Orientation (Borealis Investigations Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  “You fought with Mark. You wanted to stick to the plan; he didn’t. He wouldn’t tell you where he’d hidden the drive.” Shaw’s fingers tore at ropes, but he couldn’t reach the knots, and all he was doing was giving himself a bad case of rope burn. “We saw the signs of a fight at the apartment.”

  “Keep going.”

  “You were in trouble. Things were over with Mark, but you’d gambled everything on that flash drive. You couldn’t go back to the old arrangement with Regina; Regina must have known you were involved as soon as the recordings were stolen. If you didn’t get those recordings, you’d be back hustling on the street again. And Regina had to destroy that flash drive. She knew that copies would dilute the value of her blackmail—it might even make it worthless. So she had to find you as soon as she could, which meant you weren’t safe, not until you had something to bargain with. Or until you had money so you could make a break for it. But both of you were stuck because Mark had hidden the drive, and neither you nor Regina could find it.”

  “You’re so close. Keep going.”

  “Were the attacks on you real? The men following you, was that real? Or were those just to play on my sympathy?”

  “I want to hear your version.”

  “Brueckmann’s timeline didn’t make sense. Everybody else had been blackmailed for months, years. Long enough, in fact, that the cops got wind of it and decided to get involved. Everybody except Brueckmann, who told us that someone had contacted him only a few weeks ago. I should have realized how far-fetched the story sounded: someone showing up years later to blackmail him with video from a single night? Brueckmann hadn’t seen any proof and refused to pay. That was you, wasn’t it? Test-driving your plan with Mark.”

  Leaning forward, Matty set the knife’s tip against Shaw’s bare stomach with just enough pressure to blanch the skin. “It was Mark, actually. Mark always liked to shoot from the hip. I told him it was stupid—what if Brueckmann demanded proof?—but Mark didn’t listen. That thing about subbing, that was another of Teddi’s rumors. And that whole plan went spectacularly badly, but somehow it just gave Mark a taste for it. Making Brueckmann squirm. He liked that, even if he didn’t get the money. So Mark was planning on going big with the blackmail game. For Mark, it didn’t have to last. It just had to work in the short term. I warned him that the blackmail would be diluted—that’s your word, right? People wouldn’t want to pay two blackmailers. But Mark was stupid.” Matty pressed a little harder, and blood slicked down Shaw’s stomach, running into the patch of reddish-brown hair between his legs. “I’m getting bored, Shaw. Where’s the flash drive?”

  In Shaw’s mind flashed the picture of that ancient gas oven, and he scrambled for something to say, anything, just to keep Matty talking. The longer he kept him talking, the better chance Shaw had of freeing himself. Or maybe Pari would show up because she’d forgotten a cupcake in the fridge. Or North would swing by because he wanted to talk about that kiss—that stupid kiss. But even as Shaw was thinking those possibilities, despair was settling inside him, dark and heavy on his lungs and heart and gut. Nobody was coming. Not tonight. Not soon enough.

  “You picked me because you knew I was a soft touch,” Shaw said. “But you couldn’t tell me all of it, so you had to come up with a story. You gave us enough bread crumbs to lead us to Mark’s apartment, and you thought we’d find him, beat the blackmail out of him, and send you on your way. But it didn’t go like that.”

  “No.” Matty seemed to consider the knife for a moment before pulling it back and easing the hot prick of pressure in Shaw’s gut. “No, I didn’t think Mark would be able to hide as well as he did. And I thought you two would be better detectives. Then you asked me about Mark. You said people are stupid when they run. They go back to familiar places. And he loved that fucking barbeque shack, so all I had to do was check the lot each night for his car. One night, there it was, and I called you, and I put on the wig and the dress and the trench coat, and . . .” Matty shrugged and grinned.

