by Aiden Bates
"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. I mean we were young. It was college. Obviously, there was something I couldn't give him. I think." Elias buried his face in his hands for a moment. "I tried to give him everything I could think of, and then I gave up."
"I see." Ryan put a hand on his shoulder. "What do you want now?"
"Ah hell, I'm no good now." Elias shook his head. "I probably can't even have a kid now, so I couldn't give him that. And now he says that love is a myth. I mean what am I really supposed to do with that?"
Ryan bit his lip. "He says that, but he makes damn sure that anyone with a shot at it doesn't blow it. Trust me. He was there for me and Nick. He was there for Nenci and Oliver. So, I'm not sure that he believes what he says he believes. Or even what he thinks he believes." He glanced back at Elias. "Look. It's been a long time. I get the sense that you've both changed. I think that you guys still work okay together, though. Seeing the two of you together today was good. You were friendly, you played off of each other well, and we probably got through in a day what would have taken us a week the way we were going on."
"I don't know." Elias massaged his temples. "I don't know what I want. I kissed him yesterday, and it was like flipping a switch."
"You kissed him?" Ryan buried his face. "Well, he didn't shoot you, so I guess that's good."
"Does he always shoot guys who kiss him?" Elias grimaced.
"No. But he was plenty mad." Ryan shook his head. "Try getting to know one another again. See if there's anything there, if you have any common ground before you get his hopes up."
"His hopes?" Elias laughed. "He doesn't have any hopes. He doesn't believe in that stuff anymore. If he ever did in the first place."
Ryan looked Elias in the eyes. "Right. And if he were to be brought around to a less bleak way of thinking, only to have it all ripped away, what do you think that the effect would be?"
Elias swallowed and turned his head away. You don't get to touch me. "I can't imagine that it would be pretty."
"Pat Tessaro is a good guy. He's a great guy, all things considered. I'd like to see him happy, honestly. I don't want to see him embittered and angry at the world. You understand what I'm saying?" Ryan leaned back. "I'm not saying to stay away from him. I'm saying to take things easy and see if there's anything to build on."
"I get it." Elias did get it, even though taking things easy was the last thing Elias thought he wanted.
***
Pat grabbed a chocolate-crème-filled doughnut from the box in the middle of the table. "Mmm. Forbidden Doughnut. My favorite." He grabbed one of the coffees that Elias had brought, the one with his name on it, and took his seat from the day before.
Elias knew that this was his favorite kind of doughnut. Pat wasn't going to read too much into the fact that there were six of them in the box, and six of assorted other varieties. It was probably just the force of habit, just something he did on instinct now that he had Pat's scent in his nose. Still, it struck a melancholy chord inside of him that Elias still remembered.
"Seriously?" Ryan wrinkled his nose. "How do you keep a body like that and eat trash like those?"
"I'd tell you my secrets, but they'd get me written up on a harassment charge." Pat smirked Ryan. "But they start with a lot of running, a lot of swimming, and Forbidden Doughnut as a very rare treat."
Elias blushed and looked down for a moment. Pat bit down on the inside of his cheek. He shouldn't have said what he'd said. Elias didn't need to hear about Pat's sex life. Elias didn't want to hear about Pat's sex life, even in jokes over coffee. Elias gave a delicate cough and opened up his computer. "So, I've started to hear from some of the agencies we called yesterday. How about you?"
All business, of course. "Looks like reports are starting to trickle in. We'll start plugging them into a map; we've got a program that does that thanks to MEMA. Those guys are awesome."
Elias glowered. "Are they all that familiar with your bodybuilding secrets?"
Ryan choked on his coffee.
Pat racked his brains for a moment. "I think there were a couple of betas who worked for MEMA, now that you mentioned it. Nice guys. I can introduce you, if you'd like." He wasn't sure how to feel about Elias' jealousy. It could mean that Elias still wanted him. It could just be sour grapes. It could just be vestigial. If he couldn't tell how Elias meant it, how was he supposed to respond?
Elias turned a little green. "That won't be necessary, I'm sure. Anyway, Ryan, where do you stand?"
"Other than needing a paper towel? I'm swell." Ryan gave them the thumbs up. "I've been trying to find a list of potential suspects from our files. It hasn't been easy and I'm still working on it." He accepted a wad of napkins from Elias and mopped off his laptop screen. "I've got two hundred possibilities so far—just Caucasian females with a scar, in our age range. Fun times."
"Yikes." Pat winced in sympathy. They were going to have to find something better to winnow the herd. "How many of them come from religious backgrounds?"
Both Ryan and Elias frowned at him, and Pat threw his arms up into the air. "Oh, come on. The wrappings, the things on the body? They're straight from the Bible." For crying out loud, Elias' family was at least nominally Catholic. Someone should have picked up on something.
Of course, Pat was the one who usually dealt with death. "Right." Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry. I should've picked up on that."
