Chapter 28

THOMAS PARKED his Maserati on the street in front of the Newseum residences and steeled himself. He ignored the multiple calls from Randy. He couldn’t take the risk that Charles would know. As he exited his car, he summoned an image of Zach to mind. Not the terrified face on his phone but the shining man in the National Gallery, standing next to a portrait that was more than five hundred years old.

That moment—when he saw Zach’s lack of awareness of his own beauty, his shy certainty at first that Randy and Thomas were teasing him, and his quiet pride when he met Thomas’s eyes and believed, for a moment, that maybe he was special to Thomas—was surely when Thomas fell in love with him. He knew it much too late, but that was the only weapon he had—the certainty that he was in love with Zachary Hall and was prepared to kill or die to save him.

He stepped into the lobby and asked the concierge for the apartment number Charles had given. She picked up her house phone, dialed, and then announced, “Mr. Ryder, a Mr. Scarborough is here.” She nodded at Thomas as she hung up, and directed him to the elevators.

As he rode up, adrenaline surged through his body. He hadn’t been in a fistfight since he was a boy, but his muscles coiled, and he clenched his fists and jaw. On the top floor of the building, he stalked down the hall to the designated door, rang the bell, and crouched slightly. He prepared to throw himself on Charles as soon as the door opened.

Footsteps approached.

He pulled his right elbow back, ready to swing.

But when Charles opened the door, Thomas’s eyes were drawn immediately to a remote control of some kind that Charles held high and visible in his left hand. His body blocked the room behind him.

Charles took in his posture and smiled. “Do you know what a dead man’s switch is, Jason?” he asked.

Thomas nodded and—suddenly unsure—stood straight and consciously relaxed his fists.

“Good,” Charles said. “My machine is already activated and raring to go, so the only thing that keeps it from fulfilling its function is the fact that I have my thumb pressed down on this little trigger. If I drop this remote, then I’m afraid Zachary will be the first to know.” He stepped back and opened the door wider.

Over his shoulder, in the middle of a large living room and parallel to the wall of windows, Thomas saw Zach strapped down. A monstrous machine was positioned to aim between his legs, and an enormous dildo seemed mere inches away from invading his body. Lights on the machine indicated it was powered up, and Thomas could hear the hum of a motor. Zach still had a ball gag in his mouth, and his eyes on Thomas’s were wet and pleading.

Charles gestured at the machine. “It’s a work of art, isn’t it? I’m quite proud. I built it myself, you know. It’s already turned on, as I said, so all that’s keeping the creature from being introduced is this device.” He waved the remote in the air and cackled. “If I drop it, then Zachary switches from being a living man to a dead man. I guess that’s why it’s called a dead man’s switch.”

“I understand,” Thomas said over Charles’s peals of laughter.

Charles calmed and then turned his full attention to Thomas once more. “Now. Let me look at you, Jason.” Satisfaction dripped from his voice.

He stepped behind Thomas to close and lock the apartment door. Thomas met Zach’s eyes as Charles moved behind him. Wordlessly he tried to tell Zach that everything would be all right, even though he had no idea how to keep that promise. He mouthed the words “Be strong.”

Charles put a hand on his shoulder as he walked around Thomas to stand again between him and Zach’s bound body. “Jason,” he sighed. “My Beloved. I’ve waited for this for so long.”

Thomas swallowed and licked his lips. He had to buy time to think of a plan. No one even knew where he was, so he was Zach’s only hope. “I have so many questions, Charles,” he began, but he heard the weakness and tremor in his own voice.

“Ask me, Jason. You put me through so many tests.” Charles suddenly blinked and shook his head slowly. “So many tests.” Sadness tinged his voice when he continued. “I was alone for so long. Your tests were very difficult for me.” He bowed his head momentarily, and when he looked up again, he gave a beatific smile Thomas longed to wipe off his face. “You deserve to know how I conquered them to make my way back to you.”

