Jamie wasn’t in the house when they got up later. In fact,
he disappeared for the whole day and the evening as well. Max watched Lucien
become quieter as the day went on, and it was actually a relief when he decided
it was time for bed and they could shut out the rest of the world.
When they woke the next morning, Lucien checked Jamie’s room,
but it was as empty as it had been the day before.
The pool was quiet with no other swimmers for early practice,
and they went through the training motions in silence. Lucien was still quiet,
but he didn’t push Max away physically. They just didn’t joke and banter as usual.
They reached the house at just after nine, and Max went into
autopilot, checking the street, looking up and down without making it too
obvious. Then he saw the door, and the danger, and adrenalin had him shoving
Lucien behind him.
The lock on the front door was broken, the door hanging
open.
Max went in first with the sense that something was horribly
wrong. This time he wasn’t letting Lucien dive in to something he couldn’t
identify.
There was so much blood. Max had only ever seen this much
blood in war, and it turned his stomach. In the center of the pool, a man was
sprawled on the carpet with eyes staring vacantly, the rest of his face a
bloody, broken mess. A house brick lay next to his head covered in blood. Max
could make out white-blond hair, and the man was in what used to be a light-colored
suit. The dealer. Charles Lennox.
“Jesus, Max, is it Jamie?”
“It’s not Jamie—” Max said immediately and attempted to
protect Lucien from the view. Lucien peered round with a horrified gasp.
“Oh my God, is it the guy from the police station, the one
you threatened… is he dead?” Lucien asked weakly.
Ignoring the blood and the obvious stillness of Lennox’s
chest, Max checked for a pulse. But he’d seen dead soldiers before and there
was certainly no hope for this guy. Max shook his head and stepped back. “Yes.”
As he'd checked Lennox's blood drenched corpse for vital
signs he had felt nothing beyond relief that it hadn't been Jamie. Because
Jamie meant so much to Lucien and Max didn’t know what Lucien would feel to
lose yet someone else in his life. Then Max’s protective gene kicked in; this
situation had to be managed and he needed to get his head back in the game.
He pulled out his cell, dialing 999 and giving over address
and details. He kept his focus on Lucien, who hadn’t moved from the entrance.
He was wide-eyed and pale and clutching his stomach like he was going to be
sick.
The sound of an approaching siren had Max attempting to snap
Lucien out of his fugue. He gently helped Lucien away as the paramedics dealt
with the body in the front room. They moved aside as the police arrived and
began taking photos, asking questions, the crime scene officers making notes
and ushering everyone away. They stepped around white pills scattered around
the floor, and still Lucien stood blankly staring at the blood. Max had been
right in his assumption that somehow Jamie and his drugs would bring death to
their door, he’d just expected it to be Jamie lying there.
“Lucien?” Max wanted to grip Lucien’s upper arms and shake
him, but he couldn't. He had blood on his hands and he knew better than to fuck
with a crime scene any more than he needed. Max had been processed, photos
taken of his hands, his feet, scene of the crime photos showing where Max had
stood.
Lucien blinked and stared at Max, some focus coming back
into his eyes.
“What happened?” he asked. The sound of his voice reassured
Max that he was going to snap out of this. “We have to find Jamie.”
“I don’t know—”
“I’m here.” Max spun on his heel to face Jamie, who was
being held back by a cop. Lucien grabbed his friend and hugged him.
Jamie attempted to peer around him. “What’s going on? Luke?
Why can’t we go in? Oh God…” Jamie backed away until he met the wall. Lucien
followed and gripped his arm. “That’s Lennox.”
Jamie mumbled something that sounded like it contained the
word ‘dealer’.
“Talk to me, Jamie,” Max demanded.
Jamie crumpled and slid through Lucien’s hold to the floor,
pulling his feet up. “He threatened… he’d come back, but I gave him everything
I had.”
Max crouched next to him. “You need to talk to the police.
What is it that you think you know?”
“He wanted his pills back, but they’d been taken from me at
the club by a friend. I didn’t have the money, so I contacted him and said I’d
get them after lectures. I didn’t want to put Luke or you in danger, because Lennox
knows people. People that will kill. He knew them… oh Christ… I was trying, Luke.
