“So it’s not everybody on the LGBT task force.”

  “It’s not exactly a requirement.”

  “But it helps. Is that how Jadon got the job?”

  She blew out a breath like she had somewhere better to be. Maybe that real estate showing in Ellisville.

  “What about Taylor? Which team is he batting for?”

  Another scornful flick of her eyes.

  “He’s not going to try to pick up my buddy? Jadon would be pissed about that.”

  “Your buddy,” the word had an ugly sneer behind it, “is fine.”

  “What do you guys do most of the time? I mean, I know St. Louis has a good-sized LGBT population, but how many serious crimes do you have to investigate?”

  “We stay busy.”

  “That Slasher thing, that was a big deal. That’s what got it all started, right? All those gay men dead in the Central West End, and everybody clamoring for a solution. Boom. The LGBT task force materializes. You’re like the Avengers or something. Good thing you caught him, right, or it would have been one more black eye for the city.”

  The words had just been meant as patter, filler, but Waggener wheeled on North. That puppet string finally jerked tight, and her hand shot up and back, coming to rest on the butt of the revolver at her waist.

  “I think you really ought to be quiet now.”

  North decided she was right.

  From the other room, the voices were louder now, Taylor shouting over Shaw’s responses.

  “I don’t care if you’ve got a constitutional right to privacy. I don’t care if you were conducting business as a private citizen. I don’t care if you think I’ve got to have a warrant. And I sure as hell don’t care about your right against self-incrimination. You’re going to answer my questions, boy. Whether we do it sitting here in this kitchen or somewhere else, that’s up to you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shaw said. “I’ve never even heard of Potosi.”

  North wanted to groan; Shaw was just such a fucking bad liar.

  “I’ve seen the logs, boy. I’ve seen your name on the page in black and white. I’ve seen the video, and I’d know your scrawny ass from a rat in a shit-hole. So tell me right now: why did you go down to see Roman Stroud?”

  “I don’t know—”

  The sound of a blow cut off Shaw’s words.

  North surged forward, and Waggener barreled into his path. She still hadn’t drawn the gun, but she had her fingers tight around the grip as she blocked the hallway. She was probably 5’2”, 5’3”. With the gun, she was about 6’7”.

  “Get out of my way,” North said.

  She shook her head.

  “He just hit my partner. That’s assault and battery.”

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Get the fuck out of my way.”

  She eased the pistol in the holster. She might as well have been 7’ even.

  North set himself to charge her anyway because, well, Shaw.

  “What were you going to say to him? What do you know? What have you been writing him for the last two months? I’m a Christian man, but I will get those answers one way or another, boy. I’ll pay the devil himself. Get up off your ass. Get up and—”

  North tensed. Waggener’s knuckles whitened on the gun’s grip. She looked like she’d be fast, North thought.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” a man’s low voice said behind North. North didn’t risk a glance over his shoulder, not with Waggener so close to him, but he caught a glimpse of movement in a mirror, and he recognized Detective Barr’s figure and voice.

  “What did you say to me?” That was Taylor again, his voice hard.

  Shaw’s answer was too quiet for North to hear.

  “Bullshit.”

  Another soft answer from Shaw.

  The silence in the kitchen had so much compressed energy that the air felt like it was crackling. Hair stood up along North’s arms; he felt dizzy and wild all at the same time. His heels didn’t seem to be touching the floor.

  Then Taylor stomped into the hallway. He crashed past Waggener, snapped at North, “Get out of here,” and led the way out of the house. Waggener’s hand didn’t move from the gun. Her eyes flicked past North. The street again. The pistol shifted a quarter inch.

  A decision flickered in her eyes, and she released the pistol and walked out of the house.

  North waited until she was gone. Then he braced himself against the wall, turned his face into it, and breathed slowly and deeply, filling his lungs with the faded smell of paint. He turned his head toward the door. Barr was still standing there.

  Beneath the bushy sliver of goatee, Barr’s mouth curved into a smile. “Things almost got stupid, Mr. McKinney. Didn’t they?”