  “If the cops hadn’t been waiting, looking into the blackmail, we might have gotten onto his trail earlier.” Shaw smiled. “And when Regina showed up at the barbeque joint, standing in plain view of the cameras, I assumed that she had followed Mark the same way we had: she had analyzed the contents of his apartment and deduced where he’d gone. Of course, that didn’t make any sense in hindsight. North and I are good at what we do. Very good. Why would an aging drag queen with no history of investigation be able to track him even more easily than we were? I should have seen it then.” Shaw tilted his head, studying Matty’s pallor, the hectic color in his cheeks, the brilliant hardness of his eyes. “Regina bragged about how everything she wore in drag could be picked up in stores on Gravois. It wasn’t hard for you to replicate the wig or the nails or the dress. You had to stay far enough back, at a safe distance, so that the security camera couldn’t pick up your skin color, but that worked just fine. When did Mark recognize you?”

  “Almost right away. The little shit would have tried to run if I hadn’t been holding a gun on him. It would have been better for him if he had run—he might have gotten away. I was going to get the drive’s location out of him, but he surprised me on the path, and I shot him before I had a chance to really work on him.” A bloodless smirk curled one corner of Matty’s mouth. “And then you and North did me the service of getting rid of Regina. She was an incalculable cunt, by the way. And she’d been taking advantage of people, blackmailing them for years. People like you, Shaw. Guys that had never been with someone. Guys who weren’t ready to come out or who felt like they couldn’t come out. She used all their fear and self-hate against them. She got rich off it. I think you should thank me for letting you kill that bitch. With her gone and Mark dead, nobody could tie me back to this mess. I thought I’d just hang around and see if you guys could find the drive. But you were acting funny tonight, and I got this itch between my shoulder blades. I guess I just wasn’t willing to take the risk anymore.”

  Shaw shrugged. He felt the ropes ride up, felt them catch on the chair’s upper frame, on the verge of slipping loose. He just had to keep Matty talking, just had to—

  With a sigh, Matty stood. He laid the knife against Shaw’s chest again and slid an eighth of an inch into Shaw’s flesh, just below the sternum, and a red line snaked down Shaw’s skin. Shaw gasped and twisted. Something red sparked in the back of his head, and he was back in the alley, back with the West End Slasher, back with Carl who was already dead.

  “Stay with me, baby,” Matty was saying, slapping Shaw hard once, then again, the tip of the knife still buried in Shaw’s flesh. “Stay with me just a little longer. Tell me where the flash drive is.”

  “You—” Shaw was shaking. He bit his tongue, and blood sparked inside his mouth. “You’re just going to kill me.”

  “Baby.” Matty slapped him again, then caught Shaw’s long hair, jerking his head back and up. “I’m going to kill you if you don’t. But first, I’ll take your balls off like that fuck-up tried to do when you were in college. And then I’ll take your dick off. And then I’ll take your nose and your lips and your eyes. And I’ll bury this knife in you somewhere to make sure you take a long time dying. A long time. Long enough that North sees the fucking monstrosity I made out of you, and that’ll be the only way he ever thinks about you for the rest of his life. Tell me, and tell me the truth, and I’ll go. You can keep panting after his freckled Irish ass like a bitch in heat, and we’ll never see each other again.”

  Shaw squeezed his eyes shut. In his mind, he saw Tucker, drunk, chasing North around the house with the strap for the rest of their lives. He saw Tucker, drunk, in Trace Montenegro’s dorm room, drunk as fuck, laughing about his fucking riddle. He saw Tuck with his head down. Heard Tuck mumbling. Something about a riddle. Oxymoron, something about oxymoron.

  “It’s a riddle,” Shaw said, eyes still closed, his head down.

  “No fucking riddles.” The blade twisted, a
nd Shaw had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming. “Where is it, Shaw? You haven’t used those balls much in your life, but you probably don’t want to lose them.”

  Shaw wet his lips. He let his voice drop to a whisper. “What part of the body is an oxymoron?”

  “What?” The blade pulled away, and even with his eyes closed, Shaw knew Matty had moved closer—an unthinking reaction to a poorly heard question, the way almost anyone would respond. Almost anyone. “What the fuck did you—”

  As hard as he could, Shaw brought his knee up into Matty’s crotch. Matty screamed, hinging at the waist, and Shaw launched himself up. The ropes slid off the back of the chair—Matty hadn’t even bothered tying them around the legs, just a loose wrap around the back so that they slid up and off with no problem—and drove his forehead straight into Matty’s face. The contact imploded Shaw’s brain, a huge flash-bulb blank, but he felt cartilage crumple and blood spray his cheek where Matty’s nose shattered under Shaw’s forehead.

