Chapter 18
I am only home in the dark.
The shadows are my only friend.
When a spark of light comes on,
I know my peace is about to end.
—Cursing the Candle
THE only thing left of Sanchez’s pride and joy was a twisted pile of blackened, oily scrap metal. Even the Jack in the Box antenna ball that hung from the rear view mirror was melted slag with only a smear of gray left where the Raiders helmet once sat on its round head.
The front of the garage was gone, a blown-out mess after the Boxster’s gas tank heated up when the fire spread through the structure. The engine suffered the least amount of damage, although it sat partially engulfed in fire-retardant foam and what appeared to be the scorched remains of the Sanchez’s Christmas decorations.
It was not a pretty sight, and Kel stood in the middle of the blocked-off street, pacing as he spoke on the phone to his insurance company. He gave Kane a tight smile. His voice was a low, threatening grumble, and Kane guessed the call wasn’t going well.
“Rest of the house looks to be okay. They might be able to go in once they get a cleaning crew inside. Car’s toast, though,” one of the firemen said to Kane. He tried to remember if he’d met the young man before. They all seemed so young, barely out of high school and gangly despite the weight of their gear and their bulk. “They’ve got to stay out of the garage area, though. The arson guy’ll be here in a couple of hours. Looks like it was started close to the garage door, but I don’t want to promise anything.”
“Thanks. Appreciate your help,” Kane replied, shaking the guy’s hand as he passed by. “I’ll let them know.”
The air on the quiet street was thick with inky black smoke, and the tarry taste of it fouled the coffee Kane had grabbed on the way over. Marina Sanchez and Kel’s younger sisters were already victims of Hurricane Brigid, having been swept off to Kel’s aunt’s house before the firemen stamped out the last ember. People were gathering around the house, keeping a safe distance as the firemen went through the garage’s remains, pulling out what they could salvage from the fire. Boxes of family keepsakes were lined up on the sidewalk, beaten soldiers guarding their contents behind filthy, damp cardboard walls.
“Do you fucking believe this shit?” Kel walked up to Kane’s side, gratefully accepting the cup of iced coffee his partner brought for him. “Bastard made my mother cry. I want a piece of his ass nailed to my desk so I can use it as a mouse pad.”
“Inventive,” Kane conceded with a nod. “I want him to have a prison cell next to a carnival. A cell with really thin, high windows he can’t see out of, but he can hear everyone laughing and having a good time as he sits in the darkness.”
“You are one weird son of a bitch, Morgan,” Kel said.
“Oh, and maybe fire ants. That would rock,” Kane added with a smirk. “Ones that really like the taste of his testicles.”
“Like I said, weird.”
“See anyone you don’t recognize in the crowd?” Kane asked, skimming the people huddled against the cold.
“Nah, most of them are neighbors,” Kel replied. “Mama’s popular. A lot of my sisters’ friends come home from school and their houses are empty so they come here. She’s got cookies and listens to them bitch about homework. And before you ask me, no, I didn’t see anyone I didn’t know when we left this morning. Just that Howard kid from down the street heading to school. He waved, and Mama wished him to have a good day.”
“That normal?”
“Dude, I think that kid wishes he could just live with her. He’s younger than the girls, but she doesn’t mind him wandering over. His parents are crap.”
“Crap how?” Kane leaned against his SUV. “Child Protective Services crappy or just shitty parents?”
“They’ve got no time, kid’s a bit weird… that kind of crappy.” He shrugged helplessly. “Some people are just bad parents. Hell, look at my dad. He’s a piece of shit for a father, but he’s a good guy. Just not someone you ask for advice about anything.”
“Or stay married to.”
“Yeah, that too,” Kel admitted. “Mom likes him, but he was as shitty of a husband as he was a dad. When he lived with us, we were the last thing on his mind. Shit, I wasn’t even sure he even knew how many kids he had. I don’t think he really saw us, you know? We just weren’t important to him.”
“There was something Miki said to me,” Kane murmured, trying to catch a stray thought buzzing around his head.
Reaching into his car, he dug through the accordion folder on the passenger seat until he located Vega’s folder, then flipped it open to go through their meager findings. The file was woefully thin. On paper, Vega appeared to live an exemplary life, contributing to charities and fostering unwanted young boys. The photos they found in the dead man’s house told another story.
