by Josh Lanyon
“No. But that’s going to be his defense when it goes to court.”
“Oh, that’s just fantastic,” I said bitterly.
“I don’t think a jury will buy it, Kit. Even with a very good defense lawyer, he’s going to prison for a while.”
I nodded. I wanted to feel reassured. I really, really wanted to believe that was the last we’d seen of Jerry.
* * * * *
At an ungodly hour on Saturday morning, Nina Moriarity handed her only child over to her ex-husband and the fiend from hell he currently resided with, and with many doubtful looks—and a few tears—bade us all Have a nice time.
I think J.X. had a nice time—and God knows he was never more engaging than when he was getting his way—and I guess Gage was having so much fun even my presence couldn’t entirely spoil it.
“Don’t stick your tongue out at your Uncle Christopher,” J.X. warned, catching one of our exchanges when he returned to deliver a corn dog to the bottomless pit in blue shorts and striped T-shirt.
Gage’s little monkey face—so like his real uncle’s—screwed up into a grimace as though his corn dog had been dipped in alkali. “He’s not my uncle.”
J.X.’s face darkened. “Gage—”
“He’s right,” I said.
“Don’t you start!”
Gage rewarded me with another display of his tongue while J.X. was busy frowning repressively at me.
I said solemnly, “I feel like it’s important that we start the way we intend to go on. Don’t you?”
J.X. shook his head at me.
After Gage departed on spindly legs to goggle at some other hapless, trapped creature, J.X. draped a casual arm around my shoulders and said, “Are you hating every minute of it?”
I sighed. “Nah. It’s fine. I just wish there was a G&T stand along with all the other refreshments.”
He laughed. “I’ll fix you a drink when we get home. And then I’m going to give you a nice, long backrub.”
“Now you’re talking.”
He whispered in my ear, “I’m really happy you changed your mind.”
“I know.”
He gave my shoulders another squeeze. “And I know Gage is tickled.”
I managed not to roll my eyes. “Sure he is.”
“Uncle Julie! Uncle Julie!” Gage yelled, summoning us at the top of his lungs.
“Uncle Julie,” I murmured.
“He’ll grow out of it.” J.X. sounded pained. “I hope to God.”
In fairness, it actually wasn’t that bad. As zoos went, the San Francisco Zoo & Gardens were pretty nice. Clean and well-maintained. We arrived for the Grizzly Bear Feeding and stayed all the way until the Giraffe Open House. My favorite thing—per J.X.’s inquiry—was the Penguin Feeding. Gage’s favorite thing was, unsurprisingly, the chimpanzees. J.X. did not vouchsafe what his favorite thing was, but every time he caught my eyes, he smiled warmly.
Which made up quite a bit for the fact that every time Gage caught my eyes, he stuck his tongue out. I mean, come on. Couldn’t he cross his beady little eyes or stick his hands in his ears and wiggle his sticky fingers for variety?
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. Not long after we bade farewell to the wide-eyed giraffes on the African Savannah, Gage once again demonstrated how very long his tongue was and how very pointy. I stared at him, then staggered to the nearest bench, put my face in my hands and began to sob. Very loudly.
“What the—Kit?” That was J.X., sounding desperately appalled.
I sobbed louder.
People made a wide circle around us, speeding up to pass as quickly as possible.
Through my fingers I peeked at Gage who was pinned to J.X.’s side, looking stricken. He had one hand fastened on J.X.’s belt buckle as though he was about to scale him, seeking safety. The other hand was pressed to his mouth and he was trying hard not to bite his thumb knuckle.
“Kit, he didn’t mean it. He’s doing it to get your atten—”
I raised my head and stared at them.
They could have been father and son. Those matching dark eyes—as wide as saucers—those gaping mouths—perfect Os of horror.
“Ha!” I said.
Gage’s enormous eyes were still bugging out of his head, but as he gazed at me, something sprang to life in his expression. He glanced at his uncle. He glanced at me. He opened his mouth…and giggled.
J.X.’s face changed. “Oh, you bastard,” he breathed. He began to laugh.
“Gotcha,” I said.
Keep reading! Here’s the first chapter to
IN OTHER WORDS… MURDER
Book 4 in the Holmes & Moriarity series
Mystery author and sometimes amateur sleuth Christopher Holmes is now happily (all things being relative) engaged to be married and toying with starting a new career as a true crime writer when he learns a body has been discovered in the backyard of his former home.
Then, to complicate matters, Christopher’s ex turns up out of the blue suggesting the body may belong to Christopher’s former personal assistant.
It’s life as usual at Chez Holmes. In other words… Murder.
Chapter One
“Murder.”
“That’s one word,” J.X. objected.
“Hm?” I was studying the colorful travel brochures littering my lap and the raw-silk ivory comforter. Walk in the footsteps of the Colosseum’s ancient gladiators! Cruise canals in a golden gondola! Live La Dolce Vita! read the cover of the brochure I held. I could practically feel the venerable blue of the Roman sky beneath my fingertips.
