It was farther down the street now, turning the corner to a chorus of squealing breaks and honking horns. The license plate on the back was so caked with mud he couldn’t read it, but he revved the engine of the bike, figuring he still had time to catch the fucker. So some asshat wanted to take him out? Fine. But they did not take shots at Paris. That did not fucking happen, and he wasn’t about to let it stand.

He felt Paris’s helmet butt against his, his hand moving up to the center of his chest. “Don’t,” Paris shouted, his voice muffled through the fiberglass. “The DOT records this intersection. Ask Murphy to get one of her contacts there to pull the tapes. “

A quick glance up at the street lights confirmed the presence of slim, small cameras painted white to blend in with the rest of the poles, although they never actually did. If you bothered to look up, the cameras were extremely easy to spot. Paris was pressed up so tight against his back he could feel his heartbeat, as rapid and fluttery as a bird’s, pounding against his back. “Please Roan,” Paris said, and he sounded so tired.

He sighed, and wondered if that fuckhead in the Navigator knew how lucky he was. Next time, he’d confront him without Paris, and he’d be fucking lucky if he didn’t squeeze his neck until his head popped off.

He drove home, the adrenaline surge in his veins making him want to speed, so he had to fight to keep to legal speeds. The lion in him wanted out, and it was hard to keep it under control, mainly because he wanted to let it out. He wanted to turn it loose on whoever just tried to splatter them on his grill. Targeting him was one thing, but targeting his family was another - and Paris was all the family he had. That knowledge hit him in the gut like a punch, yet another thing he didn’t want to think about.

Once they got home and parked the bike, Paris took off his helmet, and said, “Oh my god. I’m so glad you have the best reflexes in the known universe, ‘cause I was sure we were goners.”

Roan saw his own hands were shaking as he took off his helmet, but that was more from adrenaline overload than anything else. “We got lucky. We shouldn’t have had to.”

Paris snorted derisively. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I bet even the guy that tried to hit us isn’t sure how he didn’t.”

He shrugged, aware he was probably right, but now he resented the dipshit for not doing his homework on him before trying to kill him.

Once inside, he instantly called Murphy. She was at home now, but she had her cell with her. He told her where and approximately when someone tried to run them off the road, and she promised she’d make a few phone calls, see what she could find out. Then she added that maybe he shouldn’t piss so many people off, but that wasn’t a helpful suggestion.

He had a beer to try and calm down, to bring down his adrenaline jitters, but it didn’t work. He went upstairs to find Paris already in bed, the covers pulled up to his waist as he slumped against the headboard, Thora’s laptop in his lap. “Trying Aqueduct?” he asked needlessly. Of course he was.

Par just nodded. “In all the excitement, I didn’t want to forget … and hey, what do you know?” Roan sat next to him on the bed, and Par moved the laptop screen towards him. The Others file had finally opened, revealing twice as many documents as the “Group” folder. Paris clicked on the first document to open it, and it seemed like Thora had written her autobiography.

Paris yawned, and put the computer on his lap. “You’re the reader - have at it. I’m too tired to read.” He kissed him, and then turned over, settling into bed and pulling the covers up to his chest. Roan put a hand on his shoulder, and Paris put his hand on top of his. He knew he was asleep when his hand slid away, down to the mattress. He still kept his hand on him, though, just for the reassuring feeling of contact.

Thora had written a hell of a sleeping pill here. Within three pages he was yawning, his adrenaline buzz forgotten in a blizzard of poor little rich girl prose. Maybe because he was raised in a series of foster homes - some really fucked up - and group homes, he could muster no sympathy for her because she was raised by nannies as opposed to her parents. Her parents were distant, busy, obsessed with appearance and wealth, yada yada yada. Not that that wasn’t horrible, it was just hard to identify with. In fact, it irritated him more than anything.

He had to set the laptop aside after a while, and got undressed and slid beside Paris to sleep. He should market that book, as it was better than Sominex. At least the rehab memoirs were more interesting.

He had a dream that escaped him once he woke up, although it left him with a vague sense of unease, like he had a nightmare that was disturbing more for its reality than its horror movie tone, but once he woke to dim half light and the percussive pounding of rain on the roof, he lost whatever grip he had on it.

Par was still sleeping, so he went downstairs to make breakfast and took the laptop with him, figuring he could skim the rest of the documents, since reading them would put him in a coma. He meant to make omelets, but kind of forgot how to, and ended up making scrambled eggs. He threw some salsa in anyways, if just for flavor.

He made coffee in Manuel, their old, less fancy coffeemaker, and ate his eggs as he skimmed the remaining files in sequence. Finally, he came to something that stopped him in mid bite.

Thora claimed that when she was five - and Jay was fifteen - he molested her, and the family decided she was lying, being a “wicked girl”, trying to get him in trouble. She said from then on she was branded a liar by the family, and Jay kept his taste for young girls, which expressed itself in younger girlfriends (some not legal) and a collection of child porn. Of course she offered up no proof of this, but this was wildly inflammatory, and if it got out to the press, it would remain there for some time. Would Jay kill his own sister over this? He knew people who had killed for much less. He needed to interview Jay Bishop as soon as possible.

When Paris came downstairs, Roan served him up a plate of eggs and some nuked croissants (yes, he was still trying to fatten him up), and told him what he had come across. He was horrified by the thought of anyone molesting their own sister, and already judged Jay a “total fucking scumbag”. “Even if he didn’t kill her, can we lock him up for something?” he wondered.

Roan sympathized with the feeling, but he wanted to get Thora’s and Eric’s actual killer. But it would be nice to get Jay to rot for something, if even half this stuff was true.

Murphy called as he was getting dressed to go out. Apparently the Lincoln Navigator that had tried to run him and Paris down was reported by an irate driver who was almost sideswiped by it, although he didn’t get a license plate number. Still, he happened to be a mechanic and identified not only the year of the model, but one of the only places around town where they could have gotten the fancy hubcaps on their tires. (Roan hadn’t caught that, but then he generally didn’t notice tricked out rims.) Also a traffic camera, one of those automatic speed traps, caught the same Navigator going eleven miles over the speed limit several blocks away. The windows were tinted so they couldn’t see the driver, and mud splattered both plates, but they got a partially number on the front, so they were running that now and trying to make a match. She was pretty confident they should have something solid on the owner of the vehicle pretty soon.

She also told him they’d got a confirmation of Parker Davis’s fingerprints on Eric’s door, purely circumstantial evidence putting him at the crime scene, but between that and Toby’s positive i.d. of him as the guy who’d left Panic at the same time as Eric, it was enough to hold him, and unless something really dramatic happened, would probably be enough to charge him. The fact of who and what he was - a drug addicted male hustler - would hurt him quite badly. If he was just a guy, they might have streeted him until they got harder evidence, but everyone from the street cops to the prosecutors to the judges knew how violent and ugly the worlds of drugs and prostitution were. Wherever human exploitation reigned, there was violence, and the only variable was whether it was directed at them or caused by them. That he would snap and kill a client would sound not just logical but inevitable to most, especially since he was gay for pay. Roan wondered why such a logical, pat story didn’t make him happy. Personal problem?

