“I’ll tell him why I was there.”
Walter scoffed. “Right. You’re
undercover
. It’s not because you’re a fag or anything.” He crossed the room, tripping once over his own feet, his gaze on Kevin until he was at the couch. He plopped onto it, and Charlie bounced at the opposite end. “Shit. Forgot the damn whiskey. Get me the bottle.”
Kevin went to the kitchen and returned with the bottle of whiskey. “You’re a mean drunk.”
“I’m not drunk. Yet.”
Charlie scooted close again and lowered his head to Walter’s thigh. A minute passed, another, Walter staring at the dog.
He finally lifted a hand and patted Charlie. “Sorry, buddy. He’s not coming to get you right now.” Walter went to drink out of the glass as if he couldn’t recall he’d already downed every last drop. “Whiskey?”
Kevin didn’t hand over the bottle. Every instinct told him it wasn’t what Walter needed. He took the glass from him. “I’m going to make you some coffee. And something to eat.”
Walter grunted an inaudible retort.
Kevin set the glass with the bottle on the coffee table and sat on the couch beside him. “Come here.”
No hesitation. Walter pinned Kevin to the arm of the couch and planted a fierce kiss on his lips. Kevin tried to pull back, but Walter had a tight hold on his head. So Kevin gave in and returned the kiss, all tongue and a hard press of their open mouths, until Walter finally let up.
Then Kevin said, “I’ll kiss you anytime you want or need, but that’s not what I meant. Come here.” He reached for Walter again and pulled him into his arms.
Walter didn’t fight him on the embrace.
At least not at first. Then in a rush Walter jerked away, flew off the couch, and headed down the hall. A minute later the shower came on in the bathroom.
Something shifted inside Kevin. Maybe what happens when a man fully accepts who he is and what he wants out of life. Staring down the empty hall, the intensity of emotion struck him and caught the breath in his chest. As if someone had taken a literal punch at him.
He was in love with this man. He’d give just about anything to be what Walter needed right then.
Inside the bathroom, Kevin raised his shirt over his head, his hands a little unsteady. He removed his socks next.
A low sob spilled out from the shower, bouncing off the walls and filling the bathroom with the echoes of sorrow.
Kevin dropped the socks he held in each hand and climbed into the shower, his jeans soaking through in the process. Walter was bent forward with both hands on the shower wall before him, his head under the spray, his body shaking with unrestrained emotion. Kevin drew him backward to him, whispering two simple words over and over. “It’s okay.”
Walter turned in his arms, buried his face in Kevin’s neck. Another sob and he shook. “Fuck.” He punched the shower wall over Kevin’s shoulder.
“Stop.” Kevin gripped his hand and examined it for damage. No broken skin. He kissed one knuckle, then another. “Please, don’t hurt yourself.” Another kiss. “You’re not seeing the good news in all this.”
“There’s no good in any of this.” The words were spoken through clenched teeth. Then Walter glanced up with something like remorse in his eyes. “Except meeting you.”
The relief slammed into Kevin, and only then did he realize how afraid he’d been that Walter would regret every moment since they’d begun their investigation.
Kevin offered Walter a smile. “But there’s something else.”
Walter studied him, like he couldn’t figure out how he’d let a stranger into his shower, his apartment, his life.
That thought was better left unexamined.
“He kept Seth alive all this time. Now we know you were right. Dylan and the others…they’re still alive. It’s not too late to save them.”
Walter seized Kevin’s face in both hands and planted a hard, quick kiss on his lips. “You’re absolutely right.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A phone rang in the living room.
Walter hurried into a pair of pants and pulled a shirt on. He left Kevin in the bedroom to finish dressing and went to answer his phone.
“Walter? It’s Richard. I’ve got more info on the club. You still interested?”
“Yeah, I am.” Understatement of the year. “What did you find?”
“The name of a company not on your list that’s been interested in the building but hasn’t made any recent inquiries directly to Vargas. They’d made offers to him in the past, but those stopped when they bought another one of the companies on your list. I’m guessing they continued contacting Vargas but were doing so under that other name.” Richard gave him the dates the company had made all its offers to buy the club.
