Then he felt how hot North was. Even through the cotton of the peasant blouse that Shaw was wearing, North’s face felt like it was leaving Shaw with a bad sunburn.

  “North, come on. What happened? Did that son of a bitch start hitting you again?” Shaw froze as he heard the question. He tried to stop himself.

  It was too late. North’s whole frame tensed, and he peeled himself away from Shaw and took a step back. For an instant, a look of terrible betrayal ran across North’s face. And then it was gone, and the pale hardness was back.

  “I guess you knew. How long?” He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  “I didn’t—North, let’s talk about this. We’ll find somewhere to go. Jadon can stay and keep an eye on Pari and Chuck, and we can—”

  “Talk? No thanks. You already know, right? And I know. So there’s nothing to talk about.” North grimaced, gathering the collar of his blood-spotted tee, and dragged the shirt off. Pale slabs of muscle gleamed in the red wash of sunlight. The Levi’s hung so low on his waist that a trail of blond stubble was visible at the front, the deep clefts of his lower abdomen accented by the light.

  Shaw tried to be a decent human being and not look. He failed. Then he said, “There’s a lot to talk about. I want you to know that I never—”

  Shaking his head again, North said, “Nah.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t . . . North, I need to—”

  “Nah.” He shook his head hard. Then, folding the shirt so that the bloodstains were hidden, he tucked it into the back of his jeans. Already, sweat glazed the hard lines of his shoulders and chest. Even at eight o’clock, a St. Louis evening in July was an oven. When a breeze stirred, carrying the smell of hot asphalt and North’s sweat, it couldn’t lift the thatch of blond hair that was plastered to his forehead.

  “Please, I really need to explain why I—”

  “I said no, Shaw. What the fuck don’t you understand about that?” Then, shrugging, he added, “It doesn’t matter anymore. So just, no, ok?”

  Without waiting for an answer, North trotted over to a Beamer that Shaw recognized as Tucker’s. He dug around in the trunk and came back with a purple t-shirt that said St. Alban’s 2016 and wormed into it, even though it was definitely too small. When he came back, he passed Shaw without a comment, heading around the side of the house, and Shaw had to hurry after him.

  “There they are,” Jadon was saying. “Shaw, North, this is Detective Taylor.” He was old, with a crag of a nose, and he still had shoulders like a linebacker. “And Detective Waggener.” She was petite, blond, mousily pretty in a way so many women were when they entered their thirties. “They’re working this case, and they’d like to ask you some questions. You already know Detective Barr.” Barr, with his bushy dark eyebrows and his bushy dark hair and his bushy little sliver of goatee, stared at them; there was obviously still no love lost with Detective Barr.

  “Did you find him?” Shaw asked. “Is that really Shep Collins in the back of the Bug?”

  “We’re going to be asking the questions,” Taylor said.

  “We can’t comment on an ongoing investigation,” Waggener said.

  Barr grunted.

  “It’s our ongoing investigation too,” North said. “We were hired to find him.”

  After that, Shaw and North couldn’t really get a word in. Taylor and Waggener separated them and ran them through the paces: question after question, backtracking, versions of the same question, and then starting all over from the beginning. Then, after a while, they switched places. Barr moved in circles, listening at the edge of one interrogation and then drifting to listen to the other detective. For a time he moved and stood at the back of the Bug, staring at something Shaw couldn’t see. By the time the detectives had finished, the city lay in darkness, broken only by the halogen floods of the forensics team and a few ashy globes of light that studded the alley.

  With a warning that they should stay available for future questioning, Waggener and Taylor released Shaw and North, and the two men found themselves guided out of the backyard by a uniformed officer. Jadon waited on the sidewalk, running his hands through his short, messy hair, pacing, and then letting out a breath when he saw them.

  Shaw smiled at him, but he craned his head, trying to catch a last glimpse of the backyard. What he saw made his heart drop: Pari and Chuck were being led away by separate officers. Both women wore handcuffs.

