With a few quiet steps, North placed himself at Billy’s elbow and said, “Something wrong?”

  “Jesus,” Billy breathed out, squeezing his eyes closed. “He cannot be here. He can’t. This is totally impossible.”

  “Oh,” North said. “You know those guys?”

  Billy’s eyes stayed shut. He was shaking now.

  “Where’s Tom?” North said.

  Billy shook his head.

  Tugging on Billy’s elbow, North said, “You know, I think that’s Emery Hazard. Didn’t Teddi say that Tom had a funny story about him?”

  At that, Billy’s eyes snapped open. He was bolting, and North readied himself to catch the kid, but Billy froze before North had to stop him. Hazard and the blond man were crossing the room toward them; Hazard’s arm had dropped from the blond man’s shoulders, and they were holding hands now, Hazard leading the way. The blond man looked at Billy and then at North and smiled like they’d grown up next door and he wanted to buy them a beer.

  “Billy,” Hazard said, his voice a low rumble.

  “Hi,” Billy squeaked.

  The buzz of conversation and party laughter filled the space between them for a moment. Then the blond man stuck out his hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Billy. I’m John-Henry.”

  Billy took his hand and pumped it once without ever looking away from Hazard.

  “And you must be Tom,” John-Henry said, offering his hand to North.

  North took it, surprised by the strength in the man’s grip, and then grinned and said, “No, sorry. North McKinney. I’m an asshole, but I’m not that asshole.”

  John-Henry grinned too, easing the pressure in his handshake.

  “Where is Tom?” Hazard asked in that same low, dead voice.

  “Em, I am so sorry,” Billy said, his voice breaking. “I never wanted it to be like that, and I never wanted to hurt you, and I—”

  “Be quiet, Billy. You should find Tom. You should get out of here right fucking now.”

  “Yeah.” Billy swallowed and sidled away from the group. “Yeah, I’ll just—Em, I’m really sorry.”

  Then he scurried away.

  “You just ran off my key suspect,” North said, watching Billy disappear into the closest available doorway.

  “That’s one of his special abilities,” John-Henry said, glancing at the dark-haired man with another smile. “It’s his overpowering charisma.”

  “I should have you stop by the next time my in-laws visit,” North said.

  “You weren’t funny before I left St. Louis,” Hazard said, flicking a quick, dismissive glance at North. “You haven’t gotten any funnier.”

  “But I’m ten points more endearing,” North said. “And six points more attractive.”

  “If anything,” Hazard said with another cool evaluation, “you’re six points less attractive. You’re starting to get crow’s feet.”

  “Some guys like experience,” North said with a shrug.

  “No,” Hazard said flatly. “They don’t.”

  “You two know each other?” John-Henry said.

  “We’ve met,” Hazard said, his gaze moving across the room. “I knew it was stupid to come to this. I should have asked Josh if Billy would be here.”

  “You know Josh Liebowitz?” North said.

  “I just said that I should have asked him a question. That should make the answer to your question obvious.”

  “You’re right,” North said, raising an eyebrow at John-Henry. “The charisma. It’s overpowering.”

  “We’re sending him to charm school this fall,” John-Henry said with a grin.

  “More like charm boot camp,” North muttered.

  Hazard flicked another look at him, this time the gaze suddenly sharp with interest. “You’re still a private dick?”

  “If you’re casting me in a 1940s noir, then, yeah, I’m still a private dick. If you’re talking about my job in the twenty-first century, I’m just a lowly private investigator.”

  Hazard studied him for another moment and then said, “I’m going to call you next week. I want to ask you some questions.”

  “Talk to my girl Friday. If I’m not looking for a falcon statue studded with jewels or playing chess with Philip Marlowe, I’ll try to squeeze you in.”

  “I forgot: not only aren’t you funny, you’re kind of an asshole.”

  “To be fair,” John-Henry said, “he did introduce himself as an asshole.”