While he got dressed, Paris played “assistant” and checked out Trey’s alibi, as well as tried to get him an appointment with Jay Bishop. Jay was in charge of public relations for Thorp Chemical - which just struck him as bleakly hilarious - and because he was supposed to go interview a big powerful child molester - okay, no, alleged child molester - he thought he should a bit more like he belonged in a big important building. He decided to wear a long sleeved button down shirt, but he wouldn’t wear a tie; he hated those damn things. They felt like a leash around his neck, like he was on a choke chain, and it drove him crazy. He decided on a pale blue shirt and was mentally debating whether to go with a sports coat or just wear his waist length leather car coat, which was a rich, deep brown and looked classy as opposed to rough trade, when Paris came up. He came over to him in front of the mirror, and gave him a slightly sarcastic, disapproving click of his tongue. “You should wear the pale green, as it really highlights the color of your hair. Or the pale yellow, which brings out your eyes.” Even as he said that, he reached around and started buttoning up his shirt for him.

“I’m not going on a date.”

“You’d better not be. But I was thinking if you stunned him with your beauty, he might forget to try and kill you.”

“All we know is he’s probably a scumbag. If all scumbags were killers, the world’s population would be exactly three, and they’d probably all live in Iceland.”

Paris kissed his ear, and smiled at him in the mirror. “You know what I love about you? You’re such an optimist.”

He scowled at him sarcastically in the mirror. “Ha. When’s my appointment?”

“Um, well … there isn’t one. His schedule is full until next week.”

That made him frown and turn to face Paris. “You did tell his people I had to talk to him about Thora, right?”

“Of course I did. And that woman on the other end of the line couldn’t have given a shit about it. I’m surprised she didn’t tell me that you’d have to use the service entrance when you were allowed to see him.”

“Good. They’ll be all the more shocked when I park my ass in their lobby and refuse to leave until I speak with him.”

Paris fixed him with a very paternal cowl, and straightened his collar. “No instigating.”

“Since when do I instigate?”

He let out a small, sarcastic gasp. “Since forever. It should be on your business card. Roan McKichan, private investigator, instigator.”

“I bet that doesn’t pay well.”

“Depends on what you’re instigating, I guess.” Deciding his collar was as straight as it was ever going to be, he gave him an honestly worried look, staring him straight in the eyes. “Maybe I should do this. You know how good I am with hostile people.”

“Yeah, but I really need to see him in person. I need to see his reactions.”

“And smell them.”

“That too. So, do I look like I can get into Thorp Chemical without being intercepted by security?”

He made a show of thinking about it for a very long time. Then he said, “If they see instigator on your business cards, the jig is up.”

“Keep the day job, Shecky.” He shrugged on the leather car coat and gave him a kiss before leaving. The fact that Paris wasn’t putting up a fight to come along was actually suspicious and a bit worrisome - did he feel so unwell today he preferred to stay at home?

But he couldn’t let it sidetrack him as he headed for Thorp Chemical’s main business office downtown. It was an anonymous skyscraper amongst similar skyscrapers, a tower of mirrored glass and steel, similar to any dozens of businesses along the downtown corridor. The sign announcing who owned the building was so discreet you could only see it on foot, approaching the main entrance. Inside, he found a wide lobby with a high ceiling, people coming and going at such a rate it seemed the elevators were constantly opening and closing. There seemed to be some sort of security desk up front, but he ignored it and looked at a plaque on the wall that denoted who was on what floor. He saw the PR office was on the seventeenth floor, and slipped into the open door of the nearest elevator. Oh, how he loved lax security.

The seventeenth floor was just like any other floor, only it opened up on a lobby of beige and white, with a slim blonde receptionist sitting behind a white curve of a desk that resembled a half moon. The only bit of genuine color in the room was a huge rubber plant in the far corner, and Roan just bet it was fake. The woman looked up, a wireless headset perched on her head like a high tech crown, and while her storm grey eyes were focused on him, she barely saw him as she punched a button on her phone, presumably putting someone on hold. “Can I help you sir?”

“I’m here to see Adam Bishop.”

She glanced down at her appointment book, which was an actual ledger. In these days of Blackberries, that was rare. “Are you his one o’clock?”

“No, I wasn’t allowed an appointment.”

She sighed, and gave him a rather sour look. “Sir, Mr. Bishop is a very busy man -”

“Tell him Roan McKichan, a private investigator, is here to see him about the death of his sister Thora,” he interrupted, meeting her frosty look with one of his own. “And considering the inflammatory nature of some of the accusations made by her against him, he might want to talk to me and give me his side of the story before this all comes out.”

Her look swung between confused and hostile. “If you’d like to make an appointment -”

“Tell him,” he insisted, taking a seat on the beige leather sofa in the lobby. There was a glass topped coffee table full of business magazines and a folded up copy of today’s Wall Street Journal. There could hardly be a more boring paper in existence, but he grabbed it and pretended to start reading it, half hoping that he’d come across some vitriolic right wing screed - those were always hilarious, especially if the “homosexual agenda” was mentioned. He felt so left out. He was never included in the homosexual agenda; he never even got an invite to the meetings. Was it because he was infected? The black balling bastards! The least they could do was send him the newsletter.

Actually he had heard that someone was introducing a bill forcing all people with tiger strain infections to register with the health department. It was unlikely to get very far, because any mention of involuntary registration had uncomfortable shades of Nazism about it, but also it was just a waste of time. Yes, it was the most instantly deadly strain, and a loose tiger was an extremely troublesome thing (if anyone could bring Mitch Henstridge back from the dead, they could ask him all about it), but living tiger strain people were so rare, and never very long for this world. Paris was probably the only tiger strain in the state if not the entire Northwest, and he was dying.

Not what he wanted to think about right now.

The receptionist had obviously told Jay what he had said, because she cleared her throat and gave him a look that was positively Arctic. “You can go in now.”

He folded up the paper and put it on the coffee table before getting up and tipping an imaginary hat to her. She didn’t look at all amused. He went ahead into Jay’s inner office.

It was fairly expensive, like he expected it to be, but it also had a cold sterility to it that was anything but friendly. The window wall on the far end of the office let in light that was filtered and gloomy, and cast Jay in partial shadows. He was standing up behind his heavy oak desk, his plush leather office chair (was it one of those massage ones?) shoved off to the side. He was a tall man, maybe six three, and while he had fairly broad shoulders, Paris still could have kicked his ass. He wore a dark Armani suit with a white shirt and a red “power” tie, his dark brown hair in a short bristle cut that looked more military than commercial, his neck thick and his face round, almost puffy, although he was in general good shape for a businessman. He had the general look of a star high school quarterback ten years after his glory days. His eyes were small and pale, and seemed a little too far apart, divided by a Roman nose that was easily the biggest and most natural in the entire Bishop family. “You have five minutes before security throws you out,” he growled. Well, a Human attempt at a growl - not very impressive. Roan briefly considered giving him a real growl, a lion’s growl, but decided to save it for later.

“Well then, let’s skip the foreplay, shall we? You undoubtedly know what I’m referring to with regards to Thora, so why don’t you tell me your side of it.”

“No, I have no idea why you’re here,” he replied, his voice clipped and ball shriveling cold. He could almost see icicles forming in the air between them. “My sister was a liar, Mr. McKichan, an inveterate one - she lied every single day of her life. She could have told you I was an alien for all I know.”

Jay believed what he was saying, and yet, Roan was fairly certain he was exaggerating. His open, flagrant hostility towards him simply made him suspicious, although maybe he was always that way; maybe that’s why Matt was so afraid of him. “She claimed you molested her as a child.”

