The restaurant was empty save for him, the hostess/waitress, the cooks in the back, and one bored looking bartender who was watching the Asian news feed on the television behind the bar. Normally Roan hated the obtuse, rude morons who gabbed on cell phones in restaurants, but there was no one for him to disturb, and it might actually provide entertainment for the waitress and bartender.

As soon as he enjoyed his first cup of green tea - he loved their green tea; he could drink an entire pot of it all by himself - he punched up Alice’s number, hoping she’d take a cold call as slightly less rude than an unannounced visit.

She answered on the sixth ring, with a slightly raspy cough. “Hello?”

“Hello, Ms Rothwell? My name is Roan McKichan, I’m a private detective, and I was hoping to talk to you about a story you wrote for the Tribune about the Williams’ children in December of 1981?” This was a long shot - she was in her sixties now, and she probably filed thousands of reports, each as tragic as the last. Why would she remember this one?

She was quiet for a few seconds, then asked, “Private detective you say? McKichan … that sounds familiar. You’ve gotten yourself in the paper a coupla times, haven’t ya?”

“Yes,” he reluctantly admitted. “When I made the police force, and a couple of times for various cases after I became a private detective. You have a good memory.”

“Damn tootin’. I saved all my stories and notes for my memoirs. Speakin’ of which, sit tight.” There was a clunk as she put the receiver down, and he was sure he heard the burr of distant conversation in the background. (Television, most likely.) The waitress came back and put a steaming plate of fried wontons in front of him, which he thanked her for, and tucked into, even though they were still so hot from the fryer he burned the tip of his tongue. He didn’t care; their fried wontons were tiny pieces of heaven. He’d eat nothing but them if he could, but he had to leave room for the hot pepper chicken, which was also excellent. Damn, he loved his good Chinese restaurants. It was probably a detective thing.

He’d just finished crunching through his second wonton when Alice picked up the receiver again. “Say,” she began. “Why are you looking into this, hon?”

He took a quick sip of his tea to wash down the wonton, then decided to give her some information. Technically there was client confidentiality, but Holden’s information was vague enough to protect his identity. “I’m looking into what happened for the former “Baby Boy” Williams.”

“Oh, he’s still in the area? How’s he doing?”

“He’s good.”

“Happy?”

“ I think so, yes.” Since he didn’t want to admit he was probably as happy as a high class rent boy could be, he prompted, “Any information you could give me would be a help. He only know what he read in the papers.”

He dug out his tiny notebook and pen and got ready to take notes as he heard her flipping through her own. She cleared her throat, a phlegmy noise, and then said, “Let’s see … I have a lot of case notes, ‘cause I wanted to do a follow up, but my editor put the kibosh on it. “Too sad” he said. Like most of the news isn’t fucking sad. Okay … I got a couple of loose reports from neighbors that she might not have been alone the night she was found overdosed.”

“Might not have?”

“They said she usually had a visitor on Thursday nights, a man with dark blond hair that was presumably called Dane. According to her self-professed best friend, one Elizabeth Droste, D-R-O-S-T-E, Dane was a married man that Catherine Williams had been seeing on and off for several years, and was most likely the boy’s father. He could have been the father of her little girl too, but Elizabeth said Catherine never told her. She was unable to tell me if Dane was a nickname or a proper name. She said she never met him.” She paused to cough lustily, although she also made a noise not unlike a piece of gravel rattling down a drainpipe. Did she have emphysema? Pneumonia?

The waitress brought him his steaming plate of hot pepper chicken and smiled demurely as he put the phone down and thanked her. While people who talked on cell phones in public places were generally annoying twits, he truly loathed with a passion people who kept on yapping while dealing with a store clerk or a server. It was fucking rude - since when did you treat people right in front of you like nothing more than furniture? No, no one expected you to have any meaningful interaction with each other in these situation, but acknowledging their existence as Human beings was the least fucking thing you could possibly do. Every time he saw some rude bastard keep talking on their phone while some poor minimum wage earning clerk did their job, Roan had to restrain the urge to smack them so hard on the back of the head their phone went flying. He hoped the waiters spit in their food.

