“I just told you why.”

  “I couldn’t. Why would I put him in my car? Why?”

  “It’s the perfect misdirect,” Shaw said. “And it worked. The forensics proved Shep was killed somewhere else. In Donny’s trailer. You were going to get rid of two troublemakers in one blow. From the very beginning, everyone knew that Shep had died somewhere else. And that was the best part of the plan. The first seed of reasonable doubt. It worked on me.” He smiled again. “I was the only one stupid enough to believe your story. Until I realized you were lying.”

  “I haven’t lied,” Chuck shouted.

  Nels, rubbing his eyes, got to his feet, interposing his lanky frame between Chuck and Shaw. “What is this? Why are you shouting? Pari’s hurt, and she—”

  As though on cue, Pari groaned; her eyelids fluttered. She looked doped to the gills, but she also looked like she was trying to wake up.

  “You told us that you heard the fight between Shep and Donny and the other man,” Shaw said. “Was that Detective Taylor? Was it hard, making sure that we heard about that fight between Donny and Shep without realizing that you were downstairs, part of the conversation? Were you worried Beau would forget to tell us? We had to know that Donny had been there, we had to know that Donny had threatened Shep’s life. Otherwise, how were we ever going to connect those fibers on his body to Donny’s camper? You’re lucky that Beau spoke up.”

  “I didn’t—” Chuck began.

  “That’s enough,” North said. “Let’s go. Chuck, you’re coming with us. Nels, you can stay with Pari. We’re going to find Detective Reck, and we’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

  “No,” Chuck said, raising both hands. “No. I swear to Christ, I didn’t hurt Shep. I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t do any of this—the drugs, any of it.”

  “Shaw?” Pari said, her voice furry with the meds. “Did you bring me that strawberry-almond cake I like from McAllister’s?”

  Shaw ignored her for a moment, his full attention on Chuck. “The only reason you’d have to lie is because you needed Donny in the picture.”

  “No. God damn it. God damn both of you. I didn’t—” Chuck drew in a shuddering breath. She wiped more sweat from her face. Bleached hair plastered her forehead. Then she sagged. “Yes. I lied.”

  Shaw nodded.

  “But I didn’t hurt Shep.”

  “You better talk fast,” North said.

  “Can we do this somewhere else?”

  “What?” Shaw said. “Why?”

  “Can we do this anywhere else? Please?”

  “The hall,” Shaw said. “And North is going to stand in the doorway to keep an eye on Pari and Nels while we do. For all I know, you hired someone to attack her inside your apartment. It could have been Nels.”

  Chuck opened her mouth to protest, then nodded; her shoulders sagged, and all the fight had bled out of her. She led them into the harsh fluorescents in the hallway, and she looked ten times worse in the artificial light. The hollows under her eyes became bruises, greenish in the overhead glare.

  “All right,” Shaw said.

  “I was seeing someone. I’ve been seeing someone. I wasn’t even there that night. At Iris, I mean. I closed early and left without setting the alarm. I didn’t want Shep to know I ducked out.”

  “Someone besides Pari and Nels?”

  Chuck’s gaze dropped to the floor.

  “Don’t be a dumbass, Shaw,” North called from the door, his voice low but pitched to carry. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “But,” Shaw said, thinking of Nels’s head on Chuck’s shoulder, Nels’s pinky slipped through Chuck’s, Nels’s frustrated tears after Chuck’s arrest. “But the three of you are in a relationship. And you’re—you’re a lesbian.”

  Chuck managed to snuffle a laugh, wiping her eyes as she looked up at Shaw. “I’m not just a lesbian, I guess. I like Nels. I like it . . . just the two of us. I love Pari. I really do. But I don’t feel that way about her anymore.”

  “And Nels?”

  “I don’t know,” Chuck said, somewhere between a howl and a sob. “Try getting an answer out of him sometimes. He’s so open minded that I want to scream.”

  Shaw’s mind was racing; his conscious brain was trying to reassemble the facts, while his subconscious insisted that this was all still important—even more important, perhaps, than Shaw had first realized. He pieced his words together. “You were with Nels the night Shep disappeared.”

  Chuck nodded.