I’d gone to my lecture.”
“I know, Jamie,” Lucien said with conviction. Max wished he
could be as easily convinced that this was a turning point or that Jamie had
been trying, but hell, the kid looked white.
“What else did Lennox say, Jamie?” Max asked.
“He said he’d break down the door and get them.”
Max looked up at the nearest cop and caught his eye. “This
is Jamie Green, he’s here to give you a statement.”
Jamie clung to Lucien’s sleeve. “I can’t.”
Lucien stood and offered a hand. “Yes you can.”
Max watched as a myriad of emotions sketched over Jamie’s
face. Fear, panic, resignation. And finally, there it was, a little bravery mixed
with the resignation. He turned to the cop who had come over, and Max watched
for a little while until Lucien moved away.
The same cop then came over with his notebook, talking to
Lucien.
“Mr. Magrello, you said you returned at just after nine a.m.,
and that you had left at seven thirty?”
Lucien nodded, but the cop looked at him expectantly. Max
had already told him all this, but of course it would need corroborating.
Lucien expanded on his answer. “We were later leaving than
usual. That sounds right.”
The cop frowned at the hesitant answer and Max held himself
back from commenting on how shaken Lucien was. “And you have people who can
vouch for you being at the pool?”
“Yes,” Max answered. Lucien looked he was going to be sick. “Can
I wash my hands and change?” Max indicated the blood on his hands and his shoes,
and if anything, Lucien went even whiter.
The police agreed they could leave, took statements, said
they’d contact Max and Lucien, wanted to know if either man knew about the drugs.
Max was clear about what he did and didn’t know, and Lucien stared at him with shock
etched into his face as Max deliberately left out the confrontation after the
station two nights back. It didn’t really add anything, but if Jamie should mention
it, then he would expand on what had happened.
When prompted, Lucien said he couldn’t add anything either,
and he looked so believable that Max knew the cop would write him off as having
nothing to do with it.
“You’ll need to find somewhere to stay tonight,” the policeman
said.
“We’ll find somewhere,” Max answered before Lucien said
anything. They’d get a room in a hotel or something, no point in making a fuss.
“Can I at least get my laptop?” Lucien asked. “And pack a
bag?”
The policeman indicated a constable behind them. “Can you
accompany Mr. Magrello to his room, please?”
Max started to follow, but the cop laid a hand on his arm.
“We’ll need you to attend the station in the next twenty-four hours. Make all
this official.”
Max wondered briefly what Jamie would do, but Jamie wasn’t
really his responsibility. He wished he could feel sorry for Jamie for Lucien’s
sake, but it was Jamie’s connection that meant there was a dead body in the
front room.
“We can do that,” Max said.
“I was with friends, you can call them,” Max heard Jamie
explaining to the cops. He was being asked to report to the station the same as
them, and he turned and vanished way before Lucien reappeared. He didn’t even bother
retrieving any of his stuff before he hared away.
When Lucien came back downstairs, it was Max’s turn to go to
his room to grab his kit and everything important. He guessed the house would
be out of bounds for at least a few days. Lucien wouldn’t ever be coming back
here if he had anything to do with it.
Together they stepped outside, Max back into observation
mode, and they went immediately to Max’s car, dumping everything into the
trunk. As soon as they were in the car, they connected to BI. Lucien slumped
against the window, staring back at the house.
“Charles Lennox is dead. Drug dealer. Connected to Jamie
Green the housemate,” Max explained without
hello
s. “Huge head wound, not
much left of his face and half his head. He bled out. The cops are there.”
Lucien scrubbed at his face with his hands and wouldn’t look
at Max.
Ross didn’t waste time discussing the situation. It wasn’t
BI’s place to get involved unless the death was something to do with the job in
hand, and he needed to ascertain if this was the case. “Connection?”
“Possible. Not probable. We need to keep an eye on the housemate;
he’s the connection to Lennox, but I don’t think either he or Lennox are connected
to the letters sent to the prince. Oh, and we need rooms away from the house.”
“I’ll organize it and send details to your phone. Stay in
touch.”
“Coffee,” Max announced, and before Lucien could argue, he
left the road where they lived and headed out of the city. They stopped at the
first place they found, a McDonald’s on a roundabout, and they didn’t get out
of the car, ordering crappy coffee in the drive-through.
