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With Mother's Day this weekend, I decided to feature 5 books each from a different series where the mom stood out. Some the mom didn't hold a significant part but they were a memorable role. Some loving, others not so much, supportive in their own way, but each made the book pop, made the story unforgettable. Mystery, historical, contemporary, paranormal it doesn't seem to matter what the genre/trope, mothers are mothers, good or bad they always leave a lasting impression. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, grandmas, aunts, sisters, and to all the dads doing double duty.
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Summary:
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries #4
The ghosts of the past will shape your future. Unless you fight them...
Cambridge, 1907: After settling in their new home, Cambridge dons Orlando Coppersmith and Jonty Stewart are looking forward to nothing more exciting than teaching their students and playing rugby. Their plans change when a friend asks their help to clear an old flame who stands accused of murder.
Doing the right thing means Jonty and Orlando must leave the sheltering walls of St. Bride’s to enter a labyrinth of suspects and suspicions, lies and anguish.
Their investigation raises ghosts from Jonty’s past when the murder victim turns out to be one of the men who sexually abused him at school. The trauma forces Jonty to withdraw behind a wall of painful memories. And Orlando fears he may forever lose the intimacy of his best friend and lover.
When another one of Jonty’s abusers is found dead, police suspicion falls on the Cambridge fellows themselves. Finding this murderer becomes a race to solve the crime…before it destroys Jonty’s fragile state of mind.
Warning: Contains sensual m/m lovemaking and hot men playing rugby.
Re-Read Review July 2016:
I didn't think it possible that I could love Jonty & Orlando more but this second time around is amazing!
Original Review Summer 2014:
Another great Jonty and Orlando tale. My heart was breaking for Jonty having to relive the ordeals he suffered in his earlier years. My heart also ached for Orlando having to watch the man he loved relive those horrors and not be able to help other than be there for him. Which of course meant more than Orlando realized it did. This mystery hitting so close to home again brings in Mama and Papa Stewart in loving and interesting ways. Mrs. Stewart may be a woman of her time but she isn't one to be scoffed at either, she's a delight to read. Off to start number five.
RATING:
I didn't think it possible that I could love Jonty & Orlando more but this second time around is amazing!
Original Review Summer 2014:
Another great Jonty and Orlando tale. My heart was breaking for Jonty having to relive the ordeals he suffered in his earlier years. My heart also ached for Orlando having to watch the man he loved relive those horrors and not be able to help other than be there for him. Which of course meant more than Orlando realized it did. This mystery hitting so close to home again brings in Mama and Papa Stewart in loving and interesting ways. Mrs. Stewart may be a woman of her time but she isn't one to be scoffed at either, she's a delight to read. Off to start number five.
RATING:
Stars & Stripes by Abigail Roux
Summary:
Cut and Run #6
Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have managed the impossible: a few months of peace and quiet. After nearly a year of personal and professional turmoil, they're living together conflict-free, work is going smoothly, and they're both happy, healthy, and home every night before dark. But anyone who knows them knows that can’t possibly last.
Special Agents Ty Grady and Zane Garrett have managed the impossible: a few months of peace and quiet. After nearly a year of personal and professional turmoil, they're living together conflict-free, work is going smoothly, and they're both happy, healthy, and home every night before dark. But anyone who knows them knows that can’t possibly last.
When an emergency call from home upsets the balance of their carefully arranged world, Ty and Zane must juggle family drama with a perplexing crime to save a helpless victim before time runs out.
From the mountains of West Virginia to a remote Texas horse ranch harboring more than just livestock and childhood memories, Ty and Zane must face their fears—and their families—to overcome an unlikely enemy and bring peace back into their newly shared world.
Loved seeing both the guys in their family environments. Some of them I absolutely loved others, well let's just say not so much. Really not a big fan of Zane's mother but I love his dad and sister. LOVED Ty's first encounter with both the mother and Zane's niece Sabrina. Wasn't a huge fan of Ty's grandpa the first time we met him but loved him this time around. Can't wait to read more!
RATING:
The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott
Summary:
Texas #1
Riley Hayes, the playboy of the Hayes family, is a young man who seems to have it all: money, a career he loves, and his pick of beautiful women. His father, CEO of HayesOil, passes control of the corporation to his two sons; but a stipulation is attached to Riley's portion. Concerned about Riley's lack of maturity, his father requires that Riley 'marry and stay married for one year to someone he loves'.
Angered by the requirement, Riley seeks a means of bypassing his father's stipulation. Blackmailing Jack Campbell into marrying him "for love" suits Riley's purpose. There is no mention in his father's documents that the marriage had to be with a woman and Jack Campbell is the son of Riley Senior's arch rival. Win win.
Riley Hayes, the playboy of the Hayes family, is a young man who seems to have it all: money, a career he loves, and his pick of beautiful women. His father, CEO of HayesOil, passes control of the corporation to his two sons; but a stipulation is attached to Riley's portion. Concerned about Riley's lack of maturity, his father requires that Riley 'marry and stay married for one year to someone he loves'.
Angered by the requirement, Riley seeks a means of bypassing his father's stipulation. Blackmailing Jack Campbell into marrying him "for love" suits Riley's purpose. There is no mention in his father's documents that the marriage had to be with a woman and Jack Campbell is the son of Riley Senior's arch rival. Win win.
Riley marries Jack and abruptly his entire world is turned inside out. Riley hadn't counted on the fact that Jack Campbell, quiet and unassuming rancher, is a force of nature in his own right.
This is a story of murder, deceit, the struggle for power, lust and love, the sprawling life of a rancher and the whirlwind existence of a playboy. But under and through it all, as Riley learns over the months, this is a tale about family and everything that that word means.
I fell in love again with Jack, Riley, and the whole Campbell-Hayes universe. I loved it 3 years ago, loved it last year when I re-read it the first time, and I loved it even more the third time. Jack and Riley will never get old.
1st Re-Read Review 2015:
Well, nearly 2 years have gone by since I first read this book, my first foray into published M/M genre, and it's even better than I remember! Jack & Riley's banter is perfectly spicy and Jeff & Gerald reign supreme in all their assholery(not a real word, I know) glory.
Original Review 2013:
WOW!!! The characters are so well written, you'll love them, you'll hate some of them and I was definitely sucked into the story.
RATING:
Summary:
Whyborne & Griffin #10
Whyborne’s Endicott relatives have returned to collect on the promise he made to help them take back their ancestral manor from an evil cult. In exchange, they’ll give him the key to deciphering the Wisborg Codex, which Whyborne needs to learn how to stop the masters.
To that end, Whyborne, his husband Griffin, and their friends Iskander and Christine travel to a small island off the coast of Cornwall. But when they arrive at Balefire Manor, Whyborne must not only face the evil within the ancient mansion, but the painful truth about his own destiny.
It's time for Whyborne to make good on his promise to help his Endicott relatives recover the family manor and once that is done he will recieve the key that will help him decipher the Wisborg Codex so he can defeat the masters. With Griffin, Iskander and Christine at his side, Whyborne makes the trip but what he learns on this mission may not be what he expected. No one knows what the future holds but destiny on the other hand may already be written but will it bring happiness or heartache?
I really don't know what I can say about Balefire that I haven't already said in reviews for the other entries in the Whyborne & Griffin series, but I'll try. I really love how both boys have grown throughout their journey. Whyborne has become more confident without losing his quietness, I hate to use the word "innocence" because he has seen so much evil but he still retains that part of him that borders on naivete. As for Griffin, well he has always been the more outspoken of the two but he has become more accepting of Whyborne's powers and embraced his own gift.
As for Christine and Kander, well they just keep on trucking with their friendship to the boys, love for each other, determination to help good prevail over evil, and all the while doing it with wit and wisdom. I can't imagine anyone not loving Christine's pluckiness but one scene that really stood out for me was even in the face of possible death she was livid over Whyborne's reckless destruction of an archeological find. I don't think her outrage even lasted a full page but it stood out and was a perfect example of what makes Christine tick and why she has become a fan favorite. She may be a secondary character with sidekick aspects but there is nothing secondary or sidekicky about her.
Heliabel is along for the journey as the ketoi "ambassador" which I thought was a delightful touch. She's been around the whole series but I don't think we've ever seen this much of her in one entry. Watching her step into a motherly role to everyone was lovely, especially Christine. Now, their talks may not be something we seen on page all the time but you just know they were emotional, straight to the point, and exactly what they both needed. I'll admit I missed Persephone and Miss Parkhurst but it was only right that they stayed in Widdershins to "hold the fort" as it were.
Balefire is a brilliant entry in Whyborne & Griffin series and the idea that there will be only one more breaks my heart but I know that Jordan L Hawk will bring it to a conclusion we'll never forget. So if you haven't started Whyborne & Griffin's journey than there's no better time to start and if you are a W&G follower than you certainly don't want to miss this one.
RATING:
Summary:
Adrien English #3
Demons, death threats...
and Christmas shopping.
It's gonna be one Hell of a Holiday.
In the third in the popular Adrien English series, the "ill-starred and bookish" mystery writer has to contend with a Satanic cult, a handsome university professor and his on-again/off-again relationship with the eternally conflicted LAPD Detective Jake Riordan.
And, oh, yes, murder...
Being able to fall even deeper in love with a story, a mystery especially, when you're reading it for the third time, speaks volumes to the talent of the author and that is exactly what Josh Lanyon brings. Talent and respect for the written word.
Original Review 2013:
Another great entry in the Adrien English Mysteries! The mystery is wonderfully complex and yet still easy to follow along with. I really want to just knock some sense in to Jake for refusing to admit who he really is. Adrien is as stubborn as ever and now he's getting a new family since his mother is remarrying. His sisters-to-be are an interesting trio, the youngest, Emma, seems to be the most level headed and likeable, but the other 2 are just as fun to read, especially Arien's inner monologue when it comes to his interactions with the young ladies.
RATING:
Lessons in Power by Charlie Cochrane
Cambridge, February 1907
“I’ve been reading a book.”
“I remember you saying that once before. We were both stark naked in front of a fire just like this one and by rights should have been making a first consummation of our passion.”
Orlando Coppersmith swatted at his friend’s head with the first thing that came to hand, which luckily for Jonty Stewart wasn’t one of the fire dogs but a bread roll. “It’s a constant amazement to me that you’ve ever shut up long enough for a consummation to take place. Blether, blether, if they made it an Olympic event you’d be so certain to be champion that no one else would turn up to oppose you.”
“And the point of this conversation was?” Jonty flicked some toast crumbs from his cuff.
“This book concerned the meaning of names and it struck me how apt yours was. Well, it struck me at the time—after the latest bit of tomfoolery I’m not so sure.” Orlando, once a potential Olympic frowning champion, smiled happily.
“Handsome, lovely, is that what it means? Statuesque? Desirable?” Jonty chirped away like a little bird, full of the joys of a day which suggested that spring might be just around the corner, if the light filtering into the dining room was any indication.
Orlando grabbed his friend’s hands. “Stop it. I’m in deadly earnest. It means ‘God has given’. Now if that’s not an apt description of you for me then I’ve no idea what is.”
Jonty had the grace to blush. “You’ll have to tell Mama. She alleges the choice of Jonathan was all Papa’s. She wanted to call me James.”
“I think I’ll start calling you Godgiven or some such thing when you’re at your most annoying. It might get you to calm down.” Orlando buttered his toast with great energy, as if it were his friend’s bottom that was getting a whack.
Jonty poked out his tongue, although his lover couldn’t be sure whether he was thinking or being insulting. “And what does Orlando mean? Irritating? Insatiable?”
“It’s from Roland.”
“Well, I’m none the wiser with that.”
“Neither was the book, to tell the truth, although it’s supposed to be something to do with a famous land. I suspect it means ‘he who gains fame throughout the country’.”
Jonty turned up his nose. “More likely ‘he who spends hours in the bathroom’. Luckily we have two in this place or I’d never be ready in the morning.”
In fact there were three bathrooms in their house, but the one in the self-contained annexe—which itself contained Mrs. Ward, their housekeeper—never got taken into the reckoning as they never got to go near it. It was part of the “servant’s quarters”, as the house agent had referred to them when they’d first enquired about the property, only connected with the rest of the building via a rickety flight of stairs which led to the kitchen.
Not that Mrs. Ward ever complained. Her suite of rooms had been decorated and kitted out beautifully, along with all the rest of the house, prior to the men taking occupation. A sailor’s widow in her mid-forties, and with her only son now himself at sea, she’d been recommended to them as a lady who relished the prospect of something to set her abilities to. As the recommendation had come from Ariadne Peters, sister to the Master of St. Bride’s college, Jonty and Orlando had paid close attention to it. They didn’t want their jobs at the college proving surplus to requirements overnight. Mrs. Ward had a big heart, an open mind and a light touch with pastry, which were the best possible qualifications, and in the fortnight they’d been in residence, the men had no complaints.
Their house, a cottage dating to Tudor times but adorned with later extensions and amendments, had previously belonged to an old lady who’d died. Jonty had spied the property out before Christmas and fallen in love with it. He’d whisked Orlando up there the very evening he agreed to buying a house and the cottage had weaved its magic on him too. They’d bought it before anyone else could, then set to with plans for improvements.
Or, to be accurate, Helena Stewart, Jonty’s mother, had descended on her broomstick and taken all the plans for enhancements in hand, as “her lads” were so busy with university business. Soon the Madingley Road was alive with decoration, renovations, plumbing and installation of proper central heating, all without losing an ounce of the property’s charm. It was only a matter of weeks before it was habitable and on February the first they took possession.
“Should I carry you over the threshold?” Jonty had been barely able to restrain the bliss in his voice when they’d taken possession. “Or you me? We could even go in, then come back out so we both get a go…” His words had been stopped in the most effective way, by a single, protracted kiss—allowable only as no one else was within a half a mile’s sight.
Now it felt as if they’d lived in this house forever. Orlando, whose home for many years had consisted of a set of rooms in St. Bride’s in which no one but his students and the Master were allowed—and a chair in the Senior Common Room which no one cared to sit next to—was amazed that his horizons had expanded so far. He kept a room back in college for supervisions, as did Jonty, and their chairs still stood side by side in the SCR, inviolate, but now Orlando had a cottage which he shared in joint names with his lover. He also had second, third, call-them-what-you-would homes in both Sussex and London with the rest of the Stewarts, for whom he was a cross between a fourth son and a favourite son-in-law.
Forsythia Cottage was spacious, affording them each a study to fill with their books, pictures and general clutter. It was well appointed with bedrooms for household and guests, although only one of their beds ever seemed to be slept in on any given night. They always took breakfast together, Mrs. Ward serving up ridiculous quantities of bacon and eggs or—as this morning, when talk turned to names—kedgeree, which was spicy and succulent.
“Shall we have Matthew Ainslie up to Bride’s for High Table?” Jonty’s little nose rose above the newspaper, making him look even more like a small inquisitive mammal than usual.
“Why?” Orlando had managed to avoid having the man visit them through the Michaelmas term, and didn’t want things to change now.
“Because we’re meeting him at the rugby on Wednesday. It would be terribly rude to just shake his hand after the match, say ‘Sorry the university slaughtered Blackheath’, and then just leave him there.”
It was true; Orlando had to admit that would be shoddy treatment. Even for someone who had once made a pass at him up in the woods. He no longer hated Matthew for past indiscretions, nor wanted to kick him in the seat of his pants, but he was sometimes jealous of the affection Jonty felt for a man they’d only met on holiday. “I suppose so. We can let Miss Peters get her teeth into him if he gets out of hand.”
“I’d pay money to see that happen.” Jonty drained his cup and poured another. The late Mr. Ward had tasted the excellent coffee supplied in foreign parts and had taught his wife how to make a good brew.
“I suppose in that case we should see about accommodation for him?”
“No need. He’s been talking about staying at the University Arms, which seems a better idea than having him here. Then he won’t have to listen to your snoring.”
“For the one-hundred-and-ninety-third time, I don’t snore.”
“Don’t you?” Jonty stood up and reached over the table for the marmalade, which his lover had appropriated. “Well, some bloke comes in my bed of a night and reverberates. Perhaps it’s a farmer driving his pigs to market. Ow!”
Orlando had taken advantage of Jonty’s position and landed a hearty slap on his backside. “You’ll get another one of those every time you accuse me of snoring.”
“Seems a positive incentive to keep on doing it then.” Jonty sat down gingerly, although he didn’t mind being whacked by his lover—it often led on to something much more pleasant. “I’ll ring Matthew at lunchtime, then.”
*****
“Coppersmith! Orlando Coppersmith!” A chap the size of the great north wall of the Eiger came into view, cutting a lane through the throng of people along the touchline. He grabbed Orlando’s hand and pumped it up and down until all the blood flow seemed to cease.
“Morgan.” Orlando was pleased to have remembered the name. “I thought you’d have been playing.” He jabbed a finger at the pitch, a field as muddy as only Cambridge could produce in early spring.
“Dodgy leg.” The man mountain grimaced. “Come to cheer the team on.” He offered his hand to Jonty.
