As soon as they got under way, Matt explained that Trey worked at the big Barnes and Noble on Madison Street, as he couldn’t quite hack working for Menham Lewis, the financial consultation firm that was currently run by Trey’s father, John Phan. Trey got an MBA in business administration, but he had confided to Matt that he found it all unbearably boring and he hated it; he hated working for his father’s company. But rather than tell him that, Trey told him he thought it was better if he got some experience “working with people”, which John thought was a good idea, which was the only reason why he allowed it. Trey was totally cowed by his father, a stern taskmaster who demanded both perfection and obedience, and Trey was too scared to go against him. His mother was no better, manipulative and bossy, and had arranged Trey’s engagement to the woman he barely knew.

Paris asked why he still kept in touch with Trey, and he shrugged, embarrassed, and was careful not to look at him as he told him that although he couldn’t stand Trey much of the time, he kind of felt bad for him. He had almost no friends at all, although he apparently kept himself quite busy in X rated gay chat rooms. “His handle is - get this - LongJadeDong,” Matt said, shaking his head. “And believe me, it’s not.”

Matt wasn’t lying, but it was clear he was conflicted. He probably still liked Trey a little bit, and as such held on, even though most of the affection had curdled and become anger and resentment instead. Paris asked if Trey had a temper, and Matt seemed reluctant to answer that. But finally he admitted that he did, that Trey tried so hard to repress every emotion he had that they often came out in sudden, explosive moments, where he often broke furniture and shouted until he was hoarse, but Matt claimed he never got physically violent - not with him, at any rate. Paris believed that Trey had never gotten violent with him, but he sensed that Matt was hiding something - Trey had gotten violent with someone, even if it was just a college bar fight. He was sure Roan was currently running a background check that might turn up his history of violence, if there was one. Paris was starting to think there was. Repression often led to ugly consequences; no good ever came out of it. How could it?

He asked Matt if he’d read Thora’s memoir, and he said he hadn’t, that he’d wanted to but she’d said he’d have to wait to read it along with everyone else. Paris mentioned that he and Roan had seen the memoir, and Matt was not only surprised but very curious about it. He told him that the violent incident between him and Trey at the Willow Springs Center had been recounted, which made Matt wince and stare resolutely at the Kia ahead of them. Paris also mentioned that she had described him as constantly mooning over a man he couldn’t have, which mortified him. Paris assured him it was okay, that Roan didn’t realize that Thora meant Matt was mooning over him, and Matt was so horrified he almost swerved them into the oncoming lane.

Once he got a hold of himself, Matt asked haltingly, “How - how did - did I -”

“Don’t worry about it. Roan will never get it, because he honestly believes that he’s an inhuman freak pretty much unworthy of love. In fact, that’s pretty much all you need to know about Roan psychologically - he’s afraid he’s never quite good enough, and that he’s not really Human. He will never admit it, but it’s always kind of there. He might shrug off his bad childhood now, but no matter how jaded you are, that kind of shit leaves scars.”

Matt nodded in understanding, calming down. He wanted to know about Roan, know the stuff he couldn’t know otherwise, so he was happy to listen and forget about his own shame at being found out so easily. “There always something about him that struck me as kinda sad, y’know? Like maybe under it all he was kinda depressed.”

“Well, he was diagnosed as a clinical depressive. But he seems to be bulling through it on his own, which probably isn’t recommended, but you how stubborn he is.”

“He’s a depressive?” Matt seemed surprised by that. “I had no idea. He doesn’t seem like it. I mean … he doesn’t seem like any of that. He seems so confident, y’know. He seems more sure of himself than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“He’s confident in what he does, and his ability to solve puzzles - he doesn’t seriously doubt himself there. And showing weakness is something he’s just not going to do. Not in public, at any rate. But he’s not as invincible as he seems.”

Matt accepted that, ruminating over it like it was some great truth of the universe. Finally, after a long moment, he asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’m going to ask you a favor, and before you do it, I want you to know what you’re in for.”

His sidelong glance was really suspicious now. “What kinda favor?”

Paris took a deep breath before continuing. If Ro knew what he had just said to Matt, he’d probably get so mad he’d lion out, but he probably would never know. (Well, not until he was dead and didn’t have to worry about it.) “You know as well as anybody that I don’t have a lot of time left.” The baldness of the statement made Matt wince, but what could he do? He’d already accepted the fact of life that he was going to die - it wasn’t his fault if other people weren’t quite ready to deal with it. “When I’m gone, I want you to help make sure Roan doesn’t retreat from the world and stay in his damn house moping like a sullen bear in a cave. Annoy the shit out of him, tempt him with work, get him out there - I honestly don’t care what you do, just makes sure it works.”

