Page 17

I wasn’t at home. That was my first, clear thought. Not in my own bed. My head was killing me, my throat was killing me, and the rest of me felt like I’d been dragged behind a semi. And I stank. Had I pissed the bed? As I woke, my brain worked backward. I’d gotten wasted. I’d—what? Hooked up with somebody? God, had I spent the night at his place? Darnell would be furious.

And then bits and pieces of it came back. Drinks pressed into my hand. The music, the lights, the whole world softening. The tunneling darkness of the men’s room. The hot spray of piss. Pebbles biting into sensitive skin, the scrape of asphalt. The reek of horseshit, and a boot crushing my windpipe.

My eyes were gummy, but I got them open. A semiprivate hospital room. Beige walls. An empty flower holder mounted on the wall. Something beeping. Something taped to my arm. Darnell. He was sitting in the chair next to the bed, looking up from his laptop. The light from the window looked like morning, and it made a halo around his head. Saint Darnell. So many fucking saints in my life.

“You’re awake,” he said.

Neutral. No anger. No disappointment. No judgment. Just a fact: here’s my partner, and he’s awake, and he’s covered in piss after getting himself roofied. Part of creating a supportive, nurturing atmosphere, I knew—from many long, long talks with Darnell—was also creating a judgement-free zone.

It was the first thing I wanted to say. I knew it was childish. I knew it came from that dark well inside myself, the one we all have, and if we’re lucky, it stays capped most of our lives. I didn’t even mean it, although maybe a little, mostly because I felt like shit. But staring at Darnell, meeting that look of non-judgment in his eyes, in this sterile, weirdly public space, what I wanted to say was: why can’t you let me die?

Instead, I found the water pitcher and the little plastic cup.

“I’ll do it,” Darnell said.

It was a good thing. My hands were shaking. I would have spilled it everywhere.

He poured the water. He held the cup for me. There was even a little bendy straw, and he brushed my hair back with his hand while I took painful sips. When he thought I’d had enough, he took it away.

“You’re going to need to boil that hand in bleach,” I said.

“Do you need to use the restroom?”

I did. But in that moment, it felt like saying yes would be the last indignity. The final one, the one I couldn’t come back from. Having to be asked. And having to say yes. So, I shook my head. I was still waking up, my brain starting to work again, and the shards of memory from the last night kept coming. Their hands on my arms. The way they’d dragged me, my shoes scraping the sidewalk. Laughter, and then Some guys get off on freaks .

The strike of lightning. Stay down .

I squeezed my eyes shut. I tried to take deep breaths, but my nose was snotty, and the air moving through my mouth tasted like those guys’ piss, and everyone would know. Everyone would know. Oh God, everyone would know.

“It’s okay,” Darnell said, pulling me against him. His shirt smelled like starch and Persil, and it was soft. The familiar press of his body was soft. And his hand stroking my back felt good in ways I hadn’t thought possible. A few tears leaked out in spite of my best efforts, and after a moment, I gave up and pressed my face against him. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

It felt like we stayed like that for a long time. Finally, I tapped out, and Darnell released me. He stood next to the bed, one hand on the rail.

“Sit down,” I said thickly. And then: “Sorry.” That didn’t seem like enough, so after a moment, I added, “That you have to deal with all this.”

“I’m not ‘dealing with’ something,” Darnell said quietly. “I’m taking care of the man I love.”

I almost started crying again. Somehow, though, I managed to say, “Sit down, for fuck’s sake.”

He sat and was quiet while I got myself together—as much you can, anyway, after you’ve been hosed down by a couple of strangers and kicked to the curb. Literally. The sounds of the hospital made their way into the silence between us: a cart with a squeaky castor, nursing clogs moving across laminate, muffled voices. I thought of Tip’s room, what seemed like years ago, and the TV judge who solved complicated legal tangles every half hour.

“This is a new low, huh?” I said. My voice didn’t crack or anything.

“This,” Darnell said, “was a cry for help.”

I shook my head and pressed the heel of one hand against my eye. It didn’t help with the throbbing, but it was better than looking at him.

“Gray, you could have died. By the time they brought you in, they were fighting to keep you breathing. You’re lucky Sam found you when he did.”

I don’t know why that made it worse, somehow, the idea of Clark fucking Kent saving me. But it did. The worst part was that Yarmark wouldn’t even be a shit about it. Ever since he became a disciple of Saint Somerset, he’d been a goody two-shoes nerd.

“What happened?” Darnell asked. He sounded like the question couldn’t possibly have an answer—not one that made sense to any normal, decent human being.

