by Josh Lanyon
I let Stephen see him to the door, not because I wasn’t feeling well. I simply wanted to postpone the inevitable argument. I didn’t have long to wait.
“What the hell was that about?” Stephen demanded, returning to where I sat finishing my tea. He didn’t bother to sit down. “Why would you do that, Mark? Why would you accuse Bryce of all people?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose I was flustered. I couldn’t think of anyone else.”
“Flustered? You? Bullshit.” His eyes seemed to snap with anger. “You did that on purpose.”
“Oh, right. I’m so vindictive—or is it paranoid?—I’d rather set the law on your ex-squeeze than help the plods figure out who tried to kill me.”
“You can’t think Bryce shot you!”
The more Stephen defended Bryce, the less sorry I was for throwing his former boyfriend to the wolves. “I’ve news for you, Stephen. Everyone, every one of us, is capable of killing under the right set of—” I remembered who I was talking to and under what circumstances Stephen had been driven to kill, and I shut up.
Not in time. Stephen’s face was colorless. “I’m late. I should have been at the hospital half an hour ago.”
“Stephen.”
He left the room without another word and went to the hall cupboard to get his overcoat. I followed him.
“Stephen, I’m an idiot.”
He slipped on his coat and picked his briefcase up from the hall table. I thought he wasn’t going to speak to me, but at last he said, “You need to take it easy today. Rest.”
I didn’t want him to leave while we were on these terms. I stepped in front of him. “I will. Stephen, I’m sorry.”
He had his normal color back and his eyes were no longer angry. But there was something in their expression I liked as little as I’d liked the anger. Sadness? He said, “I know. I’ll be home for dinner.”
When he hesitated, I made the move to kiss him. It wasn’t smooth but we managed to latch mouths without breaking noses or knocking any teeth out.
“Ow,” Stephen said, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“Damn.” I put a hand to my lip.
He made an exasperated sound, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, and drew me forward again. An efficient yet unexpectedly gentle kiss.
“I’ll see you tonight.” He closed the door quietly.
Chapter Three
Most of the denizens of the Jubilee Manor Estate had spared no expense in decking the halls—and roofs, car porches and lawns of their mobile homes—for the holiday.
Number 213, home to Bradley Kaine, stood in stark and unadorned contrast to his neighbors.
I knocked on the door. There was no answer. The lights glowed behind brown curtains and I could hear the unmistakable sounds of video game gunfire. I thumped harder with my gloved fist.
The door opened and the man himself stood framed against a backdrop of cigarette smoke and gloomy interior. Emaciated body in dirty jeans and a brown plaid shirt, stringy hair, unshaven face.
“It says No Solicitors!” he informed me on a gust of beer-breath that could have knocked down his neighbor’s plastic reindeer.
“No worries. I don’t plan on suing you. I may, however, shove your teeth through your brain.”
It took a full twenty-nine seconds before recognition dawned on his narrow face.
“You’re that crazy limey bastard!”
“That’s me, mate. And what are you? I’m thinking inept, wannabe assassin.”
“H-h-huh?” Kaine fell back into his abode which I felt could be construed as giving permission to enter. I followed him inside. The interior smelled of tobacco and bad plumbing. The TV offered a frozen image of a man being killed execution style by another man in a black hood. There was nothing remotely realistic about the dead man’s expression, but the blood spatter pattern was accurate enough. Stacks of unopened DVD players and boom boxes blocked most of the hall leading to the bedrooms. DVD players and boom boxes? So three Christmases ago. Kaine wasn’t any smarter a thief than he was would-be murderer.
I opened a couple of cabinets, checked inside cupboard drawers. “What are you doing?” Kaine demanded, backed up against the wall. “What do you want?”
“You better get wrapping, Bradley.” I nodded to the tower of stolen electronics. “Only two days ‘til Christmas.”
His eyes did a weird jittery shift as though he were about to have a seizure. “What do you—I’m not—I’m storing them for a friend.”
