by Andrea Speed
“Barely functioning? You cracked that woman like a bad walnut. And don’t let her fool you—she was as silent as a monk before you showed up. All she asked for was cigarettes and water. No one could get a conversation going with her.”
“Yeah, but you’re all cops, and you’re all clean. I’m not a cop, and I’m infected. I have more in common with her than any of you do.”
She shook her head in disbelief, smiling faintly. “Unbelievable. I should call Sikorski in here. Has he ever seen you being humble before?”
“Very funny, Chief.” He took a couple deep gulps of the coffee, but it was all he could stand, so he poured the rest down the sink and balled up the cup before tossing it in the garbage can tucked away in the far corner. “Look, I really am tired. I’ve been working on a case that just took a couple of turns for the worse. I don’t think I have room in my head for this right now. Also, I fucked up when I had a real badge—I’m not sure I’d even trust me with a fake one.”
“You’re a hell of an investigator, Roan. Suicide by cop? Shit, that never even occurred to me. I didn’t even know cats were capable of grouping, even if sick.”
“Well, there is precedent for it, at least among feral female housecats. It’s not unknown for females, especially with kittens, to form a kind of pride, a collective group entity, as there’s greater safety in a pack.” Which was true enough, although it felt odd drawing a connection between cougars and wild housecats. Still, they were all feline, so at least they were in the same general family.
The chief was eying him with barely suppressed amusement. “Only females, huh?”
“Yeah. You know us men—we’re too macho to ever admit we need help.” Suddenly he remembered that was pretty much what Dee had accused him of earlier today. Oh, irony. He could just imagine Dee shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Roan’s general obtuseness.
Roan had turned to go back out, as he really did have to say something to Gordo before he left, when the chief asked a question he wished she hadn’t. “How’s Paris?”
After being with the sick, dying Carmen in that little hotbox, the question was like a Taser to the spine. He could all too easily imagine Paris that ill and that defeated; he was already so very close. He was glad he was facing away from her, because for a moment he thought he might actually get teary eyed, but he managed to hold it back. God, he was so fucking tired. What time was it, anyway? “He’s maintaining,” he replied vaguely, not certain if that was a lie or not.
“How are you?” she asked and then added, as if aware that might be too personal a question, “If there’s anything we can do to help, let me know. You did used to be one of us. We don’t leave men behind.”
“I thought that was the Marines, not cops.”
“Supposedly I’m a Marine drill sergeant. Ask the boys out front if you don’t believe me.”
“Eh, they’re a bunch of pussies,” he said dismissively, and at least as he fled the room, he left her laughing.
The chief hadn’t been alone in the observation room, it seemed, as when he reached Seb’s and Gordo’s put-together desks, they were both a bit stunned that the whole setup had been an attempted suicide by cop. Gordo was surprised enough that he forgot to be angry at Roan, so he decided to take that victory and move on.
Carmen was waiting outside for him, smoking another cigarette and shivering in the cold. She was kind enough to put out her cigarette before getting in the car. She lived on the south side of town, a little out of his way, but nothing that bothered him much. He cranked the heater in the GTO, even though he found it uncomfortable, because it seemed to stop her shivering.
When he dropped her off, she gave him a long hug and thanked him. He really didn’t know why; he hadn’t done much for her at all, but he hugged her back and wished her luck. Maybe she just needed the hug, just like she needed to talk to someone who could understand what desperation really looked like.
It was moments like this when he couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the uninfected. They would never know this feeling; they would never look at themselves in the mirror and wonder if they could survive the punishment of existence one more day.
And now he was wondering if it wouldn’t have been much more humane in the long run if he had just stepped aside and let the SWAT team do their job.
10
Hole in the Earth
ON THE way home, Roan stopped at the first store he came across and started shopping in a slightly numb daze. He was too busy thinking about Paris, about Kevin, about Carmen, about the whole damn mess. He found himself in an aisle staring at a virtual wall of canned vegetables, and had no idea why, as he hated canned vegetables.
