13 – Painless

The sun was just starting to come up when Roan knocked on Scott’s door, and he suddenly wondered if he should be bothering him right now. But he was just so wired he wasn’t sure what else to do.

In spite of the codeine and partial transformation, his heart was thundering in his chest, making it look like his hands were kind of shaking, and he did wonder if he should be worried about having an aneurysm explode in his brain any second. But you know if he was going to die, he was going to die. No point in worrying about it.

Grey lived in an old house that had been partitioned into apartments, and he lived on the upper floor, so Roan had to use a staircase around the back – it used to be someone’s patio deck, now an oddly spacious landing – and then he knocked on a wooden door that felt kind of flimsy under his hand. Either he was knocking too hard, or it was made for internal as opposed to external use. At least there was a very big hockey enforcer living here – anyone who broke in would be very sorry very quickly.

Roan heard a lock being unlatched before the door opened, and he was surprised to find Scott there. “Roan? Hey man, what’s up?” he asked, before yawning extravagantly.

Oh, goddamn straight boys who appeared in their underwear and never realized how hot they were. Scott was wearing nothing but jockey style red underwear (red?), and he had that long, lean, hard body of the dedicated athlete, muscles slender but strong enough to make him look like he’d be a good blast shield in case of explosion. He didn’t have a six pack of abs but a two pack, his stomach flat as a washboard, and Roan really wanted to bite his knuckle. His weakness was men with those wonderfully solid, flat stomachs. Six packs were impressive and could be attractive, but not as much as these sandwich board guys. Why he had no idea, but that was just the way his libido went. He was suspicious of gym bunnies and men built too much like marble statues.

And his hair was sleep mussed, he had a dark stain of stubble along his jaw … crap, crap, crap. He was cute enough to give Dylan a run for his money. “I, uh, didn’t realize you lived here too,” Roan said, aware that if Scott was more awake, he might have noticed he looked at him a bit too long for comfort. (But damn, he was cute. It really caught him by surprise. At least he could console himself with the knowledge that a straight man, confronted with a hot woman in her underwear, probably would have been flustered for much longer.) But Scott had probably been on sports teams most of his life. He probably thought nothing of casual nudity and near nudity, unaware of the fact that he was smoking hot and could have been a model for a gay calender or underwear ad.

Scott nodded, yawning again, and running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s easier to split the rent, and we’re used to rooming together on the road.” After dry washing his face, he honestly opened his eyes, and he squinted at his shirt. (Did he wear contact lenses?) “Is that blood?”

Roan looked down and checked. “Um, yeah.”

“Yours?”

“Some.”

He didn’t react to that admission at all. “Give it to me. I’ll getcha a clean shirt.”

“You don’t have to -”

“Yeah I do. You don’t wanna walk around in a bloody shirt. Besides, I got this great stuff that gets out bloodstains.” At Roan’s look, he clicked his tongue in impatience. “I play hockey. I better know how to get bloodstains outta clothes.”

He was going to point out he thought the equipment manager did stuff like that, but hell, at the minor league level it might be more DIY. So Roan shrugged off his leather jacket, tossing it on the front room’s homely blue Goodwill couch, and peeled off his shirt, which was a bit more damp than he thought. But the bleeding from his mouth was always much more than he expected, and he had no idea why. Shouldn’t he be used to it by now? He turned the shirt inside out and tried to hand the shirt over on a dry side, and Scott gasped in shock. Roan suddenly and horribly remembered his scars. Oh shit, how did he forget about these things?

“That is fucking awesome,” Scott said, coming over and grabbing his arm. He was, it turned out, looking at the tiger tattoo Dylan drew for him. “Oh my god. Where’d you get that done?”

“Actually it was drawn by my boyfriend. Someone else tattooed it on, but she followed his design.”

“Wow. Could he do one for me?”

“Umm, I don’t know. You could ask.”

“Yeah, I will. That’s beautiful.” He stared at the tiger for a moment, and then unconsciously caressed it with his thumb before letting his arm go. It raised goosebumps on Roan’s arm, and he really wanted to hit him. Damn straight boy – he had no fucking clue, did he?

He walked away, holding Roan’s bloody shirt, and he couldn’t help but notice what a great ass Scott had as he called back, “You’re here to see Grey, right?”

“Right.”

Scott headed down a small hall, that was parallel to the small, open kitchen. It may have been the apartment of two straight bachelors, but it seemed remarkably tidy, and all the pale stained hardwood suggested a warmth reinforced by the hominess of the mismatched but not inelegant Goodwill furniture. The only thing that really gave this away as a guy’s place was the sheer number of remotes scattered across the coffee table.

Scott pounded on the door as if trying to bust it down, and shouted, “Grey, get the fuck up! Roan’s here!”

He could have done that from here. Well, not the pounding on the door, but everything else. There might have been a grunt of acknowledgment, but he couldn’t tell.

Scott went in the room, and after a moment, there was a thud – like a body hitting the floor – and a startled, “’M up, I’m up.”After a moment, Scott came out pulling on a pair of loose gray yoga pants, and he tossed Roan a dark shirt.

“Did you shove him onto the floor?”

Scott half grinned, still sleepy and still so thoughtlessly sexy Roan wanted to pound his own head through the wall. “Sometimes it’s the only way to get him up. I gotta warn you, he’s useless until his first Red Bull.”

“He doesn’t do coffee?” Roan finished pulling the shirt on, and probably shouldn’t have been surprised that it had the Seattle Falcons logo emblazoned across the chest.