Then they parked at the back of the McDonald’s, and Max
glanced at a very quiet Lucien.
“Are you okay?” Of course Lucien wasn’t okay, he looked like
someone had blindsided him.
“Tell me it was just the drugs, that someone recognized Lennox
and saw him go in our house and killed him there, that it was nothing to do
with me.”
“I doubt it was anything to do with you. The guy is a dealer—”
Lucien’s small noise of distress stopped Max in his tracks.
“I didn’t know. Not really, I mean, I knew Jamie took prescription drugs, but I
didn’t think about how he had a dealer, didn’t know it was that bad. I’m so
fucking stupid.”
Max’s phone vibrated with a text from Ross and an address
appeared. He entered the information into the map application and noted the
place, St. Mellon’s Hotel, was little more than ten or so miles from where they
were.
Lucien sighed noisily. “What will happen to Jamie?”
“He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s a user who needs help, but
he was with friends and has an alibi. Depends if he did any dealing for money.”
“I know you called me naïve, but I won’t let him get lost in
the system,” Lucien promised.
Guilt flooded Max. Yes he’d called Lucien naïve, but he
hadn’t meant it to sound so definite. The innocence that Lucien had about him
was exactly what Max was growing to love about him. “We’ll find out more in the
morning.”
The drive to the hotel was yet another quiet period. Max was
as lost in his own thoughts as Lucien. His first thoughts when he saw Lennox
was that the man was dead. He’d dispassionately assessed and felt nothing to
see him lying there. He would probably have felt something if Jamie had been lying
there instead since Jamie meant something to Lucien. Curse his protective gene,
but he didn’t want Lucien to have bad things in his life. Ever.
They parked at the hotel and carried their own bags to
reception. Lucien hung a little farther back and Max did all the talking. The
foyer of the hotel was small but resplendent with marble and polished wood. A quiet
air of respectability and hushed voices had Max feeling like a fish out of
water, but he’d do anything to keep Lucien safe.
Ross had booked two adjoining rooms, and when they went into
the first room Max saw the connecting door between the two.
“BI may as well cancel the second one,” Lucien said. He
slumped onto the bed and rested his elbows on his legs, his hands loose between
his knees. Max recognized the same blank-eyed shock that Lucien had shown when
they’d found Kev face-down in the pool.
“I’ll get on that,” Max said. He was reassuring Lucien that
he could handle the small details in the vain hope that it helped.
Lucien’s voice was small in the high-ceilinged room. “Was it
me?”
Max stilled in his examination of the window. They were on
the second floor but close to the fire escape. The window faced the large
landscaped gardens, and they were pretty much on top of the portico that
sheltered the front entrance. Not perfect, but as good as it could be.
“What do you mean?”
“Lennox. Did someone kill him because he was connected to
me?”
“You had no connection to Lennox.”
“I did to Jamie.”
“But it isn’t Jamie who is dead. Jamie is fine.” Max moved
to crouch in front of Lucien. Fear shadowed the prince’s dark eyes, and then
Max spotted what was in his hand. An envelope.
Fuck.
“My bedroom,” Lucien whispered. “It was on my bed.”
Max held out a hand. He didn’t want to say that Lucien
should have given it to him at the house so he could have considered passing to
the police. There might be a connection, but possibly whoever was doing this to
Lucien just took advantage of a broken front door. Coincidence maybe, but
anything was possible.
Lucien handed it over to Max, who carefully opened it. As
usual, it wasn’t sealed, the typing on the front looked the same, the weight of
the paper was thin, the same as the others. When Max read the words, his blood
froze.
I won’t have it. He put you in danger. He won’t go near
you again.
The words were damning, and Lucien’s moan of despair was
loud in the quiet room. This was the confession of a murderer.
“This is a break in his pattern,” Max said. He pushed the
paper back into the envelope and stood. He’d need to get this to the police,
and BI would have to liaise with who he really was and why he was here and lay
the whole thing with the law. He’d been hoping to avoid that one and somehow
not have Lucien appear at the station tomorrow. He hadn’t figured out how, but he’d
been hoping Ross would come up with a way around it all.