  “And the night you said you were at Iris, the night you said you overheard the fight between Donny and Shep, you were with Nels too.”

  “Yes,” Chuck whispered.

  “You didn’t hear the fight.”

  She shook her head.

  Then everything settled into place.

  “There was no fight.” Shaw spun, his eyes cutting to North, and said, “Beau was the one who brought it up. Beau was the one who told us, and then Chuck was cornered; she had to say something, or Pari would find out about her and Nels. Beau lied to us. He made the whole thing up. He told us that whole story just so we’d start looking at Donny. The attack on Pari, that was about Donny too, putting him right under our nose again.”

  North shrugged, but his face had hardened. “The old tricks stick around for a reason.”

  Shaw sprinted toward the stairs, North pounding along at his side.

  Chapter 33

  IRIS HOUSE WAS FULL of kids in the midafternoon. A group of boys between twelve and fourteen, all of them fully decked out as goths—black eyeliner, white makeup, lots of denim and leather and zippers—played Dungeons and Dragons at a table pulled up to the front windows. Then, a little farther into the house, a light-skinned boy played horse with a group of girls who looked, to North’s gaze, like they could kick some serious ass with the combat boots they were wearing. In a reading nook near the kitchen, two boys in booty shorts and tanks were making out, hard, and North had to elbow Shaw.

  “I was just looking at the books,” Shaw said, rubbing his side.

  “You’re a fucking pervert is what you are.”

  “They’re reading D. H. Lawrence.”

  “What they’re doing is none of your business, Shaw.”

  “I think you broke a rib.”

  “Yeah, well, you weren’t worried about your ribs when you were trying to look up that blond kid’s shorts.”

  “I was just checking which edition of Lady Chatterley’s Lover he had.”

  “He’s fifteen, Shaw.”

  Still rubbing his side, Shaw nodded and sighed. “You’re right. He’s too young for it to be a first edition.”

  “No, I just meant you’re a gross old man.”

  Beau came out of the kitchen then, and Shaw and North stopped in the middle of the family room. Beau wore a t-shirt featuring The Cure today, and his eyes brightened behind the glasses when he saw them. “Mr. Aldrich, Mr. McKinney. It’s good to see you.” He came over to them, shaking their hands as he said, “Thank you for what you did for Chuck. I still can’t believe it, not really, about Donny. But I don’t know. It’s—it’s better than Chuck being locked up for something she didn’t do, I guess.”

  “Oh, crap,” Shaw said. “I forgot the clothes.”

  “The clothes?”

  “I brought some stuff I thought the kids might want.” He spun and ran back toward the front door.

  “We don’t really take donations like that,” Beau called after him, but Shaw just waved without looking back and kept running. Then Beau looked at North.

  Shrugging, North said, “If you’re lucky, it’ll be stuff from one of his semi-decent phases. One time he was really into California skateboard, and he bought a shit ton of Volcom. But it’s probably going to be something like a reproduction of the entire wardrobe from Peanuts or an original Urkel outfit.”

  “Wasn’t Peanuts a cartoon?”

  “Exactly. That’s my point. Hey, can I talk to you for a minute about Shep? We have some follow-up questions. Stuff that Chuck was wondering about; she asked us to look around a little more. Drugs, I think. And the money.”

  Beau glanced around, checking the kids.

  “We can do it down here if you want,” North said. “I’ve got a list of the club boys that Shep was selling to—”

  “No,” Beau shot in a low voice. “Not that kind of thing, not down here with the kids. Hold on.” He crossed over to the two boys in booty shorts and kicked one of them in the sole. “Peter, you know the rules. No lying down together. Nothing horizontal.” He kicked the other boy in the bottom of the foot. “Andre, you know the rules too. No tongue. No. Absolutely not. Don’t give me that look; I invented that look.”

  Disentangling themselves, the boys sat up, flashing sullen glowers at Beau and then, in an act of defiance, engaging in one long, last kiss with plenty of tongue. Beau brought his hand back like he might swat Peter on the back of the head, and the boys broke apart, laughing and sprinting away, holding hands as they went.

