“I was going to eat all of it here.”

Toby smiled faintly at the joke. He drove a slightly battered, homely blue Honda, which seemed appropriate somehow. “If you want, I’ll take ‘em home for you. And that’s all, I promise, I’ll keep my fool mouth shut.”

“Do you know where I live?”

“No, I’m hoping you do.”

He smiled weakly at Toby’s joke. That had been a test, just to see if this guy was loony stalker material. He didn’t seem to be lying about not knowing where he lived, so he guessed not, which was a relief. He already had Matt in his life, and that seemed like enough. He figured why not - he couldn’t drink all this beer in one go without passing out - and shrugged, telling Toby, “Okay, yeah, I’d appreciate it. I don’t seem to be functioning too well today.”

“I’ve had weeks like that,” Toby commiserated. He left his Honda idling as he got out and opened the passenger side door and helped him load his groceries into passenger seat. Roan noticed a miniature flag hanging from the rearview mirror, and for a second he thought it was a rainbow flag, but a longer glance seemed to refute that. Was it a national flag of some sort? It seemed to have too many stripes, one each of blue, yellow, red, white, and orange. After staring at it for a moment, he asked, “What’s that?”

Toby glanced in to see what he was looking at, and said, “Oh, that’s the Buddhist flag.”

“Buddhists have a flag?”

He nodded as he shut the car door. “It symbolizes unity. You’d be surprised how many people see it and think it’s the Italian flag or the German one. Once, someone guessed it was Jamaican. I mean, I look like a Rastafarian, don‘t I? My dreadlocks are a dead giveaway.”

“You should keep a bobblehead Buddha on the dashboard. That’ll teach ‘em.”

Toby cracked a genuine smile as he walked back around to the driver’s side. “Hey, I’ve thought about it. But most of them have creepy kewpie doll faces. It’d freak me out.”

He never would have guessed Toby was a Buddhist, but then again, he almost never guessed anyone was a Buddhist. Unlike most religious people, they didn’t usually go around beating their chest and trying to force their belief system on others. Buddhists were about the only type of religious people he could tolerate - lucky for Toby. Did they hate gays? Actually, he didn’t think Buddhists had ever gone on record fag bashing. No wonder Toby was a Buddhist - it was pretty much the only religion which didn’t hate you for existing. (But Buddhists didn’t hate anything, did they?)

He drove home, trying very hard to pay attention to the road so he didn’t lose control of the bike or drift off into other lanes, and he wondered if driving was a skill you could lose. It almost felt like it.

Which was funny, really, since he seemed to lose the ability to drive and to cope, but he had not lost his ability to be a detective. Was it just easier to pry into other people’s business than simply live his life? He was thinking that was the case. Oh, a psychiatrist would have a field day analyzing him. That’s probably why he avoided them whenever possible.

He parked the bike in the driveway, and Toby pulled in behind him, keeping a safe distance. Had he seen his driving? Did he know how poorly he was doing? He must have.

Toby grabbed all the bags out of his front seat - the good thing about those stupid plastic bags was you could grab a bunch of them at once - and followed him to the front door, waiting quietly while Roan struggled to unlock it, wondering why it was so hard to get a key in the lock. Had the drugs worn off, or was it really hitting him now, his ravaged system now suffering some kind of backlash from all the toxins he’d been living off of for so long? His legs felt rubbery, weak, and his nausea was coming back. Wow, he was in really shitty shape.

Once inside, he pointed out the kitchen to Toby, and he obediently put the bags on the breakfast bar. He then turned to look at him, trying hard not to look too closely at the living room, trying hard not to judge, although someone must have dusted (probably Dee - he had obsessive-compulsive tendencies). “You got people looking in on you?” he finally asked, and that’s when Roan figured he looked as bad as he felt.

He eased himself down on the sofa, not wanting to collapse, and nodded. “Too damn many, as a matter of fact.”

Toby nodded, accepting that, although the sympathetic look never quite left his face. “Good, I’m glad.”

The silence was awkward, and Roan was torn between wanting to fill it and wanting him to go away. “So who’s this guy you lost?”

Toby grimaced, and in retrospect Roan realized he’d asked this far too casually. It sounded like he was dismissing it even as he asked. “Uh, I really don’t think this is a discussion we should have right now. You … I’ve got to get going, I’m working the evening shift tonight.” What was Toby going to say about him? He looked half dead? He clearly didn’t give a fuck? “But if you ever really want someone to talk to … you know where to find me. Just call Panic. Maybe we can get some coffee sometime.”