Okay, yes, perhaps he was a little militant about this. Paris apparently wasn’t the only one with odd passions. Maybe he’d rubbed off on him.

“Sorry about that,” Alice said. “I always hack until my afternoon cigarette.”

“Not because of?”

“Oh no, the nicotine surge always calms it down. Now let’s see, where was I …”

“Dane. You never identified him?”

“Oh, him. No, I’m afraid I didn’t. He worked very hard not to be identified, and he managed it. There wasn’t even a photo of him among Catherine’s personal possessions.” Alice paused to audibly light a cigarette and take a puff, and Roan took the opportunity to steal a bite of his food. Damn, it was good. If he only he could move into this restaurant. “I did wonder if maybe he’s the one who made the phone call and then fucked off so he didn’t get caught and was forced out to his wife.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s also a motive, isn’t it?”

“For murder? Yes. It’s also a motive for suicide. Nothing makes people more miserable than impossible love affairs.” Which was ironic in its way - if it wasn‘t for love, many of the bad things in the world wouldn‘t exist. “Did you get a look at the scene?”

“You mean her apartment? Yeah, I did. It didn’t look like a murder scene, I mean it didn’t look violent … it was a little messy, in that harried, put upon young mother way, but not truly chaotic. It didn’t look like a suicide scene either. There was no note.”

“Which puts accident back into play.” The problem with a drug overdose was all three could feasibly apply, especially if the forensic evidence was lacking or unavailable. He doubt they would have used police resources on a poor, junkie single mother back in ‘81. Hell, they probably wouldn’t use them now. “Was there anything Elizabeth was able to tell you about Dane?”

There was the soft noise of paper shuffling, and the sound of someone taking a drag off a cigarette. “Umm … not much. She said Cathy met him at a church function.”

“Which church?”

“Umm … Mission Creek Community Church. They had an outreach program for drug abusers. So Dane was in all likelihood another junkie, and you know what wonderful pairs they make.”

He made a noncommittal noise, although anyone who’d read the works of Charles Bukowski - or saw Oprah - knew that two substance abusers together had a tendency to encourage each other’s downward spiral, whether deliberately or accidentally. Sometimes they could help each other, but that seemed rare. Usually it was Human nature to take the path of least resistance. “You don’t have any information on Zoë Williams, do you? The daughter?”

“Umm …” More shuffling of papers, like leaves rustling in the gutter. “She was put in foster care, wasn’t she? The boy was adopted, I believe … but then, white, healthy baby boys are usually snapped up pretty fast, aren’t they?”

“From what I understand.” As a white baby boy who unfortunately was infected, he fell into the category of “unwanted”. Gee, that always did your ego big favors. “Do you know where she first went into foster care? What city or jurisdiction?”

“Umm … Springfield.”

“Great, thanks.” He knew one or two people in the agency up there; he might be able to finagle some information out of them. “How goes the memoirs?”

“Eh, nobody wants them. I’ve started posting them as a blog. Want the URL?”

He didn’t really, but she gave it to him anyways, and he accepted it politely, as it was the least he could do for all the information she’d given to him.

Once he was done talking to Alice, he finished his lunch and the entire iron pot full of green tea. It was probably good for him, but he tried not to think of it that way. He also ordered some vegetarian and tofu stir fry for take out, as he felt the least he could do was bring Dylan something.

Out in the parking lot, he gave Fiona a call. She had the nice name of Fiona Sutton - an upper class name that made you imagine an icy, anorexic blonde with a sharply groomed poodle, a Brooks Bothers husband, and a minor coke habit. But no, she was a redheaded computer programmer turned dominatrix … which was such a fun description he’d wished he’d thought of it for himself. What a different life he’d have had.

