Orientation (Borealis Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  “You know,” Shaw said, still facing Brueckmann through the bars, “for most people, BDSM is an opportunity to explore their own issues with trust and power. I think finding a nice dom could do you a world of good.”

  “Fuck you, you fucking—”

  Shaw took out his phone and snapped a picture of Brueckmann. Brueckmann just about swallowed his tongue. Then Shaw took another picture. And another.

  “Just in case,” Shaw told him.

  “Shaw?” North said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You coming?”

  “Yeah. Right now.”

  Brueckmann’s howls followed them out onto the landing, and then North pulled the door shut, and there remained only the sounds of the city, and the warmth of North’s hand on Shaw’s back, guiding him down the steps, and the cool dampness of the spring night on the back of Shaw’s neck, where from time to time he could feel North’s breath close enough to be a kiss. They had won. Together, the two of them, always together, they had won. Suddenly, even after having his neck stomped, even after being shoved in a dog crate, even after the horror of facing Lee Brueckmann—even after all that, Shaw thought it had been pretty much a perfect night.

  Chapter 17

  Outside Pigs and Pups, Shaw wanted to go back to the office, rehash what they had learned, but North said he had to get home. He didn’t get in the car, though. He just stood there, fists balled up inside the Carhartt jacket so that they made big lumps in the pockets. He was pale in the gray surf from the sodium lamps; the goose egg on his head looked enormous, and blood from the split skin near his eye forked along his jaw and cheekbone.

  “Are you sure you’re ok? Maybe I should drive you to an urgent care.”

  “God, no.” But he didn’t get in the car.

  “North, I really think—”

  North surprised Shaw for the second time that night by embracing him again. The sudden rush of heat, of pressure from those strong arms, of the smell of American Crew and leather and Irish Spring and cigarette smoke—from the club, maybe?—hit harder than any punch, and Shaw couldn’t remember what he’d been about to say.

  “That was fucked up in there,” North said, his face turned into Shaw’s neck.

  Before Shaw could say anything, North released him, stepped back, and hurriedly got into the Dodge Caravan. The minivan clanked and clattered and gasped away from the curb. At the intersection, it died, and even through the Caravan’s closed windows, Shaw could hear North swearing.

  Shaw got in his car, but before he could start the engine, his phone rang. He dragged it out, guessing that North needed a ride home. Instead, to his surprise, Matty’s name flashed on the screen. And—second surprise—it was a video call.

  “Hello?”

  The video came in at a decent quality. Matty was holding the phone high, his face taking up most of the screen, although a brick wall showed in the background. The lighting was strange—too bright, and a harsh white that Shaw didn’t remember from the lamps in Matty’s loft. The brick looked different too, but maybe that was just the camera.

  “Shaw? Oh. Hey. Um. Are you home, by any chance?”

  “No, I’m still working. What’s going on? Why is the light funny?”

  Matty squeezed his eyes shut in embarrassment. “I was trying to, uh, I’ve got these wrinkles right here, by my eyes, and I thought maybe I could wash them out with the light.”

  “You don’t have wrinkles.”

  “Oh,” Matty said, opening his eyes like it was news to him.

  Before Shaw could ask his next question, the video pixelated—bad connection—and then, when it cleared, a burst of laughter and voices sounded in the background.

  “Dang it,” Matty whispered.

  “The light’s weird,” Shaw said, “and the brick looks different. I’m pretty sure you’re not having a party, but I hear voices.”

  Matty bit his lip and looked away.

  “Where are you?” Shaw asked.

  “It was supposed to be a surprise. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “Jesus, Matty, are you back at the office?”

  “I thought you’d be home by now.”

  “It’s—Christ, quarter after eleven? It’s late. You said you thought people were following you. You were scared. Why are you out—”

  “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I know it was stupid, but you were so nice, and I just wanted to, I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sorry, this was so stupid.”

  But Shaw knew why Matty had gone back to the offices. He didn’t want to know—part of him thought his ego was getting too big, and that part of him sounded a lot like North—but he knew. And he tried to soften his voice.

  “Matty, I’ve got stuff to do still.”

  “You’ll be home soon, though. Right? I can just—I’ll sit in my car.”

