9 – Perpetual Bris

It was probably awful of him to hope that the guys got lost on the way to the club, but he still hoped anyways.  It didn’t matter, because it never happened.

Ultimately, only Grey, Scott, Tank, Zack, and Ethan came, as Richie was a married man (really? He seemed too young for that) and his wife apparently wasn’t happy with his after game carousing, and Jeff was too wary of a fetish night. (He said he used to live near the meatpacking district in New York City, as if that explained why he didn’t want to go to a fetish club. Maybe it did.) Still, Roan wasn’t looking forward to this.

He told Dylan about the cat killer case, and lied, saying he was looking into it for the police since no one in the Heights was going to talk to a cop, but they’d have no trouble talk to Holden and his friends. This lie was eminently plausible, so plausible, in fact, that he wondered why the cops hadn’t asked him to do this. Then again, he hadn’t exactly checked in with Chief Matthews yet, mainly because he was in no hurry to get chewed out by her. Now that he wasn’t an actual cop, he was in no hurry to put up with all that bullshit.

Both he and Dylan held out hope that Zack and Ethan were turned away at the door, as both were definitely too young to drink (legally here – Canada was a different story), but that was shot to pieces as Fiona met them there, and at the Dungeon, she was minor royalty.  It turned out she was watching the game from the stands, and Tank had called her to tell her where to meet them. She wasn’t allowed near the locker rooms since the “camera phone incident”. (No one elaborated, but Roan whispered if she had any photos she’d like to share. She gave him a cheerful thumb’s up.)

She got them all in the club easily, even though the only leather she was currently wearing was a jacket. Ironically, they all had leather jackets, save for Dylan, who had a canvas one, and Ethan, who had a denim one. (Ethan was so corn fed farm boy that it was kind of cute. He could see Dylan going for him, if Ethan were gay.)

The club had that dark/bright dichotomy that he’d seen in many clubs, where the light was dim near the bar and back near the tables, but was brightly lit near the back, and in an area where it appeared hospital curtains were separating a section of the room from what passed for the dance floor. The lighting was bright enough that you could see the shadows of people behind it, some holding drinks, and there were ominous shadows of some kind of device that could very well have been a dentist’s chair. As it was, the curtain was pulled back part way, and yes, it was a dentist chair, and there was something like a tattoo needle rig beside it. Roan could smell fresh blood in the club, beneath the smell of booze, sweat, amyl nitrate, and wet leather, but there was more sour pain in the blood than he would have expected from tattoos (unless the tattooist was truly horrible).

They went up to the bar, and the bartender, a large black bear type (as in he was black and beefy, in a way that signified he was a “bear” as opposed to a twink, not that he was a California grizzly) with a gleaming bald scalp, wearing a black leather vest and a chin piercing, pointed a meaty finger at them all and said, “You guys are familiar looking, but you ain’t regulars. How do I know you?”

Roan had a smart ass quip ready to go, but Fiona told him, “They’re part of the Falcons, and this is my boss, the guy who ends up in the papers for pissing people off. Dallas, this is Roan, that’s his husband Dylan, and this is Tank, Scott, Grey, Zack, and Ethan, the Falcons’ posse. Guys, this is Dallas.”

“The Atlanta Falcons?” he asked, obviously confused that there’d be so many skinny white guys on the team.

“The Seattle Falcons,” she replied. “The hockey team.”

“Oh,” he said, like he knew who they were, even though it was fairly obvious he didn’t. “What’re your positions?”

The guys shared a glance, and it seemed obvious they were going to follow Scott’s lead. Rather than call him out on not knowing the team, Scott decided to just pretend he hadn’t noticed, which was smart of him. You never wanted  to piss off your bartender. “I’m a center,” Scott offered.

“Defense,” Grey said.

“Goalie,” Tank said.

“Left wing and right wing,” Zack said. “Whatever the coach wants me to play.”

“Second goalie,” Ethan said.

“I just piss people off,” Roan added, not wanting to be left out.

“I tend bar over at Silver,” Dylan said.

Dallas gasped. “The rich people’s place? Dude, I hear they have an eighty dollar burger in that joint.”

He shook his head. “It’s an eighty dollar steak. They wouldn’t sully their menu with a burger.”

“Fuck me. So what’s this eighty buck steak like?”

Dylan shrugged. “I’m vegetarian, I avoid the kitchen at all costs.”

He nodded as if that was wise, his chin stud catching the light like a mirror. “I used to work at the Blue Onion, and let me tell you, after seein’ what went on in that kitchen, I don’t eat out anymore, ‘cept at places where I got a good view of the kitchen. So what can I set you guys up with?”

Grey, who being the tallest had the best vantage point, pointed at a chalk board behind the bar, where the specials were written up in colored chalk, and some seemed to glow in the dim lighting. “What’s the absinthe special?”

