18 - The Bones of You

“I don’t suppose it was suicide?” Roan asked, collapsing on his sofa.

“It’s a little strange to shoot yourself in the back of the head, so I’m gonna say no,” Murphy said.

Roan made a noise of strangled disappointment, pressing his hand hard into his forehead. It didn’t change a thing. “Fuck.”

“If it makes you feel better, we have a suspect.”

“Who?”

“A minor player of a thug named Marco Lewis. He’s a small time drug dealer, but it seems Mr. Faraday owed him money. And Mrs. Faraday’s murder has some of the hallmarks of a robbery gone bad, so what we think happened here was genius - a/k/a Marco - tried to extort money the hubby owed him from the missus, and something went wrong. Mr. Faraday was probably then killed, for more than one reason.”

“So she was right to be concerned about his debts, she just wasn’t concerned enough in time.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Shit,” he sighed wearily. He felt terrible for Holly. If he’d been faster, better, would she still alive? No, he couldn’t think about that, mainly because it wouldn’t change anything. His client was dead, and while if he’d gotten the case a few days earlier he might have been able to do something to prevent it, it was all a moot point now.

Murphy promised to call him as soon as she heard anything about the Chesney house, and he went upstairs and took a quick shower that failed to make him feel any better. After getting dressed, he got together some books for Dylan as well as his MP3 player and went back to the hospital to drop them off. There he encountered Dylan’s sister Sheba and her husband.

That was always awkward. Roan got the feeling that Sheba was humoring him most of the time, and was not so secretly freaked out by his infected status (although he couldn’t blame her there - she was probably afraid he might accidentally infect her brother), and it didn’t help that her well meaning husband usually gave off that odd straight guy vibe that said, ‘I want to be cool around gay guys, but damn, they creep me out‘. Everything was civil and fine, but Roan still got the impression that Sheba would have been happier if he had absolutely nothing more to do with her brother.

Dylan was happy to see him, though, and gave him a kiss even before he gave him the books and his MP3 player. He was as bored as hell and wanted to go, but he’d just gotten some “damn scan or something” and they weren’t letting him go just yet. Only later did Roan find out that Dylan had gotten a head CT, and figured Dylan dismissed it so he didn’t freak out about it. Dee would later tell him that it was fine, they were just checking something. What he didn’t say.

Dylan scooted over and patted the mattress beside him, so Roan ended up sitting on his bed with him as they talked, Dylan leaning his head against his shoulder as Roan idly caressed his thigh, and they talked about very mundane things. But it was strangely nice; Roan felt oddly settled and didn’t notice his drug cravings in this moment of chaste intimacy. Dylan just had a calming influence on him; he made him feel Human, although not in a bad way. He enjoyed his warmth and his comforting scent, although it was diluted with the awful medical scent of the hospital.

He admitted that he hadn’t taken a pill all day, and save for tiredness and minor cravings, he really didn’t miss them. What he didn’t tell him was he feared he had acquired his own internal numbness, which was better than any narcotic. And he was going to have to learn to use it, because if he didn’t get his lion episodes under control, he was going to be in real trouble.

A nurse came in and chased him off, which seemed par for the course, but she gave him and Dylan specially dirty looks and even though they were just sitting talking, she warned them stridently that there wasn’t “any of that kind of thing” allowed in the hospital. That kind of thing? What? Buttfucking? Did she think they were on the verge of having wild and perverted gay sex before she heroically burst through the door? He and Dylan exchanged a look - they seemed to be thinking the same thing - and before he left they shared a long, overly passionate kiss that they played up a bit, just to disgust and annoy her. Which it did. But she deserved it - they weren’t shy, acquiescent gays, and if she was going to indulge in jackassery, so were they. Although, to be totally honest, that was one hot kiss. Goddamn, they needed to kiss like that more often.