  North breathed out, low and slow.

  “Let’s make sure things don’t ever get that close to stupid again. What do you say to that? Is it a deal?”

  “Yeah,” North said, still leaning into the wall, still breathing the old paint smell. “I’m thinking about signing up for correspondence classes.”

  “Kid, they don’t have classes for the kind of shit you’re being stupid about.”

  Then Barr turned and left.

  North held himself there for another minute, trying to get himself under control. Then he staggered into the kitchen and found Shaw stuffing more paper towels up his nose.

  “It’s ok,” Shaw tried to say.

  North knocked Shaw’s hands away. He cupped Shaw’s face with both hands—light touches, gentle touches, trying hard to contain the violent, kinetic forces rebounding inside himself—and tilted Shaw’s head, inspecting him for damage. He touched one thumb to the red spot on Shaw’s cheek, watched the color blanch under the pressure of his touch. At the back of his brain, North was running a countdown on how long he was allowed to do this; the rest of his attention was focused on how good it felt to do this, to touch Shaw. The soft auburn stubble against the calluses on North’s hands. The ivory skin. The delicate hair at the base of Shaw’s neck, darker than the hair on top. For North, touching Shaw was like touching starlight and feeling it bleed through you. And then his countdown ran out, and he tried to let go, couldn’t.

  Shaw cleared his throat. “It’s ok,” he said again in a small voice. “He just slapped me.”

  North bit his lip. In his mind, he saw Waggener checking the street, her hand sliding up and back under her sixty-dollar suit jacket. He couldn’t let go. He just couldn’t.

  “It’s ok,” Shaw whispered. His hands came up and touched North’s, his fingers sliding around North’s palms, peeling his grip away. “It’s ok.”

  “We’ve got to go,” North said thickly, wresting his hands from Shaw’s. “They’re going to lock this place down and process it. We’ve got to get the hell out of here before Taylor changes his mind and tries to keep us.”

  Shaw nodded. “I found it.”

  “What?”

  “The place Shep takes them. The first time, I mean. When he’s starting over.”

  “What are you—”

  “His pattern. I found his pattern.” Shaw grinned and waved Mike’s phone, which for some reason showed a Facebook Live screen. “Oh. And I bluffed Taylor and told him I was live-streaming his whole performance.”

  “Jesus Christ. You bluffed him? You’re a fucking terrible liar, Shaw.”

  “Apparently not,” Shaw said with a grin. He crashed into North then, surprising him with an embrace, burying his face in North’s neck, his breath hot and ragged against the sensitive skin there. Then, just as suddenly, he pulled away and started toward the door. “Now, let’s go visit Big Sky Roadhouse.”

  Chapter 23

  SHAW SAT IN THE Beamer’s passenger seat, staring out at the blur of south-city strip malls and fast food joints. The low brick buildings ran like a line of Morse code, dots and dashes broken up by parking lots and forgotten playgrounds and rundown apartments. The intensity of light concentrated inside Shaw’s head, gathering into the first throbs of a migraine. His busted nose throbbed too.

  “Do you want to tell me something?” North said.

  “What?”

  “About the Slasher and going down to Potosi.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  North’s hands skimmed the leather-wrapped steering wheel. Strong hands. Callused hands. But the way he had touched Shaw’s face, turned his head, had made those hands seem like they were made of glass. North had been the one who seemed fragile after that encounter with Taylor and Waggener. Standing in the kitchen, unable to let go of Shaw, North had looked like an old window with cracks spiderwebbing through him. For one moment, Shaw had feared that North would fall apart completely. And then the moment had passed.

  “I heard him, Shaw. I heard Taylor. I heard him asking you about Potosi and why you went down to see Roman Stroud. We called him about two suspects in a murder investigation, but all he wanted to talk about was Stroud. And that’s not all.” North’s hands slid along leather again. “I think . . . I think Waggener, at least, was wondering if she was going to have to kill us.”

  “Did she threaten you?”