It would have seemed like a come on from anyone else, but Toby was so fucking earnest and transparent it was simply what it seemed: an invitation to coffee, to discuss dead loves. It sounded thrilling. Would he try to convert him to Buddhism? Would he try and convince him he’d find peace and enlightenment through meditation and the judicious application of incense? Roan was itching with curiosity, as well as several good lines about Xenu and his religion based on TV Guide crossword puzzles and garbled airport loudspeaker announcements. (“Oh holy white courtesy telephone!”) “Sure. Thanks for the help.”

“No problem. Next time, though, maybe you should bring a pack mule.”

“My life is full of asses - that shouldn’t be too hard to arrange.”

Toby chuckled kindly, and told him to take care of himself as he left. He wasn’t nearly as bad as Roan initially thought he was. Although if he was really a good guy, he’d have tossed him a beer so Roan didn’t have to get his ass up and go get one. Oh well.

As soon as he thought he could manage it, he levered himself off the sofa and got a beer out of the grocery bags, then staggered back to where he’d left the laptop from his earlier searching for Ron Dormer. After a minute or so, he figured out he’d have to use the scanner, which meant going upstairs. He gulped down his beer and felt a bit lightheaded, but it was almost liquid courage, and it was good enough. He went upstairs, not stumbling, and once in his bedroom, he was staggered by the smell of himself in this room. The rest of the house had been kept fairly neat and clean, mainly because all the other rooms were hardly used, but Roan couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed his bedding. He knew he should strip the bed, wash everything, but he didn’t feel like dragging everything down to the washer, so he just opened the bedroom window to air the place out. It occurred to him that the last time he’d opened this window, Paris was alive; they’d climbed out onto the roof from here. His gut clenched and churned, but he tried to set the thought aside as he went to his computer and slumped down in front of his desk.

He scanned the picture of Rononymous that Dalisay had given him, and typed out an email to the real Ron Dormer, attaching the picture of the fake one, asking if he recognized this man at all. It was possible that the real and fake Rons had crossed paths at some point in their lives; it was also equally possible that they’d had no contact at all. Identity thieves didn’t have to know their victims to take their credit ratings. That was the hell of identity theft: your life could be co-opted by someone else, but you might never know. Although actually, there was something worse than that, and that was the person who stole your identity having a much better life than you. They could just take the damn thing, but they didn’t have to rub it in your face.

He heard the sputtering purr of a car engine in the drive, and recognized the sound of Dee’s blue bug. God, how did that car keep going? It always seemed like it was on the verge of crapping out, but it never did. It was like a possessed car, only no demon could ever be lame enough to possess an ancient Volkswagen, could it?

Roan was too tired to let him in, so he stayed where he was and sifted through some more spam e-mails as Dee let himself in and came up the stairs. When he came in, he was still wearing his paramedic’s outfit, the shirt open to show the red t-shirt he wore beneath, and he was carrying a med-kit, that was about the size and shape of a large tackle box. “Wow. Matt told me you were up, but I didn’t believe him.”

“I even went to the store, smart ass.”

“Good for you. We’ll make you Human in no time. Roll up your sleeve.” He put the kit down on the end of his bed and cracked it open, pulling out whatever that thing was that measured your blood pressure. He once knew the name of it, but it was now amongst the many things he had forgotten.

Roan sighed, sagging back in his chair. “Fuck off. I don’t need you doing a work up on me.”

“It’s free medical care. Shut your mouth and take it like a man.”

“Wow, I just had a flashback to our second date.”

Dee made a sarcastically sour face at him. “You wish. Now stop being a jackass.”

“Jackasses seem to be a running theme today,” he noted, as Dee put the Velcro sleeve around his left upper arm.

“Today? I thought it was your life in total.” He pumped up the … thing, whatever it was, and the cuff tightened until it was incredibly painful; it felt like it was cutting off the blood circulation to his arm. He was sure Dee was doing this on purpose, but he had on his “professional” face, which was emotionless without being stony. Basically it was his Vulcan look, and Roan knew he was in professional mode; he wouldn’t be fucking around in this mood.

Dee frowned slightly as he looked at the numbers and ripped the cuff off his arm. “Your blood pressure is low. I think you’re dehydrated too.”

