Truth & Tenderness

by Tere Michaels

  It wasn’t even ego. He would tell Matt tonight that he was absolutely right about Casper. He would even take the “I told you so.” It was more that he had thought Casper was a friend, someone in a similar life situation to Evan, someone he could help move on after a breakup. The reality of their friendship being a lie, that Evan missed all the signs… his feelings were hurt.

  And then there was the overwhelming anger, because fuck that jerk for speaking about Matt like that. How dare he? How dare anyone?

  When the powers that be came to him before the test, before all of it—when they questioned his relationship with Matt—Evan had threatened to quit. His job meant the world to him, but he would quit for Matt. He would also punch Casper in the mouth if he ever heard Matt’s name on his lips again.

  “Asshole,” he muttered, reaching for his phone.

  A knock at his door: his sergeant, with a concerned look on his face.

  “What’s up?” Evan asked, putting the receiver down.

  “Building by Bryant Park got vandalized. Lots of damage.”

  Evan cursed. He expected to hear from the community board president any second in that case. “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, but uh—the person who called it in was a James Shea. He mentioned your name.”

  Bryant Park? Jim?

  “Shit. I think I know whose office got hit.” Evan got up and was around his desk in a flash, moving for his suit jacket. “I’m going to go over there. I have my phone if you need me.”

  Chapter 25

  EVAN MOVED through the chaos on the street. Three patrol cars, a fire truck, EMS. Gawkers and rubberneckers crowded the entrance of the building. Evan was already on the phone.

  “Nora? Could you get me another car down to 1140 West Forty-Second Street? I need some crowd control and someone moving the traffic through so we don’t wind up with a mess at rush hour. Thanks.”

  He flashed his badge and got waved through.

  The elevator was locked to go only to the floor in question, the rest of the building already evacuated. When the doors opened, Evan caught a whiff of smoke and bleach.

  Another flash of his badge, this time to the patrolman stationed at the entrance.

  “What happened?” Evan asked, looking through the mess, trying to find Jim or Bennett.

  The patrolman walked him over to the cordoned-off area. “Everyone came in late today. The upper floor was fine. But they smelled smoke, so they called 911. Fire department puts out a few waste can fires, then they realize the place had been wrecked before the fire.”

  Evan nodded through his explanation. “Arson squad?”

  “Already here.”

  “Thanks.” He started to walk toward the sound of voices but paused. “Hey, when the detectives get here, tell them there are security cameras all over the place. Make sure they get the feed.”

  Evan kept walking. He heard Matt’s voice.

  “WHAT THE fuck happened?” Matt asked, pacing around the farthest office, one of the only spots not destroyed by the fire or vandalism. Out there, accelerant over the rugs and desks, a sharp, heavy object taken to walls and windows, the fires—it was almost a total loss. “How did none of the alarms sound?”

  Jim didn’t say anything. His face was drawn and tight; he had his arms folded over his chest, not offering anything to Matt as he ranted.

  “Matt?”

  Hearing his name, Matt ducked out of the small office to find Evan walking carefully over the wreckage. “What are you doing here?”

  “Got the call. It’s my precinct.” Evan gestured for Matt to head back to the office.

  “Jim, thanks for letting me know.”

  Jim nodded, then reached in his pocket for his phone. “I’m gonna call Griffin and go upstairs, see what I can figure out.”

  When they were alone, Matt couldn’t help pacing.

  “Did you pull the security feed yet?”

  “No,” Matt spat. “There isn’t any. Someone shut off the cameras. The sprinklers didn’t activate, the silent alarm—nothing.”

  In all his time doing this, he’d never had a break-in. Never vandalism or damage—nothing. This infuriated him—to see the destruction of property and peace of mind around him.

  “Inside job?”