Just before he left Dylan’s floor he remembered Ponyboy, and went up a couple of floors. He hadn’t checked in on the kid forever, and no, he didn’t know him, but it was a decent thing just to check up on him. When he stepped out of the elevator, he saw Holden slumped in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that lined segments of the hallway, his tall frame almost folded in half. The posture looked more sad than painful. “Holden, everything okay?” he asked, belatedly realizing that he forgot to call him Fox. Oh well, hopefully no one noticed, and those that did didn’t care.

He sat back and looked up at him, a strange blankness in his eyes. “You here to see Ponyboy? You’re too late.”

“Oh shit.” He sat on the chair beside him. “What happened?”

“They think it was blood clot in his brain.” Holden shrugged and looked away, tears making his eyes look glassy. “Christ, what am I supposed to do now? Track down the parents he ran away from in the first place and say, ‘Hey, your little faggot is dead. Do you want his body or should I just throw him in the trash like you did?’ “ He sniffed and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Fuck.”

“I’ll do it.”

“What?”

“I’m a detective; I’ll track the parents down. And when I was a cop, I used to hafta do the dead calls, contact relatives and next of kin to come down and identify a body.” He sighed at the memory. “People’s responses always surprised you. You expected the ones that reacted in horror or burst into sobs, but the ones who had no reaction, or the ones who said “I don’t care” or had some profane or pedestrian response to it were always the most startling. There were people who said they were watching something and they’d be over as soon as it was done; others who said simply, “Let ‘em rot” and hung up. You don’t know how people really feel about you until you die … and then you’re dead, so why would you give a fuck?”

Holden looked at him askance. “That was a philosophical abortion.”

“Hey, at least I tried.”

They just sat in silence for a moment, staring at the white wall before them, the noises of the hospital floor sounding like the background of a television show, minus the ubiquitous syrupy power ballad. “I don’t even know why I’m crying,” Holden finally admitted. “I didn’t know him at all. He was just a friend of a friend.”

“He was a kid, whose crime was essentially being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been any of us.”

He nodded and sniffed, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “Well, it couldn’t have been you. You’d have ripped them to pieces and beaten them to death with their own limbs.”

Roan opened his mouth to object to that classification, but of course Holden had just been kind to him. He had seen him in a more transformed state than anyone had since Paris; he could have said “eaten them” and left it at that. It would be true. So he decided to simply say, “I think you’d have fucked them up pretty well too.”

Holden scoffed. “They wouldn’t have fucked with me either. I may sound like a twink, but I’m built like a jock. Those fucking scumbags only pick on easy targets.”

“True.” They sat together for a moment, staring at the wall. Sometimes there was just nothing that could be said or done. Sometimes all you could do was sit in the silence, and wait to see if the world ever noticed. Even though Roan knew from experience that it never did.

Poor Ponyboy. He wondered if his parents would care, and then feared the answer.

****

By the time Roan got home, there was a message waiting for him on his answering machine, one he had both longed for and feared. A body had been unearthed at the Chesney place. As had a piece of another one.

The next couple of days, it would be splattered all over the local news. In total, three bodies were found, all women, only one identified (by dental records - a woman named Jamie Lynn Anderton, Chesney’s youngest victim at age nineteen), although a concerted effort was under way to identify the other two. The disappointing thing was clearly none of these victims were Keith Turner, but it did prove that Roland Chesney was a more disturbed and violent man than many had believed. Murphy told him it sounded like the DA was going to try and cut a deal with him, get him to confess to other victims and point out other dumping places in exchange for slightly lesser charges. (A joke, as he was going to be in jail for the rest of his life no matter how this played out.) He must have known that, because Chesney was denying that he murdered the women. Although the dry desert conditions had basically jerked the bodies, some evidence was found that proved Chesney was lying his ass off. He’d probably have no choice but to deal.