“Great. Why don’t you go get me a beer?”

Dee’s eyes were lasers that tried to bore into the back of his skull. “Technically, I can run you in with numbers like these.”

He meant run him into the emergency room, and Roan sighed and shook his head. “C’mon, I did good today. I don’t need to end up back in a bed again. I’m working on a case.”

“Are you?” Dee didn’t sound very interested. He pulled out a digital thermometer and popped it in his mouth, just assuming he knew what it was and what he was supposed to do. Of course he did, because Dee seemed to be always taking his damn temperature, but at least he wasn’t using a rectal thermometer.

After several seconds, which Dee used to take his pulse while looking at his watch (he still didn’t get it - he could never find a pulse in a wrist, not even his own), the thermometer beeped, and Dee took it away. “Huh.”

“Is my temperature low too?” Roan guessed.

Dee shook his head as he returned to his medical kit, putting his gear away. “It’s one hundred and two point seven. You’re sick. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sick.”

“Maybe it’s just a high cycle point; body temperature rises with the virus.”

Dee finished rummaging in his kit, and looked at him askance. “You just came out of your transformational stage four days ago.”

“I did?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Oh, yeah, I do. It’s just the days have kinda blurred together.” No, he didn’t remember at all, but Roan didn’t want to get into this right now. “So what do you think I have?”

Dee seemed reluctant to take the bait and move on to another topic, but he did. “I don’t know. What are your symptoms?”

Roan shrugged. “I’m tired.”

“Lethergy’s common with fevers as well as low blood pressure and dehydration. Do you have a cough, any pains?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” Dee bit his lower lip in thought, and was looking towards him but not at him, lost in thought. “I’m going to put dinner on. I’ll be back with some water.”

“I’d rather have a beer.”

Dee waved his hand like he was swatting a fly before disappearing out the bedroom door. Roan was going to tell him he could make his own damn dinner, but then it occurred to him he’d have to go back downstairs to do it, and he decided he could swallow his pride for one more night.

If you didn’t count migraines and the occasional hangover, Roan couldn’t remember the last time he was sick. Well, there was also the fact that he was infected and technically always sick - that’s why people treated him like a pariah, right? He was full of icky germs.

But that was it, isn’t? He’d always been healthy, so the virus was held in check. He was weak now, and it decided to come out and play. As soon as he got rehydrated and ate regularly, he’d probably be okay. He’d just lived with this virus for so long, he forgot what it actually was. “I’m part virus,” he muttered to himself, disgusted. “How can it make me sick? That’d be like being allergic to myself.”

“No one is part virus,” Paris argued. He was leaning in the open bathroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest. “It’s actually a kind of racist - specist? - thought, isn’t it? Just because you were born with the virus and born different than most viral children, the virus was somehow a part of you.”

“But it is. They confirmed it with DNA tests. I’m Human, yeah, but there’s something wacky going on.”

“I don’t care. It doesn’t mean you’re part virus; it just means the virus adapted to your system. Viruses are good at that.” He sighed, aware that both of them really didn’t care about this argument, and said, “At least we know why I’m here: guilt, loneliness, and a constant fever.”

“Please don’t start,” Roan sighed, trying to lever himself out of his chair. It took him two tries, but he got it. It felt like someone was ruffling the back of his hair, but it was just a breeze through the window.

“I can’t start anything,” Paris countered. “Only the living can do that.”

Roan stumbled downstairs, finding the “Comfortably Numb” song running through his head. He wished he was comfortably numb - right now, he was just uncomfortably feverish.

Downstairs, Dee didn’t mention his illness, and Roan figured that he guessed it was simply his virus and his immune system now having words, meaning there was really nothing he could do about it except get him back up to full strength. They had soup - which really didn’t surprise him in retrospect, as it was full of liquid and salt, both of which were good for the dehydrated - and Dee told him about his shift. Day shifts were usually quiet, but they encountered Chief again, which was a surprise since both Dee and Roan assumed he was dead.

“Chief” was a homeless man and sad alcoholic, the type who would drink sterno or rubbing alcohol to get a buzz if necessary. He looked about sixty, but was probably in his forties and flirting hard with liver failure. No one knew his real name, not even him; they called him “Chief” because that’s how he addressed everyone else - “Hey Chief,” “I’m not doin’ anything, Chief,” “He started it, Chief”. Unless he was very drunk or in a pissy mood, then he’d call everyone “motherfucker”.

