by Aiden Bates
"So you never got back together with your family?" Nick slid behind the wheel of his vehicle.
"Nope." Ryan got in on the passenger side and buckled in. "They surrendered permanent custody when I was ten." He looked out the window as Nick backed out of the parking spot.
"Jesus!" Nick put the car into drive and headed out of the complex. "Ten—wait. Was it after you got tested?"
"Yeah." Ryan squared his shoulders. It wasn't something to be ashamed of. "My mom lived with her uncle, and he wasn't having any omegas in the house. She couldn't support herself on her own, never mind herself and a kid. She didn't have a lot of choice, I guess." He sipped from his coffee. "I was probably better off."
"Jeez. I'm sorry." Nick fell silent, and Ryan let him for a little while. He didn't want to talk about the past right now.
When they got out to I-495, Ryan relented. He turned to Nick. "So. Let's talk about Rosa Townsend."
***
The drive from Marlborough to Carver took a little over an hour. At the end of their journey Nick pulled up in front of a cute little ranch house with green shutters and a stone chimney. He and Ryan got out of the car and followed a pretty, well-maintained path up to the door, where they rang the bell.
Rosa Townsend Acker was a tall woman, five-foot-eleven in flats, with long gray hair in braids and medium brown skin. She held her head high as she answered her door, but her left hand fussed with a gold pendant that hung around her long neck. "You must be Detectives Robles and Tran." She held out her right hand. "I'm Rosa. Please, come in."
They both shook her hand and followed her into the living room, which was dominated by a huge stone fireplace. The fireplace had a mantle, and on that shelf were at least a dozen framed photos. Most were of what looked like Rosa's family; she featured prominently in some of them, while some of them were very clearly school pictures. One picture caught Nick's eye, though. It was an older picture, in an older frame. The subject was a dark-skinned young man in his late teens, with natural hair standing out from his head like a halo. Rosa had placed a small votive candleholder in front of the photo; from the looks of things, the candle inside got a lot of use.
"That's my brother, James." Rosa looked away. "I can only assume that he's why you're here."
"Yes, ma'am." Ryan sat down on her blue gingham couch. "I don't know if anyone ever called you, but there's been a break in the case."
She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, but bent down to the coffee service on the table. She'd set out a formal coffee service, one that looked antique. Now she poured out coffee into three cups. "No one reached out, but I'm not surprised. The people investigating James' murder weren’t all that interested in talking to his family back then. I wouldn't expect anything different now." She closed her eyes for a second and settled her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be bitter."
"It's only natural." Ryan accepted his coffee and gave her a little smile. "I've been in a similar situation. It's hard to avoid bitterness some days, right?" He ducked his head and looked up at her in what had to be the most endearing glance that Nick had ever seen in his life. "You've moved forward, though."
Nick bit his tongue. What exactly did Ryan mean by similar situation? He tried not to stare, but shifted his position so that he could watch both his partner and Rosa.
Rosa smirked. "Forward. Not on. That's exactly right." She sat down in a wingback chair with her own cup of coffee. "My life fell apart for a little bit, after they found James. To see my brother, my baby brother, dead like that. Someone did that to him. Someone chose to sit there and take his life."
"They did. And I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry that forty years ago, the killers weren't brought to justice." Ryan put his coffee down. "The thing with this kind of crime, though, is that it's never too late. Detective Robles does nothing but work on older, difficult-to-solve cases. There's a whole unit devoted to this kind of thing. And when a new piece of information comes to light, that department can chase things down and hopefully find answers."
Rosa nodded her head, very slowly, and sipped her coffee. "So what exactly is the new evidence?"
Nick took a deep breath and told her about the discovery of Maureen O'Neal's body. He watched as her face fell, and then watched the tears fall further when he told her that they estimated that she died on the same day as James. "You're the only person who reported her missing, Rosa," he said at the end. "How did you know she hadn't just run away, like her brothers said?"
Rosa's lip curled. "You know, I told James not to go near that girl. Maureen was nice enough, for a local girl. I mean, they didn't know each other from school. She went to a Catholic school nearby. I think they met at a pizza place or something, and he was head over heels from the minute he saw her. He should have known better."
Ryan frowned. "But you said she was nice."
"Oh, she was sweet as can be. Just the kind of girl that you want for a sister-in-law. Or at least she would have been, if she didn't come from that family, you know?"
Ryan winced. "Not fans of the relationship, I take it."
Rosa sipped from her cup, her eyes focused on something far away. "I don't raise my kids to hate anyone. We don't talk about what happened to James, just that he died. But as soon as I saw the way her family—her father, her brothers, even her mother—looked at her when she was with James, I knew it was going to end in tears." She took a deep breath, head bowed. "And Lord help me, I wanted revenge."
Ryan took Rosa's hand. "Of course you did. That's normal."
Nick glared at him. He didn't say anything, though. He was going to have to do a lot of work to figure out what was going on with his handsome omega partner. Instead, he offered her a little smile. "You didn't, though."
