The Monet Murders

by Josh Lanyon

  Kennedy might be a lousy boyfriend, but he sure as hell was a loyal friend.

  When the alarm on his phone went off, Jason blinked up at the shadowy ceiling for a second or two, trying to figure out where he was.

  Oh, right. The Buccaneer’s Cove hotel in Cape Vincent. He was supposed to meet Sam—Kennedy—for dinner in…Jason peered at his phone screen…half an hour. He settled his head on the pillow, closed his eyes, and considered blowing off dinner. Every time he saw Kennedy, it just stirred up a lot of feelings he didn’t want and didn’t need.

  But no. He couldn’t do that. He owed Kennedy, so if Kennedy wanted to have dinner, the least Jason could do was make the same effort he would for any other colleague.

  He sat up and reached for the lamp switch.

  On the bright side, he had clean underwear, his own razor, and his job did not appear to be in imminent danger. A hot shower, a good meal, and he’d be his old self again.

  The hot shower did work a minor miracle. Jason dressed in the jeans, white shirt, and navy blazer he’d originally planned on wearing for his interview with Barnaby.

  He went next door and knocked. When nothing happened, he knocked again.

  The door opened.

  “Sorry. I got hung up on the phone.” Kennedy was bare-chested, though he had gotten as far as putting on jeans and shoes. His blond hair was dark from the shower. He moved away from the door, and Jason stepped inside.

  The room was the twin of his, right down to the rustic ship’s wheel over the bed and vintage black and white boating photos. Kennedy’s carryall sat open on the table. The navy-blue bedspread did not have a single wrinkle, so Kennedy had not been napping.

  A brown leather travel frame on the bedside table caught Jason’s eye.

  Two photos. One was of a much younger and smiling Kennedy holding a dark-haired man in a playful headlock. The other was of the same dark-haired young man gazing solemnly out at the world.

  It was kind of like getting gut-punched. Unexpected and paralyzing. For a second or two it was impossible for Jason to think past his immediate, visceral reaction.

  One thing for sure, this frame and these photos had not been anywhere in sight in Massachusetts. But here they were prominently, pointedly on display in Kennedy’s room now.

  A reminder? For whom?

  Kennedy was in the bathroom, hastily giving his chin a pass with his electric razor, and saying, “You look like you’re feeling better.”

  Jason continued to study the photo. Shock had given way to a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The guy in the photo with Kennedy looked superficially like himself. Dark hair, light eyes, angular face, and thin build as Crazy Kyser would have said.

  Kennedy flicked off his razor and reached for the bottle of Escentric Molecules Molecule 03. The distinct scent of vetiver together with ginger, sandalwood, cedar, mellow balsams, and musk floated into the room where Jason stood.

  Jason said, “Not your brother, I’m guessing?”

  Kennedy’s brows drew together, but he followed Jason’s gaze, and his face went instantly expressionless. “No.”

  He had to ask. It had to be addressed. To ignore it would be the weirdest thing in an already weird situation. “Is he the reason you don’t want to pursue anything else?”

  “Yes.” Kennedy’s voice was oddly quiet.

  After a moment, Jason said, “I see.”

  Maybe his anger wasn’t reasonable, but it was real. This he had a right to be upset about. Sam had lied about not being involved with anyone, and that was not okay. Jason would never have slept with him—well, probably not, he hoped not—if he’d known Sam was involved. Committed.

  Kennedy was watching him—warily, it seemed to Jason, but there was also a stoic line to his jaw. He expected Jason to be angry and hurt, and he was braced for an outburst.

  Pride came to Jason’s rescue. Pride and cold logic. Did he have a right to be angry? Sex, a few late-night phone calls, and the promise of a future dinner date where they would probably skip dinner. That was the extent of his “relationship” with Kennedy, if he wanted to get technical about it. There had been no commitment between them. If Kennedy had broken any vows, it was to the guy in the photo, and for all Jason knew, they had an open relationship. Or maybe they’d been separated at the time.

  Who the hell knew?