“This is Dr. Stewart.” Orlando made the introduction with pride. “He played here in about 1876.”
“Turn of the century, thank you. I think I may have played against you at some point, Mr. Morgan.” Jonty eyed the man’s broken nose and had the vaguest memory that he might just have been responsible. “You beat us then, but I hope we’ll make amends today. Ah, please excuse us…”
A hubbub broke out pitchside, which seemed to consist of repeated sayings along the lines of “Matthew, you old dog” or “Jonty Stewart, when are you going to get a decent haircut?” Together with muttered harrumphs from Orlando, which might or might not have been welcoming, this was all accompanied by an outbreak of backslapping, handshaking and general bonhomie. At least two of the three present were pleased at the reunion. For Ainslie, meeting Jonty and Orlando was the one positive thing to have come out of last summer’s holiday on Jersey, during which his father had been murdered and these two bright young men had solved the case.
“It’s wonderful to be here at last.” Ainslie breathed deep of the fresh Cambridge air, so much healthier than the latest London smog.
“All we needed was for you to get here.” Jonty’s grin couldn’t have been wider. “Now we can get a pint of IPA inside ourselves before kick-off. Need the warmth and sustenance.”
It proved just as well; the first half of the match was slow, more laboured than they’d hoped, and only the thought of another pint of beer was going to see them through if the second half turned out just as dire.
Orlando went off to find the little boys’ room and discussion turned to matters of dangerous binding in the scrum, when Morgan clapped Jonty on the back, sending him sprawling.
The man had been standing close by for the first half, obviously privy to the flow of wit and repartee which passed between the two fellows of Bride’s and their guest. “I’d never have thought to see old Coppersmith in such high humour. What happened to him the last few years to make such a change?”
“Oh—” Jonty was, for once, lost for words. Why did people have to ask such bloody awkward questions? Ones to which the wrong answer could lead to two years’ hard labour? “Ah, he, um, met a lady who had an extraordinary effect upon him.”
“The old dog. I was always convinced he would turn out to be a confirmed bachelor. Any sign of wedding bells?”
“I doubt it. She loves another, you know. Still, he burns a light for her.” Jonty was surprised by Orlando slapping his shoulder. He wasn’t certain whether his lover had heard what he’d said, although the man would have to be blind not to notice Ainslie’s secretive grin.
The game began again, with a bit more swashbuckling spirit on display and, as always seemed to happen, some wag asking whether the referee might benefit from borrowing Stewart’s spectacles. A stiff talking-to had no doubt been delivered with the half-time oranges and the end result of two goals all was regarded as being fair.
“Close call, eh?” Ainslie kept his voice low.
“The match or what he asked?” Jonty looked sidelong at his guest.
The crowds were wending their way back to colleges, pubs, the train station, wherever they’d come from. Morgan had buttonholed Orlando and was bending his ear up ahead on the path from Grange Road to the river. It was getting dark, the lights of Cambridge appearing like stars in the gloaming.
“It’s always the same old story, isn’t it? Lies and subterfuge.” Ainslie shivered, as did his host. The growing coolness in the air didn’t chill them half as much as the thought of the many little deceptions which pervaded their lives.
“I know.” They’d reached the river Cam, Orlando still being regaled with rugby tales and looking like he was desperate to escape. “We’re off to college to change. Meet us in my set for a sherry before dinner.” Jonty shook Ainslie’s hand, watched his neat, strong frame make its way along past St. Catherine’s, then set off to rescue his lover.
*****
“Why did you have to say that?” Orlando’s room in St. Bride’s provided a sanctuary; here a man could talk freely.
“Say what?” Jonty had forgotten all about the halftime banter. That was forty minutes of rugby, a pleasant walk and a glass of sherry ago.
“About me meeting a lady who loved another. I could hear your voice a mile away. What sort of an impression will they have of me? I thought you didn’t approve of lies.” Orlando was fuming. Far from making him mellow, the beer had turned him belligerent.
“I don’t. Everything I said was true. You met my mama, who is without doubt a lady, and she has had a great effect upon you. And you could never marry her, could you, even if you wanted to?” Jonty looked with regret at the old leather chair by the fire. A nap would be nice but he didn’t suppose he’d be allowed one.
“That’s being pedantic. It may have been the literal truth but it told a misleading story.”
“Well, would you rather I’d said that you’d discovered the delights of my bed, which is the reason why you’re so much more confident and worldly wise? Think of the impression that would have caused, Dr. Coppersmith.” Jonty knew that he was in the right, and he always made the most of moral superiority.
Orlando was about to argue, then sighed and shook his head. “No, I think this was one occasion when the truth wouldn’t have paid.” He stared out of the window, musing. “I did wonder why he was being so friendly. He never used to make a point of talking to me.”
“You probably used to tell him off for sitting in your chair. Or standing on your bit of the pitch. Now that you’re a man of wide social experience, you give off a notable aura of bon viveur. Morgan no doubt sees that you’ve become much more fun to associate with and wishes to become one of your intimates.” Jonty began shifting his clothes, or else they’d never make Hall.
“Don’t rag me. I was incredibly lonely at times at Oxford. I could have done with a bit more beer and camaraderie then.” Orlando hated referring to the loneliness of his pre-Jonty days (or “the blessed times of quiet” as he called them) and if he was doing so now, he must be feeling the emptiness of them.
“Oh, my love. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. We can’t ever go back and change things can we? If we could, our formative years would all have been quite different.”
“I’m sorry.” Orlando’s loneliness now seemed very small beer compared to the horrors Jonty had been forced to endure at school, experiences it had taken him a great deal of time to recover from. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Of course you didn’t, whatever it was. Look, we’re neither of us the men we were and I daily thank God for it.” Jonty, the beer still making his body and spirit glow, felt as though he’d made the wisest pronouncement since the days of Solomon, one which was beyond answer. He was wrong.
“Quite right, too.” Orlando fiddled with his cufflinks. “I know you hate it when I speculate about what would have happened if we hadn’t met, but I can’t help doing it.”
“What if we’d met earlier? I mean what if we’d been opponents in the Varsity Match? I couldn’t have failed to notice you, all gangly legs and unruly curls. I’d have thrown you into touch a few times then we’d have shared a few beers in the bar. It would have been so nice…” There was something about the combination of rugby and beer which made the best of men maudlin.
Orlando snorted. “Well, we could hardly have commenced a relationship out there on the pitch, could we? No, please don’t favour that with an answer. It gives you far too much capacity for making obscene jokes about releasing the ball in the tackle.”
“I do fantasise sometimes, about what it would have been like to find myself at the bottom of a maul with you on top of me. Shame you mathematicians think it beneath yourselves to rummage up a rugger team—the English mob could organise a fixture and, assuming your old Achilles was up to it…” Jonty drifted off into pleasant reverie. He’d never seen his lover play the beautiful game, so it had become a favourite pastime to try to imagine it.
“Perhaps I can persuade them.”
Jonty almost dropped his collar stud. “Do you mean it?”
“Indeed. There’s a few chaps new to the university who could well be encouraged to turn out. And I’d enjoy it, too.” He smiled, full of mischief.
“Oh yes, Orlando? Being able to take me down in the tackle?”
“And rubbing your little nose into the mud a few times. Can’t think of anything better. On a rugby field that is,” Orlando added with a grin. “In here, that’s another matter…”
But the other matter was never explored, any investigation cut short when Matthew Ainslie knocked on the door in search of his glass of sherry.
High Table was excellent, a corner cut of beef being set off with fiery horseradish, and Yorkshire puddings as light as a feather. Ariadne Peters, whose plain looks were always eclipsed by her sparkling conversation, proved as entertaining as ever, and her brother charmed Ainslie with his intelligent interest in publishing.
They took coffee, cheese and fruit in the Senior Common Room, and when Ainslie accidentally sat in Orlando’s chair, the company waited with bated breath for the inevitable explosion of wrath. He astonished them all by sitting in the chair on the other side, letting Jonty take his normal seat. It was a gesture at once simple in its hospitality and profound in its sacrificial nature.
Jonty felt immensely proud of his lover’s good grace and resolved that he’d get an adequate reward when they returned home. The conversation meandered on, the wine, quantities of food and warm atmosphere having a soporific effect, so that Orlando soon suggested they take a little air before they all fell asleep. As the three men strolled along, the night air immediately counteracting the feelings of sleepiness, Ainslie spoke.
“Are you free for coffee tomorrow morning at, shall we say, eleven? I didn’t want to spoil this evening with business, although tomorrow I’d be grateful if I could—” he seemed to be thinking of the correct term, “—consult you on a professional basis.”
Jonty bowed, with only a hint of facetiousness. “That makes us sound conspicuously like Holmes and Watson. I’m available—are you, Dr. Coppersmith?”
Orlando’s face illustrated all the frustration he felt. “No, I’ve college business. And on a Saturday too.” He rolled his eyes.
“Then Dr. Stewart will have to take excellent notes, won’t he?” Ainslie smiled and strolled off, leaving his friends to find a cab to take them back up the Madingley Road.
*****
Ainslie had found a part of the University Arms where he and his guest could take coffee and talk without being overheard, an important element in his plan, given the potentially delicate nature of the discussion. A University College London man himself, he was enjoying his visit to such a hallowed seat of learning (still hallowed despite Jonty’s tales of his less-than-bright students).
Ainslie had ended up with a degree in literature, a taste for port and some interesting connections, which meant he could indulge his inclination towards other men with both discretion and pleasure. A discretion which had temporarily deserted him on Jersey although, thank the Lord, not one which had stood in the way of his friendship with Stewart and his more aloof companion.
He welcomed his guest at eleven on the dot, pouring out a cup of what proved to be an excellent brew. They chatted amiably for a few moments, mainly about the university’s prospects in the forthcoming cricket season, then Stewart felt it was time to open his own batting.
“You wanted to talk to us about some sort of case, I take it?”
“Indeed. I remember with extreme gratitude your help on Jersey and I know of your success both before and after it.”
Stewart grinned. “You’ve been reading The Times, I suppose, and now you want us to poke our noses into something?”
“That’s an unusual way of putting it, but yes.” Ainslie was impressed to see Stewart produce, along with his glasses, an elegant notepad and an equally elegant propelling pencil with which he began to make notes. The air of objective authority helped to make a painful situation rather more bearable. “I won’t beat about the bush. I have a friend who has been accused of murder. He assures me that he’s innocent and I believe that to be the truth. I would like you to see if you can find any evidence to support his case.”
“When is this due to come to court?” Stewart’s pencil tapped on the page.
“There’s likely to be a delay while an important medical witness is recalled from abroad, but we can’t be looking at much the other side of Easter.” The window gave a faint reflection. Ainslie, catching sight of his face, was shocked at how pale he’d turned.
Stewart was concerned. “And does his own counsel give him any hope?”
Ainslie stared out of the window, at the children playing on Parker’s Piece, their delight in running on the grass meaning nothing to his unseeing eyes. “Not very much.” All he could see was a face—not his own this time—a handsome young face. One that, time was, had been his greatest delight.
Stewart considered his next question. “If we find evidence that your friend is indeed guilty, what then?”
Ainslie turned, his keen eyes fixing his guest’s equally candid ones. “Then he hangs. I’ll not have facts suppressed just to bring about the desired result. I want the truth.” It hurt to speak every word, yet each had to be said.
Stewart patted his friend’s arm. “Good man. Couldn’t have taken the job without you having said that. Now can I have some details? What’s your friend’s name?”
“Alistair Stafford.”
“Should I know him? I’m sure I’ve heard the name before.”
“He’s the man who sent that letter to Jersey, detailing my alleged sins to someone who wished to besmirch my reputation.” Ainslie watched the children playing yet didn’t see them, still registering in his mind’s eye a happier time and place.
“Matthew, I don’t understand, why should you choose to defend him of all people?”
“We were once lovers, Jonty, very fond and close. We had a misunderstanding, a series of them really, and we couldn’t come to any sort of a resolution. We separated under very unsympathetic circumstances—there was a lot of bitterness on his part.” Ainslie’s gaze remained fixed outside. “Which is why he was keen to give information to my business rival. Spite. Or revenge.”
“It’s very magnanimous of you to be going to his aid. Was there some rapprochement over the last few months?”
“No, it was his sister who approached me.” Ainslie remembered Angela Stafford with fondness—she had never betrayed his friendship. “His mother and father decided to sever ties with him when they discovered where his affections lay. Miss Stafford knew we’d been very close, knew we’d parted, but had no idea, obviously, of Alistair’s subsequent betrayal. I didn’t enlighten her.” He at last brought his gaze back into the room.
“Of course not. Yet you still agreed to help?” Stewart looked so outraged that Ainslie smiled, despite the turmoil in his mind.
“Not there and then, but I agreed to meet him and hear his side of the tale. I was sufficiently convinced—well, to be here now.”
Stewart laid down his pencil for a moment. “I feel unworthy to be given such a responsibility. The things we’ve been involved with in the past haven’t been that important, or rather our role within them hasn’t. The police would have solved those first two crimes anyway, irrespective of our input. Is there no one else you could ask for help? Someone more competent?”
“There may be, but there’s no one I trust half as well as I do you and Dr. Coppersmith. I can be completely candid with you and I’m learning to be so with him. If there’s anything to be found, I’m sure that you’re the men to find it.”
The intellectual detective tried hard not to beam and poised his pencil again. “Can I take a few details?”
“I have some notes here for you—” Ainslie produced a large envelope, “—although I can give you a summary. A man was found dead in his house in Dorking, down in Surrey, the back of his head smashed in with a poker. Alistair was known to have argued violently with him just days before, threatening his life.”
“And the man’s name?”
“Lord Christopher Jardine.” Ainslie almost flinched, so sudden was the change in Stewart’s normally good-humoured face. “Did you know him?”
“There was a boy of that name at my school.” Stewart was making his face a blank, a mask over it to hide all feeling.
“He’d be a few years older than you.”
“Then I did know him.” Stewart fiddled with his pencil, some deep emotion welling up, threatening to engulf him.
“I’m sorry.” Ainslie’s words were sincere but they sounded feeble.
“So am I, Matthew. Sorry I ever made his acquaintance."
Stars & Stripes by Abigail Roux
The waitress came up to their table in the middle of an argument. “Would you like some more iced tea?”
Zane Garrett looked from his ranting partner to the waitress and smiled. “Thanks.” He slid his glass across the small bar table so she could fill it from the pitcher she had in hand.
“No problem, Zane. More wings?”
“Yeah, but just the medium ones this time. I’m not too hot on the honey barbecue kind.”
“Bad pun penalty,” Ty Grady muttered from across the table.
“Shut up.”
The waitress laughed. She set a pint down in front of Ty and he pointed at her with his celery stick.
“Designated Hitter or real baseball?”
“I’m cutting you off,” she answered before turning away.
“No!” Ty called out, and Zane laughed, the sound almost lost in the midst of the mid-week revelry. Ty turned a glare on him, dipped his celery into a plastic cup of ranch dressing, and then pointed at Zane with it, sending drops of dressing flying. “You know what we should do next weekend?” he asked without seeming to notice he’d sprayed Zane with ranch.
Zane grabbed a napkin and wiped up the splatter on his shirt. These weekly outings were the only time Ty drank around him, and he seemed to make up for lost time at them. Zane didn’t mind. After a few months of regular Wednesday night baseball viewings at the local bar, he was used to Ty’s semi-drunken antics. He had to admit, he enjoyed Ty when he was drunk. And as long as Ty stuck to beer or wine, and Zane continued his AA meetings, he didn’t even fight cravings.
“Was that a rhetorical question?”
“No. We should go get me another tattoo.”
Zane loved to see Ty’s mind at work. At first blush it seemed there was no rhyme or reason to it, but once he’d started paying attention, he could see the tracks Ty’s thoughts followed. Sometimes Ty jumped a track and surprised him, though. Like now. Ty had never mentioned getting another tattoo, had never been caught admiring anyone’s body art. The only reason Ty had gotten the bulldog on his arm was because it meant something dear to him.
Zane watched him for a long moment, entranced by his lover just as he always was. What did people see when they looked at the two of them sitting here in the bar? Just two friends, watching the game, hanging out? Maybe they sat a little closer together than some guys would, maybe their shoulders brushed more than casual friends’ should. Maybe people saw two men in love. Zane hated living in fear of what other people might see, but until he or Ty retired, that was their life.
Zane looked at the bulldog on Ty’s arm and raised an eyebrow. “What would you get?”
Ty threw back what was left of his beer, then set the glass down hard, rattling the unstable bar table. He met Zane’s eyes. “Ballgame’s over. I’ve been cut off by Designated Daisy. Let’s go home and look for trouble.”
Zane swallowed hard as Ty’s purr hit a chord deep inside him that only Ty had ever been able to reach. He pulled out his wallet, picked through some cash, and tossed a few bills onto the table. “Ready when you are, Bulldog.”