  “Just don’t try to make any appointments when fatally attractive blondes are hiring me to get rid of their husbands or when I’ve got a standing appointment to drink gimlets in a shitty cocktail lounge. Oh, and I think I’ve got a fedora fitting on Thursday, plus the new line of trench coats is coming out, so my schedule is going to book up quick.”

  “He’s always been like this,” Hazard said to John-Henry. “Runs every fucking joke into the ground.” Then, to North, “Where’s the smart one?”

  North swallowed; suddenly the jokes were flat as shit, and his jaw was too tight. “Shaw’s busy doing private dick work. Looking for a guy sleeping the big sleep. Trawling for a lady who’s swimming with the fishes.”

  “Let’s go,” Hazard said.

  “You really know Liebowitz?” North said.

  “We already went over this. Don’t you listen?”

  “Ok,” John-Henry said, touching Hazard’s good arm. “Take it down a little.”

  “Is Liebowitz the kind of guy who would spread a rumor around and attribute it to somebody else?” North asked.

  Hazard’s eyes narrowed; they were the man’s most remarkable feature, an intense amber that made North think of autumn sunsets. “Josh Liebowitz likes to sleep around; he never could keep it in his pants. But he’s not a liar.”

  “Not even if he wanted to steal somebody else’s brunch crowd?”

  Blinking, Hazard said, “John, is he making a joke?”

  “No,” John-Henry said. “But it sounds like one. What do you mean?”

  “It’s nothing, really,” North said. “Small-time, petty stuff. The kind of thing a private dick handles.”

  John-Henry rolled his eyes.

  “But somebody is trying to ruin Teddi Larsen.”

  “I remember Teddi,” Hazard said. “Why does somebody want to ruin him?”

  “Good question.”

  Hazard’s eyes remained narrowed for a moment. When he spoke, it was with the same cold calculation that North remembered from the few times they had encountered each other before. “You’re here, and you asked about Josh lying and stealing a brunch crowd. That means the dispute is about power and status—which, in some ways, can be interchangeable with power. But it’s also got a personal dimension; whoever did this is striking at the core of Teddi’s identity. They don’t just want to overthrow him. They want to humiliate him.”

  “I remember this,” North said. “It’s like a bad psych textbook had a baby with a bad logic textbook. Yeah, Hazard. I figured that much out myself. Thanks for the big insight.”

  Hazard barely seemed to hear him. He was looking through North, past him. “That’s not Josh’s style. He has standing of his own. He has money. He has good looks and lovers and his primary mode of self-satisfaction is rotating that selection of lovers regularly, including men already in committed relationships. He doesn’t care about the gay brunch queendom.”

  “But?” North said, sensing the sudden hesitation at the end of Hazard’s statement, as though Hazard had clipped off the end of his speech.

  “Billy’s a liar. A world-class one. And a manipulator. But I don’t see him being motivated to take over the brunch scene. He doesn’t get off on taking what other people have. He gets off on controlling the things he does have.”

  John-Henry’s perfect features turned into a frown. “But we know someone who enjoys taking things from other people: Tom Gerard.”

  “So maybe I should go figure out where he’s skulking,” North said.

  “Whoever’s paying you,” Hazard said flatly, “make sure you bill them for my consultation fee.”

  North grinned and gave him the middle finger. “Hey, what happened to the two of you? You look like shit.”

  “Bad Fourth of July,” John-Henry said.

  “And a run-in with an old bully from high school,” Hazard said. “Come on, John. Let’s go.”

  “You go ahead,” John-Henry said. “I want to ask North something.”

  “John.”

  “Just go on.”

  Hazard glared at North one last time before peeling his hand from John-Henry’s and stomping toward the door. North watched him go.

  “You’ve been doing this for a while?” John-Henry said.

  “Some days it feels like forever.”

  “And you’re good at it?”

  “Five stars on Yelp. Well, that’ll probably go down once Hazard decides to fuck with my rating.”

  John-Henry gave him one of those best buddies smiles, and North suddenly felt like a real asshole.

  “Sorry,” North said. “It’s been a shit couple of days.”