He snorted in disgust. “Her favorite lie. She always cast herself as a victim in her own drama.”

Again, Jay believed this, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lying. In fact, he didn’t say he hadn’t - he just said she was lying. He knew enough lawyers to know that wasn’t an actual denial. “You didn’t like your sister very much, did you?”

His eyes narrowed, and Roan could almost feel the pressure of his gaze. He didn’t like him either. “My family is my family, and I stand by them. She was my sister, even if she was a pathological liar. I don’t know how well you knew her, but she was a very troubled girl, and she never got all the help she needed. I’m not surprised she committed suicide.”

“So you think it’s a suicide?”

Jay smirked, ever so slightly. “You’re one of her loser drug buddies, aren’t you? You made up being a detective.”

“Nope.” He took out a business card and walked over to his desk. He held it out, but Jay wouldn’t take it, so he dropped it face up on his desk. “There are some anomalies surrounding her death. I’m just making sure they’re looked at.”

He glanced at the card without moving his head. Roan could almost feel a solid wall of smug coming off him. “There’s no case here, rent a cop. You were not hired by family, and you will not be allowed to smear us. Is that clear?”

“How do you know I wasn’t hired by your family?”

“I know everything that goes on in this family. And we would never need the likes of you.”

“You’re hurting my feelings here, Jay.”

He wasn’t amused. Roan didn’t think he would be. “If you’re trying to extort money from us, it won’t work.”

“Extort money? Extort you with what? I’m simply repeating what Thora claimed. Unless there’s some substance to the allegation …”

Jay stabbed a button on his phone, but never broke eye contact him. He was eye fucking him in a major way - and not a good way either. “Sheree, please send security up immediately.”

“Do I frighten you that much?”

He moved his finger off the button, but otherwise he didn’t move - hell, he didn’t even blink. That was creepy. “If I see you anywhere near my family or near here again, you’re a dead man. Is that clear?”

Roan tried hard not to smile, but that just made him want to laugh, so he split the difference and chuckled. The eye fucking from Jay not only continued, but got worse. “What the fuck are you laughing at? Do you think I’m joking?”

“Absolutely not. I’m sure you’re quite serious. But do you have any idea how often I’ve been threatened with death? At this point it just strikes me as kind of sad - the last card of the desperate man.”

Jay leaned slightly over the desk, as if trying to intimidate him with his height advantage. Good luck! “I don’t fuck around with bottom feeders like you. Leave my family alone, or you’re history.”

“Bottom feeder? Interesting choice of phrase. Are you at all familiar with pier forty seven?”

Jay’s arm shot out, going for his neck, but he didn’t have a chance. Roan’s reflexes were much better, and he grabbed his wrist in mid air, turning his arm until the palm of his hand was open towards the ceiling. A bit more of a twist, and he’d have had Jay on his knees on the floor. From the slight reaction in Jay’s eyes, he knew it too. “You don’t threaten me, and you really don’t touch me. Do you think you’re fucking around with just another member of the proletariat? If you can’t buy me off or intimidate me, you’ll physically threaten me? Chew on this, Jay: I’m not a normal anything. And if you’re going to take a shot, you’d better make it good, ‘cause you’ll only get one.” He let his arm go, giving it a shove for emphasis, and turned and stalked back towards the door. When you almost got into fisticuffs with your witness, the interview was over.

“You’re finished,” Jay snapped, his voice low and angry. That was the remarkable thing about Jay - he was so tightly controlled, it was almost like he didn’t feel much of anything at all.

“Am I?” He turned to face him, and called up his own rage and disgust. He really hated this fucker. “You have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?”

“A smug fucking asshole.”

“Yes, that. But you forgot an adjective.” He used his rage to force a change, centered around his eyes. He’d never done it before without changing the rest of his face, but he was willing to give it a shot, and he figured it must have worked, because he could hear the bones creak along his jaw, and his vision changed. Roan had recently learned he was slightly farsighted with lion eyes, but he could see much better in the dark. “Inhuman.”

It must have worked, because Jay’s face paled beneath his fake bake tan, and the hate in his eyes was washed away by sudden fear. “What the fuck ..?” He took a step back, needlessly straightened out his jacket, and attempted to put his mask back in place. “What the fuck are you?!”

He let his face go back to normal, ignoring the slight ache in his jaw and the small shock of an infant headache behind his eyes. Damn, he hoped it was worth it. “Someone you really don’t want to fuck with, Jay. I’ll see myself out.” And he did, walking out of the office and ducking into the elevator ahead of the security goons.

Did he have anything? All he knew was that Jay wasn’t afraid of anything - except when his face changed, he was afraid of that. But who wouldn’t be? Either Jay was so confident in his superiority he had no fear of anything, he was a total sociopath, or he didn’t kill Thora. Molested her maybe, but not killed.

It was pouring when he left the building, and was sorry he didn’t bring his hat as the water pounded down, drenching him as he walked to the parking lot where he’d stashed the GTO. He was so lost in thought trying to figure out Jay that he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until he heard the crunch of gravel under someone’s shoes, and looked up to see someone standing on the passenger side of the car, someone wearing a hoodie that they had pulled up over their face but was now soaked through anyways. No matter in either case, as he knew by the smell of his cologne that it was Trey. And he was holding a Glock 9, the barrel pressed up against the passenger window, and since Roan was standing on the driver’s side with the keys in his hand, that was a good straight shot. Finally, Matt got an ex-boyfriend who knew how to use a weapon properly. “Get in the car,” Trey snarled. “You do or say anything I don’t want you to do, and I’ll blow your fucking head off. “

He knew Trey would go off on someone at some point. He’d just never considered the possibility that he’d go off on him.

Paris suggested that perhaps she had hidden the password somewhere on the computer itself, but where? He tried the names of everyone she had written about that he knew of, but their names didn’t open the file. He was going to have to call Kevin, wasn’t he? Oh damn it.

Even though it was a clear and briskly cold night, Paris thought they should take the motorcycle. Roan thought he was nuts, but Paris pointed out that Sullivan sounded like a macho kind of place, and the bike would be a perfect fit. Since he saw Paris giving himself another shot of B-12, Roan felt like he didn’t have the will to argue with him.

He couldn’t even remember the last time they took the bike out, except when they had a car to pick up. And why? He had no idea. The bike was undoubtedly fun.

And cold. Very very cold. So that’s why they hadn’t taken it out lately.

They both wore leather jackets and helmets, and yet Roan could feel the cold biting through his jeans, rendering his hands numb beneath barely insulated leather gloves, and while Paris felt warm, his arms around his waist and his body pressed up against his back, he wondered if he was freezing. Lately, the slightest breeze could send him into paroxysms of shivers.

Sullivan had a parking lot that was half asphalt and half gravel, although he thought the gravel part was a mistake - the asphalt had simply worn away there until it crumbled to dust. The outside of the bar was a basic box shape, its color now indistinguishable from the layers of road dust that stained the outside, and its small windows looked as amber as beer, covered with neon signs advertising domestic brews and flyers about the new smoking laws that relegated them to a small shack off to the side of the building. Roan was surprised they were even pretending to follow the law, because this place looked like it would have a constant miasma of cigarette smoke helpfully blinding the patrons from the true depression of their surroundings.