Ty slid out of his seat, and when Zane came around the table, Ty’s arm snaked around his waist. Most likely it was to keep himself from weaving as they left the bar. Over the months, Ty had grown more comfortable being demonstrative in front of strangers, and it warmed Zane to his toes every time Ty did it, but it still sent a shiver of nerves through him. Ty had always been the more careful of the two of them, and even he was growing more careless as time went on. What if they were seen by someone who knew them? What if they were found out? Everyone at work knew they were living together, though no one thought anything of it yet except that they were sharing the cost of the mortgage. But they were destined to be outed eventually. The real questions, the ones that haunted him, were would it matter, and would he even care?
The summer heat hit them when they exited the bar, even though the sun had long ago set and a salty breeze was blowing in off the nearby harbor. Ty’s arm tightened on Zane’s waist, and Zane slid his hand around Ty’s shoulders as they headed for their row house on Ann Street. He was struck yet again by just how happy they were, despite the obstacles and worries hanging over their heads.
There were moments when it was all surreal. He’d never expected to live with another person again, never expected to fall head over heels for someone again. For over two months now, he’d been waking to Ty’s arms wrapped around him every morning, and sometimes he wondered if he deserved it.
Other times he pondered how many tranquilizers it would take to bring Ty down, and whether he could do it before Ty killed him, but those moments passed quickly.
Now Ty’s body was hard and warm against his, but his movements were loose and relaxed. He was humming under his breath, and Zane knew it would soon turn into a song. He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled his lover closer. It might just be the rose-tinted color of love’s glasses, but there wasn’t a thing about Ty he didn’t find fascinating, amusing, or smoking hot. He loved it when Ty broke into song because Ty had a beautiful voice, drunk or not.
“It’s funny, you know?” Ty said. “How much things have changed.”
“What do you mean?”
“A couple years ago, at this point in the night, I’d be back in that bar with someone in the supply closet.”
Zane snorted and shook his head. “And now you just have to go home with me.”
“No,” Ty said, serious as he stopped and turned to look at Zane. “I don’t have to go home with you.”
Zane raised an eyebrow and cocked his head.
“I can’t wait to get home with you. Even if it’s just to crawl in bed and watch that stupid-ass show you like so much, I don’t care. Whatever I do, I’m glad I’m with you.”
Zane knew he was grinning like a fool, but sometimes Ty still managed to surprise him with his romantic, sentimental gestures.
Ty took his arm and continued to walk. Zane watched him out of the corner of his eye, amused and warmed all over.
“I love you,” Ty said out of the blue, his voice almost sing-song.
Zane laughed. “You’re drunk.”
“I loved you before I was drunk.”
Zane stopped walking and pulled Ty around to face him. The evening was full of the noises of summer night revelry, but the sidewalk was empty. He smiled and leaned in to kiss Ty. “I can’t remember a time that I was happier than I am right now.”
Ty smiled against his lips, his eyes closed as he wrapped his arms around Zane’s neck. “I bet we can top it when we get home.”
Zane growled and squeezed Ty’s ass before releasing him. “Let’s go find out.”
*****
Ty lay tangled in the sheets of the bed he shared with Zane, his head under his pillow. His entire body ached from the gymnastics of the night before. He had carpet burns on his knees. He could feel every place that Zane’s fingers had dug in to hold him down. He was fairly certain there were teeth marks on his shoulder. His insides were a mash of aching, lingering pleasure, and his head was full of cotton. They had to work today, but not for a few hours. He didn’t intend to move until something worthwhile compelled him.
A rough hand settled on the small of his back. Ty hummed and started to smile. That was compelling.
He raised his head, letting his pillow slide away as he turned to peer at his bedmate. Zane was still asleep, his handsome face relaxed in the shadows of the early morning. Ty took the opportunity to stare. He’d never expected to have the privilege of waking up to someone he loved so dearly every day. Now that he did, he tried to appreciate it when he could.
Zane’s hair had grown longer, almost unruly. He’d taken to slicking it back when he worked, and the ends would curl around his ears. Ty loved it. He loved even more that Zane had lost the lines of stress he’d carried for so long, and there were threads of silver hair growing in near his ears that Ty found incredibly sexy.
He reached out to slide his fingers over Zane’s lips. Zane scrunched up his nose and jerked his head away, grunting in his sleep. Ty bit his lip to keep from laughing and reached to do it again. Zane swatted at him this time, barely missing his hand, and then shifted and twitched his lips.
Ty waited a moment, then touched Zane’s lips again, letting the tip of his finger brush against them with the utmost care.
Zane snorted and swatted at him again, smacking himself in the nose and waking with a start and a grunt. Ty pressed his face into his pillow and tried not to let his laughter shake his shoulders.
He felt Zane move, and peeked over his pillow at him. Zane was watching him, his dark eyes like sleepy obsidian in the morning light.
“You’re an ass,” Zane muttered, closing his eyes and turning his head.
Ty laughed and scooted closer, resting his chin on Zane’s chest and wrapping around him. He dragged his foot along Zane’s calf and slid it against his toes, enjoying the intimate contact and soaking in Zane’s warmth and calm.
For all that they enjoyed their rough and tumble sex, they were both surprisingly good at cuddling.
The bed jostled at their feet.
“Oh God,” Zane whispered.
Ty shushed him, holding his breath to keep still. They’d been caught off guard, with no covers over their naked bodies. They were defenseless. Ty bent his leg until his knee was covering Zane’s groin, but that was all the movement he was willing to risk as the bed jostled again.
Smith and Wesson had awoken.
The two fluffy orange cats were Ty’s “temporary” wards, but much to Zane’s chagrin, they’d been here for months now. They were exceptionally large and ill-tempered, and though they seemed to have developed a certain loyalty and affection for Ty, Zane insisted they were trying to kill him. Ty had never witnessed them doing anything spectacularly evil, but he would admit they pounced and hissed at Zane with unusual frequency. And if it was time for their breakfast, they weren’t averse to biting the tip of Ty’s nose and sinking their sharp little teeth into other sensitive areas.
Ty had a special interest in keeping Zane’s tender spots unscathed, hence his knee over Zane’s fun parts.
“I thought you closed the door last night,” Zane whispered.
“I did.”
“Oh Jesus. Can they open doors now?”
Ty wouldn’t have put it past these cats.
Zane’s phone began to ring from the bedside table, but neither man dared to move.
Ty grunted as one of the cats began walking up his body, using his long claws to help him balance as he made his way to Ty’s hip and plopped his fluffy butt down as if he’d just staked a claim. Ty reached back and rubbed the cat’s head, letting his fingers twirl the hair under his ear that Ty called his muttonchops. He knew it was Wesson just from the tenor of his purr.
“Good kitty.”
“Why do you encourage them?”
“They’re good kitties.”
“They’re your minions.”
“Everyone needs a minion or two.”
“You won’t be so pleased when you find me ground up in their food bowl one day.”
Ty chuckled, trying not to shake too much.
They waited a few minutes to see if either cat was going to attack, and when it seemed they were safe, Ty rested his hand on Zane’s chest again and closed his eyes. Zane turned his head with infinite care and kissed Ty’s forehead.
Wesson gave him a warning growl.
“Mine,” Zane told the cat.
Ty smiled and ran his fingers through the sparse hair on Zane’s chest. Wesson growled again.
“If you make him attack me, I swear to God . . .”
“I can’t mind control the cats, Zane. Who called?”
Zane reached out with the utmost care to grab his phone. He was silent as he checked the display, and Ty watched his profile with all the devotion of a lover. It wasn’t hard to miss when Zane’s jaw clenched and his body tensed.
“What is it?”
“It’s my sister.”
Ty tried to get a better look at Zane’s eyes. He rarely spoke of his family, and Ty had always gotten the feeling it wasn’t just the strain of living far away that kept Zane from them. He’d never pushed, though, classing Zane’s family in the same category as his deceased wife or his addictions. If Zane wanted to talk about it, he’d bring it up.
“Good or bad?” Ty asked, rubbing his fingers over Zane’s chest to soothe him. Smith chose that moment to come out of hiding, pouncing on his moving fingers and landing on Zane’s chest. His claws sank in, turning the bed into a frenzy of cat fur, flying linens, and screaming FBI agents.
When the bloodshed was over, Zane had fled down the hall to the bathroom and shut the door to ward off any further attacks, leaving Ty to fend for himself. He laughed as he watched Smith and Wesson prowl down the hall, stalking Zane. They plopped down to stare at the bathroom door, tails twitching. It didn’t matter what Zane did for them, or how many times he fed them or threw Ty in their path, they still hated him.
Maybe they were trying to kill him.
Ty pulled on a pair of pants and headed downstairs, stepping over the cats without being molested, laughing again as he heard Zane come out of the bathroom and yowl in pain. After a few thumps and curses, Smith and Wesson thundered down the stairs to swarm Ty’s feet and wait for food.
“Good kitties,” Ty whispered to them. They were both purring so loudly it was impossible to hear Zane’s movements upstairs, but a few minutes later, Ty glanced up when Zane came stomping down the steps. He had his phone to his ear.
“Hey, Annie,” Zane said on the phone. He met Ty’s eyes and smirked as he swiped a piece of toast from one of the plates Ty was arranging. Ty swatted at him with a spatula, but missed. “No, no, it’s okay, I was up. What’s going on?”
Zane tensed as his sister spoke to him. Ty set the frying pan aside and watched his lover as an unsettling feeling started in his gut.
“Why the hell didn’t you call me earlier?” Zane blurted. “Do I need to come out there?”
Ty held his breath, straining his ears to hear. He couldn’t make out any of Annie’s words, but whatever she was saying was making Zane’s nostrils flare and his shoulders snap back. Classic signs that Zane was about to delve into Dark Mode.
Zane listened for a few more minutes, then bade his sister goodbye and hung up. He looked at Ty with wide eyes.
“You okay? What happened?”
Zane didn’t answer immediately. When he did speak, Ty knew he was whitewashing whatever he’d just learned. “Annie said they’re having trouble on the ranch. Trespassers. They think maybe it’s poachers or rival breeders after the horse stock.”
“Okay,” Ty said, confused about why that would warrant a call to Zane. As far as he knew, Zane had little contact with his family. Even his sister, who Zane got on well with, rarely called just to chat. “So, what, you need to go down there?”
“I don’t know. I mean no. No, they don’t need me.”
“Then why’d they call you?”
Zane waved his hand. “I don’t know, Ty. I can’t help, so there’s no point.”
“If you need to go, we can figure something out at work.”
“I don’t!”
Ty arched an eyebrow. “Wow.”
Zane shook his head, although he looked conflicted and more than a little annoyed that Ty hadn’t just dropped it. “I’m sorry. If it’s still a problem when the weekend hits, I’ll head down there.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, can we drop it now?”
Ty nodded and watched with a frown as Zane headed back upstairs. He stopped halfway up, then turned and thumped back down.
“Forgot what I was doing,” he mumbled. He snatched another piece of toast before Ty could stop him.
“Hey!”
“Shut up,” Zane said as he went back up the steps, taking them two at a time.
Ty watched him go, frown in place. Despite seeming to shrug it off, he knew Zane was worried. Whatever was going on in Texas, it was so much more than a few trespassers.
*****
Ty jumped at the sound of a file folder hitting a box on the floor. He glanced up at Special Agent Scott Alston, who ignored the file when it skidded off the top of the stack to thump to the industrial-grade carpet. Alston leaned back in his chair as he loosened his tie, and then stuck his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
Their whole work group had been tasked with slogging through a load of files sent over from one of the other investigative teams, desperate to dredge up evidence on a case that was going colder by the day. There were literally hundreds of files, and the six of them were on their last hour before they could break for the weekend.
“Garrett, are you getting off on all this paperwork?” Alston asked.
“Zane went to the bathroom like five minutes ago, Scott,” Ty said. His words were marred by the yellow highlighter between his teeth. Both hands were full of papers, held aloft as he planted his elbows on his desk.
“Oh.” Alston said, running his fingers through his blond hair. Ty felt like Alston looked: exhausted, seeing double, and desperate to go home.
“Thank God it’s Friday,” Alston said on a deep sigh as he looked at the clock. Ty glanced at it too, out of habit. Close to quitting time.
His cell phone began to buzz at his hip, and he twisted to try to see the display. He had no free hands, and no free space on his desk to set one of the unorganized stacks down.
“Want me to get it?” Alston asked. He pushed out of his chair, and Ty nodded and stood as well, turning his hip toward Alston.
He spit the highlighter out. It clattered to the desk and rolled until it hit a stack of files too high to bounce over. Alston plucked the phone off his belt and hit the speaker button.
“Grady,” Ty said as Alston put the phone on the desk and took one of the stacks of papers from his hand. “Thanks,” Ty whispered.
“Ty?”
“Hey, Ma,” Ty said, distracted as he and Alston tried to switch things around while still keeping the stacks in order.
“You’re not still at work, are you? I can call back.”
“No, I’m about done here.” Ty glanced up at Alston and waved a handful of files at the shredder nearby. Alston shook his head, and Ty nodded in response, managing to start an argument without a single word.
On the other side of the pod of desks, Michelle Clancy began to giggle.
“What’s going on?” Ty asked his mother as he sat down and leaned closer to the cell phone, struggling to finish up his last file and listen at the same time.
“Well, I need a favor. A few favors, actually. But they can wait ’til you get home and call me back.”
Ty rolled his eyes and shook his head. Alston chuckled as he leaned against Ty’s desk. “Ma, will you just get to the point, please?”
“Well, we’re aiming to fix the old tin roof on the storage shed this weekend ’cause it’s leaking,”
“Oh, God,” Ty groaned. He lowered his head, files forgotten. Alston squeezed his shoulder, mockingly comforting him.
“We wouldn’t need your help normally, but this morning I cut your daddy’s finger off, and he says he can’t hold a hammer.”
Ty’s head shot up. “You what?”
“Cut his finger off,” Mara said again, as if she hadn’t realized the news would be shocking.
The others were drifting closer, trying to hear the conversation. Ty sat silent a moment longer, his mouth agape. “On . . . purpose?”
“Well, no, it was an accident.”
“Right, of course.” He glanced up at his teammates to see all four of them watching and laughing.
“But it’s not like he don’t have four more fingers to work with. And it was only part of the little finger, and they sewed it back on. He has two hands, one of ’em can hold a hammer just fine, but no, he says he can’t do it.”
“Is he okay?”
“Well, yeah. Like I said, they sewed it back on. So can you come home this weekend and help out with the roof tomorrow? Deacon said he would come too, but you know how he gets with tools.”
Ty shook his head, mouth still hanging open as he tried to process. Clancy leaned over to catch his eye, even waving a hand at him. “Hi, Mama Grady! Ty’s checking his calendar to see if he can get away.”
“Don’t you lie to me, honey. He’s sitting there with his mouth hanging open, ain’t he?”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Ty, if you come tonight, I’ll get your daddy to tell you all about it. Your brother and Livi’ll be here. It’ll be fun!”
“Fun does not start with a story about how you cut dad’s finger off!” Ty said, laughing despite himself.
“It does in my book. He deserved it.”
The others gave up on etiquette and laughed raucously. Ty shot them all a glare, and he finally dropped what he was doing and picked up his phone. He caught sight of Zane coming back down the hall. His partner had been sullen and distracted for the last day or two, and though he knew Zane was having issues over that call from Texas, he had his own problems to deal with now. He spun around in his chair to put his back to his coworkers, trying to turn the speaker off.
“Does it have to be this weekend?”
“Honey, if you can’t come help, that’s okay.”
Ty rolled his eyes and rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Okay, Ma. I’ll leave after work and be there . . . I don’t know, a little before midnight.”
“Reverse psychology,” Fred Perrimore whispered.
“So that’s where Ty learned it,” Harry Lassiter said under his breath.
Mara either couldn’t hear them over the speaker that wouldn’t shut off or ignored them. “I’ll have pork chops waiting! And honey, will you bring that big sharp knife of yours with you? Your daddy’s is awful dull, and the whetstone went missing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ty said with trepidation.
“I’ll see you tonight! Bye-bye!” Mara said, then hung up the phone without waiting for more.
Ty stared at the phone as the display lit up, and then he looked up at the others, who were all trying to keep straight faces.
“Can we come?” Alston said, grinning widely.
“No.”
“We’ll help!” Clancy said.
“No!”
“Spoilsport,” Perrimore muttered, and they all drifted away to leave Ty to finish his paperwork.
Zane sat against the edge of Ty’s desk, in the same place Alston had occupied. He was frowning and seemed distracted, but that was nothing new. He was just close enough that Ty could have used his knee as an armrest, and though the thought hadn’t crossed his mind when Alston had been sitting there, he almost did it now without thinking. He stopped himself just in time, making it look like a frustrated flop of his hand.
This wasn’t the first time they’d come close to getting too friendly in front of their coworkers, and it was happening more frequently. He didn’t know how to address the problem, or if he even wanted to.
“What’s up?” Zane asked.
Ty stared at him for a moment, trying to decide how to answer that simple question. He was still distracted by Zane’s proximity, by the way he smelled, by how easy it was becoming to slip in front of co-workers who were trained to see mistakes.