He had read her resume last night, but had been distracted by Dylan. So he called to ask if she could drop by the business office tonight so he could give her a run down of her duties, as well as give her his spare office key. She squealed - genuinely squealed; he had to hold his phone away from his ear - and said she could be over in twenty minutes. He upped that to three hours, so he had time to get some chores done and run home first.

He stopped at the store to grab some cold medicine and more tea, and even though he was on the bike, he’d brought a small leather backpack, so he could carry it and the Chinese food home. See, he was always thinking … after the fact. But hey, who didn’t?

He’d just reached his bike when a familiar voice said, “Roan?”

He should have known - he thought he’d caught a whiff of a cologne known by the odd name of Nickel Enemy after he left the self-checkout, and he’d only known one guy in his entire life who wore it. “Matt,” he replied warily, turning to face him. “How are you doing?”

After going to rehab again for his little lapse, Matt decided to take a “sabbatical”, saying his new therapist recommended that he get away and distance himself from the “destructive” relationship he had with Roan. (What relationship?! Matt elbowed into his life, wanted to replace Paris, couldn’t, and freaked out and had a hissy fit at Dylan when he thought they were getting too close. It made Roan wonder what Matt had told this therapist.) Roan hadn’t seen him in a year, nor heard from him since that last email.

Matt had lost the goatee/moustache thing he’d grown to try and butch up, and lost some of his muscle mass, going back to his more typical wiry frame. He looked more like the twink guy he first encountered at the Starbucks, although he’d lightened his shade of blond to a hue more unreal than Fox’s. He was also wearing contacts that made his eyes an unrealistic shade of toilet water blue. “Um, I’m good,” he replied, nervously scratching his face. “You look terrific.”

Roan didn’t really know how to respond to that. He didn’t want to encourage his crush on him - if he still had one - but he didn’t want to seem like a completely rude bastard either. Finally, he settled on, “You too. You’ve lost weight.”

“Uh, yeah. Well, mostly muscle mass, ‘cause there’s no gyms in rehab.” He said that last part lightly, with a small, forced laugh, but his smile almost completely faded away before he could think of something else to say. “So, umm, you working a case?”

“Aren’t I always?”

“Ha, yeah. You got, umm, you gotta new assistant?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I’m supposed to be showing her the ropes today.”

“Her?” He said that with a mixture of both surprise and hope, enough of it that it made Roan nervous.

Before he could think of a way to get out of this conversation, a man he’d never seen before came out of the store, holding a plastic bag, and said, “I wondered where you ran off to.” He went over to Matt and slipped a possessive arm around his waist.

“Roan, this is Lance.”

“Oh, so this is the infamous Roan,” Lance said, with forced bonhomie. He was probably almost twice Matt’s age, somewhere in his late thirties to early forties, a solidly built man about a head taller and thirty pounds heavier, his brown hair starting to thin back from a rather dramatic widow’s peak. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he was far from plain or ugly - he was slotted comfortably in the middle, and probably had enough charm to carry him over the finish line into striking. He wore a polo shirt and khakis, the bland Yuppie casual wear uniform, and smelled like Aramis and some kind of slightly medicinal breath strip. “That your motorcycle? I’ve never seen anything like it. It a Kawasaki?”

That instantly ruffled his theoretical feathers. A Kawasaki?! “It’s a Buell Lightning City model.”

“Huh. Never heard of it. I’m more of a Harley man myself.”

He had absolutely nothing against Harleys, they were nice bikes (although he was sure the fuel injected V-twin he had on the Buell could give him an edge), but the way the guy said it gave Roan the impression he’d only seen Harleys in bar parking lots. He instantly loathed the poseur. “Good for you,” Roan replied, just blandly enough to be vaguely hostile.

Though there were no indications that Lance understood the implied insult that he was happy he knew the name of at least one kind of motorcycle, Matt got it, and quickly asked, “You still seeing Toby?”

That was dangerous territory, but Matt must have thought it was safer than Lance realizing he had been insulted. “Yeah, I am.”

“Toby?” Lance repeated, looking at Matt curiously. “That guy at the copy shop?”

