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.