Hanging the Stars

by Rhys Ford

  “I want to fix things. The hardest thing I’m going to have to do in my life is not to fix everything that goes wrong in yours. I’m not saying we should move everyone into this house and live happily ever after. It’s been less than a week since we’ve gotten to see each other again. Yeah, it’s too soon, but for me, it’s almost too late.” He blinked as the sky brightened suddenly, catching the sun’s rays in its pale haze. “I want to see where we go, and yeah, that means working hard not to overdo things with Rome. But at the same time, I want you to know I’m here for you to reach out to. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. Yes, I can help you financially, and if you let me, then great, but it’ll be as an investment or loan. Can we agree on that?”

  “You okay with dumping the plans for the motel? Or are we going to fight about it? I know you said… before—”

  “Is the motel a condition? Something I’ve got to give up to have you?”

  “No, because that would be fucked. I don’t do emotional terrorism.” Angel shoved his hair out of his face. “But I’d try to convince you to find somewhere else to build. I’m not giving up the bakery. It’s a crappy shack on the edge of a parking lot, but it’s my crappy shack.”

  “And I’m with you on that. I can always find someplace else to build, and the bakery’s as much of your baby as Rome, so yeah, the condos are off the table,” West whispered. “I won’t be able to find another you. So… you and me? Is there going to be an us?”

  “Yeah, there’s going to be an us.” Angel leaned in, capturing his mouth.

  If he died dipped in starlight and gold, West would already know what it felt like. Angel’s kisses gilded his insides, pouring a soft warmth threaded with shivering chills into his body. He heard bells, or at least the echo of them, and West swallowed, taking in as much of Angel as he could. His body still ached from their lovemaking, and if he hadn’t promised Angel, he’d already have his lover stretched out onto the bed so he could explore and taste whatever he’d missed the night before. He’d just fisted his hands into Angel’s long hair when West heard someone clearing his throat at the open door.

  “Go away,” West grumbled, then glanced at the window, groaning at Marzo’s reflection in the panes. “Damn. What now? What the hell else can happen?”

  Reluctantly letting go, West stroked at Angel’s face, unable to stop from grinning at the blush pinking his cheek. A muttered “Fucker” was all he got from his lover. Then Angel climbed off the bed. Tugging his shirt down, West stretched his legs out, wincing when his ankle and knee throbbed from being overstrained.

  “I’m sorry to bother you guys, boss,” Marzo rumbled, and he didn’t move when Angel padded to the door. “That detective is downstairs… Montague.”

  “Swear to God, that man’s like a stalker,” West ground out. “What’s he want now?”

  “Probably thinks I tried to burn down the bakery for insurance money or something,” Angel interjected. “Guy’s got it out for me.”

  “No, he’s here for something else. The cops were investigating a shot-up SUV in a warehouse down the street from the motel and found a dead body inside.” The Italian’s eyes grew troubled, and his face softened with deep sympathy. “Boss, you’ve got to go down and talk to him. He says the guy they found is Derry, and they’re calling it murder.”

  Thirteen

  “I WAS angry the last time I talked to him.” West’s coffee cup trembled, and his brain glitched, wondering if there was an earthquake rolling through the coast. Then his mind caught on to his hands shaking, creating waves in the creamy brown liquid. “Argued, really. I wanted to talk to him face-to-face, but he was up in the city and didn’t want to make the trip down. And now you’re telling me you found him here? In Half Moon? Dead? I can’t….”

  He’d taken the coffee when Angel shoved it at him, needing something… wanting something… and since he couldn’t drag Angel up to the bedroom and hide under a mound of warm blankets, the coffee seemed like his only choice.

  It was good coffee. Perfectly fine coffee. A smooth, silky punch of roasted beans right to the back of his throat, its bitter ridge softened with heavy cream and a whisper of sugar. It tasted great. Even through the raw, salty taint of his swallowed grief, the coffee was great.

  It’d have tasted even better if there’d been a dollop of whiskey in it.