He’d baffled the poor boy; he looked stricken, like he wasn’t sure what to say. Paris felt like he should take a picture, because Roan would never believe he made Matt speechless, no matter how briefly. Finally, he said, “I - I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Just annoy the shit out of him, and don’t give up on him. I’m asking friends to do it, because I know he’s going to try and withdraw from the world. He’s been hurt a lot, and it’s just what he does when he’s hurt. He shuts down.”

“He wasn’t that way when he was shot.”

“That was physical pain; he’s almost inured to physical pain at this point. It’s emotional pain that kills him.” He remembered Roan finally breaking down and telling him about Connor before they got married. See, Paris always knew Ro must have had a really bad relationship in his background, but he could have never guessed that his boyfriend went off and killed himself. Talk about a drama queen. But hey, playwright, maybe that made a certain amount of sense.

That solved the mystery of the locked lower desk drawer in Ro’s office as well. Apparently they were mementoes of his relationship with Con that he couldn’t quite get rid of, including the last script he completed before his death via train (which was very Anna Karenina, but again, he couldn’t say that without seeming both callous and incredibly bitchy), with a dedication that Con had written on the cover page, reading: ‘To the most beautiful man I’ve ever known. Love always.’ The play was titled “God’s Country”, and was a semi-autobiographical tale about a fucked up family that gets caught up in the Catholic Church’s sex scandals, which sounded really depressing and pretty much was, although as soon as Paris read it, he instantly spotted a character who was clearly Roan. He was Ian, the wife‘s laconic cop brother, a rare beacon of sense in a chaotic sea, and probably the most sympathetic and adult character of the bunch. It was basically a huge downer (then again, a cheerful play about alcoholism, abuse, and pedophilia would have been jarring to say the least), but it wasn’t a badly written story; as far as Paris could tell - and if he was honest, he was no arbiter of this - Con wasn’t a bad writer. According to Ro, the play was currently running off off Broadway and doing pretty well for itself, as death, especially a rather dramatic and tragic one, could be good for an artistic career. Ro knew this because all profits from Connor’s work were automatically split between him and Siobhan, Connor’s ex-wife, as stipulated in his will. Roan didn’t touch the money, he didn’t want it, but it hadn’t been very much … so far. But he’d heard from Siobhan that a gay filmmaker was interested in doing a film version of God’s Country, and if so, it could bring the pair of them a sizable chunk of change. Roan saw this as “blood money” and didn’t want it, which Paris thought certified him as crazy - okay, maybe their break up precipitated Connor’s suicide, but Ro had to know he wasn’t responsible for it, that it was the impulsive action of a man he himself categorized as self-destructive. Come on - movie money! Shit, if it was him, he’d already be pricing hot tubs.

Okay, it wasn’t his ex-boyfriend, and it was really insensitive for him to think that way and he knew it. Paris was actually a little embarrassed at his own inherent bitchiness towards Connor, a man he’d never met, and only knew from photographs. It was easy to see what Ro saw in him, as he was attractive, and he had laser blue eyes that looked both sharp and haunted. But Paris felt an unaccustomed sting of jealousy, as Ro had clearly loved him, even though he left him because he couldn’t live with him. He was just used to causing jealousy, being the man whore that he was, not being on the other side of it. It was kind of weird, actually, especially since the man he briefly felt some ill will towards had been long dead, and before that Ro had left him anyways. But it was clear that just the thought of Connor still hurt Ro, and Paris hated that. It was no comfort to think his death would hurt him even more.

Paris told Matt to drop him off and get lost in the parking lot of the Target next door, because if Trey saw Matt he imagined that the jig would be up. Matt was worried about him being alone with Trey, but he assured him that he didn’t think Trey would try anything in such a public place, and if there was any problem, he’d call his cell phone. Matt seemed uncertain about it, but everything he’d told him about Roan had thrown him off and he didn’t have the will to be difficult at this moment.