There was a bewildering array of options. Everything from private guided tours with personally tailored itineraries to culturally themed coach tours. We could do an eight-day Adriatic cruise or a fourteen-day grand tour by rail.
The only option not available to me was staying home.
“Kill. Slang. Three words,” J.X. said. “First word starts with D.”
It was eleven o’clock on a Friday night in late October, and we were cozily tucked up in our master bedroom at 321 Cherry Lane. J.X. was doing the San Francisco Examiner crossword, and I was figuring out our spring vacation plans. It really doesn’t get much more domesticated than that.
“Oh. Do away with.”
He was silent as his pencil scratched on paper. He made a disgusted sound. “Elementary, my dear Holmes.”
I glanced at him. “Bad clues, my dear Moriarity. Do away with isn’t slang. It’s a phrasal verb.”
“Right?” He regarded me for a moment, then nodded at the scattered brochures. “What do you think? What looks good to you?”
“I don’t know. They’re all pretty expensive.”
“Money is no object.”
I snorted. “It might not be the object, but it should be a consideration.”
He got that dark-eyed, earnest look he always wore when applying the thumbscrews. “I want to do this for you, Kit. I don’t care about the money. I want us to have this. We’ve never gone away on vacation together.”
“Yeah, I know. Possibly averting an international incident.”
His mouth quirked, but he said coaxingly, “Think about it. You and me. Hot, naked sex in a gondola.”
I gave him a look of horror. “They have gondoliers, you know!”
He laughed. “Okay, then how about a gondola ride at sunset and candlelight dinner on the terrace of our private villa—and then hot, naked sex. Beneath the stars?”
I cleared my throat.
Spotting weakness in his prey, J.X. moved in for the kill. “Seriously, Kit. We could do so many things together. We could explore Rome’s catacombs—or just visit a few museums and galleries. We could see the Pantheon and the Colosseum. We could go to Florence and see the Ponte Vecchio. Or spend a couple of days swimming with dolphins off the Isle of Capri.”
Despite the fact that I don’t like to travel—hate to travel—a lot of that did sound kind of appealing. I said, “Private villa, huh?”
“Whatever y
ou want.” He was suddenly serious, gaze solemn, the line of his mouth soft. Such a romantic guy. Especially for an ex-cop. Well, really, for anyone.
“It sounds…nice,” I admitted. It sounded better than nice. Maybe even kind of lovely.
His smile was very white in the lamplight. He tossed the newspaper and pencil aside and drew me into his arms. We fell back against the mattress. The brochures whispered and crackled beneath us as his mouth found mine. He kissed me deeply, sweetly, whispered, “Maybe we could make it a honeymoon…”
My eyes popped open.
Before I could reply—not that I had a reply ready—the bedroom door pushed wide, and a small voice said, “Uncle Julie?”
J.X. sat up. “Hey, honey.” He only sounded the tiniest bit flustered, plus got bonus points for not flinging me aside and springing completely off the bed as I had done to him the first few times this happened. “You’re supposed to knock, remember?”
“I forgot.” Gage said huskily, “I had a bad dream.”
Gage was J.X.’s five-year-old nephew. Actually, it was a little more complicated than that, but the point was the kid was spending the weekend with us, as he did a couple of times a month.
“A bad dream, huh?” J.X. opened his arms, and Gage climbed into bed between us, snuggling against him. “We don’t have bad dreams in this house.”
I threw him a look of disbelief. He meant well, but come on. Everybody has nightmares. Him included.
“What did you dream?” I asked.
Gage rolled me a sideways look. Over the past four months we’d forged a truce, but he still largely took me on sufferance. Which was okay because frankly, I’m an acquired taste: best consumed with cream, sugar, and, yeah, a generous heaping of sufferance.
“Monsters,” he said tersely.
“Hm.”
“Monsters?” J.X. repeated thoughtfully. “There are no monsters here. This is a monster-free zone.” He gave Gage a little squeeze. “You know what we do to monsters in this house?”
Gage shook his head, his gaze wary.
He was right to be wary because J.X. pretend-growled, “We tickle them,” and pounced.
Gage squealed, and the two of them rolled around on the travel brochures, Gage wriggling and kicking—managing to land a few well-aimed blows at me in passing—before finally sitting up and resettling themselves against the pillows bulwarking the headboard.
J.X. winked at me. I shook my head resignedly.
“What you want to think about is all the fun we’re going to have tomorrow when you and me and Uncle Kit—”
“Christopher,” I interjected.
“—Uncle Christopher go to the Halloween Hootenanny.”
Gage and I eyed each other in complete understanding. He knew I did not want to attend the Halloween Horrorama any more than he wanted me there. He knew, as did I, we neither of us had any choice. It was in these moments that we could actually walk a mile or two in the other’s moccasins—though I admit fuzzy, bunny slippers were a tight fit for my ethos.
J.X. continued to extol the ordeals—er, delights—of the day ahead, which was scheduled to conclude with the movie Smallfoot and dinner at Rosario’s Pizzeria.
