Chapter 4
The poison inside of me kills what I touch,
So why should I love, when I know it’ll die?
—Arsenic Kiss
THE cop ate like he was performing surgery. Every motion was controlled and precise, from the dipping of a piece of quesadilla into tomatillo sauce to the selection of a hot pickled carrot slice out of the plastic bag. Kane fished out a tiny pepper from the baggie and popped it into his mouth, chewing through it before picking up his burrito.
Miki watched Kane from under his lashes. The tangerine glimmer from the street lights turned the hair on Kane’s forearms to a deep mahogany, with splashes of gold where the sun had bleached a few strands. A battered gold ring sat on Kane’s left pinky, the metal dinged and matte from wear, the only piece of jewelry Kane wore besides the thick-banded watch on his wrist.
There was a tiny chip missing from the tooth between his front tooth and incisor, a triangular imperfection that caught the eye when Kane grinned. From what Miki’d seen, the man did not smile softly. Instead, he threw his whole mouth into it, a slightly off-kilter, masculine expression that had more in common with Dude’s mischievous appearance than Kane probably would want to admit.
It was a grin that tugged at Miki’s belly and had his body tingling in all the right places. If only it did more than tingle.
It wasn’t that Miki wasn’t willing. Kane definitely had his interest. The man’s hands were strong, and Miki could almost feel them on him. It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to feel Kane’s fingers digging into his hips or the heat of the man’s breath on his mouth if they ever kissed. A coiled power lay in Kane’s broad shoulders, his strength a casual confidence he wore as easily as he breathed.
Definitely more than a tingle, Miki realized as his cock thickened slightly for the first time since he woke up from his coma. And all for a cop who’d found his worst nightmare slaughtered and left on display in his car.
“You doing okay?” Kane looked up from his food and caught Miki’s eyes on him. “Kind of seem out of it. Tired?”
“Yeah, a little bit,” Miki mumbled, studying his food. “I want to go home and crash.”
“Any friends you need to call?” Kane asked, folding a piece of cheesy tortilla into his mouth.
“Nope.” Miki took a breath and blinked, willing away the sound of torn metal and cries he held inside of him. “Not anymore.”
The pain inside him grew, and Miki inhaled deeply, hoping the chill in the air would cut through him. Kane studied him, dark lashes hooding his bright blue eyes. It was disconcerting being under that stare, and Miki shifted on his seat, torn between walking off or staring the man down.
Kane threw a curveball. “Tell me what music you like.”
“You serious?” Miki looked away, thinking. “Um, different stuff, I guess. What do you like?”
“I like Metallica,” Kane ventured.
“I like them.” Miki paused. “Well, the Black album and anything before that. Things kind of went to shit after they hooked up with someone who told them the bass has to be in line with drums. It changed their sound. Yeah, that’s technically right, but it changed how they worked. Black’s more marketable, more approachable to mainstream listeners. You can definitely see that.”
“Who else?” Kane gave a small smile and leaned forward to listen.
“Tool,” he said, thinking for a second. “Ænima, and anything before that. After that, it’s too much Zomb, and I don’t like Perfect Circle. Love VAST’s Video Audio Sensory Theatre. That’s a perfect album. BRMC’s Howl is pretty good. I like to listen to it when I just want to drift a bit. Dave and Johnny used to argue about Lynyrd Skynyrd, but I only like some of their stuff. Anything by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Anything.”
“Mostly blues stuff, then?”
“Nah, depends on my mood,” Miki said, shrugging. “Hyde, I love Hyde. I like him solo or under VAMPS but only some of L’Arc-en-Ciel. Love X Japan’s trance album. That’s something else to listen to when I want to drift.”
Kane chuckled, and Miki gave him a hard sidelong glance. He sniffed, then picked at his food again. “What?”
“You sound like my brother when he talks about books. Quinn deconstructs what he reads. He just can’t read.” Kane reached for another carrot. “Can I be honest?”
“That’ll be different coming from a cop,” Miki snorted. “Sure.”
“I’m worried about you,” he admitted. “And fuck me if I know why.”
“I can take care of myself,” Miki huffed. “I’ve been at it a while.”
