by AJ Lange
“Thank you,” Gavin whispered and kissed him again, softly.
Matt sighed against his mouth. “I’m sorry about the initial, I didn’t know...” He trailed off and Gavin shook his head.
“It’s perfect, Matt. Really.”
And it was.
“Do you remember a day when we weren’t together,” Gavin would ask softly, much later. They lay entwined around each other in bed, a thin sheen of sweat cooling their skin.
“A couple of them,” Matt murmured. He pressed his lips to Gavin’s and curled a hand round his waist.
“I don’t.” Gavin shifted, holding him closer. “And I don’t think I want to. Okay?”
“Okay, Gav,” Matt whispered and let Gavin pull him in again.
Present
Gavin rubbed his temples, a raging migraine forming behind his eyes. “I don’t understand. Why would someone kill that nurse and then do,” he waved a hand, still somewhat horrified at the damage that had been done to Leanne’s corpse. “Do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Dom’s face was grim. “I don’t know. Where is he?”
Gavin had already admitted that Matt had called in the early hours from a payphone in the hospital lobby, then spent the night on his couch. He didn’t tell Dom that he had left Matt in his bed this morning.
“He’s at the house. I’ll call, but he probably won’t pick up.” Gavin turned away so he could dial his house phone. He tried not to listen as Burke grilled Dom for more information. The detective was pissing Gavin off; he had it in his fool head that Matt had been in the morgue, supposedly had an eyewitness that said Matt had been acting fishy, but the orderly had conveniently disappeared before Gavin was able to interrogate him. Gavin was calling bullshit until he saw video proof Matt was in the same vicinity as the slain nurse. And even then he would call bullshit. Matt was no killer.
Matt didn’t answer and Gavin cursed under his breath. “Burke,” he barked. Dom was shaking his head at Gavin from behind the other man but Gavin ignored him.
“DeLuca, don’t you think you should go on back to the station now and take care of traffic violations or something? This case no longer has anything to do with you.” Danny smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Unless you want it to. Anything you care to add about your whereabouts last night?”
Gavin scowled. “Fuck you, Danny.”
“Not my team, Gavin. But thanks for offering.”
Gavin growled, stepping forward and right into Dom, who had strategically placed himself between the two detectives.
“Easy, Gav,” Dom said, voice too low for Danny to hear. “He knows you’re lying.”
Gavin looked sharply at Dom. “I’m not lying,” he replied evenly.
Dom nodded his head to the morgue door and Gavin followed him out, ignoring the smug look Danny threw their way.
In the stairwell, Dom stopped. “What time did Matt call you?”
Gavin frowned and thought back. “I don’t know, about one thirty I think. I was asleep at mom and dad’s.” He ignored Dom’s raised eyebrow. “I came straight to the hospital and he was waiting out front. I picked him up and drove him to my house. End of story.”
Dom listened intently, and Gavin could see the wheels turning.
“What? Dom. Come on,” he said urgently. “What?”
Dom shook his head. “The orderly says they took Leanne’s body down to the morgue about eleven thirty, maybe midnight. Where was Matt for those ninety minutes?”
“Filling out paperwork?” Gavin shrugged, dread seeping into his bones.
“Nobody around but the receptionist in the ER at midnight, I checked,” Dom said.
“Then he was sitting on that goddamn bench out front trying to figure out where the hell he was going to go or who the hell to call. God, Dom,” Gavin raked his fingers through his hair as he paced the small landing. “You of all people know I shouldn’t be the person at the top of his emergency phone tree, but who else does he have?”
Dom winced, but it didn’t make Gavin feel any better to know his words had hit their mark.
“He probably had to work up the nerve to call, and sat out there in the dark wishing like hell he didn’t have to,” Gavin said. He pointed a finger. “That doesn’t mean he was down in the fucking basement carving his dead wife’s eyeballs from her skull.”
“Okay, okay,” Dom said, grabbing Gavin’s index finger and giving it a squeeze. “Burke likes Matt for this, Gavin. In some twisted weird way, it almost makes a sick kind of sense.”
