Light Up the Dark

by Suki Fleet

  “Are you bananas? No.” Soph folded her arms across her chest and planted her feet apart. She was an immovable mountain.

  “Soph, if this is about Cai they’ll want to talk to you too, and you don’t have do this.”

  “What do you mean ‘if this is about Cai’? What else would it be about?”

  A shiver raced up Loz’s spine, and Loz looked around, feeling as though they were being watched by more than the two police officers across the field. “My cousin. The dead one.”

  “Hi, Loz, I’m Vivian.”

  The female detective held her hand out through a gap in the nine-foot chain-link fence. Keeping focussed on Soph, Loz shook it.

  “I’m working with Detective Michaels. The murder case involving your cousin was initially my case.”

  Soph looked worried and confused.

  Loz turned to Michaels. “You told me to keep out of this.”

  “Grey Matthews’ sister is missing.”

  “Patsy said she was AWOL.”

  Vivian took over. “At this stage we can’t rule out that something has happened to her. If we knew her last movements, it would be very helpful. The department can’t afford another mess linked with this case.”

  “What has that go to do with me?”

  Michaels pulled his unfortunately I want you to do something you’re not going to like face. All the police Loz had ever met had their own version of this expression.

  Immediately, Loz said, “No. Patsy is one of my least favourite people. And by all accounts the feeling is pretty mutual. She won’t answer any question I ask her. I overheard her talking on the phone. She never told me anything.”

  “I need your help with this, Loz.”

  Loz shook their head.

  Michaels turned to Soph. “And you must be Sophie Green. Cai Chance is your uncle and legal guardian, right?” He glanced at Loz to make sure Loz understood where this was going. “How is Cai?”

  Soph stared at him, panic in her eyes. “I… I haven’t seen him.”

  “Seems that his probation officer can’t get hold of him either. Perhaps if you see him and that distinctive van of his—the one you were seen getting out of near the school this morning—you can pass on a message?”

  “Low. That’s what this is,” Loz snapped, grabbing Soph’s hand and stepping back away from the fence. “Carrots work better than sticks, just so you know.”

  Soph’s grip was crushing.

  Loz turned to Soph and said quietly, “It’s okay. They’re just using the fact we want to protect Cai. This isn’t about him. I’ll do what they want.” Louder, Loz said, “I’ll go round, but if Patsy doesn’t say anything what am I supposed to do?”

  Michaels shrugged. “I’m sure someone as clever as you can figure something out.”

  Yeah, like I’m the bloody detective here.

  “Catch,” Vivian called out before throwing a small package over the fence. It landed on the grass at Soph’s feet.

  Michaels looked at Vivian askance. “What the hell are you doing?” he hissed.

  Vivian smiled. “I always preferred carrots myself,” she said before striding off across the grass towards the road where a grey saloon car was parked up on the curb.

  “Patsy,” Michaels mouthed. “I’ll be here tomorrow.” He kept eye contact for a moment longer, before shaking his head and hurrying after Vivian.

  Soph bent down and picked up the package. Inside was a small black memory stick.

  Loz’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, damn, I think I might know what’s on this.”

  Soph turned the stick over and over in her palm. “I don’t understand.”

  “After the fire I asked Michaels if they had a suspect. He said they had someone on CCTV. From the look on his face just now, I’d say this was the CCTV footage. Come on, we need to go to the library and find a computer.”

  Lap dance, Cai?

  Cai tapped gently on the study door. It was barely mid-afternoon, but he’d given in to the weather and needed a break. Overnight the season had turned on its axis, the last of the summer’s lingering warmth washed away in icy rain. Lance’s weatherproof wax jacket did nothing to protect Cai’s frozen fingers or his head, and the cold from his sopping wet hair was giving him a headache.

  With some difficulty, Nicky unbolted the bolt and tugged it open. Cai had reinforced the hinges as best he could but the door didn’t hang quite right any more and it dragged against the floorboards.

  “Hey,” Cai said.