Roan had Chris Spencer meet him at his office before the full week was up, and admitted to him that Chesney had been his best lead, and while Keith’s body hadn’t turned up, it was his opinion that Chesney was most likely to have grabbed Keith from the park that day. If it wasn’t Chesney, he honestly didn’t know who could have done the crime. It was a pathetic answer, one hardly worth voicing, but Chris cried a bit, both in relief and disappointment, and thanked him. He accepted that as all the answers he was probably going to get about Keith, and thanked him for it, even though Roan felt that Chris should probably be cursing him out. He found the killer of others, not necessarily his son, although Roan understood that even a pathetic scrap of a potential answer probably looked good to someone who had gone without even a hint all these many years. He just wished he could have given him a more concrete and satisfying answer.

Dylan was still bruised up by the time his gallery show came around, although Roan managed to convince him it looked butch and dangerous. Since Dylan was hoping to “integrate” more into his life, Holden and Fiona were invited to the show and came together, as Fiona wasn’t dating anyone, and Holden - as far as Roan could tell - never dated anyone who didn’t pay for his time. They seemed to like pretending they were a couple, as Fiona liked having “arm candy”, and Holden loved role playing. Holden turned on the charm and schmoozed everyone, including the art snobs whom Roan heard talking to Dylan and referring to him as his “blue collar boyfriend” (what?) which was supposedly “very trendy”. Roan felt the urge to go and punch them, but Dylan told him they were assholes and he should ignore them, while Holden went over and got them caught up in his charm, identifying himself as an “entertainment facilitator”, so they could all have a quiet laugh over these people in their Prada and Versace fawning over and kissing up to a gay prostitute. But Holden was far more honest than they were: he was a whore and gladly admitted it. These people were whores too, but pretended they weren’t. So Holden won that contest.

Dylan was pretty surprised to see his lion painting on the wall. Some people did a double take upon seeing Roan, and when they recognized him they moved away quickly. He considered growling just to see if he could make them piss themselves, but decided that was taking things a step too far.

Ultimately, the show was a good thing. Dylan sold a couple of paintings, and some of the art snobs seemed impressed with him. It got his name out there, and positive exposure was always a good thing.

Roan was doing okay without the pills for the most part, but he knew he had to work on his temper to keep the lion from coming out. How he was going to do that he had no idea, although he was considering a variety of methods. And while the Church of the Divine Transformation was quiet, before he and Dylan left on vacation, he found an anonymous note in his mailbox that said, “We haven’t forgotten”. He knew it was from them, but since it didn’t constitute harassment, he didn’t report it. But he hadn’t forgotten either.

They were away on a brief weekend vacation in Vancouver (which had started to feel like home away from home) when Roan had another dream about Paris.

He figured it was because he was in Canada, which he always associated with Paris. He and Paris were on a pier in the Bay, looking out at water as blue and still as glass. It was dusk, so the sky was very nearly the same color, leaving lights on the water and in the city skyline to define the horizon, where the water began and where the city ended. Roan was laying on the dock, his back on the sun warmed boards, his head on Paris’s thigh. Paris was sitting on the edge, legs dangling over the side of the pier, stroking his hair as he looked out on a Vancouver Island ferry in the distance. Roan was pretty sure this was only a slightly dream altered memory. “How am I doing?” he asked.

Paris looked down at him, playing with his bangs as he smirked. “That’s a question for you, not me.”

God, he was too handsome. It still hurt his heart to look at him. “Do you think I can hold it together?”

Paris clicked his tongue and shook his head. “ What is that? Do you think so little of yourself? Everyone’s a little crazy. You’re not so bad. I’ve met guys who argued with their shoes. And I’m talking knock down drag outs, back and forth cussing. Well, forth. The shoes never did talk on their own.”

Roan reached up and tweaked his chin, making Paris look down at him and smile. “Will you be serious? I’d like you to tell me something. And don’t say “something”, got it?”

He sighed. “Fine. On a scale of one ten, you’re fourteen.”

Roan pondered that. “Wait - is that a sanity scale in ascending order or descending order?”

“Yes.”

It was Roan’s turn to roll his eyes and look off towards the peaceful bay. “How can you be a smart ass in my own head?”

“Hey, you’re the person having a conversation with a dead man. Judge your sanity accordingly.”