Gavin frowned. “What do you mean?” But with a sinking sensation, he thought he knew.
“Reclusive writer who specializes in serial killers, spends his days researching the worst kind of humanity, a horrific childhood that no one talks about,” he stopped when Gavin blanched. “It’s all circumstantial. Okay? But if we don’t get Matt in there with a solid alibi for this morning, or prints or something to point the finger at another assailant for the nurse, Danny’s probably going to haul him in. He can hold Matt for forty-eight and pray something else incriminating turns up in the meantime.”
Gavin sighed. “Fuck,” he said under his breath.
“Fuck,” Dom agreed.
Matt held the pen in his hand, hovering over a blank sheet of paper. It was rich, really. Here he stood, a successful, published writer and he had been staring at a damned empty legal pad for twenty minutes. After the news broadcast, he had called a cab, intent on disappearing, easing out of Gavin’s life again without word, like a fog evaporating in the morning sun. Easy, quiet.
He had only gotten as far as the front door before turning back. Gavin deserved better, even if it was just a short, handwritten goodbye. Matt didn’t know why Gavin deserved better, why a couple of hours of couch time and a shared pillow meant he no longer had the strength to walk away, but it did. It was Gavin. It had always been Gavin.
“Dammit,” he sighed and tossed the pen across the table. The doorbell startled him; he had already cancelled his cab. He walked cautiously to the door, peering out of the peephole.
Antonia.
His throat tightened. He should have left when he had had the chance.
“Matthew.” Her eyes were sad and kind when he opened the door, her voice gentle, and she pulled him into a hard hug.
He let himself be enveloped in her warm scent, familiar, tugging at some place buried deep inside of him, deeper even than his memories of Gavin.
“Antonia,” he whispered against her hair. “How did you find me?”
“I know all of your hiding places, remember,” she replied with a sad smile.
Matt let her comfort him, and God he had missed her, this mother he could never fully lay claim to. There had been a time, after he and Gavin were over for good, that he had wanted to hate all of them, the DeLuca’s, for abandoning him; he had lost his entire family in one fell swoop and it had taken a long time to get over that.
“We’ve missed you,” she murmured against his shoulder and he held her tighter before stepping back, wiping at his eyes.
“I’ve missed all of you.” It was the first true statement he’d said in months.
Antonia waved him to a seat on the couch. “Have you made any arrangements yet?”
The phone rang before Matt could respond, and he glanced at it but made no move to answer. “I’ll let it go through to the answering machine.”
“What if it’s Gavin,” Antonia asked, ever sensible.
Matt dropped his eyes, sensing he wouldn’t be able to get out of it. He picked up the receiver, hesitant. He steeled himself to hear Gavin’s voice; it would make leaving that much harder, later. And Gavin had a way of hearing things, things Matt wanted to leave unsaid.
“Hello?”
“I didn’t realize your affinity for brunette’s included older women, Matthew. That changes things somewhat.” The voice was disembodied, a computer-modified dissonance of sound forming the words.
Matt must have blanched because Antonia was on her feet
in an instant. “Matt?”
Matt hastily hung up the phone.
“Matt, is everything all right?”
Matt looked at her, this mother who was not his blood, sweet and fierce and infinitely courageous, and he felt a stark fear he had not known since he had left home so many years ago. “Yes.” His voice was unsteady and he swallowed. “Yes, sorry. My appointment with the funeral home director, I need to go.” He wiped his hands nervously on his jeans.
“Of course,” Antonia said, but her dark eyes narrowed on his face, and he knew that she could still read him far too easily.
He ushered her to the door, needing her gone, home, safe. He assured her he would be in touch with the funeral details, rushing but unable to fight a cloistering, rising panic. He closed his eyes when she took his hand firmly in both of hers as they stood on the stoop, squeezing it and repeating her soothing words of comfort. He let himself have that brief moment, knowing he likely wouldn’t get another.
"Take care of yourself, Matt," she said softly, hesitating on the step. "Come for dinner this week. I'll make lasagna."
