Hobbled (19 page)

Danny wasn’t exactly a religious person, but he did take a second to cast up a prayer of thanks for the fact Luke was now spending his nights with him. While Danny never once considered his own safety concerning the serial killer out there stalking the city, he
was
glad to know Luke was being watched over. Even if it was only Danny doing the watching.

Side by side, they would be happy, he and Luke. As long as one protected the other, they would be safe. No danger could ever touch them as long as they stayed together.

Later, Danny would remember thinking those words and wonder how he could have been so wrong.

So dead fucking wrong.

Chapter 10

D
INNER
was pizza again. The fifth time in five days. And again, over Luke’s objection, Danny paid with his dad’s credit card. This time he started feeling really guilty about it, so he promised himself from now on he would either let Luke pay, or he and Luke would eat crap out of the freezer until his dad got back into town. Danny would give the credit card a rest. He had cost his dad enough money lately. Besides, cooking a few meals would give Danny practice for when he and Luke were living together.

He got goose bumps just thinking about that. Good goose bumps.
Happy
goose bumps.

“What are you smiling about?” Luke asked around a mouthful of pizza crust.

Danny had such a humongous wad of pizza in his own mouth, he had to chew for a good fifteen seconds before managing to gulp it down, just so he wouldn’t choke to death while trying to talk. “Us living together. Where do you think it will be?”

“Don’t know.”

“When do you think we can start?”

“Don’t know.”

“How often do you think we’ll have sex?”

Luke’s cornflower-blue eyes flashed happily. “Every five minutes?”

And Danny grinned. “That’s what
I
was thinking.”

A news bulletin on the twelve-inch TV sitting on the kitchen counter drew their attention to the screen. Luke and Danny stopped chewing long enough to listen. The TV was always blasting away in the background, but rarely did they pay it any attention. For some reason, this time they did.

The anchorman looked like he had been sent to the TV station from Central Casting. Rattling off the news, he looked about as sincere as a three-dollar hooker. His perfectly coiffed hair was sprayed to within an inch of its life. He had blindingly white teeth that looked amazingly like Chiclets lined up inside his mouth. The guy’s chin dimple was so perfectly placed it might have been punched there with a nail gun. And to top it all off, he had a butt-ugly tie tied in a perfect Windsor at his pale throat, which had considerably less makeup on it than his face did. The man was trying to look like he wasn’t reading from a Teleprompter but any fool could see he was.

“The San Diego Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating a missing person.”

The photo of a young guy flashed on the screen. It was a high school graduation picture. A head shot. The guy was still wearing his mortarboard with the tassel hanging down along his cheek. The tassel was on the right side of his face, Danny noticed, so when the picture was taken, he hadn’t yet graduated.

“Wow,” Luke said. “He’s cute.” And Danny nodded. The young man really was cute. Blond, fresh-faced, with clear, clear eyes that looked so innocent one would think he had never seen anything unseemly in his whole entire life. And maybe he hadn’t.

The announcer read on, still trying to sound sincerely concerned, but what he truly sounded was phony. He obviously didn’t give a shit about any of it. Jesus, Danny wondered. Where do they get these guys?

“Charles Strickland has been missing since Tuesday morning. Three days ago. He was last seen at Albertson’s supermarket on University Avenue, near Texas Street.”

“Wow,” Danny interrupted. “That’s just a few blocks away.”

The announcer ignored Danny, and why wouldn’t he? “Mr. Strickland’s vehicle was found abandoned in Albertson’s parking lot. The groceries Mr. Strickland had just purchased were still in the back seat and his car door left open. Anyone with information on the man’s whereabouts, please contact the San Diego Police Department immediately. Mr. Strickland was eighteen years old. He had just enlisted in the U.S. Navy and was set to report for boot camp at the Naval Training Center here in San Diego early next week. He leaves behind his parents and two brothers. He was a cherished member of the Trinity Methodist Church in North Park.”

Wow, Danny thought, considering the anchorman’s tagline. No wonder the guy looked so innocent. He was an honest-to-God churchgoer. And why was the anchorman talking about the guy in the past tense? Wasn’t it a little cruel for the guy’s family to be hearing that? Even in his youth, Danny was smart enough to know sometimes news people have no common sense.

Oddly enough, that little news bite on the evening news made quite an impression on Danny.

Somehow, seeing a real live face connected to the murder story, if it really
was
connected, made it much more tangible for him. The fact the missing guy was Danny’s age and cute as hell made it even sadder than it already was. At least in Danny’s eyes. Danny wondered where Charles Strickland was now. Was he still alive, being tortured and raped, or was he lying in an unmarked grave somewhere? Out in the desert, maybe, in the middle of nowhere, where he would never be found. Or maybe the guy had simply toddled down to Tijuana to get laid a few dozen times before heading off to the Navy. That option might not please his church-going parents too much, but it would certainly be better for
him.

And if Charles Strickland was such a devoted member of the Trinity Methodist Church, why did God let such a terrible thing happen to him in the first place? That didn’t seem right. The murderer should be picking off gangbangers. Or bullies. Or assholes. Leave the good people alone, for heaven’s sake.

“That sucks,” Luke said, still watching the TV, although the phony-ass anchorman had moved on to a house fire in the poor part of town. As if being poor wasn’t bad enough, now some impoverished person didn’t have a house either. Danny wasn’t sure if Luke was talking about the poor guy without a house or the young guy who disappeared from Albertson’s. Then Luke cleared it up by voicing his thoughts.

“The kids say they know who the killer is.”

Danny moaned. “Who? DeVon and Bradley? They told you too, huh? Those kids are certifiable.”

“By the way,” Luke said, as if he suddenly remembered. “I met your handsome neighbor in the back. Mr. Childers. He was digging by his back fence. I heard the noise and went to investigate. Jeez, how did you stay a virgin so long living next door to that guy?”