He gave Zane the bare-bones version of his call from home, and after Zane had stopped laughing, Ty tapped him on the knee.
“You heard anything about Texas? You thinking about heading down there?”
Zane shrugged, though his expression clouded over and he looked down at the carpet rather than meet Ty’s eyes. “I haven’t had a call back. I don’t see any reason to bother.”
Ty sighed. He wanted to poke at that soft spot and see why it was there, and he added that to his list of shit to do. But he had some pretty pressing problems of his own to handle first. “Want to go to West Virginia and risk life and limb with me?”
Zane smirked and gave a single nod. “Sounds like fun.”
The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott
Chapter 1
"Sit down, boys," Gerald Hayes said firmly, his back to the Dallas skyline and his arms folded across his chest. They complied with his request since it was more of a command, both sliding into the leather chairs opposite the desk. They wore different expressions, though both were his sons.
Jeff was the mirror of his father, six-five, strong, not averse to getting his own way through means others might consider somewhat underhanded or devious. He'd achieved good things for Hayes Oil, very good things. Under his control, the company had grown in strength due to some well placed deals and some serious, if somewhat questionable, pay-offs to just the right people.
It was how Hayes Oil had gotten where it was today; the second largest oil company in Dallas, billions passing through their coffers on an annual basis, with a staff of over seven hundred in the head office alone. Jeff was a chip off the old block; he knew when to deal, and when to back off, when to buy off. It was a joy for an old man to watch. Jeff was sitting in his chair, his back straight. He was calm, with a virtually inexpressive demeanor, and his eyes were like chips of ice. He was dressed in dark gray Armani, perfectly groomed, his shirt crisp and white, and his tie a deep maroon. His hands were placed on the material of his pants, his nails perfectly manicured. He had an air of expectancy layered about him in palpable waves. Gerald couldn't have been prouder of his eldest son. Jeff was the right choice to form part of the new era of Hayes Oil, his student, and his success.
Riley, his middle child, only an inch shorter than Jeff and nearly as cold, was sitting just as calmly. Nearly. He too was wearing Armani, this time a charcoal black with a black silk shirt and no tie. He exuded the same confidence as his older brother, but with a subtle difference. He was an untamed version of his brother. His middle child had his mother's way about him and eenjoyed the money the Hayes family had, way more than was really necessary. But to give him his due, under his guidance, Research and Development had flourished, and Gerald was as watchful of Riley as he was of his oldest— but for very different reasons.
Riley made decisions driven by his heart, by immeasurable instinct, too many times to make Gerald entirely happy with leaving Hayes Oil under his control for any length of time. Still, Riley deserved a place at Hayes Oil; after all, he supposed, whatever his thoughts, and whatever decisions were made, it was his legacy too.
Riley looked tired today, and Gerald glanced down at the Dallas Morning News on his desk, knowing what was on page seven, the gossip page, knowing what was in evidence before him, and knowing it made his decision easier.
"How is Lisa?" he asked Jeff conversationally, glancing over at the pictures grouped on one side of his desk— his family, Jeff with his arms around his perfect blonde wife, with his two grandchildren posed just so. It filled him with pride to see the Hayes Oil generations all set to carry on the Hayes name. He glanced at photos of his youngest, Eden, and at Riley, both in their photos alone, both for very different reasons.
Sighing, he unfolded his arms, wondering if what he was about to say would change the face of Hayes Oil forever.
* * * * *
Jim Bailey was furious. He could only imagine what Riley was going through at this very minute, and he knew someone had to go and find him before the middle Hayes boy took a gun to his father's head. He had watched as Gerald and the favored son had left. The older man's arm was loose across Jeff's shoulders, their heads close in conversation, and it cut him to the core. It was Jim who had prepared the legal papers, Jim who had argued against the idiocy Hayes Senior was proposing. Someone had to be on Riley's side in this whole freaking mess, even if it meant this was the end of his tenure at Hayes Oil, and he knew where to find Riley. Taking the elevator, he left at the sixty-fifth floor, following the darkening corridor to the map room. It was the one place where Riley could always be found if the stress of his family got too much, sitting cross-legged on the floor poring over his beloved maps. He would spend hours with the geological surveys, the statistical results, his instinct for oil leading R&D to make decisions that had quadrupled Hayes Oil's output over the last two years. It astounded Jim that such a young man, only twenty-seven, had such an instinct. IIt reminded him of the old days, when Gerald and Alan would fly by the seat of their pants to locate new oil reserves based on nothing other than instinct.
Jim hesitated outside the door, steeling himself for what he would find within. Riley was rightly going to be furious with him for withholding the legal changes at Hayes Oil from him. He considered Jim a friend and, as such, probably had the right to expect more. Breathing deeply, he pushed open the door to find the large room echoing and in darkness, the only light from the closing Texas evening and the growing glow of the city outside. It wasn't difficult to locate Riley. Jim could almost touch the anger radiating from the tall man standing at the window silhouetted in the increasing gloom. Jim said nothing, just closing the door behind him and leaning against it. He loosened his tie and focused hard on the dark form. Riley was locked into silent stillness, looking out through the glass.
"Twenty-two percent," Riley finally said, his words clipped and tense. Jim could see himself reflected in that same glass, hesitating, lost, just waiting for the explosion. Jim had known. He had known as soon as the figures hit the desk. For fuck's sake, he was the company's lawyer. He was the one to write up the contracts for handover, the one who'd known the full details for three days longer than Riley.
His anger at what Gerald had forced him to do was manifesting itself as guilt. God knows he had wanted to say something. Every time he looked at the young man who worked so damn hard for this company, he had wanted to tell Riley what Gerald was planning. Never the right moment, never the right reason, and now… now he was paying for the betrayal. "Riley?"
Temper snapped and spat from Riley. "Fucking less than a third, the same as my sister!" He started pacing, gesturing with his hands, frustration in every exaggerated movement. Jim grimaced, because he knew that the percentage Eden got wasn't the point of Riley's temper. Riley was close to his sister, loved her and her shopping ways, and didn't begrudge his Paris Hilton wannabe sibling anything. No, the point was that it hadn't been fair at all. His brother, his acknowledged bastard of a Stepford brother, had just been handed forty-eight percent of Hayes Oil, and effective control of the company.
In a flurry of sudden but controlled movement, Riley spun on his heel, throwing whatever was in his hand across the room, missing Jim by inches. It was a map-reader, fifty thousand dollars of technology smashed into fractured pieces against the glass wall, and then it began. The words that Jim had been expecting.
"He sat there, in his fucking throne room, and he took everything away from me and gave it all to Jeff!" The temper in him was high and rare, and Jim flinched as Riley stalked around the tables that separated them with no direction other than just to walk. "And do you know why?" He stopped, grabbed at the newspapers that were lying in a tangled mess on the final map table by the door, and in one motion, Riley swept everything other than one sheet to the floor. He jabbed at the picture that had been snapped the night before, Riley and Steve at a club, arms around each other, Steve with his usual wide smile, Riley looking somewhat worse for wear from his brush with Jack Daniels and José Cuervo. "This."
It was the usual blurred image from the paparazzi who followed Riley, the playboy prince with a bottomless pit of money, everywhere he went. He shook his head. Now he was really confused and couldn't understand what Riley was getting at. Gerald had explained very clearly that his eldest son was the best for the company, the one switched on to commerce, the one with the business brain. He hadn't listened when Jim had pointed out the amazing upturn in R&D, the increase in oil locations, the way Riley was so committed to Hayes Oil. He had just shaken his head as if he couldn't believe, or didn't want to believe. "The photo?" Jim wasn't stupid; the picture didn't exactly show Riley in his best light. There was the blur of his smile and an unwarranted amount of skin on display as he tumbled half in and half out of the cab, stopping obviously to pose with his best friend.
"He said," Riley paused, a sneer on his face, "that the friendship I have with Steve is unhealthy— unhealthy, shit. He was concerned by Steve's association with Campbell!" The name Campbell came out on a spit and a sneer, the perfect take-off of how Gerald Hayes would have said it, how Jim knew he would have said it. "Oh, and also, because I haven't got myself a brood mare like my oh so fucking perfect brother, then of course I must be confused about my sexuality."
Jim winced, both at the description of Jeff's wife as a brood mare, and at the whole confusion statement. Steve Murray, Riley's best friend since college, was openly bisexual, but Riley, despite having a history of mixing it up with men as well as women, was a lot less defined by a label. He had a different woman every night, younger, older, richer, poorer, it didn't matter, and neither did the boys he did on rarer occasions in the bathrooms of wherever they were. However it panned out, Riley always had tail.
"Said I should look at him and Mom." Again came the sneer, and Jim saw how the temper twisted his normally calm face. "Fuck. Like my mom had the perfect husband in my dad, like Jeff had the perfect fucking marriage with Lisa and her drinking." His voice trailed off, the venom in it spitting and harsh as he dismissed the marriages of his closest family as society based, financially arranged facades.
"Riley," Jim started, thinking maybe a time-out here, some down time, might be good.
"No, Jim. No," Riley interrupted, his hands clenched in fists. "Know what he said?" Riley stopped. Of course Jim knew what Hayes Senior had said. After all, it would have been Jim who had written the damn contract. Riley bowed his head, his face revealing disappointment at his friend's betrayal. Jim prayed that Riley could see that Gerald had forced him into this position. "He said it would be okay if I just got myself married in the next three months—if I found myself some stable brood mare time, and stayed married for a year. Then he would hand over more of Hayes Oil. Not based on the work I do, or the fact that, without me, Hayes Oil would have been landless for the next eighteen months, but based on a marriage. I mean, what the fuck, Jim? This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth."
"I know," Jim said simply, holding his hands up in his defense. "I tried, Riley, I tried to get him to see sense. I'm so sorry." He knew his voice sounded exhausted, sad. All the emotions that were trapped inside at what he'd had to do came swimming to the surface, puncturing the civility he had to show to the world whenever he was at the office. It was almost as if his words pushed through Riley's temper as suddenly and as finally as the thrust of a knife, and Riley visibly deflated in front of him. His head was bowed, his short blond hair disheveled. He looked calmer, but Jim knew this man well; his temper was clearly just below the surface.
"How do I do this, Jim? How do I fucking show the bastard that he can't win, that he can't push me to marry just to get what was rightfully mine anyway?" He looked up at him, the dim light from outside the window casting shadows across high cheekbones and green-hazel eyes. His lower lip was caught in his teeth, and the pain on his face was something Jim had never seen before. "I work fucking hard for this company. What more can I do?"
"So we find someone for you to marry, Riley, some quiet Texan debutante who will agree to a pre-nup, yeah? Someone who ticks the boxes, and then after this prescribed year is up, you can quietly divorce."
Jim could see that Riley wanted to say he couldn't do that, wanted to say that no woman in her right mind would agree to this, but they both knew it would be easy to find a bride. Both knew that the chance of marrying Riley Hayes was going to bring everyone out of the woodwork, fairly begging for the chance.
"I can't do that," Riley said simply. "I won't give Dad the satisfaction of winning like this."
Jim sighed. "So you let him win by not doing it, then. For him it's a win-win situation. Let's face it, you either let him win by doing something, or you let him win by doing nothing. Either way, Riley, you're fucked."
Chapter 2
Steve climbed over Riley's long legs to settle himself in the corner. His face twisted in concern.. For yet another night, Riley had pushed it so far with the drinking that he was nearly unconscious. Riley had told him the whole sorry mess, even to the point that he knew his own very fluid sexuality had been brought into play, as well as his less than liked friendship with Elizabeth Campbell. He was sorry. He'd even said so to a clearly drunk-under-the-table Riley and gotten himself verbally bitch-slapped for it. Then he'd been hugged until he couldn't breathe, with undying promises of forever friendship carried on vapors of neat whisky into his ears. So here they were tonight. With just one more day added to the list of days where Riley didn't go to the monstrosity in the sky that was Hayes Oil. One more day where alcohol pushed him to unconsciousness in Steve's company. Steve had kind of reached the limit of how much more he could watch his best friend go through.
"I saw ya, in' parkin'," Riley mumbled, his eyes half closed with exhaustion and whisky, his hands gripping hard on Steve's arm. Steve blinked carefully, not sure where this was starting, but pretty sure it was going to end up with a pity party for one. "With tha' Campbell girl." Riley seemed proud of himself that he had managed to string those few words together and smiled. But the smile didn't reach his blurred and fatigued eyes.
"Beth is my friend," Steve said. It was the easiest way to defuse the comments Riley would start making about his dad and the Hayes-Campbell feud.
"Sheessa Campbell," Riley slurred, nodding to emphasize the words, spilling half his whisky over his jeans and downing the rest in one heated swallow. Steve sighed. So, this evening was going to be one of the Why does my family hate the Campbells? evenings. Instead he was surprised when Riley suddenly lifted his head, fire in his eyes. "Thas' it, I'll marry Beth Campbell." Steve's felt his stomach churn at the casually thrown out words. Riley and Beth?
"Riley, man, Beth just turned twenty."
Riley looked momentarily confused, blinking steadily. "I'll marry Josh 'en," he declared carefully.
"Josh is already married." Steve was seeing where this was going. That only really left—
"Jack," Riley muttered under his breath. "That'll fuck'em. He's gay. J-ack."
Steve carefully prised off Riley's fingers from his arm, opened his cell and called for a cab. When his friend started talking stupid like this, it really was time to get him home.
* * * * *
Riley grimaced as Jim stared at him with a horrified expression on his face.
"Are you sure that's even legal?" his friend demanded.
"Isn't that your job to find out, Mr Legal Person?" Riley asked simply. "I looked on Wikipedia." Jim snorted, clearly offering his succinct opinion on Wikipedia as a resource. "You do the research then, but I did mine, and one thing I know is this, if you believe what is being said, then the Campbells are in deep shit since Alan died."
"Riley." Jim apparently wanted to stop this particular train of discussion. Riley wasn't going to let him.
"Jim, this could make it a win-win situation for me and for Campbell."
"Riley."
"You've been with Dad since before I was born. You gotta know all there is to know about the Campbells and this whole feud we got going on. Talk to me." It was a plea rather than an order, but Riley could still see Jim flinch. Placing his best and most earnest expression on his face, he added the one word guaranteed to get anyone to do his bidding. "Please?"
"Hell." Jim rubbed his hands over his face. "They had money to begin with. From the early oil days. Alan and your father made a pretty damn good team, back then. After the split… Well, Alan always had schemes and dreams and carried his family along from one money-making idea to another. Then there was the lawsuit with your dad— trying to prove he deserved part of Hayes Oil. Somehow, through a combination of gambling and shady deals, Alan Campbell managed to lose what was left after the lawyers had their cut. He liked to live fast and paid the price. You know the story. He died while the kids were still young. Drunken fool wrapped his car round a telegraph pole. Jack was just about finished with high school, Josh was away in Berkeley, studying law, and the little girl was in and out of the hospital, sick. She wasn't much more than kindergarten age I guess."
Jim walked to the window and stared out. Riley waited patiently, wondering if perhaps the other man wasn't seeing the towering office blocks of downtown Dallas, but a much older vista. "Beth had been born prematurely, a late baby. She had a congenital cardiovascular defect." He didn't need to tell Riley what the hospital bills would have been like once the insurances had played out. "It would have cost a fortune to get Josh into law school and keep him there. Alan didn't leave a will. Just debts a mile high. The ranch was mortgaged to the hilt— still is. So Donna carried on, selling off the best of the stock."
"Shares?"
"Horses. She owns the Double D ranch. Inherited it from her daddy. That's where its name came from— Derek Campbell and his only kid, Donna. Derek had some of the best quarter horse brood mares in the state and had a fine young stallion at stud. He trained 'em as well. Prize winners. Cutting horses that could turn on a dime and stop dead. Could get you close enough to a steer to kiss it on the nose." He shook his head. "Donna sold them. That's what put Josh through college, and young Beth through her surgeries. But Jack has been building up the stock again. Last I heard he'd raised a pair of very good brood mares as well as some horses in training for other owners."
"How come they've still got the ranch?" Riley wondered aloud. A memory was stirring in the pain-ridden sludge that currently passed for his brain. He squinted, trying to concentrate on it. "I find it hard to believe that Alan didn't get to use it as surety against loans."
"Couldn't. If I remember rightly, all eight hundred acres of it were tied up in Donna. She'd taken out the mortgages, but Alan couldn't touch it. I guess Derek read his son-in-law right and made sure it was watertight fixed to his daughter and grandkids."
"Watertight. Yeah. That's what I need." A drunken conversation, whispered in confidence, and it could prove to be the lever he needed if Jack Campbell refused to play ball. His stomach churned uneasily. "Get me everything you can on the middle Campbell and the ranch. Then write up the marriage contract, and we'll call a meeting, get Campbell here to…" Riley's voice tailed off. He swallowed, standing to look out of his office window, his head thick with hangover, finding it hard to string sentences together with the whisky-scarred thunder in his head.