Roan winced, and Scott said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“You get a price cut if two or more people order it at the same time,” Dallas said.

“Anyone wanna do it with me?” Grey wondered. “Roan?”

“Why are you lookin’ at me?” he replied, not sure if he should be offended or not. “I can’t do it, the smell of the stuff knocks me back like a sucker punch.” Which was absolutely true. Absinthe smelled too strongly for his heightened sense of smell; it was like taking a sledgehammer to the sinuses.

“I’ll do it,” Zack said cheerfully.

Dallas looked at him through squinted eyes. “How old are you?”

“Not old enough for absinthe,” Scott said for him. “Fine, I’ll try it.”

“Count me in,” Tank said. “Chere?”

Fiona shook her head. “Not my scene.”

“Umm, what’s it like?” Ethan wondered.

Scott patted him on the arm, like a parent soothing an upset kid. “If you have to ask, you aren’t ready for it. We’ll take the absinthe, but these two will take a couple of beers.” He indicated Zack and Ethan, and then looked at him and Dylan. “You guys want beer?”

Dylan shook his head. “I’d rather have a margarita.”

“Just give me a soda, anything with caffeine in it.” He was driving, and besides, he’d done enough drug mixing for one week.

The bartender nodded, and got the easy ones first, namely his Coke and the two beers. The margarita was next, and the absinthe was last.

There was a bit of a ritual with it. The little glasses were laid out, with a slotted spoon put over the top of each. Dallas brought out a sugar bowl from beneath the bar, where sugar cubes that reeked of the anise scented absinthe sat, and with a tiny pair of tongs he put a cube on each slotted spoon. Then he retrieved a tiny blowtorch, of the kind you used to brown the crust of a crème brulee, and set the alcohol soaked cubes on fire. He then dumped the cubes in the small glass of green colored liquor, which caught on fire, burning with a small, almost perfectly translucent flame, before he doused it with a shot glass full of water. Only then was absinthe ready to drink. As far as Roan was concerned, if a drink had that many steps involved, it wasn’t worth it.

As soon as they all had their little green drinks in front of them, Grey said, “On three. One … two … go.” Showing how accustomed they were to being a team, they all slammed their drinks at the same time, like a synchronized drinking team. Their reactions weren’t synched, though. Grey winced, Scott’s head shot back before he doubled over like he was about to lose control of his gag reflex (he didn’t), and Tank’s face barely registered anything at all.

“Wow, that tastes like shit,” Grey said, putting his empty glass down on the bar.

“I’ve had worse,” Tank said.

“Now here I asked you to come, and you show up with your het posse,” Holden said, joining them at the bar. He was dressed in black leather pants and a skin tight white tank top that seemed nearly luminescent, indicating the club had a black light somewhere . He’d added blond streaks in his hair since he’d last seen him, and his hair had the casually mussed look of intense calculation. He leaned up against the bar, hand on jutted hip, with a smile so slick it was impossible to tell if he wanted to fuck everyone or kill them (smile number three).

“Het posse,” Grey echoed, chuckling. “I like that.”

Roan noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that Scott gave Holden The Look. It was very brief, but it was unmistakable. The look being the one that only gay men seemed to recognize, the one that put lust into a purely tangible form, and he was surprised to see it. Maybe it was the absinthe? (Not that it could work that fast.) If Holden saw it, he had no reaction to it at all, but he wouldn’t – he was accustomed to the look, and enjoyed getting it.

“Zack, Ethan, this is Holden, Roan’s assistant investigator,” Grey said, introducing everyone.

“Oh, uh, guess that explains the get up,” Ethan said.

“Does it?” Holden replied, giving him an unsettling smile before switching his gaze to Roan. “Can we talk in private?”

There was a weak cheer from behind the hospital curtain, and Zack couldn’t contain himself anymore. “Do you know what’s goin’ on there?”

Holden’s glanced held a kernel of contempt, but it was quickly smothered. “They offer piercing on fetish night.”

“Piercing?” Ethan asked. “Like ear piercing?”

Holden laughed, genuinely amused, and looked at Scott before replying, “Oh, this guy is darling. What rearview mirror did you get him from?” Yeah, Holden saw the look, and now he was … what was he doing? Roan got a feeling there was subtext between the two of them, which was weird, as he was sure they didn’t know each other. Except clearly they did; how well was up for debate.

It was Fiona who said, “It’s more intimate piercing.”

Ethan was puzzling over that, and what Holden had said (he seemed torn over whether he should be insulted by that rearview mirror comment or not), when Tank said, “They’re talking about dick piercing, Hillie.”

“And balls and scrotum,” Holden added, with an inordinate amount of cheer.

Ethan looked confused, then skeptical, and then blanched. “You’re – you’re serious?  Why would anyone do that?”