“Of course.”
“Why are you here?”
I kept searching. No gun rack. No guns. No weapons at all unless you counted a couple of kitchen knives. Of course the rifle might be out in his car. I stopped prowling and had a good long look at him. He was an unlovely sight. A pale, weasely face: close-set muddy eyes; a small, wet mouth; lank, greasy, dark hair. He was terrified, which was to be expected. And totally bewildered, which wasn’t.
Maybe he was a better actor than I gave him credit for. Or maybe I was out of practice reading villains.
“Who’d you hire to try and kill me? I want the name and address.”
“W-w-what?” He actually swayed like he was about to faint. “What are you talking about?”
No, he wasn’t that good an actor. He was genuinely, blankly confused. No clue as to what I was talking about. None.
I’d been so sure.
But I’d been wrong.
Kaine hugged himself and struggled not to cry. His frightened eyes never left my face.
Awkward, this. Very.
I said, “Someone tried to kill me last night. I thought it was you.”
“Me?”
I nodded.
“Are you.” He swallowed and had to start again. “Are you going to kill me?”
I stared at him hard. “Did you try to have me killed?”
“No! No! I swear to God. I swear on a million Bibles. I never did.”
“Then, no. I’m not going to kill you.”
An instant of relief, then his expression grew more wary. Too much telly. I sighed. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going to do anything to you.” I moved to the door of the mobile home.
He took a pace forward. Stopped. “You’re just going to leave?”
“You can lock the door after me.”
“How do I know you won’t come back?”
“You don’t. So keep your nose clean.”
His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed. He put his hand up to the organ in question. “My…nose…clean?”
“Don’t break the law.” He glanced instinctively at the mountain of hot merchandise. I said, “I’d dump that lot at the nearest Oxfam, if I were you.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
I said softly, “I see you when you’re sleeping. I know when you’re awake. I’ll know if you’ve been bad or good. So be good for both our sakes.”
He was standing there motionless as I closed the door behind me and stepped out into the snowy day.
I heard him scrabbling to bolt the door behind me.
Not Bradley Kaine, then. I had been so sure.
If not Kaine, who?
Thoughtfully, I walked back to my car, my boots crunching in the snow. Though it was still afternoon, the mobile park street lamps were coming on and Christmas lights burned in windows. It smelled like wood smoke and pine trees. The sky overhead was leaden and heavy. More snow on the way.
I’d been living an entirely blameless life for the past six months. There was no reason for anyone to want me out of the way. I was no longer privy to state secrets. I was not involved in any operation or enterprise that might get my head blown off. Not until I actually had my teaching degree and entered the classroom.
I pictured Stephen’s wince at my saying such a thing aloud. It was a violent world, right enough. But it didn’t have to be. If there were more men like Stephen and fewer like me…
But back to my own immediate concerns.
The last perso
n I’d had any sort of run in with was Bradley Kaine.
But that dog, as Stephen might have put it, would not hunt.
Where did I go from here?
I reached the car, unlocked it, and climbed inside. Resting my arm on the steering wheel, I stared out at the snow-draped trees and considered my next move.
As hard as it was to believe, it had to be someone from the past. But anyone from my past wouldn’t have missed their mark. Anyone from my past would have finished me last night, not delivered a flesh wound and fled.
I drummed my fingers restlessly.
And then the idea came to me. So obvious I was astonished I hadn’t seriously considered it until now. I’d even thrown it out to the local cops as a decoy.
I did stand in the way of one person.
Bryce Boxer.
* * * * *
Bryce lived in a townhouse on Hisey Avenue in Woodstock. Stephen and I had been to dinner at his house twice. Once would have been plenty for me, but Bryce kept asking us and Stephen couldn’t seem to figure out a polite way to say no. Apparently Mark doesn’t like you wasn’t sufficient.
