by Andrea Speed
“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 Par and gave him a suspicious look. “You know that’s not 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. Roan 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’d missed rush hour, and now it was prime time, with the only people out most likely to be on their way to or from restaurants or bars rather 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.
And maybe that wasn’t a melodramatic feeling brought on by thoughts of mortality. Because after waiting for what seemed like an undue length of time at an intersection, he turned down Fawcett Street, and quite suddenly a black Lincoln Navigator, its headlights off, veered from the oncoming lane and headed straight for them, its engine roaring like an angry beast as it picked up speed.
14
Lawyers, Guns, and Money
THE grill of the Navigator appeared impossibly huge as it raced to meet them, and yet time seemed to slow. Roan knew he didn’t have time to get out of the way... or did he? He turned the nose of the bike away, not too sharply, and opened the throttle, figuring he had a shot of just missing the bastard.
Heart in his throat, he felt the street threatening to slide away beneath them as they drove past the Navigator, so close Roan could almost feel the damn thing. As soon as they were past, he took them right off the road and onto the shoulder, shedding speed and turning sharply enough that he slewed up a rooster tail of gravel as he looked back at the beast of the SUV that had just tried to turn them into roadkill.
It was farther down the street now, turning the corner to a chorus of squealing brakes and honking horns. The license plate on the back was so caked with mud he couldn’t read it, but he revved the engine of the bike, figuring he still had time to catch the fucker. So some asshat wanted to take him out? Fine. But they did not take shots at Paris. That did not fucking happen, and he wasn’t about to let it stand.
He felt Paris’s helmet butt against his, his hand moving up to the center of Roan’s chest. “Don’t,” Paris shouted, his voice muffled through the fiberglass. “The DOT records this intersection. Ask Murphy to get one of her contacts there to pull the tapes.”
A quick glance up at the streetlights confirmed the presence of slim, small cameras painted white to blend in with the rest of the poles, although they never actually did. If you bothered to look up, the cameras were extremely easy to spot. Paris was pressed up so tight against him, Roan could feel his heartbeat, as rapid and fluttery as a bird’s, pounding against his back. “Please, Roan,” Paris said, and he sounded so tired.
He sighed and wondered if that fuckhead in the Navigator knew how lucky he was. Next time, he’d confront him without Paris, and he’d be fucking lucky if Roan didn’t squeeze his neck until his head popped off.
He drove home, the adrenaline surge in his veins making him want to speed, so he had to fight to keep to legal speeds. The lion in him wanted out, and it was hard to keep it under control, mainly because he wanted to let it out. He wanted to turn it loose on whoever had just tried to splatter them on his grill. Targeting him was one thing, but targeting his family was another—and Paris was all the family he had. That knowledge hit him in the gut like a punch, yet another thing he didn’t want to think about.
Once they got home and parked the bike, Paris took off his helmet and said, “Oh my God. I’m so glad you have the best reflexes in the known universe, ’cause I was sure we were goners.”
Roan saw his own hands were shaking as he took off his helmet, but that was more from adrenaline overload than anything else. “We got lucky. We shouldn’t have had to.”
Paris snorted derisively. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I bet even the guy who tried to hit us isn’t sure how he didn’t.”
He shrugged, aware Paris was probably right, but now he resented the dipshit for not doing his homework on him before trying to kill him.
Once inside, he instantly called Murphy. She was at home now, but she had her cell with her. He told her where and approximately when someone had tried to run them off the road, and she promised she’d make a few phone calls, see what she could find out. Then she added that maybe he shouldn’t piss so many people off, but that wasn’t a helpful suggestion.
He had a beer to try and calm down, to bring down his adrenaline jitters, but it didn’t work. He went upstairs to find Paris already in bed, the covers pulled up to his waist as he slumped against the headboard, Thora’s laptop in his lap. “Trying Aqueduct?” he asked needlessly. Of course he was.
Par just nodded. “In all the excitement, I didn’t want to forget... and hey, what do you know?” Roan sat next to him on the bed, and Par moved the laptop screen toward him. The Others folder had finally opened, revealing twice as many documents as the Group folder. Paris clicked on the first document to open it, and it seemed like Thora had written her autobiography.
Paris yawned and put the computer on Roan’s lap. “You’re the reader—have at it. I’m too tired to read.” He kissed Roan and then turned over, settling into bed and pulling the covers up to his chest. Roan put a hand on his shoulder, and Paris put his hand on top of his. He knew Par was asleep when his hand slid away, down to the mattress. He still kept his hand on Paris’s shoulder though, just for the reassuring feeling of contact.