He was an excellent example of both the holes in the safety net of society, and how a person could simply disappear, erase their own identity. He was someone at some point; he must have had a name, a family even. But they ran his fingerprints through the database when they brought him in on a drunk and disorderly (he and a homeless crack addict got in a fight; they were both so fucked up it was more noise and fury than actual damage, which was probably a good thing), but he’d never been arrested before with a real name. He was a terminal John Doe. They actually circulated a flyer with his photo, asking the public if they knew him and could identify him, hoping to get him some help more than anything, but nothing ever came of it. If someone knew who he was, no one would admit it.

Dee and Steve were called on a possible person in distress on Elmore, and found Chief passed out at the head of an alley, a small cut on his forehead where he had met the asphalt too hard. The cut was superficial, and they brought him around with smelling salts, but he was still rather drunk and incoherent, although Dee assumed he’d have been belligerent if he could have managed it. Roan imagined that Dee was telling him this as a warning, that if he kept on the way he was he’d end up as pathetic as Chief, but he owned his home - he bought it reasonably cheap as a fixer upper. After growing up with no steady home, he was always eager to find one solid place he could call his own. So even if he became a pathetic wet brain, at least he wouldn’t be homeless.

“Not the point,” Paris said. After a moment, he added, “You should tell him Abman Toby gave your groceries a lift home. He’ll go into one of his “How come all the hot guys are attracted to your lame ass” rants. That’s always entertaining.”

It was, but Toby wasn’t actually attracted to him, he just felt bad for him, and there was a huge difference. Besides, he felt he had had enough Dee rants for a while.

Dinner wasn’t bad, though, and listening to someone else talk was kind of soothing, even if it was the run down of a paramedic’s day. Paramedics and cops probably were decent matches, as each had their horror stories, and each could try and one up each other with them. The paramedics usually had the most bloody stories, but not always.

He asked Dee about his social life, which he knew would run him off. Dee was not the luckiest guy in the world when it came to relationships; he admitted he never quite got the “knack” for them. It didn’t help that he dated fuck ups like him, or his married doctor pal. (What was his name, Ethan? A macho emergency room doctor with a wife and a couple of kids, who apparently liked being on the down low. Why Dee put up with that shit for a couple of months he had no idea - he must have been desperate, or Ethan was really attractive, or perhaps both.) Dee was happy to go off for a bit on how lame most of the men on the dating scene were, and how wildly idiotic most of the young guys were nowadays. He didn’t care if it was just a trick, but if he actually wanted to date them he wanted a guy with a brain cell or two, which he had a hard time finding. Roan had heard this speech in several variations since they broke up and became friendly exes, and he realized eventually that Dee stayed friends with him because he actually thought he was relatively intelligent. It was flattering, but Dee probably would have been disappointed if he knew it took him a while to figure that out. (He wasn’t so intelligent after all, apparently.)

As he expected, being reminded of his dismal love life made Dee a bit depressed, and he left soon after, possibly to mope over a video game. Roan felt a bit better for having eaten, which meant he got to get up and help himself to a beer - they drank tea with dinner, but at least it was a decent herbal tea - and he found one of Paris’s unused B-12 shots in the kitchen first aid kit. He didn’t know if it wise to use it or not, but he did, and he felt a little less tired.

In fact it started to work too well, as he was suddenly certain he was too restless to sleep. He checked his email, and saw that the real Ron Dormer had already gotten back to him. According to Ron, he did recognize the man in the photo - he wondered why he was asking him about Vance Ladowski, his ex-roommate.

Paris suggested that perhaps she had hidden the password somewhere on the computer itself, but where? He tried the names of everyone she had written about that he knew of, but their names didn’t open the file. He was going to have to call Kevin, wasn’t he? Oh damn it.

Even though it was a clear and briskly cold night, Paris thought they should take the motorcycle. Roan thought he was nuts, but Paris pointed out that Sullivan sounded like a macho kind of place, and the bike would be a perfect fit. Since he saw Paris giving himself another shot of B-12, Roan felt like he didn’t have the will to argue with him.

He couldn’t even remember the last time they took the bike out, except when they had a car to pick up. And why? He had no idea. The bike was undoubtedly fun.

And cold. Very very cold. So that’s why they hadn’t taken it out lately.