  “It’s basically a full-time job keeping Andre out of Peter’s pants,” Beau said, beckoning for North to follow him into the kitchen.

  “They’re young,” North said, and a portion of his mind slid back through time to the Kayak’s Coffee, to the day when he had looked at Shaw and seen not the annoying hipster from down the hall but, in his place, something else. Something more. And then, like a slap in the face, North was back in Shaw’s house again, his ass on the bathroom tile, staring up at Shaw and seeing the anger and outrage and humiliation. He drew a steadying breath and said, “Aren’t they all trying to get in each other’s pants?”

  “You’d think so,” Beau said, stopping at the back door to shut it and shake his head. “That’s the other thing about teenagers. They go through this place like a windmill. You’d think it would kill them to shut a door, close the fridge, turn off a light.” Taking the back stairs, he led North up to the office. “But as you can probably guess, sexual readiness varies widely, especially among LGBTQ kids. Peter’s dad is in the ironworkers union, and he’s nowhere near ready to come out. I’m not sure he’d know what to do if Andre ever got him alone—probably freak out.” Beau flipped on the lights and moved around the desk, dropping into his seat on the other side. He pawed at the snowstorm of paperwork on his desk, moved his laptop, opened a desk drawer, and sighed. “I thought I had it—oh well. Never mind. You wanted to talk about something? Club boys?” Another small smile. “If Andre heard you talking about them, he’d probably knock down the door trying to get to the closest club. That boy is desperate to get laid. And, like a lot of the boys, terrified of it too. Maybe that’s why he likes Peter; he knows it’s safe.”

  For another moment, North was back on the cold tile, staring up at Shaw. But now he was seeing the both of them from a distance, Shaw and himself, as though he formed the third leg of a triangle. From this position, he could trace the evolution of his desire over the years. At first, it had been attraction; Shaw checked all his boxes. Then, it had been attraction and friendship compounded. And then, as months turned into years, as they lived together, worked together, spent every day together, it turned into something else. Shaw turned into something North wanted but couldn’t have. Shaw turned into a safe place, a refuge from the domestic storms North weathered with Tucker. Shaw became a beacon of light and hope and happiness, all of it built on top of the aggressive pulse of desire that North still felt whenever he glanced at Shaw, saw that coppery patch of hair glinting in the sun, touched skin to skin. And it had all been a dream; North felt a bitter smile eating away at his face. Shaw had never felt the same, and North had built up a fantasy. Just like he had freshman year. Just like he had when he had sent Tucker. Only this time, Tucker hadn’t lied. This time, North had learned the truth himself. The hard way. With his ass on cold tile.

  “Mr. McKinney?” Beau said.

  The drawer was still open. Beau’s hand was probably six inches from it.

  “I thought we might wait for Shaw.”

  “I really don’t have a lot of time. I can’t leave the kids unsupervised.” Beau flashed a smile, but now, in the weak, artificial light of the office, it looked cheap and thin. “What did you need to ask me about?”

  North fought to keep his eyes from the drawer. He kept his eyes on Beau; he shifted in the chair, slowly, inch by inch, so that if he needed to, he could reach back and grab the CZ holstered at the small of his back. “I can figure out all of it except the booze.”

  “I’m sorry? Was there—” Beau licked his lips. His face was pasty, shiny with a sick man’s sweat. “Did Shep have some kind of drinking problem?”

  “It’s just the two of us now, Beau. The cops already have Donny. He’s dead, just like you wanted. They’re not looking for anyone else. So you can tell me how you did it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he licked his lips again. He had lost so much color that his eyes looked dark and sunken.

  North fought the urge to let his gaze slip to the drawer; he felt the weight of the CZ at the small of his back, its hard lines uncomfortable when he sat. Why had he ever taken a seat? He should have stayed standing. “Let’s wait for Shaw.”

  “No. No, you’re saying something, you—” Beau wiped one sweaty hand on his chest, but it wasn’t the hand closest to the drawer. “What are you saying?”

  “Did you ever forgive Shep?” North said. “Or was that a lie?”

