by Pandora Pine
“You will? I mean, I’m not sure if I want to adopt or foster teenagers, but there has to be something we can do to get them off the streets and make their lives better.” Shit, maybe they could help set up a home for boys in this situation?
“Truman mentioned wanting to have a fundraiser to pay for Austin Roberts’ funeral. Maybe you could get on board with the charity he wants to start? I like that he wants to call it We Are Family. Maybe it could be more than a way to provide funeral services for these kids.”
“What are you thinking?” Ronan liked the sound of this.
“What if the money was used to go to shows in Boston? Or to see movies or to go on a shopping spree for warm clothes or to pay for GED classes? These kids don’t want to live on the street and hook to survive. Maybe there are other gay men like us who would want to foster these kids but who aren’t aware that there is a need.”
“It’s definitely something to think about, like you said, once this motherfucker is behind bars.” Ronan heard the tone in his voice darken. He had turned down the road leading to Rumney Marsh and could already see the line of emergency vehicles leading to the body of victim number fourteen.
The bright May sunshine was near-blinding when Ronan got out of the Mustang a few minutes later. He held a hand up to shield his eyes against it, but the one thing he could not shield himself against was the yellow tarp and what lay beneath it.
Tennyson came up to stand beside him. “It’s going to be okay.”
“We both know it isn’t.” Ronan turned to look at Tennyson. His lover wore a grim look on his face. “Is the boy’s spirit here?”
Shaking his head, no, Ten turned to focus on the tarp-shrouded body. “It was violent and bloody, like the others. I can also feel residual satisfaction and relief, if that makes sense.”
“It does. Sometimes these killers feel a compulsion and once they’ve killed their latest victim, it’s common for them to feel relieved, at least until the cycle ramps up all over again.” Ronan hated explaining this to Tennyson. It was like he was chipping away at another piece of his innocence.
“We have to find him before that happens.” The look on Ten’s face was one of pure determination.
“We do. Let’s go.” Ronan headed over toward the officers standing guard over the body.
“You O’Mara?” one of them called out. “I’m Officer Simon.”
“Yeah, and this is my partner, Tennyson Grimm. What have we got?”
“Naked teenage male. His throat is slit ear-to-ear and he has the number fourteen written across his chest in biological fluids. There are multiple contusions all over his body. Both eyes are blacked. Someone beat the shit out of this kid. There’s also signs he was raped.”
Ronan nodded. He was expecting to hear everything the cop was telling him. “Pull back the tarp, please.”
The cop signaled two of the others standing nearby, who quickly did as they were asked.
Ronan gasped and felt his heart start to pound in his chest. Thankfully Tennyson was there to grab his elbow for support.
“What is it? Do you know him?” Tennyson’s voice was laced with concern.
Ronan nodded. He felt his breakfast rising in his throat. He tried to suck in a deep breath but only gagged harder.
“Who is he, detective?” Officer Simon asked.
“He’s one of the boys I met last night at the Tremont Street Mission. The one who knew Austin Roberts. Jesus Christ…” Ronan couldn’t believe his eyes. Twelve hours ago this boy was alive and talking to him and now he was lying mutilated in a field.
“Hey, guys, what are we looking at here?” Vann Hoffman came up from behind them.
“We have another victim of the serial killer,” Tennyson half-whispered. “Ronan spoke to this boy last night.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Vann whispered back. “You two need to catch this asshole. Can’t you get a vibe on the murderer, Ten, by touching this poor boy?”
“I’ve never tried,” Tennyson said on a sigh.
“What would it hurt?” Ronan asked. They needed all the help they could get. He didn’t want to force Tennyson into doing anything he didn’t want to do, but the last thing Ronan wanted to do was repeat this scene over body number fifteen.
“Will I mess anything up for your autopsy or evidence gathering if I touch him?” Tennyson asked Vann.
“Not if you wear gloves. Do you think gloves with interfere with your ability to read him?” Vann’s expression was serious.
“I don’t think so. Do you have gloves I can use?”
