. Murder is murder. Put the gun down, now.”
“Stop playing pig for a minute and think. These men knew you, Mr. FBI. Your name, your home address, and that you were playing host to Raymond. I had trouble tracking you down. I had to follow you all afternoon to find you. I lost you, doubled back here. And then I found these men. And you know what? They didn’t wander around looking for your car; they didn’t waste time watching this house to make sure it was yours. They knew where you lived. They knew what kind of car you drive. And they wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot the first person stupid enough to walk through the front door. Someone sold you out, Mr. FBI.”
“Esteban Garcia has someone inside the Gang Task Force….” Elliot whispered.
Alejandro nodded slowly, his smile gleeful and manic. The barrel of the .45 weaved through the air for a moment, then exploded in a crack that seemed to shake the entire garage. Elliot dove to the side and rolled, hoping to disarm Alejandro before he could line up a second shot. Alejandro sidestepped quickly, leapt over the unconscious man, and sprinted toward the road. Elliot chased him to the curb and fumbled with his phone as he watched the silver Lexus SUV speed away.
“St. Claire!” he yelled, when his boss finally answered the phone. A half-dozen police cars and an ambulance turned the corner onto his street. “St. Claire, somebody just tried to kill me. Three people, armed with assault rifles, were waiting in my fucking house! Have you heard from Hathaway? Is Delgado safe?”
“Belkamp?” There were sirens on the other end of the phone too. For a moment, he thought she might be in one of the cars racing toward him. “Belkamp, are you safe? Is Delgado with you?”
“Someone broke into my house and tried to kill me! They were after Delgado!”
“Was he with you?” Elliot could barely make out her voice over the din.
“No.”
“Delgado’s hotel room is completely destroyed! The bomb squad won’t let anyone inside yet. Get back to headquarters and stay there!”
Ray listened to the phone ring, but he didn’t answer it. He was simultaneously wishing he’d had less to drink and wishing he had more alcohol. The quiet around him was suffocating, and with nothing but the damn phone’s ring tone to cut through the silence, Ray felt like his skin was crawling. Being able to talk to someone, anyone really, would help. But the caller ID said the call was from Elliot, and he was the last person Ray wanted to talk to.
Ray had played every video game on his phone twice, and flipped through two of the cheesy police procedurals his ex-partner kept on the shelf with his very limited DVD collection. He forgot about breakfast and lunch, microwaved dinner, and drank four beers out of the six-pack he’d picked up that morning.
He didn’t drink enough to get really drunk, just enough to take the edge off.
He was totally out of distractions, and he really needed one right now. All day, he’d been thinking about the way he felt with Elliot inside him, working his prostate until he couldn’t think, until he couldn’t breathe. It had been devastating and amazing at the same time, and it had left Ray feeling like he’d been struck by lightning. He wanted to feel it again, to make Elliot feel the same mind-numbing shock. He’d been overwhelmed by how badly he’d wanted to just be close to Elliot afterward. As close as physically possible. When he’d taken his turn later, he’d rocked his cock past Elliot’s sphincter muscle, he’d forced himself to go slow, setting an agonizing pace that dragged the sex out, giving him the chance to stroke, kiss, and caress every inch of Elliot’s body.
He’d meant to get it out of his system. And he’d totally failed.
All he’d wanted when he woke up was to touch Elliot again. It freaked him out, how much he wanted it. How much he wanted to keep his fucked-up domestic fantasy alive. Indulging in the fantasy was one thing, but he’d let things go way too far. Way, way too far.
Desperate, he’d called his former partner, hoping for advice. Hayes was the only openly gay man Ray was friends with, and he was the only one who might be able to help him. As usual, though, Christopher Hayes was impossible to get a hold of. Hayes was about as comfortable as Ray himself was with the idea of being in a relationship, so he figured Hayes would be able to tell him what to do about Elliot Belkamp. Even though his partner had essentially moved in with a cowboy he’d hooked up with nearly nine months ago, Hayes still wasn’t willing to give up his apartment or his ties to the city. Ray knew his partner, and he knew that Hayes and his cowboy would probably be growing old together before Hayes was willing to nail down just what their relationship amounted to.
Because Ray was determined to prove he was still Hayes’s friend, he’d been stuck playing property manager ever since. He’d rented out Hayes’s condo overlooking Seaport Village as a vacation rental throughout the summer and over the Christmas holidays, but in the middle of January, it was as empty as any hotel. It was also comfortably familiar, and it had a kitchen.
