Текст книги "Fair Game "

Автор книги: Josh lanyon

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Elliot said shortly, “I still remember how it works, Lance. No. I’m not in line for most popular instructor, but I don’t think anyone actually wants me dead.” He thought of Mrachek, Leslie having to rewrite her paper and Ray’s annoyance with his inability to remember to put his trash basket in the hall. He’d turned Jim Feder down a couple of times, exasperated Charlotte Oppenheimer by refusing to drop the case and irritated Andrew Corian on general principle. None of those things were grounds for murder to a sane person. It was hard to say what might trigger an unbalanced mind.

“What?” Tucker was watching his expression. “What did you remember?”

“I haven’t had a run-in with him, but the maintenance guy assigned to my office building strikes me as a little hinky.”

“Name?”

“Ray…something. You know how it is. Maintenance people and support staff have that cloaking device.”

“Yeah. Okay. A maintenance guy would have access to most of the campus, right?”

“I’d say so. But all the college personnel have to pass a criminal background check.”

“Just because he ain’t been caught don’t mean he’s not a criminal.”

Elliot shook his head and reached for the last piece of pizza.

“I can’t figure out where you put all that,” Tucker observed. “You eat like a horse.”

“It goes straight to my cock.”

Tucker inhaled beer and spent the next few seconds trying not to drown.

When the phone rang at eleven-thirty they stared at each other.

Tucker’s expression was dark as he rose to answer.

Elliot listened, frowning, to the taciturn one-sided conversation. He watched Tucker’s expression slowly set.

At last Tucker hung up the phone and turned to face him. “That was Detective Anderson. You’ll be pleased to know they took your suggestion seriously and they’ve spent the last five hours combing their missing persons files.”

“And?”

“It looks like you were right.”

“How many?” Elliot’s voice didn’t sound like himself.

“Since 2005 over nine young men loosely matching your victims’ profiles have turned up missing in Tacoma or Pierce County.”

Elliot expelled a long, shaky breath. “I’d rather have been wrong.”

“Yeah. I’d rather you had been wrong too. But you’re not. Tacoma PD is in agreement. You’ve been hunting a serial killer.”

Chapter Twenty

Tucker was in the bathroom brushing his teeth.

Elliot sat on the edge of the bed in his shorts listening to the brisk, business-like sound. Tucker was kind of an old-fashioned guy. No electric toothbrush for him. He didn’t use an electric razor either.

And why Elliot was sitting here thinking about Tucker’s grooming habits was anyone’s guess. They had awkwardly agreed to share the bed. Tucker’s couch wasn’t long enough for either of them to sleep comfortably. Elliot wasn’t in fit shape to get himself home even if his car hadn’t been towed to a repair shop.

If he was perfectly honest, he didn’t want to go home.

Not that he was completely sure what he did want—let alone what Tucker wanted.

The bathroom door opened. Tucker stood framed for an instant before he turned out the light: wide shoulders, muscular arms, smooth freckled chest. Pale blue pajama bottoms hung low on his narrow hips. He didn’t typically wear pajamas. At least, Elliot didn’t think he did. The truth was, the nights they had spent together were not nights for toothbrushes and pajamas. They had been nights when they were both exhausted but still wound up, nights when they had eaten and fallen into bed to fuck themselves to sleep. Nights that usually involved too much alcohol.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t fair. There had been that one time—a long weekend not long before Elliot had been shot—when they had gone out on Tucker’s boat. Those days had been spent swimming and sailing as well as the other. Not a lot of toothbrushing then either, granted, but they had been together because they wanted to spend that time with each other. Elliot supposed so, anyway.

He had almost forgotten that. No, not forgotten. Deliberately erased the memories.

“You look grim,” Tucker commented.

“I feel like we should be doing something.”

Tucker raised one reddish eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”

That was more like the old Tucker. Elliot gave a flicker of a smile.

“Listen.” Tucker sat next to him on the side of the bed. “There isn’t anything more we can do tonight. Do you think there’s something more we can do?”

Elliot wearily shook his head. “It’s knowing the Unsub’s out there. Knowing he could be targeting some kid right now.”