Thora had written a hell of a sleeping pill here. Within three pages he was yawning, his adrenaline buzz forgotten in a blizzard of poor little rich girl prose. Maybe because he had been raised in a series of foster homes—some really fucked-up—and group homes, he could muster no sympathy for her because she was raised by nannies as opposed to her parents. Her parents were distant, busy, obsessed with appearance and wealth, yada, yada, yada. Not that that wasn’t horrible, it was just hard to identify with. In fact, it irritated him more than anything.
He had to set the laptop aside after a while and got undressed and slid in beside Paris to sleep. He should market that book, as it was better than Sominex. At least the rehab memoirs were more interesting.
He had a dream that escaped him once he woke up, although it left him with a vague sense of unease, like he’d had a nightmare that was disturbing more for its reality than its horror-movie tone, but once he woke to dim half-light and the percussive pounding of rain on the roof, he lost whatever grip he had on it.
Par was still sleeping, so he went downstairs to make breakfast and took the laptop with him, figuring he could skim the rest of the documents, since reading
them would put him in a coma. He meant to make omelets, but kind of forgot how to, and ended up making scrambled eggs. He threw some salsa in anyway, if just for flavor.
He made coffee in Manuel, their old, less fancy coffeemaker, and ate his eggs as he skimmed the remaining files in sequence. Finally, he came to something that stopped him in midbite.
Thora claimed that when she was five—and Jay was fifteen—he had molested her, and the family had decided she was lying, being a “wicked girl,” trying to get him in trouble. She said from then on she had been branded a liar by the family, and Jay had kept his taste for young girls, which expressed itself in younger girlfriends (some not legal) and a collection of child porn. Of course, she offered up no proof of this, but this was wildly inflammatory, and if it got out to the press, it would remain there for some time. Would Jay kill his own sister over this? He knew people who had killed for much less. He needed to interview Jay Bishop as soon as possible.
When Paris came downstairs, Roan served him up a plate of eggs and some nuked croissants (yes, he was still trying to fatten him up), and told him what he had come across. Paris was horrified by the thought of anyone molesting their own sister and already judged Jay a “total fucking scumbag.” “Even if he didn’t kill her, can we lock him up for something?” he wondered.
Roan sympathized with the feeling, but he wanted to get Thora’s and Eric’s actual killer. But it would be nice to get Jay to rot for something, if even half this stuff was true.
Murphy called as he was getting dressed to go out. Apparently the Lincoln Navigator that had tried to run him and Paris down had been reported by an irate driver who was almost sideswiped by it, although he didn’t get a license plate number. Still, he happened to be a mechanic and identified not only the year of the model, but one of the only places around town where they could have gotten the fancy hubcaps on their tires. (Roan hadn’t caught that, but then he generally didn’t notice tricked-out rims.) Also a traffic camera, one of those automatic speed traps, caught the same Navigator going eleven miles over the speed limit several blocks away. The windows were tinted so they couldn’t see the driver, and mud splattered both plates, but they got a partial number on the front, so they were running that now and trying to make a match. She was pretty confident they should have something solid on the owner of the vehicle pretty soon.
She also told him they’d gotten a confirmation of Parker Davis’s fingerprints on Eric’s door, purely circumstantial evidence putting him at the crime scene, but between that and Toby’s positive ID of him as the guy who’d left Panic at the same time as Eric, it was enough to hold him, and unless something really dramatic happened, would probably be enough to charge him. The fact of who and what he was—a drug-addicted male hustler—would hurt him quite badly. If he was just a guy, they might have streeted him until they got harder evidence, but everyone from the street cops to the prosecutors to the judges knew how violent and ugly the worlds of drugs and prostitution were. Wherever human exploitation reigned, there was violence, and the only variable was whether it was directed at them or caused by them. That he would snap and kill a client would sound not just logical but inevitable to most, especially since he was gay for pay. Roan wondered why such a logical pat story didn’t make him happy. Personal problem?
While he got dressed, Paris played “assistant” and checked out Trey’s alibi, as well as tried to get him an appointment with Jay Bishop. Jay was in charge of public relations for Thorp Chemical, which just struck him as bleakly hilarious, and because he was supposed to go interview a big, powerful child molester—okay, no, alleged child molester—he thought he should look a bit more like he belonged in a big, important building. He decided to wear a long-sleeved button-down shirt, but he wouldn’t wear a tie; he hated those damn things. They felt like a leash around his neck, like he was on a choke chain, and it drove him crazy. He decided on a pale blue shirt and was mentally debating whether to go with a sports coat or just wear his waist-length leather car coat, which was a rich, deep brown and looked classy as opposed to rough trade, when Paris came up. He came over to Roan in front of the mirror and gave him a slightly sarcastic, disapproving click of his tongue. “You should wear the pale green, as it really highlights the color of your hair. Or the pale yellow, which brings out your eyes.” Even as he said that, he reached around and started buttoning up his shirt for him.
