Hide Out (30 page)

“Not even close.” Pete pointed at a shaved and bandaged area by his temple. “Just a bump on the head and a little smoke inhalation.”

Trevor nodded.

“You, on the other hand,” Pete told him, “have smoke inhalation, a bullet hole, multiple contusions, burns and major blood loss.”

“Huh.” He was pretty sure he could feel every hole, contusion and burn.

“Did…um, did he get out?”

“Harold Haas?” Pete was watching him carefully. “No. They found him.”

Trevor turned his head to stare at the ceiling again. There was too much pain and too many drugs running through him to even start to process how he felt about that.

“Who set it?”

“Don’t know yet but I have my suspicions,” Pete said.

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“Think we poked a tender spot with our questions?” Trevor asked, turning back to look at him. The pain was making it hard to concentrate.

“Yeah. Need more painkillers?”

Hurting too much to put a tough face on it, Trevor just jerked his head in a nod. Pete stood up, turning to open the door and call for someone. Trevor wasn’t in too much pain to appreciate the view Pete’s open-backed hospital gown offered. He gave a weak whistle.

Pete gave a mock-glare over his shoulder but then tugged a little on the side of the gown so it opened farther, exposing even more of his firm ass. Trevor smiled. Stepping aside so the nurse could enter, Pete grinned back.

“I’m Julie,” the nurse told him. “On a scale of zero to ten, how’s the pain, Mr. Haas?”

“About a six,” he told her. “And call me Trevor.”

“He’s trying to be tough,” Pete said, frowning. “It’s more like a nine.”

Trevor raised an eyebrow. “Hey, it’s my pain scale. Butt out.”

“It is,” Pete told him, totally deadpan.

He had to laugh at that, even though it put him into another coughing fit, which made his side feel as if it were being ripped off his body. “Okay,” he gasped, trying not to puke from the pain. “Nine.”

Julie injected something into his I.V. “Tell the truth, Trevor,” she advised. “You get better drugs that way.”

Noted
, he thought, his eyes closing as a fuzzy cloud numbed the edges of the pain.

* * * * *

Rhodes and Wash brought him some clothes.

“Maybe I should bring this home,” Pete said, eyeing the discarded hospital gown.

“Trevor kind of liked it.”

“I bet,” Wash said, smirking.

Rhodes just scowled. He’d had the same expression since the previous evening, when the two had come to visit. “Tell me again how you two almost managed to be shot and burned to death, all while we’re out on a fucking run?”

“You’re just sorry you missed all the action,” Pete joked. He was feeling much better since he’d found out Trevor wouldn’t be dying anytime soon. “Mind if we get out of here first? I’ll tell you everything again once we’re in the car.”

“What about Trev?” Wash asked.

“Right now he’s in painkiller la-la land. I’ll come back this afternoon to see him.”

“We’ll come too,” Rhodes told him.

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Pete nodded. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’m not supposed to be driving with my concussion and I’m pretty sure my truck was totaled in the explosion yesterday.”

“Yep,” Wash confirmed and Pete sighed.

“I liked that truck.”

The door swung open and Pete turned, expecting it to be the nurse who’d wheel him out of the hospital. Instead, Detective McDonald stuck his head inside, the wispy remains of his hair even wilder than usual.

“Way to fucking almost blow up my witness, Giordano.” McDonald’s mock-scowl broke into a grin. “How’re you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Pete told him, reaching out to shake his hand. “Concussion, minor burns and smoke inhalation. Trevor’s the one who’s hurt.”

“You said when you called that he’ll be okay, right?” Salas asked as she followed McDonald into the room.

“Yeah,” Pete said, shaking her hand as well. “Rhodes and Washington, meet McDonald and Salas.”

“The private investigators.” McDonald nodded to the two men. “Looks like Trevor can go back to work with you now.”

“He has some healing to do first,” Pete interjected, shoving away the reminder that Trevor had his own life waiting. Now that his father was dead and the threat on his life gone, Trevor could do whatever he wanted. It made Pete feel like a total ass that this thought made him sick to his stomach.

McDonald and Salas left the room to check in on Trevor as the nurse arrived with a wheelchair. Feeling a little silly, Pete sat down and let her wheel him toward the exit, Rhodes and Wash trailing after.

A familiar figure was striding down the hall toward them.

“Turn around,” Pete hissed at the nurse, who stared at him in confusion. “Go the other way…oh shit.”

