Their Precious Own

by Lia Black

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Kayle rolled his eyes, his shoulders rising and falling with an exasperated sigh. “Is it really too much, Detective Childress, that I ask you to trust me?”

  Derek frowned. Well, it would give him an excuse to have a cigarette.

  “Fine.” He climbed down the ladder, walking across the concrete floor of the warehouse on his way outside to speak with the officer on duty. He fished a cigarette out of his pack, tapping it on the back of his hand to pack down any loose tobacco.

  “Officer Connel. My…” Derek rolled his eyes. “My partner and I are going to need to go up on the roof there,” He indicated the lower sloping roof just below the windows. Christ it was high. He was dreading going up there, but if they missed anything that could close this case early, Derek would never forgive himself. He didn’t care what line of work these young women were in. It didn’t give some asshole—Clan or otherwise— the right to kill them because they were easy prey.

  The younger officer glanced back towards the sliding door. Perrine was still inside. “That guy— he’s a Variant?“

  “Yes,” Derek sighed, blowing out a line of smoke as he waited for the inevitable questions.

  “How can you work with one of them?”

  Derek held his cigarette between his teeth and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out his badge again. He held it up to the younger officer’s face.

  “Because it’s my fucking job, and it’s your fucking job to assist me in a murder investigation. Detective Perrine knows his stuff, and he’s only here to make certain that we’re following procedure. Are we clear?”

  “Y-yes sir,” Connel stammered.

  Derek hated pulling rank but he wasn’t in the mood to entertain any bullshit today.

  “Now is there a way up to the roof, or do I have to look around for a ladder?”

  “Uh, ladder, sir. I think.” Connel withered a bit under Derek’s hard stare.

  Derek was still reeling after finding out that Perrine had probably had his hands all over Marc’s case. It didn’t mean he was any more trustworthy, it just meant that Apex had been a lot more heavily involved in human police work than Derek had thought. That was a little disturbing, but shouldn’t have been surprising.

  He made his way over to the main office and was able to find a maintenance man there who let him borrow his ladder without asking any questions. Flashing his badge helped.

  “All right,” Derek said, jiggling the ladder a little to make certain it was secure once he’d propped it against the roof. Perrine came to meet him around the outside of the building.

  “After you, Detective,” Perrine said, nodding towards the ladder.

  “Yeah, I don’t think so. Derek looked up at the top of the ladder. He’d had to extend the rungs to meet the lower roof-line. That had to be at least thirty feet.

  “Afraid of heights, are we?” Perrine cocked his head, offering a trace of a little smirk.

  “Not a fan.” It was as much of an admission as Derek would offer him.

  “So then you’ll just trust my word that there is evidence up there?”

  Christ, but he hated that condescending tone, and that damn thing he did with his eyebrow.

  “Fine, but if I fall—”

  “I won’t let you fall, Detective,” Perrine’s voice sounded oddly suggestive all of the sudden. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Derek bit his tongue to still it from flapping around and getting him into trouble. He wanted to ask Perrine if he was going to be checking out his ass the whole time, but was uncomfortable with whatever answer he might receive. He didn’t need Perrine to know his sexual orientation. In fact, it was better if he didn’t. Derek didn’t want any of his lingering glances shot Perrine’s way to be interpreted as appreciation.

  Palms sweating, Derek grasped the sides of the ladder and put one foot on the first rung. He closed his eyes and blew out a deep breath, then slowly began scaling the ladder. To Perrine’s credit, he was quiet on the way up and he didn’t rush him, even when Derek had to stop after ten rungs and remember to breathe. When they finally made it to the top and onto the roof, Derek made the fatal mistake of looking down.

  Unexpectedly strong arms grabbed him from behind, holding him up and pulling him against Perrine’s solid body. “I’ve got you.”

  Derek was too panicked to consider what this might look like to an observer, or to pay attention to the sensation of being so close to what was an admittedly attractive man… who also happened to be attracted to men. Perrine eased him back so he was away from the edge and managed to get him sitting near the window he’d pointed at from the inside.