“Well -” Holden began, and Roan held up a hand to stop him.

“Kid, trust me, you don’t want to know.”

“Roan’s right,” Tank said, giving him a hardy slap on the back. “Let’s save that for after your wedding night, huh?” He then looked at Fi, and asked, “Wanna dance? I wanna dance.”

“Then let’s dance,” she agreed, even though it was now Ministry playing, and Roan wasn’t sure how anyone could dance to that. But Tank strutted out to the meager dance floor like a pigeon on crack, making Fiona laugh, and Roan wondered if the absinthe was hitting him, or he was just being himself. Could you tell with him? Probably not.

“I’m not a virgin,” Ethan said petulantly, in a way that suggested he was.

“Sheep don’t count,” Grey said, grinning.

“Fuck you,” he replied, but it was an exhale, with no strength at all. So the other guys teased Ethan over his farm boy background, huh? Figured. Some of the trash talking he heard behind the bench was from one teammate to another, although in that joking “we’re man’s men, aren’t we?” kind of way.

Roan leaned over, and whispered in Dylan’s ear, “Keep an eye on them.”

He gave him a look like he couldn’t believe he was being volunteered for such a thing, but he nodded, and Roan followed Holden to a relatively quiet corner. Once there, he asked, “You and Scott ..?”

“Me and Scott what?” Holden replied, with an innocence that was totally fake.

He sighed, aware that he wasn’t going to get much out of him right now. Holden was in coy mode, and that never did anyone any good. Except maybe him. “Why are you even here?”

“A client. Now, this guy I want you to meet, Franco, is a little paranoid, so that’s why he’s got to make a face to face before squealing. Also, he’ll probably want money, but a twenty oughta do him. He’s high and desperate for cash.”

Great. “How reliable is his info?”

“You can bank on it. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

Life was full of subtext. It wasn’t just the in jokes between friends that meant nothing to you, but the way people could be truthful, and yet commit sins of omission, leaving out little bits that meant a lot. He knew Holden was doing that now. “He a former client?”

“Now you know I can’t confirm or deny that one.”

“Why didn’t you just get the info yourself?”

“He’s high, but he’s not stupid. He knows I didn’t want it for me. He wants to know who wants it.” And with that, Holden turned and slinked through the darkened room, like only he could. For a good sized guy, he could be surprisingly graceful when he wanted to be.

Before following, he took a quick look around. Dylan and Ethan were at the bar, talking, and Dallas had joined them, while Zack, Grey, and Scott had gone to see what was going on behind the curtain. His guess was they decided to show Zack what a piercing was to discourage him from ever wanting one, as Zack seemed to want everything. He had ambitions of hedonism, often undone by his own inability to stomach it. He was a kid in a candy store, who continually forgot he puked after two handfuls of Skittles.

There was a good sized crowd in here tonight, and since it was fetish night it was mixed, with gays and straights and to be determineds sharing the space. There was a lot of leather, lots of piercing, tattoos, and body modifications, as well as someone in a tight latex suit that made them look like a living condom. There was some weird shit on display, but none of it as weird as the shit you could find on the internet, such as guys dressed up in frighteningly realistic animal costumes or people throwing food on one another. (That was probably done later, in the privacy of one’s place.) Tank was still dancing like a nut to a song that must have been called “I Want Your Damage”, as it was repeated multiple times in the chorus, and it was neo-psychedelic, fuzzed out kind of rock, not the  easiest stuff to dance to. But he was doing pretty well, and his general enthusiasm had livened up that corner of the club. He was dancing with Fiona, other women, other men, he didn’t care, which is what made Tank Tank – fear was for other people. He threw himself in front of potentially lethal projectiles for a living, so what was there in the real world to worry about?

Franco was a six foot six, three hundred pond Samoan man, shirtless beneath a leather vest so tight it looked like it was about to explode off of his barrel chest and wound several bystanders. He also had an impressive afro, a nimbus of fuzzy black hair that made his head look huge, and a tribal tattoo that climbed up his neck like a jagged vine and fanned out just beneath his jaw line. He was heavily pierced too, with studs in his chin, nose, eyebrows, cheek, and earlobes, with a slender silver chain connecting his left ear to his left eyebrow, and small silver charms dangling from each pierced nipple . His arms were as thick as legs, and the light fuzz of curly black hair on his chest looked both pubic and singed, and Roan could smell the nail polish remover like scent of amyl nitrate oozing through his pores, along with the softer scents of rum and pot. His eyes were wide, black, and glassy. He could have been handsome in a sort of exotically rugged way, if lots of hard living hadn’t started showing on his face in acne scars and bumps beneath the skin that could have been some kind of allergic reaction, but probably weren’t.