  Why the hell did it matter so much to him? It shouldn’t.

  The bottom line was Kennedy did not want to have a relationship with him, and really, it didn’t matter why. Why didn’t change anything.

  “Ready?” Jason asked briskly, and had the satisfaction of seeing Kennedy’s surprise.

  It didn’t stop Jason feeling that his still-beating heart had been ripped out of his chest, but it was a tiny comfort to be able to defy Kennedy’s expectations.

  “Yes.” Kennedy grabbed his shirt off the hanger on the back of the bathroom door—steaming the wrinkles out of his shirt. Jason knew that trick too.

  Kennedy buttoned up his shirt in record time and pulled on the black suit jacket he’d worn in LA. He hadn’t packed much, but he’d been prepared for a variety of scenarios, it seemed. But then he was always prepared for a variety of scenarios.

  They walked in deadly silence down the hall.

  “Did you want to eat here or find another place?” Kennedy asked when they reached the hotel lobby.

  “I don’t care. I just want to eat and go to bed.” Jason heard the echo of his words, mentally winced, and corrected, “Sleep.”

  Kennedy said nothing—not about to touch that with a ten-foot pole. He led the way to the empty dining room with its picturesque view of the nighttime harbor.

  The girl behind the reception desk wore a nametag that read Brandi. Jason could only imagine how many times she’d heard variations on “you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be” from the drunken fifty-plus fishing crowd.

  Brandi glanced briefly away from her smartphone to tell them to seat themselves. Kennedy headed for a large round table by the window.

  Jason smiled maliciously at the strategic placement of a safety zone of white linen and silver hurricane lanterns between them.

  Brandi, the receptionist, who it seemed was also their waitress, delivered menus and took their drink orders. Kennedy ordered a ginger ale. Jason ordered a Kamikaze.

  The drinks arrived right away. Kennedy ignored his, still frowning over the menu. He had donned his gold-rimmed reading glasses, which made him look academic and older. Jason set his menu aside and downed his drink before the waitress had time to depart.

  Brandi’s eyes widened as he indicated his glass.

  “Again. Please.”

  She grinned. “Oh-KAY!”

  Kennedy glanced over, and his brows rose. He made no comment, returning to his menu. Hiding behind it, Jason thought sourly.

  “What’s the situation in Oregon?” he asked, more because he wanted to force Kennedy to interact with him than from any desire to know.

  Kennedy proceeded to tell him about a cold case bursting into flames: the hunt for a missing teenaged girl, crazed survivalists, a serial killer twisting ancient Indian rituals to his own macabre purposes, and an FBI agent abducted off his own doorstep.

  Fifteen minutes later their meals arrived—Jason barely remembered ordering a seafood salad—and he was forced to say, “I had no idea. Given all that, I appreciate your flying out here to…”

  And he did, but the memory of that bedside photo caused the words to stick in his throat. It didn’t change the fact that with all hell breaking loose—okay, technically, it was the aftermath of all hell breaking loose, but still—Kennedy had made the decision to charge to Jason’s rescue. That was more than kind, more than decent. It was the kind of thing you did for family—or people you felt very guilty about.

  Kennedy didn’t seem to hear Jason’s gruff words. “I’ve got an opening in my unit. I’d like to bring Darling on board. I’m not sure he’ll accept, but I think he’s got the rig
ht instincts. In fact, I’d say he has a knack for our kind of work.”

  “Hunting monsters.”

  “They’re human enough. That’s what makes them frightening. Unfortunately, Darling’s formed an attachment to one of the deputy sheriffs up there in the back of beyond.”

  Yes. How unfortunate to form an emotional attachment that might come before your fucking job.

  “Oh, he’ll take it,” Jason said. “Even if he hadn’t been stuck on morgue patrol for the past six months. He’s ambitious, and it’s an opportunity to work with the great Sam Kennedy. Who wouldn’t jump at that?” That was hurt talking, though it came out sounding sarcastic.

  Kennedy eyed him thoughtfully. “I seem to have…incurred your displeasure, West.”