Staring at Vega’s license photo, it was hard to reconcile the image of the smiling, confident man he saw with the damage he’d done to Miki.
The man looked normal. Forcing aside his knowledge of the man’s activities, Kane wouldn’t have given him a second look. With his broad, craggy face and warm brown eyes, Carl Vega looked like the uncle who sneaked his nephew a peanut-butter sandwich when dinner that night was going to be eggplant surprise. He was the man whom a guy with kids would invite to a baseball game and not think twice about leaving them with Vega while he went to the bathroom in the seventh inning.
He was also the man who stalked Miki’s nightmares, tearing him apart from inside the singer’s soul.
And Kane had to find his murderer.
“Miki said to me… shit, how did he put it? ‘At least he saw me,’” Kane recalled. “That’s what stuck with me. That Carl saw him.”
Kel broke off watching the firemen. “What the hell does that mean?”
“He was talking about Vega,” Kane replied. “And I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t think it was important. This is Miki’s privacy I’m violating here. This stays between us.”
“Not a problem.” Kel crossed his heart with an index finger. “Dude, if it helps us find the bastard, I’ll be willing to listen to my sisters talk about shoes. Hell, I’d try them on.”
“He told me the worst part about the whole… thing… about Shing and Vega was that he missed Vega. Not because of the shit Vega did to him but because that son of a bitch was the only person who ever really gave a shit about him. The only person who saw him.” Kane put his cup down and rifled through the papers. “Suppose we’re going at this all wrong? Suppose the person we’re looking for isn’t one of Vega’s fosters but some kid in the neighborhood? A kid who might have been pissed off because he was replaced. Maybe even replaced by Miki.”
“Even bad attention is attention?” Kel whistled. “Morgan, that’s some sick shit. Who the hell is going to miss the guy who molested them?”
“Someone who has no one but that guy. Miki said he knew it was wrong to feel anything toward Vega but disgust, but even knowing how much Vega fucked him up, some part of him still remembers being that little boy who would do anything to make Vega happy.” Unable to find what he was looking for in the first file, he moved on to the second. “If the guy I ran down was the doer, then he’s way too scrawny to take down someone as big as Vega. That guy topped out at about two hundred pounds. The guy I saw was maybe one fifty. He would need to immobilize his victims.”
“Maybe he was wiry?” Kel offered. “Maybe he’s Welsh?”
“Really?” Kane gave his partner a disgusted look. “We don’t have tox on Shing or Vega, but there was one done on one of the fosters. The cops down in San Luis called the death undetermined. I just have to find it.”
“Undetermined’s a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?” His partner sounded doubtful.
“Fucking A, here it is. This is Doug Zhang’s suicide report. He was one of Vega’s foster kids. Cop house near Vega caught the case. The apartment building’s a few blocks from Vega’s house.” He pulled out the police report and read back the description of the young man’s autopsy. “Deceased’s tox screen came back with high values of barbiturates and benzodiazepine. Cause of death is undetermined due to blood loss deceased experienced following extensive injuries caused by slashes to both arms and legs. Weapon used found on scene and determined to be eight-inch paring knife. Knife found by deceased’s side is a match to set found in kitchen. The injection site was found on the inside of Zhang’s right arm. Doesn’t say if Zhang was left-handed, but odds are good he wasn’t.”
“That’s a pretty deadly combination. Even if it didn’t kill the guy, it would have knocked him down long enough for Beanie Boy to do his work. That could have been his first kill. Or, hell, even second or third.” Looking over Kane’s arm, Kel skimmed the report. “If our boy still lived in the neighborhood while Vega was grooming his fosters, then he’d have seen them. Hell, he might have even kept in touch with them after they split, so he might have known Zhang, knew he was still in the neighborhood.”
“Someone like that would probably have a record. Petty stuff or even animal cruelty. Some place he started off before working up to something like Zhang or Vega. There’s got to be a trail. We’re just not seeing it,” Kane said. “Let’s finish up here and see if we can’t shake him out of the trees.”
“Sounds good,” Kel said, grinning wickedly. “You know, Morgan, the more I think about it, the more I like your fire-ant idea. Let’s go rattle those trees.”
