by Josh Lanyon
Wray opened her mouth, but her phone rang. She moved away to answer it. Will glanced at her and then glanced at Sugimori. She was staring at him with cold hatred. He stared back.
Wray suddenly let out a disconcertingly girlie squeal. “You got a partial print from the fuse? Yeah?” Her eyes met Will’s. “Yukishige Sugimori. The brother.”
At the same time Will’s phone rang. He grabbed it. Unknown Caller. If this was some moron trying to sell him something, he was going to be slapped with a federal charge so fast, his head would spin.
“Brandt.”
“It’s me,” Taylor’s faraway voice said.
Will’s heart seemed to stop cold, then bounded like a deer. “Are you all right? Christ. I thought — Where are you?”
“I’m not sure.” Taylor’s voice was muffled as he turned away to speak to someone. An equally muffled voice answered. Taylor came back on the line. “I’m on the coast road between Surf Beach and Casmalia. At an abandoned roadhouse called Richardson’s. You can’t miss it. It’s the one surrounded by cop cars.” He sounded very tired. “I’m okay, Brandt. Can you come and get me?”
“I’m on the way.”
Taylor said quickly, “Brandt? Swear out a warrant for Alexandra Sugimori.”
“Done.” His voice softened; he couldn’t help it. “Hold on, MacAllister.”
“I’m holding,” Taylor said and disconnected.
Chapter Twelve
The sun was setting when Will pulled up in front of Richardson’s Roadhouse.
There were cop cars parked by the rusted gas pumps, a red peeling sign with the words RICH…R…AD… The roadhouse itself was boarded up. The faded paint had an appropriately queasy green cast to it.
Taylor walked out from between the gas pumps, and Will got out of his car. He went around the front and didn’t care who was watching as Taylor walked into his arms.
They hugged, drew apart, and Will said, “Whoa. You have been through the wars.”
“I know. I stink.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“That’s because you haven’t been shut up in a car with me for a couple of hours. Wait till we head back to LA.”
Will glanced at the official buzz of cars and personnel, radios squawking and people talking. “Are we going back to LA tonight?”
“Eventually.” Taylor said, “Is Sugimori under arrest?”
“Yes.”
Will watched him brace to ask, “She said Varga was dead.”
Will nodded. “I’m sorry.”
Taylor’s eyes shut. He opened them and said, “Yeah. If you don’t mind, I’m going to sit in your car and wait for them to clear us to leave.”
“I don’t mind.”
A faint smile touched Taylor’s colorless mouth. “Not yet, you don’t. You will.”
But Will didn’t. Not all the long drive back to LA. Taylor slept, mouth ajar and face lined and unlovely with strain and exhaustion. Will drove and used his cell phone to fill in Lt. Wray and Assistant Director Cooper. He talked while he kept one eye on his partner. Despite efforts to clean himself off in at a rest-stop men’s room, Taylor was indeed more than a little on the pungent side, but Will had no complaint.
* * * * *
Taylor woke when Will stopped for coffee, and he explained in what was clearly the abridged version how he had managed to get free.
“It was like those convoluted schemes the villains in Batman came up with.” He was trying to joke, but it wasn’t quite coming off.
“She’s insane,” Will said. “I don’t know about the legal definition, but she’s deranged.”
Taylor nodded without energy. He described knocking Sugimori Junior. into the ocean.
“They haven’t found him yet,” Will replied in answer to the question Taylor hadn’t asked.
“Good,” Taylor replied. “I hope the fish are having him for supper.” He told Will about leaving the wrecked and derelict house on the cliff, hot-wiring Sugimori’s car and driving into Casmalia to phone the cops and Will. “That’s pretty much it.”
He made it sound simple. Will tried to keep it low-key too. “Lucky you found it. You could have blinked and missed it. Population less than two hundred. The town’s a toxic dump,” he said. “I mean literally.”
“No wonder I headed straight for it.”
They both smiled, but it took effort.
* * * * *
Taylor sat grimly through the medical exam and brusquely declined the amenities of an overnight hospital stay. Will couldn’t argue, since he’d done the same thing the day before — was it only the day before?