A wreath of poinsettias hung on the white door. The windows were painted with snowflakes.
Like Bryce wasn’t getting enough snow these days?
I used the shiny brass knocker and in short order the door swung open to the sound of Perry Como and the scent of baking.
“Mark!” Bryce smiled at me in surprise. A Santa hat perched on his thinning fair hair. He wore a reindeer-patterned apron. “Is Stevie with you?” He peered past me.
It occurred to me that I had to use a little restraint here, a little decorum. If I was wrong about Bryce, Stevie would have my head on a platter. So I smiled my most charming smile and said, “No. I was doing some last minute Christmas shopping and I thought, as I was in the neighborhood, I’d stop by.”
“Oh.” He did his best to hide his disappointment—and his puzzlement. “Well, come in! Come in! Have a cookie and a glass of eggnog.”
“Thanks.”
I stepped inside and had a glimpse of myself in the oval mirror that hung in the entryway. Medium height and lightly built, dark hair and razor smile. Nothing to identify me beyond the white square of bandage on my forehead and the unobtrusive silver earring. It didn’t matter. Even if Bryce had tried to kill me, I wasn’t going to harm a hair on his thinning head. I knew Stephen would never get over that. I would find another way to deal with it.
But it had not escaped my notice that, like Bradley Kaine, Bryce seemed neither guilty nor alarmed to see me on his front step.
He turned his back to me, leading the way to the kitchen, raising his voice to be heard over the music, “I’m surprised to see you running errands, Mark. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the news last night. Another shooting. What is this world coming to?”
“I don’t know.”
The living room looked like a bomb had gone off in a craft shop. There were garland and candles and fairy lights and shiny beads everywhere. Several handmade stockings hung from the white fireplace mantel. It looked like someone had tipped a treasure chest over a squat Douglas fir struggling to stay upright beneath the weight of glitter and glass.
Bryce went straight into the kitchen and hauled a couple of trays out of the oven. The smell of vanilla and butter and sugar reminded me that I hadn’t eaten all day.
“Sit down,” Bryce told me. “I’m making snicker doodles. I can’t believe you’re not in the hospital. Although I guess Stevie…” That trailed off. I don’t suppose he wanted to picture Stephen soothing my fevered brow. He said instead, “Do the police know who tried to kill you?”
“They’ve got a pretty good idea.” It was clear to me that Donleavy had not yet interviewed Bryce. Slack. Very slack. But then again, maybe Donleavy was busy checking Bryce’s background and potential alibis. Maybe Donleavy knew something I didn’t.
“That’s a relief!” Bryce spared me a quick smile, busy using a spatula to free the snicker doodles from the baking sheets and dropping them onto cooling racks. “Was it another student?”
“Another student? Why would you say that?”
“It happened at the college, didn’t it? I just assumed it would be a student.”
I was watching him quite closely and I saw absolutely no flicker of fear. No sign of guilt or deceit. No, qualify that. When Stephen’s name came up, yes. Bryce felt guilty about what he still felt for Stephen and he did his best to hide his feelings. But beyond that? No. Nothing. In fact, he was apparently so clear of conscience that it had yet to occur to him that anything sinister lay behind my impromptu call.
He wasn’t stupid, though. Stephen couldn’t have cared for a stupid man. And he had started to care for Bryce before I stumbled back into his life. I gazed around the kitchen and couldn’t help a flash of depression at the thought that maybe this—maybe Bryce—would have made Stephen happier than I could.
The tinsel and snicker doodles and Perry Como, that was all Stephen. Okay, maybe not the reindeer apron. But all the rest of it…I couldn’t help but think there must be times when Stephen wished for something less…tiring.
Yes, that was what had been in his eyes that afternoon. The same thing that had been in his voice last night. Weariness.
There must be times—times like last night—when Stephen wished for something less complicated. More snicker doodles. Fewer bullets.
I couldn’t blame him for that.