MIKI woke up to pain.
It wasn’t a bad pain. He actually felt pretty decent, if not slightly rumpled, but his hips ached, and there was a tenderness to his insides when he moved across the bed. A hot shower helped, especially after he scrubbed at his hair. His knee made its presence known with a subtle twinge as he walked, but for the most part, other than the complaining stretch of his thigh muscles, he was doing okay.
The same couldn’t be said of his kiss-swollen mouth or the prickle-rash from Kane’s stubble covering the line of love bites his cop left on his throat.
“Jesus fucking Christ, you couldn’t have eaten before you crawled into bed with me?” Miki rubbed at the tiny purple blossoms on his neck. His stomach grumbled at the mention of food, and Miki sighed. “Okay, man up here, dude. You can face them. Just go raid the fridge and then go hide or something.”
He’d thrown his most comfortable clothes into the duffel bag, and as he pulled out a pair of worn-through jeans, Miki wondered if he shouldn’t have dug out newer pants from the boxes in his bedroom. Shrugging on a pair with the least amount of holes, he found a black Se7en shirt to put on and walked barefoot into the fires of his own personal hell.
Only to discover hell was very sparsely populated.
In fact, the only occupants appeared to the one-headed Cerberus he’d brought with him and a slab of Irish slate masquerading as a man.
He came through the mudroom as cautiously as he could, keeping an eye out for any stray Morgans lurking in the shadows. Dude barked a happy hello when he spotted Miki coming into the well-lived-in family room, and the terrier bounded over, wagging his tail hard enough to wiggle his entire back end. Bending over, Miki hissed a bit at the tightness in his ass but scruffed at the dog’s neck and ears, trying to avoid Dude’s nose-seeking tongue.
“Hello, ye must be Miki.” A tree trunk dressed in loose denim and a T-shirt sprouted next to Miki’s arm, and he looked up, craning his neck to take in the enormity of the man holding his hand out to him. “I’m Donal, Kane’s da.”
“Hey, how’re you doing?” Unsure of what else to do, Miki accepted the handshake and swallowed when he lost his hand in the man’s gentle grip. Standing, he stealthily eased Dude behind him with his foot, dislodging the terrier from his round-the-leg dance. “Um, thanks for taking us in. Sorry about the dog. He’s an asshole sometimes. Shit, sorry.”
“Not a problem. Our house is always yours. And don’t worry about swearing around me. I’ve probably done worse than anything ye can say,” Donal replied, nodding to the open back door. “Hope ye don’t mind, Duke seems to like having the run of the yard.”
“Ah, Dude. His name’s Dude.” Miki took a step back when Donal’s frown sketched over his face. “Sometimes he even comes when you call him.”
“Remind me to talk to Brae about his hearing, then. Boy told me the wrong name.” The man let go an earthshaking chuckle. “Ye must be hungry. Come on to the kitchen, and I’ll get some food in ye. Won’t be anything gourmet, but I can turn a burger out with the best of them.”
Donal Morgan had more than a head on him, and the man was about half again as wide, but he was welcoming, with a warm smile and eyes as blue as Kane’s, crinkling at the corners when he laughed. A dash of silver glinted in his thick blue-black hair, and a shock of soft strands fell over his forehead and brushed at the bridge of his straight nose. Donal’s work-worn hands moved as he spoke to Miki about his choices for lunch, the broad gold wedding ring on his finger burnished and nicked from years of wear. From behind, Donal looked as fit as his sons, his powerful frame moving easily under his loose jeans and T-shirt, and Miki felt more than a little weird thinking about how Kane’s shoulders compared to his dad’s.
“Hope Dude’s been good.” Miki glanced down at his begging mutt. “He’s not… um… civilized. Kind of takes after me, I think.”
“Ah, the dog’s been fine. Other than he’s collected some things from around the house and stashed them behind the couch there.” Donal winked at Miki when he groaned in disgust. “It’s all right, Miki boy. He’s a dog, and it’s all new for him. New smells and new people. We only had one small talk about dragging in the pool skimmer, but after that, he’s kept to shoes and the like. Now, cheese or no cheese on yer burger?”