“Not enough caffeine for him. He likes to start his morning with a heart attack.” He padded off to the kitchen, and Roan felt awkward, so he sat on the arm of a slightly threadbare but oddly elegant dark blue velvet armchair and looked around the apartment, not at all staring at Scott and his long, lean back, or the way those yoga pants sat so lightly on his hips it looked like they could fall off at any second. (He probably didn’t know it at all, but he was a total cocktease.)

What was he doing? Why did he come here so early? It could have waited – there was no reason it couldn’t have. Okay, if he was honest, he was so keyed up and wired he probably wasn’t thinking straight. No pun intended.

He heard a toilet flush, and Grey came shuffling out like a zombie, eyes barely open, and by the time he reached the living room, Scott shoved a can of Red Bull in his hand, and pointed him towards the sofa. “There he is. Now sit and go talk.”

Grey grunted, and shuffled forward. Scott stayed by the entrance of the hall, and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’m gonna go back to bed.”

“By all means. Sorry I woke you.”

“It’s okay. If we had a skate this morning, we’d have been up.”

“Skate?” Grey said, plopping down on the couch. The way he said it reminded Roan of the decrepit Father Jack in the sitcom Father Ted (although he said “Drink?” not “Skate?”), and he had to bite back a grin.

“No, not today. Today’s a day off. Now drink your Red Bull.” Scott gave him a wave, which Roan returned, and then he disappeared back into his room. Were all team captains like that? He gave orders and Grey followed them without question. Maybe it was just the nature of their relationship irrespective of the team, or Grey was too tired to question anyone’s orders.

Still, Grey popped the top of his Red Bull and took a healthy swallow, which made Roan grimace. He’d only had it once, but he thought that it – and most energy drinks of that kind – tasted like piss. But if it got him going, he could hardly criticize.

Grey was big enough that he made Scott look svelte. He had a V shaped torso, a broad chest narrowing to a slim waist, and he wore dark boxer shorts that covered about half of his tree trunk thick thighs, although none of the rest of his sinewy legs. He looked a bit more like a boxer than a weight lifter, and that made perfect sense. While he wasn’t overly bulked out with muscles, he still looked like he could stand in for a retaining wall if the need ever arose. How did anyone ever hit by him get up again? Roan was kind of relieved he did nothing for his libido, but maybe that’s because he was a client; he was sure never to even mildly entertain the notion that a client was attractive. That was only asking for trouble.

Grey cleared his throat, and opened his eyes a bit more. “Okay, I think I’m up now. Wow, you’re wearing our shirt. I can get you a better one …”

“Thank you, but that’s not what I’m here about.”

“Didn’t think so. Just sayin’.”

“What I want to know Grey, is if you just wanted to know who killed Jamie. Aside from getting the guy chucked in prison.”

“Huh?”

“I know who killed her. But I don’t think I can legally prove it.”

Grey just stared at him, and he wondered if he was awake enough for that to really sink in. But he must have been, because he said, “Yeah, I wanna know. It was Switzer, right?”

“Switzer and Sean Brand.”

There was a pause. “The guy’s name was Michael, wasn’t it?”

“The guy Jamie named in the suit, yeah. But he wasn’t the killer.”

Grey stared at him blankly again. He was slowly waking up. “Huh?”

Roan sighed and wondered how to best put this. It took him a bit to understand it to, but Sean was a stammering mess, just terrified of him and his transforming face and diseased blood.“From what I was able to get out of Sean, it seems Jamie had met someone she was seeing but hadn’t told you about yet: Michael Brand. Switzer, his cop partner at the time, found out, and discovered that Jamie was a pre-op transsexual. Switzer knew Sean casually, and passed this on. Sean didn’t want a fag in the family any more than Switzer wanted a fag as a partner, so one night Sean and Switzer beat the shit out of Jamie, and bullied Michael into silence. Jamie turned around and filed a charge of police brutality, but named Michael. Probably because Sean wasn’t a cop, and probably because Jamie wanted to force Michael out, make him fess up about his asshole partner and half-brother. But you know what happened instead: Switzer and Sean killed Jamie, and Michael just gave up.”

Grey listened with his head tilted to one side, listening like a parakeet. The same amount of understanding seemed to be in his sleepy eyes, but it seemed to connect. “So Michael Brand knew.”

“He must have. Suspected is hard to swallow, especially since he must have known that Sean and Switzer beat Jamie.”

“He was dating Jamie? Why didn’t he do anything?”

Roan shook his head. “That I can’t say. But having met him, I’m gonna say he’s been broken. By who and why I don’t know. It’s possible Jamie’s death sent him into a spiral, and he simply didn’t want to – or just couldn’t – rat out a fellow officer.”

Grey’s head straightened up, and his eyes seemed to darken. Is this what his opponents on the ice saw? It was wonderfully intimidating. “Where’s he live?”

“No, Grey, that’s not how we’re doing this.”

“I’m paying you, yeah? I just want his address.”

Roan shook his head. “Hurting him won’t bring Jamie back. It probably won’t even give you any satisfaction – he’s too easy an opponent.”

“Michael or Sean?”

“For you? Both. At the same time, with a head start.”

He seemed to consider that, chew it over like it was a piece of gristly meat. “How come you can’t go to the cops and tell them this?”

“I can, I will. But Sean’s confession to me was under duress; it wouldn’t hold up in court. Also he blames Switzer for everything, which I know is a lie, but it’s his word against my sense of smell. It’s only been legally cleared for identifying people’s scent and blood – I’ve never been legally cleared for smelling lies, although I can. Unless Sean confesses to them – or Michael fingers his brother, which I wouldn’t bet money on – there’s nothing to tie him to the scene, especially since Switzer is now dead.  If he was alive, it would be easy to turn them against one another, but Switzer took the easy way out.”