He did have to talk to someone, didn’t he? Oh fuck. He never did like therapists much, but they did have a purpose. It was more than he could say for himself much of the time.
When Roan got home, all was quiet, and his stomach rumbled uneasily, reacting finally to the high-octane cop-shop coffee. Before unpacking the groceries, he went upstairs and made sure Par was just sleeping... not dead. Only then did he go downstairs and put the groceries away.
He decided to eat something in hopes of settling his stomach, so he noshed on some chocolate chip mint ice cream while booting up Thora’s laptop. He was afraid it might be password protected, which would make it something of a pain to get past, but luckily Thora hadn’t password protected a damn thing.
The desktop was fairly blank, with a picture of turquoise water and a bright white-sand beach as a background. Along with the Internet browser shortcut and a shortcut to some MP3 files, there were two folders: one marked “Group” and the other marked simply “Others.” He opened the Group folder only to find about a dozen Word documents, which he started opening in order.
It was a diary. Or perhaps memoirs for a book or a blog; it seemed to be in book format. It was clearly about her experiences with the Laurel Springs rehab and recovery group, which was a place specifically for rich people who didn’t want the dirty laundry about their children’s drug addictions coming out. But Thora was happy to air the dirty laundry—more than happy.
Although she only referred to the people in her recovery group by first initials, the descriptions of the families they came from made them easy to suss out. Matt—M.—got off the easiest, probably because he was her friend, but she still described him as “basically pathetic” and “constantly mooning over a man he couldn’t have.” (Ouch.) D.—Drake Stein—was summed up as a preening egotist who had made it a personal goal to bed as many women as possible in the center and, in direct violation of the rules, was having it off with a married counselor nearly twice his age. Behind her back, he slagged her off in the cruelest manner possible, and he had photos he planned to post on the Internet if she didn’t give him prescription pills once he was out of the center.
N.—Nikki Bartolonis—was described as a total airhead, a ditz more concerned with looking good and appearing fashionable than anything else. She got herself hooked on diet pills and didn’t think of herself as a drug addict, mainly because all she wanted to do was fit into a size zero. In rehab, she became bulimic so she didn’t gain weight, but swore Thora to secrecy about it.
T.—Trang, aka Trey—was a closet homosexual who denied he was one because it was a “sin” and “wrong,” and it also jeopardized his position of inheriting his family’s wealth, as his parents made it clear that “fags” were not welcome in the family. He was engaged to be married to the daughter of friends of his family, even though he’d barely even spent any time with her, and had had a fling with Matt at some point, but they had fallen out spectacularly, because Matt thought Trang was a “self-loathing fairy” and wanted nothing to do with a “closet case.” Any mention of his sexuality made Trang “violently angry”—he continued to deny being gay, even after admitting he’d had sex with Matt—and he really wasn’t a drug addict at all, but he thought it was preferable that his family think that rather than come to know he was gay.
G.�
��Roan had no idea who that was, he’d have to ask Matt—was described as a “himbo,” a good-looking rich boy who was coasting his way through life on his parents’ money and had only been sent here to avoid conviction for being caught drunk driving with an ounce of cocaine in his car. He’d had a friend sneak booze into the center for him in a fake shaving cream can. She characterized him as “a Pauly Shore for the ’00s.” (Double ouch.)
DW—Danae Willis—was described as a total “rich bitch” who looked down at everyone in the center and insisted she, too, didn’t have a drug problem; it was just her “gold digger” of a stepfather wanted her out of the way so he could spend more of her mother’s money, which Danae felt was her money by right. Thora called her a “princess without a kingdom,” which Roan felt was rather poetic of her.
Finally, F.—another person he didn’t know—was described as a “Goth queen,” alcoholic and suicidal, who was also the youngest member of the group and had cutting problems, which she attempted to explain away—poorly—as “tribal scarring.” She had left the center two weeks in, after a halfhearted suicide attempt.
