TWENTY-TWO
Heath was pissed. Micah never really understood what was going on with him that day so long ago. They’d started out fine but as lunch rolled around Heath was silent and driving like he had a death wish.
Micah didn’t ask. He sat in the car as Heath swung into a motel on the highway. He followed him into the first floor room and that’s when it all went wrong.
Heath had him up against the wall. His hand closed around Micah’s neck. Heath was angry. “It’s all your fault.”
Clothes came off and Micah was on his stomach on the bed with Heath holding his face into the pillow. “It’s all your fucking fault. It wasn’t like this before you came here.”
The phone that rang was Micah’s. Heath still held him to the bed and pulled the phone out of his pocket. “He’s in the john. What?...Yeah, I got it. We’ll be there as soon as he’s finished here.”
“What was it?” Micah had asked but Heath tossed the phone on top of his pants and leaned over him. He pulled Micah’s head back and shoved his tongue into Micah’s mouth. He fucked him. Hard. Fast. Grunting and straining and cussing at Micah for not cooperating. Micah shifted enough to get his hand around his dick. He knew Heath couldn’t come if Micah didn’t first. It was a power trip for him. The six months he’d been assigned as Heath’s junior partner and he’d just figured that out.
“That’s it Jarhead, take it, take it. Fuck.” Heath had sputtered out into the condom as Micah shot into the dirty motel comforter. “Goddamn. Beez. I needed that.”
Micah had cleaned up as quickly as possible.
If they’d left as soon as the call came.
If they’d gotten to the school fifteen minutes earlier. The fifteen minutes it had taken for Heath to get off that afternoon. If he’d never let Heath know he was gay.
If…there were so many ifs.
“Wasn’t your fault,” the mouth pressed to his chest moved the words out slowly so Micah could make them out. Chris kissed him and stroked him and listened to him.
Micah raked his fingers through the sweat soaked hair that lay across his chest, brushing it back out of Chris’s face. He couldn’t move much more than that. Chris couldn’t move at all. He’d fucked himself damned near senseless. Micah smiled and placed a kiss on top of Chris’s sweaty head.
“Everything we did that day was under investigation. Heath had been under investigation for some time and no one had thought it was good idea to inform the new guy that his partner had been brought up on sexual harassment charges more than once.” Micah remembered those days after he’d awakened to a shit storm. “Everything he did was…I wasn’t the first. I was just the first partner and he used his seniority to get me…not like it was all that hard. He wanted to fuck. I liked sex. I hated hiding who I was and I don’t know maybe I thought…his lies had become my lies. His wife?”
Micah sighed remembering her angry slap the day of the hearing when his testimony had ruined her husband. “He’d cheated on her so much. I guess she never knew it was with men. I guess she thought he’d take whatever new girl out for some laughs and get it out of his system. When it was the guys. He’d kept it to office staff or took it to the clubs when he wanted something he couldn’t find in the office.”
Chris raised his head to look at Micah, resting his chin on his hand on Micah’s chest. His eyes were heavy with after sex exhaustion. “Still not your fault.”
“My fault. I participated. I didn’t say no. I believed him when he said his wife had left him and that he was falling apart. I let him…that day he was pissed that she’d finally given him this ultimatum to clean up his shit or she really would leave him. Rape charges had been filed against him that morning. Not by me. By another deputy. I woke up to a full blown investigation into my past and what I knew and if I’d been involved. The motel clerk testified that Heath was a regular and he identified me as the lay du jour. And that little girl was left in the wind with her mother heading her way while Heath accused me of breaking up a marriage that was supposed to have been already over.”