“No. This Toby’s one of the bartenders at Panic.”

Lance thought about it for a minute. “Oh … is he that ethnic looking guy?”

“What the fuck did you just say?” Roan asked, genuinely surprised.

Lance waved a hand at him dismissively, leaving a cloud of cologne in his wake. “Oh don’t get all pissy and PC. He is ethnic, isn’t he? I mean, he doesn’t look white.”

“Um, Lance -” Matt said, shooting nervous glances between him and Roan.

“Wow, Matt, dating the local representative of the Klu Klux Klan’s gay branch? I’d go back to meth-heads if I were you. This seems like a step down.”

“Roan!” he snapped, horrified.

Lance flushed an alarming shade of crimson. “You smarmy little fucker -”

“I ain’t little,” Roan said, straddling his bike and grabbing his helmet. “Sayonara. Hope you get some self-esteem, Matt, because you can do a lot better.”

He was pretty sure they both said something - and Lance sounded pretty pissed off - but since he’d already kick started the bike, he didn’t really hear either. Maybe Lance wasn’t really a racist, maybe just a tactless poseur bastard, but something about him Roan just didn’t like; something about Lance made the lion in him want to come out and rip his hand off. Matt continued to have shockingly horrible taste in men.

To be fair, Dylan was mixed race - in spite of the surname Harlow, his mother had been Hispanic. (He promised there was a “long, scandalous story” behind it, but Roan had a feeling it was probably pretty pedestrian.) But to put it that way - “ethnic”? And he said it like it was a disease. What an asshole. If he still didn’t feel a little bad for poor, deluded Matt, he’d have decked that Lance son of a bitch.

Once he got home, he knew Dylan must have been up and about, as the living room curtains were open and the heat had been on at least once, but Dylan was laying on the couch, wearing a pair of his sweatpants and an old, pale blue t-shirt. He sat up as he came in, looking flushed with fever, his dark eyes glistening, and he said, “You know, you can tell a lot about a guy from his DVD collection.”

“Oh no,” he said, putting his backpack on the kitchenette so he could unpack the groceries. “Should I duck and cover?”

“You tell me. I usually find porn, or shocking things like National Geographic series or a lame ‘80’s sitcom, but you …” he paused dramatically. “Simpsons box sets? Action films?”

“Hey, the Simpsons were great. For several years. Not now, but hey, nobody’s perfect.”

“Airplane I can understand, but Slap Shot?”

“Slap Shot’s hilarious! Have you seen it?”

He’d finished putting the groceries away, and turned to see Dylan shaking his head, but grinning mischievously. “Are you absolutely sure you’re gay?”

He fixed him with a serious look. “We did spend a couple hours this morning fucking. I kind of think that’s a point in my favor.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Roan held up the box of Chinese food and the cold medicine, a tacit offer, but Dylan shook his head and held up a steaming mug of what he could smell was some kind of citrus tea. What did he have in the cupboard? Probably something with tangerine in it - he had one of those boxed tea assortments, and half the time he had no idea what the fuck he had until he emptied the thing out.

Roan put the food in the fridge, but left the cold medicine on the counter. “Fine. That shirt your wearing? That color doesn’t flatter your skin tone. It makes you look sallow.”

Dylan laid back down on the sofa. “Okay, you’re gay.”

“Told you.” He went over to him and sat down on the edge of the couch, smoothing his hair off his sweaty brow. “Damn, you’re burning up. You should really have some of the cold meds. I vouch for it; it fucks you up really good.”

His smile was faint. “That’s an endorsement?”

“Fuck yeah. Colds are miserable. Getting fucked up is a good thing.”

“I’m sorry I gave it to you.”

“You didn’t. I rarely get colds.”

“Really? Lucky you.”

Luck had nothing to do with it. It had everything to do with his strange immune system, which Doctor Rosenberg had said “is almost a hybrid” without explaining a hybrid of what, but he wasn’t going to tell Dylan that. Maybe he would one day, but not now.