They both wore leather jackets and helmets, and yet Roan could feel the cold biting through his jeans, rendering his hands numb beneath barely insulated leather gloves, and while Paris felt warm, his arms around his waist and his body pressed up against his back, he wondered if he was freezing. Lately, the slightest breeze could send him into paroxysms of shivers.

Sullivan had a parking lot that was half asphalt and half gravel, although he thought the gravel part was a mistake - the asphalt had simply worn away there until it crumbled to dust. The outside of the bar was a basic box shape, its color now indistinguishable from the layers of road dust that stained the outside, and its small windows looked as amber as beer, covered with neon signs advertising domestic brews and flyers about the new smoking laws that relegated them to a small shack off to the side of the building. Roan was surprised they were even pretending to follow the law, because this place looked like it would have a constant miasma of cigarette smoke helpfully blinding the patrons from the true depression of their surroundings.

Going in with Paris, he could smell it, the faint odor of cigarette smoke still in the walls and on the clothes of the patrons, if not exactly fresh in the air. The place was so dark it was like being submerged. The only true light came from the ones above the bar, yellowed like old smoker’s teeth, minimizing the pits and burns in the worn semi-circular bar and the acne scarred bartender, and leaving the rest of the room, the small tables and back booths, swathed in thick shadows. His eyes adjusted quickly, and Paris took off his helmet first and smiled at Trey, approaching his back booth, and Roan took off his helmet and followed him, making sure Trey didn’t see him until the last second.

When he did, the beaming smile Trey had given Paris died on his face. Trey was a slender, almost willowy Vietnamese man with undeniably handsome features, rendered much more interesting by his somewhat flawed skin. Trey’s eyes scudded between them, noticing their leather jackets and helmets were both similar, and asked Paris, “What the fuck is this?”

Paris slid into the fake leather booth across the small, beer stained rectangular table from him, and said, “Sorry sweetheart. I think I forgot to tell you I was married.”

“Married?” he blurted, horrified, remembering on the last syllable to lower his voice. Luckily the whiny country music coming from an unseen radio was loud enough to drown out most conversations.

Roan kept standing at the end of the booth, just in case Trey made a break for it. “My name is Roan McKichan, I’m a private detective, I’m looking into the death of Thora Bishop. Can you tell me where you were between the hours of seven and ten PM on the night of November second?”

He stared at him and swallowed hard, eyes darting between him and Paris like he still didn’t see the connection between them. To help him, Paris started tapping his ring against the table top, twisting it as well, just so Trey would look at it. Trey then glanced back at Roan, looking at the hand holding the motorcycle helmet, and noticed the matching ring on his finger. His dark eyes widened in genuine surprise. “I didn’t think that was legal,” he muttered, glancing around the room as if to make sure no one saw him with this pair of raging queens. No one was even paying attention to any of them.

“Are you going to answer my question?” Roan asked.

He glared at him, surprise turning to sullenness. “Why should I? You’re not a cop.”

“Would you rather have them involved? Just give me a minute and I’ll get them down here.”

Trey didn’t answer, he just kept glaring at him, so he took out his cell phone. That seemed to kick him out of his sulk. “Fine. I was working, if it’s any of your goddamn business. Chrissie’s off on maternity leave and I was covering her shift. Happy now?”

That would be easy enough to check out. “You worked two shifts that day?”

“Yeah.”

“You hardly need the money.”

That earned him a new glower of contempt. “It spares me from goin’ home, okay?” He then looked away with a slight wince, as if he knew he’d said too much.

He wasn’t lying. “What about November fourth between six and eighty thirty PM?”

Trey was still radiating open waves of hostility, but he answered the question. “I was getting my teeth cleaned. My dentist is Doctor Marvin Chu, he works over in Redmond. I was probably on the road driving to there or back from there for part of the time. Maybe he can give you exact times, ‘cause I really wasn’t paying too much attention. I hate going to the dentist.”

“A dentist named Chu?” Paris replied. “How funny.” Both he and Trey glared at him, but all he did was meet their gazes innocently. “What? You know it is.”

He loved Paris, he really did, but sometimes he was such a goofball. Roan pulled out a tiny notebook and pen and wrote down the important information on it, keeping the corner of his eye fixed on Trey to see if the fact that he was taking notes made him nervous. It didn’t. He was pissed off, and if he thought he had a decent chance of actually landing a hit on Paris’s pretty face he’d have done so, but he was not afraid of getting caught in a lie. “Look, are you done humiliating me?”