"To propose a same sex marriage that probably isn't even legal?" Jim offered helpfully. Riley grimaced. When Jim put it like that, it did sound kind of bad.
"Yeah," he said a little uncertainly, twisting one hand in another and then he dropped his hand and squared his shoulders, sudden steel where his spine had been.
"If your dad finds out I had anything to do with you and this stupid idea…" Jim winced as Riley stood tall and leaned down to his old friend.
"I will get my share, and I will fuck with my dad. I will get Jack Campbell in, and I will get him to agree to marry me."
Chapter 3
Jack Campbell pushed his way through the revolving doors of the tower, the dust of Texas on worn jeans, a battered Stetson in his hand, and denim stretched tight across his shoulders. He paused on the threshold and scanned the foyer, stamping stable dirt off his boots onto the pristine carpet with calm deliberation and cast his eyes down the list of offices held in the tower. It wasn't difficult to spot Hayes Oil on the list, given that they covered floors forty-five to seventy-three. His walk to the elevator was blocked by a security guard who casually looked him up and down and then placed a strong hand on Jack's arm. Jack tensed. He'd been ready for confrontation, but had assumed he would at least make it to the sacred altar of Hayes Oil before he was turfed out.
"Sir? Can I ask you to book in at the front desk?" the guard said quietly, in a clearly non-confrontational I-do-this-all-day kind of way. Jack shrugged off the touch and turned on his heel, slapping his Stetson against his jeans and releasing a small cloud of dust into the rarefied air-conditioned coolness.
"I sure can," he drawled and strode towards the long front desk and the section marked with the Hayes Oil logo. The woman behind it was young, no more than twenty, and clearly a little shocked by the man standing before her. Jack imagined she was used to urban style; city suits, perfect hair, and clipped tones that bordered on rude. Not, for want of a better word, the dirty just-off-the-range Texas cowboy leaning down on her counter. He knew there was three days' worth of stubble on his face, and he was redolent with the smell of the outside. She traced his face with her gaze, and he smirked inwardly as she had to push her professionalism to the front to force out the standard words. He was used to shocking these city types on his rare visits to town. He made a damn fine cowboy, if he said so himself. It wasn't that he was bigheaded, but he knew he looked good, confident, and just a little on the rough side, a little bit dangerous.
"Welcome to Hayes Oil. How may I assist you?" she finally managed to say.
"I have a meetin', darlin'." He intentionally played up his Texas accent, his voice verging on a drawling growl and his g's getting lost in the translation.
"Can I ask your name?" she asked, her fingers flying over the thin keyboard.
"Campbell," he informed her, "Jack Campbell, C. A. M. P. B. E. L. L." She typed the letters in without hesitation, and Jack smiled wryly. She was apparently new to Hayes Oil if she hadn't been privy to the office gossip around the Campbell/Hayes state of affairs.
"That's fine, sir." She scanned and handed him a security badge with the Hayes Oil logo and a code. "If you take the elevator to the sixty-fourth floor, someone will be waiting for you, Mr Campbell."
"Thank you, ma'am," he said softly, clipping the security pass to his shirt, brushing at dirt he spotted on one cuff. He moved past the guard, nodding in polite acknowledgment and receiving a cautious nod in return. Waiting for the elevator, he wondered not for the first time what the hell had made him come here today. Jack Campbell knew he was the personification of a fish out of water and so did the guard.
The elevator arrived, pulling him from his introspection. Ever the southern gentleman, he moved to one side, letting other people in, before joining them inside and selecting his floor. The elevator was all glass and moved upward along an external wall. Uncomfortable with this, he moved to the middle of the small box. He had never really liked heights, and the single layer of glass between him and a fall to his certain death was enough to get him humming in his head to refocus himself. The haze of afternoon sun was glinting from mirrored glass everywhere, the rush of people a fluid river below. Jack was convinced this was some form of technological trauma on all who visited the tower, wearing visitors down until they broke. The girls who had gotten in the elevator with him were laughing and giggling behind him, talking in hushed whispers so as not to be heard. But he did catch the words cute and ass, and dirty cowboy, and assumed they were talking about him.
Jack smirked. Hayes was not going to be expecting a man hot from half a day's work, come straight to the city with the dirt of honest labor on his body and sweat dripping from every pore. There had been absolutely no way Jack was going to make a freakin' effort for any Hayes, much to his mother's disgust.
"You're as good as they are," she had said as he climbed into his battered Ford truck. "Going as you are, what are you trying to say?"
"That I work hard and I don't have time for their bullshit, Momma," he'd said tiredly, pulling her into a final hug as she tutted and fussed with his shirt, fastening more buttons and hiding his chest from view.
They had looked at the letter again this morning as he considered the final decision whether to go or not. It wasn't even direct from Hayes Oil, but was a private letter from a Jim Bailey, inviting him for a discussion with one Riley Hayes at 2 pm on the next Tuesday. Today. The letter had said they hoped he could make it, and that the reason for the meeting couldn't really be detailed in the letter. It was a sensitive subject and one that might well be to Jack Campbell's advantage.
"I don't like it." Donna had looked concerned when she read it. It was a perpetual expression on her face these days, and Jack hated that there was seemingly nothing he could do to help, or to make her life easier.
"I'm just going to see what shit they're trying to stir. I'll be there and back in an afternoon."
"Don't agree to anything. Don't sign anything."
"Momma, I'm not Dad."
They had no secrets, not a single one between Jack and his momma. Jack was more than aware of the kind of deals and plans his dad had made that had pulled the D lower and lower every week. Sunk into depression and drinking, Alan Campbell was far from ideal parenting material, and not very much of a husband. Jack was the unofficial man of the house from the minute Josh had left to go to the University of California's Berkeley School of Law. That didn't change when his father died or when Josh returned. Josh didn't stay long. He moved out to practice law in Fort Worth. Jack and Donna juggled the ranch, the only thing left to the Campbell family now, and that only because it had remained outside of his father's involvement altogether.
"You will never be like your dad."
His mom's words resonated in his head, and Jack held on to them as the elevator lights indicated each floor. The whispering girls got off on thirty-nine, Jack inclining his head politely as they left. This left him and a suited guy on his cell phone tapping furiously at tiny keys and muttering under his breath. Business guy got out at fifty-seven, which left Jack with, he guessed, thirty seconds to prepare himself for whatever was behind the doors when they opened on the floor he needed.
Casually he turned away from the glass and to the mirrored wall that was at the back. What he saw made him smile wryly again. He was the epitome of cowboy rancher, from the dirt under his nails to the Stetson that was worn for practicality and not for fashion, to the scruffy leather boots on his feet. He didn't know what Riley was expecting, didn't really know much about the middle Hayes at all.
"Riley is the middle child. I don't hear much in the way of bad things about him, but you got to know he's a Hayes."
"I know."
"He's different than Jeff, but still—"
"Stop worrying, Momma. He's a kid with too much money and no sense to back it up. I can handle this."
Sure he could handle this, he thought wryly, and sighed as the elevator indicated his floor and he turned to face the front. He stood waiting for the doors to open, blinking at the man who stood on the other side of the glass door. He looked to be in his late forties, with a neat beard and a sharp, clearly expensive, pale gray suit. His hands were in his pockets and his face prepared with a practiced smile. The doors slid open, and he extended a hand to Jack in immediate welcome.
"Mr Campbell," he said politely as they exchanged a firm handshake. "Jim Bailey, personal lawyer for the Hayes family," the man continued, inclining his head for Jack to walk with him. "I guess you got my letter." It was a rhetorical question, and if he was expecting Jack to be so stupid enough to answer it, he was swinging in the breeze. "Mr Hayes is waiting for us in the map room," he finished carefully, stopping at the door marked with a simple room number and nothing else. He knocked, listened for the "Enter" and opened the door, standing aside to allow Jack to go in first.
It was brightly lit inside the room this Bailey guy called the map room, and Jack's first glance showed him charts adorning walls, large papers rolled in piles to one side and others spread out on tables alongside PCs. Each table was under-lit, for seeing small details on the topographical maps, Jack guessed. No sign of the elusive Riley, he thought as he scanned the room, then started as a face suddenly appeared from behind one of the map desks. Bizarrely, the man had been sitting on the floor hidden from view. Now, he unfolded long legs to stand tall in front of him.
"Campbell," Riley Hayes said simply, and he extended his hand in greeting. Not much Texan in that voice, it seemed.
Jack moved forward, cocking his hip against the table and leaning. "Hayes," he replied, his voice deliberately redolent of the south. He grasped the outstretched hand and shook it firmly.
"You got our letter." Riley released Jack's hand quickly and eased away.
"I got the letter from Mr Bailey," Jack agreed carefully, his eyes trailing across every inch of the man in front of him. It was the first time he'd met Riley. Their social circles were very different. Beth's friend, Steve, though, moved cheerfully between both. The Murray family had money and standing, and Steve had a lot to say about the older Hayes brother, none of it complimentary. Jeff, it seemed, loudly expressed the same hate for anyone with the Campbell surname as Hayes Senior did, and he wondered if Riley felt the same way.
"It was deliberately vague," Riley began, "because there is something, well, quite a few things, we need to discuss."
"I'll leave you both," Jim said abruptly and left. Jack had the feeling the man wasn't one hundred percent behind his boss on whatever this was. He was curious, but he was not going to show it.
"Is your daddy joining us?" he finally asked, cataloguing every expression that crossed Riley's face at his words. Disbelief? And was that anger? Interesting.
"What we talk about here has nothing to do with my father," Riley said firmly, and pressed his lips together in a determined line. One of his hands moved to touch his hair and then dropped. Jack followed the action, taking in the perfectly gelled spikes pushed back off a high forehead, the hand that hovered uncertainly and then dropped. It was telling to see an unconscious habit that maybe Riley was trying to contain, along with any hint of personality in his thousand dollar suit and his carefully knotted sapphire blue tie.
"So why am I here, Hayes?" Cut to the chase, always the best way.
"Riley. Please… call me Riley."
Jack narrowed his eyes. This was altogether far too friendly. No Hayes ever approached him, let alone asked him to call them by their first names.
"Jack," he finally offered, then followed Riley as he walked through a side door and into an office. There was no name on the door, but it was a plush, thickly carpeted corner space, shiny and wooden-smart, with a stunning view of the city.
"Coffee?" Riley offered, gesturing towards some kind of coffee machine that had possibly been made from bits of the space shuttle, going by all its gleaming silver shine.
Jack was not going to be pandered to. "Let's just get on with whatever Hayes scheme is gonna screw with the Campbells this time," he stated almost tiredly. He owed it to his family to find out what they wanted, but playing games was not on his list of priorities. Riley stood motionless by the desk, just stood there, his hands in his pockets, and Jack stared back, for the first time actually looking at his nemesis. Riley looked to be younger than him by three or four years, was maybe a couple of inches over six feet, definitely taller than Jack himself, who was just shy of an inch below six. The middle Hayes was very handsome in a smooth urbanite way with his tailored suit, silk tie, and clean-shaven face, and his complexion was the light tan of a man who was mostly indoors and only had the Texan sun on his face during weekends.
His eyes were a mix of autumn brown and green, and he was worrying his lower lip with his teeth, a sure sign of nerves if ever Jack had seen one. His blond hair was short and spiky, in a structured style. They hadn't talked before, never had occasion to, and despite often seeing Riley's photos in magazines and papers, Jack had never actually seen hazel eyes so clear or cheekbones so defined in a man. He was certainly easy on the eyes, Jack couldn't discount that, well-proportioned and almost poured into his dark suit, definitely someone who would catch his eye if he were out looking.
"Not wanting to screw with you, Jack, just want to talk," Riley finally said, sitting down on one of the sofas to the side and indicating Jack should join him. He took his time, sliding to sit across and almost opposite, hands and Stetson on his knees. "I know about the ranch," Riley started cautiously.
"The ranch?" Jack kept the tension out of his voice. He hadn't been expecting that to come up. He'd assumed it was some shit about his dad again. The ranch had been nothing to do with his dad. It was his mom's, his, no one was gonna mess with the ranch.
"I know you have financial difficulties there, that times have been kind of hard. The mortgage is a hell of a drain on your resources." Steel shot through Jack's spine, and he sat up from his relaxed slouch, suddenly and oh so very straight. "I want to offer you a way of getting out of that, of not losing the ranch," Riley finished, nodding, probably expecting Jack to say something positive back to him.
Jack blinked steadily. What the fuck?
"We are not for sale," he answered coolly. His heart was thumping in his chest, belying the calm on the surface.
"No, I'm not looking to buy the D," Riley reassured instantly. Jack frowned. That playboy Hayes even knew the name of his family's ranch was a shock. "I'm looking for another way that maybe I can help you. Pay off the ranch debts, the death taxes, and release you from the burdens of it all so you can make the place pay for itself again." Jack scooted forward, his temper starting to build in the base of his spine. What the fuck is this man on? Riley hesitated, standing and crossing to the window to stare at the city far below.
Jack didn't push. He remained sitting, dusty and temper-tight in worn denim, watching Riley who was clearly struggling with whatever he had to say.
"A year," he finally started. "I would need your help for a year, with a contract. In return I would agree to pay off every debt, and pay you on top of that."
"A year of what? Working for you?"
"No." Riley sucked in a huge lungful of air and then let it out in a noisy exhale. "A year of marriage. I want —need— a partner, to be married for one year and for many reasons. Not the least of which is giving me a win-win situation with my father."
"Marriage." What the hell? "You— and me?" Jack managed to form that simple question on sheer shock alone as Riley nodded earnestly. Jack couldn't bring himself to move. He just sat there, stunned.
"So what do you think?" Riley finally asked as Jack rose to his feet.
For several beats, Jack neither moved nor spoke. Tension coiled in his body, what he imagined to be a combination of shock and disbelief.
"I'll tell you what I think, Hayes." Riley's surname dripped acid as Jack snarled the single word. "Your family has fucked with me and my mine one too many times."
"It would be beneficial to us both."
"Fuck! What kind of planet are you living on?"
"I don't understand."
Jack shook his head, Riley looked confused. He clearly couldn't see that he was crazier than a cat hill coot.
"This crazy shit is a fuckin' bad dream and a waste of my time." He'd had enough.
"Jack, please, can you just listen?"
Jack paused with his hand on the door handle.
"Fuck you." Distaste and furious anger dripped from his voice as he turned the knob.
"I know what you need. I know about Elizabeth." There was sudden steel, and a sly superiority in Riley's words. Clearly the younger Hayes was finally showing his true colors.
Jack stopped, the door half open. Grief and a sudden anxiety twisted in him before calm returned and he analyzed Riley's words dispassionately. Anyone who read the Dallas Morning News knew about Beth. It was open knowledge she suffered from a congenital heart problem, had been ill on and off for most of her life, and had spent more time in the hospital than out. But Riley's tone, the sly use of the words "I know about Beth" set Jack's teeth on edge. Something didn't sound right.
Medical bills had piled up, but the Campbell family had worked their way through. It was what they did. They dealt with the crap, pulled together, and made a difference to their lives through sheer single-mindedness. It left them near broke, but it didn't matter. Beth had gotten her medical treatment, the operations, and the drugs she needed. They managed, and they certainly didn't need any help, financially or otherwise. So if Riley freaking Hayes thought that bringing up Beth was gonna swing things his way, he had another thing coming.
Jack laughed low in his throat. "Hayes, after the Dallas Times spread, everyone knows about Beth," he said over his shoulder. That article had hurt. It must have been a slow news week, because some low-life journalist had decided to dig up the old feud story and focus on the next generation. It had headlined as The Campbell Curse Strikes Again. Josh was portrayed as abandoning his family, Jack as the useless high school dropout, Beth as the poor little innocent, suffering nobly under her death sentence. "There is nothing you can give her that is better than what we can. That was lame and kinda sad." He turned back to the door ready to walk away. Game over.
Riley's next words froze Jack to the spot. "My money can't help make her better, Jack, but it can help her get through her pregnancy."
What pregnancy?
Emotions flooded through him— shock, disbelief, pain, and anger at the blatant lies. He turned slowly, willing the panic, the fury, to stay behind his mask. What did Riley mean? She couldn't be pregnant. The doctors had said carrying a child full term could kill her. They had warned that her heart couldn't take it.
Riley visibly winced, and Jack knew his mask had cracked. He tried damned hard to regroup, to settle his disbelief.
"Fuck you, Hayes!" he hissed. "Pregnant or not, we'll manage. She'll have an abortion." That was the only solution. If this was true, then she'd just have to terminate. He wasn't going to lose his sister after trying for so many years to keep her alive.
Riley hesitated, clearly measuring his words, his expression carefully blank. "All you can hope is that she lives through it. It's too late to abort now, far too late." Riley's words dripped like ice, and Jack's eyes widened even as he tried to tell himself this fucking bastard was lying. The thought of his sister pregnant, close to killing herself, not telling him… Skepticism shot through him. No. She wouldn't have kept it a secret. She would have told him or Josh, if not their mom. Wouldn't she?