Dylan grabbed his shirt and smiled lazily. “Does this mean I get a kiss?”

Roan grinned, aware he was very lucky after all. “You’re a slave driver.” He kissed his warm, dry lips, and confirmed that the tea was tangerine - probably something needlessly elaborate, like tangerine-mango explosion or something - and that Dylan was extremely warm.

Dylan slid his hand under his shirt and started kissing his neck, his stubble scraping his skin, and it did feel nice. Just feeing skin against skin felt good, and he could never quite believe how long he’d managed without it after very random bursts of celibacy. That was the good part and the bad part about a new relationship - the inability to keep your hands off each other. He did have work to do; he had to meet Fiona at the office. But there was always time for a quickie, wasn’t there?

That thought was brief. Dylan stopped and turned away to sneeze violently, three times in a row. He sniffed, wiping his watery eyes with the back of his hand, and said, “God, that was so sexy.”

“I know I’m totally turned on,” Roan agreed, making Dylan laugh. That devolved into a small cough that he had to drown with a sip of his tea.

Roan ran a hand through his sweaty hair, and said, “Take some of the meds, okay? And go to bed.”

“I was actually trying to gear up to go home,” he admitted, with a small grimace. “I don’t want to just lay around here like a snotty lump.”

“It’s not a problem. Actually, I’d enjoy the company, even if it’s just knowing you’re asleep upstairs.” And that was shockingly, sadly true. He usually preferred being alone, but right now he liked the idea of someone being here besides his old ghosts. It was a distraction from his own tendency towards self-pity.

Dylan studied him carefully. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I have to go out soon, I’m meeting Fiona. If there’s something you’d like at your place, I’m willing to drop by and get it, just give me your key.”

“Who are you and what have you done with Roan?”

“Hey, there’s only room for one smart ass around here.” He kissed him on the forehead and gave him a quick hug, feeling the contradictory sensations of overly warm skin and a cold shudder running through his body. Yeah, he was pretty sick. “Now go on, go to bed. I’ll wake you up if anything interesting happens.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank you. I have no idea why you tolerated me so long.”

Dylan gently squeezed the back of his neck and smiled at him, looking sick but somehow still incredibly attractive. It was so unfair. “Because you needed me, even though you couldn’t say it.”

“That is the sappiest damn thing anyone’s ever said to me. I think I’m going to go into a diabetic coma.”

He kissed him on the corner of the mouth and stood up. “You’re welcome, smart ass.” Dylan grabbed the box of cold medicine on his way upstairs, and Roan was about to ask him if he wanted something better to drink than the old tea when his phone rang. When he glanced at the caller ID window and saw who it was, he groaned to himself. This was bound to be bad news. “What is it, Holden?” he asked, as soon as he picked up the receiver.

“Kai’s ready to go,” he reported brightly. “He was really thrilled at the idea of being in on a police sting and not being the one arrested. I had no idea a kid this young even knew what Police Woman was, but hey - I guess YouTube has everything.”

Roan sighed heavily, and mentally counted to five - he was too irritated to wait until he reached ten - before saying, “We’re not doing this.”

“Roan -”

“We are not. If it was you or me, okay, but we’re putting some kid at risk, and I doubt he seriously knows how much danger he’s getting into. No.”

“He does know the danger. I like the kid and I wasn’t going to lead him on. Jesus, give me some credit here.”

“If he has a hard on for you, he’ll do whatever you say, regardless of consequences. Tell him it’s off.”

Holden was quiet just long enough that he knew he was giving him his patented sneaky/evil look, the one that indicated he was about to do something that would get a normal man beaten to a pulp. But Holden wasn’t a normal man, and often took advantage of that - his oily charm and sharp wits seemed to allow him to slip through any trap. “We’re doing it. If you want to help, great. If not, see you around.”

“Holden -” But he ended up saying the name to a dial tone, as Holden had already hung up.

That goddamn bastard. He should have known he couldn’t trust Fox.