Franco was paranoid in that way that people got when they let life get to them more than it should. While Holden hovered several feet away (apparently he wasn’t invited to this party), Franco quizzed him on who he was and why he wanted to know, and thank whatever deity was tops this week that he didn’t recognize him. He’d be busted if he knew who he was. He was adamant on asking if he was a cop, and Roan lied (sort of) and said no, but he followed it up with a solid truth: the cops hated him. When Franco started believing it, it mollified him a great deal.

The truth wasn’t going to do for an explanation, though. If he said he wanted to find this asshole and keep him from hurting any other cat ever again, Franco might like it, but he might not. He couldn’t fuck up what had been his best lead to date, so he decided to follow the theme. He said he wanted to find the guy because he had a kink for cat fur – real cat fur. He mentioned the phonies on Craigslist, trying to sell cat fur they claimed was real and wasn’t, but didn’t go into detail, because only liars spelled everything out for you.

Franco had to consider this, and while he was, he took out a large capsule and popped it beneath his nose, inhaling and then shuddering as the drug hit his system. It was a popper (a/ka/ amyl nitrate), which he knew from the sharp, acrid scent wafting over the table. How people did those he had no idea, making it the drug version of absinthe. After he took a minute to enjoy the popper, Franco finally said he might be able to hook him up with a guy who had the real deal, but he was really careful, and picky, and he’d want hard cash up front. Roan gave him the number for a cheap, pre-paid cell he kept around for undercover purposes,  and Franco indicated this discussion was over by asking one of the heavily tattooed waitresses for another rum and cola.

As Roan stood up, he saw Zack pinballing around the crowd in his frantic run for the bathroom, and he seemed to make it. He caught up with Grey and Scott as they made their way back to the bar. “What happened to him?” Roan asked.

Grey, smirking, told him, “We saw a guy getting his dick pierced.”

“Better him than me,” Scott added. “God, my dick still hurts from just watching it.”

“I’d think it’d be hurting from your constant abuse,” Grey retorted.

“Hilarious,” Scott replied, with no humor whatsoever.

After a moment, Roan said, “Not that I’m casting aspersions, but should you leave Zack on his own in that bathroom?”

Scott and Grey exchanged concerned looks before Grey heaved a martyr’s sigh, and said, “Fine, I’ll go keep him from being ass raped by a congressman.”

“I don’t know,” Roan replied. “ Those closet cases are incredibly strong.”

This made Scott chuckle, although since he was a bit of a closet case himself, he wasn’t sure why. As soon as Grey was gone, Roan had a chance to talk to him alone. “You know, I wanted to thank you for that pep talk.”

“Huh? Oh, that was nothing.”

“No, it helped. I need a kick in the ass sometimes. But I was thinking that whole trailblazer thing was so well rehearsed … that’s what you’ve told yourself, isn’t it? Trying to convince yourself to come out.”

Scott grimaced and looked away, many different expressions playing across his face, his jaw clenching and unclenching, before he said, “I can’t. I mean, I know someone has to be first, someone has to be brave enough … but it’s not me. I’ve played hockey all my life, and I want to have a career in it. Is it fair that my admitting I’m bi might impact my career chances? No, it isn’t, but it’s the way things are right now. Maybe if I get into the NHL, maybe then I’ll come out … but I can’t right now. I can’t risk it. I know it’s chickenshit, but there it is.”

Roan didn’t know what to say. He should probably tell him he wasn’t being a coward, that it was all he could do right now, but he didn’t, because he didn’t see how hiding your true self could be healthy for anyone. Yeah, he might not have a professional career, but personally he’d probably be a lot happier. Still, it was his choice to make, and Roan had no room to make judgments, as much as he wanted to.

Tank was having too much fun. Mainly because he was now dancing on the bar, waggling his ass in an exaggerated manner, and he took off his shirt and started swinging it around, much to the cheers of the crowd. His astounding six pack abs got a round of applause. Fiona was egging him on and laughing at the same time, enjoying the show.

“Was the absinthe that good?” Roan asked Scott.

He shook his head. “Tank just does this sometimes. Wait – when he strips down to his underwear, they’ll be novelty shorts, with cartoon characters on them or something.”

“So all goalies are like this?”

“Nobody’s like Tank. That’s probably for the best. I don’t think the world could take two of ‘em at once.”

Truer words had probably never been spoken.

You may notice that Infected and Prey are no longer available in the archives. This is because it’s going to be published! WOOHOO!

I’ll give you more details on the published version of Infected: Prey when they become available. But I’d like to thank all my fabulous readers, as you made this possible. Thank you all so very much.

8 – The Blue Rose

Roan considered visiting Oliver at the hospital, but if he was unconscious, there was no point. He’d save it for later, when it was likely he was actually awake.