  Incurred your displeasure. He was being ironic. Also maybe looking for a fight?

  Or maybe Jason was the one looking for a fight. If so, that was the second Kamikaze.

  He settled for a curt. “Nope.”

  He’d only had a quick look at the photo, but the image seemed to have imprinted itself in his memory. It was an old photo. Kennedy had been younger. Significantly younger. So it was a relationship of long standing, not a recent development. A recent development would have been painful, but…things happened. An ongoing committed relationship meant Kennedy had been involved when he and Jason first hooked up.

  Either way you looked at it, he’d been cheating. Maybe not on Jason, but did that make it any better?

  Except… Kennedy was no cheater. He was brutally honest and as direct as a blunt instrument. So what the hell?

  If it was a current relationship, the photo would likely be contemporary.

  That first night in Boston: So are you married or involved or what?

  Kennedy was the one who’d asked.

  In eight months, whether Kennedy was at home in Quantico or on the road, there had never been a hint of anyone else in his life. Okay, he’d referred to his mother in Wyoming a couple of times. But other than that, the closest thing he had to a relationship was Jason. Jason would have staked his life on it.

  None of this made sense. Kennedy, of all people, traveling around with a couple of ancient photos like he was clinging to a lucky talisman in the face of temptation made the least sense of all.

  Kennedy expelled a long breath. His eyes were a blaze of blue. The only real color in the candlelit room. He said carefully, “West—Jason—I want to stay friends. I think of you as a friend. I…care about you.”

  Jason stared at him. Why did that hurt so much? It really should help with the pain of rejection because he could see Kennedy meant every word. He could feel Kennedy meant every word. Why did it make it worse that Kennedy wanted to be his friend?

  “I appreciate that. I appreciate—I’m grateful for everything you did for me today. But you said it yourself. It’s not practical to…” He had to stop there because it felt like a self-inflicted wound to cut off all possibility of anything with Kennedy. Which…didn’t that prove right there that amputation was necessary?

  Kennedy’s throat moved. He nodded. The lines in his face seemed more pronounced.

  Another thing. Why did it make Jason’s chest ache as much when he gave pain to Kennedy as when Kennedy hurt him?

  “I don’t understand,” Jason said. It was the simple truth, straight from the heart. The way they had talked to each other for all those months. Although they had never talked about feelings. They had flirted plenty, but this…this was putting into words what he had imagined had been between the lines.

  “I know.”

  And no explanation was going to be forthcoming.

  But Jason persisted. It was too important not to try, even though it already felt like a doomed effort. “I…guess I don’t have the right to ask, but it would help me understand...”

  “Ask,” Kennedy said.

  “The guy in the photo—he’s dead, isn’t he?” Jason watched Kennedy’s face.

  Kennedy gave a crisp and uncompromising, “Yes.”

  “But he’s the reason you’re no longer interested in…me.”

  “Correct.”

  Ask and ye shall receive. But apparently, that was too cold even for Kennedy. He said, “It isn’t a matter of my interest in you. I mean it when I say I care about you. What I told you in Kingsfield still goes.”

  Jason nodded. He did his best to match Sam’s unemotional tone. “Right. But he’s the reason you changed your mind about pursuing anything more than a work relationship. It’s an old photo; you were both, what? College age? How did he die?”

  It was one of the few times he saw Kennedy hesitate.

  Jason decided to make it easy on him. “Was he murdered?”

  Kennedy stared at Jason, his expression strange. As though this was a side of Jason he’d never seen, couldn’t quite get a handle on. “Yes.”

  “His murder—”

  Kennedy said harshly, “His name was Ethan.”

  “Ethan’s murder is why you decided to join the FBI? To dedicate your life to hunting serial killers?”

  Kennedy nodded slowly.

  It made sense really. Personal motivation. Nothing unique about that. And yet the obvious explanation had never occurred to Jason.

  “Okay. Ethan’s death was the catalyst. What I don’t understand is…that was how many years ago? I don’t see what it has to do with today. I don’t see why—”

  Kennedy said quietly, fiercely, “Because I can’t do my job the way I need to do it if I’m distracted by you.”