“In my kit.” Vann knelt down beside the medical kit he’d brought and pulled out a pair of purple surgical gloves.
Tennyson straightened his spine while he worked the gloves on over his hands. When they were secured, he stepped up to the body and knelt beside it. He seemed leery to reach out and touch the murdered teenager, but after a few seconds, Ten touched his right hand. Moments later, he stood up and walked back to Ronan. “His name is Dylan Charles and the last conscious thought he had was that he should have told you the truth last night, before it was too late.”
27
Tennyson
After Ronan had done as much as could be done at the crime scene, they’d gone back to his apartment in Dorchester, after a brief stop at the precinct. Even working remotely from Greeley’s rehab facility up on the North Shore, Fitzgibbon had been working his ass off for Ronan.
Fitzgibbon had pulled the rest of his cold case detectives off the cases they were currently working on and had them assigned to the John Doe bodies matching the age range of this killer. So far, they’d managed to find ten of the fourteen victims attributed to this killer. All of them had numbers written on their chests.
Ronan had run in to the office to grab the two boxes of files his colleagues had left for him. These files were currently stacked around Ronan’s kitchen table. Ronan hadn’t said a word in two hours. The only sound in the apartment was the scratching of his pen against page after page of yellow legal paper.
While Ronan was wading through the police reports and autopsies of the dead teenagers, Tennyson had been trying to reach out to Dylan Charles. So far, he’d had no luck. Granted, the boy had only been dead for half a day, but he’d spoken to other spirits who’d only been dead for a matter of seconds.
Ten was exhausted and more frustrated than he’d been since the Michael Frye case.
“Hey, you okay?” Ronan called out from behind a stack of files.
“Can’t reach Dylan Charles.” In truth it was more than that. Ten knew Ronan felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. That burden only got heavier with every case file sitting on his table. Tennyson was feeling the same pressure. He should be able to contact more of these boys.
“I’ve been thinking,” Ronan said suddenly from behind him.
Tennyson startled a bit, but Ronan was right there, wrapping Ten in his strong arms. “About what?”
“How would you like a nice hot bath? Hmm? Maybe a cup of green tea? Then after your soak you might be in a better frame of mind to channel. I’ve been making notes on all of these cases. That’s why I’ve been so quiet for so long. I wrote down basic info about each teenager so you’d have it all handy.”
“You did that for me?” Ten whispered, knowing that if he spoke out loud his voice was going to crack with emotion.
“Before you met me, Ten, you’d never seen a dead body, now you see them all the time. Hell, you even touched one today. I’m just afraid that I’m stealing your innocence a bit more with every day we spend working together. If I can do one thing for you that somehow helps you recharge, it makes me feel like maybe I can wash away those sins.” Ronan buried his head in the hollow of Ten’s shoulder.
Ten had to admit Ronan made several good points. He’d spoken to spirits from the time he was thirteen years old, but it wasn’t until he’d started working with Ronan that he’d ever seen a dead body. “You know how important my work is to me. I used to think deliverin
g healing messages from spirit was the best thing I could do. You know, help someone get over losing a husband to cancer or get over losing a daughter who died in a drunk driving crash. But Ronan, helping you arrest murderers? Getting a serial killer off the street who’s raping and torturing gay men before he kills them, what could be more important than that? Yeah, the work is ugly and Jesus Christ, all I want to do is cry for these poor boys, but this is the best work I could be doing with my gift right now.”
“I’ll go start the bath. Why don’t you put the kettle on?” Ronan brushed a kiss over Tennyson’s lips.
Ten felt like asking what had gotten into Ronan to want to do something so kind for him, but he kept his mouth shut. Ronan had done stuff like this for him before the end of the Michael Frye case, before his ex-husband made his awful confessions. This Ronan was the Ronan he’d been before the awful day when that case had come to its final, brutal conclusion.