But that was why he asked him, because he didn’t want to think about it too much. How was he going to deal with the lion in him when he knew very well that he was basically an angry type of guy? Could he even get mad without the lion coming out? And did he just assume that Dylan knew he was still in love with Paris and would always have to split his affections with him?

His sleeping brain had brought him here for a reason, and Roan suspected he knew what it was. He stopped worrying about it and just relaxed, letting the wind and Paris’s ghostly fingers stroke his hair as the sky slowly darkened, and night fell softly enough to be comforting.

He refused to worry about the real world until he was back in it again.

____________

The End (For now)

17 - Imitation of Life

Roan sank down into one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs that it seemed you could only find in hospitals or DMVs, and asked, “Found what exactly?”

“I did some digging, just for the hell of it, and it turned out Roland Chesney’s uncle, Michael Chesney, owned a big piece of land out around the Sun Valley build. Roland lived there for a few years, supposedly taking care of the place while his Uncle died of cancer. The place went to Mike’s daughter after his death and Roland found himself kicked out, but the place has been abandoned ever since.”

“That’s coincidental. It’s just a confirmation of Rocco’s story.”

“Here’s the interesting bit. A year ago, a dog in the area apparently unearthed a Human arm bone. They never discovered where the dog dug it up, but the sheriff of the town really didn’t like it. He was sure there was a body out there that they were somehow missing. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a connection. Hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Does my opinion matter here? You talk to the sheriff?”

“Yeah, I did. He talked to Mike Chesney’s daughter about looking around the place, and she told him he could burn it down if he wanted. She doesn’t give a fuck what they do with it. She can’t sell it because it’s downwind from Sun Valley.”

He lolled back in the chair, his throat still raw from last night’s stomach pumping, the weariness settling on him like a heavy wet blanket. “That’s not exactly finding something. I thought you were talking about a dead body or something.”

“We’re workin’ on it. Jesus, Mr. Impatient.” After huffing an irritated sigh, she added, “I’m getting a feeling about this, Roan. I think you’ve stumbled upon something.”

His stomach growled, reminding him he still felt empty. He wasn’t going to scoff at her intuition, because it was something that good detectives developed along the way, and Murphy was a good detective. “I usually only stumble on things lately.”

“Hey, no self-pitying bullshit right now. I’m in no mood for it. I’m feelin’ too good.”

He was glad for her, so he thought he ought to go as soon as possible before he got her down. “Keep me updated, okay?”

“Sure. How’s Dylan?”

“Conscious and talking. I think he’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m glad. You keep him safe now, yeah? There’s been a resurgence in gay bashing for no apparent reason. Get him a taser and teach him how to use it.”

“He’s a Buddhist. He’s opposed to violence.”

“Tell him the bad guys aren’t. Gotta go. Don’t kill anyone unless you hafta.”

“I won’t, mother,” he replied, stressing the last word sarcastically. He heard her laughing as she hung up.

He slumped down in the uncomfortable chair and closed his eyes for a moment, as his eyes were hot and itchy for no obvious reason. He must have fallen asleep, though, as he woke up to find Dee leaning over him, looking down at him with an equal mix of curiosity and sternness. “You haven’t returned a single one of my phone calls,” he pointed out.

Luckily, Dee was on duty, and was now inclined to be kind to him. He took him to the café across the street from the hospital - he was on a break - and bought him lunch. He didn’t lecture him, just told him if ever did anything as stupid as overdose again, he’d get some muscle queens he knew to wrap him in a straightjacket and throw him in an aggressively Christian rehab center, where he would undoubtedly kill and eat at least half the staff and end up in prison. That was a devious plan, and he respected him for it. Having a steady boyfriend was doing him a world of good.

