Payback (7 page)

Then I turned back into myself and wondered what I would do next. With the day. With my life. The driver remained silent the rest of the way home.

I
LAY
in bed as sunset smeared the sky outside my bedroom window. It was the same sort of sunset Spence and I had looked out on the last night we were together. I reached up and twisted the rod to close the vertical blinds against the sight of it. Against the memory.

I had been lying awake for over two hours, not sure what to do and too weary to do much anyway. My cock was hard because I was remembering how Spence and I had spent those last few hours we shared together. The feel of his skin beneath my hands. The taste of his come surging across my tongue. The way he had cried out at the moment of ejaculation. The same as I had. The familiar aftermath. The cuddling, the quiet words of love, the gentle way he held me as our hearts slowed and the sweat dried on our skin. The giving of the rings. The laughter.

The walk to Doggie Park.

With a sudden thought, I stood and tore the wrinkled bedspread aside with my good hand. Clumsily, because of the cast, I sprawled out face down on Spence’s side of the bed to smell his scent on the sheets. But with an ache of loss almost as intense as grief, I realized the scent of him was gone. I could smell only fabric softener and detergent. Someone, Janie maybe, had changed and washed the sheets while I was in the hospital, erasing my last personal touch of the man I had loved and who had loved me in return.

“No!” I railed at the silent house.

Once again, fury raged through me. At Janie. At fate. At the fuckers in the park.

I reached out for something to strike, something to throw, but the jangle of the telephone on the desk in the corner brought me to my senses.

I waited for the answering machine to pick up. On the fifth ring, it did. The familiar voice sounded metallic over the speakerphone. I almost didn’t recognize it.

“Tyler, this is Chris Martin. I was just at the hospital and they told me you were released. Are you there? If you are, I need to speak to you.”

Reluctantly, I picked up the phone. “Yes, Detective. I’m here.”

“Ah, good. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” I said. My voice sounded bland even to my own ears. “How are you?”

“Eh. Listen, I brought some mug shots to the hospital for you to look at, but now that you’re home, I thought I would bring them over there. That be all right? If you don’t want company, I can just drop them off.”

I wondered. Did I want company? “Sure, Detective. Bring
them over.” With the blinds drawn, the house was almost dark.
Night was moments away. “What do you do? Work around the clock?”

I thought I detected a groan in his voice when he said, “Pretty much. I’ll be there in five.”

“You know where I live?” I asked.

And the groan in his voice intensified. But it was a friendly groan. At least I imagined it to be. “Tyler, I know everything about you there is to know.” And he ended the call.

I didn’t have time to change out of my sweats, but I did go to the bathroom to splash water over my face and brush my teeth. I took a swipe at my hair with a hairbrush, and by the time I switched on the interior lamps and flicked on the porch light, Detective Martin was climbing the steps toward my door.

“Nice house,” he said, juggling a stack of what looked like photo albums and three bags of fast food. I mumbled a “thank you” as I ushered him through the door, and the aroma of hamburgers and french fries almost knocked me off my feet. “Figured you can’t drive, and since I was starving, I thought you might be hungry too. Brought enough for both of us.” He indicated the familiar clown logo on one of the paper bags. “I even purchased dinner from the company you keep the books for. Didn’t figure you’d want to be eating your competitor’s stuff. Professional loyalty and all that.”

“Uh, gee,” I stammered, knowing he was making a joke, but still surprised by his kindness in bringing me dinner at all. “Thanks.”

Detective Martin—or Chris—was still wearing the same wrinkled suit he had worn the day before. As he passed directly under the porch light I noticed a pretty good sprinkling of hair on the suit, and it wasn’t the detective’s.

“You must have a cat,” I said.

Chris looked down at himself and softly cursed as he tried to hold on to everything he was carrying and still brush off the front of his jacket. “Yeah, I do. Fucking Waldo,” he growled, but it wasn’t a mean growl. Just resigned. Love/hate relationships with pets I understood perfectly. Anyone who had spent any time with Franklin would pretty much have to.