Walter grabbed a piece of paper to jot down the dates and then the original name of the company, but once Richard said the latter, Walter didn’t need the paper.
All along he’d been on the right track with the wrong information.
“Thanks, Richard. This might be exactly what we need.”
When he hung up, Kevin came into the room and asked, “Was that good news?”
“Yeah. The name of another company who’s been interested in buying the Haven. H&H Holdings.”
Kevin’s eyes widened. “I know that name.”
“Me too. Guess whose father owns it.”
“Prescott’s?”
“No. My biggest fan on the force.”
“Henderson’s?”
“Looks like him getting on this case wasn’t about me at all. My guess is he’s helping dear old Dad clean up a mess.”
“So Henderson’s father hired Prescott to go after the club?”
“Or Henderson himself. He’s probably the one who’s been covering up the connection between the club and the missing men. A cop, like you first thought.”
“What do we…” Kevin dropped to the couch. “Wow. What…what do we do with this?”
Good question. Walter paced the length of the living room. “The thefts and hiring Nelson to sell drugs in the club…let’s assume that’s all about Henderson and his father’s interest in the property. They hired Prescott to fuck with Vargas when outright offers didn’t work.”
“Why does his dad’s company want the Haven?” Kevin asked.
“I don’t know. But all this interest in the club—Eubank Industries with their connections to organized crime and now H&H Holdings—that all has to mean there’s something we’re missing about that property. Whatever it is they all want, I’m guessing for Henderson, it started that night he spotted me outside the club. Richard said the offers from H&H Holdings began rolling in not long after he saw me there. He must’ve checked into the place and found out something about it, which he shared with his father.”
“Like what?” Kevin asked. “A secret treasure hidden somewhere? Something inside another passageway we missed?”
“Maybe.” It had to be something big. Not just the value of the property itself. Then Walter had another thought. “So much for someone at Eubank Industries telling anyone how to find Prescott. They’re probably not even the ones who paid him. Henderson probably set up that money trail as cover in case Prescott got arrested. It’s Henderson who knows how to find him. We have to talk to him.”
Kevin threw him an incredulous look. “If he’s involved, he’s not going to tell us anything.”
“Then we have to connect him to Prescott. Then he might talk to make a deal.”
Kevin shook his head. “How did Henderson find a guy like Prescott to hire?”
“Maybe he caught him doing something illegal at some point. A lot of cops and firefighters know each other. Or maybe they knew each other long before this. They both come from wealthy families.”
Kevin retrieved his laptop and sat at the kitchen table. “I’ll search the Web for Prescott and Henderson together and see what comes up.”
Walter returned to his pacing behind Kevin. He should call Tucker, see what he could find out. He picked up his phone.
Before he got the phone dialed, Kevin said, “Got it. They went to the same boarding school as kids.” He clicked to another page. “These are scanned issues of the school’s newspaper from back then. Henderson is tagged in some.” Kevin clicked from one to the next, scanning the text. “Here.” He pointed to the screen. “When they were fifteen, one of their teachers attacked Henderson in a classroom after school. A physical assault. Sounds like the teacher was a nutcase.” Kevin stopped reading and turned in his chair. “Prescott saved Henderson’s life.”
“I need to get this information to Gibson.” Walter dialed his phone.
“Wait.” Kevin opened a password-protected Web site. “I know where I’ve heard of H&H Holdings. They were mentioned a lot in the
Daily Voice
when I read back issues before I tried to get a job on the paper. I can’t remember what the stories were about, just the name.” He typed. “Let me search our archives. It’ll just take a couple of minutes.” He started the search and faced Walter. “Do you think Prescott hurt Seth? Or was it Henderson?”
“Henderson.”
“You really think he’s capable of that? He’s a cop.”
“Thought you didn’t trust cops?”
Kevin rolled his eyes. “I don’t think they’re all abusive psychos.”
“It’s Henderson. Don’t ask me how I know, but I’d bet my ass on it.”
Kevin checked the search results. He waved a hand in the air. “Don’t bet your ass. No one gets that but me.”