“What do you mean?”

“He put the moves on me,” Luke said. “At least I think he did. He was asking me all kinds of stuff about what I do at night and where I go.”

“Naaah.” Danny couldn’t believe it. “You must have imagined it. The guy’s a widower. His wife died a few years back.”

Luke rolled his eyes and stuffed a little more pizza in his mouth. “I’m
telling
you. Pop told me we would have a gay neighbor when we moved here. I don’t know how he knew. I guess he met Mr. Childers that time he came to check out the property.”

Danny couldn’t believe that either. “You think your dad thought Mr. Childers was gay and that’s why he told you you’d have a gay neighbor?”

Luke shrugged. “Who else could he have meant? You?” He laughed. “Although it didn’t take
me
long to ferret out that information, did it?”

Now it was Danny’s turn to laugh. “About three minutes.”

“If that.” Luke slid his hand across the table and grasped Danny’s index finger. He gave it a shake. “I still love you, by the way.”

Danny smiled. “Me too.” After a beat of silence spent gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, Danny asked, “What was he digging?”

Luke started. “Huh? Who?”

“Childers.”

“Oh. Flower bed, I guess. He invited me over for Cokes and a movie some time. Seems he has a little theater set up in his den.”

Danny narrowed his eyes and laid down his fork. “I didn’t know that. And you’re not going. Hell, no. No way. Not now, not ever. Case settled. No more movies for you. Ever. Not with Childers. Uh-uh.”

Luke tilted his chair onto its back legs and folded his arms across his chest. He stared at Danny so long Danny started wiggling around in his chair, feeling guilty. Finally, Luke said, “What makes you think I wanted to? He’s as old as my dad, for Christ’s sake. Besides, I’ve got a boyfriend. You. Why would I want anybody else?”

Danny gave a weak smile. Weak because he was really touched. And turned on. “Honest?”

“Honest.” And Luke let all four chair legs crash back down to the kitchen floor. Eyes wide open, he leaned across the table and laid his lips on top of Danny’s. The kiss was long and hot and tasted like pizza sauce. Just the way Danny liked them.

When Luke finally dropped back into his chair, Danny stretched his long arms up above his head as far as they would go and faked a big wide yawn. He looked pretty sneaky while he was doing it. Damn, Luke’s kiss had tasted good. It left Danny hungry for more.

“Welp,” he said. “Time for bed, I guess.”

Luke laughed and pushed his plate away. “Good idea. I suddenly seem to be really, really horny.”

“I can fix that,” Danny said with a grin, and arm in arm they headed for the stairs, shedding their clothes along the way. By the time they got to Danny’s bedroom door, they were stark naked.

They dove onto the bed. Eighteen, naked, and madly in love.

What better way to dive onto a bed?

Two seconds later they were lost to everything but each other. They stayed that way while the night deepened around them. Later, when their passions were satisfied, at least for the time being, they lay snuggled in each other’s arms. Happy and content. Just like they always did after sex.

A stranger peeking through Danny’s bedroom door and seeing such happiness might have thought there was no evil in the world at all.

But how wrong he would have been.

T
HE
moon was barely above the rooftops across the street when Danny and Luke conked out for the night. By the time Danny’s eyes popped open, hours later, the moon had climbed halfway up the sky. Danny was instantly awake, certain something was wrong. Was there a fire? He took a deep breath, seeking the scent of smoke. Nothing. He craned his head around to peer at the clock. It was just short of midnight. He’d thought it was later.

Luke still lay softly snoring in his arms.

Maybe Danny had just had a bad dream. But if he had, he didn’t remember it.

Then he heard Granger whimpering somewhere downstairs. Danny lifted his head to peer through the moonlight to the place where Frederick always slept. The cat was gone. Maybe Granger and Frederick were having a knock-down, drag-out battle somewhere. An interspecies Armageddon. God knows they hated each other enough.

For some reason, Danny’s broken leg was really aching. Too much flinging and flopping around in the throes of passion, he supposed. Not that it wasn’t worth it.

He gave Luke the softest kiss to the back of the head he could, since he didn’t want to disturb him, and slowly slid his arm out from under Luke’s cheek. Luke snorted but didn’t wake. He rolled onto his stomach and burrowed his face in his pillow. Out for the count.

Danny took a moment to appreciate Luke’s heavenly ass lying there in the moonlight just begging to be licked, then he turned away with a sigh and eased his long legs off the bed. He considered reaching for the curtain rod to try yet again to cure that goddamn itch deep inside his cast, but another round of whimpering by Granger somewhere downstairs got him heading toward the door.

Naked, he padded softly down the stairs. Softly on one foot, at least. The other foot, the one with the cast on it, made a horrible racket every time it hit a step. Sounded like a sledgehammer banging on the floor. He sure would be glad to get rid of that thing.

In the kitchen, Danny turned on the light. He quickly closed the blinds so no one could see in since he was as naked as the day he was born; then he called Granger’s name.

The dog answered with another whimper. The whimper came from the service porch that separated the kitchen from the back door. Danny stepped through the kitchen door and flicked on the light. He had to blink a few times before his brain could register what he was seeing.

When it did register, a grin crept across Danny’s face. He shook his head in wonder.

“Well, damn boy,” he said. “You’ve got yourself in a pickle, haven’t you?”

Granger was stuck in the cat door. His ass was lying on the service porch floor, while his forward regions were sprawled across the back stoop. At least Danny assumed they were. He’d have to swing the door open to make sure. That pet door was never meant for anything larger than a cat. Granger seemed to have found that out the hard way.

Carefully, Danny opened the door, swinging the door and Granger both out of the way. He bit back a laugh to see Granger doing some fancy sidestepping to keep up with the swinging door.