  More voices, louder, rang out, and Matty flinched and glanced off camera.

  “Is that Octavius and his boys? Just ignore them. They’re good guys, just loud.”

  “This was so stupid,” Matty whispered. He looked like he might cry. “I’ll go home.”

  “I’m sorry,” Shaw said. “I’m working your case, Matty, and I’m not heading home yet.” That was a lie, but Shaw wasn’t ready for . . . for whatever was coming. “I’ll make it up to you. We’ll get breakfast tomorrow. Or brunch. Something not too early, all right?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “You didn’t bother me.”

  “I guess I better go.”

  “Get in your car. Drive straight home. Lock the door.”

  “I will.”

  “Brunch tomorrow. Or maybe lunch.”

  Matty’s smile was small, but it was there. “It’s getting later and later. Pretty soon you’re going to say dinner.”

  “Lunch. I promise. I’ll call you.”

  “Night, Shaw.”

  “Night. Straight home, Matty. You hear?”

  He nodded, and his smile got a little brighter. With a wave, he ended the call.

  Shaw slumped in his seat. This thing with Matty, the way it felt, the way it was moving, the speed of it—

  Blowing out a breath, Shaw started the car and headed home. Alone in the Mercedes, with the leather seats heating comfortably beneath him, with the city made beautiful in grayscale, Shaw let Matty’s call fade into the background. He tried to process what had happened over the last hour. North liked to tease him about how much he used that word, but that was just North being North; North liked to tease him about just about everything. Shaw’s mind kept short-circuiting, jumping back. The suddenness of seeing the blade appear at North’s throat. The shock of Jeremy’s hand on Shaw’s shoulder, and then the immense force windmilling him across the room, and the weight of Jeremy’s combat boot on Shaw’s neck. The red panic in Shaw’s brain as oxygen dwindled, the slick leather under his nails as he clawed at Jeremy’s leg, trying to free himself. Worst of all, though, was the helplessness. It had been like the alley again, with Carl dead at his feet, and a black surf rolling in over Shaw. He hadn’t been able to do anything to help North; the darkness had swallowed him.

  Suddenly, the only light in the world seemed to come from the Mercedes’ dash, and Shaw felt like he was sinking in that black surf again, going under. Drowning. He jerked the wheel, felt the tires rumble against the curb, and pumped the brakes. Head against the steering wheel, he forced himself to breathe. That shorted-out circuit kept looping him back in: the blade, the tilt-a-whirl room, the panic lights in his brain.

  Shaw fumbled with the dash, dimming the glow, but he couldn’t turn off the beacon light inside his head. North. He’d been worried about himself, fuck yes, but he’d also been so goddamn afraid for North that it had opened a part of Shaw that he hadn’t faced in a long time. It was like he’d known, on the surface, how he felt when he saw North, how his heart sped up when he smelled him, how every accidental touch sent his body into overdrive. And then to
night, like a meteor, had slammed into Shaw and left a crater deep enough to bury the dinosaurs. Now he could see again—he had been forced to see—how very deep what he felt for North went. Not just deep. All the way down. When Brueckmann had held the knife to North’s throat—

  Before Shaw had fully finished thinking about—processing—what he was going to do, he had spun the wheel and dropped his foot down on the gas; the Mercedes zipped a neat u-turn that sent Shaw speeding back toward the highway.

  As Shaw guided the Mercedes onto I-44, the city dropped below him like a field of amber fireflies. He wasn’t going to tell North about his feelings. North was married; nothing good would come of telling him. But Shaw knew that the loop inside his brain wasn’t going to let up. If he tried to go home, if he took the stairs behind the kitchen up into the darkness, if he lay in bed, it wouldn’t matter what kind of ocean sounds he played in the background, nor how much lavender essential oil he put in the diffuser, nor how much melatonin he swallowed, he’d never get to sleep. He’d keep going back to the knife, the cartwheel, the boot. Back to the crater that had been blown into him. He just needed to see North. Talk to him. Process what had happened tonight.

  He’s sweet, but a little too soy boy for me.