  Hell, it’d have tasted great if it’d been mostly whiskey with a dollop of coffee in it.

  Or, his thoughts mocked, it would be fucking fantastic if it were all whiskey and sipped under that Angel-warmed blanket fort where nothing in the world could touch them and Derry was still alive, slowly tearing apart West’s world with his over-the-top ideas and fast-paced deals.

  There was movement around him, too quick for his eye to follow, or maybe his brain was simply too mired in sludge to respond. Marzo was being interviewed by another detective in the living room after Montague’d taken over the study. Justin had come in, hot on the heels of Angel’s phone call, to help keep Rome squirreled away. The redhead looked like he was bursting with questions, but a quick slap of whispers between he and Angel and he hustled Roman upstairs with a promise of early-morning video games and waffles once the cops were gone.

  “I’ll have questions for you later, Daniels,” Montague said when Angel settled on the couch beside West.

  “No, I’d like him to be here.” West blinked, clearing some of the haze in front of him. “It’s… this is insane.”

  After a brief flurry of people, noise, and shock, Montague sat across of West, a rumpled hulk of a man with old-school movie-star looks and cop-sharp eyes, waiting patiently for West’s answers to his questions. The detective’s hands were massive, making the pen he held look like an ink-spewing toothpick as he made notes in a tiny brown notebook. Angel was next to him, nursing his own cup of coffee, the black brew as dark and bottomless as the hole West felt in his soul.

  Montague was a skilled interviewer, affable despite his breadth, someone who was casual enough in his body language to make another person feel safe, but West’d heard the steel hidden in the man’s velvet depths. The cop and Angel’d come to a tenuous détente of sorts, soldered together by a mumbled apology over a gun Angel never owned, much less purchased in a town he’d never been in. It all could have been another manipulation, but West didn’t have the brain cells to pick it all apart.

  Derry was dead—slaughtered and left alone in a warehouse while West was being made love to.

  Swallowing a gulp of coffee did little to fend off the rush of sick gurgling in West’s belly, but he clamped down on the feeling. He refused to lose his stomach in front of the cop and Angel, but damned if he didn’t have to fight to keep himself in check. Angel’s hand on the small of his back helped, and West took another sip, finding comfort in the other man’s touch.

  “What did the two of you fight about?” Montague pried gently. “And when was the last time you spoke to him?”

  “Yesterday… around noon, I think.” West combed through his memories. “Crap, the fire… that was yesterday. There’s just been so much going on, I’m having a hard time separating out the days. Yesterday, we spoke about the motel. He was resisting closing down the project. He does that sometimes.

  “I’d brought it up to him and wanted to see how we could shift it elsewhere without incurring a lot of costs. That was… before I’d spoken to Kathleen in Acquisitions later in the afternoon.” He’d been irritated, but Derry dragged his feet more than a few times on projects he didn’t want to change, and West was used to shoving him along before Derry shifted his course. “I was pissed off because Derry hadn’t contacted them or legal about shifting the project. I’d left a message for him to call, but he never got back to me. I was going to follow up with him later this morning. Maybe have Marzo drive me into the city to meet up with him. As far as I knew, he was in San Francisco.”

  “Did he normally refuse to change something the company was working on?” Montague looked up from his notes. “Even a
fter you spoke to him about it directly?”

  “Derry’s known for it.” West barked a short laugh at the pointless odd struggles he’d had with his friend. “We argue about it. Then after a couple of days, he’ll make the changes I’ve asked for. Derry has….”

  It hit West that he’d never argue with Derry over the stupid little things in a project ever again, and he swallowed at the growing lump in his throat. He must have made a noise or some sort of sign, because Angel’s hand squeezed around his, anchoring him in the conversation.

  “Shit… had. Derry had a problem letting go of things he wanted. He’ll… he’d have a vision of how something should be and go after it, pushing until it was how he saw it,” West explained. “It’s why I brought him into the company, why I put him in charge of new project development. I knew he would get the job done right and on time.”