"No. No, my mother sent me down to New York to stay with an aunt for a few months. That's where I found my calling—and my husband. I'm a social worker now. I try to help people before they turn to violence." She offered up a small, sad smile. "It's what James wanted to do with his life, before he was killed."
Ryan squeezed her hand. "I noticed that there isn't any mention of this in the notes from before, which I'm going to assume is just an oversight. I apologize if you went over this already. Did James get a lot of threats, or did a lot of people harass or try to intimidate him?"
"Oh my goodness, yes. South Boston High was like a war zone a lot of the time, for us. I guess that it was supposed to be a good school, before, but it wasn't anymore. He was getting threats every day, because he was smart and he didn't back down. That was before he took up with sweet little Maureen. That whole thing just ratcheted everything up by about a thousand. I warned him, but he wouldn't hear it." She closed her eyes.
Nick cleared his throat and tugged on his collar. "Were there any particular incidents that stand out?"
Rosa considered. "Nothing specific. I mean, yes, he got jumped a few times in the halls, but it wasn't always the same people." She swallowed. "There was one kid, Liam Ahern, who slashed the tires on my mom's car."
"He was someone who used to date Maureen." Ryan pressed his lips together.
"Yes, I think so. I don't think she liked him. She told me that he was just someone that her brother was friends with, and she went on a couple of dates with him, but that he was kind of a pig and he smelled bad." She shrugged. "That boy, the Ahern boy, he got caught in the act by my dad. He cried like a baby, cut himself on his pathetic little switchblade and confessed everything to the cop who showed up when we called. All that when everyone knew he wasn't even going to get arrested." Her lip curled.
Nick met Ryan's eyes. Ahern's behavior didn't sound like someone who could bludgeon two people to death and just go on with his life. "Was James a fighter?" he asked.
"I wouldn't say he looked for trouble." Rosa looked over to her brother's portrait. "He never threw the first punch, let me put it to you that way. He didn't throw the first punch, but he usually threw the last one." She sighed. "Until he didn't, I guess."
Ryan scratc
hed his head. "Did you notice anyone at his funeral that you didn't expect?"
She played with her necklace for a moment. "Not really. I expected Maureen to show up, but I know why she didn't now." She pressed her fist to her mouth for a second. "I'm sorry. I think that I knew, on some level, but it's still…"
"Yeah." Ryan looked away for a moment. "I get it." He gave her an encouraging smile.
"Well, she wasn't there, and her awful family blew us off too. Her brother's girlfriend came to the funeral, though. Only white person who did." Rosa pulled herself together and sniffed. "Leanne, her name was. She didn't say much, but what do you say? She was real pale that day." Rosa gripped her necklace. "Looking back, I think it's possible that she might have been injured. She was cradling her arm real close to her body. I don't know, though. It's been forty years. It's easy to diagnose something at a distance like that, when you don't like the person you think is the attacker."
"True." Nick stood up. "Thank you for agreeing to see us, Rose. I can promise you that we'll keep you updated on what happens."
She rose and shook his hand. "Can I ask you gentlemen a question?"
"Of course." Ryan took his handshake and smiled. "Anything."
"Why is it that when my brother died it was crickets, but when a white girl got found dead all of a sudden there's interest?"
Nick felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Ryan had an answer ready for her, though. "I know it seems like that. I can't claim that there wasn't an element of racism in how James' murder was handled forty years ago. There was. What I can tell you is that two things were found with Maureen's body. We found items that we believe are the murder weapons for both victims, and we found flowers. When we only had James' remains, there were so many suspects, and we didn't have enough information on any of them to narrow it down. The flowers give us a vital clue about her relationship to the killers. It takes the case from almost impossible to solve at this late date, to something that we can solve."
She nodded. "So I was right. Getting involved with Maureen did get him killed."
Nick expected Ryan to say something kind and gentle, the way he had been for the entire day. Instead, his whole face drained of color. "It looks that way, ma'am." He slipped toward the door. "I'm very sorry."
Nick stared after him for a second. "It's too early to say that for sure," he said. "We're exploring a bunch of different options. We don't want to half-ass this. Your brother's murder—and Maureen's—is our only case right now."
She gave him a sad smile. "Thank you. And I know it's not their fault—not James', certainly, and not Maureen's. If you'd asked me that forty years ago I'd have told you differently, but I'm older now." She sighed. "I think you should go and sit with your partner for a minute. He looked upset."
Nick glanced out at the car. Ryan was leaning against the hood, hands in his pockets and head down. "Thanks again for your time, ma'am."
Ryan got into the car as soon as his door unlocked. He didn't say a word, just buckled his belt and stared straight ahead. "You okay?" Nick asked.
"I'm peachy." Ryan kept his hands on his thighs and didn't move.
Nick nodded, not sure what else to say, and headed back out to Marlborough. Something was definitely going on with Ryan, and he was going to find out what it was.