The doctor and Will exchanged a look, and then the doctor gave Will a list of signs and symptoms to look for in case of concussion and sent them on their way — which was straight to a debriefing with Cooper.
When Cooper had finally tired of the pleasure of their company, or maybe just the sound of his own voice, Will had driven home — to Taylor’s house — and Taylor had showered and was dressed in the softest, most comfortable jeans and T-shirt he owned, resting on the sofa in the den drinking the hot coffee Will had prepared. His head still hurt, his ribs ached, but he felt okay. Wrung out but okay. He was alive, and that counted for a lot.
Will sat down on the sofa and put an arm around him. Taylor relaxed, closed his eyes, and let his head fall back against Will’s shoulder, relinquishing himself to Will’s care. “I guess you have a few questions.”
“If you want to tell me.”
“No.” Taylor smiled faintly. “Yeah.”
Will kissed his forehead and didn’t say anything.
Taylor opened his eyes and watched Will’s three-quarter profile as he said, “He wasn’t my first or anything.” Taylor had been fourteen the first time he and Bobby Machek had jacked off together behind the broken-down concession stand at Sandoval Baseball Field. He could still remember the ghostly silhouettes of the painted players on the peeling red wood wall. Those guilty, giddy minutes with Bobby had been the launch of a long and occasionally wild journey of sexual exploration that had really only ended when he found harbor with Will.
He closed his eyes and admitted, “But it was the first time I thought maybe I was in love.”
In the silence that followed, Taylor raised his lashes. There was so much affection and understanding in Will’s blue eyes, he had to close his own again.
“Not like us,” he clarified, although he was sure Will already understood that. “We had to be careful, obviously. It would have meant the end of both our careers. You know how it was back then.” Eight years. Amazing what a difference a decade — or near decade — could make.
“I know,” Will said, and he seemed to be speaking about more than the State Department’s historic attitude regarding same-sex relations.
“Inori was married. Separated, I thought. That’s what he told me, and I had no reason to believe otherwise. Even so, he was — it was hard for him. After the first rush of finding each other, he was terrified all the time that we were being watched, that we would be discovered. The idea of failing, of disgrace, was unthinkable. His family — his father — was old-school. Samurai. We’re talking something straight out of a Kurosawa film. Inori already felt like an outcast because his mother was Caucasian. There was always this standard he was trying to live up to. Being gay just made it worse for him.”
“How was it for you?”
Taylor grimaced. “I took my career just as seriously, but being younger, I didn’t think we’d get caught. You know how it is. I felt bulletproof back then. Anyway.” Taylor swallowed hard. “Anyway, after about ten months he…broke it off with me. Said that as much as he loved me, the risk to both of us was too great.” He could still taste the bitterness of that, knew Will could read it in his face. “So I requested a transfer, and I got one. Faster than I expected.” Taylor opened his eyes, his expression wry. “They sent me to Afghanistan.”
“Hell.”
“It was, yeah. Anyway, at least I knew I wouldn’t
have time to brood. For Inori, though… I don’t think he’d expected me to go. I’m not sure what he expected, to tell you the truth. I guess he thought he’d failed me too. I don’t know, Will.”
Will said calmly, firmly, “What he did was not your fault, Tay. Don’t take responsibility for Sugimori’s decisions.”
“No, it’s just —”
“No.”
“No.” Taylor flicked him a smile. “Thanks.” He sighed. “Anyway. I found out a few months later than he killed himself not long after I left Japan. The word was, he’d left some note about family honor and not wishing to live with disgrace, but that was all I heard. If my name had been mentioned —”
“Your name was never mentioned in connection with Sugimori’s suicide.” Will said carefully, “There were rumors about the two of you, but no one chose to investigate them.”
“Jesus.”
“It doesn’t matter now.”
Taylor pinched the bridge of his nose, hard. “I guess not. It’s just… It was true about the old poison. All that time that hurt and betrayal were festering.”
“You could have told me, you know. I wouldn’t have thought any less of you,” Will said slowly.
“You wouldn’t have thought any more of me.” Taylor was kidding. Only not really.
Into Will’s silence, he said, “I should have told you. It’s just…sometimes…” He didn’t finish it, and Will didn’t push.
Taylor let his eyes drift closed again. Neither of them spoke. Taylor felt Will take the coffee mug from his hand and set it on the table.