  “Kind of. I don’t know. Not really, not until Taylor hit you and I tried to get to the kitchen. But she kept watching the street like she wanted to make sure nobody had seen them. She kept . . . Damn it, I don’t know. I can’t even explain it. But I know, Shaw. I know that’s what she was thinking. So my question is: do you want to tell me something?”

  “About what?”

  “About why the fuck two Metropolitan cops care that you visited the Slasher in Potosi. About why the fuck they showed up to their own murder investigation and didn’t even ask about Mike or Grace Augusta, didn’t even blink, but they were thinking about scrubbing us out because they were worried.”

  Shaw blinked a few times, taking in the tension in North’s shoulders and arms and hands, the way he turned sharply onto River Des Peres and clipped the curb, the way he swore and punched the gas. Shaw thought of those cracks spiderwebbing through glass, and he reached over and ran his hand on North’s shoulder, squeezing once, and then rested it at the nape of North’s neck. They drove like that for a minute. And then another.

  Then Shaw said, “You’re red here.”

  North shrugged, trying to knock Shaw’s hand off of him.

  “And you smell like cigarettes again.”

  “The neighbor was smoking as he cut the grass.”

  “I didn’t hear a lawnmower.”

  “You were too busy stuffing your face.”

  “We’re going to be ok, North.”

  “We? I am not worried about ‘we,’ Shaw. I’m worried about your hipster ass.”

  “You’re worried about my ass? That’s so cute.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t—will you stop touching me already? Jesus, I can hardly breathe with you like this.” He reached back and tossed Shaw’s hand off of him. “Aren’t you taking this seriously? Don’t you know how bad this is?”

  “I know it’s bad. But it’s also good, North. In a way. I mean, I knew that a cop was involved somehow with the Slasher. In that security camera footage, we saw him driving off in a car registered to a cop’s wife.”

  “I thought she was a widow.”

  “Now, yeah. But at the time, he was still alive.”

  “So maybe the real Slasher is dead. Maybe you’re chasing shadows.”

  “After today, you still think I’m chasing shadows? Roman Stroud, the man they arrested and prosecuted and convicted as the Slasher, has spent six years behind bars. But the day I show up to visit him—pre-approved, remember, so that my name was on Roman’s list—he’s conveniently dead. And now, the next day, I have two city cops trying to beat answers out of me, wanting to know about that visit. Tell me I’m chasing shadows.”

  “Why did you want to talk to Stroud?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I felt like I had hit a dead end, and that was the next step. I wanted to see him. I wanted to hear his voice. I wanted to ask him.” Shaw shook his head. “I remember so little about that night. If I hadn’t been such a coward, if I hadn’t blacked out—”

  “What? Carl might be alive?”

  Shaw shrugged.

  “Bullshit,” North said. “Do you really think that?”

  “Things might have been different.”

  “Yeah, they’d be different. You’d be dead, dumbass.”

  Shaw ran the heel of his hand under his eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Shaw, come on. You couldn’t have done anything. You were, what, nineteen? The only reason you’re alive is because he thought he got an artery and left you to bleed out. If you’d fought back, he would have finished you. You’re lucky.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the one who blacked out and woke up to find his boyfriend dead.”

  “He wasn’t your boyfriend.”

  “Jesus Christ. What’s wrong with you today?”

  “He wasn’t your boyfriend. It was basically a first date, Shaw.”

  “You’re such a fucking asshole sometimes.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry if I get a little bothered when I hear the guy I—” He cut off so sharply that for a moment Shaw thought he was having a stroke. Then, after a few rough breaths, North said, “The guy I’m best friends with start wishing he’d gotten himself killed by a maniac.”

  “That’s not what I said. Do you even listen to me?”

  “Yeah, I listen to you. But if you want somebody who’s going to pat you on the head and tell you how sorry they are and that you’re absolutely right and blah, blah, blah, then why don’t you call your fucking boyfriend.” He laid an ugly veneer over the last word.