Thomas forced himself to speak more assuredly, as though he were in court. Although hatred churned in his belly, he said evenly, “I’m very proud of you, Charles. You’ve worked hard to convince me that you really love me. Tell me first—how did you pull off the suicide?”

Charles grinned at him. “That was clever, wasn’t it? I realized, after my parents threw me out, that you must have obtained the restraining order as a way to force me to stand independently from them. That was the only thing I could think of, about why you would humiliate me that way. And you were so right, Jason. I realized I didn’t need them, though I could still use them.”

“Wait. Your parents kicked you out?” Thomas asked. “When was this?”

“When the police arrested me for that misunderstanding on the street. You remember how the tabloids picked up the story? Oh, there was much gnashing of tooth and claw at the Rumson manor that night, I can tell you. Mother slapped me in front of the servants, and Father was apoplectic at the scandal. He raged at me for hours about what this would do to his business dealings, how it would look at the country club, how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it was to have a faggot child.

“Of course he didn’t say it that way. Father isn’t very literary.” A strange light grew in Charles’s eyes. “But Mother… oh, she was almost poetic when she came to my room later. She was quite clear that I had to make the situation go away quietly, and then I needed to find a different place to live.” Charles narrowed his eyes at the memory.

Thomas swallowed hard and said, “I’m sorry that happened to you, Charles. I never meant for you to lose your home like that.”

“You hurt me, Jason,” Charles said quietly. “I couldn’t understand why you had done that. Why you pretended in public that you didn’t want me when you had to know we were perfect together. When Nan told me to leave…. It was a very long night.” A glisten appeared at the corner of his eye, and Thomas tried to gauge whether to reach out. Before he could make a move, though, Charles snapped back to awareness again. “I was shocked at first, of course, but I understood quickly what I had to do. What you needed me to do.”

Thomas licked his lips. He dreaded the answer to the questions he had to ask, but he needed to keep him talking for Zach.

“What did you realize, Charles?” he asked.

“I had to leave behind the Rumson home and name and stand on my own feet if I was ever to be worthy of you. I saw that right away, so I left the estate and moved to the Olympic Hotel until I had a plan. It took a few days to get things lined up and to find the right sort of substitute to put in the car, but all in all, I was quite pleased with the way it came off.”

“Substitute?” Thomas asked. Light dawned, and with it, horror. “Of course. You put someone else in the Porsche before you drove it off the cliff.”

Charles nodded, and satisfaction showed in his face. “I did. It was easy. All I had to do was search the escort ads until I found someone who looked enough like me to pass scrutiny. Then I stashed him near the park, and I was very, very visible all over town until I needed him to fill the part of Charles Rumson, and I became Sam Ryder.”

Charles frowned. “I wonder if that was his real name or just what he called himself as an escort. You know, Ryder? Like rider? A bit on the nose, if it was a fake name.” Charles’s manic grin again stretched his mouth. “But an interesting example of the power of a name if he was actually born Sam Ryder. Don’t you think so, Jason? Like Rumson. I think that’s what they would say in England. I was a rum son. I was made very aware of that.”

What was Charles trying to tell him? “Did your parents…?” Thomas paused as he recalled the thin white scars on Charles’s back and buttocks. “Did they hurt you?”

A stern look appeared in Charles’s eyes. “She could never hurt me. She just wanted me to be strong.”

“Who wanted that, Charles? Your mother?”

He nodded. “Father would get so angry with me, and so Nan came to my room sometimes. After he beat me. She would make me lie there while she rubbed lotion on my skin. She would… use things on me. In me. She said it was important because it would make me a better man.”

His face was flushed, and his hand drooped. “She had a bamboo rod, and she used it to help me learn how to get past the pain. You see? For every stroke I took, she would give me a kiss.”

Thomas swallowed and flicked his eyes to the hand holding the dead man’s switch. “When did this start, Charles?”

“What? Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I was eight or nine.”

Jesus. Her own son….

Thomas knew Nan Rumson, had seen her brittle smile, carefully arranged platinum hair, and glittering eyes at many events. She had a reputation for ruthlessness in her various charitable committees, but this was beyond anything he’d imagined.