  “He’s really going to call you next week. He . . . he needs help. Not psych help. Help starting an agency. And he’s too proud to ask directly, so he’ll probably interrogate you, trying to figure out what he needs to know without letting you realize it.”

  “He’s starting an agency? I thought he was a cop. Didn’t he move to some shitty town?”

  John-Henry burst out laughing. “Yeah, he did. And he was a cop. But things got . . . complicated. He’s been talking about this idea of his own agency, saying he’s going to do it, but I was kind of afraid it was all just talk, you know, to get him through the transition.” He rubbed his face, and for a moment, the friendly, good-natured mask slipped, and North saw the strain and worry under the golden good looks. “These last few weeks have been the worst fucking days of my entire life, and most of it’s because I’m so worried about him. Then today, out of the blue, here you are, and he actually said he was going to call you. So, I’m going to ask you what he won’t ask: will you please help him? He needs this. Even if he isn’t sure, I’m sure. Even if he’s just saying it because he thinks it’ll keep me quiet, I know he needs it.” He swallowed, wiped his face again, and said, “So, will you?”

  For a moment, North couldn’t answer. It was hard to believe anybody could love an asshole like Emery Hazard. It was harder to believe somebody like John-Henry, who seemed decent and kind and was undeniably gorgeous, could love Hazard. But it was obvious in John-Henry’s face that only one man existed in the entire universe for him, and right then, he was begging for someone to help. And suddenly that made North think of Shaw, and the pain in Shaw’s face after the kiss, the betrayal. As though North had taken something away from Shaw. And the fucked up thing, North thought, the fucked up thing is that I don’t even know what I took away from him.

  “Yeah,” North said. “I’ll talk him through it. Send him our business plan, rates, best practices.”

  “He’s going to be an absolute dick about it.”

  North managed a small smile. “Yeah, I figured.”

  John-Henry shook his hand again and said, “Thank you.”

  And then he was gone.

  North stared across the kitchen for a few minutes, his heart thumping wildly, thinking of that look on Shaw’s face. Like North had robbed him of something.

  And then North crossed the room, cut down the hallway, and found Billy lurking near the front door. Some of Billy’s color had come back; he didn’t look like a corpse anymore, but he still looked like he had eaten some bad shellfish. He was pacing a hole in the floor, and when he glanced up at North and then away, North knew his gut had been right; Hazard’s confirmation had just been a bonus.

  “He’s upstairs,” North said, taking the first steps. “Is that it?”

  “No,” Billy wailed. “He’s just—I think he ran out for a minute. Don’t—you can’t—”

  On the second floor, North moved down the hallway, past an open door that showed a study, an open door that showed a bathroom, an open door that showed a guest bedroom. The door at the end of the hall was closed, and North pulled out his phone, opened the camera app, and readied himself. He kicked once, his boot connecting just below the doorknob. The jamb splintered, and the latch skidded free of the strike plate. Wobbling from the force of the blow, the door swung open.

  Tom Gerard naked, knelt on the bed with one of Josh’s legs hooked over his shoulder. He had frozen in mid-thrust, and he stared at North without really seeing him, his eyes still glazed with lust and confusion. North started snapping pictures.

  Behind North, Billy let out a soft cry. Then his footsteps echoed back along the hall and hammered down the steps. The front door slammed a moment later. Clarity filtered into Tom’s eyes; Josh was swearing, squirming free of the other man, dragging a sheet over himself

  North waited through the whole thing, watching, letting fear and humiliation build. He was still taking pictures.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Tom roared, but he still hadn’t left the bed, and he was grabbing at the duvet and trying to cover himself. “Put your phone away, you stupid motherfucker, or I’m going to—”