“You shot him.”

“Yes. That was easy.”

He was still rolling this around, and didn’t like the taste of it. “Under duress? Did you torture him?”

“Do I look like Jack Bauer? No, I just scared him so badly that he started talking. He even pissed himself, which is why I may smell a bit like piss.”

Grey gave him a lazy half smile that was somehow very unsettling.“You scared him that badly?”

“I have my moments.”

“We could use you on the team. Stand you at the blue line and have you stare down the opponents.”

“It would be extra comic too, since I can’t skate.”

“We’ll prop you up.” He wiped his fist across his mouth, and the dark shadow had yet to leave his eyes. He was still calculating the odds of finding the Brands and beating them to a pulpy mush. “You telling me they’re gonna get away with murder?”

“Not exactly. Sean is gonna go down for assaulting Holden; I got him arrested for that. And since he’s a repeat offender, most likely any judge will throw the book at him. Also, since I let it be known that he hurt Holden, it’s possible there are friends of his behind bars, friends that will make life very ugly for Sean as soon as he’s in the door.”

“But what about Michael?”

“Michael’s already dead. I’ve never seen such a miserable ruin of a man. Killing him would probably be a mercy; it’s more punishment to keep him alive.”

Grey gave him a dubious look. “I don’t like this, Roan.”

“I’m not crazy about it either. But there’s a couple of other things still in play.”

“What?”

“Best you not know.” Mainly because Roan honestly had no idea what he was talking about. He just had to make up something to keep him from going off and beating the Brands down to a bloody carpet stain. He could point out he had worked so hard to get this far in his hockey career, and he couldn’t just toss it away because of these assholes, but Roan wasn’t sure such a pitch would have worked. Would it have worked on him? “Let’s just let it play out and see what happens, okay?”

His look remained skeptical, but finally he sighed and his shoulders sagged as he sank back into the couch. “Yeah, okay. And thanks for giving me the info. You did in days what the Eastgate PD hasn’t done in over a year.”

“The Eastgate PD are hopelessly corrupt. Luckily it looks like the fallout from the Switzer case is going to take the chief down, and maybe some others. Switzer was rotten to the core, and his rot spread on contact. A housecleaning is what Eastgate needs. Maybe with officers who are actually going to do their jobs because they’re being watched, the case will finally be cracked.”

“Maybe. But I won’t hold my breath, ‘kay?” He rubbed his eyes, and added, “Fuck, I’m tired.”

“Go back to bed. I shouldn’t have come over so early, I was just buzzed.”

“I understand, man. I get that way after a really good game.” He levered himself up, and Roan stood as well, they shook hands, and since he was convinced Grey wasn’t going to run off and do something stupid just yet, he left.

Could he just let it be? Could Roan? The entire drive home, he wondered. Michael really was pathetic; as much as he wanted to beat the shit out of him, he couldn’t shake the persistent, nagging feeling that Michael would probably enjoy it too much.

People got away with murder every day. It was sad but it was true. People fell through the cracks, and murderers escaped, not because they were criminal masterminds but because they got fucking lucky. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but it was reality in its ugly, stinging glory. It was just a bitter, barbed pill to swallow.

The buzz wore off as he fought the morning traffic home, and by the time he reached the house he was ready to pass out on the floor. He’d been up all night and a headache was blooming deep inside his brain, a dull ache that he knew would become a full blown migraine later on. The sun lightning the sky was making it worse. He popped a couple of Percocet before going up and taking a quick shower to wash the remaining scent of blood and piss and fear off him. Dylan was a lump under the covers, apparently sleeping, and he tried his damnedest not to wake him up.

He dried off hastily and slipped naked into bed, but he woke up Dylan or Dylan was already awake but playing dead, because he had just pulled the covers up to his shoulders when Dylan rolled over and snuggled against him, pressing up against his back and draping an arm around his waist. He was nice and warm. “Do I want to know why you’re coming home just now?” he mumbled.

Roan closed his eyes against the light bleeding in around the fringes of the curtains, and he could feel the painkillers taking hold, wrapping the pain in his head in cotton wool, softly pushing it down. It was a lovely feeling. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I was afraid you were gonna say that.” He sighed, his breath a warm rush on his neck. “How’s Holden?”

“Last time I called still stable. He’s doing better than the guy he stabbed in the leg.”

“Karma in action?”

“Maybe. Or maybe just a vital lesson in being careful who you fuck with.”

“Did you know he carried a knife?”

“Holden? No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. He was a street kid, after all.” He was settled into his soft pillow, and between that and the heat of Dylan’s body, he was drifting off already.

“I thought he was a preacher’s son.”

“That too. He’s been a lot of people.”

“The cops get the other guy, the one who ran?”

“I got him.” Roan knew it was the fact that he was half asleep was why he admitted that; otherwise, he’d have just said the cops grabbed him and left it at that.

“I kinda figured,” Dylan admitted. “You didn’t partially transform, did you?”

“Why would I do that?”

From the way he sighed heavily, he already knew. “I’m too tired to get mad at you right now. But we’re having an argument later.’

“I’ll pencil it in.”

You knew you’d probably been in a relationship too long when you were actually scheduling arguments. But you know, right now he was too damn tired to care.

12 – Run Like Hell

Even though it took more time than it should have, Roan eventually got some answers out of Brand, although not enough.

He was completely broken down, which made him useful and useless at the same time. He didn’t know who the second man was; Brand guessed one of Sean’s friends from prison. Roan guessed that Sean was in prison for assault, and this was apparently true. Brand added that he was only a half brother, but that wasn’t wildly helpful.