  Matt had thought of that. But he trusted their crew. He and Jim had investigated them thoroughly before hiring them, and they were good judges of character. But history had taught him that for the right money, most people would give up their mothers. “We have to look at my people, and Bennett’s,” Matt said with a heavy sigh. He pulled at the collar of his shirt. “I have to see who worked on this gig specifically.”

  “You get me names, I’ll run them,” Evan offered, but Matt shook his head.

  “I already did that.”

  “I have access—”

  Matt put his hand up, regarding his boyfriend with a “really?” expression. “So do I.”

  Evan opened and closed his mouth. “Please tell me you didn’t just admit to having access to police databases.”

  “I didn’t admit to anything.” Matt pulled out his phone. “Let me call Eddie.”

  EDDIE, WORKING on a job uptown, freaked out a little about the vandalism. He took a cab down and met them in the lobby. “Matt, I’m so sorry,” he said, joining them in the corner for an impromptu meeting.

  “Not your fault, at least I hope not,” Matt said grimly. “You did the final walk-through.”

  “Right.” Eddie stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans, shifting from foot to foot. “With Alex.”

  “The temporary guy,” Jim put in.

  Eddie nodded. “We checked everything, did the list, signed off on it.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes as he watched Eddie. Something was up. He knew his employee, and he’d never seen this level of anxiety. “You personally checked everything,” Matt said, without the question mark at the end. “With your own eyes.”

  Eddie dropped his gaze.

  “Oh shit,” Jim sighed.

  “Alex came recommended,” Matt said, looking over at Jim.

  “By Eddie.”

  All eyes turned to the young man. Cracking him wasn’t even going to require work.

  “I’LL HAVE him picked up,” Evan tried again, but Matt and Jim were already half a block away from the mess, trying to find a cab.

  “Or I’ll go talk to him and find out who he sold the codes to, which will take about a quarter of the time,” Matt snapped.

  Evan put up his hands, dodging pedestrians on the corner of Fifth and Forty-Second. “I’m asking you to let this be a legal interrogation.”

  “We get lawyers involved in this and we’ll never figure out who did this.”

  “Matt, think about what you just said. Jim, help me out here.”

  Jim said nothing as he stepped into the traffic and hailed a cab.

  ALEX DIDN’T put up much resistance in the end.

  Matt and Jim were terrifying enough, but Evan felt confident that his badge loosened the young man’s tongue. He sat on the floor of his Inwood apartment, hands over his face.

  “I haven’t worked in fourteen months,” Alex muttered, sniffling between words. “I needed the money. Eddie didn’t know what was going on—I swear to God. He thought he was just helping me out.”

  Jim shared a look with Matt.

  “What happened?” Evan asked, sitting across from Alex. He tried to keep the young man’s attention on him and not the glowering twins on either side of him.

  “After I got the job, I was at the bar down the street with Eddie, and this girl started talking to me after he left. She said she had a friend and he, uh, needed some information.”

  Matt let out a heavy sigh and walked around the small living room. Jim—well, Evan looked up and saw Jim was frozen, intent on Alex’s shaking form.

  “Did she say why he wanted the information?”

  Alex shook his head.

  Biting his tongue, Evan exhaled. “So this woman tells you she�
�ll pay for the information. How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars for the security codes in the office, another grand for me to disconnect the sprinklers.”

  Matt made a disgusted sound from across the room.

  “Just tell me his name, the guy who paid you,” Jim said suddenly, set on full glower, imposing his sheer size over the kid’s still form.

  “He didn’t give me his name. Just a bunch of cash. We met out at Newark Airport. He flew in from Canada and—”

  Jim interrupted, a note of anger in his voice that made Alex cringe and Matt snap to attention. “Where in Canada?”

  “Um, Toronto. We met in the United lounge.”

  “Matt” was all Jim had to say.

  Matt was already doing a search on his phone. He turned it to Alex after he found what he wanted. “This the guy?”

  Alex squinted at the picture, then nodded. “Yeah. His hair’s different and he’s gained some weight, but that’s him.”