Shame crept up to strangle him. “If it weren’t for the testimony of other men as to Heath’s behavior…they cried rape. I didn’t. But I let him manipulate me. I wasn’t a victim. I won’t ever think of myself that way. I wasn’t in love with my partner. I did feel that my job security depended on whether or not Heath got laid. It was always during off duty hours. Except for that day. That one day when some fucked up hand of fate handed me my last day in law enforcement, and nearly my life. If that call had come ten minutes earlier. If Heath had given a damn about that kid. The government cut me a hush money check and took away my badge and I went away. That was the deal. I was cleared of any wrongdoing in the accident. I was cleared of Nicole Franco’s death. I took the money, and I found a tiny apartment near the beach, and I drowned my misery in surfer boys and margaritas.”
“Why’d you fly out to interview with my uncle if you were happy where you were?” Chris finally asked the question Micah was dreading.
“That’s the problem. I wasn’t happy. I was hiding. I knew it. My therapist knew it. I wasn’t going to ever be happy until I went back to doing what I was good at. And since I can’t go back into law enforcement, why not go into the private sector. Gideon’s call came at the right moment. I’ve actually questioned that. Wondering if some little hacker elf had anything to do with it.”
“Me?” That brought a blaze to Chris’s eyes. “I checked into you after my uncle sent me the files on available security. I didn’t have anything to do with getting you into the system. You were already there and despite the heavy redaction you were still the best candidate we had to choose from. I saw you. I remembered the news story. I checked into you. And then you showed up at my door bitching about privacy and angry with the world. And that, my lovely Beast, was my introduction to you.”
Micah had to laugh at that last part. “I’m a lovely beast? Does that make you the beauty in the castle keep guarded by some dragon that I’m supposed to…” he stopped on that thought. “Who the hell put my file in the system? I’d barely even had the thought much less looked into how to go about getting a private sector job.”
Chris shook his head, clearly as confused as Micah was. “Does it matter now? Anyway, who’s the dragon you’re supposed to be rescuing me from? Sam is growly but he’s all bark, no bite.”
“My money is on Gibbs. She’s got knife skills that terrify me.” Micah brushed Chris’s hair down his back. Chris yawned against his chest. He was boneless and warm, and Micah couldn’t move if his life depended on it. They both knew the dragon wasn’t inside the castle. Micah just wasn’t ready to talk about that right now.
“She does. I know. Scary shit.” Chris yawned again. “Micah?”
“Yeah?” Micah echoed the yawn.
“Thank you.”
He caught one of Chris’s hands and held it over his chest. “Get some rest, Chris. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Chris nodded. He didn’t fall asleep for a long time. Micah could feel him slowly let go and drift off. But Micah couldn’t sleep.
His days were all flipped around and upside down. No, that was his life. For going on two weeks now his life had flip flopped into something he didn’t recognize. Not unlike that day when his career ended and his reputation went to hell.
He lay for a long time, just holding Chris while he slept. His body-clock clicking the slow minutes down to dawn. When he couldn’t stay still any longer, he carefully slid out from underneath his lover and found his jeans. His T-shirt contained the worst of the mess they’d made and he left it lying where he’d tossed it after Chris had finally collapsed in exhaustion.
The lights in the other sector of Chris’s prison came on as he moved from area to area. He checked the door. He knew it was useless since it locked from the other side, but he had to check. He was definitely locked in. At least until one of the wardens came down for the early morning check-in and found him locked inside.
Micah pushed his hair back out of his face hoping to tame the mane that Chris had ruined with his hands. He remembered Chris likening his hair to a lion and snorted. Funny. God he loved having the man’s hands all over him.
He couldn’t remember a time when he’d let anyone…
His mind froze. He couldn’t remember anyone like Chris. Ever. Men he’d fucked or let fuck him. There wasn’t one single person who’d gotten to him the way Chris did. Completely and totally fucked up over a man.
Well, that was a fucking first.
He gravitated to the only chair in the room and dropped into it. Best as he could tell, he had a couple of hours left before morning and the only thing to do was crawl back into bed and sleep. But he was restless. The destroyed canvas lay on the floor not far away. The marker art folded over but still intact.
Micah picked it up and shook out the loose frame bits. Going over to the work table he spread out the salvaged art.