“Our intent was never to humiliate you, Mr. Phan,” Roan assured him. “I simply wanted to make sure we were getting the truth in a setting where you’d be disinclined to cause a scene.”

He sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. He was wearing a clean, possibly brand new dark red polo shirt over black cargo pants. He looked reasonably nice, especially for a guy who expected a quick fuck in the back of his car. “Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’m aware of your history. You have a temper, don’t you?”

Trey snorted in disgust, shaking his head. “I was never charged with anything.”

“Wrong. You were arrested, and charges were leveled against you, but for some reason they were dropped. And that doesn’t count throwing a chair through a window at Willow Springs.”

That made him look up sharply at him, eyes narrowing dangerously, the skin of his face flushing ever so slightly that it was almost impossible to see in the low light of the bar. He fought hard to get it under control, but it wasn’t easy; his hands clenched and unclenched, fists that wanted a target, and a tiny bit of sweat was now visible at his hairline. After a moment, where he swallowed so hard it was an audible dry click in his throat, he whispered harshly, “Who told you that? Who the fuck told you that? Was it Matt, is that it? What did that little faggot say about me?”

Paris shot a glance at Roan, and he knew Par wanted to take this. It was unorthodox, but he let him go ahead. “That little faggot may be your only genuine friend in this world,” Paris told Trey, sitting forward and leaning his arms on the grotty table. He kept his voice pitched at a whisper, mimicking Trey’s own inflections. “And I have no idea why, because you’re a pent up, angry little man who doesn’t deserve it. So don’t take your sexual frustrations out on him, or on us for that matter. We’re out and we’re good with it. Maybe you should give it a try, Trey. The world doesn’t end.”

This little speech didn’t please Trey. In fact, the flush that darkened his skin seemed to get worse, and he narrowed his eyes at Paris until they were mere slits. “I am not one of you,” he snarled. “I’m not a faggot.”

“One of us, one of us,” Roan said quietly, mockingly. Trey shot him a homicidal look for it. What, had he never seen the movie Freaks?

Paris just smirked at Trey and shook his head in a slow, dismissive way. “Oh please. The moment you laid eyes on me you got a hard on. Believe me, I know the second the blood rushes out of a guy’s brain. So you’re turned on by guys - so what? Who really gives a fuck nowadays? Just live your life and stop worrying about other people.”

If looks could kill, Paris would have been a gory splatter on the dusty floor. “Fuck off and die, you little pansy faggot. I’m not like you. I’m normal.”

“Ooh, normal,” Par taunted. “Like meeting a guy you hardly know in a dive bar for a date. Very normal. No worries there, Trey.”

Before Trey could attack him or perhaps throw over the table, Roan decided to get things back on topic. “Did you want Thora Bishop dead?”

This topic shifting seemed to be bewildering Trey, which was the point. He was so off balance that lying would take a great deal of effort, and would be patently obvious, even without the sniff test. “Fuck yeah I wanted that little bitch dead. She had no right to say anything about any of us. Our parents paid big bucks to get us all into Willow Springs just for the anonymity - otherwise we could have just got to some low rent clinic somewhere. But I didn’t do it.”

“Do you know who might have?”

He scoffed. “Any of us. I’m not happy she’s dead, but she was asking for it, rubbing it in our faces like that.”

The way he said that, a new possibility sprung to life. “She wasn’t blackmailing you, was she?”

A troubled look flickered through his dark eyes. That thought had never occurred to him. “No.”

“What about any of the others?”

He both shrugged and shook his head. “I dunno. I guess she could, but she’d be stupid to try. Then again, she wasn’t a rocket scientist.”

“Was there anyone in your group who had a lot to lose if Thora went ahead and published?”

“Besides you, of course,” Paris added with an unfriendly smile.

Trey glared at him, and it was funny to see lust and hate warring in one’s man expression. Funny and disturbing; he almost wasn’t sure that Trey could tell the difference between them anymore. If he didn‘t learn how to simply deal with who he was and what he wanted, Trey was a ticking time bomb - he was dangerous. One day, he was going to go off on someone and really hurt them. Roan had seen his kind a million times before, usually being shoved in the back of a police car. “I don’t know. Ask them.”