“Did you tell anyone?”

“Tell? That my mother loved me? Oh no. That was our special secret.” Charles gave a sad smile. “I remember once she found me with the son of our head gardener. I was probably twelve years old, and I think he was about six. We were in the shed down near the pool house, and I wanted to share with him some of the things I’d learned so he could grow up strong. One of the yard boys saw me lead him into the shed, and he summoned Mother. I hadn’t done very much when she came in—just a little probing—but she was very upset that I’d tried to share my lessons with others. That was just for us, she said.”

He shivered. “Once she dealt with the gardener and the one who had reported me, she said it was my turn to be punished. That was our last special visit because I’d made a mistake and she couldn’t trust me any longer. She made the last lesson quite thorough. I couldn’t sit down for days afterward because she loved me that much.”

“Charles, that wasn’t love.”

He smiled hugely. “Of course it was. Mother wanted me to be happy and to feel good and be strong. You tried to do that for me that night you chose me and brought me to your apartment in Seattle. I wasn’t ready then, but that’s what you’ll do for me, Jason. You’ll help me keep getting stronger.”

Thomas nodded cautiously. “I admit I didn’t understand what you were up to.” He swallowed the bile that surged into his throat, and he continued. “You were so clever, Charles. I didn’t realize how clever until now. The public appearances—were those just about drawing attention to you?”

“That was part of it. I needed a lot of evidence that I was acting irrationally, although of course I was in complete charge and I knew exactly what I was doing.” A malicious smile touched his lips. “A delightful bonus was making a scandal that would live on to torture Father. I admit I was annoyed that it didn’t last longer. Maybe a week. Then some Kardashian or another got pregnant, and my death was no longer as interesting.”

“Were you counting on the car exploding when it went over the cliff? I mean, how did you think no one would identify the, uh… your substitute?”

“Okay. That was a slight miscalculation,” Charles said dismissively as he waved his hand with the switch. Thomas tracked that hand carefully. “Maybe I watched too many movies, but I thought cars always exploded. I assumed that, with my very public displays, there would be no reason to study the remains. When the car failed to catch fire, however, I made a quick call to dear Mother. She had already seen the footage of my declarations around town. I warned her that if she really cared that much about the Rumson name, it would be wise to get herself quickly to the morgue and get ‘my’ body before anyone could look too closely.”

Charles giggled, and admiration appeared on his face. “Nan Milliken Rumson is a resourceful woman. She must have handled it all with aplomb, because ‘I’ was cremated within the day.” Charles smirked when he added, “That was what I’d actually intended, anyway, just with the Porsche as my coffin.”

“So Nan helped you?” Thomas asked.

“Well, not happily, of course. She didn’t want to let me go, but by then I knew it was time to move beyond her. We’ve never spoken since I made that call on the day of the suicide, but there must have been other things she did to help disguise my tracks.”

“So where did you go for two years? Why did you come out of hiding now?” Thomas asked. Inside he tried desperately to figure out how to grab the remote from Charles’s hand without the machine going off and killing or maiming Zach. Squeeze his hand closed? It was a tremendous risk, but did he have an alternative?

He found no opening, and he flicked his eyes past Charles’s shoulder to try to see Zach. The wall of windows gaped behind Charles’s back, and Thomas could see the National Gallery as his mind worked. If he could hold Charles’s hand closed, maybe he could propel them both across the room and out the window. No, that won’t work. The switch would trigger with our fall.

“Two years. Ah, well, that’s almost funny,” Charles said with a grin. “You should understand. One of the advantages of having a family in real estate development is there are many, many less-than-reputable contacts one is able to make. So I had little trouble getting a new identity established once I had the driver’s license from Mr. Ryder’s wallet. I set up a room at a different hotel under my new name—before the suicide, of course—and I stopped there just long enough to dye my hair and make a few other easy changes to disguise myself until I got out of Seattle.