“He had a busy and unsuccessful day. I don’t think he’s on the move tonight. Not if he’s half as tired as you look.”

“Thanks.”

“That wasn’t…a slam. It’s hard to know what to say to you, Elliot. You’re so…touchy.”

The sincerity in Tucker’s voice forced Elliot to consider this dispassionately.

“Maybe,” he finally admitted.

“Just because you can’t do everything you used to do—” Tucker broke off at Elliot’s expression. “Okay. I know I’m the last person with the right to comment, but…you’ve changed so much.”

Elliot absorbed this without speaking. Absorbed the genuine concern, the caring in Tucker’s voice. He said roughly, “That’s unexpected coming from you. Aren’t you the guy who basically told me to get over it?”

Tucker’s face reddened. “I never…I didn’t…” He swallowed.

“Yeah, you did.”

Tucker looked away. That little muscle in his jaw twitched. “Yeah, I did.”

Elliot had no idea how to respond. For some bizarre reason he was starting to sympathize with Tucker. He went for safe ground and changed the subject. “Anyway, this guy isn’t like the typical serial killer. He’s been operating for five years without popping up on the radar until now. He’s careful, restrained. Or maybe he’s cherry picking.”

“He’s what?”

“Well, think about it. Nine victims in five years, and only now he begins to devolve?”

“It’s way too soon to be sure all nine of these missing persons are his victims.”

“Right. But that’s kind of my point. He’s not doing this for the attention. He’s not feeding off the media frenzy or public fear. He’s taken pains that there isn’t any. Only now is he showing any desire to challenge the authorities.”

“It may be more personal than that. His challenge may be specific to you. He may not be looking at you as a symbol of the authorities. He may be looking at you as you.”

“It had occurred to me.”

“Which leads us back to the theory that the Unsub is someone known to you.” Tucker leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers raking his hair. It stood up in coppery tufts through his long fingers. “I gotta tell you, my dreams are bad enough without talking about serial killers before bed.”

Elliot started to answer and was caught off guard by a huge yawn. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.”

Elliot groaned. Tucker elbowed him companionably before pushing off the bed. He went down the hall to turn off the lights and check the locks. Elliot snapped off the lamp on the table, stretched out in the sheets, settled his head in the cool plumpness of the pillow. He closed his eyes and the world seemed to drop away from beneath him.

Sometime later he was vaguely aware of Tucker coming back, turning out the other light and crawling into bed. Elliot had been dozing but the minute that long, powerful body lowered next to his, he jerked back to awareness.

For a few seconds they lay unspeaking in the darkness. Elliot was acutely aware of Tucker’s warmth, his energy. He could smell the strangely erotic blend of toothpaste and bare skin, feel the calm rise and fall of Tucker’s chest as he lightly inhaled and exhaled. Tucker’s arm was so close Elliot’s skin tingled.

It seemed unbelievable to him that they should be lying here side by side. He could almost convince himself that the last year and a half hadn’t happened.

Tucker’s voice said out of the darkness, “I know I wasn’t—that I could have been more understanding. You didn’t give me a chance to…come to terms with it.”

Elliot replied, “Yeah, it was pretty selfish of me.”

Silence.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Tucker said. “I think you’ve forgotten that you were the one who told me you didn’t want to see me, that it was too hard, too painful.”

Elliot turned that over in his mind. Fair enough. He had said that at one point. He said bitterly, “I was in shock.”

“I know that now. At the time, you didn’t seem like you were in shock. You were ice cold. And stubborn as a goddamned bloodstain. You would not be moved. You wouldn’t even talk about it.”

“So it’s my fault?”

He stopped, astonished, when Tucker’s hand groped across the sheet for his, interlaced their fingers. “I’m sorry,” Tucker said.

Elliot opened his mouth. Closed it. Whatever he had expected…it wasn’t that.

Tucker let go of his hand. There was a surge of movement, bedsprings squeaking, as he turned over. Elliot could make out the gleam of his eyes in the darkness. “I’ve wanted to say this to you for over a year. I’m sorry, Elliot. Truly sorry. Regardless of what was going on with you, I didn’t handle it right. I…was a bastard. I know. I was angry.”