By this time he was sobbing like a schoolgirl, and it was hard to understand a single thing he said. Roan knew he was shitty at calming down the hysterical, so he called Fiona, and told her to look up everything she could on a Sean Brand. Fiona asked him who the howling girl in the background was, and he told her he’d tell her later.

Brand was officially useless. He wasn’t sure he was speaking English anymore; he was just a mess. He wanted to know why Sean would be so eager to protect him from whatever the fuck he thought he was protecting him from, but Brand was no longer coherent. At first he pressed Brand to tell him if he had some Valium or something, but there was no talking to him. So he searched his bathroom cabinet and found nothing but over the counter stuff, so he was stuck searching the kitchen for booze. He found an old bottle of bourbon tucked in a back cabinet, and he poured a huge measure of it into a plastic tumbler. He gave it to Brand and all but forced him to drink it, and considering how it smelled, Roan didn’t blame him for balking at drinking it. Once he did, and once he got over his coughing fit, he seemed to calm down, but he remained useless. Roan encouraged him to go to bed, and he eventually did, but Roan remained in his house. He wasn’t going to search it, not while the guy was here, but maybe there was some hint here about what the fuck was going on.

Oh, fuck it. He needed to get info and he needed to do it now.

He’d found Brand’s home computer and just booted it up when his phone hummed in his pocket. Since it was Dee, he answered.

“We got one,” Dee said immediately.

“One of the attackers?”

“Oh yeah. He turned up at the free clinic downtown, said he cut his leg while fixing his car, but that didn’t track with the injury, and he’d lost so much blood he was barely conscious. They gave fake names, and his friend split as soon as he got wind that they weren’t buying it. One of the nurses there said he had a black eye, they figured there’d been a fight and they didn’t want the cops called.”

Roan looked at the cell phone photo again, and tried to determine which one had the leg wound and who had the broken ball. The one looking back, he seemed to be dragging the other guy – the one with the leg wound was being dragged. It was Sean with the broken ball.

“Free clinic? The one down on Virginia?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Just curious. Not that far from the Alley Cat. I wonder if there’s a blood trail.”

“I doubt they walked in, Roan. What are you up to?”

“Nothing. Where are they bringing the guy in? County General?”

“Yeah, it sounds like it; he’s lost enough blood that he’s in danger of shock. Ro, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, like I said. How’s Holden?”

“Still stable. Roan -”

“Gotta go. I’ll check in later.”

“Roan -” Dee said warningly, but he hung up on him. Dee knew him too well; he couldn’t trust he would play along.

On his way out to the car, he called Kevin, and asked him to find the address of Sean Brand, whom he knew was in the system. Kevin wanted to know why, and he told him simply that he was desperate to find him. Kevin was understandably suspicious, but it didn’t take him long to find him, as he was also once arrested on a vice beef (he propositioned an undercover policewoman posing as a prostitute). He lived at an apartment on Division, a pretty shitty place, and not far from the free clinic either. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to go home … would he? Maybe he would. He probably wasn’t a genius.

Roan got in his car and wondered if he knew what he was doing. He took a couple of Codeine from the glove compartment, hoping to keep his anger in check.

If Michael could give him no answers, maybe Sean could.

He went straight to the Rochester, the surprisingly upscale name for a glorified tenement, and found Sean’s apartment on the second floor. The lock was easy to pick, but once inside, he knew no one had been here for hours. There was no scent of blood, and the Human smell was stale. A cursory glance showed him a sad bachelor’s place, with the living room also the bedroom, the kitchen a piece of the living room, and only the bathroom a separate room with a door. He could come back and search at his leisure – right now, he wanted to find the motherfucker.  But where did he look? He was a lowlife scumbag with a hurt nut and an idea that the cops were probably looking for him. He might have friends from prison who’d be willing to hide him, at least for the moment.

He was looking at this from the wrong angle, wasn’t he? If the fucker had gone to ground, he needed to muddy the ground.

This was a bad part of town; in fact, it was fucking terrible. To be out on the streets when you could actually be somewhere else verged on suicidal. He once worked a beat down here; he believed Holden once worked a corner around here. As such, he had an idea.

He found the bar by looking for the darkest pool of shadows. It looked like it was trying to hide; its door was unlit, painted black, and seemed almost like an optical illusion tucked in amongst the run down buildings. It was a bar that seemed to be trying very hard not to be seen, and for a very good reason. The shit that went on in here could boggle the mind.

There used to be a gay bar a couple blocks over, called the Eagle, that had also had a dark, hidden door, but it used its secretive digs for atmosphere. It was actually a quite nice bar; cramped, a bit too small, but there wasn’t really room to dance, although you could on the upper level if you moved the tables back. But mostly it was just a bar to drink and talk to other men who were also gay; you could hook up, people did, but really it was just a place to relax amongst like minded people. They had really good margaritas there. He went there sometimes after work when he was on the force; Connor had really been impressed with the place. Sadly, it had closed up a couple years ago, as the owner died, and his family contested the will that left the bar to his partner. It was now in legal limbo, and the doors had been shut.

Now that had been an oddly nice dive bar. This bar, technically named Chuck’s (why? No one knew – there’d never been a Chuck associated with it) was a dive bar that gave dive bars bad names. It was so dark inside it was like walking into a black hole, and everyone in there looked like they’d gladly step over your rotting corpse to get a second beer. You could get drugs, weapons, and a sexually transmitted disease here, often without trying.