  Evan leaned over to see what Alex was looking at. His stomach dropped when he saw Tripp Ingersoll’s face staring back at him.

  Chapter 26

  EVAN RETURNED to a crime scene in chaos. The press had settled at the front of the building, already updated on the situation. Multimillionaire Bennett Ames was the victim of a break-in and possible arson.

  “Erin, it’s me again. I need crowd control at the entrance,” Evan snapped into his phone as the press on the fringes recognized the police captain in their midst.

  They turned around and focused their attention on him. Half the press corps wanted to know if crime was on the rise in the neighborhood and the other half wanted to know if this had to do with Bennett and Daisy’s divorce.

  Evan paused to take a deep breath before waving his hands to get their attention. “I have no comment at this time. We’ll schedule a press conference at the precinct when we have more information.”

  Behind him, he heard the siren of a newly arrived car.

  “Contact the press office for information,” he said before turning and heading for the sidewalk.

  A black-and-white had taken Alex in for booking while Jim and Matt met Evan back at his office. No one talked. It seemed like they were all stewing in their own concerns.

  Evan slammed the door, shaking up the quiet.

  “So you’ve been illegally investigating Trip Ingersoll,” Evan said, trying to keep his anger in check. “That’s something.”

  Jim didn’t sit down. He stood with his legs apart and his arms crossed over his chest. “I was gathering information, which I then shared with the police who have jurisdiction over one of the murders. What they choose to do with it is not my concern.”

  “Right.” Evan flopped in his chair. “How’d he find out what you were doing?”

  “A reporter called me on my way back from Oregon.” Jim slumped the tiniest bit. “There must be a leak in the Ashland Police Department,” he said. “What concerns me the most is that if he was coming back from Toronto, that means he met with his wife, Tracey.” His mouth slid into a tight line after that, and Evan flexed his hands into fists until the urge to punch something passed.

  “We need to make sure she’s all right,” Matt offered, but Jim didn’t say anything.

  Evan pulled everything together, tucked it all neatly into his game face. “I’ll call the Toronto PD. Jim, just write down everything—how you contacted her, where you met.” Evan pushed a pad and pen in Jim’s direction. “I’m going to call the FBI as well, just to give them a heads-up. Let’s see if we can contain this.”

  THEY COULDN’T contain it. The damage done to Bennett’s offices started a round of front-page news. A new resident—famous, rich, able to afford the best security—the victim of a deranged stalker or disgruntled ex-employee or maybe just another example of this neighborhood going to hell.

  Most of the papers kept their histrionics in that direction, but the Post had a hatchet job on all of them so thorough that Matt knew it was personal. His own checkered past was the lead, with a bit on Jim being sued back in Seattle and Evan’s personal relationship with “one of the suspects.”

  Matt was a suspect?

  Fuck them.

  Matt burned with the shame of having his past thrown up again, and watching Jim and Evan get thrown under the bus pissed him off to no end. He hid in his home office, brooding and alone, ignoring calls from Liz and Vic, even his old partner, Abe.

  Not again. He didn’t want any of this again.

  Evan didn’t even bother to promise to be home. With Casper gone from his PR liaison role, Evan was managing the press deluge with personnel loans from the main office. None of them seemed to be able to direct the masses toward something less tabloid. No one gave a shit about parking or congestion, but this was a story they could get extra mileage out of. Recognizable names, lurid details.

  Jim was hidden at the penthouse with Griffin, Daisy, and little Sadie. Bennett stayed at a hotel down the street because Griffin refused to sleep in the same space as him. A few clients had put projects “on hold” for various reasons, but most of their base was still gung ho. Matt made calls for hours, remained charming even though he wanted to punch a wall.

  Then there was the brass.

  Evan didn’t tell him, and that was the rub. He had to hear from Helena.

  HELENA BREEZED into Evan’s office with two humongous cups of coffee and Shane, who was carrying his computer. She had been classified “not on active duty” as the NYPD tried to woo her into picking something else instead of resigning.