He dropped Ryan off at his condo, but he didn't drive back out to his house in Ashland. Instead, he headed in to the office.
The Cold Case squad room was empty and dark. That didn't surprise Nick. The fact that the detectives were at home on a Saturday didn't mean that they weren't hard at work on their own cases. It suited Nick's needs to have the place to himself, though.
He booted up his laptop and started searching. It didn't take him long to find what he was looking for. Apparently Ryan had been involved with a crime when he'd been in college at Northeastern. A little bit more digging got him the police report from the incident.
He let out a long, low whistle. Apparently Ryan hadn't just been involved with the crime. He'd been a victim. According to the police report, he'd been with an alpha by the name of Dan Tracey when someone decided to attack both of them. Tracey died, and Ryan had been seriously injured.
The killer, as it turned out, was Tracey's brother. He'd had strong objections to the idea of his brother being mated to an Asian man. According to Eric Tracey's written confession, he and his family had tried to reason with Dan, but he wouldn't hear them out. He hadn't had any choice but to try to remove the omega from Dan's life.
Nick pushed his chair back and stared at the image on his screen. The idea that Ryan was a victim in a crime that bore any similarity to the current case turned his stomach. Ryan needed to back himself off of the case, right away. He should have done it before the case even got off the ground. It wasn't as though he wouldn't have known that the case wouldn't have racial overtones. There was no way that he could possibly maintain his objectivity on a project like this.
He didn't know what to do. He'd have to confront Ryan, but how? He didn't want to work with a partner who might fly off the handle, or go after a suspect out of some kind of misguided revenge scheme.
He flipped forward a little bit farther. He saw a picture of Ryan in the hospital after the attack, and the picture made him clench his fist in anger. He hated seeing his omega like that.
Not his omega. He shook his head and laughed at himself. Ryan wasn't his omega. Sure, he was attracted to Ryan, and maybe he could try something out with him after this whole mess got cleared up, but right now they weren't any kind of lovers. They weren't even partners, or they wouldn't be once Nick confronted him. He needed to focus on the case, not on flirtations.
Part of Nick wondered if he hadn't been looking for an excuse to get rid of Ryan as his partner. He hadn't wanted to work with him at all, and he found working with someone he was so attracted to distracting. He dismissed his own accusation. This was about integrity, not about his libido.
Chapter Four
Ryan sat down at his desk on Monday morning still feeling raw inside, hollow and scooped out. For a while there on Saturday his side and back had hurt, as if the attack had happened the day before. It was just as well that Nick hadn't tried to speak to him on the long ride back to Marlborough, because Ryan was pretty sure that he would have started to bleed.
Today, though, he figured that he could probably hold it together. Definitely, maybe, hold it together. This was about James and Maureen, and set in a different time. The case had gone cold because no one present at the time had cared enough to press the case. Dan had been killed years later, and bystanders had shown up to restrain Eric and try to stem the bleeding. This was a different time, a different place, and he was going to be okay.
He looked at his desk, only to find a note. "Come to Cold Case," he read aloud. "Very important." He resisted a groan. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to be around a bunch of alphas.
It didn't look like he was going to get a lot of choice in the matter. He grabbed his briefcase, stared at the note for a moment, and left the office.
It was probably too much to hope for that this was going to be a surprise birthday party. He put his hand on the door and opened it. Then he pushed his way inside.
Oh good. The entire Cold Case squad was waiting for him, and no, this wasn't a surprise party. All of the detectives and the two admins sat there waiting with identical looks of smug satisfaction on their faces. Lt. Devlin stood there, too. His face was an impenetrable mask. Ryan stopped after a few feet.
His palms sweated, and his gut tied itself up in knots. He'd been here before. He'd been the only omega, or the only gay kid, or the only Asian kid, or what-have-you. The conclusion was foregone. He'd stepped out of his proper place, and all that remained was to reinforce the norms. Ryan couldn't stop them from doing whatever it was that they were going to do.
All that he could do was make it harder than hell for them.
"Wow," he said, making sure to give an exaggerated smirk. "Gang's all her
e, huh? Guess it must just be my lucky day. To what do I owe this extra special treatment, I wonder? Could it be my good looks and charming personality? Or, I wonder, is it the complaint that I already filed with Personnel?"
The oldest detective, the short one with graying black hair, gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Aw, you hear that guys? He went and complained to Personnel."
"Shut up, Nenci." Devlin glared at the nasty little man. "He had every right to go and file a complaint. You weren't there. I was." He cleared his throat. "In this case, however, Detective Robles has found something concerning."
Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. "Did he find some new and exciting way to point out that I'm an omega and he doesn't want to work with one?" If this had happened back on the streets of Lowell, like when Ryan was a kid, Ryan would have already attacked. He got that he couldn't do that now, but he remembered the old rules, remembered the feeling. Back then, you didn't let someone get away with treating you like crap. You took them down, hard, and you didn't let them get back up.