  Chapter 9

  YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING even if you go over there.” Jadon planted himself in Shaw’s doorway, and Shaw tossed his keys in one hand. “Trust me. I know. What you can do is get some sleep, get up in the morning, and see if they’ve been charged.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “You need rest.”

  “I need to—”

  “Sit on a bench under fluorescent lights for the next eight hours?” Jadon shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “If Pari and Chuck need—”

  “If they need anyone, it’s going to be a lawyer. Not you.” Jadon caught Shaw’s wrist lightly, and with his other hand he plucked the keys from Shaw’s grip. “Babe, you’re exhausted. And you’re upset. And you feel helpless because there’s nothing you can do right now.”

  Shaw nodded; his eyes stung, and he was glad when Jadon pulled him against his chest, and Shaw could blink his tears into the softness of Jadon’s shirt.

  “You think I don’t know?” Jadon was murmuring, one hand working against the tension in Shaw’s back. “You think I can’t tell that you’re not sleeping?”

  “I’ve got to make sure—”

  “If they need you, baby, they’re going to need you tomorrow. Not right now.” Jadon’s touch drifted higher. His nails scraped lightly against the nape of Shaw’s neck. His breathing changed. And then Shaw could feel Jadon hardening against him. “I know one way to take your mind off things.”

  He tilted Shaw’s head back and kissed him: soft at first, then growing in intensity, his hands ripping at the laces on the peasant blouse, then dragging it up and off of Shaw, exposing Shaw’s chest. His touch was gentle and slow. He counted Shaw’s ribs. He teased the back of his fingers across Shaw’s belly, then lower, the back of his hand pressing hard against Shaw’s bush, hard enough that Shaw groaned into the next kiss. His mouth moved to Shaw’s jaw. Then to Shaw’s ear, his tongue flicking lightly, and Shaw moaned, melting into the contact. Jadon’s hands brushed lightly at Shaw’s nipples, which didn’t do much for Shaw but which made Jadon’s breathing deepen even more. His tongue was back at Shaw’s ear. Then on Shaw’s neck, and Shaw keened. He was an instrument being played, and Jadon knew how to elicit that wail of pleasure over and over again.

  Only—

  Only it was happening again. Even as Shaw hardened, even as goosebumps covered his skin, even as he grunted, thrusting insistently at that soft, yielding pressure from Jadon’s hand, it was all going away. That enormous brilliance in his head was back, whiting out everything, and as it drifted, darkness came behind it, swallowing Shaw.

  Then he couldn’t breathe. Jadon’s tongue was in his mouth, and Shaw wasn’t getting any air. He pushed away. Jadon’s arms snaked around him, dragging him closer, and Shaw broke the kiss. He turned his head. Jadon bit him low on the neck. Shaw could hear the frantic whistle of his own breathing, and he managed to say, “No.”

  “Babe?” Jadon said.

  Breaking free, Shaw stumbled back. His legs hit the couch, and he fell onto the cushions. “I just—” He struggled to get free of the darkness that was dropping over him more deeply. Sometimes, when he was too slow, Matty’s face came to him in that darkness. “I just had an idea.”

  “You had an idea?”

  Jadon leaned against the door as he studied Shaw. His erection was visible through his pants, and he grimaced and adjusted himself without breaking his gaze.

  “Yeah, I just—I thought of something.”

  “Ok.”

  Shaw wanted to drop his head between his knees. He wanted to take long, deep breaths. Instead, he tried to focus on easy, better things: he remembered playing softball with Rufus and Peter and Paul and North when they were still at Chouteau; he thought about the St. Patrick’s Day when everybody had gotten so hammered that someone had decided it was a good idea to ride the Metrolink to the end of the line, only nobody had bothered to check when the trains stopped running, so they ended up stuck in Town and Country in the middle of the night, and Tuck hadn’t had any shoes; he remembered squeezing onto a twin bed in the dorms next to North, a laptop balanced across their legs, and watching the first episode of Supernatural ever in his whole life and the smell of North’s skin and wondering how he had lived his whole life without either of those things.

  “So what’s your idea?” Jadon asked.

  “What?”

  “This big idea.” Jadon mimed a lightbulb going off. “What is it?”