From what Luke had gathered from the EMTs who brought Oliver in, he was found collapsed in a bloody heap outside the parking garage of the Marriott on Pike Street. Which was curious, as he lived in the dorms. But maybe he wasn’t at the hotel, maybe he was just walking by, got jumped there, and collapsed. It was unlikely, but possible. Still, he wasn’t going to speculate on that until he could talk to Oliver about the incident.

What he decided to do was see if he missed anything. Oliver turned up nothing, he was clean as clean could be, so he decided to go deeper. He’d looked at Oliver, at Annette, at Adam – what about the rest of the family?

Everything that was happening had put him off his game, because it was the rest of the family that was interesting.

Adam’s father, Vernon Jephson, the one who worked for a place called Assurance International, the company where Adam worked after dropping out of college to take care of his rapidly growing family (and where Caroline, Oliver‘s sister, worked now). Adam started in the Delaware branch, but Vern stayed in Miami. Approximately one month before Adam disappeared, Vern’s wife, Emily, died in a very strange one car crash. Initial reports called it “suspicious”, but the police apparently determined she was on prescription drugs and that was assumed to be the cause of the crash. About ten days later, Vernon’s brother, George, was shot and killed in the Assurance International parking lot in what was called a “violent robbery”, but no suspect was ever named, and the case remained unsolved. And then a couple of weeks later, in Delaware, Adam disappears. What curious timing. Could one family be so beset by bad luck all within the same time frame? Well, why not? It beggared belief, but it was still possible. He didn’t trust it, though.

Vernon was the pivot, the key. He no longer worked for Assurance, he retired in 2008, but he was still alive, and still in the Miami area. He also had married himself a trophy wife (thirty three years his junior) six years ago. His phone number wasn’t easy to find, but Roan eventually did, and did the math. The East Coast was three hours ahead, so he could call him by five in the morning and be within the politeness zone.

Why hadn’t Oliver mentioned this? Because he didn’t deem it important, because he assumed it meant nothing … because he didn’t know. Was that possible? Could Adam have fallen out with his father enough to have next to no contact with them at the time of these incidents? Presumably Adam knew, but perhaps he kept it from the rest of the family, or at least kept the details out.

Roan was convinced this cavalcade of death meant something. What he didn’t know, but he knew he’d have to find out. The reason for Adam’s disappearance might be there.

He went and had a long soak in the bath, because a soak always made his muscles relax, and sometimes he did his best thinking in the bath. (Why he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to question it.) He noticed he had some bruises on his legs he couldn’t remember getting, but tried not to think too much of it. But it bothered him, although he wasn’t sure why.

He was a little tired, but not much. He’d slept deep and hard at Holden’s, the combination of THC and Percocet putting him down for the count, and he felt like being up. He went downstairs and made scrambled eggs, throwing in salsa and some leftover vegetables from a stir fry, making a half assed omelet. He made enough for Dylan, but since he wouldn’t be up for a while, he just put it in a bowl, wrapped it in foil, and put it in the disconcertingly large stainless steel fridge. It was almost large enough to be a corpse locker. Wasn’t this a house owned by two guys? Why would they need a fridge this large? Even if they had an open relationship and had orgies every weekend, it wouldn’t explain a fridge this large. He realized he was being fussy, but he didn’t care, it bugged him.

After eating, he popped a codeine and added another name to his call list. Since it was five AM, he went ahead and called Abigail Jephson, Adam’s sister, and the one really financing Oliver’s search.

She answered crisply after two rings, suggesting that she was wide awake at 8AM Eastern time. He immediately explained who he was, and said he was seeking a little more background on Adam. She seemed okay with that, if wary, and he asked, “What caused the riff between Adam and your father?”

She let out a long, low sigh, like steam escaping from a muted kettle. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “He said he didn’t want me to get involved.”

This had been a guess on his part, or, if you wanted to look at it another way, a bluff. He was guessing that something had occurred to estrange Adam from his father, but that was only one possibility. He decided to gamble, and luckily it had paid off. “How bad was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was this simply a chilly estrangement, polite noises and no more at family gatherings? Was it exile, no gatherings whatsoever, with no mention? Or was it full blooded warfare, with exile and lots of badmouthing?”

“You have ratings for this?”

“In my business, yes.”

She was quiet for a long time, long enough that he could hear the cheerful idiot babble of daytime TV in the background. “Nobody wanted to talk about it, but it was obvious Dad was pretty mad at him.”

“And you have no idea why?”

Another pause. “How is this important?”

Oh, he’d hit a live wire here. “Anything could be relevant, and I feel this factors into his disappearance.”

“Based on what?” Now she was sounding defensive, combative.

“A hunch. And before you scoff at that, keep in mind half of my job is playing hunches, especially when I don’t have much else to go on.”

“And that works, does it?”