“So, no more bad dreams, okay?” he finished.
“Okay,” Gage said doubtfully. And then, “Can I sleep in here?”
J.X. wavered but stayed strong. “No, honey. You’re getting too big to bunk in here. There’s not enough room for all three of us. Uncle Christopher and I would fall right out onto the floor!”
And then the monster that lives under the bed would get us.
But see, I was getting fond of the little cheese mite because I didn’t say it. Gage, however, had no doubt who the villain of the piece was. His bleak and beady gaze fell on me.
“What about a night-light?” I suggested.
His face brightened.
“Nnn.” J.X. grimaced. “I don’t think we want to get into that habit, do we?”
He seemed to be asking Gage, who looked to me like a kid who very much hoped they could maybe get into that habit.
“As habits go,” I began. I remembered I was technically only an honorary uncle and should not be debating Gage’s real uncle’s child-rearing decisions in front of him. I shrugged, but couldn’t help adding, “It’s a big house, and it’s still strange to him. I had a night-light when I was his age.”
J.X. frowned. “Did you?”
“Sure.”
“Night-lights can disrupt sleep patterns. Maybe that’s why you have these bouts of insomnia.”
“You know what disrupts sleep patterns? Being scared there’s a monster watching you from the closet—or waiting under your bed for you to step onto the floor.”
Gage gulped. J.X. exclaimed, “Kit.”
I said hastily, “Not that monsters do that because monsters aren’t real, and anyway, this is a monster-free zone. Like J.X., er, your Uncle Julie said. He’s the monster expert of the family.”
Gage was still goggling at me, and J.X. was giving me the full-frontal unibrow in silent censure. Oh please. Like I hadn’t voiced exactly what the kid was already thinking?
“Okay, I know what you need.” I threw the bedclothes back and swung my legs over the side of the mattress, thereby demonstrating there were no monsters under this bed. “How about a nice warm cup of cocoa?”
Gage considered his options and nodded grudging approval. J.X. smiled, pleased that I was taking an avuncular interest, and suggested, “Make it three?”
“Sure. You want brandy in yours?”
“I want brandy,” Gage offered.
“They won’t mix with the sleeping pills,” I said, and J.X. inhaled sharply. “Kidding,” I told him.
He shook his head, though fondly. “Are you doing that Nutella thing again?”
“I can if you like.”
“I like Nutella,” Gage volunteered.
“That’s a little rich before bed,” Uncle Ebenezer Balfour objected.
I said, “Okay, a round of cocoa, one virgin and two nuts.”
Gage giggled, J.X. looked undecided, and I departed posthaste.
I was thinking about the weirdness of my life, absently stirring the milk, Nutella, and four tablespoons of cream in a small saucepan, when the kitchen phone rang.
Back when I lived on my own, I always used the answering machine to screen my calls. But J.X. was different. He liked to answer the phone and did so regularly. He looked forward to hearing from people. He enjoyed chatting. I don’t think he even truly disliked telemarketers. I, on the other hand, agreed with Ambrose Bierce when he said the telephone was “an invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance.”
It had taken a couple of months to teach him—J.X., not Ambrose—that I was rarely at home to random callers, even when I was at home, but eventually he got the message. Or at least permitted my callers to leave theirs.
But phone calls around the witching hour are never good news, and after the first startled-sounding ring, I picked up the handset.
“Hello?”
There was a hesitation—like someone had to pause to catch their breath. As slight as that sound was, I felt my heart drop through the cage of my rib bones and land with a thump on the black-and-white parquet floor. I too had to stop to catch my breath, as though picking up the phone had required monumental, heroic effort, and had I known who was on the other end, it would have. In fact, I wouldn’t have answered.
“Christopher?” That deep baritone had once been as familiar as… Well, choose your favorite domestic simile. That voice had once been as familiar as J.X.’s because that was the role in my life the owner of the voice had played.
“David.” My own voice was surprisingly flat, given the way emotions were zinging up and down my nervous system, emergency flares sparking into life—and promptly shorting out.
“I had a visit from the police a few hours ago.” His voice was shaking. “They told me they foun
d a body in our backyard. Our old backyard. Your backyard. You killed him, didn’t you? You killed Dicky!”
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Author Notes
Keen-eyed readers will note that Christopher’s parents have undergone a change in marital status since All She Wrote. Yes, it’s sad and yes, I did notice. Sometimes these things happen. Everybody said that marriage would never last!
Thanks once again to Keren, Susan, and Janet for their work on the first edition of H&M3. I don’t know what I would do without youse guys.
About the Author
Author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure, and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON’S work has been translated into eleven languages. Her FBI thriller Fair Game was the first Male/Male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, then the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan’s annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list). The Adrien English series was awarded the All Time Favorite Couple by the Goodreads M/M Romance Group.
She is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist (twice for Gay Mystery), An Edgar nominee and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads All Time Favorite M/M Author award.
Josh is married and lives in Southern California.
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