Going in with Paris, he could smell it, the faint odor of cigarette smoke still in the walls and on the clothes of the patrons, if not exactly fresh in the air. The place was so dark it was like being submerged. The only true light came from the ones above the bar, yellowed like old smoker’s teeth, minimizing the pits and burns in the worn semi-circular bar and the acne scarred bartender, and leaving the rest of the room, the small tables and back booths, swathed in thick shadows. His eyes adjusted quickly, and Paris took off his helmet first and smiled at Trey, approaching his back booth, and Roan took off his helmet and followed him, making sure Trey didn’t see him until the last second.

When he did, the beaming smile Trey had given Paris died on his face. Trey was a slender, almost willowy Vietnamese man with undeniably handsome features, rendered much more interesting by his somewhat flawed skin. Trey’s eyes scudded between them, noticing their leather jackets and helmets were both similar, and asked Paris, “What the fuck is this?”

Paris slid into the fake leather booth across the small, beer stained rectangular table from him, and said, “Sorry sweetheart. I think I forgot to tell you I was married.”

“Married?” he blurted, horrified, remembering on the last syllable to lower his voice. Luckily the whiny country music coming from an unseen radio was loud enough to drown out most conversations.

Roan kept standing at the end of the booth, just in case Trey made a break for it. “My name is Roan McKichan, I’m a private detective, I’m looking into the death of Thora Bishop. Can you tell me where you were between the hours of seven and ten PM on the night of November second?”

He stared at him and swallowed hard, eyes darting between him and Paris like he still didn’t see the connection between them. To help him, Paris started tapping his ring against the table top, twisting it as well, just so Trey would look at it. Trey then glanced back at Roan, looking at the hand holding the motorcycle helmet, and noticed the matching ring on his finger. His dark eyes widened in genuine surprise. “I didn’t think that was legal,” he muttered, glancing around the room as if to make sure no one saw him with this pair of raging queens. No one was even paying attention to any of them.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Roan asked.

He glared at him, surprise turning to sullenness. “Why should I? You’re not a cop.”

“Would you rather have them involved? Just give me a minute and I’ll get them down here.”

Trey didn’t answer, he just kept glaring at him, so he took out his cell phone. That seemed to kick him out of his sulk. “Fine. I was working, if it’s any of your goddamn business. Chrissie’s off on maternity leave and I was covering her shift. Happy now?”

That would be easy enough to check out. “You worked two shifts that day?”

“Yeah.”

“You hardly need the money.”

That earned him a new glower of contempt. “It spares me from goin’ home, okay?” He then looked away with a slight wince, as if he knew he’d said too much.

He wasn’t lying. “What about November fourth between six and eighty thirty PM?”

Trey was still radiating open waves of hostility, but he answered the question. “I was getting my teeth cleaned. My dentist is Doctor Marvin Chu, he works over in Redmond. I was probably on the road driving to there or back from there for part of the time. Maybe he can give you exact times, ‘cause I really wasn’t paying too much attention. I hate going to the dentist.”

“A dentist named Chu?” Paris replied. “How funny.” Both he and Trey glared at him, but all he did was meet their gazes innocently. “What? You know it is.”

He loved Paris, he really did, but sometimes he was such a goofball. Roan pulled out a tiny notebook and pen and wrote down the important information on it, keeping the corner of his eye fixed on Trey to see if the fact that he was taking notes made him nervous. It didn’t. He was pissed off, and if he thought he had a decent chance of actually landing a hit on Paris’s pretty face he’d have done so, but he was not afraid of getting caught in a lie. “Look, are you done humiliating me?”

“Our intent was never to humiliate you, Mr. Phan,” Roan assured him. “I simply wanted to make sure we were getting the truth in a setting where you’d be disinclined to cause a scene.”

He sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. He was wearing a clean, possibly brand new dark red polo shirt over black cargo pants. He looked reasonably nice, especially for a guy who expected a quick fuck in the back of his car. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m aware of your history. You have a temper, don’t you?”

Trey snorted in disgust, shaking his head. “I was never charged with anything.”

“Wrong. You were arrested, and charges were leveled against you, but for some reason they were dropped. And that doesn’t count throwing a chair through a window at Willow Springs.”

That made him look up sharply at him, eyes narrowing dangerously, the skin of his face flushing ever so slightly that it was almost impossible to see in the low light of the bar. He fought hard to get it under control, but it wasn’t easy; his hands clenched and unclenched, fists that wanted a target, and a tiny bit of sweat was now visible at his hairline. After a moment, where he swallowed so hard it was an audible dry click in his throat, he whispered harshly, “Who told you that? Who the fuck told you that? Was it Matt, is that it? What did that little faggot say about me?”

Paris shot a glance at Roan, and he knew Par wanted to take this. It was unorthodox, but he let him go ahead. “That little faggot may be your only genuine friend in this world,” Paris told Trey, sitting forward and leaning his arms on the grotty table. He kept his voice pitched at a whisper, mimicking Trey’s own inflections. “And I have no idea why, because you’re a pent up, angry little man who doesn’t deserve it. So don’t take your sexual frustrations out on him, or on us for that matter. We’re out and we’re good with it. Maybe you should give it a try, Trey. The world doesn’t end.”

This little speech didn’t please Trey. In fact, the flush that darkened his skin seemed to get worse, and he narrowed his eyes at Paris until they were mere slits. “I am not one of you,” he snarled. “I’m not a faggot.”

“One of us, one of us,” Roan said quietly, mockingly. Trey shot him a homicidal look for it. What, had he never seen the movie Freaks?

Paris just smirked at Trey and shook his head in a slow, dismissive way. “Oh please. The moment you laid eyes on me you got a hard on. Believe me, I know the second the blood rushes out of a guy’s brain. So you’re turned on by guys - so what? Who really gives a fuck nowadays? Just live your life and stop worrying about other people.”

If looks could kill, Paris would have been a gory splatter on the dusty floor. “Fuck off and die, you little pansy faggot. I’m not like you. I’m normal.”

“Ooh, normal,” Par taunted. “Like meeting a guy you hardly know in a dive bar for a date. Very normal. No worries there, Trey.”

Before Trey could attack him or perhaps throw over the table, Roan decided to get things back on topic. “Did you want Thora Bishop dead?”

This topic shifting seemed to be bewildering Trey, which was the point. He was so off balance that lying would take a great deal of effort, and would be patently obvious, even without the sniff test. “Fuck yeah I wanted that little bitch dead. She had no right to say anything about any of us. Our parents paid big bucks to get us all into Willow Springs just for the anonymity - otherwise we could have just got to some low rent clinic somewhere. But I didn’t do it.”

“Do you know who might have?”

He scoffed. “Any of us. I’m not happy she’s dead, but she was asking for it, rubbing it in our faces like that.”

The way he said that, a new possibility sprung to life. “She wasn’t blackmailing you, was she?”

A troubled look flickered through his dark eyes. That thought had never occurred to him. “No.”

“What about any of the others?”

He both shrugged and shook his head. “I dunno. I guess she could, but she’d be stupid to try. Then again, she wasn’t a rocket scientist.”

“Was there anyone in your group who had a lot to lose if Thora went ahead and published?”

“Besides you, of course,” Paris added with an unfriendly smile.