Even though Dee warned him his digestive system might revolt so soon after having his stomach pumped, Roan was ravenous and ended up eating two bacon cheeseburgers (fuck the calories and cholesterol; transition burned lots of calories, and he’d probably lost two pounds since yesterday - his pants actually felt looser) and a plate of chili cheese fries, which led Dee to proclaim him a “closet straight” since no self-respecting gay man would actually eat chili cheese fries. Roan accused him of trafficking in stereotypes since he would eat chili fries, and in fact had actually eaten poutine up in Canada. (He wasn’t sure he would eat it again, but at least he had tried them.)

To be fair, the chili fries were gross, but he was so hungry he didn’t care.

As soon as Dee left to go back to work, Roan returned some phone calls. Fiona had called to check in on him and Dylan, and he let her know they’d both survived. She offered to find the culprits and give them the bullwhipping of a lifetime - again, she reminded him she could take the skin off a grape with her whips (and she had a selection of them - god, he was starting to feel like the John Waters of the detective set, surrounding himself with this cadre of the strangest people you could ever meet. But was that so bad? He actually liked John … ) - but he had been truthful when he said the cops had gotten Dylan’s assailants. After getting the one at the scene, he caved pretty quickly and named his partner, showing that Dave hadn’t found volunteers known for their smarts or loyalty. What a shock.

He left a message for Holden, thanking him for last night. He wanted to ask again what he had done to Dave, but he knew he’d never get a straight answer, and besides, he was probably better off not knowing. If he knew, he was an accessory after the fact. He had done enough bad things that he didn’t need to add one more thing to it.

Because Dylan had asked him, he dropped by his apartment to water his plants. (He had two bonsai trees, a juniper and a cypress, both in glazed ceramic pots with gravel and sand bases like little Zen gardens, and a passion fruit vine that he had started from a seed packet but was now about ten feet tall and sprawled all over an impromptu trellis. It was in the living room beside the window, where he had replaced the blinds with curtains because the passion fruit kept sending out tendrils and tangling itself in the blind slats). While there, D’Andra, the bald lesbian from downstairs who still looked at him like he might explode at any second, came upstairs to ask how Dylan was doing. He invited her in, but she just stood in the doorway, giving him a look that suggested she knew damn well that Dylan was way too good for his pasty ass.

Roan had seen that the picture Dylan had painted of him with his half Human, half lion face was still in the living room on an easel, covered with a drop cloth. He asked if she knew the people running the gallery show Dylan was doing - it was a hunch - and she said yes, which was no shock at all. He said that Dylan had wanted to add a painting, but since he was now in the hospital he couldn’t. Could she make sure it got in? Of course she could, so he handed her the lion painting, still concealed by the drop cloth, and thanked her for doing this for him. He wondered if she would be retroactively mad at him for making her an accessory, assuming Dylan ever told her that he’d never put the painting in his show.

After watering his plants, Roan sat down on his couch and just absorbed the silence and the scent of Dylan - and paint, paint thinner, charcoal - that permeated the place. He vowed to treat him better, and learn to allow himself to feel like a real person again. It just terrified him. Physical pain he could take - he’d better be able to by now. But emotional pain … there was no building up a tolerance to that.

God, he was such a pussy. And not the cat kind either.

He called Chris to let him know that he had made some progress, although he was careful not to mention the police investigation into Roland Chesney. There was no sense in getting his hopes up when it could turn out to be nothing. He’d had enough heartbreak in his life.

Because he found he didn’t notice the urge for pills if he was doing something, he decided to go home and catch up on everything he was neglecting: laundry, paperwork, facing all his pain pills and not taking them. After everything he had been through in his life, Roan was sure he was strong enough to face that.

Considering how things had been going, he wasn’t too surprised to find an unmarked police car parked out in front of his house. He also wasn’t surprised to see Gordo get out of it as Roan parked in the driveway. Seb was in the car and waved at him, but didn’t get out of the car. He just put in his earbuds and started bobbing his head to music only he could hear. As soon as Roan was out of the car, he only needed to point to Seb to get an answer from Gordo. Gordo rolled his eyes, and said, “His daughter got him an iPod for his birthday, and he’s determined to prove he’s not an old fogy. The problem is, all he listens to is REM.”