  So she decided, as announced to Evan, that she and Shane would assist him during this incredible clusterfuck.

  “What do we need?” Helena asked breezily, setting Shane up on the sofa and giving herself a corner of Evan’s desk.

  “Statements clarifying that this isn’t some incredible soap opera full of melodramatics. A cloning machine and one of those thingamajigs from Men in Black.” Evan took the proffered coffee and fell on it like a starving man.

  “I’m on the statements, but if you can find a Men in Black thingy, I’ll buy two,” Shane said, opening his laptop.

  “How about me?”

  Evan looked Helena up and down. She was wearing a mint green lightweight suit and white blouse with pearl earrings and a gold watch. Everything about her was polished and perfect—like Casper, but at least he knew he could trust her with his very life. He picked up the phone and asked the operator to connect him with the PR department. He had a good idea for Casper’s replacement.

  “I’m not saying yes on a permanent basis,” Helena said primly, sitting across from Evan with her hands folded on her lap. “I’m going to need to see a salary and benefits package.”

  Two senior NYPD officials showed up unannounced at his door a few hours later. Helena and Shane disappeared quickly. Evan offered them chairs and coffee.

  They didn’t want anything.

  “Evan, we’re a little concerned about this… problem you seem to be having,” said Mr. Higgins. “This precinct is a positive in the shitstorm of crime in this city. You were given it so you’d have every opportunity to prove yourself. And now? All my good press from this place is in the shitter.” His thick round face turned red with anger. “I have stories pointing out your relationship to the man involved with the break-in—”

  “No, excuse me. Two things, Mr. Higgins—you knew about Matt when you approached me. Period. That hasn’t changed. And he wasn’t involved, as evidenced by the arrest of the man on accessory charges. He admitted to selling the codes.”

  “Yes, I know. We can read.” Mr. Alsta pulled out a cell phone. “But there isn’t much to combat when the Ingersoll lawyers are screaming that Jim Shea has been stalking their client, trying to frame him for murder.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Evan snapped. He itched to point out they suspected Tripp in the break-in, but at this moment, he knew any speculation relating to Ingersoll would set the two men off.

  “No, that’s page four of
the Post and page eleven on the Daily News,” Mr. Higgins responded in the exact same tone.

  “I want it to die down, Evan. I don’t want to see Mr. Shea or Mr. Haight in the papers, on the investigation, quoted or otherwise mentioned,” Mr. Alsta added. “And tell your boyfriend,” he said, his dislike clear, “to stay out of the investigation. This has to stop being such a mess—a mess attached to your name.”

  Evan tightened his mouth into a flat line. “Of course.”

  Chapter 27

  “I TALKED to Howard over in Ashland,” Jim said, shutting the study door behind Matt.

  “What do they have?”

  “The DA agreed with him. They’re issuing a warrant for Tripp in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “He’s in Toronto.” Matt sank down in a chair, a headache throbbing behind his eyes. “Extradition, then—that’s going to be fucking ridiculous.”

  He realized Jim wasn’t answering, and when he looked at his friend, he saw the expression on his face—and panicked. “What is going on?”

  “We haven’t had a chance to talk about everything, but when I was in Ashland, Howard and I developed a theory,” Jim murmured. “About how Tripp got all these girls into his car, why Tracey could always alibi him.”

  Matt’s stomach fell to his shoes. “You think she’s involved. Against her will, maybe—she left him…,” he tried.

  “Or his parents have cut him off during their own split…”

  Matt picked up the thread dangling. “And what? They divorce, she gets money.”

  “She gets half of everything.”

  A mirthless smile slid across Matt’s face. “Half of the stuff his parents won’t let him touch. Like trust funds.”

  “They can keep him away from whatever they want.”

  “But they can’t keep Tracey from it legally.” Jim kicked the nearest object, a sturdy leather sofa that trembled under the force.