  Then Shaw had his eyes open, and he was screaming, “A headbutt, you dumb fuck, a headbutt.” Matty fell, one hand at his crotch, the other pressed to the bloody ruin of his face, and he was screaming. He looked like he’d lost some teeth, but it was hard to tell through all the blood. The knife hit the ground and slid under the sofa.

  “Fuck,” Shaw screamed. He didn’t care about quiet anymore. “Fuck!”

  Squatting, he twisted, trying to get his bound hands under the couch. His fingers scraped up dust bunnies and the ridges of the floorboards and a crinkling packet that Shaw guessed was leftover from the time he’d let North eat gummy worms up here and—there. His fingers flexed instinctively, tightening around the handle, and Shaw scrambled away. Matty was still on the ground, still blowing bubbles of blood as he screamed, but he was rolling onto his knees, wiping his face.

  “I’m going to kill you.” At least, that’s probably what he said. His ruined mouth and nose mangled the words. “You twink faggot, I’m going to kill you.”

  And then somehow, against all odds, Matty—churchboy Matty, blond, pretty, delicate Matty—was getting to his feet, staggering, coming after Shaw as Shaw raced down the hall.

  Shaw was naked. Barefoot. His arms tied behind his back. Even with a broken nose and a few missing teeth, even with a concussion—Christ, let the little fucker have a concussion at least—Matty would be able to chase Shaw down without any problem. Shaw wouldn’t make it out of the building. Fuck, Shaw wouldn’t make it as far as the kitchen.

  He jagged right, cutting into the bathroom and pressing the door shut, letting all his weight fall against it. A moment later, Matty crashed into the door. Wood splintered and popped. Matty hammered on it, and fury rendered his screams unintelligible—just long, bloody shrieks. Then Matty crashed into the door again, and it humped open a few inches before Shaw managed to slam it shut again.

  Matty screamed again, wordless until two distinct sounds emerged again and again: “Kill you. Kill you. Kill you.”

  Wood buckled. Splintered. Shaw contorted his upper body, bracing his shoulders against the door, his waist arching out so that he could work the blade up and back. The edge of the knife sliced along the inside of his arm, but it caught the rope too, and hope ignited in Shaw’s chest as frayed strands of hemp uncurled and tickled his raw, bloody skin. Sawing back and forth with the knife, Shaw staggered as Matty hurled himself against the door again. The wood bucked out under Matty’s weight. It skidded a half inch before catching on Shaw’s heels, hitting hard enough to bruise—but at least it stopped. Shaw’s hands jumped with the force of the impact, and the blade skipped up, lacerating his arm again, and he wanted to howl. He wanted to scream.

  So he did. He screamed, and his screams were wordless like Matty’s. Some of the scream was hurt. Some of it was for Matty, and some of it was for North, and for the first time in seven years, since that moment in the alley when Shaw’s brain started skipping forward, leaving blanks in the events of that night, he screamed for himself.

  The sudden razoring of pain at his wrist was the first sign that the knife had passed through the ropes. Hemp spilled down, brushing the back of his legs, sticking to bloodstains that had already coagulated on pale skin. Shaw spun against the splintering wood of the door so that he faced the doorway. In places, the paneling had already split, and when Matty crashed into the barrier again, the wood gave way and revealed a rough triangle of the hall.

  Shifting the knife, adjusting its weight in his hand, Shaw hammered on the door. “Come on, you stupid shiteater. Come on. Come the fuck on!”

  Nothing from the hallway. Only the hurricane of Shaw’s breathing echoing back from the bathroom tile.

  Then, footsteps.

  Heavy footsteps.

  Clunky footsteps.

  Distant footsteps.

  The creak of the stairs under the weight of serious muscle.

  Floorboards under the tread of a beat-up pair of Red Wings.

  “North,” Shaw shouted. “North, get the fuck out. Run!”