Roan took a moment to let his eyes adjust, and he saw a whole bunch of evil death stares coming his way. Either they knew he used to be a cop, or they just didn’t like newcomers around here – he was cruising for a bruising. He recognized someone trying very hard to hide in the shadows, and he wondered if this was proof of karma, because hadn’t they discussed this guy just a couple of days ago?

Roan headed straight for him. “Hey Burn, how’s it going?”

Burn was just his street name, of course, but it was what everybody but arresting officers knew him by. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’,” he said sullenly, trying very hard to become one with his torn vinyl seat.

Roan slid into the booth on the opposite side, and felt something sticky on the rickety table between then. It smelled like beer, and he sincerely hoped that’s all it was. Burn looked fucking horrible, and smelled even worse – ammonia and rot seemed to waft from his pores, his hair was lanky and greasy, splattered on his head like a skinned pelt, and his face looked as pitted as the surface of the moon, his cheeks sinking in as his face slowly collapsed inward. You’d think the amount of meth this guy did would have killed him by now, but somehow he was still hanging on, and still acting as an all around wheeler dealer/weasel. “I’m not here for you, Burn. I’m here because of Fox.”

He sniffed, and Roan wondered how his septum was still intact. “Haven’t seen Fox.”

“He got knifed tonight. He was jumped.”

He had been looking down at the table, but now he looked up, his eyes sunken black holes that glittered like pennies at the bottom of a deep well. “By who?”

“The cops have corralled one, but another guy is still on the run. Name’s Sean Brand, he’s got a cop brother but he won’t protect him. I want you to tell everyone he tried to kill Fox. Tell everyone, get it out there as fast as possible. He’s out on the streets somewhere, trying to lay low. I want him flushed out.”

Burn gazed at him warily. “You know it don’t work like that. Fox has some friends in low places. If word gets out, there’s no guarantee he survives the night.”

“I know. That’s what I’m counting on.” The streets could be a very funny thing. Gays weren’t really liked there either – were gays liked anywhere? – but everything was a matter of degrees. Holden may have been a hustler, but he looked out for his people on the streets, taking care of them, and no matter his customers, he never ratted on them to their congregations, constituents, or wives. Not being a snitch was a highly valued commodity on the streets, it was a key to grudging respect, and Fox had managed to earn a lot of it. He was smarter than most, he could play the game and people well – hence his street name Fox. He might have been a fag, but he was a crafty and respectable one. He had a cache on the streets that few fellow hookers – or fags – had, and Roan intended to cash in on it.

He gave him a look that suggested his personal opinion of him just went up a couple notches. “You want him dead?”

“Ideally, I want him to run screaming to the local cop shop. But if he doesn’t, I’m willing to live with the alternative.” Roan stood up, and dug a ten dollar bill out of pocket, which he tossed on the table. He hoped it didn’t land in the puddle. “Get yourself some food, huh? You look like an Olsen twin.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he said, grinning with a mouth full of rotting teeth.

He had no plans beyond this, so he walked back to his car, a bit amazed that no one tried to mug him, and wondered about his next move. He could go through Brand’s apartment, but it looked like a shithole, and he wasn’t sure it would have any answers for him. Sean had been in prison, and his brother – half brother – was a cop. He knew better than to leave incriminating evidence about.

His brother.

Roan suddenly wondered if Sean would be that stupid – or desperate – to seek out his brother’s help. But he’d helped him before, hadn’t he? Now that he’d set the street dogs off on him, he might not have any other place to go.

He sped back to Michael’s house, glad the streets were relatively clear this time of night. Instead of parking in the driveway, he drove up the street and parked in front of someone else’s darkened house. No sense in alerting Sean that someone else was here.

Brand was still asleep in his bedroom, so Roan decided to make himself at home while he waited. He discovered that Brand was just what he thought he was: a lonely, sad man. He seemed to eat nothing but TV dinners and cans of chili, which he could actually understand, as he was no good at cooking, and when he didn’t have boyfriends, he usually ate out or just nuked something. Connor hadn’t cooked much, but he usually drank instead or, while trying to be sober, simply tore his hair out and chewed pack after pack of gum. Dee didn’t cook either, but then again he rarely had time to do so. But there were few signs of take out food in his fridge.

His computer wasn’t very interesting either, although he eventually discovered in his history an interesting porn website. At first he thought it was Asian women (straight men and Asian women – he really had to ask Randi what that was about), but then he realized that what he was looking at were Thai “lady boys” – young men who dressed and lived as women. Some had had surgery (breast implants mainly), some had not, but all were uniformly persuasive. They looked like women; lovely women. You couldn’t see Adam’s apples or stubble or anything. Roan wondered if this meant anything.

He ended up waiting hours, hours where he found out Michael had a decent cable TV package, when finally he heard a jingle of keys outside the door. He turned off the set and got up, hearing someone cursing under his breath as Roan approached the door. Oh, was Sean having a bad night? It was about to get so much worse.

Roan opened the door, and found Sean Brand standing on the doorstep, his keys in his hand. As soon as he saw Roan, fear registered – it spiked in a sharp scent not unlike cider vinegar. Roan grinned at him hard, knowing full well it went nowhere near his eyes. “Just the man I wanted to see.”

Did Sean recognize him? He was pretty sure he did. He turned and bolted for his car almost instantly.

Good. He really liked it when his prey ran for it.

Although Sean was closer to his car in the driveway and there was no way theoretically Roan could beat him to it, Roan knew there was a way. He started after him on a dead run, then veered off to the side and jumped, springing from the lawn onto the back of Sean’s shitty Nissan, making the car rock on its shocks as he turned to face Sean. He was still in a half crouch, feeling his muscles lengthen and harden, a deep pain radiating through his jaw as a growl welled up in his throat and his eyes ached as he felt his vision shift. “Where you goin’? You just got here.”