Walking over to the stove, Ten turned on the burner under the kettle and grabbed two mugs out of the cabinet. Ronan had started drinking tea with him, though not the green tea he preferred. Ronan liked peppermint tea. He put a bag in each of the cups and waited for the water to boil.
When it did, he made the tea for each of them and carried the mugs into the bathroom. What greeted him was quite a surprise. The small bathroom was bathed in golden candlelight. The tub was filled with steaming lavender-scented water. Tennyson loved the scent of lavender. It was so calming and always helped him to center himself when he felt a bit off balance. “Ronan, this is amazing.”
“You like it?” Ronan was sitting on the bathroom floor with his back against the wall of the tub. He was dressed only in his black boxer briefs.
“I love it.” He handed the peppermint tea to Ronan and set his own on the counter near the sink. “I still can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I did it for us, actually.” Ronan waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Oh, did you, now?” Tennyson raised a skeptical eyebrow and pulled his shirt over his head.
Ronan grinned. “While we were apart, Truman bought me this book about reconnecting with your lover. It listed different ways to feel close to your partner and running them a bath and then washing them sounded nice. It was also within my skill set.”
“Within your skill set?” Tennyson laughed. He loved that Truman was thoughtful enough to send Ronan a book on how to reconnect with a lover. If anyone knew the ins and outs of getting back together with a man you loved after royally screwing things up, it was Truman Wesley.
“Yeah, one chapter talked about making a favorite meal. Definitely not my thing.” Ronan shook his head and grimaced.
Tennyson laughed and dipped his toes in the water. “Oh, God, this is perfect.” Ten settled himself into the water and instantly felt the tension of the day start to melt away. He shut his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, letting the light scent of the lavender wash over him.
“How do I find my center?” Ronan asked softly a few minutes later. “I can smell the lavender and when I close my eyes to breathe with you, all I see is the yellow crime scene tarp and that boy’s body from this afternoon.”
Tennyson’s dark eyes popped back open. “Climb in the tub and settle yourself behind me.” While Ronan was undressing, Ten scooted forward.
Ronan climbed in and managed to settle himself into the tub. “I can’t believe we fit.”
“It’s an old house. I knew the tub would be big enough for both of us.” Ten rested back against Ronan’s chest. “Breathe with me. Focus on your breath, okay. Don’t think about anything else but the flow of air in and out.” He shut his eyes and felt Ronan rest their heads together. One of Ronan’s hands sat on his left hip, while the other rested over Ten’s heart.
Ten slowed his breathing down to his favorite three and three cadence. Take a breath and hold it for a count of three and then breathe it out over a count of three. He counted it off for Ronan the first two times through it, but after that, they were breathing together.
After a few minutes of breathing, Tennyson could feel the tension start to melt from Ronan’s body. His muscles started to relax and Ten felt him sag back against the tub a bit more. With as high stress as Ronan’s job was, this was the kind of thing the two of them should do together more often.
“I felt so helpless when I saw that kid’s face,” Ronan whispered against his neck. “There was something in his eyes last night. Like he wanted to talk but he couldn’t.”
“Do you think he didn’t want to talk in front of his friends or in front of Jace Lincoln or Rod Jacobson?” This conversation felt like a slippery slope. The point of getting Ronan into the tub was to get him to relax, not to get him all wound up about the case all over again. He needed a good night’s sleep tonight and if he was too caught up in the case, Tennyson knew he wouldn’t sleep at all.
“I’m not sure.” Ronan wrapped his arms tighter around Tennyson and held on.
Tennyson was sure Ronan was going to have more to say, but when Ronan stayed silent, he relaxed back against him, matching his breathing with Ronan’s.
“You mean everything to me, Ten. I’m not good at saying these things, but you make my life full of joy again. I haven’t brought much of that to you in return, but I’m working on it.”
“I love you too, Ronan.” Tennyson knew exactly what Ronan was trying to say. With everything that had happened in Ronan’s marriage and then with Josh’s confession back in February, Ten knew Ronan wouldn’t be as eager to confess his feelings out loud again.
Ronan tightened his hold on Ten.