Again, Elliot started to speak, but Tucker cut him off. “I know it’s not logical and I don’t expect you to understand. I…didn’t want it to be true. I wanted to believe that if you’d try harder, man up a little, everything would go back to normal. We could be like we had been.”

Man up, Elliot.

Elliot turned sharply to stare out the pale bars of moonlight through the slats of the window blinds. It was what he had wanted to believe too, but it was a dream he’d had to let go of fast—the physical evidence being compelling.

Tucker seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He said finally, “There was never a chance I’d make it back into the field.”

“I know. I knew it then too. But I was afraid that if you left the Bureau, it would be over between us. That there wasn’t enough between us—for you—to keep us together. That seemed like what you were telling me.”

Elliot turned his head, trying to read Tucker’s shadowy face. In seventeen months of brooding over possible explanations, this one had never crossed his mind. In fact, he was so sure that Tucker’s rejection had been based on not wanting to be saddled with a cripple that he couldn’t seem to process this new information.

“Do you have any idea what it was like for me? I nearly lost my fucking leg. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to walk again.”

“I know.”

“Maybe I was difficult. Maybe I did shut down. Push you away. I needed you. As a friend if nothing else.” Elliot broke off as, to his horror, emotion clogged his throat. That would be the final fucking straw. To break down in front of Tucker.

“I know,” Tucker whispered. “There’s nothing you can say to me I haven’t said to myself.”

Elliot wiped impatiently at the burning behind his eyes. “Really? Let’s give it a shot.”

“And then you refused to consider a desk job.”

“A desk job.” Elliot punched the leather padded headboard. “Would you have been happy with a desk job?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“Then—”

“At least you’d have still been in the Bureau.” Tucker’s voice was subdued. “We’d have still been—still had that in common, something we could share.”

“If all we ever had in common was the goddamned job, we didn’t have enough in common.” Elliot’s response was automatic. What he was really thinking was that it had never occurred to him that their relationship was anything more than sex for Tucker. It was still hard to take in what Tucker was trying to tell him. From the time they’d started, Elliot had warned himself not to take it seriously. It seemed he’d succeeded too well.

Tucker leaned forward, his breath warm against Elliot’s face. “I think we had more in common than that.”

Elliot shook his head angrily.

“I guess I thought maybe if we had more time, you’d figure it out too.”

What did that even mean? Had Tucker really not figured out how much Elliot had cared? How badly it had hurt when Tucker had turned on him? “You had a funny way of showing it. In my book ‘Pull your shit together and be grateful you still have a fucking desk job’ doesn’t translate to ‘I think we have a future.’”

“Maybe I was partly hoping I could snap you out of it if I made you angry enough. Pushed you hard enough. I’m not sure anymore. You didn’t give me a chance to fix it, Elliot. You threw me out and then you wouldn’t see me again, wouldn’t take my calls, wouldn’t answer my emails or my letters.”

“I was kind of busy. You know, learning to walk again.”

“No one would let me near you. I knew I screwed up. I tried to tell you.”

“It was too late.”

Tucker fell silent.

Infuriatingly, Elliot’s eyes kept filling with wet, his sinuses burning, his sodden lungs shuddering. In all these months he had never cried and now he was half drowning with emotion—and the most appalling thing of all was the way his ears strained to hear over his physical distress what else Tucker might say, to hear if he had anything final to add.

“Is it?” Tucker asked eventually into that tight-strung stillness.

All that wordless searching and that was what he came up with? Typical Tucker. Throwing it right back on Elliot. His lips parted. Yes, it was too late. It was seventeen months too late. That’s what he wanted to say, what his hurt pride goaded him to say. But if he said it now, it would be the end.

This was it. This was the crossroads. He thought he’d left it miles behind, that the decision had been made for better or worse, but as though he’d traveled in a circle, here it was again: the turning point—a second chance if he wanted it.

He needed to say something.

The best he could manage was a shuddering sigh. To his astonished relief Tucker reached for him, hauled him into his arms.

“You don’t have to answer. You don’t have to decide now. We could…see where it goes from here.” Tucker’s voice was husky against Elliot’s ear. “It was good between us, Elliot. You know it was. We both know it was. We just needed more time.”