Sean stopped awkwardly, his momentum almost carrying him straight into the side of his own car. “How did you – fuck, man, fuck. What are you?”

The pain in his jaw was almost intolerable – it felt like ripping off the lower half of his jaw by brute force would be much more comfortable – but he had a strange distance on it. The Codeine? Maybe, but it was hard to say. He felt good. He knew his mouth was split into a grin, but he also knew his mouth was bleeding. The pain was too great; he had no idea if his teeth had started changing or not. “You know what I am, Sean. A man you never should have fucked with. You’re gonna talk, and maybe then I’ll just let the cops have you.”

“Fuck you,” he snapped, but there was a tremor in his voice, and his eyes seemed riveted to his face. He wanted to look away but couldn’t.

Sean took a step back, and Roan lunged, pouncing on him before he could make a run for the house, and as he brought him down on the lawn he grabbed Sean’s arms and pinned them down with undue force. “We’re not done here, Sean.”

“Get off me, faggot!” he shouted, trying to squirm and buck him off. Roan dug his knees into his side and gripped his wrists so tight Roan could feel the bones starting to give. He eased up as Sean squirmed and made a noise of pain, but he didn’t let up.

“So, you do know me,” he snarled, and his blood dripped down, splashing Sean’s neck. He tried to squirm away as if his blood was diseased … which it was, now that he thought about it. “Do you have any idea what I’m gonna do to you if you don’t talk?”

From the fear in his eyes, Sean had some idea.

11 – Orestes

It had been a pretty strange day.

Lunch with much of the defensive line up of the Falcons had led to them all but insisting he attend the game that night, so he called Dylan and asked if he wanted to attend a game with him that night. Dylan thought it was an odd request to come straight out of the blue, but he’d never been to a hockey game and had no plans, so he figured why not.

The comped seats he got put them right behind the Falcons’ bench, and the players could see them through the Plexiglas. During the warm up skate, Grey gave him a thumb’s up, and Tank waved his hockey stick at them as he skated out to the goal. Dylan asked, somewhat jokingly (and somewhat not) if he was the adopted gay of the team. Perhaps. For a bunch of jock boy straight guys, they were all right. They were certainly the guys you wanted at your back when you were jumped by a bunch of skinheads.

Roan told Dylan all about the time Paris took him to his first hockey game, a  Canucks game. The audience was almost more entertaining than the game itself, as three men became so drunk and rowdy they were escorted out during the course of the game. Paris said it was the Canadian way. Dylan gave him a funny look, but turned towards the rink so he didn’t see it. “What?”

Dylan shrugged, and said, “That’s the first time you ever told me a Paris story without tearing up.”

Was it? Oh shit. Roan didn’t know what to say or how to react to his own general stupidity. It was rather painful to even think his name, nonetheless say it. But he felt so good today, right now, it just sort of got away from him. He was going to apologize, but that seemed weird, and the loud music over the arena speakers spared him from any further conversation.

It was a good game, the Falcons won easily – Grey got a goal and even Tank got an assist, which was kind of rare for a goalie. After the game, as the team was filtering back into the backstage area, Scott pressed a towel against the Plexiglas, with the words written on it hastily with a Magic Marker: Meet us around back. Roan nodded and gave him the high sign, letting him know he got the message.

“We being invited to an orgy?” Dylan asked on their way out.

“Think we’d be welcome at one of their orgies?”

“Well, all sports seem to have an air of homoeroticism to them.”

“True. But it’s acceptable homoeroticism, nothing overt.”

“Technically, yeah. But I betcha there’s at least one gay guy on the team.”

He wouldn’t have been surprised really. But he asked, smiling, “What you wanna bet?”

Dylan grinned right back at him. “What’re you offering?”

They discussed possibilities as they went around to the back of the arena and loitered. The guard at the door was the one with the egg shaped head, and he acknowledged Roan with a nod.

Some other people loitered, but not many; it wasn’t like a Broadway show or a rock concert. Some of them were kids with hockey gear, wanting them signed. The players started filtering out, and some signed stuff for the kids, chatted with them a bit, and then Scott came out. After talking to a couple of kids, he came over to them, and Roan introduced Dylan to him. They shook hand and exchanged pleasant smiles, but they both seemed to be sizing each other up. Why? Did Dylan think Scott was going to punch him? Conversely, did Scott think Dylan was going to kiss him?

Whatever that was, it came and went quickly, and Scott told them that because they had a couple of days before their next game, some of the guys were going out drinking tonight, and he was wondering if they wanted to come along. Roan was tempted to ask if they just wanted them along in hopes of getting in a fight, but since Roan hadn’t mentioned the fight to Dylan yet, he kept it to himself.

Instead, he exchanged a questioning glance with Dylan. He knew Dylan would beg out, as he had work in two hours, but Dylan was curious if he’d accept the invitation without him. Roan was wondering that himself when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He held up a finger, indicating they should wait, and pulled out his phone. He thought it might be Holden, but it was Dee. “What’s up?” he wondered.

Dee exhaled, and that was a bad sign. “Holden’s been attacked, Ro. We just brought him in to County.”

Why did he never expect these sorts of phone calls? “What? How is he? What happened?” Roan turned away from them, not to be rude but just to focus more on what Dee was saying, but he saw the alarmed look that flashed on Dylan’s face – he knew something had gone wrong.

“He’s stable. He was stabbed in the abdomen and hit with a bat, but I know why you’ve made him an assistant, Ro – I think he’s the world toughest whore. He fought them off, and from the amount of blood at the scene, one of them is going to need medical treatment immediately. Hospitals and emergency clinics are being alerted now.”