  “Here, look,” Perrine said, his arm extending over Derek’s shoulder as he pointed out some gouges in the wooden window frame. A fragrance engulfed him and he had the sensation of a warm kitchen, or cozying up by the fire. It began to trick Derek’s brain into forgetting that they were twenty or thirty feet above the earth. Derek gawked at the marks, amazed that Perrine could have seen anything so subtle from so far down. The paint around the frame had a hairline crack that followed the line of the frame. None of the other windows had such a thing.

  “Pried out. Screwdriver probably, because of the shape here.” Derek brushed a mark with his fingers.

  “I concur,” Perrine said, his warm breath close to Derek’s ear.

  Derek was trying to remember what it was he didn’t like about Perrine when his cell phone buzzed in his coat pocket, startling Perrine back enough to allow Derek’s head to clear.

  “Yeah Chief?” Derek answered Gilchrist’s call.

  “Bad news. Another body.”

  “Aw fuck,” Derek wilted, pinching his sinuses at the bridge of his nose. “Where?”

  “Tunnel entrance to the old turnpike off Southaven. Either it’s a copycat, or they’re switching things up a bit.”

  “What do you mean?” Derek glanced back at Perrine who was standing on the sloped roof behind him, his chin tilted to one side as he listened to Derek’s part of the conversation with a curious but grim expression.

  “Just get down there. Make sure you take Perrine.”

  Derek disconnected. He snapped a picture of the window with his phone before dropping it back into his pocket. “We have to go.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  This wasn’t what he’d been expecting to see. Kayle had seen death before. Spending the early part of his life traveling with his mother, he’d seen murders committed in the name of anger, and of order by mundanes and Variants alike. But he’d never met those victims. It was easier to remove himself when he didn’t know the face. He knew this face.

  “Oh fuck,” Derek said, coming to a stop before they reached the tunnel.

  A body was suspended in a crucifixion pose just inside the entrance. Kayle felt curdling heat move up from his stomach, turning to ice as it rose up his throat. He covered his mouth so as not to make a sound and disturb the crime scene crew who moved in slow motion, looking for clues.

  It was Ramon. Even from this distance he recognized the dark hair, the tattoo on his shoulder in the shape of a half-moon.

  Kayle had to turn away to catch his breath. Was there any way this could be coincidence?

  “Hey, you all right?” Kayle felt Derek’s hand grip his shoulder. Tension threatened to splinter the air between them.

  “I’m…fine,” Kayle decided. He was acting unprofessionally. They had shared a night together, a bed together; a business transaction, and nothing more. He took in a deep breath, loosening his tie, which suddenly felt strangling. Turning around, he gave Derek a terse nod before accompanying him down the embankment towards the flashing lights.

  Kayle focused his attention onto the various workers, going about the grisly task of collecting evidence into little plastic bags. A few of them shot him uncomfortable looks, reminding Kayle that even masked with glamour, he was noticeably unlike them.

  Derek stopped at the edge of the twisted guide rail that ran along
what was once a wide concrete roadway, speaking to a dark-skinned man dressed in plainclothes. The man glanced at Kayle as Derek jerked his thumb back over his shoulder towards him. Derek turned, gesturing Kayle closer.

  “Detective Lyle Peterson, this is Detective Kayle Perrine. He’s my partner on this detail.”

  Peterson offered Kayle his hand. “Detective.” He smiled. Kayle had not been expecting any friendliness among the mundanes, so it took him a moment to shake the other man’s extended hand.

  “Detective Peterson,” he said, tipping his head in polite acknowledgment.

  “Peterson is what we call our lock-down man. He’s usually the first one on scene to make sure it stays secure,” Derek said.

  “Starting to hate getting so good at this,” Peterson sighed. “Lemme tell you what we have. Twenty-five year old male human, Mixed Hispanic and Caucasian ancestry. Male escort, prostitute. One of the uniforms recognized him. Went by the name Ramon. We’re waiting for someone from his agency to come give us a real ID so we can try to locate any next of kin.”