Matt smiled sadly. Antonia DeLuca's lasagna was the stuff of legends. "Deal," he whispered, then bent to kiss her cheek. She smelled like apples and vanilla. "Drive safe."
After she was gone, he quickly went through the house, using a plastic grocery bag to gather a few supplies. He stuffed the book of poetry with the four-leaf clover bookmark into the sack at the last minute. He suspected he was going to need all the luck he could get in the coming days. He had to leave. He had probably already done too much damage, caving to weakness last night when he had involved Gavin. He never should have called him.
Gavin had been safe.
Chapter 5
June 30, 1993
“DeLuca!” Ben’s voice carried over the heads of the campers assembled around Gavin and Matt as they prepared their young charges for a volleyball rematch. Gavin had seven year olds and Matt had eights. Neither had an ounce of babysitting or childcare experience, but such was the life of a camp counselor; it couldn’t all be lounging on the lakeshore and cleaning out the latrines. It had still been something of a shock to Gavin’s system when he first learned he would be responsible for the well-beings of up to ten of the tiniest campers.
“But what are we,” Gavin had gestured between he and Matt, “going to do with a bunch of brats who can’t even read yet?”
“Since when do you read?” Matt flipped through his chart of camper identification sheets, trying to memorize faces to names.
“Very funny,” Gavin said drily. “But seriously. What am I supposed to do with seven-year-old girls? I have, like, nine of them in my group!”
Matt gripped Gavin’s bicep, holding his gaze with a serious expression. He didn’t miss the way Gavin tensed, or how his eyes fell to Matt’s mouth as he spoke. “You are going to teach them basic wilderness survival techniques, and let them do your chores when Ben and Abigail aren’t looking.”
Gavin licked his lips, the ghost of a smile forming. “Yeah? What else?”
Matt grinned. “And you’re going to follow me around so I can make sure you don’t lose one.” He dropped his hand and stepped back, effectively breaking the spell that had woven around them. His heart was beating faster than normal and he felt hot, flushed. Matt thought headily that retreat might be his best option. He was teetering on the edge of something, and he wasn’t prepared to jump. Not yet.
“Since when are you such an expert on kids?” Gavin had called to his back. But he had followed Matt’s advice, the way he usually did.
And it turned out to be a lot more fun than either of them had anticipated. Gavin was a natural with kids. They responded positively to his innate cheerfulness and frequent lack of respect for authority, in equal measure.
Matt sometimes worried about the tales they would take home to their parents. He might have wished, more than once, that they had used those silly fake Indian names, like some of the other counselors, to identify themselves. At the very least, Matt knew there were some seven year olds who now had more than a passing familiarity with a few choice DeLuca curse words.
Matt had done his best to balance Gavin’s rough edges and crude humor with firm but polite behavioral expectations, and a somewhat atypical exposure to classic fairytales and literature. Story time had become a camp favorite, and the nightly tradition had happened organically, as most things with Gavin had a way of doing.
“Gavin, Gavin! Tell us a story!”
The sevens and eights were gathered around a bonfire, awake long past their normal bedtimes, and Gavin and Matt were teaching them the perfect ratio of marshmallow to chocolate to graham cracker. It was a skill they themselves had perfected around summer campfires with the DeLuca clan.
“A story, huh? Let’s see,” Gavin had hummed, rocking back on his heels. “There once was a man from Nantucket—“
“Gavin.” Matt had pointed his sharpened stick at him in warning, but the other boy had laughed, winking at Matt in the firelight and taking a bite of his s’more, a string of white, melted marshmallow dripping down his chin.
Matt took over, deciding they had better leave story time to him, and let Gavin teach the finer points of using a pocket knife or baiting a fishing hook. Matt would ensure no one got too bloody or permanently maimed in the process, and occasionally throw in some Greek mythology along the way. The latter was accomplished with much eye rolling from Gavin, although Matt didn’t fail to note his oldest friends’s total absorption in Matt’s rendition of the Odyssey, to the point he had gotten downright pouty the day it rained and they had to miss their nightly tale around the fire.