  “I’m sorry.” Shaw was feeling better. He wiped his face and stood. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Shaw, baby, you didn’t do anything wrong.” But Jadon’s face told a different story. Jadon’s face showed puzzlement, frustration, and the beginning of hurt. This hadn’t been the first time. It hadn’t even been close to the first time. And Shaw could only concoct so many explanations before they all started to sound like bullshit, even to him. “I’m just trying to get you to talk to me so my dick doesn’t break my zipper.”

  “Oh, I was just thinking—hold on.” Shaw sprinted down the hall to his bedroom, retrieved his laptop, and sprinted back. He held it up as he dropped back onto the couch, saying, “I remembered another white page search site that I need to try.”

  “You were thinking about white page search sites.”

  “It’s been months, Jay. I can’t find her anywhere.”

  With a groan that he probably tried to muffle, Jadon peeled himself off the door and came to drop onto the couch next to Shaw. Shaw tried. He really tried. But after a moment, he scooted along the cushion to give himself an inch of breathing room. “You know,” Jadon said, his hand coming up to rest on Shaw’s neck, his fingers tightening, “a lot of guys might take that the wrong way. Here we are. I’ve practically got your nipple halfway down my throat. You’re getting nice and hard against my leg. And all of a sudden, you’re thinking about a dead cop’s widow.”

  “She’s my only lead,” Shaw said, but a flush prickled down his neck and across his chest. He had to fight the urge to shake himself like a dog to get Jadon’s hand off his neck. “I know it’s not much, but—”

  “Shaw, baby.” Jadon’s other hand came around in front of Shaw, and for a moment, Shaw had the panicked thought that Jadon might touch him again, might caress him. But Jadon just closed the laptop and said, “It’s turning into an obsession. And before you say anything, I want to get my piece out.” He smirked. “Well, not that piece, because this widow has apparently cockblocked me, but I want to say my piece. I know this is important. I know you want answers about the man who attacked you. I know there’s something weird about that security camera footage and about the car belonging to Marjorie Parrish. But Joe Parrish has been dead for years. He was dead before I even joined the force. And he didn’t die from some conspiracy. He didn’t kill himself. It was cancer, babe. And it was slow and awful. I asked around.”

  Shaw was opening his mouth to argue—just because he died of cancer didn’t rule out a conspiracy—but Jadon’s last words shocked him. “You asked around?”

  “Yeah.” Jadon smiled, a real smile, which was ten times hotter than those little crinkles around his eyes. He cupped Shaw’s face, his thumb teasing the corner of Shaw’s mouth. “Babe, I want you to get some answers. I want you to get closure on this. I asked about Parrish. I asked about his wife, if anyone knew where she lived. I asked about the West End Slasher. I’m trying, baby. And I’m going to keep trying. But this—” He gestured at the laptop. “I feel weird. I feel like it’s between us, like this wall I can’t get around. And I’m not just talking about tonight, ok?”

  Shaw thought about the letter hidden under the pile of jockstraps. He thought about all the letters he’d written over the last few months, letters written to Roman Stroud, the man who had been tried and convicted for the West End Slasher killings. Shaw had written over and over again, pleading, begging, bargaining to be added to Stroud’s approved visitors list. He thought about this most recent letter, notifying Shaw that he had been approved to visit Stroud. Shaw wondered how long he could twist and turn before he had to face all the lies he’d been telling lately.

  “You’re right.”

  Those crinkles were back around Jadon’s eyes. “Really?”

  “I’m sorry. I hear what you’re saying. I’m sorry I made you feel like this was more important than you. And I’m sorry I’m not—I’m sorry I’m not there yet, ok? It’s just. I’ve only, well, just with one other guy, and I—”

  Jadon slid his thumb across Shaw’s lips, sealing his mouth. With a smile, Jadon shook his head; his eyes were glossy, and they reminded Shaw of salt water streaming across dark sand. “Babe, you never, ever have to apologize for that. Ever. If you never want to do it, well, we’ll figure something out. If you do, well, that would be fantastic.” The crinkles around his eyes grew deeper. “And I promise I would make sure it was fantastic. People tell me I’m pretty good.”