I tuned back in as Bryce set a glass of eggnog before me. “I make it myself, from scratch.”
Of course he did.
I said, “Thanks.” Bryce watched wide-eyed as I drained the entire glass. It was unexpectedly delicious. “I missed my lunch,” I offered in explanation.
He started toward the fridge “Let me get you another. Or I could make you something—”
“No. Thank you. I ought to be on my way.”
“But you just got—”
He turned back to me and I could see that he was beginning to put the pieces together. He was flushed and his eyes were too bright.
“I see. You just wanted to stop by and say hello.”
“Yes.” I rose. “Thank you for the drink.”
“Let me send some cookies with you at least.”
“Thank you, but that’s not—”
Bryce said tersely, “I insist.”
Oh hell.
“Thank you then.”
Bryce got out a tin decorated with Scotty dogs and red plaid. He began to fill it with cookies, his movements stiff and jerky.
I watched him for a moment and an unfamiliar impulse seized me. I said, “I remember now. I was supposed to make sure you’re coming to the party tomorrow night.”
An unfamiliar and highly stupid impulse.
Bryce said shortly, “I RSVPed with Stephen yesterday.” He gave me a bleak look and thrust the tin of cookies at me.
I took the cookies and nodded thanks. Bryce did not speak on our way to the front door. I found I was all out of brilliant ideas.
Bryce opened the door.
I said, “So we’ll see you tomorrow night then?”
He nodded tightly. Perry Como was singing “That Christmas Feeling” as the door shut in my face.
* * * * *
“Where the hell have you been?” Stephen shouted when I unlocked the front door and let myself inside our house.
“I—” I hadn’t expected him to be home early, let alone find him standing in the front hall waiting to greet me. I use the term “greet” loosely. “Kill” was probably more accurate.
“Lena had no idea where you were. I thought maybe you went back to the university to poke around, so I called security. I was just about to call the sheriff’s.”
“You…” His eyes looked black in his white face. Clearly he had been terrified. Terrified for me. The idea that he thought I couldn’t take care of myself was so ludicrous, it surprised a disbelieving laugh out of me.
A most serious error.
Stephen’s face realigned itself into lines I’d never seen. “You think it’s funny?” His voice was so quiet I could hear the sudden resounding silence from the kitchen where Lena was working. Baking gingerbread, from the smell of it.
“No. I don’t think it’s funny. I’m sorry you were worried. It didn’t occur to me that you’d be alarmed. I thought I’d be back before you were home.”
He didn’t hear the last part of that. Didn’t hear more than it didn’t occur to me.
“It didn’t occur to you? Someone tried to kill you last night. Someone shot you. And according to you, you have no idea who. You don’t think that would worry me? That wouldn’t occur to you?”
“I can take care of myself, Stephen. You don’t have to worry about me.” Not that his worry didn’t touch me, but—
“Two months ago you didn’t think you could survive another mission. But I’m not supposed to worry when after an attempt on your life you disappear for five hours without a word?”
He was right, of course. As usual. That didn’t make the reminder of my previous vulnerability any more pleasant. In fact, I began to get irritated, too. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been good at my job. Too good for his taste, as I recalled.
“Look, Stephen. I’m sorry you were alarmed. I apologize for that. But I’m not a child or a mental defective. I can take care of myself.”
“Obviously. You did a great job last night.”
I had never thought I could be truly angry with Stephen, but live and learn. “I’m still standing here, aren’t I? What I don’t need is you coming the heavy father and calling around town checking up on me.”
Even as the words were leaving my mouth I knew I was making a bad situation worse. I saw the words hit home, saw Stephen’s expression change again, and I remembered too late his insecurities about the age difference between us.
“If you don’t want me to act like your father, then stop acting like a self-centered child, Mark,” he said without emotion, and turned away.
“Hang on!”
He ignored me and went down the hall and into his study. Buck gave me a mournful look and trotted after him. The door closed behind them.