Maybe. Maybe it was true. It startled him how much he wanted to believe it.

When Tucker’s hand reached for him, Elliot thrust up into that familiar, knowing grip, and when Tucker’s hungry, hot mouth covered his, Elliot opened to his kiss.

Chapter Twenty-One

In two swift moves they kicked free of shorts and pajama bottoms, rolling back into each other’s arms. Elliot’s nerves were humming like the wind singing through wires as Tucker’s hand moved on him with easy expertise, a warm, slow glide—the right amount of pressure, the right angle, the right rhythm. He flicked his thumb over the moisture pearling at the tip of Elliot’s cock, making use of nature’s own lubricant, and that incredible combination of salty slickness and rough friction as Tucker’s hand pumped him harder, faster, sent Elliot’s heart flying.

Just the astonishment of being naked together again, of putting hands on each other again. There was something about it, the concession of placing your trust—literally your balls—in another man’s hands. Oh, and Christ the feel of that hard, calloused hand cupping that delicate sack while Tucker’s other hand made those long stroking slides.

Elliot moaned.

“Yeah?” Tucker asked breathlessly.

Elliot’s own breath was ragged. “Yeah. Oh yeah.”

There was just one problem. It had been too long. Way too long. Embarrassingly, Elliot’s body was reacting like an adolescent boy’s. The concept of pacing was about as far removed as metamathematics, and as much as he wanted to do the civilized thing and at least pretend he cared what was happening with Tucker, his body was like a locomotive racing toward the light at the end of the tunnel.

Somehow when he tried to articulate that, the sound that came out was a helpless, inarticulate request for just the opposite.

Tucker’s tongue thrust into his mouth and Elliot pushed hungrily back. It was good between them. It always had been. And this was one of the things that had been best. This wordless, instinctive sexual compatibility that enabled each to give the other exactly what he wanted, what he needed.

Or, maybe in this case, Tucker giving Elliot what he needed, because it was happening now. He couldn’t stop it if he wanted to, the very idea was ridiculous…A sultry, snapping heat started at the base of Elliot’s spine and sparkled up through cartilage, blood vessels and nerves.

One final jerk, one final thrust, and climax came rolling like thunderclouds tumbling through the summer sky—a peppery rain of hot release.

“That was different,” Elliot mumbled a while later, easing his leg from the damp tangle of sheets and limbs. “Did you—no, you didn’t, did you?”

Tucker chuckled, that low growl of lazy amusement, and settled more comfortably, pulling Elliot close again. He licked the trickle of sweat from Elliot’s temple. “Don’t worry. My turn’s coming…”

*  *  *

It was still dark when Elliot next woke, but the edges of the night were fading. He could feel Tucker stirring beside him. He smiled, nuzzled him, and Tucker opened his mouth, tasting sleepy and warm and familiar. Tucker grunted an inarticulate greeting and they were chuckling sleepily, tasting their shared laughter.

Tucker’s erection prodded Elliot in his belly. He had woken exactly like the old days: randy and raring to go. That was fine by Elliot. He’d woken in the same state of need. His own cock was shoving right back as they held each other in a long, hard hug.

The night before had been sweet and simple, a much needed release of tension and an expression of affection. They both wanted more now.

“I’ll toss you for it,” Tucker said, raising his head, his eyes shining.

“There’s an image.”

Tucker didn’t laugh. He sounded unexpectedly serious as he said, “I want it to be whatever you want this time.”

This time? Hadn’t he got whatever he wanted a couple of hours ago?

“Yeah?” Elliot murmured. “What I want, really want, is to be fucked. I want you to fuck me.”

“Oh God,” Tucker muttered. “I want that. I don’t think a week goes by I don’t dream about it. The way it feels to move inside you. The way your body grabs on like tight velvet. The sounds you make, like having me inside you is the best thing that ever happened to you.”

Elliot moaned in response to that dark, seductive voice. His cock went stiffer still.

“Yeah, like that,” Tucker breathed hotly against his ear. “Just like that. The way you spread yourself, spread your legs so that I can get at you and push so deep—”

It was easy in that comfortable gloom. Easy to kick off the blankets, easy to let Tucker take him through the necessary steps of preparation. In the old days it had been something to rush through, but now there was an intimate solemnity to the ritual of condom and lube.