  Shaw took the Elm exit and followed it north, into Webster Groves. The city, one of the innermost suburbs, had huge, old trees and huge, old houses, and it had Webster University, and it had a lot of money. If you weren’t going to live in the city—and Shaw had never really understood why someone wouldn’t—then Webster Groves was the next best thing. And of course, Tucker refused to live in the city. Tucker had to have a big house. A really big house. A really expensive big house. In Webster Groves.

  The house sat back on the lot, like so many of the houses in Webster, and an old walnut tree and a much smaller Japanese maple fronted the road; a mixture of elm and maple dotted the rest of the grounds. In April, with most trees still in bud, it was easy to see straight back to the house. The lights were on.

  Shaw parked on the street, and he hoofed it up the long drive, shivering as the cold humidity of the April night soaked into him. The crisp sound of his footfalls shook him out of the reverie he had experienced in the car, and now this all seemed foolish. North was exhausted. He was hurt. He probably just wanted Tucker to take care of him, probably just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep, and Shaw was being a baby.

  For a moment, Shaw hesitated. Then he kept going. Be true to yourself, that’s what Dr. Farr always said. Be honest about what you need. And what Shaw needed, what he’d needed since freshman year, was North McKinney. But since that wasn’t going to happen, the other thing he needed was a friend to talk to. And North might pull a face about it, and he might bitch about it, but at the end—in Shaw’s mind, he was back on the street corner outside Pigs and Pups, North’s arms around him, North’s voice like gravel as he said, That was fucked up in there—North would listen, and North would talk, and after fifteen minutes or an hour, Shaw could go home and sleep.

  In the front of the house, the blinds were lowered, and light glared out between the slats. It was such a tall house, such a big house, and there was so much light for just two people. Something about that much light unhinged a trapdoor in Shaw’s brain, and the blackness beneath that trapdoor swirled with half-formed thoughts and fears. He skipped the front door. Walking up to the front door right now, tonight, with all that light bleeding out of the house, felt like he’d be painting a target on his forehead.

  Instead, Shaw followed the drive around the house, passed the detached garage where Tucker kept his Beamer. The Caravan didn’t merit a place in the garage, apparently, because it sat at the end of the drive like a whipped dog.

  Shaw let himself through the gate in the fence, took the three steps up onto the porch, and paused. The windows in back had their blinds raised. On the other side of the glass, the kitchen and the living room were flooded with light. He couldn’t see anybody, not yet, but he heard voices.

  “I was at work,” came one of them. It sounded like somebody doing a bad imitation of North—the voice having gone through some kind of chemical wash that left only the tight fiber of fear. “I swear to Christ, I wasn’t—”

  The pop wasn’t a gunshot, although after the night’s events, Shaw’s pulse still kicked like a racecar. And then there was another, and another. They came so fast and so close together that, at the conscious level, Shaw was still trying to figure out what they were. Deeper in his mind, where that trapdoor had swung open, the black waters roiled, and Shaw’s stomach dropped because he did know. Kind of.

  “Like last night?” Pop. That was Tucker’s voice, only harder than Shaw had ever heard it. “Like fucking last night when you came home with fucking booze on your breath, smelling like fucking cigarettes? And now tonight, the same thing?” Pop. “Smelling like a fucking beer can.” Pop. “Like a fucking ashtray.” Pop. “I’m surprised I can’t smell the fucking jizz on you.” Pop. “I’m surprised I can’t smell the fucking cum-dump sewer you’ve got for a cunt.” Pop. Pop. Pop.

  North staggered backward into Shaw’s line of sight, hands held up. Shaw couldn’t see his face, could only see the familiar lines of his shoulders and his back and his arms, but all distorted now, all mangled into curves and hunches that Shaw had never seen before.

  Tucker followed. He had something in his hand that looked like a belt, but it wasn’t a belt. It was leather, Shaw guessed, and at full length, it was probably three feet long. Right then, Tucker had a portion of it coiled around his fist, and as Shaw watched, Tucker brought his arm back and snapped the leather toward North. It clipped the back of North’s hand with another of those soft pops. And suddenly all Shaw could see—the rest of the world blacked out for a moment—were the years that North had come to work with his hands taped, with split knuckles, with broken weals across the backs. Years. Years.