The scorn in her voice actually made him smile. Again, he was so accustomed to hatred he often found it funny. “I’m still working. Does that answer your question?”

She made a noise that was hard to interpret, and then fell into silence for several seconds. “I think it was related to the business.”

“Assurance?”

“Yeah. I think Adam didn’t handle something the way Dad wanted him to, and they just kept thinking their opinion was the only right one. Men, you know?”

“I’m familiar with them.” If only she knew how familiar. “But that doesn’t help me. Was this a financial issue, a personal issue, something in between?”

It was hard to tell over the phone, but he was getting the sense that she was getting pissed off and giving him a death stare. “I told you I don’t know. What does this have to do with Adam leaving?”

“It could have everything to do with his leaving. The only thing I’m not sure about was if it was voluntary.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Now she sounded prickly, combative, and maybe just a little scared.

“You seem like an intelligent woman, Abigail, so why don’t you tell me why you dismissed out of hand the possibility that your mother’s death, your uncle’s death, and your brother’s disappearance were related?”

She scoffed loudly, and it seemed a little forced. “What? Are you for real? My mother’s death was an accident, and my Uncle lived in fucking Miami – people are killed there all the time.”

“The timing didn’t bother you?”

“What does that mean?” She sounded angry; she was shutting down. But her reactions seemed … off. He realized he was right to call her, as something wasn’t right about all of this.

“It all happened within the course of several weeks, one after another. It really never crossed your mind that this was a hell of a coincidence?”

“That’s what it was: a coincidence. And I really don’t like your sense of paranoia. Is that good in an investigator?”

“You’d be hard pressed to find one who isn’t.”

“Really? I guess you’d have to say that, wouldn’t you?” She made a negative noise, and he could easily imagine her shaking her head. “My brother is missing, Mr. McKichan, and rather than try to muck around in my family’s tragedy, I suggest you find him.” She then hung, which hadn’t surprised him all that much.

He put down the phone with his mind already racing at a thousand thoughts per second. Had he really picked up what he thought he did?

He would have to have her in the room to know for sure, but he thought she was lying. It was when she said search for her brother … she had no reason to search. She already knew where he was. Or at least she thought she did, strong enough to give off a tell.

But how did that make sense? Why would she give Oliver money to search for his father if she already knew where he was? Why not tell Oliver? Why not tell everybody? Assuming it was secret, wasn’t she worried he’d uncover the truth? Well, obviously not. If she knew where he was and didn’t want anyone else to know, she must have thought he couldn’t possibly find Adam, no matter how much money or time he poured into the search.

What the hell did this all mean?

He called Vernon, and got a call messaging system that did nothing but recite a number, giving no names at all. He identified himself, saying he was calling in reference to his son Adam, and hung up. He had no idea if he’d ever get a call back.

He sat there for a while, trying to figure out what Abby was hiding, and precisely who she was hiding it from. Oliver alone could not be the answer, because Oliver just didn’t matter that much. (No offense to him, but he was a college student. No one would go to the trouble for him alone.) So what was going on?

Damn it, he hated cases that dealt with families. There was always something ugly waiting if you dug deep enough.

He did paperwork until he got drowsy, and then went to take a nap beside Dylan, his skin warm with the smell of sleep, although Roan knew he was never going to get used to this weird round bed.

He did sleep, but he was woken up after a strange dream, one where he was in cat form in a cave, where a bunch of people had chased him, like angry villagers in a monster movie. Anxiety woke him up, because he knew he’d have to kill them all to get through them, and that thought hadn’t bothered him at all. Not one bit. That, ironically, bothered him. It also bothered him that he thought – in the dream – that it was completely doable, no matter the number of people waiting for him.

When he woke up, with the slightest bit of a headache, he discovered that Dylan had gotten up in the meantime, and found him downstairs talking on the phone to one of his art friends by the sound of it. He was standing by the huge bay window, framed by the sun, wearing nothing but his black yoga pants, the light making the light fuzz of hair on his stomach visible like a faint aura. Goddamn, he was a hot guy. By his eye rolling and brief jerking off gesture, he knew Dyl was talking to Troy, one of his higher maintenance friends in the art collective. Troy was ostensibly straight, but apparently such a diva he was called “Celine” behind his back. The fact that he apparently describe himself as a “truth teller” was enough to make Roan loathe him on principal.

As soon as he hung up, Dylan said, ”Thanks for the breakfast. When the hell did you get up?”

“Too damn early.” A glance at the digital clock built into the oven told him it was almost one. Holy shit, why had had he let him sleep in so late? Oh, because he figured he got up early, that’s why. Some detective he was.

“Well, two things. One, you have to make an appointment with Doctor Rosenberg now, or I’m going to make it for you. Two, we’re due at the arena at three thirty.”

He sort of expected the first one, but the second one threw him. “We are?”