Trey glared at him, and it was funny to see lust and hate warring in one’s man expression. Funny and disturbing; he almost wasn’t sure that Trey could tell the difference between them anymore. If he didn‘t learn how to simply deal with who he was and what he wanted, Trey was a ticking time bomb - he was dangerous. One day, he was going to go off on someone and really hurt them. Roan had seen his kind a million times before, usually being shoved in the back of a police car. “I don’t know. Ask them.”

“We intend to,” Roan said, and jerked his head back towards the door. Paris got the message and stood up, giving Trey a more friendly, pitying smile.

Roan took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Trey. “Feel free to call me if you think of anything else.”

Trey glanced at the card, then stared at him levelly as he balled up the card and tossed it on the floor. Roan just nodded in understanding, and walked back towards the door. Paris followed, and sarcastically blew Trey a kiss.

Once outside, Paris commented, “What a miserable bastard.”

“Well, he was expecting to get laid. You can understand if he’s a bit grumpy.” He didn’t tell Paris he expected to see him on the front page in a couple of months, arrested for some grisly beating or another. Maybe Trey would wise up, get therapy before that happened; in fact, he hoped so, because he was already pitying that future victim. Maybe a guy he was attracted to who didn’t like the closeted thing; maybe that poor girl suckered into being his fiancée.

“Oh come on! Look at me. Did he really think he had a shot?” Paris grinned at his own vanity, and then pulled his helmet back on, hiding his gleeful expression.

On the ride over to the office, he considered this alternate possibility: blackmail. There was no proof that she was attempting it, and she didn’t need the money, but blackmail was only partially about money - it was mostly about control. And Thora was a woman who obviously craved control in her life. But did she have any information damaging enough to be worth money, or worth her life? Maybe Matt would have some insight.

Once they parked in the lot and he saw Matt’s BMW, he took off his helmet and told Paris, “I’d like to talk to him alone, okay? I don’t want him to think he has a way out. I want him feeling psychologically cornered.”

Paris took off his helmet and fixed him with a stern look as he automatically smoothed down his mussed hair. “Go easy on him. He’s still the client, you know.”

“I know. I won’t smack him around.”

“Promise?” Paris grinned at his own joke and got off the bike, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I see the light’s on in Braunbeck’s office. I think I’ll go bug him and see how he likes it.”

“If he offers to show you how gorp is made, say no.”

That made him smile, but for the first time, he noticed that Paris looked kind of tired. In spite of the second shot of B-12, maybe this was all just too much for him. He headed off across the parking lot of the office complex, waving at Matt as he got out of his car and headed over. Matt paused half way to their office, and said, “Whoa, nice looking bike. What kind is it?”

“A Buell Lightning.”

“Huh. I’ve never heard of them.”

“I don’t think they’re as well known as some other bikes.” Roan got his keys out and opened his office door, and Matt followed him in as he flipped on the lights. It was cool inside, and the flowers looked like they were finally giving it up, or Randi hadn’t been in to switch them yet. He didn’t bother to go into his office, as there was no point. He simply offered Matt a chair and sat on the edge of Paris’s desk, asking him questions about Thora’s family.

Matt continued to insist he didn’t know anything really, but after a bit of prodding he admitted that Thora totally avoided her brother Jay (Adam Bishop the Third) at Crystal’s wedding. “She didn’t say why, except he was the biggest dick in the family, and she didn’t mean it in a good way,” he explained. “She said he was the golden boy and a total creep, that the family let him get away with murder. She hated him. Luckily, he just made a brief appearance with his trophy wife and left.”

“And that’s all you know? She never said why she hated him?”

“No.” He paused briefly, biting his lower lip. “But …”

He sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair. Maybe anti-depressants were bad for Matt. He was much more forthcoming off of them. “Yes?”

“She once said the family picked him over her.”

“How so? In what way?”

He shrugged helplessly, holding up his empty hands. “She never said. I asked, but she didn’t go into it.”

“Fine. I guess that’s something to go on.”

But as he stood up, Matt looked troubled, almost queasy. “Look, don’t … don’t go after Jay, okay?”

He met his blue eyes fearlessly, trying to see what Matt was hiding. He was nervous and scared, but the reason wasn‘t obvious. “Why not?”

Matt seemed to fidget while standing in place, as if something was itching beneath his skin and he was under orders not to scratch. “He’s an arrogant prick. A powerful arrogant prick.”

“So?”

“So?” he repeated in disbelief. “He could crush you. He could put you out of business with one phone call. Thora used to say he loved to show off how powerful he was, that he loved to be cruel just ‘cause he could be.”

“Interesting. That makes him all the more suspicious.” He walked towards the front door, but Matt grabbed his arm as he walked past.

Roan looked down at Matt’s hand on his arm, and Matt seemed horrified by his own reflex and quickly let him go, taking a step back, as if afraid he’d invaded his personal space. “Sorry. It’s just … I met him only the once, and he freaked me out, you know? He seemed … I dunno. Mean.”

He nodded, wondering if Matt’s pills were wearing off. “Fine. I like taking mean people out. It’s fun.”

“Roan … please. He’s really homophobic. He hates gays.”

Roan shrugged and resumed course for the door. “I wasn’t going to wear a feather boa during my interview with him. Well, not if it didn’t match the rest of my outfit.”

“I’m serious! Don’t … what about Paris?”

He looked back at him, his hand on the doorknob. “What about Paris?”

“He doesn’t … he needs you right now, Roan. And if something happened to you -”

“You’re being absurd,” he said sharply, perhaps a bit more harshly than he intended judging by the way Matt’s head snapped back. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. If he’s a murderer, Matt, need I remind you that you and Hannah hired me to uncover it? If he wants to take a shot at me, he’s free to, but I don’t go down that easy.” He opened the door and stomped out into the parking lot, and wondered why the hell Matt would throw Paris’s name and condition out like a weapon. That really pissed him off. He didn’t care how freaked out he was by Jay Bishop - that was uncalled for.

Of course he came out to find Paris leaning against the motorcycle, eating gorp out of a small plastic sandwich bag. As he approached, he held it out, and said, “Want some? I’m just eating the M & M’s.”

Even in the faint light from the nearby streetlights and the few lights coming from the businesses still open in this office park, he could see how hollow and exhausted Paris looked, how darkness carved crescents beneath his eyes and made his cheekbones seem like razor blades ready to slice through his skin. It was time to take him home, and hope death was so far away it was just a faint blip on the horizon. “I’ll pass.”

As Matt came out, Roan went back to shut off the lights and lock the door, and Paris must have thought nothing of the uncomfortable silence between him and Matt, as he offered Matt some of the gorp as well. Matt also turned it down, and that’s when Paris asked, “Did Thora have a favorite drink?”

Matt shared a puzzled glance with him. “Y’mean when she was drinking? Um, yeah, she liked Aqueducts.”

Now Roan shared the puzzled look with Paris. Roan had never been a dedicated drinker, but Con had been, and he was sure he’d heard of every drink that had ever existed, especially since Con had briefly been a bartender back in Ireland. Paris, being a Canadian and a former party whore, also seemed to know a thing or two about drinking. But what the hell was this? “Is that a real drink?” Roan asked first.

Matt nodded. “Oh yeah. I know, I’d never heard of it before either, but it’s this vodka drink with apricot brandy and White Curacao. She really loved ‘em.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Paris said. “But kinda intriguing. I bet it got you pretty hammered.”