Chris was good. Damned good. Even with something as basic as felt tip markers. This canvas was angry. The art more swirls and whorls of color. Oranges, reds, yellows. Fire. Micah could make out a structure in the far back of the angry color. Trees and snow seemed to be the only calm in the scene.
Other canvases littered the room, lying where Chris had tossed them when he’d finished. Most of them face down on the floor, some broken from the impact. Micah retrieved them all, following the path of destruction that was Chris’s mind through the abandoned frames.
When the lights in the outer room came up, he had most of the art lined up in the order Chris had done them. From the fiery conclusion back to the bucolic cabin in the woods.
“Should I ask why you’re sitting in here?” The voice startled him. He’d forgotten in the space of a couple minutes that he was no longer alone.
Micah looked up at the scowling butler. “He remembers,” he said thumbing through the art that seemed to profile the events of the night Chris’s life had been destroyed. “Did you know?”
Sam heaved a weary sigh and sank into the chair Micah had abandoned hours ago. He looked tired and worn. “No,” was all he said shaking his head in emphasis.
“It’s right here. I can’t make sense of most of it, but it’s all right here. He’s been telling you all this time.”
“He destroys every single canvas. All that’s ever left is confetti after…well, after.” Sam waved his hand at the small bit of destruction before looking over at the man sleeping soundly on the mattress. “He’s never surfaced before the destruction before now. What happened?”
“He tried to slit his wrist with a piece of wood. I decided not to let that happen.” Micah shrugged looking anywhere but at the old man, who saw too much as it was. He waited long moments for the butler to say something. Guilt finally drove him to break the silence. “The good news is…he’s a fully functioning male.”
“And the bad news?” Sam spoke softly, carefully, as if waiting for Micah to share some earth shattering revelation.
“He’s not a virgin anymore.” Why the fuck was he driven to confess that little piece of information? Micah swore under his breath and dragged out the canvas that bothered him the most. “Before you go apeshit, he needed the outlet and I…he was fully aware. Stop staring at me in that tone of voice. He knows what…Jesus say something.”
“He’s a grown man. If he needed what you offered, who am I to say anything? As long as it wasn’t you projecting your needs onto him.”
“I didn’t fuck him, Sam.” Micah wanted to shout but the soft grunt from the bed stopped him. “I let him take what he needed to purge his damned demons.” It was times like this that Micah regretted ever answering the phone the day Gideon’s secretary had called. “I don’t force innocents.”
“I know you don’t, Micah. And I guess considering Kit’s mental state when he’s trying to surface, it was better he took it out on someone other than himself. I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I meant to say. I want him happy. He’s not. He’s never been happy. He’s sleeping and the room isn’t in shambles. If sex works then…there’s nothing to apologize for.”
Still unable to make himself look at Sam, Micah studied the canvas. He was cold just looking at the disturbing images. “I’m in love with him.”
“And that bothers you?” There was surprise in Sam’s voice.
Micah shrugged again. “Doesn’t bother me as much as surprises me. I’ve never let myself feel anything for anyone before. Hell, I don’t want to feel anything now.”
“But you do.”
Micah nodded, his focus on the two children playing in the middle of the canvas. Both with black hair. One long the other short. Identical faces. “He’s looking into a mirror in this one, seeing himself with long hair. Two children. Two adults. I can’t make sense of this one at all.”
“You avoided the question.” Sam wasn’t listening to him about the canvas.
“Yes, goddammit, I feel like my whole world has been ripped apart and he’s the glue holding it together. But I can’t feel this way, because he’s…sheltered. He’s never known anything but this prison. He’s never had a boyfriend. He’s never been on his own. He’s rich, and that brings up a whole new can of worms I don’t want to open. He’ll always question my intentions. You’ll question. That prick Gideon already questions. I don’t want to feel this way when I can’t feel this way. It won’t work out. He can’t…” Micah stopped before he said the worst of what he was thinking.
“He can’t leave and you can’t stay.” The truth hit like a bullet.
“I want to stay. I want to hide away in this life and be everything he needs.”