  Shaw twisted away from Jadon’s hand and grinned. “Is there an exit survey?”

  Flopping back on the couch, arms behind his head, Jadon said, “I have Gallup do follow-up questionnaires.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, the results are conclusive.”

  “Really?”

  “Sorry. No spoilers.” Then Jadon cocked his head, and a smirk grew on his face. Another hot rash prickled down the center of Shaw’s chest. “Babe, could we try something next time? I mean, just try. I want to see if it helps.”

  Shaw nodded.

  “You’ll tell me if it’s not working, right? And I don’t mean telling me that you forgot your camel-hair shoes are in the washer or that you just remembered the fourteenth line of a sonnet you’ve been composing or you happened to remember—” He mimed a lightbulb again. “—another white page site. You’ll just tell me, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Babe.”

  “Yeah,” Shaw said more strongly. “I can do that.”

  Jadon sat up and kissed him. Then, he said, “Do you want to talk about all this? About the attack? About—” He hesitated, and then, plunging forward, “About Matty? I’m not trying to pry, babe. But it’s important to talk things out, and you aren’t talking.”

  “I talk to Dr. Farr.”

  “Ok, but, I mean, there are other people.”

  “Oh, Master Hermes knows. He cleansed my aura after—”

  Running a hand through darkly sandy hair, Jadon shook his head. “Me, Shaw. At some point, you need to talk about it with me.”

  “Oh.” Shaw hadn’t really thought about that. “Yeah. Right.”

  “Are you really going to trawl the white page sites and try to find her?”

  “Um. No. I guess not.”

  Jadon raised his eyebrows. “If you don’t want to talk, and you don’t want to mess around, do you want me to go?”

  “No.” Shaw spoke the word so quickly that he could feel heat washing over his cheekbones. “I mean, it’s up to you. I just—I don’t know. I’m tired. Maybe I should just go to bed.”

  “You’re not stealing my blankets tonight.”

  “I never steal blankets.”

  “You were practically in a cocoon last time. I want my own blanket. I want coffee in the morning—served to me in bed. And I want you to kiss me goodnight.” His eyes crinkled. “Two kisses, actually.”

  “Yes to your own blanket. No coffee, but I’ve got this incredible lemon rind tea that I’ll make. But I’ll bump you up to—” Shaw wrinkled his nose. “—three kisses. Time and place chosen by you.”

  “Deal.” Jadon fell against Shaw, bearing him down against the sofa, peppering his mouth and jaw and throat with kisses, and then he rolled off and fell on the floor. His eyes crinkled as he stared up at Shaw, a goofy smile on his face, and said, “Those didn’t count, by the way.”

  Chapter 10

  THE BLONDIE BRICK HOUSE on Winona never changed. North had grown up here; his mother had died here. His father would die here too, probably sooner than North expected. As North sat behind the wheel of the Beamer, the engine ticking as it cooled, he studied the street and told himself he was reminiscing.

  In the gray light from the street lamps, the rough edges of the blue-collar neighborhood softened. The peeling paint was harder to notice; the warped lines of fencing were easier to miss. Everything looked a little more respectable, which was a good thing. Lindenwood Park was still a nice neighborhood, still a working-class neighborhood, and that was impressive in one of America’s most dangerous cities. Somehow, this urban slice had survived the destitution and decay that had blighted so much of St. Louis. A lot of that, North knew, had been possible because of men like his father, and North wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

  Grabbing his bag from the seat, North made his way along the side of the house, bypassing the front door, which nobody used, and letting himself in at the sun porch—never locked, of course. He fenced Jasper and Jones with his foot, keeping them from sprinting out the door, and they yowled and whined for a minute before rubbing up against his foot. He didn’t blame them for wanting to get out; cat piss fouled the air, and North wondered how long it had been since his father had cleaned their litter box. If, that was, he had ever cleaned it. Maybe he didn’t even smell it anymore, the way he couldn’t smell the black pall of cigar smoke that hazed every room in the small house.