Matt shrugged. “I guess so, but she also said if she had too many of ‘em, everything started shootin’ out both ends.”

Roan grimaced at the thought. “So that’s why they called it an Aqueduct.”

Paris snorted in dark humor, and Matt looked amazed. “Oh hey - yeah! I bet that’s why they called it that. That hadn’t occurred to me before.”

They split up for the night, and Matt left first, his BMW humming off into the night as they mounted the bike. Roan got ready to put on his helmet, but paused. “Why’d you ask what her favorite drink was?”

Paris had tucked the rest of the gorp away in his coat pocket. “Password, hon. She might have used her favorite drink. It was something she loved but couldn’t have anymore.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at him, and gave him a suspicious look. “You know that’s no fair. I’m the detective, you’re my guy Friday.”

“Hey, is it my fault I’m better than you sometimes?” He then winked and pulled his full face helmet on, so Roan could only see the reflection of his own exaggerated evil expression. He felt a twist in his gut and turned away as he wondered if there was life after Paris.

The traffic wasn’t too bad. They missed rush hour, and now it was prime time, with the only people out most likely to be on their way to or from restaurant or bars than going to or from work. Roan found the road passing beneath their feet almost hypnotic, the tires hissing against the asphalt as they chewed up the street almost a type of lullaby. He wasn’t tired, though; his thoughts were threatening to go to a deep, dark place, and he decided to think about nothing, to fill his own head with white noise and just let the null state of driving hypnotize him. The air was even colder now, as sharp as broken glass through the leather, but Paris still felt warm against his back. It felt like they were speeding to their own execution.

All the houses were on wide lots, Victorian reconstructions and rococo monstrosities, and Hannah’s was at the end of one block, painted a pale lilac with sky blue trim, and it had a little cobblestone walkway up to the main porch, a path lined with flowering cherry trees and white dogwoods. He felt for no reason like he was a part of a bridal procession.

Hannah was a average sized woman as thin as a bird, her skin like a taut shroud over a framework of sharp bones, and it made her look like she’d had two facelifts too many. Her face seemed like it was mostly eyes, a washed out blue like a desert sky, her nose pug and surgically perfect just above thin lips painted a coral pink that was a sophisticated grandmother shade, all topped off with straight chin length platinum blonde hair that looked like a wig. (Was it?) She was in her mid-fifties, but looked so thin and frail she could have passed for sixty, and while she was dressed in what was probably an expensive indigo dress, it hung on her like it might on a broomstick.

The inside of her home was sparkling clean and smelled of floral potpourri that made him sneeze until he popped an Altoid, and the peppermint overwhelmed his senses, made his eyes water briefly, stung his sinus passages raw. He blamed allergies, because he wasn’t about to explain to her that his superpower was a sense of smell beyond the average person. As superpowers went, it wasn’t only lame, but more often a hindrance than a help, especially in situations like this.

Lots of windows let in cold early winter light, and there was so much Victorian reproduction furniture and so much lace everywhere that he felt as if he had walked into a life sized dollhouse. The hardwood floors were polished to a warm, high gloss, so much so that he expected them to be as slippery as ice. (They weren’t.) He may have been gay, but this place was far too gay for him, and he had to suppress the urge to run out of the house screaming.

He perched on the edge of a mauve settee and she offered him tea, which he accepted, and Hannah called for a maid named Luisa, a short, stout young Hispanic woman in a pale blue uniform with a frilly white apron, with her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun. Hannah asked her to get them some sweet tea, and Luisa simply nodded and left. Roan felt like getting up an following her - he was more like the “help” than anyone else in this entire fucking neighborhood. Was it envy? Or did ostentatiously wealthy people just bug the shit out of him? He wanted to think it was the latter, as really they did. Seriously, get your own fucking tea.

For some reason, he started thinking of Arrested Development, the cancelled sitcom, and wondered if there were hidden cameras filming him somewhere. Maybe this was a more reality based sequel. It would explain the décor.

Hannah thanked him for looking into what happened to Thora, and for his “discretion”, which he took as a very veiled warning not to bug the rest of the family. She had a leather bound photo album that showed pictures of Thora, as well as the rest of the Bishop clan. They were all very handsome people, redolent of good breeding and old money, and none of the females appeared to be above a hundred and twenty pounds. Did they have a family nutritionist? A family liposuctionist? Adam Bishop, family patriarch, looked like he’d had some chin work done too - an early picture had him with a Bruce Campbell like lantern jaw, but more recent photos had it smaller and less prominent. Looked like he got an eye lift too. Did he dye his hair?

The last photos of Thora in the album were taken at cousin Crystal’s wedding, the one that Matt had escorted Thora to, the one where he said that the groom, Cody Ginter, groped him and hit on him in the bathroom. He was able to pick Thora and Matt out of the photos quite easily, as they were usually standing off to one side. Thora wore a flimsy dress of a really unfortunate mint green that was ruffled like a ‘70’s tuxedo shirt, apparently the bridesmaid’s dress (Crystal must have been a sadistic bitch). Now you couldn’t judge people by looks, that was a slippery slope to go down, but Cody did look like the type of weaselly, oily guy who’d cop a feel in the bathroom. Maybe Cody was Crystal’s punishment for having such cruel tastes in bridesmaids dresses.

Hannah’s grief was extremely restrained, but genuine. She just seemed too patrician and emotionally constipated in that classic New England old money way to shed tears, but her face pinched and her lips thinned until they almost disappeared. There was a pain in her eyes that made them seem cloudy, and her body posture became more rigid and painful, until it looked like she might snap her own bones. She referred to Thora several times as a “darling girl”, and when Luisa came in with a silver serving tray, Hannah tried to cover it all up, like proper white people didn’t grieve in front of the help.

The tea was served in actual china cups, ones with roses painted on them and gilded rims that could have been genuine gold. A perfect tea set for a dollhouse, now that he thought about it. The tea was a golden amber color, and so powerfully sweet he could feel the sugar buzz through his veins on contact. He thanked Luisa for the tea, which seemed to surprise her. Was that improper etiquette?

Once she was gone, he started asking Hannah about the Bishop family dynamics. The problem was she didn’t want to talk about it. She said her relationship with her sister - Thora’s mother - had always been “complicated”, but she didn’t go into details. He asked if perhaps she didn’t like Adam Bishop, and she said that she had no problems with Adam - which was a lie. There wasn’t enough floral potpourri to cover that up. She said that Thora had been going through a rebellious teenage “phase” that caused the rift with her parents, but Hannah assumed it was temporary, and just another one of those “teenage things” - and this too was a lie. So she didn’t think it was temporary, or there was far more to the estrangement than she was willing to go into. He didn’t press, but he filed it away for future exploration if necessary.

She had a room at Hannah’s place that she stayed in until she got her own apartment, and he asked to see it. She led him upstairs, up a red carpeted staircase with a banister polished so smooth it felt like silk gliding beneath his hand, and the room was painted a marine blue, with gauzy azure curtains framing a large window overlooking a well landscaped backyard. The room had a four poster bed with a blue print bedspread, a white desk that held an older style computer, and there was a glass framed print of a sailboat on an ocean on the wall, completing what seemed to be an oceanic theme. It was very neat, clean enough that you could have done surgery in this room, but once again there was a startling lack of personalization that was starting to suggest pathology. As he looked around the room, searching for something that could have told him a bit more about Thora, Hannah looked out the window at the back yard and talked about the last time Thora had stayed here, which was after her stint at Willow Springs. Under her computer keyboard, he found a yellow sticky note with random words written on them - passwords? A good bet. He slipped the note in his pocket.