  “He doesn’t have any,” Kayle said absently. They hadn’t just had sex all night. Ramon had asked him about life in Apex and told Kayle a little bit about growing up too fast while trying to take care of a drug-addicted mom. That’s why he’d started hustling. He’d considered himself lucky to have met his boyfriend, Brando, a bouncer at the local strip club, who’d put him in touch with the owner and the man who ran the escort agency. Ultimately, Ramon could not save his mother. She’d died last spring. Ramon had told him that he was stashing away money to buy himself a ticket on one of the trains headed to Delta Sofra, a small Variant and human settlement to the south. Kayle didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t the place of peace and harmony that it had been made out to be. He knew this, because that was where he’d spent the last moments of his mother’s life, hiding under the floorboards, while three human men raped her and beat her to death. Now he wondered if not telling him had been the right thing to do. Ultimately, it wouldn’t have mattered, he supposed.

  “Found some bite marks on this one—nothing puncturing the skin,” Kayle heard Peterson say. “May belong to the perp—”

  “Unrelated,” Kayle said. He forced himself to look at Ramon not as a person, and certainly not as one he’d known in any sense.

  “You sure?” Derek asked.

  Kayle met his gaze, pleading for understanding with his eyes.

  “I’m sure.” His message must have been adequately conveyed because Derek did not push the issue any further.

  Derek said something to Peterson that Kayle couldn’t make out, then pulled him aside.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” Kayle knew his act was convincing. He’d been taught from birth never to let anyone see his emotions. He may have felt like his guts were being pulled inside-out and shoved into his chest, but outside he presented a marble facade. Derek gave him a look he found hard to decipher then turned and continued following Peterson.

  The body was nude and the skin, ashen. His head was down and his dark eyes open, as flat and unreflective as mud. His arms were outstretched, bound and suspended by chain attached to what used to be an overpass sign. He had to have been killed shortly after he’d left Kayle’s room this morning. Kayle could make out the rings of his bites. One on the left side of his collarbone, one on his hipbone and there would be one inside his right thigh. Ramon had been passionate, kind, and Kayle had enjoyed doing these things to please him... enjoyed pretending that it wasn’t just sex.

  A dark van pulled up and a woman got out of the passenger side. She was older than Derek and very attractive; her silver hair was cut so close to her scalp, it seemed almost pointless to keep it. Her skin was darker than Detective Peterson’s and she moved with an efficient grace, carrying with her a black satchel. When she caught Kayle’s eye, she hesitated, then smiled before turning her head to speak to one of the uniformed officers walking towards her. After a moment, the officer escorted her over to where he and Derek were standing.

  “Dr. Ray,” Derek greeted her.

  “Detective. We need to stop meeting like this.”

  “Believe me, Doc, when I say I wish we’d stop meeting for anything but dinner,” Derek said with what seemed a half-hearted chuckle.

  “And this must be your new partner?” Dr. Ray said. Her gaze moved deliberately over Kayle, taking in his appearance as she held out her hand to shake his.

  “Detective Kayle Perrine, this is the settlement’s medical examiner, Doctor Eidola Ray,” Derek introduced them.

  Kayle nearly felt like he should be kissing her knuckles and dropping to one knee because of the regal aura she carried about her, but he settled for shaking her hand. Her skin was dry and smooth, her nails short but neatly manicured. She gave his hand a final squeeze before releasing him and going towards the stepladder that the officers had erected near the body. Pulling on some black rubber gloves, she stepped up and shone a bright penlight in Ramon’s…the victim’s face.

  “He hasn’t been dead for very long,” Dr. Ray declared as she turned his chin this way and that, causing the head to loll to one side, then the other.

  “Time?” She called out and Derek checked his watch.

  “Eleven twenty seven.”

  “I’d put the time of death at about nine thirty this morning.”

  She stepped down and the body was photographed; stark flashes of bright white against the now pale canvas of the victim’s skin. Kayle looked away. If this was the same murderer they started the case with, there would be few clues found on the body. Why a man this time? And why now? Kayle was not arrogant enough to believe that the killer had murdered Ramon because they’d spent the night together last night. It was just an unfortunate coincidence.