“It’s been a while for me,” Elliot admitted, squirming pleasurably as he surrendered to the finger stroking him in that most private of places.

“Me too.”

“Oh Christ. Touch me again there…”

“There?” Whispered.

Elliot’s breath hitched, words temporarily failing him. He pushed his hips down, trying to get more.

Tucker’s own admission made it easy to relax beneath that coaxing, almost hypnotic touch. This too had once been something to hurry past. Now it felt like an end in itself. Tucker taking so much time, so much trouble to make it good for Elliot.

Elliot writhed, breathless, helpless, shivering with a kind of electrical overload at the feel of that long, sturdy finger probing him, pushing in and out past the guardian ring of muscle.

“What will be easiest on your leg?”

Elliot hadn’t even thought of his leg. Having to consider it now felt like having some complicated philosophical question thrown at him.

“Uh…Probably if I lay on my side?”

They shifted around, cocks rigid and bobbing in this new version of Twister.

“How’s that?”

Elliot nodded. Tucker’s lightly haired legs brushed Elliot’s own, his breath was hot against the back of Elliot’s neck, his arm resting warmly, possessively over Elliot’s waist as he began that delicate caress of fingertip to anus once more, trailing up and down the cleft of Elliot’s ass. Elliot’s breath caught.

“Okay?”

“I need more.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll give you more.” Tucker kissed his shoulder. “All you can take.” One finger became two and then he replaced the fingers with his cock, pushing slowly, with piercing sweetness into Elliot’s body. A tight fit, a very tight fit. Tucker was taking great pains not to ram into him, which Elliot appreciated, as his body braced, resisted… Wait, this hurts, do I really want this? Should I let this happen?…resisted…and then capitulated.

“Oh God. Yes. Please, Tucker.”

That breach of flesh always astonished him. It wasn’t only physical, that letting someone inside. Physical was the easy part.

He’d have liked to lay on his back, liked to have the lights on so he could stare up into Tucker’s face as Tucker made those pained, delighted sounds, liked to have seen Tucker’s cock sliding in and out of his body, but this was easier on his knee, and almost at once they began to move, at first off-kilter, but then finding the meter, sliding into it, gliding into the push…pull.

They were fucking, fucking hard now, losing the last inhibitions, letting go. Tucker was thrusting fiercely, satisfyingly, and Elliot was shoving back to meet him. They were both urging the other on with groans and inarticulate words over the excited squeak of the bedsprings.

Tucker’s hand smoothed over Elliot’s flank, found his cock, and worked him with that deliberate skill. Elliot moaned and frantically rocked his hips.

“Tucker…”

Tucker’s thrusts punctuated his words. “I missed you so…fucking…much…”

Heat and pressure built with an almost unbearable pleasure until it seemed that something had to give…and then it did. Elliot stiffened head-to-toe as release crashed through him, sweeping him dizzily along. He began to come in shocked sweet gushes, only dimly aware when Tucker grabbed him, losing his own rhythm, losing control at last and crying out as he toppled off the edge after Elliot…

*  *  *

They slept late, waking the second time well after nine, and tried for three out of three, only to laughingly have to admit defeat.

“Who are you calling old man?” Tucker huffed, finally falling back in the sheets. He reached over, his hand patting down Elliot’s groin. “You’re nearly as old as I am.”

With considerably more wear and tear, but Elliot felt strangely young and carefree that morning. His leg was still stiff, but a night’s rest had reduced the pain to a manageable ache. The fear that he had set his recovery back or damaged the prosthetic knee was eased and forgotten. He had better things to think about.

“Hey.” He knocked Tucker’s intrusive hand away. “What are you doing?”

“Carbon dating. Checking your tree rings.”

“Keep your paws off my tree rings.”

“You don’t mean that, Elliot,” Tucker said earnestly, and Elliot started laughing again. He felt like he’d laughed more in eight hours than he had in eight months.

“Jackass.” He turned his head, studying Tucker’s face. Tucker’s eyes slanted to meet his. He was smiling. “If you felt like this, why’ve you been such a jerk?”

“Why have I been such a jerk?”