  “Distracted?” Jason repeated blankly. “Distracted how? It’s not like I was taking up a lot of your time and energy.”

  Kennedy was still speaking with that startling, almost angry intensity. “Yeah, you were. Whether you know it or not. Take today for example. I’ve got an injured agent, two dead men, who knows how many other victims, and a media frenzy, but I drop everything to fly cross country because you need help.”

  They’d been talking softly, but Jason’s voice rose at that. “I never asked for your help! I didn’t—and don’t—need your help.”

  “But here I am.” Kennedy was acerbic. “Which is why it had to stop. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about you. All the time. Wondering how you were, what you were doing, worrying if you were being careful, if you were still struggling.”

  “Jesus. I’m not struggling—” Jason tried to interrupt, but Kennedy kept right on talking.

  “The best part of my day—any day—were the nights I got to talk to you for a couple of hours on the phone.” He looked almost bewildered at the revelation. “I started feeling like I wanted time off, started thinking maybe I shouldn’t take so many chances, like I should start planning for the future.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with planning for the future.”

  “I’m not talking picking retirement investments. I wanted time with you, plain and simple. I was looking forward to that too much.” Once again he seemed angry as he concluded, “I can’t feel like that and still do my job the way I need to do it.”

  Jason burst out, “You keep saying that. What does it mean? Other people do their jobs and have lives outside of the Bureau.”

  “Not me. I don’t get the results I get by having a life outside the Bureau.” At Jason’s open disbelief, he said, “When Ethan died, I swore it would not be for nothing. I swore I’d spend the rest of my life hunting the predators, stopping them from hurting other people, destroying other lives like our life had been destroyed. I made a vow. A commitment.”

  Married to murder. Fan-fucking-tastic. Jason hadn’t missed that our life comment.

  It didn’t get clearer than that. Not something you really could argue with, nor did he want to try. He felt angry and sad and a little sick. Granted, he should have guessed at the bottom of Kennedy’s phenomenal success lay obsession, but this wasn’t normal workaholic stuff. This wasn’t anything he could understand or deal with.

  Nor was Kennedy asking for his understanding or anything else. As far as he
was concerned, the possibility of a real relationship between them was effectively ended. It was friendship, take it or leave it.

  And Jason was going to have to leave it because despite that masters in psychology, Kennedy was kidding himself about this. If he really did feel the way he described, there was no way they’d manage to keep it friendly and light and detached—if that was what he was picturing.

  It was already a huge emotional mess—and the sexual frustration and tension between them was like a third presence at the table. Or maybe that was just Jason.

  “Anything else I can get you gentlemen?” Brandi asked.

  Kennedy looked inquiringly at Jason.

  Jason shook his head.

  “Just the bill,” Kennedy said.

  They sat in silence until Brandi brought the bill. Kennedy reached for it. Whatever. Let the BAU expense it.

  They rose and walked into the lobby.

  “What time is your flight tomorrow?” Kennedy asked as they crossed the parquet floor on the way to their rooms.

  “Seven.”

  “I’m out at six. You’re welcome to drive back to Watertown with me. I’ll leave about five.”

  “Five. Ouch,” Jason said.

  In truth, he didn’t give a damn about the time. He did not want to drive to the airport with Kennedy. He couldn’t be around Kennedy right now. Maybe it should have comforted him to know that Kennedy did still care for him, that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that this was Kennedy’s problem and not his. But it wasn’t comforting. It was…hopeless. How did it help knowing Kennedy still cared, if in the end, it all came to the same thing? If anything, the pointless, painful futility of Kennedy’s choice just made it worse. They were not going to be together. Kennedy was committed to avenging his dead boyfriend or whatever the fuck his mission was supposed to be. Jason was collateral damage. He was expendable.

  If he’d thought he was in pain before…

  Maybe once he’d had time to think, to absorb, to process—a decade or two ought to do it—he’d be able to be pals with Kennedy. But right now? No could do.