The Barnes and Noble wasn’t busy yet, although there were a few people wandering around the clean, well stock shelves, although most of them seemed to wander towards the Starbucks that shared a space with the shop and filled the air with a very specific coffee and pastry scent. Although this was the biggest book shop he’d seen in some time, it did occur to him that Roan would hate this place - there was something very sterile about it, commercially clean and acceptable, homogenized and pre-packaged for your convenience. Roan liked his book stores slightly grotty and sloppy, clearly used, temples to books that barely limped through the publishing process and had almost no hope of ever getting on anyone’s best seller list. Roan seemed to embrace his outsider aesthetic as ferociously as most people rushed to embrace their insider status. Still, Paris thought he might buy Ro a book here, a gift he would appreciate, and it really wouldn’t be too difficult to find him one, as he wasn’t too picky about his books outside of certain genres (for instance, he knew Roan hated lawyer thriller genre books - oh dear lord, Grisham could set him off on an hour long rant). Paris browsed while watching Trey out of the corner of his eye. He was one of two clerks at the check out counters, currently ringing up an Oprah’s book club selection for a woman who was quite rudely having a conversation on her cell.

He could see what Matt saw in Trey. He was cute, with fine bone structure and high cheekbones that most male models would kill for. His dark, almond shaped eyes were deep set and heavy lidded, natural bedroom eyes, his face lean and almost knife blade narrow, giving him a hungry look that could be mistaken for rampant passion, and while his olive skin wasn’t exactly flawless, the couple of acne scars on his face gave him a certain type of character that kept him from being blandly attractive and made him kind of interesting. In a strange way, it made him look a little dangerous, which while probably truth in advertising, had a troubling allure. His black hair was cut reasonably short, but had a strange unevenness to it, the hair on the back and sides of his head shorter than the jet black hair on the top of his head, sitting there like a squashed and mangled hat. Either he’d gone for a trendy haircut and suffered a tremendous misfire, or he was growing out a faux-hawk and all the shorn hair was growing in at its own different speeds. He wore a dark blue polo shirt that didn’t flatter his skin tone in the least, and he wondered if that was some attempt to appear straight on his part - an inability to dress. Paris stayed where Trey could see him, pretending to browse the twenty five percent off table (he saw nothing Roan would like here - he’d probably have to go back to the paperbacks, which Roan preferred to read on stake outs anyways), and when the woman left in a cloud of perfume, still nattering away on her phone and ignoring everyone else, he saw Trey’s all encompassing glance become a riveted stare.

Paris smiled to himself as Trey seemed to take an inordinate amount of time studying his ass, then took in the rest of him. He couldn’t help but feel the old swell of pride at how goddamn good looking he was. Was it vain and egotistic of him? Oh fuck yeah, but since he’d gotten so sick, it was nice to know he still had it. Paris turned slowly and caught his eye, and for a moment Trey stared back at him with a heat that was combustible, but then he seemed to remember something - “Oh, right, I’m not supposed to be a homo” -and he looked away suddenly, as if he’d gotten a taser in the ass.

Paris felt really good as he sauntered up to his cash register with his sexiest smile affixed firmly to his face. This was the hunt, and he felt almost ecstatic at the rush of it. This poor kid would be easier prey than he thought. He leaned on the counter, and said, “Hi, I was wondering if you could help me?”

Trey’s eyes scudded towards his face, and again their eyes locked, his stare as helpless as that of a deer in the headlights. He just knew he was thinking he was gorgeous, and of course that gave his ego a needless pumping. (But damn if this type of outward validation still didn’t feel good.) “Um, yeah, if I can,” he said, quickly turning to his register and pretending to do something so he didn’t have to look at him face on.

“I was hoping to buy a book for a friend, but you know, I’m kind of overwhelmed by the choices. I was wondering if you could recommend something.”

His dark eyes flicked towards him, then flicked away, like he was too bright to look upon for long. “Well, what does she like?”

“He likes lots of things, that’s why I’m having such a problem,” Paris said, giving him his sunniest smile and leaning in enough that Trey could probably smell him. The emphasis on “he” made Trey give him a long, hard sidelong glance, and Paris gave him the look. The look which other gay men gave each other, the one that said I’m gay too and interested. Straight people didn’t know the look; they didn’t recognize it when they saw it. They might smile politely back at you, but they’d totally miss the subtext, the edge, the appraisal and hunger in the eyes. Trey recognized it - he returned it before catching himself and looking away again, nervous and fidgety, like he’d broken out in a rash all over his body.

But he glanced back at Paris, as if helpless to resist his overwhelming gravity. Trey was starting to sweat, and it looked like his hands were starting to tremble. Paris’s smile deepened, mainly because he found it a struggle not to laugh. This must have been what it felt like when a cobra hypnotized its prey; this was what it felt like to make someone your puppet. He knew this feeling well, and it was a blast from the past really, a wicked hit of nostalgia. He used to do this all the time before he got infected and his world turned upside down and inside out. It felt really good.