Yeah, Holden never struck him as an easy target. Good for him. “Stable doesn’t tell me a lot. How’s the prognosis?”

“Pretty good. He lost a bit of blood, but it looks like nothing major was hit. He has a concussion, though, possibly broken bones in his hand.”

“Shit.”

“Look, he gave me some stuff to give you. He was conscious when we got to the scene, which just adds to his tough whore reputation. He told me to tell you that Brand lied, and you’d know what he meant. He means Brand as in a person’s name, doesn’t he? Otherwise I don’t get that sentence at all.”

“Yeah, he does.” Roan rubbed his eyes, trying to think dispassionately. So he went to talk to Brand and felt he was lying – about what? “He didn’t identify his attackers, did he?”

“No. But one has a ruptured testicle and the other has a serious leg wound, so they’ll be identified soon enough.”

Roan felt a hand on his back and knew it was Dylan, because there was no way Scott would touch him such a familiar way. “I’m on my way. Tell him to hang on.” He closed up his phone and said to Dylan, “Holden’s been attacked. Dee and Shep ended up picking him up.”

“Oh shit. But he’s going to be okay, right?”

“I hope.” He turned back and faced Scott. “We gotta go. Sorry. Raincheck?”

He nodded, looking vaguely concerned. “Can we help?”

That struck Roan as funny. What, he had back up now? Was he going to saunter coolly into a room and say, “Have you met my hockey team?” The idea was amusing, but he wasn’t really in a laughing mood right now. “Thanks, but no.”

He and Dylan headed out, and in the car he told him everything that Dee had told him. Otherwise they drove to the hospital in complete silence. There wasn’t much to say, was there? Dylan had a hand on his shoulder the whole way, and that was comforting enough.

The traffic was bad, but not quite as bad as in the hospital lobby, where the victims from a four car pile up were being brought in. Still, Roan easily spotted svelte Dee, half swallowed by his big paramedics jacket, and they met in a corridor beyond the ER, so they were theoretically out of the way.

Dee gave him what Holden gave him: a cell phone and a key. The phone was clearly Holden’s – he could even smell a tinge of his blood on it – but he had no idea about the key. “What’s this?”

Dee shrugged helplessly. “He said he found it and thought you might want it.”

“Found it where?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Where was he attacked?”

“The Alley Cat Motel.”

“That dive?” Talk about the worst of the worst. He was probably lucky he didn’t get an STD along with a stab wound. “What was he doing there?”

Dee gave him that look, that one that lets you know you’re an asshole without a single curse being uttered. “I’m not really the one to ask, am I? All I know is what I’ve already told you.”

“Can we see him?”

Just the way he grimaced told Roan all he needed to know. They didn’t date for long – just a few weeks – but long enough that they could communicate an awful lot with just looks. “They’re still working on him. No.”

“Why are they still working on him?” Dylan asked suspiciously. “How hurt is he?”

Dee took a deep breath before continuing, settling down into his professionally calm paramedic voice. “They want to make sure he doesn’t have a spinal injury, and they have to be careful with him, as he has a broken rib and they don’t want to accidentally puncture his lung. So things are going rather slowly at the moment.”

“Motherfuckers,” Roan fumed, his hands clenching into fists. Somebody was going to pay for this. Maybe he had cause to bring his hockey team along now.

Dylan put a hand on his back, not trying to be comforting this time but trying to will some calm into him. He must have known he was ready to go bash some heads in, whether it would help or not. Then again, anyone who knew him would have guessed that.

“Don’t fly off the handle,” Dee said, obviously knowing him too well. “Yeah, he’s hurt, but considering he was jumped by two guys, he’s in remarkable shape. Again, the dude is the toughest whore in the world. I know why you work with him now.”

“When can I speak with him?”

Dee shook his head and shrugged at the same time – never a good sign. “I don’t know. Not for a couple hours at least.”

“Shit.” He looked down at Holden’s phone, and wondered why he wanted him to have it. Flipping it open, he went through the call log – he called 9-1-1 for himself? – and found nothing illuminating, so he started going through the other features. Dee went to help a nurse who was having trouble with a surprisingly combative injured man (no, he didn’t work at the hospital, but he wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing), leaving Roan and Dylan alone in the hall. Dylan was right beside him, looking over his shoulder. “What are you looking for?” Dylan wondered.

“Whatever he wanted me to find.” Not much of an answer, but the only one he had.

Eventually he found the pictures. The first was of a box of ammunition, the second of what looked like a box of clothing, but the third picture was interesting. It was of two men running – limping – away, slightly blurred at the edges, but only one was visible in profile. “Is that what I think it is?” Dylan asked.

How about that – Holden got a photo of his attackers. Sly dog; they didn’t call him Fox for nothing. “I don’t know, but I know who to ask.”

He started off, but Dylan grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Tell me this isn’t a revenge thing.”

“It’s not. I don’t recognize these guys. I’m going to ask someone who might, though.”

“Who?”

Dylan didn’t trust him? Well, yeah, maybe he was right not to. It wasn’t like he was notorious for his Gandhi like temperament. “The guy who runs the Alley Cat. I bet he saw the attack too, but he’d be the last to report it to the cops.”

His look was skeptical, which was fair enough, but Roan thought he was lying quite well. “And you’re just going to talk to him?”

“Give me credit, hon. The owner of the Alley Cat must be nearly seventy by now. I don’t bully those who can’t fight back.”

He nodded in agreement, but was only slightly mollified. Maybe because he’d already guessed that Roan might not be telling him the whole truth. “I can come with you -”

“No, I know you have to go to work. Go, and be careful.”