“Cheese would be cool.” Miki caught himself before he hitched up onto the counter, remembering Kane’s shocked expression. Several stools were tucked under the table set in the middle of the kitchen, and he pulled one out to sit on. Resting his elbows on the scarred wood, he watched Donal move from the fridge to the oven, gathering up cheese, meat, and onion rolls.
“Are ye a vegetable eater?” Donal asked over his shoulder.
Miki curled his lip. “Only if you make me.”
“Good, then since it’s just us carnivores, we shall say we had some of the greens and agree not to speak of it if anyone asks,” he rumbled, shifting over to the table. After cracking an egg into a mixing bowl, Donal added the hamburger, breadcrumbs, and some seasoning, then gave Miki a look. “Ye mind me hands in there?”
“Dude, you’re feeding me.” Miki smirked. “I don’t care what you use to mix it with.”
“We’re going to be getting along fine there, then. Can ye grab the ketchup from the fridge there? Add some to this while I mix it up.” Donal washed his hands, then returned to massage the meat together. Miki squirted a few tablespoons into the meat and Donal nodded. “That’ll do. Thank ye, Miki. Leave it out on the table in case we want some more. I’ll toss some chips into the oven. We can have them with our burgers.”
It was a comfortable space, and Miki glanced around, taking in the room without a battalion of Morgans surrounding him. He hadn’t seen much of it the first time, relegated to a rushed introduction, then hustled off to the family room to sit on one of the soft, long couches as Brigid shoved a plate of leftovers at him. Now he took his time studying the kitchen Kane grew up in. It was bright and cheery, much like Brigid. A china cabinet held some porcelain platters and a large wooden bowl carved so thin he could see light pouring through the translucent sides.
“Did Kane do that?” Miki asked, pointing to the rough-edged bowl. It looked almost like a tiger lily, undulating up from the base, then flaring out suddenly. It was pretty, a rich golden grain run soft with darker sienna veins. “Make that bowl thingy?”
“Aye.” Donal’s smile was a quiet light in his face. “He’s very good with his hands. I wish I had that kind of beauty inside of me but, ah, the best I can do is carve a turkey and hope there’s enough left for me by the time my hellions are done snatching up theirs.”
The love in Donal’s face hurt. The softness of his pride stabbed Miki deep into his broken, screwed-up mind, and he had to look away, pinching his lips together to swallow the uneasiness welling up from his chest. Donal continued, but Miki couldn’t make sense of what the man was saying. Just hearing the affection in his voice stung, and Miki shook his head, scolding himself to pull it together.
“What’s bothering you there, Miki?” Donal’s voice rolled over him. “I’m gathering it’s not the cheddar cheese.”
“Nah, the cheese is fine.” Under the table, Dude gnawed at the end of a bone he’d been given, and Miki tsked at him to be quiet when he started making slurping noises. “Just thinking.”
“About being in this crazy house while waiting for Kane to figure all of this shite out?” The man lobbed Miki’s unspoken anxiety into the middle of the kitchen, smiling as it went off. “I know that look on yer face. I had it myself when I met Brigid’s family. There’s eleven of them there, all underfoot and talking up a storm. It was like wading into an Irish tidal wave wearing nothing to protect me but a pair of stolen knickers.”
“Those are panties, right?” Miki gave him a sidelong glance.
“Aye, big blue ones, with flowers on them, even. My gran had a pair like that. She hung them out on the line to dry, and I used to worry they’d catch the wind and the house would sail away like it was on a kite.” Donal winked and tossed the heel of the bread loaf to a waiting Dude. “Don’t ye be telling my bride I’ve been feeding the dog in here, or she’ll have my nuts.”
“Only one who’ll say shit about it would be Dude.” Miki shrugged. “And he knows keeping his mouth shut means more food for him.”
“So if ye can imagine me, at the ripe age of twenty, sitting at a long table at the Finnegans’ and waiting for my girl to sit down next to me, when her da ambles up and whispers into my ear, ‘Boy, yer in me seat.’” Sliding the cheese over to Miki, he continued. “Unwrap a few of those for us, Miki. Four should do.”
“What’d you do when he said that? Your father-in-law, I mean.” The package proved to be difficult, and when Donal turned his back to grab a frying pan for the stove, he tore at the corner with his teeth.