So Ray had bought a few days’ worth of groceries, notified the building manager that the apartment would be occupied for a week or so, and made himself at home.
He finished his b
eer and buried his face in Hayes’s couch. Being in Hayes’ apartment helped remind him just how badly falling in love with someone tended to fuck up his life.
Ray had been alone for so long, isolating himself from everyone, that he’d been caught off guard by how Christopher Hayes had wormed his way into Ray’s life. For a long time, he’d thought he might be in love with the guy. Since he’d managed to keep his interest in men confined to his own head up until that point, it freaked him out. He’d been more freaked out by the idea of losing Hayes to the gunshot wound that had nearly ended his career, though, and he’d made an ass of himself trying to hold on to a man who had never been his to begin with.
He’d resolved never to let himself be so stupid again, but he was barreling along the same course with Elliot. And he’d made an ass of himself again.
That was nothing new. Somehow, Ray could make an ass of himself pouring coffee in his own empty kitchen in the morning.
Every time he thought he had people figured out, he did something that managed to upset somebody, or more often everybody. It was better, he knew, to be the office clown than to admit he really didn’t know how others expected him to act. He could analyze body language, tone, and connotation as easily as he could analyze a computer program, but he had a hard time actually employing the things he observed. Hayes had recognized how socially awkward he could be, but he had taken it in stride, just like everything else. Hayes was the only one who had ever managed that.
Until now, anyway.
His phone rang again. Carmen’s ring tone, this time, so Ray didn’t hesitate to answer it.
“I haven’t found her,” he said, not bothering with hello. His sister, at least, he always understood.
“I figured.” He could hear the disappointment in Carmen’s voice. If they were together, he knew she’d be pouting. “I finally got the lady running the investigation to realize that Sophie’s parents and brother don’t give a shit about her. I thought I’d check in with you anyway. You sound like hell, by the way.”
Ray sighed. “I feel like hell.”
“You’re drunk.” There was no mistaking the comment for a question.
Ray tipped his empty beer bottle up, wishing that he had brought more beer with him. “Come on, Carmen, you don’t think that’s a bit unfair? I’m having a bad day, and you automatically assume I’m drunk? What kind of sister does that?”
“Uh-huh. How much have you had to drink?”
“Not nearly enough,” said Ray. “But that’s not the point.”
“Sophie’s missing, and you’re getting drunk….” she sounded exasperated for a moment and then she gasped. “No! You think something’s happened to her?”
“No. I don’t think anything’s happened to her. She was dating one of her professors at the same time she was dating a guy in his class. She packed up her stuff and left her dorm room on her own. I don’t know why she left, but I don’t think she’s hurt.”
“What?” Carmen called out something to one of her kids. “All this crap because she was dating some creepy old man?”
“Not quite. All this because she stole a butt load of money from Alejandro. Don’t pretend you haven’t heard about it, I know you have. I don’t know what the professor she was dating has to do with it. I think maybe she went to him for help.”
“Sophie wouldn’t steal! Not from family, Raymond, you know that!”
Ray huffed. Twelve years as a police officer, and a lifetime tied to organized crime, had convinced him anyone was capable of just about anything in terms of crime. The fact that Sophie was family didn’t absolve her of responsibility for the theft—if anything, it made Ray more likely to believe she was guilty. “The FBI called in tech personnel from the NSA to try and get into her laptop, Carmen. They’ve traced the program she used. And, honestly, from what I’ve heard, I think she was the only one who could have created this program. I told you she’s smart. But no matter how smart she is, they’ll find her.”
“But if she stole from Alejandro….” Carmen’s voice to the barest whisper.
“The FBI will find her first.” Ray tried to sound reassuring, even though he didn’t quite believe they’d find her before Alejandro. “They’ll be able to protect her. And I probably won’t be able to find out anything else. As soon as I started looking into it, her ex-boyfriend broke into my apartment and trashed the place. My apartment is a closed crime scene, and the FBI wants me under house arrest.”
“What? That’s ridiculous. You’re a police officer, they should—”
“He’s dead, Carmen. The body they found in Hillcrest was Sophie’s boyfriend.”
“The one they’re talking about on the news?”
“Apparently, someone shot him just after he broke into my place. He still had my gun on him.”
“Dead? But they didn’t find any sign of Sophie?”