  The steps stopped; they started again immediately with a speed and force that grew louder. He was coming up the stairs. He was running. Shaw wanted to scream. He did scream. He wondered why he’d spent so much of his life not screaming because it felt like the only natural sound, the only real sound he’d ever made.

  North was going to come up the stairs, and Matty was out there. Matty was dangerous.

  Shaw threw open the door before that realization had finished crystalizing in his head. Matty charged out of the darkness. He had been waiting. He had calculated the most likely way for Shaw to react, and once again, he had been right. As Matty bore down on Shaw, Matty swung a length of chain. It was an ugly weapon, a street weapon, and Shaw knew with the instinctive appraisal that lurked under the level of consciousness that Matty had carried the chain on the street, had carried it when he hustled, had carried it with the same vicious survival instinct that manifested now.

  The chain swept out, lashing toward Shaw’s neck. Shaw flinched, bringing up the knife, and the combination of movements saved his life. The chain cracked against the blade first with a metallic shimmer, then snapped hard against Shaw’s hand, and then the end of the chain popped like a whip against the back of Shaw’s neck. If the knife and Shaw’s hand hadn’t absorbed some of the force, the chain would have ripped open skin. It might have broken his neck.

  Shaw didn’t even feel the blow. Something had changed inside his head. It had changed the moment he had heard North’s steps. Conscious thought was gone, but instead of the darkness that had swallowed so much of Shaw’s life—that black surf washing over him, drowning him—everything grew bright. North. North was here. North was in danger. That thought threw off sparks like light refracted by arctic ice. The glitter of light on ice blinded Shaw, but it wasn’t dark. It was so bright that there wasn’t room for anything else.

  Inside that brightness, Shaw lunged at Matty. Matty pulled back the chain, but he was too slow. Shaw reached him first. Shaw was moving easily. Quickly, yes. But easily. Every move controlled. Every move calm. Every move coming from that spin of frozen, shattered light.

  Yoga was about the mind, the body, the spirit. It was about being present in the moment. And this moment was Shaw’s mind and body and spirit driving toward a single goal. This moment was the ice-rim light of North’s eyes. This moment was the blade stuttering in Shaw’s hand as it bucked along Matty’s ribs, found passage, and slid into the boy’s thin chest. Matty slapped the chain against Shaw’s side, but the blow was half-hearted, and Shaw didn’t feel it inside that brilliant, glittering space. Then Matty staggered back, coughing blood. He sat hard, his hand going to his chest, to the knife still stuck there, and he looked like he might try to pull it free. Then he coughed again, and more blood spilled down his chest, and he laid his head back against the wall, and he died.

  “Shaw, holy fuck, Shaw, Shaw.” North slammed into him at something like twenty miles an hour, carryin
g both of them another yard down the hall, past Matty, past the blood draining across the floor. North’s arms wrapped around Shaw, cradling him, North’s face pressed against Shaw’s, North’s breath hot on Shaw’s cheeks, North’s voice cracking in Shaw’s ears as he swore a blue streak. Then North pushed back, studying Shaw, turning his head, grabbing his arms, his fingers running bloody prints up to the ribboned flesh at Shaw’s wrists where he had cut away the ropes. North was yelling. North was screaming. But his hands were steady as he wrapped towels around Shaw’s arms. His touch was soft.

  “I didn’t mean to.” Shaw knew what he was saying over and over again, and he knew it wasn’t even really the truth because what made everything so horrible was that he had meant to, at the end. He had meant all of it. It had been North’s life on the line, and so Shaw had meant it, no matter how much he wished he hadn’t.

  And then he couldn’t seem to say anything, and he kept shaking. He tried to tell North that maybe he was having a seizure, maybe it was adult-onset epilepsy because the shaking was so bad, but he couldn’t even manage that much. All he could do was let North draw him down onto the couch, let North drag him against his chest, let North’s hand turn Shaw’s face into his chest where the smell of Irish Spring and American Crew bloomed, let North’s fingers tremble between his shoulder blades, and shake and shake and shake until it seemed the most unfair thing in the entire universe was that Shaw couldn’t fall apart completely, couldn’t just shake apart until he ceased to exist.