The overwhelming force of what Riley was saying hit Jack in the gut, exposing an unexpected vulnerability. He knew then he would do anything to protect his sister, and he prayed Riley couldn't see it. Jack straightened his spine, shoulders back, armor reinforced.
"Marry me," Riley blurted out suddenly. "Marry me and I will get the best doctors. I know people, my money can buy people. I can get the best for Beth and have medical help on call twenty-four seven. All you have to do is say yes. Just one year, and your debts are paid, the ranch is free from mortgage and death duties, and your sister lives. Just one year."
Jack blinked steadily, his head spinning, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't focus on the monologue Hayes was spouting or register what the other man was saying. He needed to see Beth. She would tell him this was all wrong, that Hayes was lying.
Without another word Jack left, pulling the door shut behind him. He hesitated only briefly, getting his breathing and emotions under control, before heading to the glass elevator. He wasn't aware of what he was doing, or where he was going, he only knew that Hayes didn't follow. He thanked God for that, because he knew he would have likely killed him.
Balefire by Jordan L Hawk
Chapter 1
Griffin
There were monsters in the woods.
I stood in the heart of the Draakenwood, before the twisted tree, in what had once been the seat of Theron Blackbyrne’s power. The place where Nyarlathotep, the Man in the Woods, had taught magic to generations of ambitious sorcerers in exchange for absolute loyalty.
The Draakenwood belonged to him no more. Widdershins had taken it, and the monsters now floating through the boughs and burrowing beneath the soil answered to no creature of the Outside.
The umbrae had placed the entrance to their burrow in the collapsed basement that once underlay Blackbyrne’s manor. Newly churned soil, heaps of stones, and other detritus showed evidence of their digging. The murmur of their conversation thrummed in my skull, like voices halfheard from another room. A worker slithered past, and I stretched out a hand to touch its gelid form.
“How are you settling in?” I asked.
If anyone had told me even as recently as two years ago, that I would stand unafraid among the creatures that haunted my worst nightmares, I would have called them mad. If they’d told me I would willingly invite the umbrae into the forest immediately outside of a populous town, my reaction would have been one of unmitigated horror.
Now, the Queen of Shadows regarded me through a single burning eye with a tripartite pupil.
She coiled in the main entrance of the new nest, her segmented body just small enough to fit inside a freight car. Someday she would be as vast as her mother in Alaska, as long as the train that had brought her here.
Her voice replied in my mind. “This is a good place, Brother. We burrow into the tunnels already here, expand them. Some are blocked; we will excavate them and learn where they might lead. The first gardens are already planted. The first nursery will be ready soon.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Your brother-by-blood did not come with you today?”
“No.” Jack had accompanied the new queen, her attendant soldiers, and her workers on the long trip from the Alaskan wilderness. The bribes to get the cargo crates they hid in from Hoarfrost to a Whyborne Railroad train in San Francisco had been enormous, but Niles bankrolled the project and put Jack in his pay during the transfer. “Jack is working with me now. I’ve hired him on to assist with my detective agency.”
Money and detectives meant nothing to the umbrae. But they understood family very well indeed, so I let her feel my joy at seeing Jack again, along with my hopes for working with him in the future.
Pressure spiked in my head, and the taste of blood began to seep into my mouth. Human minds weren’t meant to communicate with the umbrae. “He will remain here with us,” she said. “This is good.”
“Widdershins knows its own,” I said ruefully. “And the Draakenwood belongs to Widdershins now. Somehow.” I wasn’t entirely clear on what the maelstrom had done to expand its influence after defeating Stanford and breaking the hold of the Man in the Woods.
A worker—perhaps the one I’d touched before—ventured toward me. This time its gelatinous body glided over my feet, picking away leaf detritus from my shoes, in much the same way as it would have cleaned any debris from the Queen of Shadows.
“All the children recognize you as one of ours.” The Queen of Shadows touched me with one of her feelers, slick and cool against my face.
I should have been horrified by the thought. Or wondered what was wrong with me, that my adoptive human mother had rejected me, but the Mother of Shadows and all her spawn claimed me as one of their own.
This was the second of her daughters I’d met. The first little queen had hatched prematurely, thanks to the Endicotts, and would never have a warren of her own. The queen before me was her younger sister, laid and hatched later. We’d never set eyes on one another before last week, but that meant nothing to a species which communed directly from mind-to-mind.
The tang of blood grew stronger in the back of my throat. Though I had been changed by my encounters with the umbrae, I could still only remain in telepathic contact for a short time. “I’m glad you’re settling in. I’ll come back soon.”
“You can always use the Occultum Lapidem,” she reminded me. “It will be easier to speak to me through it, than with our mother so far away.”
“I know. Thank you.” I stood up and dusted myself off. “I’ll call upon you if I have any need, trust me.”
“You will have need.” She paused. “When the masters return, we will all have need of one another.”
It was why we had brought her here, to the Draakenwood. And yet, her words threatened to peel back the thin veneer covering my fear. The masters were coming, unless we discovered some method of stopping their arrival. Even if we fought them and triumphed, the thought of what we might lose in the process filled me with dread. The people I loved most in the world would be the first to fight, and I couldn’t allow myself to consider the prospect all of us might not survive.
“You’re right,” I agreed as I turned away. “We most assuredly will.”
Chapter 2
Whyborne
“Done?” I asked my husband as he emerged from the pit where the entrance to the umbrae’s tunnels lay.
Summer had come to Widdershins, which meant my wait had been at least superficially pleasant. The roots of the gargantuan tree overlooking the ruins of Blackbyrne’s house offered a relatively comfortable seat, and a nearby sapling a convenient place to hang my coat and hat. Fireflies danced amidst the dense green foliage, like a thousand fairies tempting incautious mortals to join their revels. Night birds called to one another: whip-poor-wills whistled madly, occasionally falling silent at the hoot of an owl.
The scene would have been perfect, if it hadn’t also been where I’d murdered my brother.
Murdered was perhaps too strong a word. Persephone and I shoved him through a rip in the veil and into the Outside, where he had presumably perished. Though Stanford had a better chance at survival than most, having grafted something of the Outside onto his own body, Nyarlathotep showed no mercy toward those who had failed him.
Griffin approached my perch, dusting off the knees of his trousers as he did so. “Yes. I think the umbrae will flourish here.” The light of my lantern revealed his smile. “I’d never have thought I’d sleep sounder knowing there are monsters in the woods, but there you have it.”
I summoned a chuckle, though I didn’t really feel like laughing. “Agreed.”
Griffin cocked his head. “Is something wrong, my dear?”
“Oh, nothing.” Or everything. I’d settled dangerous creatures beneath the woods adjoining a busy town. There was a very long list of people who wanted me dead. The end of the world was coming, and I didn’t know how to stop it. “I’m fine. It’s a beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
I glanced reflexively at the gigantic trunk of the tree as I spoke. The very spot where we’d tossed Stanford out of our world.
Griffin, of course, noticed immediately. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. Naturally you have bad memories of this place.” He put a hand to my shoulder. His wedding ring flashed in the lantern light, the white pearl glowing like the fireflies. “I should never have asked you to come with me.”
“I imagine you have bad memories as well,” I protested. “After all, Stanford kidnapped you, locked you in a cage, and threatened to kill you.”
“True, though the umbrae have at least done such extensive remodeling of their new home, I couldn’t even tell you where the cages were.”
I had no such troubles recalling where Stanford had strangled me, demanding Father choose between us. Or where I’d stabbed him with Griffin’s old sword cane.
Or had my last glimpse of his face, distorted in pain and terror as he vanished from our world forever.
Stanford had tried to kill me first, of course. He meant to seize the fragments of the maelstrom within my flesh and that of my twin sister, and use its power to serve the masters. He would have hurt my town, hurt all the people the maelstrom had collected, and reduced Widdershins to nothing more than a tool to welcome the masters back into the world so they could enslave everyone. We hadn’t exactly been close.
“It isn’t that I feel guilty about killing Stanford,” I said.
“Nor should you.” Griffin sat beside me, slipping his arm from my shoulder to around my waist. I leaned into him gratefully. “For heaven’s sake, Ival, not even Niles blames you. Stanford murdered your older sister, he meant to kill Persephone, and intended to sacrifice the rest of us to Nyarlathotep. Not to mention the fact he murdered the heads of the old families, and worked with Bradley Osborne to take over your body, and—”
“I know; I know.” I held up a hand. “Stanford was a terrible person. We loathed one another since childhood. He left Persephone and me no choice but to put an end to him. Believe me, I’m well aware of all of this.”
“And yet you still wish things had been different,” Griffin suggested.
“Of course I do.” I stared down at my hands. My wedding ring bore a black pearl in contrast to Griffin’s white, its surface rich with hidden colors. “Why couldn’t he have just stayed in the blasted asylum? Why couldn’t he have left us alone?”
I’d thought the same thing many times throughout childhood. Bullying me had been Stanford’s favorite sport. If he had just let me be, how different things would have been for us all.
“It’s his fault, not yours.” Griffin’s hand stroked my arm soothingly. “You bear no blame in this.”
“I know. I’m not blaming myself. I’m not—not remorseful, or guilty, or…” I let out a long sigh. “I don’t know what I feel.”
“Family is difficult, sometimes.”
Heaven knew, Griffin understood that. He had a better relationship with the Mother of Shadows than with the human woman who had raised him.
He pressed a kiss into my cheek. “Sitting here won’t help things. Let me take you home.”
I nodded. We rose to our feet, and I put my coat and hat back on. Two soldier umbrae detached themselves from the upper boughs of the great tree, one gliding ahead of us down the path, the other behind. An escort, courtesy of the Queen of Shadows, as Griffin called her to distinguish her from the Mother of Shadows in Alaska. The umbrae served as guides as well; I was no woodsman, and the dense forest remained as confusing to me now as it had the first time I’d set foot in it.
Still, with the help of the umbrae, we navigated the Draakenwood quickly enough. The easiest path out was through the graveyard, and I tried not to look too closely at the mausoleums as we passed. Miss Lester had restored the damage Stanford did to the cemetery when he raised the dead of the old families against us, but I’d never forget the sight of Guinevere’s corpse lurching toward me, trailing her winding sheet behind.
We’d parked the motor car at the gates. The police, under Chief Tilton, were familiar with our vehicle and knew to let us be. I supposed there were some benefits to my new status.
When we arrived home, it was to find a note wedged into the crack of our front door. Griffin and I exchanged a glance, and he pulled it loose. For a moment, I indulged in the optimistic thought that a potential client had come seeking his abilities as a detective. His business had taken a sharp uptick since February, especially among the old families. The decision to hire Jack to take on some of the simpler investigations had come from necessity rather than simple familial loyalty.
“It’s addressed to you,” he said.
Drat it. I took it from him and unfolded the paper. The stationery bore the imprint of the Widdershins Arms Hotel. Written in an elegant hand, it read:
Dr. Whyborne,
Please join me for a late dinner at the Widdershins Arms at your earliest convenience.
It’s time.
Sincerely,
Rupert Endicot
The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon
The voice on the phone rasped, "Bones of anger, bones of dust, full of fury, revenge is just. I scatter these bones, these bones of rage, enemy mine, I bring you pain. Torment, fire, death the toll, with this hex I curse your soul. So mote it be."
I handed the receiver to Angus, who was facing out the 'We Recommend' stand by the counter, and said, "It's for you."
He took the receiver and put his ear against it as though expecting an electric shock. He listened, then, hand shaking, he replaced the receiver and stared at me. Behind the blue John Lennon specs his eyes were terrified. He licked his pale lips.
"Look, Angus," I said, "Why don't you talk to Jake? He's a cop. Maybe he can help."
"He's a homicide detective," Angus muttered. "Plus he doesn't like me."
True on both counts, but I tried anyway.
"He doesn't dislike you, really. Besides, you've got to talk to someone. This is harassment."
"Harassment?" His voice shot up a notch. "I wish it was harassment! They're going to kill me."
Someone lurking in the Dell map backs coughed, and I realized we were not alone in the bookstore.
I gestured to Angus, and he followed me back to the storeroom that served as my office. So far we'd had a grand total of three customers browsing the shelves on this gloomy November day. I half shut the door to the office and turned to Angus.
"Okay, what the hell is going on?" I sort of knew what the hell was going on, so I added, "Exactly."
I thought my tone was pretty calm, but he put his hands out as though to ward me off. "I can't talk about it," he gabbled. "I mean, if I talk about it, if I reveal the secrets of the-"He swallowed The Word. "They'll kill me."
"I thought they were already trying to kill you?"
"I mean physically kill me."
"Uh huh," I said, and realized I sounded like Jake.
Angus caught the skeptical note in my voice. "Adrien, you don't understand. You've never-they know where I live. They know where I work. They know where Wanda lives. They know where Wanda works. They --"
"Why don't you leave town for a while," I interrupted. "It's nearly Christmas. Why don't you... take a little vacation?"
"It's November."
"It's after Thanksgiving."
Angus had worked at Cloak and Dagger Books for the past year, but I still knew very little about him beyond the fact that he was finishing up an undisclosed undergrad program at UCLA which seemed to entail an awful lot of courses in folklore, mythology and the occult. He was twenty-something, lived alone, and was a decent if somewhat irregular employee. Lisa, my mother, insisted that he was on drugs; and Jake, my sometimes lover, was convinced that he was a nutcase, but I tended to believe he was just young. I studied him as he stood there in his baggy black clothes like an ... émigré... from the dark side. He was shaking his head in a hopeless kind of way as though I still didn't get it.
"Yeah," I said, warming to the idea. "Why don't you take Wanda and split for a week or two? Let this all blow over." I was digging through the desk drawer for my checkbook.
Not that I believe throwing money at a problem solves the problem-unless the problem is lack of money. And not that I ordinarily recommend trying to run away from your problems, but this particular problem rang a few bells for me. Or so I thought at the time.
Angus was silent while I wrote out the check and tore it off. When I handed it to him, he stared down at it. He didn't say a word. Then, as I watched, a tear slid down his face and dropped on the check. He gave a great shuddering sigh, and started to speak.
I cut him off. "Listen, Harry Potter, do us both a favor. Crank calls from the Psychic Hotline is bad for business." I headed for the door.
"You did what?" said Jake.
I had been about ten minutes late meeting him at the car dealership on East Colorado Blvd. My ten year old Bronco was on its last legs, and Jake seemed to believe that I was incapable of making an informed buying decision unless he was my informant.
"Gave him eight hundred bucks, and told him to take Wanda Witch away for the holidays." I gazed at the rows of sleek sports cars and efficient-looking SUVs gleaming in the tequila sunset. Palm trees rustled overhead. Tinny Christmas carols issued from the loudspeakers in not so subliminal messaging.
I could see Jake's reflection in the nearest windshield, big and blonde and buff. "Eight hundred bucks? You have eight hundred bucks to throw around?"
I shrugged. "I'll write it off as his Christmas bonus."
"Uh huh." I could feel him studying my face. "Well, Mr. Trump, is there any point in our going inside?"
"Did you never hear of the great American tradition of financing?"
He snorted. I met his tawny gaze. "How the hell is running away supposed to solve anything?" he asked, and for a second I thought we were talking about something else entirely.
"I wasn't looking for a long term solution." And before Jake could say anything, I added, "I doubt if I need one. They're kids. They have the attention span of ... what is it? One minute for each year of life. We're looking at twenty minutes of terror. Tops."
Jake's lips twitched, but he said, "And these kids are all part of some witch's coven based out of Westwood?"
I stroked the hood of a silver Subaru Forester. "New meaning to the word 'Teen Spirit,' huh?" I checked the sticker price on the window. "From what I've picked up, they all took part in some class on demonology or witchcraft about a year ago. I guess somebody inhaled a little too much incense during the lab."
"They went off and started a coven?"
"I'm guessing. It's not like Angus has been forthcoming on the subject. Revealing Count Chocula's secrets carries a stiff penalty."
Red and green Christmas lights strung across the lot flashed on. They reminded me of glowing chili peppers, but maybe I was subconsciously influenced by the Mexican restaurant across the street. I remembered I hadn't stopped for lunch. My stomach growled. I wondered if Jake could take time for dinner. We hadn't seen much of each other lately.
"You shop around, you compare prices, you get the vehicle right for you," he observed, watching me linger over the Forester.
"Sure."
"You don't need another gas guzzler. How about something in a coupe? How about something pre-owned?"
"Used?"
Reluctantly I moved down the aisle of cars to a blue two-door. Tinted windows, power sun roof, Bose speakers. The price was right, too. 'Climate controlled.' What did that mean? Air conditioning?
Jake said suddenly, grimly, "Believe it or not, this kind of thing can get way out of hand. Hollywood PD turned up a Jane Doe in the Hollywood Hills about a month ago. Word is she was the victim of a ritual killing."
"You mean, like, Devil worshipers?"
I was mostly kidding, but Jake said thoughtfully, "I kind of wish you hadn't sent the kid out of town. I'd have liked to talk to him."
"You can't think Angus is involved in anything like that," I protested. "He's a little odd, granted, but he's a decent kid."