Gryphon looked back to see Wax just standing there between the raindrops, like he was waiting for a bus. It made him briefly wonder if a bus of the dead would be any worse than a standard transit bus during rush hour. Probably not. It might actually be more peaceful and smell better. “He’s dead, Cal.”

O’Leary glared at him, like he thought he was just saying that to piss him off. “What? No he isn’t.”

“I assure you, he is.” Gryphon didn’t stick around to argue with him - he simply got out of the big, giant vehicle, vertigo briefly hitting him in his climb down to the ground, and walked over to the ghostly Wax, rain instantly drenching him like he’d just stepped under a cold shower. “What happened to you, Clifford?”

The ghost finally moved, as if seeing him for the first time. That was probably true. “Who are you?”

“Gryphon. I seem to speak for you people.”

“You people?”

“The dead.”

He blinked his eyes owlishly, as if the term “dead” was still new to him. He still seemed to exist between the raindrops in spite of his paunch. “It wasn’t fair.”

“It never is.”

“He was … I haven’t done anything wrong. Lately.” He gestured in a vague way, like he was scrabbling for a fingerhold on an invisible rock face. “I’ve been alone. I haven’t -”

“Excuses are for the living, Cliff,” Gryphon sighed irritably. He knew simply from being this close to him that he wasn’t nearly a good man; he’d led a pretty selfish and mean life. Of course he did, if he liked molesting little girls. Gryphon just wanted to get this over with so he could move on to something more productive. “What happened?”

Wax gave him a wounded look, but Gryphon ignored it in an almost hostile way, enough so Wax could see it through the prism of his own narcissism. “I hired this guy to come in and fill this old well on the property. It dried up a long time ago; it’s just a big hole going twenty feet down. I found a raccoon in it once. It was just a safety hazard, and I knew if some dumb shit trespassed and fell into it I could be sued. So I hired this guy to fill it in.”

“And?”

“And … I guess he recognized me? Said he saw me on a web site. Did you know some fuckhead out there has a web site full of so called sex offenders? I mean, Jesus Christ, I’m not a sex offender. These idiots act like younger girls can’t be sexual, like they don’t -”

“Shut the fuck up and tell me what happened to you,” Gryphon snapped, feeling the pressure of Ruby inside his head. She wanted to kill him. She didn’t know if she could actually kill a fellow ghost, but she desperately wanted to try.

Wax gave him that wounded look again, but now it had a hard edge. Gryphon was pretty sure he didn’t feel things like “normal” people - he probably didn’t feel at all. He was one of those emotionally empty people that you seemed to see around more and more these days. He had no idea why, but Gryphon knew it was true. Emotional death was growing frighteningly common. “Fine. That fucking asshole came over one day with a buddy to help him with the backhoe, and while he was in my kitchen, getting payment for the job from me, the fucker hit me over the head with something. It didn’t knock me out, just stunned me. Then they used plastic ties to bind my hands, and shoved a dirty bandana in my mouth to keep me from screaming. Then they dragged me out, dropped me in the well … and filled it in.”

“Buried you alive.” That was pretty horrible, he shuddered at the thought, but Ruby seemed to think it was only what he deserved.

“Do you know what it’s like to breathe in dirt?”

“Actually, yes.” Thanks to all his passengers and the various ghosts he encountered over the years, he knew second hand - although it felt like first hand - of all the grotesque ways to die. “How long have you been dead?”

He stared at him like he was the biggest idiot he had ever encountered. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”

Good point. Gryphon decided randomly on the figure of three weeks, although he had no idea why. He decided that he should get to what he was here for. “Do you know what happened to Juliet Saltzman?”

He snorted in disbelief and shook his head. “That bitch again. God, she was too fucking old for me.”

“I notice that wasn’t an answer.”

“I don’t know where the fuck she is. But I think I’ve seen her on Lonely Girls, under the alias Caramel. She just ditched, y’know? Got outta this fuckin’ town. She was smart.”

“Lonely Girls?”

It’s a website, Sylvio said.