“Officer Giordano,” Sheriff Osgood greeted him. “Mr. Rhodes. Mr. Washington.”

Pete heard what could only be called a growl from behind him, although he didn’t know if it came from Wash or Rhodes. “Sheriff.”

“Can I have a word?” Although it was couched as a question, it definitely had the ring of an order.

“Mind if I get out of here first?” he asked shortly.

“Be my guest.” Osgood gestured for them to continue, falling in next to the wheelchair. Silence fell for the rest of his trip to the exit. Pete got up and thanked the nurse. He rubbed his forehead. It still felt like he had a pickax lodged in his skull.

“Why don’t I give you a ride home?” the sheriff suggested. There was another rumble on the Rhodes and Wash front.

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“Yeah,” Pete agreed, turning to the other two men. “I’ll talk to you guys when we get home.”

They nodded grudgingly, watching as Pete climbed into the passenger seat of the sheriff’s car.

“How’s your…ah, partner doing?” Osgood asked.

“Shitty but he’ll live,” Pete told him. “Haas shot him, plus he has some burns and bruises from the garage fire.”

“I see Haas is dead.”

“Only good thing to come out of this.” Rubbing his still-sore eyes, Pete sighed. Fuck, he was tired. “Now Trevor can quit hiding.”

“Happen to know who started that fire?” Osgood asked almost casually. Pete laughed, a humorless bark of sound. “Isn’t that
your
job, Sheriff?”

“Figured I’d check, seeing as how the fire was started when Haas showed up.”

Biting the inside of his cheek, Pete debated how much to tell Osgood. “We had an interesting conversation with Abby before the fire started, followed by an even more interesting conversation with Danny about how Abby was lying about her alibi.”

The sheriff’s sideways look held a mix of exasperation and amusement. “So my request to stay out of this case…?”

“Just pissed us all off,” Pete finished.

A muscle worked in the sheriff’s jaw but when he spoke, it was with his usual calm.

“Well then, why don’t you tell me everything you’ve found out?”

* * * * *

They pulled up to the curb in front of Pete’s house, leaving enough room for Rhodes and Wash to park behind them. He stared blindly through the windshield. Now that he was home, where the ashes of his garage mingled with those of Trevor’s father, where he’d held Trevor in the front yard, terrified his lover was going to die, where one of his neighbors had intentionally caused this heartache…

He couldn’t wait a second longer to find out the truth. Pete got out of the driver’s seat and headed across the street. The sheriff jogged around the front of the car to catch up to him.

“Where d’you think you’re going?” Osgood asked mildly, falling in step with him.

“Talk to Abby.”

“Hey, wait up!” Wash called from behind them.

“I’d prefer to talk to her alone,” the sheriff told him. Pete didn’t even look at him. He just kept walking. “That’s too bad, Sheriff.”

Wash and Rhodes caught up to them.

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“Is ‘wait up’ a difficult concept to understand, Petey?” Wash complained. “What’s going on?”

“He’s going to ask her why she set that fire,” Rhodes stated. Pete glanced at him, startled. “You figured it out?”

“Not hard.” He shrugged. “Get home from the hospital and she’s the first person you want to see. Add that to the killer glare you have going…”

“Couldn’t it have been Terrance?” the sheriff asked quietly as they circled the side of the house. “He had more of a motive, being dumped and all. He was arguing with Greg after the incident in Marsha’s kitchen.”

“Could be,” Pete agreed. “Either way, though, she knew. She gave Terrance his alibi.”

Abby was sitting on the garden bench, not doing anything except staring into space.

“Why’d you try to kill Trevor, Abby?” Pete demanded, crossing to stand in front of her.

“Who’s Trevor?” she asked.

“Joey,” he gritted out. “Why’d you hurt him, Abby?”

“Hang on,” the sheriff muttered behind him. “Abby, you don’t have to answer his questions here. We can talk at the station.” When she remained silent, he asked, “Do you understand?”

“Of course, Sheriff,” she said calmly, looking up at him. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Then why’d you try to kill him?” Pete asked again. He knew he should’ve been the one to remember to Mirandize Abby but the events of the past twenty-four hours had messed with his head.

“You knew,” she told him simply. “I heard Danny telling you. You knew I lied. You knew I killed him.”

“So you did kill Greg,” the sheriff said.