“We’re Tank’s bodyguards this evening.”

Something was very wrong with that sentence. “You mean he’s our bodyguard?”

“No. Somehow he convinced someone somewhere that since he’s now a big deal, he needs a bodyguard tonight. And he volunteered us.”

That did sound like something he might do, but that was a broad category. If someone said he’d held up a bank, punched out a moose, or was really an East German shotput hurler named Helga who defected in the late ‘80’s, none of it would surprise him. Tank was in the rare category of people who could, and probably would, do anything at any time. Many of these people were in prison, but Tank had managed to channel his mischief in more productive ways. Roan wondered if he were one of those people, and then dropped it, as there was only so much self-awareness he could take in one day.

He called Rosenberg’s office and thankfully got one of her assistants, Nariko, who informed him she was in a meeting, so he never had to talk to her (yaay). He just made an appointment for next week, which made Dylan give him the stink eye, but it was a mild stink eye. He figured it was the longest he could push it out before Dylan got mad at him and demanded he reschedule.

On their way to the hospital to visit Oliver, he discussed Abigail’s unusual reaction, and the strong feeling he got that she was hiding something. Dylan instantly said, “She doesn’t want Oliver to know what actually happened to his father. She’s sure you won’t find him because he’s on the East Coast.”

“Or dead.”

“I’m trying to stay positive here, hon.”

“But she’s spending money to confuse the issue. Why?”

Dylan was silent for several seconds, his chocolate eyes staring at nothing, before finally admitting, “No clue. But then again, I’m not sure why she wouldn’t want to tell him in the first place.”

“How does it connect to the deaths?”

“Maybe it doesn’t.”

“Oh, come on.”

“It’s far fetched, granted, but possible. Maybe you need to think of it alone, by itself, and then consider possibilities of connections.”

That was good advice. Focus on one thing, do it in order. You’d think that would be a natural thing to remember, but no, not at the moment. He wanted to blame it on the phantom tumor, but truth be told he simply was getting distracted by other things. He was trying to do a thousand things at once, so he was doing all of them shittily.

Oliver was conscious, and looked like hell, his face as bloated as an overcooked sausage, and almost the same color around his eyes and jaw. His lips were swollen and split, and when he talked it sounded like he was holding several marbles in his mouth. He said he didn’t remember what happened, but Roan knew he was lying. But he was still hurt and slightly drugged, so he decided to just let it go for now. Still, what was with the Jephson family lying to him? He was going to start taking it personally if they kept this up.

He’d never been in the “backstage” area of an arena, and he didn’t know what he expected, but probably not something as prosaic and strangely rusted as what it was. There were narrow corridors and locker rooms that looked as if they’d been state of the art forty years ago, with a faint smell of mildew and man sweat everywhere. The lighting was florescent, and painted harsh lines on the concrete walls and floor, where a threadbare runner of red carpet led from the locker rooms to the ice. With all the guys on the ice for a warm up skate, it seemed spooky, empty, and would actually have been a great place to film a horror movie. Maybe someone had, but he hadn’t seen it.

The guys were mostly professional, the coach out on the ice and telling various players what he wanted out of them, what he needed them to do or not do, and amongst all his big, younger players he stood out like a sore thumb. But he was their boss and they listened, although he had no suggestions for Tank, who shifted playing goal with Ethan, and even took shots at Ethan with a puck, occasionally using his big goalie stick to bounce the puck in the air before batting it at him out of mid-air. Scott chided him for being a show off, and when Jeff jokingly swerved to check Tank like another player, Tank met him with his shoulder and sent him falling on his ass, much to the delight of a few other players watching the Tank show. In spite of the pre-game air, they all seemed pretty relaxed and loose, and since he found some pieces of wood in the empty corridor, he and Dylan drew up signs that they held up during set plays, making everyone laugh. (Dylan’s read “7.2”, while Roan’s read “6.5”.) Occasionally they’d switch signs, or hold them upside down. Grey, skating by, protested, “I did a lot fucking better than a six point five.” So Roan wrote on the back of the sign pi to four digits (“3.1415“), and held it up after he shot a few pucks at the net. Everyone else laughed, and Grey gave him the finger.

It was odd – it was always odd when he was with any of the Falcons – but it was fun. If anyone had ever asked him if he thought a bunch of macho jock hets would be so cool with them, he would have said no, but times were definitely changing. Of course, as Dylan would point out, he might be gay but he was still a fellow macho asshole, so at least they all had that in common.