“REM?” Roan chuckled, looking back at Seb. Yes, he was completely ignoring them. “Really? I’d never have picked him as an REM type of guy.”

Gordo both nodded and shrugged, not getting it and agreeing with him at the same time. It was obvious he wanted to talk to him alone, so Roan simply went to unlock his door, and Gordo followed. “Yeah, well, you like that punk rock shit, right?” Gordo said, once they were inside. “Takes all kinds.”

“Not only punk. I try to keep my mind open, although I never appreciated electronica quite like Paris did.”

“Electronica? Is that that “thump thump thump” dance music?”

“Yep. It sounds best when you’re really high.” He tucked his keys in his pocket and hung up his coat on the coat rack before going to the kitchen and grabbing a Diet Pepsi out of the fridge. He tacitly offered Gordo one by holding up the can, but he shook his head.

“Is that true of rap?” he wondered.

Roan shrugged. “Depends on the rap. So what can I help you with, Gordo?”

He took a seat at the breakfast bar, a pensive look on his weathered face, and Roan just knew he was in for something. “How are you doing, Ro?”

A cop asking you “how are you doing” was always a bad sign. “Well I got ninety nine problems, but a bitch ain’t one.”

He grinned at his own joke, but Gordo just glowered. “Now even I know that’s a rap reference. Are you going to take me seriously?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t had enough caffeine today.”

“Try. I know it was you who caused havoc at the church last night.”

“Couldn’t have been me. I was at the hospital with Dylan last night.” He then took a swig of his pop so he didn’t accidentally smile.

The caustic glare Gordo was giving him let him know that he wasn’t buying that. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Roan met his look with a stare of his own. “Do you think I am?”

Gordo huffed a sigh through his nose and shook his head like a disapproving father. “Fine, don’t admit anything and incriminate yourself, but I’m not here to arrest you. If I was, I’d have brought a SWAT team.”

“’Cause I’m Batman?”

“Will you cut the bullshit? You did some real damage. Are you even aware you almost ripped a guy’s arm off? I mean off, Roan, and not even from a joint. From what I understand, the strength needed to do something like that is inhuman.”

“And so am I, is that it?”

His caterpillar eyebrows furrowed, dropping low over the bloodshot hollows of his pale blue eyes. “You know goddamn well I’d never say that. But I don’t know many people capable of that kind of strength. Hell, I actually don’t believe you’re that strong, but then again, I never would have guessed you were a long jumper either. I worked with you for years, but now I have to admit I don’t know you at all. You know how shitty that makes me feel as a detective?”

That got to him and made him feel inexplicably bad. Gordo was always decent to him. Oh sure, he was uncomfortable with him being gay and being infected for a long time, but he didn’t go out of his way to give him shit about it. He was probably one of the more accepting of the old timers. He’d gone out of his way to make sure he didn’t get into trouble when he stepped over the line when helping him with cat cases; he was a decent guy. They’d never be best friends, but they weren’t enemies either, and he shouldn’t push it. He considered several possible replies, and finally decided on the truth. “Under normal circumstances, I’m not capable of that kind of strength.”

“Under normal circumstances? What qualifies as normal?”

“Not furious.”

That made him sit back on the stool, as if the response surprised him. “You’re the Hulk now? We wouldn’t like you when you’re angry?” He suddenly looked towards the front door, and said, “Hey, yeah. You punched out a deadbolt when you thought Henstridge had killed Paris. I’ve never seen anyone punch out a deadbolt without tools. Wow, how’d I forget that?”

Roan had forgotten that, and turned away so he could wince out of Gordo’s view. He went to the fridge and pretended to be looking for something to eat, just so he had a reason to turn away. “It was a long time ago.” How had he forgotten that? That was a partial transformation, a use of his warping muscles that was, in retrospect, extreme. He couldn’t even remember his hand hurting after that.