“Well, I’m pretty sure I went white with fear,” Donal laughed. “Ye see, Brigid’s da is a short man, shorter than me, anyway, but he’s built like a fireplug. He worked the docks for years, and I’d seen him take down men three times his size when they spoke ill of his wife down at the pub. I knew he could lay my scrawny arse out like I was a gnat buzzing about his ear. So I did what any Irish man would do. I stood up, apologized, and made for the door. Without any supper, mind ye.”
“And she married you anyway?”
“She had to,” Donal said. “I loved her. With all of my heart. But see, my family… the Morgans… they’re not one for joking and laughing as much as the Finnegans. No, we’re a more sober family, so while her da was joking with me, I didn’t have it in me to understand that. The Finnegans, they’re a clan that spends most of their time having fun, so it took me a while before I was comfortable around it. By the time my first boy, Connor, came along, I knew that’s the kind of house I wanted him to be raised in. Someplace he’d feel warm inside, able to laugh. Do ye understand me?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Miki replied, frowning.
“What I’m saying to ye, Miki boy, is that I know how ye feel about being caught in the storm of this family, and if ever it gets too much for ye, you come over to me, and I’ll stand in front of ye until the winds die down a bit.” Donal put his hand over Miki’s wrist and gave it a loose squeeze.
“They’ll take some getting used to, and they’ll have to get used to you too. Push back if ye need to. Some of mine are a bit dense, and they need a bit of a slap across the brain sometimes to get them going,” Donal continued. “Ye got a good one there with Kane. He’s got a good heart. My temper, though, so I apologize to ye for that, but he’ll never do more than raise his voice at ye. And then probably feel bad about that afterwards. If I’ve taught them one thing, it’s that they’re strong, stronger than most. They’ve got to take care with that. Ye’ll never have to worry about him taking a hand to ye.”
“I’d kill him if he did,” Miki snorted. “He’s got to sleep sometime.”
“Good for ye.” Donal beamed. “Just remember that snarl when my bride comes at ye with her succotash. Love her to death, but that shite’s nasty. Don’t let her feed it to ye. Once it passes yer lips, she’ll be shoving it down ye for the rest of yer life.”
“Got it. I didn’t even know it was real,” Miki conceded, passing over the unwrapped cheese slices. The sizzle of meat hitting the hot frying pan was followed by the heavenly aroma of burgers cooking, and Miki’s mouth watered. “Can I ask you something?”
“About Kane?” Donal glanced at him, and Miki nodded. “About him being gay or a cop like his da?”
“Gay,” Miki murmured. “I can’t see him being anything but a cop.”
“True,” the man replied as he added rings of onions to the pans to grill. “Even as much as he loves making things, he’d rather wear a badge if he had to make a choice. Go ahead. Nothing ye can ask that someone else hasn’t already.”
“How’d he know he was gay? I mean, for sure?”
“Okay, I was wrong, that is something I haven’t been asked before.” Donal grinned. “How’d he know he was gay? Simple, Miki boy. He likes men. Easy as that. A man’s body makes him sit up and look. Kane’s the easy one. He knows himself and what he likes… what he wants. He brought ye here, or at least didn’t butt heads with his mum about it. He’d have taken ye out before my bride could take a breath if he didn’t. Kane wants ye here, in the place he learned to live and love. That’s how I know that yer someone special to him. Quinn, now… that one’s got a bit of trouble in his heart, but he’ll find his way soon enough.”
“And you’re okay with that? With them liking guys?” Donal was an aberration. Even as free-spirited and open as the city was, Miki never really knew any parents okay with their sons loving men. Damien’s parents treated his sexuality like it was a mole on his nose, something to be ignored and not mentioned in public.
“Miki, I can tell ye one thing for sure,” Donal said, waving the spatula in the air to make his point. “I taught my sons to be men. I don’t care who they love. I care about how they act. The moment they stop having manners or treat someone poorly, then we’ll have words. Other than that, I only want them to be happy, and if you make Kane happy, then all I have to say to ye is welcome to the family. Now pass the salt, boy. I’ve got to season the meat, or it’ll be like eating a stale cracker.”