They ended up behind the Falcons bench, watching the game at eye level, hearing all the trash talk and cringing as the guys threw themselves into other guys and the boards with careless abandon. Sometimes the crowd actually gasped, and the glass and the boards would shake as if in the middle of a minor earthquake. But every time both guys kept playing, reinforcing the idea that hockey players were all fucking nuts, and probably deserved their macho asshole reputation. (Although really, flinging yourself bodily at another man, no matter how hard you did it, seemed a little gay. He mostly kept it to himself, but he whispered it in Grey’s ear after he came off shift and sat on the bench, and Grey started laughing so hard he actually had tears in his eyes. He also had a hard time catching his breath, because most of the guys who came back to the bench were panting. Skating fast and flinging yourself at other guys was apparently quite a workout, and explained why, out of their padding and uniforms, most of these guys were as thin as reeds. And they sweated like fat guys in a superheated sauna.)

Dylan ended up spending most of the game sitting near Ethan, and they ended up hitting it off a great deal, talking about everything from vegetarian cooking (Ethan was a vegetarian – again, who knew?) to the songs of Elliott Smith. At one point, an annoyed player with the name Nilsson stitched on the back of his jersey turned and asked, “Do you guys ever shut up?”

“Nope,” Ethan answered happily, and went on talking.

There was no reason for Ethan to pay any attention. Tank’s final game was a total route, the Falcons won it five to nothing, and while Tank made some spectacular saves (and got himself an assist on Scott’s second goal of the evening), none looked particularly challenging. There were a couple of interesting things that happened, though. A guy named Johnson kept staring at him, and Roan stared back at him until he apologized for being rude, but he’d never met a gay guy before. This led Jeff to sock him in the shoulder, hard enough to make him shout, “Ow!” and almost fall off the bench. Jeff told him not to be a little shit, but he protested he wasn’t, he just hadn’t met a real live gay guy before, and Roan couldn’t help but laugh. Were all straight guys this awkward? Man.

The second interesting thing happened in the middle of the third period, when a puck ricocheted off a stick and came flying towards the Falcons’ bench. The guys ducked out of the way, but Roan caught it before it could hit the glass behind him. The odd thing was Roan had no intension of catching it; he made no decision to even try and get it, and yet the next thing he knew his left hand was stinging like it’d just been run over, and he had an ice cold puck in his palm. He moved it to his right hand and shook out his left, wondering if he broke some bones (not that it was a problem), and wondering when his reflexes got a mind of their own. “Holy shit,” Johnson exclaimed, staring at him wide eyed.

“He’s gonna get your job, Hillie,” Richie said, referring to Ethan.

The trainer offered him an ice pack for his hand, which he declined, and when the other team called a time out and Tank skated up to the bench, he lifted up his mask, grinning like a crazy person, and said, “We should add that catch to the highlight reel.” He wasn’t joking, so in a way he was glad Tank was going to Boston.

After the game, while the guys were showering and dressing, and he and Dyl were loitering in one of the drafty, creepy corridors, his phone rang. If it was Rosenberg, he was going to let it go to his voice mail (damn it, he was having a nice, distracted evening with the Falcons, and he wasn’t going to let it get away from him now), but the phone showed it was Holden, so he answered it. “Yeah?”

“I might have something on the cat killer for you,” he said, with no preamble. Wherever he was, it was loud, and he was pretty sure he recognized the Murder City Devils playing in the background. “But you need to get down to the Dungeon. It’s fetish night, so flash your tats, you’ll get in free.” Before Roan could ask further questions, such as why he was at the Dungeon on fetish night, he’d hung up. Not that he’d be able to hear him very well over “Press Gang”.

Dylan was looking at him with a curiosity tempered with knowing wariness. “Something up?”

“Holden has something for me on another case. But he expects me to go to the Dungeon.”

Dylan knew exactly what that was, and raised his eyebrows. “The S&M club?”

“Apparently it’s fetish night. If I show my tattoos I can get in for free.”

“Ooh, does that include me?” Grey asked, entering the hall. His hair was still wet but slicked back, and he’d changed into dark jeans and a black button down shirt that made him look almost like a normal person. Except the stuffed equipment bag slung over one shoulder, which was so full it looked ready to burst.

“You just won your game. Don’t you wanna go celebrate, have a beer or something? “

“Where we going?” Tank asked, joining him. Scott and Jeff soon followed, with Zack, Richie, and Ethan not far behind.

“You guys aren’t going,” Roan told them.

Grey ignored him, and told the guys, “A place called the Dungeon. Apparently it’s fetish night.”

“Fetish?” asked Jeff warily. “What kinda fetish?”

“Oh cool,” Tank exclaimed. “Fi’s told me all about the Dungeon.” Zack did a double take, but since he was standing behind and to the side of Tank, he didn’t notice.

“This is about a case I’m working,” he explained. “You’re not going with me.” But of course they were, and he knew it even as he insisted they weren’t.

Great. Now he was going to an S&M club with (mostly) straight hockey players to meet a hooker. It sounded like the set up to a porn film.

And come to think of it, it might be more enjoyable if it was.