“We intend to,” Roan said, and jerked his head back towards the door. Paris got the message and stood up, giving Trey a more friendly, pitying smile.

Roan took a card out of his pocket and handed it to Trey. “Feel free to call me if you think of anything else.”

Trey glanced at the card, then stared at him levelly as he balled up the card and tossed it on the floor. Roan just nodded in understanding, and walked back towards the door. Paris followed, and sarcastically blew Trey a kiss.

Once outside, Paris commented, “What a miserable bastard.”

“Well, he was expecting to get laid. You can understand if he’s a bit grumpy.” He didn’t tell Paris he expected to see him on the front page in a couple of months, arrested for some grisly beating or another. Maybe Trey would wise up, get therapy before that happened; in fact, he hoped so, because he was already pitying that future victim. Maybe a guy he was attracted to who didn’t like the closeted thing; maybe that poor girl suckered into being his fiancée.

“Oh come on! Look at me. Did he really think he had a shot?” Paris grinned at his own vanity, and then pulled his helmet back on, hiding his gleeful expression.

On the ride over to the office, he considered this alternate possibility: blackmail. There was no proof that she was attempting it, and she didn’t need the money, but blackmail was only partially about money - it was mostly about control. And Thora was a woman who obviously craved control in her life. But did she have any information damaging enough to be worth money, or worth her life? Maybe Matt would have some insight.

Once they parked in the lot and he saw Matt’s BMW, he took off his helmet and told Paris, “I’d like to talk to him alone, okay? I don’t want him to think he has a way out. I want him feeling psychologically cornered.”

Paris took off his helmet and fixed him with a stern look as he automatically smoothed down his mussed hair. “Go easy on him. He’s still the client, you know.”

“I know. I won’t smack him around.”

“Promise?” Paris grinned at his own joke and got off the bike, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I see the light’s on in Braunbeck’s office. I think I’ll go bug him and see how he likes it.”

“If he offers to show you how gorp is made, say no.”

That made him smile, but for the first time, he noticed that Paris looked kind of tired. In spite of the second shot of B-12, maybe this was all just too much for him. He headed off across the parking lot of the office complex, waving at Matt as he got out of his car and headed over. Matt paused half way to their office, and said, “Whoa, nice looking bike. What kind is it?”

“A Buell Lightning.”

“Huh. I’ve never heard of them.”

“I don’t think they’re as well known as some other bikes.” Roan got his keys out and opened his office door, and Matt followed him in as he flipped on the lights. It was cool inside, and the flowers looked like they were finally giving it up, or Randi hadn’t been in to switch them yet. He didn’t bother to go into his office, as there was no point. He simply offered Matt a chair and sat on the edge of Paris’s desk, asking him questions about Thora’s family.

Matt continued to insist he didn’t know anything really, but after a bit of prodding he admitted that Thora totally avoided her brother Jay (Adam Bishop the Third) at Crystal’s wedding. “She didn’t say why, except he was the biggest dick in the family, and she didn’t mean it in a good way,” he explained. “She said he was the golden boy and a total creep, that the family let him get away with murder. She hated him. Luckily, he just made a brief appearance with his trophy wife and left.”

“And that’s all you know? She never said why she hated him?”

“No.” He paused briefly, biting his lower lip. “But …”

He sighed, scrubbing his hands through his hair. Maybe anti-depressants were bad for Matt. He was much more forthcoming off of them. “Yes?”

“She once said the family picked him over her.”

“How so? In what way?”

He shrugged helplessly, holding up his empty hands. “She never said. I asked, but she didn’t go into it.”

“Fine. I guess that’s something to go on.”

But as he stood up, Matt looked troubled, almost queasy. “Look, don’t … don’t go after Jay, okay?”

He met his blue eyes fearlessly, trying to see what Matt was hiding. He was nervous and scared, but the reason wasn‘t obvious. “Why not?”

Matt seemed to fidget while standing in place, as if something was itching beneath his skin and he was under orders not to scratch. “He’s an arrogant prick. A powerful arrogant prick.”

“So?”

“So?” he repeated in disbelief. “He could crush you. He could put you out of business with one phone call. Thora used to say he loved to show off how powerful he was, that he loved to be cruel just ‘cause he could be.”

“Interesting. That makes him all the more suspicious.” He walked towards the front door, but Matt grabbed his arm as he walked past.