"You have no idea what he is, Adrien," Jake, a ten year veteran of LAPD, said in that cop tone he got when I exhibited signs of civilian naïveté. "You've employed him for a few months, that's all. You hired him through a temp agency. You think they ran any serious security check?"
"You think it's necessary for working in a mystery bookstore?"
He wasn't listening. "There's this whole Satanic underground we've been hearing about since the Eighties. There may not be evidence of an organized movement like some religious groups claim, but we've seen plenty of injuries and deaths resulting from people taking this stuff seriously. And plenty of people turning up in psyche wards. It's ugly and violent, but a lot of kids are attracted to it."
"So hopefully this scares the hell out of Angus, and he gets it out of his system." I tried to picture myself behind the wheel of the coupe, gave it up, and headed back to the silver Forester.
When I finished signing the loan docs, Jake and I went across the street and grabbed some dinner. I had just traded in the Bronco, and since the dealership was going to install a stereo system, I needed a ride back to my place. Jake let himself be coerced.
While we waited for our meal I watched him put away two baskets of tortilla strips. He munched steadily, as though he were being paid by the chip, gaze fastened on a wall planter bristling with plastic bougainvillea.
"Everything okay?"
Still crunching, he paused in mid-reach for his Dos Equis. "Sure. Why?"
"I don't know. You seem preoccupied."
"Nope." He swallowed a mouthful of beer, eyes on mine. "Everything's cool."
Our relationship was not an easy one. Jake was deeply closeted. He claimed it was because he was a cop, but I'd come to believe that it was more complicated than that. Jake despised himself for being sexually attracted to men, and though he had been a good friend to me and was a physically satisfying lover-when he was around-there was a certain tension between us that I sometimes was afraid could never completely be resolved.
Which was a damn shame because I cared for him. A lot.
When I'd first met him he'd been active in the S/M scene, but I thought, though I didn't know for sure, that he was less active in the clubs these days. What I did know for sure was that he was dating a woman, a female cop named Kate Keegan. He'd been seeing her longer than he'd known me, and I didn't think it was just a cover relationship. But he didn't discuss it much with me.
"So I hear Chan's writing a book."
A few months earlier Jake's partner, Detective Paul Chan, had joined Partners in Crime, the weekly writing group I hosted at the bookstore.
"Yeah, a police procedural."
"Is it any good?"
"Uh, well... "
Jake laughed, and shoved the basket of chips my way.
The next day, Friday, I had to prepare for a book signing with bestselling author, Gabriel Savant. Savant wrote the Sam Haynes occult detective series, sort of an update on the old Jules de Grandin and John Thunstone pulps. I'm not a big fan of horror, but I had skimmed Savant's latest in an effort to facilitate discussion should the question and answer session peter out too fast. Not that I expected a problem; after an initially lackluster career in the Eighties, Savant had reinvented himself and his work, and was now something of a media darling. Hustling around in anticipation of a big turnout that evening, I wished ungenerously that I had delayed saving Angus till after the weekend.
I was arranging the front display of Savant's latest, The Rosicrucian Codex, and wondering if I had enough bottles of four dollar champagne, when I received another call from the dark side.
"Smitten, battered, beaten, torn. I prick at thee as if a thorn --"
"Speaking of pricks," I interrupted, "You're wasting your time. Angus doesn't work here anymore."
"Wh-?" He-the voice was male-caught himself. There was a pause, and then a click as the receiver slammed down.
I tried call return but the number was blocked. Not a surprise, I guess. I knew of course that it wouldn't end there.
Sure enough, later that afternoon I got another caller requesting 'Gus.' This time the voice was feminine and dulcet-toned. In all the time Angus has worked for me, I've only known one female to call him, and that's his girl friend Wanda. Wanda is not dulcet-toned. She sounds like she was weaned on unfiltered Marlboros.
"Sorry," I said in answer to the query. "He's not here."
"Oh gosh," she fretted. "I've just got to talk to Gus. It's, like, an emergency."
"Like an emergency, but not?"
"What?"
"Forget it." I said, "Look, he's gone. For real. Spread the word."
A pause. Then she faltered, "I'm not sure... ?"
I decided to try a different approach. "Can I get your name? Maybe he'll phone me once he gets settled. You're a friend of Angus's?"
She laughed a tinkling little laugh, a party-girl laugh. "Well, ye-aah! Of course! And I've just got to talk to him. He wants to talk to me, believe me."
"Oh, I do," I said with equal sincerity. "But he's gone. Skipped. I'd like to help, but... hey, why don't you leave your name and number, and if he gets in touch with me, I'll let him know you called."
Another little hesitation. Then she said coolly, "Sure. Tell him Sarah Good called. He knows the number."
666?
She replaced the phone gently. I followed suit. I caught a glimpse of my rueful expression in the mirror across from the counter. 'Sarah Good.' One of the first of the Salem witches to be hanged. Cute.
Well, on the bright side, at least the kids were getting some history at school.
By six thirty it was standing room only in the store. I realized I had seriously miscalculated both the champagne and how much help I would need. I'd never seen so many teenagers in black lipstick-boys and girls-or chain mail jewelry on middle aged men. I ran next door and offered time and a half to the girls closing up the travel agency, if they would lend me a hand behind the counter.
By seven fifteen our illustrious author was officially late, and the natives were getting restless. One of the local reporters tried to interview me about my involvement in a murder case the previous year. I resisted the impulse to finish off the last of the drugstore champagne and hide in the stockroom.
At seven thirty there was commotion at the front door and several people, clearly part of an entourage, entered the store. Three leggy ladies dressed more like incubus than typical mystery readers entered. A plump bespectacled man drew me aside and introduced himself as Bob Friedlander, Gabe's handler.
Handler? Nice work if you could get it, I guess.
I didn't catch most of what Friedlander said, because the next instant the Prince of Sales had appeared. Gabriel Savant was over six feet tall and built like a male model-in fact, he looked like the male half of the illustration on a historical romance: unruly raven hair falling over his tanned forehead, piercing blue eyes, flashing white smile. Were there rhinestones in his teeth? There was certainly something shining in his right ear lobe. He wore leather jeans and a black cape. And the most amazing thing was that nobody laughed.
"But this is charming," Gabriel assured me, as Friedlander navigated his star in my direction. "Of course it's not Vroman's, but it's very nice."
"Ambiance," Friedlander said quickly. "Wonderful ambiance."
"We try," I said.
"Of course you do," Gabriel encouraged. He glanced at his handler. "Bobby, is there anything to drink? I'm parched."
Friedlander cleared his throat uneasily. Along with that musky aftershave of Gabe's wafted a mix of mouthwash and bourbon. Mostly bourbon.
"There's some brand X champagne making the rounds," I said.
You'd have thought I offered milk to a vampire. Gabe blanched and then swallowed hard. "Oh, God, let's get this over with." He strode over to the antique desk I had set up. Enthusiastic applause from the waiting audience echoed off the dark beams.
"This book tour has been grueling," Friedlander told me by way of apology. "Twenty cities in thirty days... radio interviews at four in the morning, cable talk shows, book club luncheons, sometimes three bookstores a day... Gabe is exhausted."
"I bet you both are."
He laughed. Behind the glasses his mild eyes were unexpectedly alert. "A little. I understand you write also."
"A little." Not enough, thank God, that anyone wanted to send me out on the road.
"You're too modest. I've read Murder Will Out. Very witty."
Either this guy did his homework like nobody I'd ever met before, or he was gay. My books don't attract many mainstream readers.
"But you need a gimmick," he said.
"You don't think a gay Shakespearean actor amateur sleuth is enough of a gimmick?"
"No. Look at Gabe. He wasted years producing beautifully written critically acclaimed literary fiction that no one wanted to read, and then what happens? He comes up with Sam Haynes the Occult Detective. The rest is history."
History, occult and romance all spelled out in purple prose, I thought as Gabe read from his latest novel. But the audience loved it. When he finished reading, he took questions. Lots of questions. His fans wanted to know everything from where he got his ideas (at which he turned up his elegant nose and requested the next question) to was he seeing anyone.
"I'm seeing everyone," Gabe drawled, and tapped his forehead, either to indicate the Third Eye or that his busy social life was giving him a headache.
Maybe the bubbly helped, but the fans gobbled it right up.
Friedlander listened and ate pizza rolls like they were going out of style. Every so often, like when Gabriel graciously referred to me as 'Andrew,' he would smile nervously in my direction.
And then someone asked what Gabriel was working on now. Apparently this was the question he'd been waiting for. He rose to his feet, shaking back the cape.
"As you know, I've made a fortune telling stories about the occult and its practitioners, but my current project is not a mere work of fiction. During my research I've uncovered evidence of a real life secret and sinister cult which has preyed upon the young and naïve for the past two decades. A cult right here in this very city. In my next book I plan expose that cult and its leaders to the world."
Bob Friedlander dropped his paper plate, and pizza rolls scattered across the hardwood floor. I stooped to help retrieve them and saw out of the corner of my eye that Bob's knees were knocking together. I glanced up. His round face was white and perspiring; he looked terrified.
I turned. Gabe Savant was beaming at his audience, most of whom were smiling and chattering, delighted to learn that another of those pesky cults was soon to be history-and a best selling book. At the back of the room, however, stood a small group of young women. They were dressed in black, lots of leather and lace, makeup and hair inspired by Halloween. Elvira: the Early Years. They appeared to be hissing at Gabe.
"I love this house," Lisa sighed. "I've been very happy here."
The first Saturday of each month I had brunch with my mother, at the ancestral ruins in Porter Ranch in the North San Fernando Valley.
The brunch tradition began when I left Stanford and broke it to her that I would not be returning to the nest. It shouldn't have come as a shock-or even as bad news-but, choosing not to remarry after my father's death (despite a legion of eligible suitors), I was all Lisa had in the world. As she rarely failed to remind me.
"It's a beautiful house," I agreed.
The house smelled of pine trees and cinnamon and apples. It felt warm and Christmassy. In some ways it still felt like home. I'd taken my first steps in the marble foyer (an initial attempt to make a break for it). I'd learned to drive in the quiet surrounding streets. I'd experienced my first fumbling sexual encounter in the upstairs bedroom beneath the fake open beams and poster of Robert Redford in The Natural.
"Although it really is too large for one," she said, as though she had only noticed those additional sixteen rooms.
"Maybe you should think about moving," I said heartlessly.
I had underestimated her as usual. "If I were to... move... do you think the house would suit you and Jake?" she inquired innocently.
I inhaled my white chocolate pear tartlette, and spent the next few moments wondering if the last thing I saw would be the mental picture of me and Jake picking china at Neiman Marcus.
"Darling," Lisa was gently protesting when I could breathe again, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full."
"You're not serious about Jake and me moving in here," I said.
"Why not? You seem awfully fond of him, and he's-he's-"I could see her searching for something nice to say about Jake. "He's a very efficient sort of person."
The 'why nots' were so many and varied that I was speechless. The worst part of it all was that for one split second I seriously considered it.
Seeing my moment of weakness, she moved in for the kill.
"It's wonderful that you're feeling so well these days, Adrien, but it doesn't do to push yourself too hard."
"I'm not."
She shook her head a little as though it were all no use. "The economy is so dreadful right now, especially for small businesses." As though Lisa had the foggiest idea about the challenges of running a small business. "And when you talk about needing to expand, I simply can't help worrying about the stress and strain of an additional mortgage on you, darling. Whereas this house is paid for free and clear."
Like a fool I said, "Even so, there's no way I could begin to afford the upkeep."
Her violet eyes widened at my naiveté. "You're going to be very wealthy one of these days, darling," she chided. "I know I could prevail upon Mr. Gracen to arrange something with your trust fund."
"Don't start that again." Funny how that money was absolutely untouchable when it was for something I wanted that Lisa didn't approve of, but right there at my fingertips if I'd give in to something she wanted for me.
"If your poor father had realized that you would end up sacrificing your health struggling to make ends meet-"
"Lisa, where is this going?" I broke in. "Are you thinking of selling the house? Is that what this is about?"
I was sort of amazed to see her turn pink.
"Um, sort of," she said. A very un-Lisa-like comment.
When she didn't continue, I prodded, "And?"
"Actually, I'm thinking of getting married."
The voice on the phone rasped, "Bones of anger, bones of dust, full of fury, revenge is just. I scatter these bones, these bones of rage, enemy mine, I bring you pain. Torment, fire, death the toll, with this hex I curse your soul. So mote it be."
I handed the receiver to Angus, who was facing out the 'We Recommend' stand by the counter, and said, "It's for you."
He took the receiver and put his ear against it as though expecting an electric shock. He listened, then, hand shaking, he replaced the receiver and stared at me. Behind the blue John Lennon specs his eyes were terrified. He licked his pale lips.
"Look, Angus," I said, "Why don't you talk to Jake? He's a cop. Maybe he can help."
"He's a homicide detective," Angus muttered. "Plus he doesn't like me."
True on both counts, but I tried anyway.
"He doesn't dislike you, really. Besides, you've got to talk to someone. This is harassment."
"Harassment?" His voice shot up a notch. "I wish it was harassment! They're going to kill me."
Someone lurking in the Dell map backs coughed, and I realized we were not alone in the bookstore.
I gestured to Angus, and he followed me back to the storeroom that served as my office. So far we'd had a grand total of three customers browsing the shelves on this gloomy November day. I half shut the door to the office and turned to Angus.
"Okay, what the hell is going on?" I sort of knew what the hell was going on, so I added, "Exactly."
I thought my tone was pretty calm, but he put his hands out as though to ward me off. "I can't talk about it," he gabbled. "I mean, if I talk about it, if I reveal the secrets of the-"He swallowed The Word. "They'll kill me."
"I thought they were already trying to kill you?"
"I mean physically kill me."
"Uh huh," I said, and realized I sounded like Jake.
Angus caught the skeptical note in my voice. "Adrien, you don't understand. You've never-they know where I live. They know where I work. They know where Wanda lives. They know where Wanda works. They --"
"Why don't you leave town for a while," I interrupted. "It's nearly Christmas. Why don't you... take a little vacation?"
"It's November."
"It's after Thanksgiving."
Angus had worked at Cloak and Dagger Books for the past year, but I still knew very little about him beyond the fact that he was finishing up an undisclosed undergrad program at UCLA which seemed to entail an awful lot of courses in folklore, mythology and the occult. He was twenty-something, lived alone, and was a decent if somewhat irregular employee. Lisa, my mother, insisted that he was on drugs; and Jake, my sometimes lover, was convinced that he was a nutcase, but I tended to believe he was just young. I studied him as he stood there in his baggy black clothes like an ... émigré... from the dark side. He was shaking his head in a hopeless kind of way as though I still didn't get it.
"Yeah," I said, warming to the idea. "Why don't you take Wanda and split for a week or two? Let this all blow over." I was digging through the desk drawer for my checkbook.
Not that I believe throwing money at a problem solves the problem-unless the problem is lack of money. And not that I ordinarily recommend trying to run away from your problems, but this particular problem rang a few bells for me. Or so I thought at the time.
Angus was silent while I wrote out the check and tore it off. When I handed it to him, he stared down at it. He didn't say a word. Then, as I watched, a tear slid down his face and dropped on the check. He gave a great shuddering sigh, and started to speak.
I cut him off. "Listen, Harry Potter, do us both a favor. Crank calls from the Psychic Hotline is bad for business." I headed for the door.
* * * * *
"You did what?" said Jake.
I had been about ten minutes late meeting him at the car dealership on East Colorado Blvd. My ten year old Bronco was on its last legs, and Jake seemed to believe that I was incapable of making an informed buying decision unless he was my informant.
"Gave him eight hundred bucks, and told him to take Wanda Witch away for the holidays." I gazed at the rows of sleek sports cars and efficient-looking SUVs gleaming in the tequila sunset. Palm trees rustled overhead. Tinny Christmas carols issued from the loudspeakers in not so subliminal messaging.
I could see Jake's reflection in the nearest windshield, big and blonde and buff. "Eight hundred bucks? You have eight hundred bucks to throw around?"
I shrugged. "I'll write it off as his Christmas bonus."
"Uh huh." I could feel him studying my face. "Well, Mr. Trump, is there any point in our going inside?"
"Did you never hear of the great American tradition of financing?"
He snorted. I met his tawny gaze. "How the hell is running away supposed to solve anything?" he asked, and for a second I thought we were talking about something else entirely.
"I wasn't looking for a long term solution." And before Jake could say anything, I added, "I doubt if I need one. They're kids. They have the attention span of ... what is it? One minute for each year of life. We're looking at twenty minutes of terror. Tops."
Jake's lips twitched, but he said, "And these kids are all part of some witch's coven based out of Westwood?"
I stroked the hood of a silver Subaru Forester. "New meaning to the word 'Teen Spirit,' huh?" I checked the sticker price on the window. "From what I've picked up, they all took part in some class on demonology or witchcraft about a year ago. I guess somebody inhaled a little too much incense during the lab."
"They went off and started a coven?"