Beyond this were stories of Laurel Springs, which seemed rather tony with harsh pretensions, and which was, at its core, largely ineffectual. Thora wasn’t a bad writer, but this tattletale memoir needed a bit more polish.
Still, at least he had a motive for her death now. There were probably a lot of people who would be upset if this ever saw the light of day, and “Trey” Phan had moved up to the top of his interview list. So mention of his sexuality made him “violently angry”? (Thora wrote of an incident where Matt had confronted Trey over the use of an offensive slang term for gays, and Trey got so angry he threw a chair through the “relaxation area” window and threatened to “cave [Matt’s] skull in” if he didn’t shut his “fucking faggot mouth.” Much to Matt’s credit, he invited him to give it a shot, but by that time orderlies arrived to break it up.) Would he be willing to kill to hide it? Funny how whoever set up Eric knew exactly where to pick up a hustler.
Finished with the Group folder, he moved on to the Others folder, but found that, sadly, it had been password protected. Since he was yawning enough that tears were blurring his eyes, he decided he’d call Matt in the morning and see if he had any ideas about a password, and if that was a bust, he’d see if Kevin could crack it for him.
Oh shit—Kevin. That was a whole other can of worms. Again, he’d worry about it tomorrow.
He went upstairs, brushed his teeth and undressed, crawling into bed beside Paris. He was in his dead-to-the-world sleep, so much so that when Roan put his arms around him and snuggled up against his back, he didn’t even stir. Roan breathed in the scent of his hair, of his warm, sleeping skin, and wondered if Paris wanted to die, just like Carmen and her friends. Could he handle it as well if Par wanted to?
That was something to face and handle on another day—assuming he ever could.
HE WAS woken up by the creepy, ambient noise of Vidna Obmana playing on the stereo downstairs, and Roan was surprised to open his eyes to a coldly bright room, another sunny day where the sun’s heat was strangely absent. Even though he heard the thrumming hum of the heater, the air was still remarkably cold. He had to assume Paris hadn’t been up too long himself.
After showering and deciding he was too lazy to shave today, he got dressed and went downstairs to the warm smell of toast, cinnamon, and coffee. He found Paris sitting on the sofa, the laptop balanced on his lap. “So you broke in and did some snooping? How illegal of you,” he said cheerfully.
Paris was more bright-eyed and awake than Roan had seen him in a long time. Wandering out to the kitchen, he saw that a medical kit had been left on the counter. Dee must have been here and dropped off the B-12 shots already, which explained everything. Paris had left out the cinnamon and the bread, but he had to go into the refrigerator to retrieve the honey butter. He’d bought this last night? Weirdness; he could barely remember shopping at all. “I never said I was a saint,” Roan responded, checking out the fridge and freezer to see if he’d bought anything else really weird. Yep, there it was—meatless buffalo chicken wings. If they were meatless, what the hell were they made of? That was it—no more shopping on Vicodin.
“Good thing too, ’cause honey, you ain’t even close.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Hey, that was a compliment! Saints are boring. Also, bad in bed.”
Roan shook his head and smiled but struggled to keep it out of his voice. This was the old Paris again. He almost felt like crying from joy. “You’ve bedded a lot of saints, have you?”
“A couple. The lights from their halos always kept me up.” Paris paused, long enough to get serious. “It’s so weird to hear about someone freaking out because they’re gay in this day and age, isn’t it? I mean, shit, what’s the trauma?”
“Well, there are still a lot of people who think it’s perversion, or should be listed as mental disorder, or would be a whole lot happier if we just went back into the closet and stayed there. There are people who think it’s a choice, like when they were thirteen they woke up one day and said to themselves, ‘You know what—I’m going to be heterosexual!’ See, we made the wrong choice by picking being gay and training ourselves to get turned on by men.”
“You’re speaking of the ultra-religious, I presume. You think Phan’s parents are religious nut jobs?”
“I don’t know. They could just be traditionalists. And by the way, who told you you could read that, snoopy?”