  “Here’s the deal. You’re going to tell everyone the truth: Teddi never bought anything from Chicken Busters. You’re going to tell everyone that you made up the whole thing. You’re going to take full responsibility for it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “If you don’t, I’m going to start sharing these pictures. Now, Tom, you might not care because your boyfriend just saw the whole thing. But you’re not thinking big picture. Billy’s already a lost cause; you need to start worrying about what’s going to happen next. And what’s going to happen is I’m going to put these on every hookup site I can find, along with your personal phone number. And every time you try to take a new boy home, I’m going to be there. I’ll show up at dinner. I’ll show up at the movies. I’ll show up at your fucking front door, and I’ll show the new guy these pics and tell him how you fucked my husband in our bed. And you know what? A few guys might get off on it, but most of them will clear out so fast you’ll still be ripping open a rubber by the time they’re out the door.” With a grin, North added, “You guys go ahead and finish what you started. I’ll see myself out.”

  Chapter 31

  SHAW LAY IN A MEDICATED HAZE; it felt like what he imagined flying might feel like, his head full of clouds, the nauseating dizziness, and then the leaden weight of his limbs sending him hurtling down into a black well where darkness swallowed him. Last night, after North had left, he had opened the bottle of red yeast pills and shaken out a handful of Ambien. He hadn’t even counted them; he was dimly aware of how stupid that was, and even more dimly aware of the fact that he didn’t care.

  His phone buzzed, and Shaw slapped at it, sending it flying off the nightstand and clattering across the floor. For a few more moments, it buzzed against the boards; the noise drilled into Shaw’s head, painful enough that it threatened to drag him out of the clouds. Then, mercifully, it cut off.

  Last night had been too much. Shaw’s terror at being touched by Jadon was only part of it; after all, he had learned a trick to handling that blinding-white fear and then the rushing darkness that came after it. His fantasies about North had been a safe place for him to hide while Jadon touched him.

  If Shaw had been able to leave it at that, things might have been ok. Shaw would have been ashamed of himself. He would have hated the deception, even if Jadon never knew about it. But, of course, Shaw had made things worse. The way he always made things worse. And then that memory of the Slasher choking him had come back, exploding like a flashbulb in Shaw’s mind as oxygen-deprivation left him teetering on the edge of unconsciousness.

  None of it was Jadon’s fault. The shock had been intense, and Shaw had been so frightened by his own behavior and by the old, inescapable terror of the Slasher, that he had channeled all of his fear into anger as a way of keeping himself from breaking down. Anger had been a safety anchor. And Jadon, unfortunately, had been in the blast zone of that anger. Shaw groaned and buried his face in the mattress, smelling sheets that needed to be changed. Jadon probably hated him. Or, at best, thought Shaw was incurably fucked up.

  The buzzing started again, like a drill bit turning slowly against the bones in Shaw’s skull. He gritted his teeth. He burrowed deeper into the sheets. The phone vibrated against the floorboards so loudly that Shaw thought something was wrong, some safety setting in the phone had been deactivated. It was just too loud. Impossibly loud.

  Then, again, it cut off, and Shaw let out a sigh.

  North.

  Thinking about North was a hundred times worse than thinking about Jadon. Thinking about North was like sticking his head into a hornet’s nest: a swarm of stinging, poisonous barbs that hurt so much Shaw wanted to die. Hurt so much, if Shaw were honest, that he thought he might die from it. People had died from heartbreak before. And if it had been like this for those people, the incessant needling from a swarm of recriminations and self-hate, then Shaw could understand how people died from it.

  That kiss. Shaw had been waiting for that kiss for eight years. It had been exactly what he’d dreamed: tender and rough at the same time, demanding and gentle, North’s mouth bruising Shaw’s lips with a desire that matched Shaw’s own. But what Shaw hadn’t imagined was the parachute flare that went up in his head the same way it did when Jadon touched him: a white-out panic drifting down inside him, and the darkness rushing in behind it. Terror, above all else, that now North would find out how severely messed up Shaw was, and then he’d never want Shaw, never look at him the same again.

  The phone buzzed again, skittering across the floor, screen flashing. This time, Shaw crawled across the room and picked it up. North’s name showed on the screen. Shaw swiped to answer and closed his eyes.