“You’re as skinny as shit and look like you haven’t been out in the sun since you were hatched. So excuse me if I don’t believe you,” Kane drawled and leaned against his elbows, cradling the remains of his burrito in his hands. He took a bite and chewed, then swallowed. “And God, you pissed me off when I first met you.”
“Dude pissed you off,” Miki pointed out. “I just answered the door.”
“No, you pissed me off too,” Kane said, waving the last bit of burrito at Miki. “You should’ve kept your dog inside or leashed. I only just found out you know jack shit about owning a dog.”
“He didn’t come with a how-to book, you know.” Miki helped himself to one of the carrots and tentatively took a bite. He spit out into a napkin and reached for the horchata to cool off his tongue. “Fuck, that’s hot.”
“I think you kind of need someone to have your back.” The cop reached over and took Miki’s bag of carrots. “Don’t take this wrong, but you’re kind of in a shitty situation. They’ve found a dead body in your garage—”
“You found a dead body in my garage.”
“What did you think I was going to do? Help you get rid of it? Walk away?” Kane lifted his eyebrows. “I’m a cop… what did you think was going to happen?”
“Dunno. Shing wasn’t there when I went out to start the car. Wasn’t like I planned anything.” Miki shrugged. “Like I told Sanchez, the car was running for about fifteen minutes before Dude came in and I grabbed him. He was being an asshole about the tub, so I thought I would turn it off. That’s when I found you all Malcolm Reynolds in my garage.”
“Someone put him there,” Kane said. “Someone went specifically to where you lived and dumped a dead man into your car. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Yeah,” Miki replied softly. “But what am I going to do? Crawl under my bed? I can ask Edie if she’ll find a security company, I guess, but I don’t want some guy I don’t know lurking over me.”
“I don’t like you being there alone, and I don’t know why I give a shit. You’ve been nothing but a pain in the ass since I’ve met you,” he grumbled at the singer. “I don’t want you going back there without taking some precautions.”
“Luckily, you’re not my mother,” Miki shot back. “Or fucking me, ’cause then you’d have something to say.”
The scrutiny went from guarded to hot, and Miki met Kane’s gaze straight on.
“Who’s Edie?” Kane finally asked.
“My manager….” Miki paused. “Ex-manager. I don’t know. She’s… she deals with all the big life shit I can’t figure out. Taxes, music rights… that kind of stuff. She used to be on the road with us. Now she’s handling other bands, but she still… does Sinner’s Gin’s crap too. We talk every once in a while. If there’s something I’ve got to make a decision on, she calls. Sometimes she just calls to nag.”
“I’ve got to get this woman’s number,” Kane muttered under his breath. “Maybe she can get you to get some help.”
“She’s tried. I just want to be left alone.”
“Excuse me, Greta, but someone needs to watch your ass since you don’t seem to be doing such a good job of it.”
“You offering to?” Miki smirked, then wrinkled his nose. “Who’s Greta?”
“Jesus, it’s like you were raised by wolves. Greta Garbo. Never mind, we’ll catch you up to the real world later.” Kane sighed heavily. “And yeah, that’s what I’m offering, Miki. There’s something shitty going on around you, and if you’re not going to keep an eye on that skinny ass of yours, then I’ll do it for you.”
“My ass isn’t that skinny,” he grumbled. “And I’m fine. I don’t need—”
“You do need.” Kane cut him off. “That dog of yours only seems good for biting cops, and there was a fucking dead body left in your car. If you’re not careful, Miki, the next dead body is going to be yours.”
IT TOOK Kane five minutes of sitting in his car and staring at the front of the warehouse before he felt comfortable driving away from Miki St. John’s place. He knew it was silly. Someone from Forensics was still inside the garage doing last minute lab-monkey stuff, and Casey promised to have someone on patrol lurk nearby. Still, when the front door closed behind the singer’s pert ass, Kane wanted to pound on the door until he could see those hazel eyes again.
“Like it’s his door you want to pound, Morgan,” Kane muttered to himself as he turned the key in the SUV’s ignition. His phone started singing about being sexy and knowing it, and he sighed heavily before putting the car into gear. Kane thumbed on his earpiece and barked into the phone, “What’s up, Sanchez?”