Being hindered by the cast on my arm, I wasn’t much help to the detective as he crossed the living room and finally dumped everything he was carrying on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry,” he said, at last having two free hands to give his suit coat a good slapping to dislodge the cat hair, after which he did the same to the front of his slacks. “I don’t usually make this bad an impression. At least, I don’t think I do.”

His words shocked me. “Umm. You just brought the perp book, or whatever it’s called, all the way out here to me instead of making me cab it down to the police station, and on top of that, you brought dinner along with it. I wouldn’t exactly call that making a bad impression. Take off your jacket, Detective. And your shoes, if you want. Get comfortable. You look about worn out, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

That brought a blush to his cheeks. “Yeah, well, it’s been a long day. But thanks. I’ll take you up on that offer. Where do you want to eat?” He motioned to the coffee table. “Here?”

“Here’s fine,” I said. “Sit down. I’ll get some napkins.”

“Don’t bother,” he said, pulling a stack of paper napkins from one of the bags. “We’ve got plenty.”

I was rather taken aback by the sudden realization that I liked the man. He seemed like a nice guy. And under different circumstances, I might have considered him friend material. Spence would have too, maybe even throwing in a few jibes in my direction about how cute the detective was, which in my eyes he really wasn’t at the moment, but I suspected Spence would have thought he was. In Spence’s opinion, kindness was as sexy as hunkiness. And maybe it was to me too.

But while I accepted the fact that I found Detective Martin likeable, I also knew he was the enemy. I expected things from him—let’s not beat around the bush, I expected
arrests
—and if they weren’t forthcoming, I knew I was going to be pissed.

The detective drew a blank expression. “I forgot drinks.”

“No problem. I have soda.” I strode on weary, weak legs to the kitchen, pulled out a two-liter bottle of Coke from the fridge, and grabbed two glasses from the cupboard, doing my own little balancing act since I only had one good arm to work with. I returned to the living room with my load and placed it on the coffee table as Chris and I lowered ourselves onto the sofa.

“I think you’ll have to pour,” I said, and he nodded while he finished pulling off his jacket and draping it over the back of the couch. He wore a wrinkled pinstriped dress shirt with sweat stains in the armpits and had what looked like a ketchup stain on his tie. The tie hung loose around his neck. He seemed to realize he wasn’t looking his best.

“Sorry,” he said, stroking the five o’clock shadow darkening his chin. “I told you it’d been a long day. There was even a pretty good foot chase in the middle of it, so I’m not in pristine condition.”

“Catch your man?” I asked.

And to my surprise, he went for humor, shining an imaginary badge with his shirt cuff and looking all cocky for my benefit. “Yes, I did. Caught him cold. The lowlife fuck.” Then he went back to reality, digging through one of the fast-food bags. “Taco or hamburger? Or several of each. Your choice. We’ve got plenty.”

“Both,” I said, and he nodded as if to say, “Good.”

We sat there, companionably enough, through the first few minutes of sating what appeared to be a raging hunger on both our parts. When the feeding frenzy began to die down, Detective Martin seemed to feel there were things to be said. He eyed me carefully, but there was sincerity behind his gaze.

“So how are you doing, Tyler? Really. How are you feeling?”

I swallowed hard, not expecting the question. “I’m okay. Just—” I looked around the room like I had never seen it before. “Just trying to get used to a silent house, Detective.”

“Chris,” he said. “Call me Chris.”

I nodded. “Right. I forgot.” I laid the sandwich aside and took a sip of soda. “I guess I’m not used to being alone. I miss Spence, of course. And Franklin.”

“Franklin’s the dog,” he said.

“Yeah. He was kind of a nitwit. The thought of him lost on the streets is killing me. I hate to think of him… suffering. Or hungry.”

“He may still turn up,” Chris said. “You said he was microchipped.”

“I know.” I adjusted the cast in the sling until my hand ached a little less. I stared into the unlit fireplace simply because I couldn’t bear to look at a living face. But the words I spoke were like the sudden lancing of a putrid wound. I needed to say them. To
somebody
. I needed to let out the pus. “It’s hard knowing Spence is gone. You may not understand this, but no one—no one—has ever loved me the way he did. And no one will ever love me that way again. It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Detective. I mean, Chris. I’ll never have that happiness again, and I know it. That’s a sobering realization.”