  “But he worked for you, right?” Montague pressed. “You own the company. Inherited it from your father. Why didn’t he act immediately when you ordered him to do something?”

  “That’s not how I work. People put in charge of projects have a large sense of autonomy. Ultimately, they answer to me, and everything goes under review and adjustments are made, but sometimes a project will be tapped to close, and the person in charge comes back at it with a different perspective.” He shrugged, fatigue creeping through him. “I might have given Derry a lot more leeway because we were friends, but if I said something was final, he gave in. At the end of the day, it is my name on the building and my signature on their paychecks. Derry just likes… liked to push things a bit further sometimes.”

  The cop, it seemed, wasn’t quite done. “Were you lovers? Is that why you let him push things?”

  The shift in questioning took West by surprise, and he felt a gasp burst up from his chest. Shifting on the couch, he leaned forward to put the cup down and glared at the cop. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “That is bullshit, Montague,” Angel snapped. “Where the hell did you get that?”

  “Remember, Daniels, you’re here because you agreed to sit tight and be quiet. And to your point, it’s a standard question, Mr. Harris,” Montague replied, his voice low and even. “One I have to ask considering his previously antagonistic dealings with Mr. Daniels and your recently developed relationship. If Mr. Washington harbored feelings for you and came down here to—”

  “Montague, you’re way off base. Derry was my friend. We never… shit. It was never like that between us. And I shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone, especially not to you.” West fought to keep his tears back. Gutted and confused, he shoved away, holding on to Angel’s hand to ground himself. “You going to tell me why I’m sitting here with you as you take my friend apart? Why are you here asking me questions instead of looking for his killer?”

  “Because your friend Derry Washington was found dead next to a vehicle we found in the warehouse.” Montague met West’s gaze, flaying away West’s anger with a dismissive snort. “A warehouse owned by Harris Investments. Did you know he was here in Half Moon Bay?”

  “I just told you I didn’t.” West rocked back, catching his breath. “I didn’t even know about the warehouse. It’s not something HI would normally purchase. We usually only buy properties or land to develop, then sell. We do hold title to a few office buildings, but a management company takes care of the day to day.”

  “What about the Moonrise? The motel next to Mr. Daniels’s property?” Montague asked. “Wasn’t Mr. Washington attempting to get Mr. Daniels to sell so you could develop it?”

  “The motel is a fluke, and the development project for that property was terminated. It’s what Derry and I have been arguing about for a while.” Shifting on the couch, West hit his ankle against the table, sending a shock wave of pain through the joint. Hissing, he leaned over to rub at it. “I don’t know why the warehouse was purchased, but I can find out.”

  “And he’d have purchased this warehouse using company funds?”

  “He’d have to go through Acquisitions, but yes, he would have, if he’d been the one to buy it.” West frowned, trying to recall any conversation he had with Derry about property purchases. The wind was knocked right out of him, stolen in the emotional upheaval. He’d gone from grief to rage to confusion, and it was getting too much to take in. “I don’t know what he was doing there. He should have been back in the city, ignoring my texts. He shouldn’t have been in Half Moon. Are you quite certain he was murdered?”

  “Mr. Harris, Derry Washington was found with two bullets in his head, lying next to a shot-up SUV that, judging by the damage on its rear quarter panels, was used in a fatal shooting at Mr. Daniels’s bakery.” Montague’s words were gentle, but the stark imagery of Derry’s death slapped West out of his fugue. “The gun was left at the scene, and we have every reason to think it was used on both your friend and the SUV.”

  “I can’t… this is… why would someone kill Derry?” West spread his hands, helpless under the barrage of information. “He never carried a lot of money on him. Maybe someone killed him because they tried to rob him and he had nothing on him.”

  “See, all of this leaves me with a lot of questions.” Montague’s handsome face turned stony as he flipped a page in his notebook. “There was someone else in the warehouse and possibly using the location to hide the SUV, which, oddly enough, is also owned by Harris Investments. Would you know about that purchase?”