  Nicky lifted a shoulder in greeting and walked across the room to the desk, where it seemed he’d been busy sifting through a wad of yellowed papers from one of the drawers. They looked like receipts. There really wasn’t enough light in the room for reading anything, but it didn’t really look as though Nicky had been reading them, more like piling them in different stacks on the desk. He did that sometimes with the books—rearranging the piles on the floor or swapping a pile on the floor with a shelf full of different books. Cai wasn’t sure for what purpose. Only that perhaps it comforted him.

  “Mind if I come in and get warm for a minute?”

  Rain pelted the tiny study window hard as hail. It was funny how soothing the sound was now he was inside.

  After giving Cai another one-shouldered shrug, Nicky went back to whatever it was he was doing.

  The non-verbal communication was becoming a thing—it wasn’t a bad thing, just perplexing. Often, Cai would catch Nicky talking animatedly to himself when he passed the window, but he hardly spoke more than a few functional sentences when Cai was with him.

  Today was the first time Nicky had seemed okay with being in the house on his own as Cai worked in the garden. And Cai had made sure he never strayed too far from the study window. Nicky’s admission that he didn’t want to be scared any more had blown a hole in Cai’s chest that he couldn’t quite work out how to deal with.

  Surprisingly, for all the attention Nicky likely gave it, the fire was still glowing in the hearth. Cai peeled off his jacket and jumper and crouched down on the rug in front of it. His trousers clung uncomfortably tight to his legs. He stared at the flames, wondering what Nicky’s reaction would be if he stripped off and laid out on the rug to dry. Could be good, could be very bad….

  “Here.” Suddenly Nicky was behind him, holding out a pair of track suit bottoms. Cai hadn’t even heard him get up from the desk. There was a stash of old clothes in a bin bag in the corner. They were all too large to be Nicky’s. Cai assumed they were the mysterious Lance’s cast-offs.

  “Thanks.”

  “When are you leaving to pick up Sophie and Loz?”

  It made Cai smile that Nicky insisted on calling her Sophie. “I’m not today. They’re getting the bus to the village, then walking across the fields. Though if it’s still raining like this I might go out and pick them up from the village.” Cai knew he was overexplaining but he still felt somehow guilty that he’d not even addressed the issue of who Loz was. They’d arrived as a package, and Cai had just assumed when Nicky asked him to stay, he was asking all of them. He probably had been. Cai just hated living with the assumption and didn’t want to upset the delicate balance of everything by bringing it up out of nowhere.

  “Okay.” Nicky stepped back up to the desk and poured a glass of water. He held it out to Cai, looking as though he wanted to say something.

  Cai took the glass, puzzled but beginning to accept he was never going to figure Nicky out. And he could deal with that. It was just… the other morning on the lawn, hearing Nicky laugh had felt so good. Warmth still unfurled Cai’s belly at the thought. All Cai wanted was to work out how to make Nicky laugh again. But since Nicky had sort of stopped talking, it was even harder. There’d been no sarcasm or any snappy retorts either. Nothing but this eerie politeness.

  At first Cai had thought it was because Nicky wasn’t used to being around so many people, but now he wasn’t sure, because Nicky wasn’t keeping his distance or shutting him out. Nicky seemed more relaxed with him th
an ever. It was almost as if he was waiting to see what Cai would do next.

  Nicky went back to fiddling around with the paper on his desk again, so turning away, Cai stripped off his soaked trousers and underpants and changed into the track suit bottoms Nicky had given him. He tugged his wet socks off and, for lack of anything to hang them from, draped them over the stack of books nearest to the fire.

  At some point soon he was going to have to go shopping for more clothes. The idea of shopping filled him with a dread that came from never having had enough money to buy what he actually needed. Well, he supposed he had some money for clothes now at least. He ran a hand across the scruff on his jaw. Razors too. Those flimsy, blunt things Nicky used wouldn’t last long once Cai started using them.

  Sinking down into an armchair, Cai settled for watching Nicky out of the corner of his eye. On the desk the receipts lay in size-ordered piles. Occasionally Nicky shifted a pile from the back of the desk to the front.

  Cai considered asking him what he was doing but then thought better of it. He really wanted to talk, though. About anything. He got up and walked over to the desk.