I shyly turned to face him to see what he was thinking. His honey-colored brown eyes were studying me with concern. When our eyes came together, he gave me a sympathetic smile. His hand came out to touch my shoulder.

“I know it must be hard for you,” he said. “But don’t give up on life just yet. No one really knows what lies in store for us. Love always seems to come along when we least expect it. You’re going through a grieving period now. Try not to let it scar you for the rest of your life. And if it’s any consolation, I think we have a pretty good shot at finding the people who did this to you.”

“Do you really?” I asked, not believing him for a second. “It’s been almost a month already. What big break in the case do you think is going to turn up now?” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but I knew I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

Chris seemed to understand my anger. Being in his line of work, I supposed he would. “There was a lot about the attack we didn’t know until three days ago, Tyler, when you woke up and started talking to us. The way I see it, the investigation didn’t really start a month ago when the assailants struck. It started the minute you opened your eyes and told us what had happened. That’s when this case really got moving. It’s not a cold trail. It’s not a cold case. Hell, the investigation is just beginning. Give us a chance. Don’t give up hope yet. All right?”

I stared at his eager, honest face, at the compassion in his tired eyes, at the determined slant of his broad shoulders. For the first time, I realized there was a gun in a shoulder holster strapped to his side. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it there before.

“All right,” I said, as weary and downhearted as I had ever been in my life. I let my eyes trail from the gun to the stack of photo albums he had placed on the floor beside the coffee table. “If we’re done eating, maybe I should be looking at your pictures now.”

“They’re booking photos. Mug shots,” he said with a gentle smile. “We call them mug shots.”

“All right then. Mug shots.” I gave him a tiny smile back.

The smile felt good on my face. Chris must have enjoyed the sight of it as well. He stared at it for a long moment with an odd, quizzical expression. Then, as if remembering what he was there to do, he pushed away the mess of sandwich bags and napkins and all the other detritus from our hastily arranged meal and placed the first of the photo albums in front of me on the table.

Before he opened it for me, he said, “I hope you’re still trying to remember everything about that night you can. We’ve canvassed the neighborhood but we need your help too. As you start feeling better, maybe your mind will open up a little more. Maybe more memories will start seeping in. About the people you saw as you and Spence were walking to the park. Or more importantly, the people you saw at the park itself. People who might remember seeing three men go into the restroom. People who might even have been frightened by the attack they knew was going on and fled the scene not wanting to get involved. Make notes if you have to. Maybe it will keep your thoughts straight.”

Again I studied his eager face. “You expect a lot,” I said.

His eyes narrowed slightly. He didn’t like my comment. “And so should you,” he said quietly. “I saw what they did to you, Tyler. I was at the hospital when they brought you in. Before the case was even given to me.”

I blinked back surprise. “How could that be? You saw me? You were there?”

“It happens all the time, actually. I was investigating a domestic violence case. A woman beaten to within an inch of her life. We had the husband in custody and I was waiting for the wife to wake up and tell me what we already knew, which, by the way, she never did. She died in the emergency room. But while I was waiting, I saw them bring you in. I watched as they treated you.” He reached out and eased my shirt collar aside with his long, capable fingers to expose my tracheotomy scar. “I watched through a window when they did the tracheotomy so you could breathe. They suspected you were concussed, with a skull fracture, and weren’t entirely sure you’d make it. But you did. You were lucky that night, Tyler. You could very easily have died.”

I sat there listening to him, speechless. No one had explained to me how close to death I had come. Not my doctors, not the nurses, not Spence’s family. No one.

“And you were there all along,” I said, as if I still couldn’t believe it.

“Yes. I’ve been working your case since the very first night. I know you aren’t aware of that, but it’s true. I was there when the techs worked the crime scene. I was at the morgue to view your partner’s autopsy. While the medical examiner worked, I tested for DNA under his fingernails, hoping he might have scraped one of his assailants with his nails. The only substance I found was semen. It was from you.”