Is there something you’d like to share with us? Hugh wondered.

Fuck off, Sylvio said defensively. My roommate was the king of porn and wannabe porn. I don’t know how he paid for it all.

Gryphon distantly heard a sharp whistle behind him, surely O’Leary in the other world, but it wasn’t quite enough to break the connection. “Nobody knows I’m dead?” Wax asked, looking vaguely distraught. “Nobody even noticed that I was missing?”

“Apparently not. Not even the cop who wants you behind bars worse than anything.”

“That son of a bitch. Tell him he can go fuck hims-”

O’Leary shook his shoulder, and Gryphon jolted as the connection snapped, and he shrugged him off reflexively, taking a couple of steps away into the weed choked lawn, which was now starting to flood due to the intensity of the rain. The ground was completely saturated and could hold no more water. “Would you stop doing that?” Gryphon snapped at him, trying to get his reeling head under control. Sometimes reality shifting was harder than at other times.

“What? You’ve been standing in the rain for five fucking minutes!”

The full sense of his body came back to him, soaked to the bone and cold, and he shuddered convulsively as the wind briefly gusted, the chill cutting into him like a razor blade. He wrapped his arms around himself to try and keep warm, but all he did was squish water out of his sleeves. “Wax was killed by two men, a handyman he hired, Axel Beech, and a friend of his he only introduced as Sean. They dumped him in the old well he hired them to fill in, and only then did they fill it in. He’s buried in the back acre of the property. I can find his body if you want to call it in.”

O’Leary studied him, raindrops suspended in his eyelashes, and it seemed to take him a full minute to process the information. “You’re not shitting me? He’s dead? Why the fuck these guys kill him?”

“They saw him on a website of registered sex offenders. I guess they decided to play vigilante.”

O’Leary shrugged. “Can’t blame ‘em, I guess. A pervert piece of shit like Wax. Did you ask him what he did with Juliet’s body?”

“He had nothing to do with her disappearance.”

“Bullshit.”

“He couldn’t lie to me. I’d know if he was, and I’d know if he had the death surrounding him. He didn’t. He said he thought he saw her recently on a website called Lonely Girls, using the alias Caramel.”

The ex-cop scoffed. “So now he’s maligning her name? That sick fucker.”

“He had nothing to do with her.”

O’Leary turned and started slogging back towards his SUV. “Now that he’s dead, I guess we can tear this place up looking for corpses. Ain’t like he can complain.”

Gryphon felt soppy and miserable. He had about an inch of water in his boots and his teeth were starting to chatter; his skin felt clammy and his chest was starting to ache, while his breathing suddenly felt strained. He had a sudden panicky flash to what it must have been like to drown, which was his most feared way to die: to drown. He’d always been terrified of drowning - he never learned how to swim because that much water just terrified him. He had no idea why then or now that that had to be his worse fear, and now it seemed extra funny since he’d died a thousand ways, many probably more horrible than drowning, and yet the fear remained, a rock solid reminder of his own sense of self. He was always a quiet geek, afraid of his own shadow, and now he dealt in nothing but death. Was that karma, or just the universe’s idea of a big fat joke?

O’Leary opened the driver’s side door, and Gryphon said, “Hugh, help me.”

The door ripped itself out of O’Leary’s hand and slammed shut, so hard that the monster vehicle rocked on its shocks and he swore he heard the driver’s side window crack. O’Leary turned back to him, bug eyed, as the SUV’s windows rippled like the water running down them. “What the fuck ..? Did you do that?”

“Who else could?” Gryphon wondered. The energy crackling around him made him feel a bit warmer. “I will not be dismissed. Helping you was my mistake, but I will not be ignored the moment I give you news you don’t want. I’m in charge here, not you. Do you understand me?”

O’Leary stared at him, goggle eyed, and his right hand was clenching and unclenching beside his hip. “Do you still carry a piece?” Gryphon asked. “I wouldn’t go for it. You’ll just make them mad.”

That made him freeze, stop his unconscious grab for a weapon. “Who?”