“I’m not going on a date.”
“You’d better not be. But I was thinking if you stunned him with your beauty, he might forget to try and kill you.”
“All we know is he’s probably a scumbag. If all scumbags were killers, the world’s population would be exactly three, and they’d probably all live in Iceland.”
Paris kissed his ear and smiled at him in the mirror. “You know what I love about you? You’re such an optimist.”
He scowled sarcastically at Paris in the mirror. “Ha. When’s my appointment?”
“Um, well... there isn’t one. His schedule is full until next week.”
That made him frown and turn to face Paris. “You did tell his people I had to talk to him about Thora, right?”
“Of course I did. And that woman on the other end of the line couldn’t have given a shit about it. I’m surprised she didn’t tell me that you’d have to use the service entrance when you were allowed to see him.”
“Good. They’ll be all the more shocked when I park my ass in their lobby and refuse to leave until I speak with him.”
Paris fixed him with a very paternal scowl and straightened his collar. “No instigating.”
“Since when do I instigate?”
He let out a small, sarcastic gasp. “Since forever. It should be on your business card. Roan McKichan, private investigator, instigator.”
“I bet that doesn’t pay well.”
“Depends on what you’re instigating, I guess.” Deciding his collar was as straight as it was ever going to be, Paris gave him an honestly worried look, staring him straight in the eyes. “Maybe I should do this. You know how good I am with hostile people.”
“Yeah, but I really need to see him in person. I need to see his reactions.”
“And smell them.”
“That too. So, do I look like I can get into Thorp Chemical without being intercepted by security?”
Paris made a show of thinking about it for a very long time. Then he said, “If they see instigator on your business cards, the jig is up.”
“Keep the day job, Shecky.” He shrugged on the leather car coat and gave Par a kiss before leaving. The fact that Paris wasn’t putting up a fight to come along was actually suspicious and a bit worrisome—did he feel so unwell today he preferred to stay at home?
But he couldn’t let it sidetrack him as he headed for Thorp Chemical’s main business office downtown. It was an anonymous skyscraper amongst similar skyscrapers, a tower of mirrored glass and steel, similar to dozens of businesses along the downtown corridor. The sign announcing who owned the building was so discreet you could only see it on foot, approaching the main entrance. Inside, he found a wide lobby with a high ceiling, people coming and going at such a rate it seemed the elevators were constantly opening and closing. There seemed to be some sort of security desk up front, but he ignored it and looked at a plaque on the wall that denoted who was on what floor. He saw the PR office was on the seventeenth floor and slipped into the open door of the nearest elevator. Oh, how he loved lax security.
The seventeenth floor opened up on a lobby of beige and white, with a slim, blonde receptionist sitting behind a white curve of a desk that resembled a half moon. The only bit of genuine color in the room was a huge rubber plant in the far corner, and Roan just bet it was fake. The woman looked up, a wireless headset perched on her head like a high-tech crown, and while her storm-gray eyes were focused on him, she barely saw him as she punched a button on her phone, presumably putting someone on hold. “Can I help you sir?”
“I’m here to see Adam Bishop.”
> She glanced down at her appointment book, which was an actual ledger. In these days of Blackberries, that was rare. “Are you his one o’clock?”
“No, I wasn’t allowed an appointment.”
She sighed and gave him a rather sour look. “Sir, Mr. Bishop is a very busy man—”
“Tell him Roan McKichan, a private investigator, is here to see him about the death of his sister, Thora,” he interrupted, meeting her frosty look with one of his own. “And considering the inflammatory nature of some of the accusations made by her against him, he might want to talk to me and give me his side of the story before this all comes out.”
Her look swung between confused and hostile. “If you’d like to make an appointment—”
“Tell him,” he insisted, taking a seat on the beige leather sofa in the lobby. There was a glass-topped coffee table full of business magazines and a folded-up copy of today’s Wall Street Journal. There could hardly be a more boring paper in existence, but he grabbed it and pretended to start reading it, half hoping he’d come across some vitriolic right-wing screed—those were always hilarious, especially if the “homosexual agenda” was mentioned. He felt so left out. He was never included in the homosexual agenda; he never even got an invite to the meetings. Was it because he was infected? The blackballing bastards! The least they could do was send him the newsletter.
Actually, he had heard that someone was introducing a bill forcing all people with tiger-strain infections to register with the health department. It was unlikely to get very far, because any mention of involuntary registration had uncomfortable shades of Nazism about it, but also it was just a waste of time. Yes, it was the most instantly deadly strain, and a loose tiger was an extremely troublesome thing (if anyone could bring Mitch Henstridge back from the dead, they could ask him all about it), but living tiger-strain people were so rare and never very long for this world. Paris was probably the only tiger strain in the state, if not the entire Northwest, and he was dying.