  “HI owns several vehicles. Most of which are driven by our executives,” West explained. “It’s a company perk. Derry owned his own car—some sports thing he raved about for months before getting it. That’s what he’d have driven down here. I don’t know what it was, but Agnes, my assistant, can get you information, along with HI’s vehicles.”

  “And you don’t drive?”

  “As it’s been pointed out to me time and time again, it’s safer for mankind that I not have a license.” West snorted, recalling every disastrous attempt he’d had behind the wheel. “That’s one of Marzo’s main duties, getting me to where I need to go.”

  “You had a benefit dinner the night of the shooting at the bakery. Did your driver take you there?” The detective poised his pen over the empty page. “And what time did he drop you off?”

  Angel opened his mouth, probably to protest where Montague was leading the conversation, but West put his hand on Angel’s thigh and said, “Marzo’s also my bodyguard. He comes with me to events. I’ve had… incidents when people who are angry about one thing or another try to hurt me. So before you can ask, he was there. I think he had the fish, a bold choice at a benefit. Let me ask you this, Detective. What makes you think I had anything to do with Derry’s death? Because that’s what you’re inferring, isn’t it?”

  “Someone shot him, Harris, someone he knew and trusted enough to shoot him up close. So I’m willing to entertain any and all reasons about who else was there,” Montague replied. “You were here, have a bodyguard who has a sketchy past with the law, and if Washington was getting in the way of your relationship with Daniels, I can see how an argument could go wrong. So let’s go over this again, starting with where were you yesterday, before you showed up at Daniels’s bakery.”

  “SO THE cops think West’s best friend tried to kill you? Then West had him killed?” Justin gaped at Angel from across the kitchen’s long steel table. “Holy shit. That’s crazy! Like telenovela crazy.”

  “Not as crazy as I’m going to get if you don’t stir those raspberries,” Angel warned over the hammering coming from the front of the bakery. “We can’t sell cupcakes and muffins out of the back of the van forever, so as soon as Frank and his crew are done with the new porch, I’ve got to have stuff for the cases. And I need those raspberries broken down, Just.”

  “You, Ange, have no appreciation for gossip,” his friend grumbled, but he picked up the wooden spoon and stirred the simmering pot. “Seriously, what the hell is going on with your life? Your place gets shot up, someone dies in the kitchen, then t
he bakery catches on fire, and your secret millionaire lover’s best friend is murdered.”

  “Really? Secret millionaire lover?”

  “Look, you’re shacked up with a multimillionaire and you don’t talk about it. That’s about as secret as it gets. It’s been what? Almost two weeks since the fire? Rome’s driven to school every day in a limo by some guy who looks like he works for the mob, and you go home to the fortress of solitude when you’re done working here.” Justin’s nostrils flared, a sure sign he was gearing up to lecture Angel. “And why the hell are you working at the bakery? You should be jetting off to Paris or something to have your armpits waxed by snippy women in tall black stilettos.”

  “I own the Shack, Just. I’m not just working here. I own it.” His shoulders hurt a bit from sleeping sideways next to Rome after his brother’s nightmares the night before, and there was a throbbing crick in his neck every time he turned left. A handful of ibuprofen did little to make the pain go away, and combined with the gallon of tea he drank that morning, his stomach felt like he’d run it through a shredder. “I’m not looking for a handout from West. Not now. Not ever. And I’m not doing anything with my armpits.”

  “But he’s not closing the motel down, right? So you guys definitely have something going on.” Justin sniffed. “I need material here, Ange. I’ve got an evening shift at Yvonne’s, and if I don’t come back with some juicy gossip, she’s going to make me clean out the storeroom or something.”

  “You’ve never cleaned out a storeroom in your life,” Angel scoffed. “And we’re… shit, I don’t know what we are, but that cop sure as hell tried to work West over. Bad enough that dick Derry was killed. Now he’s got to deal with the cops trying to say he did it?”