Gordo scoffed. “Doesn’t matter. I haven’t forgotten the rest of it. You don’t forget seeing a man whose throat has been ripped out in one solid piece by a tiger. That was … “ he petered off for a moment and grunted softly. “No offense to Paris, but I’m glad there aren’t many tiger strains. I think the Human race would be doomed.”

“We’ll kill ourselves off before any animal has the privilege.” Roan saw the containers of Indian food he had gotten and saved for Dylan, and his stomach twinged. Well, he could have them when he got back from the hospital. He saw a pear and grabbed it, figuring this was a good enough foodstuff to pass.

Gordo shrugged a single shoulder as he turned back to face him. “Probably. We Humans are good at that.” He slid off the stool, and pointed at him, like he was picking him out of a line up. “Keep doing this kinda shit, and everyone will know. Not only will we be unable to hide it, but people will put the clues together. I don’t even wanna imagine that media circus, Just … tone it down. And no matter what you do, stay the fuck away from those cultists. You getting in trouble or getting infamous will be just what they want.” He then gave him a small salute on his way out the door.

Roan collapsed on his couch and wondered what he was going to do about himself. Gordo was right - if he kept displaying these abilities in public, it wouldn’t be good for him. He could imagine doctors lining up for the privilege of gawking at and poking the freak, keeping him in medical quarantine “for his own good”, but really just so they could dissect him and figure out how the virus had mutated in him, become something as helpful as it was harmful. If he was religious, he could call himself blessed or damned, and both would be equally applicable.

Shit. As soon as Dylan was well enough, they were definitely going on vacation and getting the fuck away from here for a while. He really needed to get his shit together.

When he conquered his lethargy, he turned on the stereo and cranked These Arms Are Snakes as he forced himself to do what he had to do to keep his mind off the pills. He did laundry, he did paperwork until he thought the boredom was going to kill him, and then, even though he felt unusually tired, he went into his study and worked the heavy bag, not letting himself get too carried away. He focused on the rhythm of his fists hitting the bag, trying not to put too much behind the punches (because if his muscles took this as an invitation to warp, he might break the goddamn chain), and threw in a few side and snap kicks for variety, so he didn’t fall too completely into a somnambulant pattern.

He finally stopped when he was forced to pant for breath, the sweat dripping off his forehead as he bent down and put his hands on his knees. He caught his breath in increments, and watched sweat beads fall and plop onto the dark carpet, where they were quickly absorbed. His muscles felt stretched, had the post workout burn, but he hadn’t taken anything too far, hadn’t partially changed, so that was good. Sometimes small victories were all you had.

Roan had no idea how long his phone had been ringing when he finally heard it. He just barely picked up the receiver before the machine kicked in, and had to tell the person on the other end to wait a moment as he muted the stereo. “Yeah, sorry.”

“This has been one bizarre day,” Murphy said, sounding grim.

“They find something at the Chesney house?”

“I have no idea; the Sherriff hasn’t called me yet. No, this is about your client, Holly Faraday.”

It actually took him a moment. So much had happened it seemed like ages ago now. But how could he forget that she set him up for some inexplicable reason? Had him trail her cheating husband, only to murder him and flee. “You caught her?”

“No, but we’ve found her.” She paused, and Roan stood up straight, suddenly wary. What the hell had happened now? “We found her body in an old gravel pit about two miles from where Dallas Faraday’s body was found. Somebody put a bullet in her brain too.”

Roan felt honestly terrible that his first reaction was relief that she hadn’t used him. But who would want to kill Holly?

Strike that: who would want to kill the Faradays?

He had picked a bad week to stop taking pills.

I will be back to Freefall in no time flat, but as a treat for fans of my first serial, Troubleshooter - all two of you - here’s a sneak preview of what just may be the last Troubleshooter. Untitled at the moment, the Steven Wright quote does have a purpose and reason to be here, I swear.

Also, if you’re unfamiliar with Z and Shan, go into the archives and read up on them. (If this makes you at all curious about them and their history.)

******

Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I’ve
forgotten this before. -Steven Wright

(more…)