“But?”
“But this isn’t…sane, Sam.” Micah swept the room with both hands. “This! This is fucking bullshit. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s terrified that he’s going to be locked away for the rest of his life. When in reality—”
“He’s already locked away in the most luxurious prison we could find for him.” Sam’s voice was heavy with remorse. “Yeah, Micah, that’s pretty much the truth.”
“He’s not crazy.” Micah pointed to the art on the floor. “He’s screaming for help but no one hears him.”
“You hear him.” Sam pointed out as he took the one canvas from Micah’s limp hands. “You’ve heard him since you walked into the room with him that first day. You’re pulling him out of the dark, Micah.”
“Fuck lot of good it’s done.” Micah snorted meeting Sam’s gaze. “He’s still trapped.”
“Is he?” Sam said distractedly. He thumped the canvas his eyes going round. “This is—was his nanny. Well tutor, really. But Gavin became everything to Kit when he was young. He traveled with them. He did everything. Kit adored him. And the child is Kit. I don’t understand the mirrored images. His mirror image is wearing a skirt. I don’t think Kit has ever exhibited transgender tendencies. No. He’s all male. Always was. I’m not…let me see the rest of them.”
Micah started with the first canvas and over the next hour or so they studied the images that had poured from Chris’s head while he was lost. “Definitely the chateau in Aspen in this one. He remembers it with incredible detail. Down to the wreath on the door and the skies on the top of the car. They’d only just arrived that day. The storm hit out of nowhere and they’d abandoned unpacking as best we could tell.” Sam leaned that canvas against the wall to move on to the next.
“Dinner around the fireplace. His parent’s faces are obscured. Wonder if that’s because he can’t remember them. Or…”
“Or, if it’s because they were shot point blank range in the head and had no faces the last time he saw them.” Micah added when Sam stopped talking. “I’ve read the police reports. The reports that aren’t available for the public. I know how they died, Sam.”
Sam nodded. “We think they were murdered in front of him. That’s the general consensus on why he never recovered his memory. His voice is a different story.”
The song Chris was singing came crashing back to Micah. “Don’t Speak.”
“Pardon me?” Sam stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“The song he was humming earlier. It was popular when we were kids. Don’t Speak. It was all over the radio that year. Hell you can still find it in heavy rotation on any classic 90s music station. One of the biggest hits of the entire decade. And it probably came out about that time. He was singing it. Punching in the chorus like he wanted to murder it.”
“He’s sang that same song since. When he first came home he’d sit and rock by the window in his bedroom, always humming that same tune. It’s been there since the beginning.” Sam spread the canvases out side by side on the floor and walked around them. “You’re right. He remembers. Probably everything. I don’t understand a couple of these. It’s all obscured under color. There’s a gun here. And a knife. A kitchen knife. A doll…or a baby. I can’t tell. Is that a baby?
“Was his mother pregnant?” Micah remembered reading something in the autopsy report that seemed to indicate that she might be.
“Not that we were ever made aware of. But the autopsy seemed to indicate she may have been. There wasn’t much left of them when they were found. Everything was inconclusive. They were murdered, and the house burned to cover the murder. If there were drugs or alcohol or if she’d been sexually assaulted was never proven. The working theory was that Gavin grabbed Kit and escaped the fire. But how they ended up in Iowa has never been solved. Did Gavin take him? Who helped him? Who killed him? Did he die trying to save Kit? So many questions that will never be answered.”
“Unless Chris gets his memory back.”
“It’s been eighteen years, I highly doubt that’s going to happen.”
“Yet, here we are staring down at proof that he remembers everything. The letters you’ve received have too many small details for your liking, don’t they? I can read between the lines, Sam. As much as you and Gideon have wanted me kept in the dark, I know you’re both scared that the past is about to rise up from the grave.”
Sam closed his eyes and watched as Chris sat up on the bed, his blue eyes blinking away sleep. “And if that happens we can only hope he isn’t driven back into the dark…permanently.”