Did that make him evil? Oh, probably. This power over someone, this deliberate manipulation, was wrong, and yet it came with a rush of pure adrenaline. The power was absolutely intoxicating, and he had missed it terribly.

He could make this boy do whatever he wanted him to do. He could make him crawl. Paris supposed he’d have felt a bit sorry for him if he hadn’t suspected that Trey was a killer.

But since he suspected he was, he didn’t regret this one damn bit.

*****

Roan couldn’t believe this. He sat on the arm of the sofa, and asked, “Why suicide?”

Murphy sighed, prepared for the inevitable third degree. “Because the dose she took was far too fucking big to be an accidental overdose, at least in the coroner’s opinion. She took a speedball that could have killed three average sized men - and this girl was five three and ninety eight pounds. I have to admit, that makes it seem deliberate.”

Roan was surprised, mainly because he didn’t think anyone combined heroin and cocaine anymore. “What sense does that make, Murph? She was taken off the street by men and found dead hours later of a suicide? She was in the bay, for Christ’s sake! Did she decide she wanted to overdose by the fishes?”

“It’s possible she o.d.’d elsewhere and was dumped by panicky friends, which is technically a crime, but not one usually pursued. And really, we have no evidence she was taken off the street by anyone.”

This was un-fucking-believable. “Yes you do! I have a witness who saw it.”

“A witness who is dead, and never got to make an official statement. All we have is you reporting what he told you.”

He huffed an angry sigh through his nose. “And my word isn’t good enough. Thanks, Murph; thanks a lot.”

“Don’t be that way. If you can bring me some actionable proof of anything …”

“What about my witness getting murdered just before he made a statement? That doesn’t strike you as suspicious?”

He could hear her tapping a pen on her desk impatiently, and he knew he was trying her patience, but fuck it. He was closing in on a good suspect here - well, okay, currently Paris was - and he didn’t need this right now. “The timing was really bad, I admit -”

“Really bad?!”

“- but we have a suspect in custody for that, and unless you can connect Parker Davis in some way to Thora Bishop …”

“Davis was set up! He’s an easy patsy!”

She sighed again, this time more sharply than ever. “You buy his lame excuse? We have an eyewitness who can place him at Panic picking up Eric before he was murdered.”

“Toby the bartender - I know, I brought him in.”

“So you don’t believe your own witness?”

He shot an evil glare at the phone, even though it was totally wasted. “You know I do. But I think we’re only getting half the story. Do you have any physical evidence tying Davis to the scene? Do you have a weapon?”

The pause was so great he knew she was glowering at her receiver now. “Not yet, but all the forensic tests aren’t in.”

“This is bullshit, Murph, and you know it. Eric’s murder was no coincidence. Thora could have been easily overpowered by any man and shot up with a speedball. Was there bruises on her body?”

“Of course there was; she was fairly discolored from being in the water. You know what the water does to a body.”

Sadly he did. Water could do amazingly awful things to corpses, which was probably why water was such a favorite dumping place for killers. “Why aren’t you investigating the bruises?”

“The coroner was unable to determine if she received them due to violence or because of medical problems.”

Roan collapsed back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, where a sliver of sunlight cut across it like a spear. There were times he was so very glad he wasn’t actually a cop anymore, and this was one of them. “What medical problems? Do I assume her anorexia left her anemic or something?”

“You know that information -”

“Is the case closed?” he interrupted.

“Goddamn, you’re a rude bastard sometimes. Yes, the case is closed.”

“Fine, then it doesn’t matter if you tell me or not.”

She was silent for another moment, and he could feel the waves of hate coming down the open line. It was funny, but sometimes he and Murphy fought like a married couple, more than he and Paris did at any rate. Their fights were brief squalls, but when he and Dropkick locked horns, it was like a tsunami. “She was anemic, smart ass. She also had a small viral load in her bloodstream.”

“Viral load? What virus?”

She scoffed. “Oh wow, have I actually uncovered something you didn’t know? I should call the Guinness Book of World Records.”

“Can the sarcasm. What are we talking about? I assume the common cold’s right out.”

“She was infected. Newly infected, for what it’s worth. It hadn’t expressed itself yet; she hadn’t had enough built up.”

It was a good thing he was laying down, he thought. Because while he knew the room actually hadn’t shifted, it felt like it had. “She was infected? How long?”

“Well, it’s hard to tell exactly, but the coroner put it at approximately two weeks, give or take a couple of days on either side.”

Enough time to maybe inform one or two people, although clearly she hadn’t told Matt (probably because he was a bit of a motor mouth). Suddenly he wondered if he’d just found a new motive for murder.

Or even suicide.