Once she was done with her story, which told him nothing really, he asked if she knew Thora was infected. He watched her already rigid spine straighten more, and he half expected to hear a snap. She said she did know, that Thora had mentioned it in the last phone call she received from her, and that she wasn’t sure how she was infected.

Another lie. Interesting. So Hannah knew how she was infected? “Was it deliberate?” he asked the upright column of her back. Her hands were clenched nervously in front of her, giving her a disturbingly armless silhouette. “Did she deliberately get infected?”

“What? No! Who would do such a thing?”

She didn’t turn around to face him, but he sensed that wasn’t a lie … exactly. Did Hannah have her doubts?

Roan decided he’d pushed her enough for today, but he had a feeling he’d have to come back for another go round. Or maybe he’d just do it over the phone - the floral scent was making him vaguely queasy. He chewed cinnamon gum on his way out, but it didn’t help much. Hannah had also thanked him once again for his “discretion”.

On the walk down to his car, the police academy drop out rent a cops drove by him again, and this time he ignored him … until they drove off. Then he flipped them the bird, aware that if they saw it they’d probably come back and beat the shit out of him. They didn’t see it.

Back in the GTO, he pulled out his laptop and used the wi-fi coming from a nearby house to get online and do some background checks. No shock - Hannah Noyes was clean, as was Heather, her daughter. Cody Ginter was also clean, as was Adam Bishop and Eric Chiang. Parker Davis certainly wasn’t; he had an arrest record stretching back to shoplifting at thirteen, with more shoplifting charges and vandalism before graduating to solicitation, prostitution, and drug possession. Still, no assaults, no major felonies, no history of violence, although a lifestyle as a hustler and a drug addict usually led to violence one way or another. Also, a quick Lexus-Nexus search turned up that Parker Davis was one of the kids of Charles and Eileen Davis, a couple who were arrested about fourteen years ago in a drug sting. They made news because they were a white suburban couple who were so coke addicted they tried to make their own crystal at home. For money, they basically rented out their young son and daughter for others to use, and the catalogue of sexual abuse was so luridly awful that Roan was pretty sure someone made a Lifetime movie about it. A search turned up an obituary for Parker’s sister, who had committed suicide at age eighteen. If Parker was charged with Eric Chiang’s murder, he could see his truly horrible childhood being used against him in the media, and by his own lawyers: see, look how he was raised. He’s damaged; he couldn’t help it. It would mortify him, dredging up his ugly past like that, and Roan already felt oddly bad for him.

Trey Phan, on the other hand, did have a history of violence; he was arrested twice in the past six years, both time for assault charges that were abruptly dropped. Did his daddy pay them off? Or did some expensive lawyer scare the victims into submission? There was no way to say.

So what did he have? There was an obvious rift between Thora and the rest of her family (save for Hannah), and it wasn’t something that was discussed. Was it due to her “lifestyle”, her use of drugs, or was there something else going on? Had Thora ever gone to the Church? Was she a believer - did she see infection as a good thing? Eli owed him that much. He pulled out his cell phone and called him.

After putting up with some bullshit and being forced to threaten his stupid ass, Eli said he’d see if there was any record of someone named Callie Stone ever attending the church, and hung up. Roan had a message waiting for him on his cell, but it was just another death threat, so he simply erased the message without listening to it all. No one used their creativity with death threats anymore.

As he drove out of Hannah’s gated community, he saw that damn rent a cop car again, and shouted out the window, “At least I got through the police academy exam!” Okay, so he seemed to just be in a pissy mood. It happened.

He was starting to feel slightly lightheaded and saw little pinpricks of light at the edges of his vision, all warning signs of an impending motherfucker of a headache. Damn it, he didn’t need a migraine sequence right now, but then again, he never really needed or wanted one. The funny thing was there wasn’t much the doctors could do for him; there were some pills he couldn’t take because of his infected status, and those he could take had a tendency to make him sick. So he was basically roughing this shit on his own. And this was where a partial change into the lion didn’t help him at all. (He had tried, but a migraine wasn’t a physical injury.)

At least he had strategies. He stopped at the first shopping center complex he came to, and bought a bottle of migraine Excedrin at a Walgreen’s before stopping off at the Starbucks for the largest triple espresso they had, and ending up in the Subway, where he got a veggie sandwich loaded with mustard. The mustard did nothing; it was just a comfort food for him, and he was going to need food to tolerate this massive caffeine hit. He took a couple of bites before opening the Excedrin and swallowing three pills with the espresso, grimacing at the bitterness. Within five minutes, he was pretty sure everyone could take his pulse just by staring at the side of his neck, but at least the pain was starting to recede. He wanted to call Paris, see how he was doing, better yet just check up on him and make sure Trey hadn’t gone all repressed psycho loony on him, but that wasn’t the deal.

Roan considered bugging other members of the Bishop family, but if Hannah was their nicest member, did he really think the colder, more hostile ones would talk to him? No, he needed to talk to someone who just might know the dirt, who might have some insights into the thing that kept Thora estranged from her family and who had no compunction about talking to him: Matt. He had to know more than he had said, whether he realized it or not, and he was such a nosy little motor mouth Matt probably knew more than even Thora realized.

So while sitting in the parking lot, finishing off his espresso - frankly, the stuff Paris had made this morning had tasted better - he called Matt’s cell and got him. “Oh, jeeze, I thought you were Paris,” he said, with a slight nervous laugh.

“He’s still in with Trey, is he?”

“Um, yeah, he wanted to go in on his own.”

“That figures. Listen, what can you tell me about Thora’s estrangement from her family? I got a weird vibe from Hannah that I can’t shake.”

“A weird vibe?”

“Like there was an elephant in the room that I wasn’t supposed to notice. It feels like this family is hiding something. I want to know how bad this secret is.”

He was pretty sure he heard Matt chewing his fingernail. “Well, um … she really didn’t talk about it much.”

“Much,” he prompted. “What did she say, Matt?”

A long pause. Why was he so uncomfortable talking about this? “Just that … she felt they were hypocrites, that’s all, that they were supposed to be this perfect family and they weren’t.”

“Did she give examples?”

“No. As I said, she didn’t talk about it. I mean, she never went into details, y’know?”

“Was she a member of the Church of the Divine Transformation?”

“What?” He sounded genuinely startled. “No! I mean, not that I know of. Why would she go there?” Wow - did she not tell Matt she was infected?

Matt was probably telling the truth, but he was holding back. Roan realized this was doing nothing for his mood, and really this type of thing would be better in person, where he could be better judge of his veracity. So he said that he wanted to talk to him about this later, and an audibly nervous Matt agree to meet him at the office tonight.

Roan sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, rubbing his temple and trying to figure out what all of this could mean. Trey was still the best suspect; he had motive and a short fuse. While no reasonable person would kill someone over a bloody blog or manuscript, Trey had such problems dealing with his emotions that rationality went straight out the window. He could become so enraged, his emotions so inflamed, that he’d simply react. Maybe he’d feel bad about it later, but he could definitely commit a crime of passion without a problem.