"No. I shouldn't have gotten impatient. I deal with dead bodies, and people disposing of dead bodies, all the time. It's only natural that I'd have picked up on that. It's not the first time that I've seen it. I did a case not too long ago, a cold case, where the killer had done the same thing to an abusive priest." He sighed. "That's why they wanted someone from Cold Case here, even though it's not a cold case anymore. Ryan, does that help you to narrow down your search field?"
"It does, actually." Ryan was watching Pat and Elias with a little smile. "I'll let you guys work on building your map."
Pat turned to Elias. "Okay, we're going to do this the easy way. We're both going to create a map. I'm going to build a map of the thefts and other incidents. You're going to build a map with the kidnappings and body dumps. When we're done, we'll be able to overlay them together. Use red for your data points, and I'll use yellow for mine."
Elias pouted. "Why do you get to do the thefts?"
"Because I've used the software before and I'll be able to work faster." Pat winked.
Pat and Elias worked as data came in, and they built their maps. As the data came in, Pat could see a distinct pattern emerging. There were no kidnappings that fit their pattern that took place in all of Hampden County. No thefts within their pattern had taken place with a suspect fitting their description, either.
They were on the right path. And if they were, he could probably count on getting that ride in the chopper. Just to be on the safe side, though, he wanted to have enough forensic evidence to back up his conclusions. "Any word from Oliver?" he asked, fidgeting with his left hand.
"No. Not yet." Ryan quirked his eyebrow at Pat. "Why?"
"Helicopter rides." Pat let his mouth curve up into a smile.
Ryan matched it. "Aw, yeah. Helicopter rides."
Elias looked back and forth between the pair. "Is there something I should know about?"
"Helicopter rides, my friend." Ryan spread his arms over the chairs to either side. Pat tried not to feel jealous about the fact that one of those chairs happened to contain Elias. That ship had sailed. The time had passed. "If we can get enough evidence to support the theory that there might be something out there, we can justify taking one of the choppers out to get a birds-eye view of the county we're thinking about. It's a whole lot easier to spot an off-grid farm from the sky than from the ground."
"Vice does it all the time," Pat added. He cracked his knuckles and got back to work.
"Okay, but is that something you have experience with?" Elias licked his lips. He didn't sound like he was being critical. He sounded more li
ke he was nervous.
"Actually, yeah." Pat looked at his laptop screen. "I worked in Vice before I joined Cold Case. The language thing, I guess. They thought it was useful."
"And I'm sure it was." Ryan moved some papers around, noisily. "You were pretty good down there. I know they still remember you fondly. They'd take you back in a heartbeat."
"No." Elias shook his head. "That's too dangerous."
Pat scoffed. "Better me than one of those other guys, someone who's married or mated with kids or something. Besides, I mean yeah, there are risks, but there're risks in everything. You accept them and you move on. If I weren't willing to accept some risks, I'd have become an accountant or something."
Elias glared. "Or a geologist."
Part of Pat wanted to lash out. The rest of him wanted to laugh, and that's the part that he listened to. "Come on, man. Cliffs and volcanoes. Oh—geysers, too. Can't forget those, dude." He shook his head. "Like I said, there's risks in everything." He sighed.
Ryan glanced between them. "Is there something going on here that I should be aware of?"
Pat waved a hand. "Just an old argument. Although the bit about being afraid for my safety as a cop is new."
Elias harrumphed. "Well, I didn't think it would work."
"It wouldn't have." Pat shrugged. "But I would have told you that. And maybe we could have talked about it. Why you were afraid of me being a cop. Why you hated the idea of being with a cop so much. What it was that scared you, instead of just trying to paint it as 'something better.'" He looked away, good mood gone.
"Little uncomfortable here, guys." Ryan pushed back from the table. "I should go get some more coffee or something, maybe?"
"It's okay." Pat leaped to his feet. "I'll go." Suddenly, he couldn't wait to get out of the room.
He raced out into the hallway and down to the nearest coffee station. He couldn't see where he was going, not really. His grief blinded him. Fortunately, he could find his way to the coffee station by scent alone, and anyone who encountered him seemed content to stay out of his way.
He hung out in the coffee room for a few long seconds, trying to collect himself. Yeah, it still hurt. After all this time, it still hurt. He couldn't understand what Elias was upset about, with their whole split, but he knew that Elias hadn't cared enough about him to let him choose his own path and he hadn't cared enough about Pat to stand by him. Once his path had been chosen, that was all that there was to it. He was going into a lowbrow profession, so he couldn't have a highbrow lover.
There hadn't been any discussion. They'd argued about the job, but there hadn't been any talk about the job being dangerous. Just that it was "beneath you, Pat!" and how Pat could do so much better in grad school. Not, "I'm going to kick you to the curb if you don't fall in line and do what I tell you," although Pat should have figured on that.
What was it about him, anyway, that made him so damn unlovable?
Footsteps echoed on the linoleum. The smell of lilacs turned the corner before Elias' face did, giving Pat enough time to pull himself together before he had to face his ex. "I'm sorry," Elias told him. "That was too personal. I shouldn't have gone there."
Pat glared at him. "No. You shouldn't. Tran doesn't give a crap about what happened between us ten years ago."
Elias hunched his shoulders. "Not really. I mean he does. He's worried about you."