That sounded good to Walter. Like something to look forward to when this entire mess was over, which of course, went against everything he’d been telling Kevin earlier. Walter wanted to apologize for the way he’d acted when they’d gotten home from the hospital, for pushing Kevin away. He also wanted to say more than a lame thank-you for what Kevin had done for him in the shower, but something in the corner of the kitchen caught Walter’s eye before he could say another word.
A piece of fabric was sticking out from under the lid of his trash can, the pattern of the fabric like nothing he owned. Were those paw prints?
Instinct told Walter not to touch it. He opened a kitchen drawer. Using a pair of salad tongs, he lifted the fabric from the trash. A dishtowel. The towel he’d used at Seth Fisher’s apartment to wrap the ice for Kevin’s bruised knuckles. Walter had brought the towel home with him so as not to leave evidence they’d been in the apartment. He’d ditched it in his laundry room when he’d gotten home that night. He spun the towel around. Dried blood covered the other side.
Still holding the towel in the air, he asked Kevin, “Find anything yet?”
“It’s still running. I had to start it over, limit the search parameters.” Kevin looked up from his computer. “Is that blood?” He stood and came to Walter. “That’s a lot of blood. When did you get hurt?”
“It’s not mine.”
“Whose is it?”
“My guess? It’s from the same man whose towel this is. Seth Fisher.”
“How’d it get here?”
“I brought the towel home with me from his apartment that night we searched the place, but it didn’t have blood on it then.”
“Why would someone…” The wide-eyed, panicked look that hit Kevin’s face said he knew the answer sure as Walter did. “He’s been watching you this entire time. He’s setting you up.”
“I’ve got to call Gibson.”
“You can’t take this to the cops. You might as well sign a confession.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Walter carefully set the towel on top of the trash can.
“Oh yeah? How does it work?”
Walter’s phone rang. He retrieved it from the table and checked the caller ID. “Gibson.”
“Don’t tell him anything,” Kevin said in a rush. “Not yet.”
Walter answered the phone. “Simon.”
Gibson got right to the point. “I’ve got bad news. Henderson and his partner are on their way to your apartment.”
“Let me guess, I’m a suspect.”
“How’d you figure that?”
Walter ignored the question and asked, “What’s he got on me?”
“They discovered a passage in one of the journals that stated the accomplice who Prescott met ten years ago was a cop. Henderson thinks the accomplice is still alive and that you’re him. That you’ve known Prescott for years. That you helped him escape at the club after he attacked Kevin. And that you were involved with what happened to Seth Fisher. He’s got physical evidence from the scene where Vargas found Seth. Results aren’t in yet, but Henderson has enough to bring you in for questioning. There was a picture frame of Seth at Prescott’s apartment.”
The frame Walter had taken from Seth’s when he’d first gone looking for him. “It’s got my prints on it.”
“Yeah.”
Walter shot a look at his apartment door. Someone had been in his place. Where he’d thought he could keep Kevin safe. “Listen, don’t trust Henderson. I can’t go into it yet, but he’s involved.”
“He’s the one who knows Prescott, isn’t he?” Gibson asked.
“I’ll explain everything when I come in. Can you get someone from Internal Affairs to meet me there?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the heads up too, but don’t call me again. I don’t want you losing your job over this.”
“Shut it. We’ve known each other too long for you to get all noble on me. If you need me, I’m there. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
“Right now, just contact IA. I need to get in touch with a criminal attorney. I’m being set up here, and he’s doing a damn good job of it.”
“You call that attorney right away.”
“I will.” Walter repeated his thanks and hung up.
Kevin had that serious reporter demeanor locked in place.
“I’m an official suspect. They have my prints at Prescott’s and there may be physical evidence I’m involved in what happened to Seth.”
“Involved?”
“He’s setting me up as Prescott’s accomplice. Both from now and ten years ago. He probably planted my DNA on Seth, same as he planted that towel here.” They’d had no guards with them since they’d left the hospital. Walter should’ve had Tucker send someone the minute they’d gotten home. He dialed his phone, and when Tucker answered, Walter said, “I need you to get over to my place. Kevin’s about to be alone. I can’t go into it now, but he’ll fill you in on the details when you get here.”
Kevin was still watching Walter as he hung up. This look was laced with concern more than a demand for answers. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”