  “This place doesn’t have central heating. I don’t know how you survive every winter without a fire. How did you used to keep warm?” he began tentatively, heart sinking as Nicky glanced up briefly and then went back to shifting paper.

  Cai tried again. “So, what do you enjoy doing, like um, hobbies?” Nicky stopped and blinked at him. Cai didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. This was awkward. Nicky obviously just wanted to be left alone.

  He walked back to the armchair near the fire and sank down.

  “I don’t have hobbies,” Nicky said quietly after a while. “I used to like dancing.”

  “Dancing? Like clubbing, or that ballroom stuff? Or do you mean in a show, on stage or something?” Cai asked eagerly, moving to the edge of his seat. As soon as he realised what he was doing he forced himself to sit back. If he appeared too interested Nicky was going to clam up. He took a sip of water and glanced at the fire. When he looked back, Nicky’s lips had curved into a small smile.

  “No. Mostly like pole dancing and lap dancing.”

  Cai nearly choked on his water. “Oh,” was all he could manage when he’d stopped coughing. Problem was that as soon as Nicky said the words pole dancing, Cai’s brain had all too readily provided a stunning visual of what that might look like.

  Nicky stared at him, eye brow raised. He appeared to be debating something within himself. “You ever had one?”

  “One what?”

  Nicky rolled his eyes. “A lap dance.”

  Cai swallowed. The room suddenly felt very warm. “No.”

  Nicky gazed at him expectantly. Cai had no idea what he was waiting for. What was he supposed to say?

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Nicky announced suddenly, before getting up and walking out of the room.

  Cai stared after him. That had to be one of the weirdest conversations he’d ever had.

  Nicky was gone for so long, Cai got up and stood in the study doorway, listening to the burst and trickle of the shower running. It was a cold ancient beast of a thing that Cai disliked more every time he used it. How Nicky could remain under the icy water for more than a minute Cai didn’t know, but he guessed long hair like Nicky’s would likely take some intensive washing.

  Feeling restless, he wandered into the entrance hall. All around him the house creaked and groaned. Sometimes it seemed eerier than others. Perhaps the combined presence of people was pushing back at the darkness.

  The occasional drip fell from the ceiling and onto the marble floor near the bottom of the staircase, the sound steady as the tick of a clock. Standing beneath it, Cai looked up. Perhaps the roof was leaking.

  He sighed. His curiosity was seriously frustrated. The door to the east-wing library was as far as Cai had explored in the house, and that had been locked, and he hadn’t built up the nerve to ask Nicky where the key was. Most of the doors in the house seemed to be locked. He longed to explore upstairs but Nicky had explicitly asked him not to, and he didn’t want to go against Nicky’s wishes—didn’t want to break his trust like that.

  But it was driving Cai mad.

  He stared at the staircase. At the way it disappeared into darkness, as though there were no windows up there at all. Suddenly the shadows seemed to shift. A shiver raced down Cai’s spine, making his skin tingle unpleasantly. He tensed.

  “The windows upstairs are painted black. Lance never told me why,” Nicky whispered softly from behind him.

  With an involuntary gasp, Cai spun around. His bare feet slipped on the wet tiles, and before he knew what was happening, he was crashing to the floor, pulling Nicky down with him. Instinctively, Cai shoved his arms out, not wanting to land on Nicky and crush him. He ended up sprawled on top of him anyway, arms either side of Nicky’s head.

  Lightning fast, Nicky’s palms connected with his chest. Cai braced himself, expecting to be shoved back, hard. But it didn’t happen. Seconds passed. Sparks of warmth flared in his chest around where Nicky’s hands were touching him. Cai’s heart thumped. Nicky watched him intently, his whole body tense and thrumming like an electric cable, his expression painfully blank.

  The atmosphere changed as though they’d been plugged into a powerful electric charge. Cai could feel Nicky’s heartbeat. He was hyperaware of every place they touched from their tangled legs to their hips. Too late he realised the track suit bottoms he was wearing would do nothing to disguise how spectacularly turned on he was becoming.

  Reluctantly Cai pushed himself upright and sat back on his heels, dangling his hands in his lap.