“Got a small situation over here in Chinatown. Feel up to hanging out with a gorgeous Puerto Rican for a couple of hours?”
“Why? You know one?”
“Funny,” Sanchez snapped back. “Get your ass over to Shing’s restaurant. We got some strange things going on, partner mine. Figured you’d want in on the action….” He paused, then Kane heard him guffaw. “Unless you got some of your own action going on over there with the rock star.”
“Fuck off, Kel,” Kane replied without heat. “I left him at the door with orders to crawl into bed. I’ll be right there. Don’t start anything without me.”
The admonishment obviously came too late. By the time Kane pulled up to the alley behind the restaurant, the back door was open and clogged with uniforms standing guard over several overstuffed black trash bags. A few feet away, a skinny, middle-aged Chinese man Kane recognized as Bradley Shing stood, arguing heatedly with a placid Sanchez and Connie Lau, another inspector from their station. His partner looked serene, a far cry from the taut face he’d had on when trying to breach Miki’s defenses. From the looks of things, Shing wasn’t getting his way.
Kane parked behind Sanchez’s black Porsche Boxster, angling the SUV so he blocked any traffic from coming down the alleyway. A couple of patrol cars were across the other side of the alley, boxing in the restaurant. After activating the blue light flashers tucked up on the seam of his rear windows, Kane climbed out and headed over to inspect the bags. Sanchez broke off from the tirade and tucked his hands into the waistband of his gray trousers, pulling his jacket back to expose the badge he wore on his belt.
“Funny time to be cleaning house,” Kane said, toeing one of the bags. “Anyone take a peek to see what’s in it?”
“Not yet,” Sanchez admitted. “There’s a transport coming to take them in. I want some space to spread out what Mr. Shing there thought he couldn’t wait until morning to toss out.”
“Who saw him toss the stuff?” Kane spotted someone he knew from his brother’s class, and he smiled, nodding to one of the uniforms standing by the open door.
“I did.” Sanchez shrugged when Kane shot him a look. “I discovered, after a long night of tracking down a murderer, I was hungry for some Chinese food. So while I sat behind the restaurant for an hour or so, deciding what I wanted to order, Mr. Shing came out and threw some trash bags into the dumpster over there.”
“Which you had to retrieve, of course.”
“Of course.” Sanchez had the good grace to look embarrassed. “Actually, I caught a patrol coming by and snagged one of them to climb in.”
“Dude, abuse of authority.” Kane clucked at him, grinning.
“These are new pants.” Sanchez tugged at his trousers’ pockets. “If you think I was going to get gau yuk all over a pair of new Pradas, you’re fucking insane.”
“You’re an embarrassment to cops everywhere, Sanchez,” Kane drawled. “Casey come across with the warrant yet?”
“Yeah, right after I called you. I was about to head in, but I thought I’d wait for your sorry ass. I’m tired of showing you up to the Loo.” Sanchez nodded briefly at Shing, who was trying to get around Lau. She maneuvered in, blocking him off. “There’s a couple of guys in the front closing the place down. Place is open until two in the morning, so there’s some stragglers. Martinez is in there. He said he’d take the kitchen staff’s statements. I already jotted down what Shing wanted to share with me.”
“Let me guess.” Kane eyed the irate man pacing off a circle as Lau warned him to calm down. “Fuck you and oh… fuck you?”
“Spot on,” Sanchez agreed. “Funny behavior for a grieving son.”
“It’s all clear, sir.” A fresh-faced blonde woman dressed in SFPD blues popped out the back door and nodded at Sanchez. “I’ll wait for the transport.”
“Thanks,” Sanchez said, flashing the young woman a brilliant smile. “Good job.”
Kane shook his head and entered the restaurant, ducking to avoid the clusters of garlic strings dangling near the door. A strong wave of spices assailed him as soon as he cleared the doorway. Mingled in with anise and curries, an undertone of cabbage, onions, and garlic lingered alongside dishwashing liquid and fresh meats. Martinez, a beefy man recently transferred in from another station, waved absently at Kane and turned back to the loosely gathered line of men clustered near the sinks.