“I can take the night off.”

“And get fired? No, go. I’ll keep you informed of any developments. And you – you feel any suspicions about anyone, you don’t feel right about a customer or someone loitering in the parking lot, you call me immediately. I’m not sure what’s going on, but there’s been too much violence already.”

“I can take care of myself, you know.”

“I know. I just … don’t get hurt, okay? You’ve gotten hurt before due to one of my stupid cases, and I don’t want you hurt again.”

That seemed to soften his wariness slightly. “I won’t be. But I don’t want you hurt either, so don’t play action hero when you don’t have to, right?”

“I’ll do my damnedest.” Dylan embraced him, and they shared a sweet kiss before Roan pulled away, heading out of the hospital. A woman standing near the emergency room gave him such a dirty look that Roan was half convinced she was going to yell “Faggot!”, but the dirty look he gave her in return seem to discourage her.

Of course Roan wasn’t going to go see the owner of the Alley Cat. Maybe later. Right now, the man he wanted to talk to was cooling his heels in the suburbs.

Brand’s house was dark for the night, along with every other house on the street. It didn’t stop Roan from parking in his driveway and storming towards the door, restraining the urge to knock it down. He’d give him a chance to open the door, then he’d knock it down.

He pounded on the door with a closed fist, trying to swallow his rage. More violence was no answer, it wouldn’t solve anything, but damn, it would make him feel better for a little bit. Finally a light came on, and the door opened a crack. A single grayish eye stared at him over a security chain. “What do … you.” His eye hardened, and Roan was sure he was going to slam the door on him.

“I wouldn’t,” he warned him. “I’m not going away.”

Brand glared at him through the crack in the door. Roan knew he could shove open the door easily, snapping the chain, but he had to play this right. He was in Eastgate jurisdiction, after all. “Are you going to shoot me if I lock you out?”

“Are you gonna shoot your wife?” he snapped back.

Brand flinched, and Roan took advantage of that weakness, holding up Holden’s phone. “Who are these men, Officer?”

Brand was disoriented, half asleep and now deeply confused. Roan wanted him that way – truth had a tendency to spill out when your guard was down or at half-mast. “What? What are you talking -”

“Holden, my assistant, is in the hospital. These men tried to kill him. You know who they are, don’t you?”

“What?” he sounded genuinely horrified. “No! He was just here …. this evening, he came by -”

“And he was attacked shortly after he left. He was stabbed and beaten with a bat.”

Brand was shaking his head, his sleepy eyes now awake with horror. This was an honest shock – he didn’t know about this, and he couldn’t believe it. “You’re making this up.”

“I’m not. Now, are you going to let me in to discuss this, or do your neighbors get to hear all about  it?”

He was sweating, and had gone so pale Roan was afraid he might pass out or have a heart attack. He closed the door, but Roan heard the scrabbling of a sloppy unlocking before the door opened again, wider this time. Brand still looked like he was going to vomit while fainting. He said nothing – maybe he couldn’t speak – he just motioned him in.

As soon as Roan came in, he almost backed out again. Brand reeked of fear; he smelled like vinegar drenched piss. It was appalling. He couldn’t have possibly scared him this much, not in this amount of time. He’d been scared for a long time, long enough that it permeated the walls of his home. What the hell had been going on?

Brand shut the door and wandered to the living room in a fog, acting as if Roan wasn’t actually here. He was wearing a worn maroon bathrobe that he cinched up tight around a doughy gut, and it didn’t help. As he shuffled to his sofa like a man twice his age, he asked, “How is he?”

“Holden? Still alive, last time I checked. But how many people have to die here, Brand?”

He sat down on the edge of his sofa, and put his head in his hands. “I don’t know -” he began, his voice muffled.

“I have to admit I didn’t expect this, but you’re the crux. Hawley dies, April Switzer dies, some assholes try to kill Holden, and the only common denominator is you.”

“I had nothing to do with April -”

“I don’t care!” Roan snapped, exasperated. Not with him, not really – it was the smell of this place. It was putting him on edge. The lion in him wanted to come out and rampage. Animals did react to the smell of fear; they saw it as invitation. You were advertising you were weak; you were asking to be eliminated from the food chain. “I know you’re scared, and you’ve been scared for a long time. Do you need protection? I can get that for you. Just tell me what’s going on here.” He wondered briefly how Brand would feel traveling with a minor league hockey team. It would be weird, yeah, but he’d be as safe as house.

Brand was keeping his face hidden in his hands, but Roan could see he was shaking. It wasn’t a cold shiver, it was fear trying to burst out of his skin while Brand was trying hard to hold it in. “I don’t know what you mean -”

“Stop it now!” he shouted, and it came out a partial roar. He’d tried to keep it in, but the miasma of fear was drawing it out, and it was hard to rein it in. Brand must have heard it, because his eyes were wide and white in his pale face, staring at him over the hands cupped around his nose and mouth. He was almost too shocked to be scared. “I want the truth, damn it! Who are these men?!”

When he remembered he could speak, that it was okay, it still took a moment for him to find the words. “I – I don’t know what you want from me -”

“Their names! Who tried to kill Holden?”

“I don’t -”

“Cut the bullshit! Who are you protecting?!”

He was shaking so hard it looked like he was going to fall apart. “I -I’m not -”

“Yes you are!” There was a growl in the back of his throat. He tried to swallow it, but Brand was so upset that he probably didn’t hear it anyways.

“My brother!” he finally exclaimed, a shout that morphed into a sob at the end. “It’s my brother Sean.”

Oh great. More family shit.