  “I know things are bad for you right now. I know with Tuck—”

  “Don’t ever fucking mention Tucker to me again, ok? Tucker is over. Done with. I don’t need you to talk to me about Tucker. If you want Jadon to baby you, then call him. Right fucking now, Shaw. Call him. And if it’s not too inconvenient, if it doesn’t get in the way of him coddling you, maybe you could tell him how two of his fucking colleagues thought about murdering us today.”

  Shaw yanked his phone out of his shorts and dialed. It rang five times before Jadon picked up, and when he did, he said, “Babe, I’m busy—”

  “It’ll be quick.” And Shaw told him in short, brittle sentences about their encounter with Taylor and Waggener. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Hold on.” Over the line came the occasional whisper of Jadon’s breathing, and then the sound of a door closing. “Are you ok?”

  “Yeah. I mean, North is being a total dick, but yeah.”

  “I got a name from Potosi. Roman Stroud had one visitor two days ago—the day before you went to see him. Philip Taylor. He’s not on Stroud’s approved visitors list, but Taylor bullied his way through and got to talk to him. It was a short visit, I guess. Under ten minutes. No recording, either.”

  “Holy God,” Shaw said. North glanced over at Shaw, but Shaw ignored him.

  “That’s not all. I asked about Stroud’s approved visitors list; it’s not good, babe. That thing goes through so many hands, especially when someone new is getting approved. There’s no way to tell who leaked your name.”

  “Taylor knew. Taylor knew I was going to visit Stroud. He went down there. He tried to warn Stroud against talking to me. Stroud refused. Taylor ordered him killed.”

  “Nobody will tell me how Stroud died,” Jadon said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything; they just kept shuffling me around, no direct refusals. But I don’t like it. And Shaw, one other thing.”

  Shaw’s thumb squeaked along the phone’s aluminum case. “Yeah?”

  “Waggener and Taylor go way back. To patrol, actually. Then to Vice, where they worked before they came over to the LGBT task force together. And they had another buddy too, back at Vice. Three guesses.”

  “Parrish.”

  “Yep, Thomas Parrish. Husband of Marjorie Parrish. A dead man whose wife up and vanished two months ago.”

  Ahead of them, Big Sky Roadhouse sat on the corner of the next block, and North slowed the Beamer. Shaw was trying to process all of the facts that Jadon had just given him, but he managed to say, “What about Mike and Grace Augusta?”

  “I’ll check in with Waggener and Taylor. You said they were still at the house?”

  “Yeah. They watched us leave.”

  “Christ, I don’t know what they’re thinking at this point.”

  “They need to track down Mike and Grace Augusta. They need to interview them again. They might have killed Shep Collins, and Chuck’s sitting in jail—”

  “That’s not their priority. Not anymore. I don’t know what’s going on with them; I don’t know what they think they’re doing.” Frustration bled through Jadon’s voice, and Shaw had the sudden thought, slightly thrilling, that he was hearing concerns Jadon might not have voiced to anyone else. “They’ve worked this whole case ass-backwards, like they knew where they were going and just had to find a way to get there.” He let out a heavy breath. “Anyway, I’d bet that the Shep Collins case is dead in the water; Taylor and Waggener will pretend to work it, I think, but their attention is on you now.”

  “But Chuck—”

  “I know. I’ll call them. I’ll talk to them about Mike and Grace Augusta. See if they won’t consider tracking them down and bringing them in. Honestly, though, I don’t know what they’ll do at this point.”

  “They’ll know I talked to you if you call them.”

  “Babe, they know that already. Taylor knew that when he confronted you. They don’t care. Whatever buttons you pushed, it sent them into panic mode.”

  North turned into the Big Sky Roadhouse parking lot. The building was timber, a cross between a log cabin and an Applebee’s, neon beer signs hanging in the windows and soap letters spelling out the weekly special: nacho cheese dip appetizer, a Big Sky burger, and triple-threat death by chocolate cake for dessert. $16.99. Shaw’s stomach rumbled.