Roan looked down at Matt’s hand on his arm, and Matt seemed horrified by his own reflex and quickly let him go, taking a step back, as if afraid he’d invaded his personal space. “Sorry. It’s just … I met him only the once, and he freaked me out, you know? He seemed … I dunno. Mean.”

He nodded, wondering if Matt’s pills were wearing off. “Fine. I like taking mean people out. It’s fun.”

“Roan … please. He’s really homophobic. He hates gays.”

Roan shrugged and resumed course for the door. “I wasn’t going to wear a feather boa during my interview with him. Well, not if it didn’t match the rest of my outfit.”

“I’m serious! Don’t … what about Paris?”

He looked back at him, his hand on the doorknob. “What about Paris?”

“He doesn’t … he needs you right now, Roan. And if something happened to you -”

“You’re being absurd,” he said sharply, perhaps a bit more harshly than he intended judging by the way Matt’s head snapped back. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. If he’s a murderer, Matt, need I remind you that you and Hannah hired me to uncover it? If he wants to take a shot at me, he’s free to, but I don’t go down that easy.” He opened the door and stomped out into the parking lot, and wondered why the hell Matt would throw Paris’s name and condition out like a weapon. That really pissed him off. He didn’t care how freaked out he was by Jay Bishop - that was uncalled for.

Of course he came out to find Paris leaning against the motorcycle, eating gorp out of a small plastic sandwich bag. As he approached, he held it out, and said, “Want some? I’m just eating the M & M’s.”

Even in the faint light from the nearby streetlights and the few lights coming from the businesses still open in this office park, he could see how hollow and exhausted Paris looked, how darkness carved crescents beneath his eyes and made his cheekbones seem like razor blades ready to slice through his skin. It was time to take him home, and hope death was so far away it was just a faint blip on the horizon. “I’ll pass.”

As Matt came out, Roan went back to shut off the lights and lock the door, and Paris must have thought nothing of the uncomfortable silence between him and Matt, as he offered Matt some of the gorp as well. Matt also turned it down, and that’s when Paris asked, “Did Thora have a favorite drink?”

Matt shared a puzzled glance with him. “Y’mean when she was drinking? Um, yeah, she liked Aqueducts.”

Now Roan shared the puzzled look with Paris. Roan had never been a dedicated drinker, but Con had been, and he was sure he’d heard of every drink that had ever existed, especially since Con had briefly been a bartender back in Ireland. Paris, being a Canadian and a former party whore, also seemed to know a thing or two about drinking. But what the hell was this? “Is that a real drink?” Roan asked first.

Matt nodded. “Oh yeah. I know, I’d never heard of it before either, but it’s this vodka drink with apricot brandy and White Curacao. She really loved ‘em.”

“That sounds disgusting,” Paris said. “But kinda intriguing. I bet it got you pretty hammered.”

Matt shrugged. “I guess so, but she also said if she had too many of ‘em, everything started shootin’ out both ends.”

Roan grimaced at the thought. “So that’s why they called it an Aqueduct.”

Paris snorted in dark humor, and Matt looked amazed. “Oh hey - yeah! I bet that’s why they called it that. That hadn’t occurred to me before.”

They split up for the night, and Matt left first, his BMW humming off into the night as they mounted the bike. Roan got ready to put on his helmet, but paused. “Why’d you ask what her favorite drink was?”

Paris had tucked the rest of the gorp away in his coat pocket. “Password, hon. She might have used her favorite drink. It was something she loved but couldn’t have anymore.”

He glanced back over his shoulder at him, and gave him a suspicious look. “You know that’s no fair. I’m the detective, you’re my guy Friday.”

“Hey, is it my fault I’m better than you sometimes?” He then winked and pulled his full face helmet on, so Roan could only see the reflection of his own exaggerated evil expression. He felt a twist in his gut and turned away as he wondered if there was life after Paris.

The traffic wasn’t too bad. They missed rush hour, and now it was prime time, with the only people out most likely to be on their way to or from restaurant or bars than going to or from work. Roan found the road passing beneath their feet almost hypnotic, the tires hissing against the asphalt as they chewed up the street almost a type of lullaby. He wasn’t tired, though; his thoughts were threatening to go to a deep, dark place, and he decided to think about nothing, to fill his own head with white noise and just let the null state of driving hypnotize him. The air was even colder now, as sharp as broken glass through the leather, but Paris still felt warm against his back. It felt like they were speeding to their own execution.