“I’m awake,” he murmured. And he mostly was. It was very pleasant lying there with Will’s strong arm around him and his head on Will’s broad shoulder. He listened to the peaceful, steady beat of Will’s heart.
“I’ve been thinking,” Will said eventually.
“Yeah?”
“It really doesn’t make sense keeping two separate houses. It’s not very practical.”
Taylor’s heart jumped. He said carefully, “What about Cooper? No way is he going to believe we’re just roommates.”
“He might let it go. Or he might decide to reteam us. I guess we deal with it when it happens. The bottom line is, I want to wake up beside you every morning, and I want to go to bed with you every night. I don’t care who knows. And I don’t care what we have to do to make that happen. I like my job, but I love you. There’s no question of what takes priority here.”
Taylor stared at him. Will stared back at him, steady as a rock.
“You’re sure.” It wasn’t a real question; the certainty was right there on Will’s face.
“I’m sure.” Will smiled. “Partner.”
About the Author
Bestselling author of over sixty titles of classic Male/Male fiction featuring twisty mystery, kickass adventure, and unapologetic man-on-man romance, JOSH LANYON has been called “arguably the single most influential voice in m/m romance today.”
Her work has been translated into nine languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first Male/Male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. The Adrien English series was awarded the All Time Favorite Couple by the Goodreads M/M Romance Group. Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads All Time Favorite M/M Author award.
Josh is married and lives in Southern California.
Find other Josh Lanyon titles at www.joshlanyon.com
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If you enjoyed this story, check the following titles, also by Josh Lanyon:
Novels
The ADRIEN ENGLISH Mysteries
Fatal Shadows
A Dangerous Thing
The Hell You Say
Death of a Pirate King
The Dark Tide
Stranger Things Have Happened
The HOLMES & MORIARITY Mysteries
Somebody Killed His Editor
All She Wrote
The Boy with the Painful Tattoo
The ART OF MURDER Series
The Mermaid Murders
Other novels
The ALL’S FAIR Series
Fair Game
Fair Play
This Rough Magic (A SHOT IN THE DARK Series)
The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks
Mexican Heat (with Laura Baumbach)
Strange Fortune
Come Unto These Yellow Sands
Stranger on the Shore
Winter Kill
Jefferson Blythe, Esquire
Murder in Pastel
Novellas
The DANGEROUS GROUND Series
Dangerous Ground
Old Poison
Blood Heat
Dead Run
Kick Start
The I SPY Series
I Spy Something Bloody
I Spy Something Wicked
I Spy Something Christmas
The IN A DARK WOOD Series
In a Dark Wood
The Parting Glass
The DARK HORSE Series
The Dark Horse
The White Knight
Snowball in Hell (DOYLE & SPAIN Series)
Haunted Heart: Winter (HAUNTED HEART Series)
Mummy Dearest (XOXO FILES Series)
Other novellas
Cards on the Table
The Dark Farewell
The Darkling Thrush
The Dickens with Love
Don’t Look Back
A Ghost of a Chance
Lovers and Other Strangers
Out of the Blue
A Vintage Affair
Lone Star (in Men Under the Mistletoe)
Green Glass Beads (in Irregulars)
Blood Red Butterfly
Everything I Know
Baby, It’s Cold (in Comfort and Joy)
A Case of Christmas
Short stories
A Limited Engagement
The French Have a Word for It
In Sunshine or In Shadow
Until We Meet Once More
Icecapade (in His for the Holidays)
Perfect Day
Heart Trouble
In Plain Sight
Wedding Favors
Wizard’s Moon
Fade to Black
PETIT MORTS (SWEET SPOT Collection)
Other People’s Weddings
Slings and Arrows
Sort of Stranger Than Fiction
Critic’s Choice
Just Desserts
Merry Christmas, Darling (Holiday Codas)
Old Poison
Revised Edition, June 2016
Copyright (c) 2011 by Josh Lanyon
Cover by L.C. Chase
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-9847669-6-3
Printed in the United States of America
JustJoshin Publishing, Inc.
3053 Rancho Vista Blvd.
Suite 116
Palmdale, CA 93551
www.joshlanyon.com
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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