Another detective, a junior who’d pulled the midnight shift, said a quick hello when they peeked into a cramped office near the back of the kitchen. The woman gave them a harried look as she packed up the contents of the elder Shing’s desk. From the piles of loose papers and ledgers scattered about everywhere, it looked like someone had beat them to the office and tossed the place. Sanchez gave the woman a quick nod and pushed his partner past a bank of metal shelves stacked high with dry noodles and bags of rice. There, tucked into a corner of the kitchen, a narrow flight led upstairs.
“How’s Martinez’s Cantonese?” Kane asked Sanchez as they climbed the tight stairs.
“Passable. Better than Lau’s, but Kelly’s is nonexistent. Lau’s got better Spanish, so she’s going to take a crack at the two dishwashers. They’re from El Salvador. I talked them up a bit. Seems like no one shares our boy Bradley’s opinion of dad. They hated the man’s guts, but hey,” Sanchez said, shrugging as he reached a door at the top of the stairs, “you gotta work where you find it.”
“You got gloves on you?” Kane asked and smiled when Sanchez handed him a pair of black latex gloves, then fitted a pair on his own hands. “Not exactly department issue.”
“So I dated a tattoo artist. They’re sexier than those blue ones they give us, and they fit.” Kel broke the seal one of the uniforms had put on the door. The knob looked grimy from being printed, and it slid a bit in Sanchez’s hand when he turned it. “Okay, let’s see what fresh hell we’ve got waiting for us behind door number one.”
Sanchez took a slim camera out of his inside jacket pocket and stepped in first. Kane stopped at the door, working the air in the gloves out from between his fingers. He reached up and tapped the dead bolt set into the door above the knob. “Grab a pic of this too. Locks from the outside. The inside’s flat.”
“So, locking people out of the place?” Kel cocked his head.
“Or locking them in,” Kane responded flatly.
The room was narrow and airless, running only twelve feet in against the cinder block wall. A full-sized bed was wedged into the far end of the room, its simple rail frame set low to the ground. Bare shelves took up most of one wall. A layer of dust ran along the front edges, marking where boxes once sat. Those boxes were now empty and lying on the floor, tossed haphazardly into the corner near the door. A few were still full, and Kane nudged one with his foot, surprised at its lack of heft.
Bending over, Kane carefully lifted the open flaps of the box and inspected its contents. Kel walked over with the camera to record what Kane found.
“It’s ties.” Kel frowned. “Who the hell has a box of ties? And ugly ties at that.”
“They’re knotted together tight,” Kane said, glancing at the bed. “Look at the bed frame. There’s one looped over the end, and you can see another one on the other side.”
“Some kind of BDSM thing going on up here?” Kel snapped a few pictures of the metal shelves, pacing off the room. “Far cry from some place to crash when you’re not getting along with your foster father.”
Kane didn’t need the reminder, not when he walked over to the bed and caught a whiff of the rank, musky sheets. Reminding himself he was on the job, he crouched next to the mattress and examined the frame. “Paint’s worn off near the ties, and this one’s abraded. So either the players are really hardcore, or the person being tied down really didn’t want to be here.”
He didn’t like thinking of a young, teenaged Miki spending nights up in the room, especially not on the worn-out, sagging mattress in front of him. Kane had to shove away the images crawling up from his darkest thoughts, and he shook his head, focusing on the job. Behind him, Kel’s camera continued to pop off flashes as the other inspector went about the room.
Kane stood up and stretched his legs. The long day was beginning to wear on him, and it’d been hours since he had his last cup of burnt cop coffee. Rubbing at the fatigue lingering on his eyes, Kane stifled a yawn when Kel turned the camera on him.
Kel gave Kane an exaggerated pout. “Smile for me, pretty boy.”
“I’ll kick your scrawny ass if you take that picture, Sanchez.” Kane flipped his partner off and stepped forward. “Did you take a peek at the rest of the boxes?”
“Not yet,” Sanchez admitted. “I was making sure I got pictures of all the empty boxes. Most of them are marked ‘clothes’, but it makes me wonder what’s in those trash bags downstairs. Think Bradley boy was just grabbing things and tossing them away before anyone came to find out what Daddy was doing up here?”