  “You made me jump,” he said softly, needing to say something, because Nicky had frozen and not moved. His chest was bare and the only thing he wore, apart from the bandages on his arms, was a thin towel wrapped around his hips. Cai tried not to stare. Especially when he discovered he wasn’t the only one with no disguise.

  Nicky glanced down at his tented towel and immediately scrambled upright, wrapping the fabric as tight as it would go. “It’s just a reaction.” He scowled.

  Cai raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his own lap. An erection was definitely a reaction. One he liked quite a bit, in the right circumstances. Which these weren’t, judging by the way Nicky quickly sprang to his feet. Cai watched as he stalked across the entrance hall, plait swinging against his bum like an erratic pendulum. A moment later the study door banged shut. Cai didn’t follow, deciding to give Nicky a few minutes to get dressed.

  A heavy feeling settled in his stomach. Nicky was… complicated.

  Cai left it more than a few minutes before going back to the study, and by the time he knocked on the door he was shivering uncontrollably and his bare feet were frozen.

  Almost as soon as he knocked, Nicky yanked the door opened, still wearing nothing more than that damn towel, and proceeded to search his face so intently that Cai took a step back. “Why didn’t you come back?” he demanded.

  “Thought you might want a bit of privacy to get dressed,” Cai said, feeling suddenly lost.

  Nicky glanced down at his bare chest. “What difference would that make? You stare at me all the time.” Cai looked away. Nicky huffed frustratedly, as though he couldn’t find the right words. “I don’t mind… I…. It’s warm in here. Shut the door.”

  Flicking his plait over his shoulder, Nicky turned and strutted over to the fireplace. He crouched down, picked up a large log and threw it into the fire. Then he stood back up, met Cai’s gaze and let go of the towel he was wearing. It pooled to the floor at his feet. Beneath it he wore a pair of tight black bikini shorts that clung to him like a second skin. He certainly hadn’t been wearing those when Cai had landed on him in the entrance hall. Not sure where to look, Cai watched as Nicky’s fingers quickly worked at undoing his long plait. In no time at all, Nicky’s hair spilled around his shoulders in glossy waves.

  “Shut the door, Cai,” Nicky repeate
d, folding his arms across his chest and tapping his bare foot against the floor.

  Cai wasn’t sure he could remember how to breathe, never mind remember what a door was and how to shut it. What was going on?

  “What are you doing?” he asked, feeling weak.

  Nicky shrugged his narrow shoulders. His gaze intense. “I was going to do a lap dance. You can stay and watch if you want.”

  The fire spat and crackled. Cai’s throat felt tight, and the air around him had suddenly become a stifling mix of hot and cold. Lap dances didn’t strike Cai as the sort of dance that could be performed alone. “Are… are you offering me a….” He couldn’t finish. He wanted to make a joke out of it but nothing was remotely funny.

  Nicky raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. His eyes were glittering, bright as gemstones, and utterly unreadable. “Do you want me to be offering you a…?”

  Cai’s heart was doing something funny. “I’m not very good at playing games.” He needed to be honest. When people played games he always felt as though he was missing something. And he didn’t want to be missing anything right now.

  Nicky seemed to consider his words before he said, “No games. One rule.”

  “What rule?” Cai waited as Nicky stared at him.

  “You don’t touch me. At all. You touch me, you leave.”

  Barely breathing, Cai nodded. Things were happening too fast. He caught Nicky’s quick glance at his crotch, and shifted to cover himself with his hand. But was there any point in trying to hide his growing erection? Wasn’t getting turned on the point? Wasn’t it sort of like an insult to Nicky if he didn’t? Still, he felt young and naïve. Utterly at sea.

  “What do I do?” Cai asked uncertainly, pressing his hands to the door behind him. Needing to feel something solid.

  “Sit down and shut up.”

  Uncertain of what seat would be the best, Cai glanced around. Not wanting to dither even more, he sank down into a deep armchair near the door.

  Nicky’s bare feet whispered across the floorboards as he stalked towards Cai with the hip-swaying cold confidence of a catwalk model. His gaze never left Cai’s face. It was too much.