“You don’t have to say it back. I just need to say the words. We’ve seen so much hate in the last few weeks and I need you to know how much you’re loved.” Ten had been in love with Ronan for months now and it felt freeing to finally say the words out loud.
“I don’t deserve it, Ten.” Ronan’s voice was thick with emotion.
Tennyson had a feeling Ronan would say that. “Yes, you do. You’re the best man I know. Don’t let memories of him steal this moment from you.” There was no way Ten would say that man’s name out loud and ruin this moment.
“I haven’t thought much about him lately for some reason and when I do, my heart doesn’t feel as tight.” Ronan sounded perplexed by that admission.
Ten chuckled. “Want to know why?”
“You gonna tell me it’s because this meditation crap actually works.” Ronan pressed a kiss against the back of Tennyson’s neck.
“It does, but that’s not the reason.” Tennyson was trying to hold back a giggle. He remembered the moment perfectly.
“Tell me,” Ronan whispered in his ear.
“The other day in the reading room, when Bertha brought Austin Roberts to speak to us. She set her hands on your shoulders and whispered for you to let it go.” Tennyson had been so touched by that moment. He hadn’t been sure what a few whispered words from Carson’s mother could do to help Ronan, but he’d been a lot calmer and happier in their private moments in the days since then.
“Hmm. I thought I felt something. Did she kiss the back of my head too?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“Wow, I felt that. Figured it was my imagination playing tricks on me. I felt so much calmer after that, like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.”
“It had been.” It still amazed Tennyson that Ronan had made so much progress with understanding and believing in things he couldn’t see or touch. He’d been such a skeptic when they’d first met.
Ronan pressed a kiss against his neck. “I’ll have to thank her the next time she’s in the room with us.”
“Doesn’t have to be the next time you see her. She’s around all the time, watching over you.” Tennyson loved the way Bertha Craig watched out for all of her boys, as she called Carson and all of his friends.
“But not right now though, is she?” Ronan’s body tensed up.
Ten laughed. “No, we’re totally alone.”
“Thank God.”
“Thank God, what?” Tennyson knew what Ronan was thinking. His erection was pressing hot and hard against his lower back.
“My fingers are starting to wrinkle from the bath water. What do you say we get out of here and I’ll show you what I’m thinking?” Ronan sucked Tennyson’s left earlobe into his mouth.
“Jesus, Ronan, keep doing that and I won’t be able to stand up.” Tennyson’s cock was already at full mast. He couldn’t wait for Ronan to get his hands on it. They’d been apart like this for way too long.
“We can’t have that, now, can we?” Ronan’s right hand skated down Tennyson’s chest, past his abs to wrap around his leaking cock. “How’s this?” He gave it a few slow tugs.
“Fucking amazing, but doing that isn’t going to get me out of the tub either.” Tennyson could not have cared less. This was perfect.
“Changed my mind,” Ronan grinned against the side of his neck. “Your skin is absolutely gorgeous in the candlelight. You glow like a bronzed god.”
Tennyson shivered. No one had ever praised him like that before. “Come on, Ronan. I’m hardly that.”
“You are to me, Ten. You’re always there for me. You’re my best friend, even when I’m not best friend material. You’re sweet and giving.” Ronan sped his hand up on Tennyson’s cock.
“Jesus, Ronan. You’re gonna make me come.” He really had it bad if Ronan’s voice and his hand were enough to get him off this quickly.
“That’s the plan. I’m gonna stroke you and just sit back and watch it happen. I want to hold you while you let go.”
“Ronan,” Tennyson gasped. Ten knew this was Ronan’s way of showing him that he loved him too. He was hoping his stubborn lover would let him repay the favor later on.
“Look how big your cock looks in my fist.” With his free hand, Ronan swiped a finger through the free-flowing pre-come drooling out of his slit and brought it up to his lips. “Fucking delicious!” He smacked his lips.
“Ronan, please.” The friction against his dick was enough to keep him on the edge but not enough to make him come.