“Kind of makes him an accessory if there was anything illegal going on,” Kane pointed out. “Let’s have Lau wrap him up into one of the cars and take him down. Let him sweat it out there. If he lawyers up, then we know we’ve got something to go on.”
Sanchez nodded and shifted one of the smaller boxes with his foot. “Wanna pop this one open? I’ll grab some shots, and we’ll have the lab guys up here to print stuff for us. I want to see if Bradley’s fingers were all over the contents too. It’ll be easier to talk him down from his holier-than-the-cops attitude if we’ve got something on him.”
Kane flipped open the cardboard flaps, then pulled back when the camera’s flash went bright and he saw what the box held. From the looks of things, Shing had emptied a sex shop of its toys during a half-off sale. His stomach rolled, and Kane inhaled sharply through his mouth, not wanting to pull the room’s scents into his nose. In some part of his brain, he suspected what Shing did in his closed up little hidey hole, and Kane didn’t want to think about it, not when Bradley Shing was still downstairs and within choking distance.
When Kel leaned forward to get a better angle, Kane spotted the camera’s white burst reflecting on something shiny wedged far beneath the bed frame. Leaving his partner to document the contents of the box, Kane kneeled down and reached under the bed. A squat metal box was long and buried deep behind an ocean of dust bunnies. Hooking his shoulder under the frame, Kane stretched his arm and snagged the box’s corner with his fingers, dragging it forward an inch. After working the box loose from the shadows, Kane pulled it free with a triumphant smile, only to see Kel standing there with a disapproving look on his face.
“Why the hell didn’t you just lift the mattress?” Sanchez sniped. “Aren’t you the brains of the outfit?”
“I’m tired.” Kane shrugged bashfully. “Okay, and I didn’t think about it. Sue me. I got it out.”
The case was heavy, resembling a vintage safety deposit box more than anything else. More than half of its long, flat side was lid, and a worn, battered hinge bisected the case’s top. Bright yellow and scored from years of use, the latch was broken, rattling loudly when Kane lifted it up onto the bed. A scrawl of Chinese characters was lettered across the top of the box, the bold black characters chipped in places from being shoved under the metal frame. Kane adjusted the case so it was straight on the mattress, then stood back, letting Kel document the outside of the box.
“Okay, let’s open it up,” Kel said softly, and Kane braced himself for what he’d find as he flipped the case’s lid up.
It was a scene out of Kane’s worst nightmare.
Most of the photos were turning spotty from being in the damp, suffocating room, but the scenes they captured were enough to turn Kane’s stomach. He counted at least three young teenaged boys in the photos, their faces wet with tears and contorted into masks of pain and fear. They were shot posed on the same dirty linens on the bed, or against the surrounding putty colored cinder block walls. All were naked or in various stages of undress. None of them looked like they wanted to be there.
At the bottom of the pile were stacks of glossy photos wrapped with wax paper and tied up with red ribbon bows. His fingers trembled as Kane reached for them, the black latex of his gloves slick on the shiny paper.
These photos weren’t throwaways for Shing. No, he’d packaged these carefully, almost lovingly, documenting a sickness he clearly enjoyed exploring. Kane didn’t need to unwrap the wax paper from the first stack to know the face he’d find in Shing’s treasure pile, but he did it anyway, needing to confirm the crawling suspicions vomiting up ill thoughts in his brain.
It was still a shock to see those haunting hazel eyes staring up at him from the first photo. Miki’s face was rounder and blushed with youth, but there was not a hint of innocence in the boy’s wide-eyed stare. Caught on film at an age when his world should have revolved around sports and dodging homework, Miki’s face was contorted with anguish, and his lashes were spiked with his tears. Even wrapped in Shing’s perversion and beaten down with bruises marking most of his pale body, Miki stared up at Shing’s camera and defied the man with a snarl on his young mouth.
“Fuck,” Kel whispered as he peered around Kane’s arm. “Looks like we’ve got a motive for St. John murdering Shing.”
“Looks like,” Kane agreed reluctantly. “Good thing he’s already dead or I’d kill the fucking bastard myself. Let’s go see what his son has to say about this shit. Suddenly, I’m not so tired anymore.”