  Beau moved faster than North expected; he had the compact pistol out of the drawer and trained on North before North could twist around and free the CZ from its holster. Frozen, North stared down the barrel of the pistol. He hoped Shaw had been fast enough. He hoped Shaw hadn’t gotten distracted by a daisy or a butterfly or two gay boys in booty shorts.

  “Hands on the desk, please,” Beau said, his voice trembling. “That’s right. Just like that. Now, I want to hear what you know. From the beginning, as they say.”

  “I already talked to Detective—”

  “Don’t give me that. You haven’t talked to them yet, or they’d be here. You just told me they got Donny. You told me they’re satisfied. Good. They should be satisfied. Once Shep was dead, Donny was too much of a risk; he’s a loose cannon. He might have said something about their little side business.” A shaky smile creased Beau’s lips. “You know, Shep and Donny had worked this kind of operation before. Shep kept Donny stocked inside Zoar; that was the first time they tried to corner the market. They did pretty well, but they did even better here because they didn’t have to deal with the religious element. I have to admit I was a little worried that Taylor and Waggener would leave Donny alone; I thought they might want to keep their side gig running. I thought they might hang it all on Chuck just so they could keep Donny out in the clear, so I left them a trail of breadcrumbs a mile wide. It still took too long for them to put it all together.”

  They stared at each other. Under North’s hands, the desk was slick with his sweat, and he felt his grip slip a quarter of an inch. The room was too hot; up this high, with the sun pounding on the house’s ancient roof, the office felt like a pressure cooker.

  “I asked you a question,” North said. “Did you really forgive him?”

  Beau stared at North over the compact pistol; his knuckles were white where his fingers curled around the gun’s grip. Then Beau said, “Of course not.”

  North raised an eyebrow.

  “That miserable son of a bitch ruined my life. He ruined everything. I wasn’t just . . . I wasn’t just some little fag he tried to cure, ok? I had goals. Dreams. I was on track to go to Harvard or Stanford. I had the grades. I did well on the practice SATs. I was student body president. I dated the head cheerleader.” Beau’s grin was goblinish on his thin face; the glasses had become slightly askew, and it made his gaze manic and warped. “Until she caught me fucking her brother in his bedroom one night —he was a junior at University of Arkansas, by the way, and was about the frattiest piece of shit to ever walk the earth. He was home for summer break. Then, poof, all gone. No girlfriend. No student body president. No school, for that matter. My parents packed me up and shipped me out.”

  North eyed the wiry man, whose chest rose and fell erratically. His index finger lay on the trigger. He still clutched the gun hard enough to make his knuckles blanch. North said, “You weren’t much of the golden boy after Zoar, were you? You said you were fucked up. You were, what? Some kind of whore?”

  The pistol jerked, as though a current had galvanized Beau’s arm, and North waited for the shot. But then Beau chuffed a breath and said, “No. I want to know what you know. And then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.”

  “You killed Shep. I know that much.”

  “Keep going.”

  “You were sleeping with him.”

  “I told you that much. You’re a pretty pathetic detective if that’s all you’ve got.”

  “I figured out it was you, didn’t I?”

  “I’m guessing Shaw figured it out. He didn’t like me from the start.”

  “That’s because he thought you wanted to fuck me. He’s a jealous little shit, unfortunately.” North grinned. “You knew Donny was in town. You knew Donny was the perfect scapegoat. The drugs. The money. The dirty cops. Donny liked to fight. Donny liked to hurt people. Donny lived out of a camper, and he drifted from place to place. He was disreputable. He had prior convictions. The perfect guy to take the fall for Shep’s murder.”

  “Donny was violent. He was an . . . an asshole. He would pin kids up against the wall and try to . . . do things to them. Not because he liked them. Because he wanted to hurt them. Being a fag doesn’t make you a good person, you know. Being a fag who got sent to one of those hellholes, it doesn’t make you decent. Donny was an asshole when he went in; he was worse when he came out.”

  “So you could get two birds with one stone. You knew Donny was here. You talked to Shep about him, even; Chuck overheard part of that conversation. You and Shep were getting serious, weren’t you? You were one of Shep’s wet dreams come to life: a Zoar boy he could touch, hold, fuck, and not have to feel bad about it. He was going to leave Mike for you.”