  “Tuck, come on, come on. Tuck, I swear to Christ. I swear, I swear to Christ, there’s nobody. It’s a job. It’s my job. It’s my fucking job, and I’m not fucking around, I’m not screwing—”

  Pop. And following the leather, Tucker threw a lazy punch that caught North in the face and snapped his head back like it was on a trick hinge.

  Years, Shaw thought. Years of black eyes. Shaw couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel anything except those same black combers rolling in to swallow him, the way they had in the alley with Carl, the way they had when Hanson shoved him down a flight of stairs, the way they had in Brueckmann’s office. Years that North had come to work and said he’d just been sparring. He liked boxing. He’d been taking boxing classes, and sometimes the classes got rough. Years.

  “I know. I know, I know, I know.” Tucker was spitting the words, his arms waving wildly, the leather strap flicking the air like a cobra’s tongue. “Ever since freshman year you’ve been letting that fucking twink breed you. He’s in your fucking head somehow. He’s got you wrapped around his finger. You think I don’t know? You think I can’t smell him on you when you come home? You think I haven’t stopped by the office and known what you two were doing, fucking known, and you just keep doing it. You keep doing it to make me angry. You keep doing it because you want to make a fool out of me.” Tucker pressed forward with each word, driving North deeper into the kitchen until the two men were parallel with Shaw, and the only thing separating them were a few feet of air and glass and light. Tucker dropped the coiled leather and grabbed a chef’s knife from the block on the counter. “I’m done. I’m done being a fucking laughing stock.”

  The first swipe came faster than Shaw expected, but Tucker was a total amateur, and every inch of his body screamed what he was going to do next. North dodged easily, and he danced back as Tucker took another slash.

  “I fucking love you,” Tucker screamed, bringing the blade down in another vicious arc. “And this is how you fucking repay me.”

  North took two more quick steps back, dragged open the pantry door—Shaw reme
mbered the pantry, had seen the pantry, had been inside once when North sent him to look for table crackers—and slammed the door shut.

  Tucker leaned into the door, trying to force it open. He screamed. He gouged the wood with the knife, driving the blade into the door over and over again.

  Shaking, Shaw took a step toward their back door. It was glass; Shaw could kick it in if it was locked. Whatever paralyzed him a moment before had passed, and now the only thought in his mind was getting to North.

  Only—

  The rational part of Shaw’s mind dragged him to a stop.

  Only this had been going on for years. The bruises. The split knuckles. The beatings. The screaming. Even the knife—all of Tucker’s movements had been dramatically telegraphed, and North had played his part like they’d rehearsed this scene a hundred times. Which they had, Shaw realized. They’d practiced and practiced and practiced.

  Taking a deep breath to slow his pulse, Shaw studied the kitchen through the window. The worst of it was already over. Tucker had dropped the knife. He was leaning against the pantry door like it was the only thing in the world. He was sobbing. He was calling North’s name. He was begging.

  What would happen if Shaw went in there? He had one vivid scene in his mind: the way the knife would slide into Tucker’s belly, the dense resistance of abdominal muscles before the greasy, smooth passage through the bowels. It was so cold tonight, and Shaw was shaking, could barely stand he was shaking so hard, but in his mind, in that vision, his hand was steady, and the knife went in like Shaw was dropping a quarter in a slot machine.

  What would happen if Shaw went in there?

  North would—

  Shaw didn’t know what North would do. He had reached the edge of imagination. This part of North, this aspect, Shaw had never even considered. Never even let himself think possible. And to walk in there now, to call out North’s name, to force both of them to acknowledge that this . . . that this . . . that this shit was happening to North, it would be a violation. Because North hadn’t told Shaw. North had lied and lied and lied for years to cover this. There had been so many lies. The lies about boxing. But also the lies that North never had to say out loud. The lies when he talked about happy vacations with Tuck. The lies when he talked about birthday presents and spa weekends and trips to wineries. The lies about how supportive Tucker had been throughout the Marvin Hanson lawsuit. The lies, the fucking lies, when Shaw had stood here on this very porch on summer nights, a sweating Schlafly in one hand, and watched the two of them laugh and touch and orbit each other like some perfect fucking domestic galaxy. And to go in there now would be to rip away the lies and force all of them to confront the truth.