“I flew to England. Then I went on to France for a time. I needed to learn, Jason. To be better for you. A better lover, I mean.” He reached out with the hand that didn’t hold the dead man’s switch to stroke up and down Thomas’s arm. “I thought you’d come find me, Jason. I knew you’d be able to feel that I hadn’t really died.” His voice grew sad again. “I was so lonely. Waiting.”

He shook his head again, almost angrily. “I was weak. Again. I waited for you to rescue me, but then I finally realized it was part of the test. I had to use my time to become a better man for you. You were so patient with me, but you deserve much more. More than these creatures”—he indicated Zachary with a toss of his head—“could ever give you.

“So I found places where they taught me things.” Charles shivered, and his eyes were half-lidded. “Many things. Dark things.” His voice trailed off at the memories—whether they were good or bad, Thomas couldn’t tell, but Charles’s hand sagged again. Thomas suddenly panicked, afraid Charles would drop the remote in his reverie.

“You did that for two years?” Thomas prompted loudly, and Charles snapped back to attention.

“What? Oh. No. I was in Europe for a few months. The thing was when I came back, you’d managed to set another test before me.” Charles gave a self-deprecating grin. “I couldn’t find you.

“Changing your first name, getting a completely different job, and moving to Washington—remarkably effective. I obviously couldn’t call your family and ask where to find you. And when I tried searching public records for Jason Scarborough at a law firm, I struck out. I suppose I could have hired someone, but I was determined to solve the puzzle on my own. While I searched for you, though, I kept up my self-education. I learned about electronics, lock picking, all sorts of useful skills. I joined a theater company in Bellingham for a while. That’s where I learned about makeup and costuming.

“And then, wonder of wonders, do you know what happened?” Thomas shook his head. “I was in an airport a few months ago, getting ready to fly to China, when CSPAN came on. They were doing a piece on your Senate committee, and there you were, sitting behind the chairwoman.” Charles closed his eyes for a moment, and ecstasy lit his features. “My heart simply stopped.”

Thomas tensed and prepared to move. But before he could make up his mind to act, Charles opened his eyes and fixed them on him once again.

“Well. Once I had that connection to you, of course, the rest was easy. I moved to DC, I rented this apartment, and I began to follow you as I learned your new habits. That’s what led me to Mata Hari.”

Thomas shivered at the thought of Charles following him through the Washington streets, always watching him. He softly asked the question he dreaded above almost all others. “Was Brian Gallagher the first man you killed?”

“Well, other than that escort back in Seattle, yes. It took time to connect the clues, you see, and for me to understand what you wanted.”

His jaw dropped open. “What I wanted?”

“Of course. I saw the pattern right away, but not the required response. You’d pick up a boy and take him out of the bar one night. Then, the next time he’d appear, you’d give him a brush-off. Once I got the cameras installed in your home, I’d study the recordings over and over. I’d listen to you make them moan and beg for more. The ones who left you alone after that? Well, I understood you had just used them, and everything was fine. I could hardly begrudge you simply fucking these boys after the things I had let men do to me in—well, never mind.

“But then I’d notice that they didn’t all follow your clear and fair rules. Some of them would come back for more, push at you, try to get you to be unfaithful to me. They wanted what was mine. I finally understood that you dangled them in front of me, like a mouse in front of a cat. You waited to see what I’d do to keep you. I prepared and I watched until you told me to act.”

Charles’s voice grew louder, the anger clear on his face. “That one creature, Gallagher. He was unforgivably rude to you in the bar. What if he’d hit you with the glass he threw?”

Charles trembled in rage, and the fire in his eyes alarmed Thomas more with each second. “But I waited to take my cue from you. I saw how calmly you handled it, and I knew. It all came together for me in that moment. You were calm because you trusted me to chastise him for you. When he left the bar, I followed him home, and I took care of the situation. I showed him his error.” Thomas’s heart raced. The delusion Charles was reliving threatened to overcome him. Any second he would turn that anger on Zach, so Thomas did the only thing he could think of.

He dropped to his knees, and he made himself say, “I’m so proud of you, Charles, for finally understanding me.”