Today though, Gavin had his small charges primed and hungry for eight-year-old blood. Matt’s team had massacred them the day before on the volleyball court.
“Gavin DeLuca! Now,” Ben yelled again. Ben and Abigail were the lead teen counselors, in charge of all the intermediate counselors such as Gavin and Matt.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Gavin grumbled. “Wait here, Wolverines!” He raised a fist in the air and the seven’s repeated the gesture, cheering a chorus of guttural cries.
Matt rolled his eyes. He squatted in the center of his team, waving for them to form a huddle. “Okay, let’s reiterate.”
“What’s reiterate,” a redhead in braids scowled.
“He means talk about our plan, dumbass.” Pogo was four foot eight and one hundred forty pounds, and he was stuck, developmentally speaking, between bully and bullied. He shoved the little girl in the shoulder to emphasize his point.
“We don’t say dumbass,” Matt said automatically, narrowing his eyes sternly at the boy. “And we don’t push girls.”
“Sorry, Captain Laurel,” Pogo muttered. But he looked ready to throw down on Braids, who herself had mastered the self-satisfied sneer of every librarian Matt had ever known.
“Okay. Now. I suspect they’re going to come at us fast and sneaky. We have the advantage of height.”
“And weight,” Braids said solemnly, side eyeing Pogo.
“I was going to say brains,” Matt said pointedly. The girl had the grace to look down meekly, but Matt could see her tongue poking against her cheek, the little minx. No lack of sass there, he smirked to himself. Good. He could use that to his advantage. If there was one thing Gavin DeLuca could never resist, it was a helpless female.
“This is what we’re going to do.”
It was brutal, a raging battle for every single point and serve, but in the end the true spirit of competition won out and the best team emerged victorious.
“You cheated,” Gavin grumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow with his balled-up t-shirt. “You and that little redheaded faker with her ankle sprain that needed immediate attention,” Gavin air quoted.
Matt raised his eyebrows innocently. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And that fat kid sat on my best server!”
“He did not,” Matt exclaimed indignantly. “It
was an accident. He fell.”
“He fell and just so happened to have a panic attack at the same time? So that my best server had to lay there trapped underneath Mister Lardo?”
“Panic attacks are no laughing matter, Gavin. They can be very serious.” Matt had to bite the inside of his cheek, remembering the look on the seven year old’s face when he found his foot had been wedged firmly underneath Pogo’s fat ass.
“You’re a dirty, rotten, lying, cheating asswipe Matthew Laurel!”
“Asswipe?” Matt choked, the laughter bubbling up too fast to contain. He chortled, unable to completely dodge Gavin’s swing, the fist sliding off the edge of his jaw. “Ow, jerkface,” he said, rubbing his chin.
“I’m tempted to not let you stay in the cabin with me tonight.” Gavin was scowling now and Matt smirked.
“Aw, come on, Gavin. You know you can’t be mad at me forever.”
“Yes I can.”
“No, you can’t. You’ve never once been mad at me for more than twelve minutes.”
“Yeah, well you never formed a gang of vindictive fourth graders just to bully me before!”
“Me?” Matt croaked. “Your entire team called me Captain Lorraine! The whole game!”
Gavin snorted, a quick smile lighting up his handsome features. “I thought of that one myself,” he said proudly.
Matt grinned and punched his shoulder lightly. “Admit it, DeLuca. You can’t live without me.”
Gavin rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond and they continued walking along the lake trail, back to the dorms. They needed to pack their gear for the overnight stay in the cabin, and then meet Ben back at the mess hall in forty minutes. The older counselor would then escort them to the cabin and make sure they were settled in tight for the night before leaving them.
Matt tried in vain to beat back the little thrill he was experiencing, especially from his vantage point of walking behind Gavin. Gavin, who was shirtless, again, his tanned, muscled back flexing in the late afternoon sun. There was something going on between them, something that had been building even before they had left for camp, something sweet and exciting and in an odd way, familiar.