He spent another ten minutes trying to be reassuring, promising her that Sophie was in trouble but likely fine. He listened to the sniffles through the phone, listened to Carmen’s sobs vanish as she said something strong and reassuring to her children. “Why do you sound like the world is ending, then?” she sniffled.
“Personal stuff.” He hoped she’d drop it, but he was never that lucky.
“Personal stuff? Sophie’s missing, and you’re hooking up with some new girl? Raymond, I swear, sometimes I want to strangle you!”
“No, not a new girl. An old lover walked back into my life when this whole mess started. Since I haven’t been able to stay at my place, we were hanging out together. It’s been… weird.”
“Lover is kind of a big word for you, Raymond. The longest you’ve been with a girl is what? Two weeks? Three? And that was in high school.”
“Oh, sure, I try pouring my heart out, and you make fun of me.”
“That’s what siblings are for,” said Carmen. “So some girl has managed the impossible, after all this time? Who is she? When are you bringing her for dinner?”
Ray wondered how much shit he’d catch if he just ended the call. “It’s complicated.”
“Real relationships tend to be.”
“It’s really, really complicated. This lover was kind of a rebound thing for me. I thought I was in love, I thought it might be real, and it wasn’t. And then, well, I thought the person I used as a rebound fu—fling.” He caught himself. “I thought this one was perfect, too. At the time, I thought I was imagining things, just because of how weird the situation was, but now they’re still perfect.”
“If she still seems perfect this time around, then she might actually be perfect, you know. And when were you ever with someone long enough to go through a rebound relationship? Why didn’t I hear about it?”
“Because it wasn’t a relationship. I fell hard for somebody who didn’t want me.” Saying those words aloud still hurt, and the pain made him feel even more pathetic.
“Oh. I’m sorry, Raymond, I shouldn’t have joked around about it. So this rebound girl, she’s back in the picture? And you’ve been staying with her?”
Ray grunted. So long as he didn’t say anything to confirm her belief that Elliot was a woman, it didn’t feel quite like lying. “Not anymore. I’m at Hayes’s apartment until I can go back into mine.”
“Not anymore? What happened?”
“Things got weird. Kind of clingy weird. So I left.”
“But, if you like her, is clingy such a bad thing?”
“I started feeling clingy,” he clarified. “It freaked me out. So this morning, I left.”
Her sigh echoed through the phone. “Raymond, I love you. I do. And you know I think you’re brilliant, right? But sometimes you’re a fucking idiot. You finally find a girl you really like, and you walk out on her first thing in the morning? Because you like her?”
“I did say it was complicated. There’s work stuff between us, too.”
“So what? A lot of relationships start at work. If she still seems perfect after all this time, go after her.”
; Ray grunted again.
“It’s worth it, you know. Having someone to come home to each night.”
Carmen didn’t have the best track record with men, having been married twice and engaged a third time. She’d kicked her most recent boyfriend out just six months ago, after he got drunk and pushed her down a flight of stairs. Ray wanted to ask her if it was worth the weeks of pain she endured each time, not to be cruel, but because he sincerely wanted to know. Every relationship seemed to end the same way.
She would interpret it as him being cruel, though, and hang up on him. Then it would take a month of groveling before she would talk to him again.
“If you decide to bring her to dinner, you know you’re welcome any time.” Any time their mother or grandmother wasn’t visiting, but he didn’t need the reminder. “Call in advance, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Do you have any idea how relieved I am?” She laughed. “After all this time, I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever find a woman willing to put up with you past the first night.”
“Carmen, what would you say if….” Ray tried to think of a tactful way to tell her that the lover in question was a man, but he was pretty sure anything he did say would result in her screaming at him. Screaming at him wasn’t so bad. She screamed at him if he stole the chocolate she kept hidden on top of her refrigerator. If anyone in the world would be okay with him sleeping with a guy, it was Carmen. “What would you say if I told you it’s not a woman?”
“What?” Her voice became icy. “Raymond Louis Delgado, if you are trying to tell me you’re hooking up with some little teenager Sophie’s age, again, I will castrate you myself!”
“He’s not a girl at all, Carmen.” Ray held his breath, half hoping she wouldn’t hear him.
“He?”
“He. And if it makes you feel any better, he’s only two years younger than me.”
“She’s a he? Raymond, are you trying to say you’re gay?” He could hear the disbelief in her voice, hear the defensive anger he’d been dreading.