“You taught me well, Obi-Wan. I have become well versed in the ways of the sneak.”
“Don’t blame it on me, you were sneaky when I met you.” His toast was done, so Roan spread the honey butter on and dusted the cinnamon over the top. It was really simple and really good... and perhaps a bit gay, but hey, what could you do? They now had some frou-frou espresso machine, given to them as a “wedding gift” from Paris’s folks (what did you get your son and his husband? Roan had kind of been hoping for matching bowling balls, but Par chided him that his parents weren’t quite that clueless), and Roan had never bothered to learn how to use it, so only Paris operated it. He poured a cup of coffee that smelled strong enough to strip paint—but in a good way—and went out to join Paris on the couch. As soon as he sat down next to him, Paris asked, “What’s Callie’s birthday?”
He had to think for a moment. It didn’t help that he’d come to think of her by her real name, Thora, not her assumed name. “June 17th, 1988. Why?”
Paris didn’t answer, just typed the numbers 061788 into the box that popped up when you tried to open the Others folder. It came back with an error message. “Damn it.”
“It’s rarely that easy,” Roan commiserated.
“We can keep trying. What was the name of her childhood pet? What’s her favorite color? Where was she born?”
“Boston.”
He tried that too, with no effect. “Damn it.”
“I’ll call Matt and see if he has any ideas, but I may have to turn it over to a more expert hacker after that.”
Par gave him a very knowing look. “Kevin, perhaps?”
He lifted up his slice of toast. “We’re not discussing that now. I’m eating first.”
“Chicken.”
Roan just bit into his toast and chewed it, giving him an evil look.
Paris sighed dramatically and turned back to the screen, trying a few other password guesses at random. “You haven’t talked to her Aunt Hannah yet, have you?”
He took a gulp of the coffee, which was very strong but rather pleasant in spite of it, and then admitted, “No, but I was going to talk to her today.”
“Good. Let me have Trey.”
Roan wasn’t sure he’d heard Paris correctly. “What?”
Paris looked at him with a sly, amused smile that was just this side of evil. “Oh, I’m so good with closet cases. Do you know how many of those boys I slept with in college said ‘I’m not queer’? They must have had untraditional defi
nitions of queer, considering what I did to them shortly after they said that.”
“Yes, but it’s not fair, because you’re you, and they’d almost have to be dead not to think you were hot. Also, you were Satan in college, weren’t you?”
“I prefer Lucifer,” Paris replied, giving him a big grin. Paris reached up and ran his knuckles over Roan’s cheek. “Speaking of hot, the stubbly look suits you.”
“I was too lazy to shave. I’ll do it later when the itching drives me insane.”
“Oh, and here I was looking forward to a bit of beard burn later on.”
Roan raised an eyebrow at that, even as he wondered if they had time to fool around this morning. “You’re just trying to manipulate me, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Once a cocktease, always a cocktease.”
Paris leaned forward, so close Roan thought he was going to kiss him, but he stayed just out of range. “And if I can manipulate you, just think of the effect I’ll have on a pent-up closet case.” He then brushed his lips against Roan’s and sat back, grinning from ear to ear.
Roan tried to scowl at him but had to look away and scoff, shaking his head at being so easily played by him. How awful was that? He wondered at what age he’d become immune to Par’s machinations, and realized with a sudden, sickening jolt that he’d never know. “You’ll kill the poor boy.”
“He’s young, he’ll survive.”
“He could be dangerous, Par. From what Thora said about him, it seems he projects his self-loathing outward.”
“Again, no worries. I’ve dealt with that kind before too. And I might be kind of sickly right now, but I’m still an ex-jock, still the former hockey and football player. I have a forearm shiver that’ll make you spit your teeth out and a hip check that’ll bust your ribs. I’m not afraid of getting physical. In fact, I kind of like it.” He raised his eyebrows in a deliberately lascivious manner. “But it won’t come to that. He’ll be so paralyzed with lust he won’t know what to do.”