Elliot shrugged. “Okay. Maybe it’s a draw. Why didn’t you call me back last weekend?”

“Oh.” Tucker grimaced, surprising Elliot.

“What does that mean?”

“I sailed out to Goose Island.”

Elliot’s jaw dropped. “You…?”

Tucker nodded. He looked sheepish.

“Why?” Why did you sail out there? Why didn’t you come to the house? Elliot wasn’t sure which question he wanted to start with.

Tucker admitted, “After Friday night I thought maybe your shell was cracking.”

“My shell?”

“You called me when you thought you might need help. That has to mean something. I wanted to see you, talk to you, but I lost my nerve.”

“You lost your nerve?”

Tucker nodded. He stared up, frowning at the ceiling. “I decided it was a bad idea. That if I pushed it, I was liable to make things worse. I ended up spending the night at a bed and breakfast and sailing back the next morning.”

“I can’t believe it. You were on the island last weekend?”

Tucker shrugged.

Funny to remember how much he’d been thinking about Tucker on Saturday, and all the time Tucker had been on the island, only a couple of miles away.

“You should have come to the cabin.”

“Yeah?”

Elliot nodded and leaned over to claim Tucker’s mouth. Tucker made a throaty noise of acquiescence.

This was new. They had never spent much time on foreplay let alone afterplay before, but Elliot was enjoying this leisurely, caressing exploration. They took turns kissing necks and ears and stubbled chins. He had never found or expected gentleness from Tucker, but here it was, his for the asking. His even if he didn’t know how to ask.

*  *  *

Eventually they abandoned the tangled sheets and blankets for showers and breakfast. Tucker fixed blueberry pancakes and they ate, drank their coffee and took turns reading sections of the Seattle Times. Every time their eyes happened to meet over an exchange of pages one of them would offer a self-conscious, wry grin.

The newspaper covered the shooting incident behind the college. No connection was made between the attack on Elliot and the investigation into Terry Baker’s murder. Though the paper referred to Baker’s death, they were still reporting it as suicide.

It reminded Elliot to check his phone messages. Zahra Lyle had called to tell him that she had been forced to go out of town for a business convention, but was expecting an update from him. That was a conversation Elliot wasn’t looking forward to.

When he returned to the kitchen, Tucker was on the phone. He directed a constrained look at Elliot, and Elliot gathered Tucker preferred to speak without an audience. He took his coffee into the other room.

Tucker joined him about half an hour later. Elliot raised his brows in inquiry. Tucker sat beside him on the sofa. He had the air of a man about to make a confession, and Elliot prepared himself to hear something he wasn’t going to like.

“That was Montgomery I was talking to.” Tucker drew a deep breath. “I think the Bureau should take the lead on this case.”

“You had the lead,” Elliot commented. “Remember? You thought it was a waste of your time.”

“I know. Believe me, I know. Montgomery reminded me. More tactfully than you, I might add.”

Elliot curled his lip, but let it go.

“I didn’t think the two cases were connected. I admit it. And I sure as hell didn’t think we were hunting a serial killer.” Tucker grimaced. “I can’t pretend that you being involved didn’t put my back up. I like being rejected about as much as the next guy. I guess it did bias me.”

They could have spent the rest of the morning covering old ground, but what was the point? They had hurt each other in the past. If there was going to be a future, they needed to put it behind them once and for all.

Elliot changed what he had been about to say, asking instead, “Is the Bureau taking over?”

“It’s too soon to say. We’ve obviously got the superior resources especially as far as lab testing and analysis.”

No question which way Tucker wanted it to play out, and Elliot couldn’t blame him for that. He’d have wanted the same thing in Tucker’s place. Besides, the FBI often did get involved when the victim or the victim’s family was prominent or politically connected, as was the case here, even when the crime itself did not fall under federal jurisdiction.

Following his train of thought without effort, Tucker said, “It’s going to depend on what Tacoma PD wants, and frankly, the Bakers.” He added, “Either way, you’re out of it.”

Since Elliot had already come to the same decision even before yesterday’s attack, he couldn’t understand his own instant irritable reaction. He managed to swallow it, saying mildly, “That might be easier said than done.”