"I'm guessing. It's not like Angus has been forthcoming on the subject. Revealing Count Chocula's secrets carries a stiff penalty."
Red and green Christmas lights strung across the lot flashed on. They reminded me of glowing chili peppers, but maybe I was subconsciously influenced by the Mexican restaurant across the street. I remembered I hadn't stopped for lunch. My stomach growled. I wondered if Jake could take time for dinner. We hadn't seen much of each other lately.
"You shop around, you compare prices, you get the vehicle right for you," he observed, watching me linger over the Forester.
"Sure."
"You don't need another gas guzzler. How about something in a coupe? How about something pre-owned?"
"Used?"
Reluctantly I moved down the aisle of cars to a blue two-door. Tinted windows, power sun roof, Bose speakers. The price was right, too. 'Climate controlled.' What did that mean? Air conditioning?
Jake said suddenly, grimly, "Believe it or not, this kind of thing can get way out of hand. Hollywood PD turned up a Jane Doe in the Hollywood Hills about a month ago. Word is she was the victim of a ritual killing."
"You mean, like, Devil worshipers?"
I was mostly kidding, but Jake said thoughtfully, "I kind of wish you hadn't sent the kid out of town. I'd have liked to talk to him."
"You can't think Angus is involved in anything like that," I protested. "He's a little odd, granted, but he's a decent kid."
"You have no idea what he is, Adrien," Jake, a ten year veteran of LAPD, said in that cop tone he got when I exhibited signs of civilian naïveté. "You've employed him for a few months, that's all. You hired him through a temp agency. You think they ran any serious security check?"
"You think it's necessary for working in a mystery bookstore?"
He wasn't listening. "There's this whole Satanic underground we've been hearing about since the Eighties. There may not be evidence of an organized movement like some religious groups claim, but we've seen plenty of injuries and deaths resulting from people taking this stuff seriously. And plenty of people turning up in psyche wards. It's ugly and violent, but a lot of kids are attracted to it."
"So hopefully this scares the hell out of Angus, and he gets it out of his system." I tried to picture myself behind the wheel of the coupe, gave it up, and headed back to the silver Forester.
* * * * *
When I finished signing the loan docs, Jake and I went across the street and grabbed some dinner. I had just traded in the Bronco, and since the dealership was going to install a stereo system, I needed a ride back to my place. Jake let himself be coerced.
While we waited for our meal I watched him put away two baskets of tortilla strips. He munched steadily, as though he were being paid by the chip, gaze fastened on a wall planter bristling with plastic bougainvillea.
"Everything okay?"
Still crunching, he paused in mid-reach for his Dos Equis. "Sure. Why?"
"I don't know. You seem preoccupied."
"Nope." He swallowed a mouthful of beer, eyes on mine. "Everything's cool."
Our relationship was not an easy one. Jake was deeply closeted. He claimed it was because he was a cop, but I'd come to believe that it was more complicated than that. Jake despised himself for being sexually attracted to men, and though he had been a good friend to me and was a physically satisfying lover-when he was around-there was a certain tension between us that I sometimes was afraid could never completely be resolved.
Which was a damn shame because I cared for him. A lot.
When I'd first met him he'd been active in the S/M scene, but I thought, though I didn't know for sure, that he was less active in the clubs these days. What I did know for sure was that he was dating a woman, a female cop named Kate Keegan. He'd been seeing her longer than he'd known me, and I didn't think it was just a cover relationship. But he didn't discuss it much with me.
"So I hear Chan's writing a book."
A few months earlier Jake's partner, Detective Paul Chan, had joined Partners in Crime, the weekly writing group I hosted at the bookstore.
"Yeah, a police procedural."
"Is it any good?"
"Uh, well... "
Jake laughed, and shoved the basket of chips my way.
* * * * *
The next day, Friday, I had to prepare for a book signing with bestselling author, Gabriel Savant. Savant wrote the Sam Haynes occult detective series, sort of an update on the old Jules de Grandin and John Thunstone pulps. I'm not a big fan of horror, but I had skimmed Savant's latest in an effort to facilitate discussion should the question and answer session peter out too fast. Not that I expected a problem; after an initially lackluster career in the Eighties, Savant had reinvented himself and his work, and was now something of a media darling. Hustling around in anticipation of a big turnout that evening, I wished ungenerously that I had delayed saving Angus till after the weekend.
I was arranging the front display of Savant's latest, The Rosicrucian Codex, and wondering if I had enough bottles of four dollar champagne, when I received another call from the dark side.
"Smitten, battered, beaten, torn. I prick at thee as if a thorn --"
"Speaking of pricks," I interrupted, "You're wasting your time. Angus doesn't work here anymore."
"Wh-?" He-the voice was male-caught himself. There was a pause, and then a click as the receiver slammed down.
I tried call return but the number was blocked. Not a surprise, I guess. I knew of course that it wouldn't end there.
Sure enough, later that afternoon I got another caller requesting 'Gus.' This time the voice was feminine and dulcet-toned. In all the time Angus has worked for me, I've only known one female to call him, and that's his girl friend Wanda. Wanda is not dulcet-toned. She sounds like she was weaned on unfiltered Marlboros.
"Sorry," I said in answer to the query. "He's not here."
"Oh gosh," she fretted. "I've just got to talk to Gus. It's, like, an emergency."
"Like an emergency, but not?"
"What?"
"Forget it." I said, "Look, he's gone. For real. Spread the word."
A pause. Then she faltered, "I'm not sure... ?"
I decided to try a different approach. "Can I get your name? Maybe he'll phone me once he gets settled. You're a friend of Angus's?"
She laughed a tinkling little laugh, a party-girl laugh. "Well, ye-aah! Of course! And I've just got to talk to him. He wants to talk to me, believe me."
"Oh, I do," I said with equal sincerity. "But he's gone. Skipped. I'd like to help, but... hey, why don't you leave your name and number, and if he gets in touch with me, I'll let him know you called."
Another little hesitation. Then she said coolly, "Sure. Tell him Sarah Good called. He knows the number."
666?
She replaced the phone gently. I followed suit. I caught a glimpse of my rueful expression in the mirror across from the counter. 'Sarah Good.' One of the first of the Salem witches to be hanged. Cute.
Well, on the bright side, at least the kids were getting some history at school.
* * * * *
By six thirty it was standing room only in the store. I realized I had seriously miscalculated both the champagne and how much help I would need. I'd never seen so many teenagers in black lipstick-boys and girls-or chain mail jewelry on middle aged men. I ran next door and offered time and a half to the girls closing up the travel agency, if they would lend me a hand behind the counter.
By seven fifteen our illustrious author was officially late, and the natives were getting restless. One of the local reporters tried to interview me about my involvement in a murder case the previous year. I resisted the impulse to finish off the last of the drugstore champagne and hide in the stockroom.
At seven thirty there was commotion at the front door and several people, clearly part of an entourage, entered the store. Three leggy ladies dressed more like incubus than typical mystery readers entered. A plump bespectacled man drew me aside and introduced himself as Bob Friedlander, Gabe's handler.
Handler? Nice work if you could get it, I guess.
I didn't catch most of what Friedlander said, because the next instant the Prince of Sales had appeared. Gabriel Savant was over six feet tall and built like a male model-in fact, he looked like the male half of the illustration on a historical romance: unruly raven hair falling over his tanned forehead, piercing blue eyes, flashing white smile. Were there rhinestones in his teeth? There was certainly something shining in his right ear lobe. He wore leather jeans and a black cape. And the most amazing thing was that nobody laughed.
"But this is charming," Gabriel assured me, as Friedlander navigated his star in my direction. "Of course it's not Vroman's, but it's very nice."
"Ambiance," Friedlander said quickly. "Wonderful ambiance."
"We try," I said.
"Of course you do," Gabriel encouraged. He glanced at his handler. "Bobby, is there anything to drink? I'm parched."
Friedlander cleared his throat uneasily. Along with that musky aftershave of Gabe's wafted a mix of mouthwash and bourbon. Mostly bourbon.
"There's some brand X champagne making the rounds," I said.
You'd have thought I offered milk to a vampire. Gabe blanched and then swallowed hard. "Oh, God, let's get this over with." He strode over to the antique desk I had set up. Enthusiastic applause from the waiting audience echoed off the dark beams.
"This book tour has been grueling," Friedlander told me by way of apology. "Twenty cities in thirty days... radio interviews at four in the morning, cable talk shows, book club luncheons, sometimes three bookstores a day... Gabe is exhausted."
"I bet you both are."
He laughed. Behind the glasses his mild eyes were unexpectedly alert. "A little. I understand you write also."
"A little." Not enough, thank God, that anyone wanted to send me out on the road.
"You're too modest. I've read Murder Will Out. Very witty."
Either this guy did his homework like nobody I'd ever met before, or he was gay. My books don't attract many mainstream readers.
"But you need a gimmick," he said.
"You don't think a gay Shakespearean actor amateur sleuth is enough of a gimmick?"
"No. Look at Gabe. He wasted years producing beautifully written critically acclaimed literary fiction that no one wanted to read, and then what happens? He comes up with Sam Haynes the Occult Detective. The rest is history."
History, occult and romance all spelled out in purple prose, I thought as Gabe read from his latest novel. But the audience loved it. When he finished reading, he took questions. Lots of questions. His fans wanted to know everything from where he got his ideas (at which he turned up his elegant nose and requested the next question) to was he seeing anyone.
"I'm seeing everyone," Gabe drawled, and tapped his forehead, either to indicate the Third Eye or that his busy social life was giving him a headache.
Maybe the bubbly helped, but the fans gobbled it right up.
Friedlander listened and ate pizza rolls like they were going out of style. Every so often, like when Gabriel graciously referred to me as 'Andrew,' he would smile nervously in my direction.
And then someone asked what Gabriel was working on now. Apparently this was the question he'd been waiting for. He rose to his feet, shaking back the cape.
"As you know, I've made a fortune telling stories about the occult and its practitioners, but my current project is not a mere work of fiction. During my research I've uncovered evidence of a real life secret and sinister cult which has preyed upon the young and naïve for the past two decades. A cult right here in this very city. In my next book I plan expose that cult and its leaders to the world."
Bob Friedlander dropped his paper plate, and pizza rolls scattered across the hardwood floor. I stooped to help retrieve them and saw out of the corner of my eye that Bob's knees were knocking together. I glanced up. His round face was white and perspiring; he looked terrified.
I turned. Gabe Savant was beaming at his audience, most of whom were smiling and chattering, delighted to learn that another of those pesky cults was soon to be history-and a best selling book. At the back of the room, however, stood a small group of young women. They were dressed in black, lots of leather and lace, makeup and hair inspired by Halloween. Elvira: the Early Years. They appeared to be hissing at Gabe.
* * * * *
"I love this house," Lisa sighed. "I've been very happy here."
The first Saturday of each month I had brunch with my mother, at the ancestral ruins in Porter Ranch in the North San Fernando Valley.
The brunch tradition began when I left Stanford and broke it to her that I would not be returning to the nest. It shouldn't have come as a shock-or even as bad news-but, choosing not to remarry after my father's death (despite a legion of eligible suitors), I was all Lisa had in the world. As she rarely failed to remind me.
"It's a beautiful house," I agreed.
The house smelled of pine trees and cinnamon and apples. It felt warm and Christmassy. In some ways it still felt like home. I'd taken my first steps in the marble foyer (an initial attempt to make a break for it). I'd learned to drive in the quiet surrounding streets. I'd experienced my first fumbling sexual encounter in the upstairs bedroom beneath the fake open beams and poster of Robert Redford in The Natural.
"Although it really is too large for one," she said, as though she had only noticed those additional sixteen rooms.
"Maybe you should think about moving," I said heartlessly.
I had underestimated her as usual. "If I were to... move... do you think the house would suit you and Jake?" she inquired innocently.
I inhaled my white chocolate pear tartlette, and spent the next few moments wondering if the last thing I saw would be the mental picture of me and Jake picking china at Neiman Marcus.
"Darling," Lisa was gently protesting when I could breathe again, "You shouldn't talk with your mouth full."
"You're not serious about Jake and me moving in here," I said.
"Why not? You seem awfully fond of him, and he's-he's-"I could see her searching for something nice to say about Jake. "He's a very efficient sort of person."
The 'why nots' were so many and varied that I was speechless. The worst part of it all was that for one split second I seriously considered it.
Seeing my moment of weakness, she moved in for the kill.
"It's wonderful that you're feeling so well these days, Adrien, but it doesn't do to push yourself too hard."
"I'm not."
She shook her head a little as though it were all no use. "The economy is so dreadful right now, especially for small businesses." As though Lisa had the foggiest idea about the challenges of running a small business. "And when you talk about needing to expand, I simply can't help worrying about the stress and strain of an additional mortgage on you, darling. Whereas this house is paid for free and clear."
Like a fool I said, "Even so, there's no way I could begin to afford the upkeep."
Her violet eyes widened at my naiveté. "You're going to be very wealthy one of these days, darling," she chided. "I know I could prevail upon Mr. Gracen to arrange something with your trust fund."
"Don't start that again." Funny how that money was absolutely untouchable when it was for something I wanted that Lisa didn't approve of, but right there at my fingertips if I'd give in to something she wanted for me.
"If your poor father had realized that you would end up sacrificing your health struggling to make ends meet-"
"Lisa, where is this going?" I broke in. "Are you thinking of selling the house? Is that what this is about?"
I was sort of amazed to see her turn pink.
"Um, sort of," she said. A very un-Lisa-like comment.
When she didn't continue, I prodded, "And?"
"Actually, I'm thinking of getting married."
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries by Charlie Cochrane
Cut and Run by Abigail Roux & Madeleine Urban
Texas by RJ Scott
Whyborne & Griffin by Jordan L Hawk
Charlie Cochrane
As Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice - like managing a rugby team - she writes. Her favourite genre is gay fiction, predominantly historical romances/mysteries, but she's making an increasing number of forays into the modern day. She's even been known to write about gay werewolves - albeit highly respectable ones.
Her Cambridge Fellows series of Edwardian romantic mysteries were instrumental in seeing her named Speak Its Name Author of the Year 2009. She’s a member of both the Romantic Novelists’ Association and International Thriller Writers Inc.
Abigail RouxAbigail Roux was born and raised in North Carolina. A past volleyball star who specializes in sarcasm and painful historical accuracy, she currently spends her time coaching high school volleyball and investigating the mysteries of single motherhood. Any spare time is spent living and dying with every Atlanta Braves and Carolina Panthers game of the year. Abigail has a daughter, Little Roux, who is the light of her life, a boxer, four rescued cats who play an ongoing live-action variation of 'Call of Duty' throughout the house, a certifiable extended family down the road, and a cast of thousands in her head.
USA Today bestselling author RJ Scott writes stories with a heart of romance, a troubled road to reach happiness, and most importantly, a happily ever after.
RJ Scott is the author of over one hundred romance books, writing emotional stories of complicated characters, cowboys, millionaire, princes, and the men who get mixed up in their lives. RJ is known for writing books that always end with a happy ever after. She lives just outside London and spends every waking minute she isn’t with family either reading or writing.
The last time she had a week’s break from writing she didn’t like it one little bit, and she has yet to meet a bottle of wine she couldn’t defeat.
She’s always thrilled to hear from readers, bloggers and other writers. Please contact via the links below.
Jordan L Hawk
Jordan L. Hawk is a non-binary queer author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave them a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When they aren’t writing, they brew their own beer and try to keep the cats from destroying the house. Their best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
Josh LanyonBestselling 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 "the Agatha Christie of gay mystery."
Her work has been translated into eleven languages. The FBI thriller Fair Game was the first male/male title to be published by Harlequin Mondadori, the largest romance publisher in Italy. Stranger on the Shore (Harper Collins Italia) was the first M/M title to be published in print. In 2016 Fatal Shadows placed #5 in Japan's annual Boy Love novel list (the first and only title by a foreign author to place on the list).
The Adrien English Series was awarded All Time Favorite Male Male Couple in the 2nd Annual contest held by the Goodreads M/M Group (which has over 22,000 members). Josh is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist for Gay Mystery, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads Favorite M/M Author Lifetime Achievement award.
Charlie Cochrane
KOBO / GOOGLE PLAY / AUTOGRAPH / MLR
RIPTIDE / iTUNES / AUDIBLE / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: cochrane.charlie2@googlemail.com
Abigail Roux
CAFE PRESS / AUDIBLE / B&N / KOBO
EMAIL: abiroux@gmail.com
RJ Scott
BOOKBUB / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
EMAIL: rj@rjscott.co.uk
Jordan L Hawk
EMAIL: jordanlhawk@gmail.com
Josh Lanyon
SMASHWORDS / iTUNES / SHELFARI
EMAIL: josh.lanyon@sbcglobal.net
Lessons in Power #4 by Charlie Cochrane
Cambridge Fellows Mysteries Series
Stars & Stripes by Abigail Roux
Cut & Run Series
The Heart of Texas by RJ Scott
Texas Series
B&N / KOBO / SMASHWORDS
The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon
Adrien English Series
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