  Kayle moved several feet inside the dark tunnel. Once a means of mass transit, it was abandoned and forgotten. It had collapsed, filled top to bottom with rubble about ten yards in. There was no way the killer could have brought the body through from the other side, which meant that there was a chance that somebody walking by might have seen something, although it was far off the beaten path.

  “Hey. Seriously, are you okay?”

  Kayle was startled by Derek’s voice behind him.

  “I mean, you’ve been staring at the same hunk of concrete for nearly twenty minutes.”

  Had he? Kayle looked over his shoulder in time to see the body loaded onto a stretcher and being zipped into a black bag by Dr. Ray’s assistants.

  “Dr. Ray is going to need to get a bite impression from you to compare against the marks on the body…in case you weren’t the only—”

  “Yes. Fine.” Kayle interrupted him. He knew the procedure. He just never imagined he’d be part of it from the other side.

  “Uh, about Ramon…I don’t know quite what to say.”

  “There is nothing to be said. He was a mea— a diversion. Nothing more.” Kayle caught himself before he admitted that the reason he’d called the escort service in the first place was because he was hungry. Truth be told, he was feeling uncomfortable about Ramon’s death. He was sorry for it. Ramon was kind to him, made him feel wanted, and fed him until he was drunk with the young man’s ecstasy. Kayle had been considering plans to call him again.

  Well, not now.

  “You really are a cold son of a bitch, aren’t you.” Derek growled at him and turned on his heel, crunching broken glass and pebbles beneath his shoes as he walked back towards the mouth of the tunnel.

  No. He really wasn’t. And that was entirely the problem.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  From that point until the sky became inky black with night, Kayle barely got a word from Derek. It was fine. It was as it should have been all along. Just a professional working relationship. Kayle was used to this, used to being alone and avoided. It’s what helped him to become stronger, to reach the level in life and his profession that he had. To make his father proud… or at least not
sorry for claiming him and bringing him to Apex. But part of him missed the interaction. It was nice to be spoken to, even if was by a man who disliked him and all that he stood for.

  Kayle had done as he’d promised, dropping the glamour enough behind a closed office door in the morgue. He’d had to bite onto a strip of carbon paper so that the marks he’d left on Ramon’s body could be ruled out as the killer’s. Afterwards, Derek took him back to the place which was, for now, his home.

  Derek pulled up to the curb in front of the Bentley Hotel. Without turning off the car, he got out and came around to let Kayle out.

  “Seven,” he said.

  “Seven,” Kayle confirmed as he stood up. They locked gazes for several uncomfortable heartbeats. Derek turned on his heel and stalked back around to the driver’s side, getting in without giving him another look.

  When he pulled away, Kayle stood on the curb for far too long, watching Derek’s tail lights fade, then vanish from sight.

  With a withering sigh, he turned and entered the dingy hotel lobby. There were the usual faces, although their features changed from hour to hour. Vagrants trying to get in out of the rain, addicts sleeping off a high. Humanity showed its true and ugly colors in a place like this. There were a couple of new faces here tonight, however. Wait, maybe not new. He thought he recognized at least one of them from someplace, but couldn’t remember quite where. Perhaps the bar he’d been asked to leave. They were talking with the clerk and had luggage at their feet. Four men, dressed in road leathers and denim. Two caught Kayle’s stare and returned it before Kayle stopped caring and went up the stairs and into his room.

  He closed and locked the door, heading for the shower. Something made him feel that he should apologize to Derek, though he wasn’t certain what for. Maybe for lying to him about being okay while he stared at the bloodless body of a man he’d just slept with a few hours earlier. Ramon didn’t suffer, at least. The killer had been quick and efficient. Ramon was probably dead before he realized he’d been grabbed. It was still highly... disconcerting, and Kayle had fought to remain in control. Emotions are a weakness. A liability. Don’t let them see you cry. Don’t ever show fear. Never, ever fall in love. It was practically a bedtime song from his mother’s lips since the unfortunate day he’d been born. Through the years and the insults, the threats, the condescending sneers, those words had served him well.