“My passengers. Do we have to go over this again? I’m not alone; I’m never alone. And you will never get all of us.”

Dial this back, Mr. Aronofsky warned. He’s not our enemy.

Sure he is, Ruby said casually.

Scaring cops is so much fucking fun, Hugh said, sounding almost giddy.

The SUV was now making an odd creaking noise, loud enough that even O’Leary broke his paralysis long enough to look back. “What the fuck are you doing to my car?”

“It’s not a car, it’s a monstrosity,” he said, although he muttered under his breath, “Enough, Hugh, I’m sure he’s got the point.”

Just let me see if I can lift it.

Didn’t you hear him? Mr. Aronofsky barked. He so rarely raised his voice it was still startling to all of them. Stop it now.

Jeeze, all right. No need to get so pissy.

The car settled and stopped making that noise, but there was another sound soon after, like ice cracking during a spring thaw, and Gryphon saw little furrows in the glass on the passenger side. One good push and it would probably shatter all over the seat. If that was the worst the SUV got out of this, it was very lucky. “Jesus fuck,” O’Leary sighed, running a hand through his wet hair, knocking his own hood back. He probably didn’t give a shit at the moment.

“You knew I was a freak when you heard about what happened in the interrogation room,” Gryphon said. “You can’t pretend to be shocked now.”

“Why do you keep hurting my fucking cars? What did they ever do to you?”

“They have electronics and glass. Both of them are rather fragile around me.”

He scoffed, putting his hood back up, but otherwise looking everywhere but at him. “You? Don’t you mean us?”

“Do you really want to start this, Cal?”

“Since when did I give you permission to call me Cal?”

“The moment you called me Gryph.”

He grunted, annoyed, and turned back to the SUV. “Can I check and see if this still runs or not?”

“Be my guest.”

As soon as he opened the door and started checking to see if anything worked, Gryphon was aware of Jeff McCandless standing beside him. “Aren’t you going to ask him?” he wondered. It was slightly bitter, but mostly weary.

He kind of didn’t want to, mainly because he could imagine the fallout, but he supposed now was the time. O’Leary was probably as scared of him as he was ever going to get. Gryphon waited until he pulled himself out of the cockpit, frowning. “I smell burned insulation in there.”

“You’re lucky Hugh didn’t pick it up and throw it.” He paused briefly, but only long enough for him to realize he was changing the subject. “Are you going to tell me the truth about Jeff McCandless now?”

O’Leary turned back suddenly, like he’d just jabbed him in the ass with a taser, and he paled so dramatically he was afraid he might barf. “Wh - why do you bring that up?”

“I know what you did, Cal, I think it would be best if you said it, for your conscience if nothing else.”

He started shaking his head, but after a moment looked at the weedy, wet lawn, the water starting to puddle and pool around their feet. The way the grass was weighed down and swirled with the water, it almost looked like they were standing in a shallow pond. “It wasn’t … there’s no need to -”

“Jeff seems to think there is a need. He won’t stop haunting you until you tell the truth.”

O’Leary’s eyes had an odd paleness to them, like he was looking into the future at his own hideous demise. He was still shaking his head, but faintly; you could basically only see it in the minor wiggle of his nascent jowls. “I can’t. It’s not …”

“You have to, or we don’t leave.”

He still didn’t want to look at him. He looked around him, at the slowly collapsing house which seemed to radiate the emptiness of death, and O’Leary decided looking down at the lawn pond they were standing in was the best option. Gryphon found himself looking at his bright yellow hood, where the raindrops beaded and ran down its shiny surface like it was coated with wax.

“I - I was a replacement, last minute, for another officer who was hurt in a car accident. I didn’t know. I didn’t -” his voice choked on a syllable, and only then did Gryphon realize he was actually struggling not to cry. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that. It should have been better contained.”

Jeff grunted. “This is pathetic.”

“I’ve heard enough excuses today,” Gryphon said sharply. “Get to the point, Cal.”