And yet here was the thing: if Thora was murdered - and in spite of some doubts, he still thought she was - there was a cold blooded calculation about it that didn’t necessarily fit Trey’s emotional profile. Thora wasn’t violently killed; she was given a deliberate overdose of a speedball, and her body dumped in the bay. Eric Chiang wasn’t knifed on his way home from work; someone hired Parker Davis to take him to his apartment, and that’s where he was cut down. Admittedly, that crime was more violent, but … oh holy fuck.

The E - the “free ecstasy” that Parker Davis mentioned. Ecstasy could kill you; too much of any drug could kill you. Fuck, if he swallowed his whole bottle of Excedrin that would probably do him in. Maybe the plan was to overdose Eric too, but something went wrong. Parker took too much of the product for himself, and, being an old hand at drug use, only gave Eric an amount he could tolerate; or, maybe because Parker only gave Eric a safe amount and not the one the guy intended, Eric wasn’t so tripping balls when the killer showed up that he couldn’t fight back. (The stab wound through his hand.) Parker fucked it up. He didn’t know it, but he did; Eric’s “quiet” death was made messy because Parker was a master of pharmaceuticals. Eric’s death was intended, but it wasn’t supposed to be via knife … that was a hasty last minute substitute.

Ironies of ironies - it was probably a good thing Parker was in prison right now, because there he was safe. He wasn’t another loose end that could be tied up.

****

Once Roan got home, he discovered that a courier had left a package on the doorstep, and opening it, he saw it was a thin Manila envelope containing a copy of Thora’s (now closed) case file. There was no note with it, but he assumed that was Murphy’s attempt at an apology. He was combing over it when Paris came home, carrying a Barnes and Noble bag. He looked as good as he had when he left, no, even better. He was wearing that big, glowing grin that just oozed triumph. “Let me guess,” he ventured. “Trey was putty in your hands.”

Paris took the book out and placed it on the kitchenette counter in front of him. “He still doesn’t know what hit him. I’m supposed to meet him at a bar tonight called Sullivan’s. You heard of it?”

“I have. It’s a dive on the East side where they deal drugs in the men’s room. Anything could go on there and no one would care, as long as you didn’t get blood on their shirt or spill their beer.” It said a lot about Trey that he even knew where it was. But if you were gay and way in the closet, you could meet another man there without suspicion - it wasn’t a gay bar, it was a very macho place. And yet, if you jacked someone off underneath a back booth table, it was unlikely anyone would notice, or even be sober enough to care.

Roan looked down at the book. It was a recent reprint of Jonathan Lethem’s “Gun, With Occasional Music”, and Roan smiled at Paris. He knew he liked Jonathan Lethem. “You’re the best husband ever.”

“Wow, I didn’t even have to buy you jewelry.”

“I don’t have the wardrobe for jewelry.”

“What, a diamond necklace doesn’t go with a trench coat and a fedora?”

“It could, but I don’t have the moxie to make it work.”

“Moxie? How old are you?”

He gave Paris a playful shove back, which made him chuckle. “So how did Trey strike you? What’s your impression?”

Paris leaned in, snaking an arm around his chest and nuzzling the side of his neck. “I thought we were going to discuss this in a more prone position.” He lightly bit his neck, not enough to hurt, just enough to be erotic. In spite of the report in front of him, Roan felt a tiny growl come unbidden, and knew that he was done with this for now.

He knew from working for so many straight clients and cataloging the failure of their marriages in glossy prints that marriage was a good way to doom your sex life to catastrophic collapse, or at least to monumental boredom, but that hadn’t happened to them yet. Maybe because they hadn’t been married so long, or maybe because they were only technically married in Canada, or maybe because Paris was probably the sexiest guy in the known universe. Who knew?

(Or maybe it was because they both knew Paris was dying, and any time they had sex could be the very last time. He didn’t like to think about that.)

As it was, they didn’t exchange notes until afterwards, when they were in the bathtub, Roan sitting back against Par’s still broad chest, in such a way that he didn’t crush any vital body parts. The water still seemed overly warm for his taste, but it wasn’t as flesh scalding as it had been earlier. Par’s legs briefly tightened around his as he ran his hand through his wet hair, and they each recounted what they had learned.

Paris thought Trey was perhaps the most desperate man he’d ever met. He could see why Matt felt so bad for him that he stayed in contact with him, in spite of not liking him very much. He seemed pathetic, and perhaps the loneliest person he had ever personally encountered. Paris had left him a stuttering wreck of lust, which was what he was supposed to do (he was a honey trap, after all), but while he enjoyed having so much power over Trey, in retrospect he felt a little guilty. “It was too easy,” Paris told him, letting his hand fall to Roan’s chest. “We could have sent Kevin in, and he may have gone for him. I think Trey is scared of himself, of his own sexuality, and is so busy living his life to please others that he’s killing himself in inches. I almost think he wants to get found out, uncovered, so he doesn’t have to do this anymore. From what Matt told me about his family, it would probably be a mercy. I think he may have Stockholm syndrome.”

Sex was even better than caffeine in short circuiting his migraines. Oh sure, he was a little tired now, but his head felt great. “I think he’s an excellent example of a passion killer.”

“Agreed.”

“But not a cold blooded killer.”

Paris forced out a dramatic sigh. “Oh no. You’re going to tell me you don’t like him as a suspect anymore, aren’t you?”

“No, he’s still our best bet. I’ll still be showing up at Sullivan’s tonight.“ That was the deal: Paris made the date, but it would be Roan showing up, putting Trey off balance right at the start. It was sneaky, but it was a good way to get a hostile witness off guard. Too bad poor Trey wasn’t going to get any nookie at all. “But Thora’s newly infected status changes things, as does that weird vibe I got about her family.”

“Vibe? You know that won’t hold up in court.”

“I know. But this is an image obsessed family, and just think how’d they’d take it if their only daughter turned out to be a religious fruitcake who went about touting the superiority of the infected.”

Paris considered that a moment, and Roan ran his hand down his arm, trying not to notice that he could feel his ulna just beneath the thin surface of his skin. “You think her family had something to do with her death.” It wasn’t a question.

Hearing it put that baldly, Roan shook his head, but even as he did that, he wasn’t convinced he was completely wrong. “I don’t know; I have no proof of that.”

“But killing your own kid? That’s extreme.”

“Yes, but it’s done every day. And it would explain their odd reaction to her demise.”

“Not wanting to talk to you about it?”

“Or anybody. Thora Bishop was a rich white girl who died in tragic circumstances. What normally happens in those cases?”

Paris didn’t have to think about that for long. “Media circus. Wall to wall coverage.”

“Right. And yet oddly enough, the media has been all but ignoring this story. Why? My guess is Adam Bishop asked his equally high powered friends to skip it, and since he knows the guys who own the major papers and t.v. stations around here, his wishes were respected.”

Paris decided to play devil’s advocate, but he was glad he did. Roan felt he needed people to challenge him, especially when he wasn’t sure he was on solid ground. “Maybe they just want to grieve in private, hon.”

He conceded that with a nod. “Maybe. Or maybe they’re glad she’s dead.” And as he said that, he suddenly wondered if Hannah’s parting message to him, thanking him for his discretion a second time, was more than simply a warning not to bug the rest of the family.