Pat snorted, turning away. "Which is why he was cutting me out of the case."
Elias winced. "I think he was trying to do the best he could for both of us. Listen, we're both trying. I think we're both hurt here. We need to work together, sure, but it's not like a switch. It doesn't just… just go away because we're under circumstances that outweigh our personal issues."
"What are you so hurt about, anyway?" Pat turned around and crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean you know why I'm hurt. I was blindsided when you dumped me. I shouldn't have been. I should have been prepared, because as soon as you tell someone who's trying to hold power over you 'no,' they're going to pull the rug out from under you, every time. But what the hell are you so angry at me about? Your family hated me, so it's not like they were upset about the breakup."
Elias bit his lip and looked away. "There was some other stuff going on, stuff that you didn't know about and that you never needed to know about. And that's okay. It's not relevant." He put a hand on Pat's arm.
Pat pulled away. "No touching."
"Right. Sorry." Elias blinked away tears. "I wasn't trying to hold power over you or anything. I literally only wanted to help you. And when you just refused to let me, I got frustrated. You were going to resign yourself to a dangerous profession that you didn't want, when you didn't have to. That just didn't make sense to me. And what kind of a future did we have together if you wouldn't let me help you? I mean for real?" He leaned against the counter, hands stuffed into his pockets.
"It hurt. It hurt that you wouldn't let me help you, and it hurt that you just took off after I broke it off. You didn't fight, you didn't argue. You just said, 'Fine.' I went to class, and I came home and everything you'd owned was gone. Not the pictures of us together, though." Elias gave a bitter little laugh. "No, you didn't want those. Didn't want to be reminded, I figured."
"Didn't have any place to put them." Pat stuffed his own hands into his own pockets, a mirror of Elias' pose. "I slept in my car from May until September. A Honda Civic doesn't have a lot of shelf space."
"I guess it doesn't." Elias hung his head. "Why didn't you fight for us?"
"Why didn't you?" Pat snorted. "There's a word for alphas who don't take no for an answer. I've arrested plenty of 'em."
"I guess." Elias shook his head. "I probably shouldn't have handled things the way I did. I was just so frustrated, and so done. I felt like I'd been beating my head against a brick wall. I couldn't understand why you wouldn't take my help." He looked around. "Anyway. You've got a pretty decent life now, though. Things've turned out pretty well for you."
"Sure." Pat didn't look Elias in the eye.
"You're a respected detective. Your colleagues seem to like you." Elias moved, trying to catch Pat's eye.
"Yeah. Of course. I'm pretty awesome, for an interchangeable part." Pat made himself smirk.
Elias narrowed his eyes at Pat. "None of them thinks of you as an interchangeable part."
"Sweetheart, everyone thinks of me as an interchangeable part." He knew that his smirk had turned into a bitter smile, and he didn't even care. "A few years ago, I did a police exchange thing as part of the Vice squad. They sent me down to Brazil. I figured while I was there, I'd look up my mom."
"Okay, sounds good." Elias' voice was tentative.
"It was her. Same face, a little older. Same name, obviously. But the teenaged kid who came out of the back room? He told me he was her oldest kid." Pat bit on the inside of his cheek. He hadn't told anyone else about the visit. He hadn't had anyone else to tell. "She chased me out of the house and, in English, said she had a new and better family. I shouldn't come along and try to ruin it for her."
Elias pressed his hands to his mouth. "My God."
Pat waved a hand. "You know, by that point I just shrugged and left. I mean it's not like it was the first time she turned her back on me, right? And it's not like I didn't know what I was by that point. I've never not been an interchangeable part. To anyone.
"So, yeah, I've kind of stopped fighting it. And it's fine. But every once in a while, it bugs me. This case? Bugging me. I'm not taking the blame for us splitting up when you're the one who wanted to trade me in for a more upscale model. It's been a long time, and I'm positive that we're even less compatible now than we apparently were then. You still chose to dump me. Okay?" He grabbed his coffee and walked outside to cool down.
Chapter Six
Oliver came back to them the next day with an analysis of the pollen from Scott Gilbert's shroud and hair. A lot of the pollen came from agricultural plants—corn, wheat, various vegetables, fruits, and herbs.
Pat told them that the pollen would help to identify the specific farm where Scott had been held, or grown up as Pat described it.
The other pollen that Oliver managed to pull from the trace evidence was from native flora. He found Engleman's quillwort and American Arborvitae pollen on the remains. Neither of those meant anything to Elias, or to Ryan, but Pat just shrugged and said that was enough to get the bird in the air.
"What does that even mean?" Elias had tried to avoid speaking directly to Pat after their talk in the coffee station, but he couldn't help it now.
"It means that those plants are only found together in a few places in the state." Oliver turned to Elias with a little smile on his face. "I had no real idea that Detective Tessaro was so well versed in science."
"Keep it under your hat, would you?" Pat wrinkled his nose. "I like letting them underestimate me. Thanks for your help, Oliver." His smile never quite reached his eyes, but he made the effort, and Oliver went away again none the wiser.