She nodded. “I was coming over to talk to you two. I didn’t know how I was going to convince you not to turn me in. I just knew I needed to do something before you talked to the sheriff. I saw you both go into the garage. I grabbed the can of gas and one of those propane lighters from our shed. When I got to your garage, I thought I’d prop something against the door but it opened the wrong way, so I just closed it. I dumped the gas along the outside and lit it. It was so easy.”

Pete blinked at her. The story sounded so unbelievable, told in such a flat, unemotional voice. “It was full daylight! These neighbors watch
everything
. Did you think you wouldn’t be seen?”

She looked at him as if
he
were the crazy one. “I’m never seen. No one ever notices me.”

“Didn’t you see me lying there next to the house?”

“What?” Abby shook her head. “No, you followed Joey into the shed.”

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“That wasn’t me,” he told her. “That was Trevor’s father.”

“Oh.” She was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s father.”

“But you wanted to hurt Trevor?” Pete’s voice cracked on his name. “How could you want to hurt Trevor? He
liked
you!”

“It was the only way,” she said, no remorse in her expression at all. “You both knew. I didn’t want to go to prison. Not for killing that worthless piece of trash.”

“Greg?” the sheriff clarified and Abby nodded. “Why did you kill him?”

Her jaw set and anger flashed in her eyes. “He was such a spoiled brat. He had to have everyone! Terrance wasn’t gay. He
wasn’t
. Greg saw that as a challenge. He got him drunk, seduced him.”

“Did Terrance tell you this?” Osgood asked.

Abby shook her head. “I suspected. Then I heard them arguing about it at the barbeque after Terrance saw Greg hitting on Joey.” She shot a quick glance up at Pete.

“Or Trevor, I guess. Then I knew for sure.”

“How’d you do it?” the sheriff questioned.

“I made up an e-mail address—one of those free ones—with Joey’s name in it. I sent Greg an e-mail saying Joey had reconsidered and wanted to meet. I knew Michelle was going to be out of town that night. I told him to leave the door unlocked, strip naked, blindfold himself and lie on the bed. When I went up there, I couldn’t believe he’d actually done it. I didn’t say anything. I just tied his hands and feet and then took the blindfold off. The look on his face…” She looked almost proud. Pete felt sick.

“So get a divorce,” Pete told her in disgust. “Throw things at Terrance. Why torture and kill Greg, for fuck’s sake?”

“Terrance isn’t much,” she said in that creepy, rational tone, “but he’s mine. He was jealous of Joey—didn’t want to be just a one-time thing. I wasn’t about to share my husband with a greedy brat like Greg.”

“So Greg’s dead,” Pete stated, feeling rage clamp into a hard ball in his stomach,

“and T-Trevor almost died, all b-b-because you didn’t want to
share
? You f-fucking selfish, crazy
bitch
!” He lunged for her and she shrieked, flinching back. Pete was jerked back against a hard chest, arms banded around his in a reverse bear hug.

“Settle,” Rhodes rumbled in his ear. “Not worth it, Petey.”

“Stand up,” the sheriff ordered Abby. “Turn around.” He clicked handcuffs around her wrists. Closing his fingers around her upper arm, he walked her across the backyard. “You’re under arrest for two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, arson…” His voice faded as they disappeared around the side of the house, leaving Pete still locked against Rhodes chest.

His throat was too tight. Pete tried to breathe but nothing was working. Rhodes turned him around so they were face-to-face, gripping his biceps and giving him a small shake.

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“It’s okay now,” Rhodes told him in that deep, sure voice that didn’t allow any doubt. “Trevor’s going to be fine.” Wrapping a hand around the back of Pete’s neck, he pulled him against him. “You’re okay, Pete.”

Sucking in one painful breath and then another, he mashed his face against the hard side of Rhodes’ neck. His whole body shook as he struggled to breathe, each exhale tearing from his lungs like a sob.

* * * * *

“I’ll wait here,” Pete whispered, glancing at Trevor’s sleeping face. “Why don’t you two grab a bite downstairs?”

Wash was doing some kind of hand signals.

Pete stared at them and then gave Rhodes a confused look. “What’s he doing?”

“Being an idiot.” Rhodes’ whisper wasn’t very whisper-y. In fact, it was fairly loud.

“We’ll check back in twenty.”

“Aww.” Trevor’s raspy voice brought all their heads around. “Grandma and Grandpa came to visit me.”