Maybe it didn’t. Enough was coming back to me from the previous night—and I’d seen enough shit like this on the job—that I had an idea of what happened. They’d put something in my drink. In my drinks, plural. They’d waited until it was closing time. They’d made a video. And they’d probably made a good chunk of money. Tonight, they’d be in another town, and they’d do it again to someone else. Darnell had seen enough ugliness in the world that he’d believe me. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t say, Somebody roofied me, and they pissed on me, and they livestreamed it because there are people who pay for that shit. And I was stupid enough to let it happen to me.

I shook my head.

“Sam said there were some guys,” Darnell said like it was a question.

I shook my head again. What was I going to tell him? White? Black? Latino? Old? Young? One had a Captain America shirt. One was in a Pbr tee. Yeah, I’m a trained fucking detective.

“I don’t remember,” I finally said.

He nodded, his face set in its usual compassionate worry.

And what did that tell me? I could get so fucked up that they had to take me to the hospital, and he just nodded. Another day of living with Gray Dulac.

“I told them you still had some pills from an old prescription,” he said in a lower voice.

It took me a moment. And then I had to fight to keep from squeezing my eyes shut. He was covering for me. Because he thought I’d been—what? Snorting oxy off a toilet seat between shifts at the glory hole? Somehow, I kept my gaze fixed on the middle distance and said, “Thank you.”

He shifted, and the tubular chair protested quietly under his weight. “There are police at the house.”

I nodded.

“What’s going on? Sam said—” His voice dropped again. “Sam said someone was killed. In our house. That boy.”

“Not in our house. Someone put him there.”

“What?”

“Someone killed him somewhere else and put him in our house.”

Darnell sat back. The chair creaked again. He rubbed his eyes and drew his fingers through his beard.

“Someone’s trying to make it look like I did this.” I adjusted the bedding. “Or you did.”

His breathing became harsher. He turned in his chair so he wasn’t looking at me.

“Where were you last night?” I asked.

He shook his head, staring off into space, his chest rising and falling.

“Darnell.”

He looked at me, but it was like he was looking at someone else. Then he said, “You’re not allowed to ask me that.”

It took me a second before I could believe what I’d just heard. “I’m not asking because I care who you fucked—”

“We have rules.” His voice thinned. “We agreed that we don’t have to—”

“What the fuck are you talking about, rules? What fucking rules? We’re talking about a kid getting murdered. About somebody putting him in our fucking house to make one of us look like we fucking did it. Get the fuck out of here with your rules!” My chest felt tight, and I could hear the strain in my voice. “Where the fuck were you last night?”

Darnell’s expression changed. What I thought, for a heartbeat, was fear fell away, and in its place was the familiar concern. He turned in the chair to face me. He put his hand on my leg. “Gray, it’s okay. Take a deep breath. I think you’re having a panic attack. Let me find your Xanax—”

I knocked his hand away, and he stared at me, jaw slack.

“My Xanax? Are you out of your fucking mind? Where were you? Answer my question: where were you?”

“I went to a hotel.”

“You went to a hotel?”

“I went to a hotel. I stayed at a hotel.” He scratched his beard and looked away again. “I needed some space. I wanted to think. I’m—I’m not happy. And I needed to be away from you. To have some—I needed to think.”

I waited until the sound of his voice died and said, “What’s his name?”

“There’s no—”

“Don’t lie to me! What is his fucking name?”

“I was at a hotel.”

“What hotel?”

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t know! Jesus Christ, Darnell, what the fuck is going on with you right now?”

“I can’t think. You’re yelling at me, and I can’t think, and—” He clutched his chest, crumpling his shirt in one hand, and sucked in a gasping breath. His color was bad, and he slipped sideways until he was leaning over one arm of the chair, still pressing a hand to his chest.

He’d had a heart attack—what? A year ago? Two?

“I’m getting a nurse,” I said, fumbling with the bed controls. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“No.”

“You’re having a heart attack—”

“No. No, it’s just—” He didn’t finish. After a few seconds he said, “No. I’m okay. I don’t know. I’m okay.” And then, in a firmer voice, “Don’t call a nurse. Please.”

So, I sat there with my dick in my hand, so to speak, while Darnell took long, slow breaths. His color got better. He sat up straight. He looked exhausted, though, and older now. For a time, he had his eyes closed, leaning his head back to rest against the wall. When he opened them, he was looking at me.

“We’re a fucking pair, aren’t we?” I said.

He chuckled softly. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I was at a hotel, Gray. I have the receipt, the charge on my credit card, all that. I just drove until I stopped somewhere. And then, today, I came home.”

Because I didn’t have anything better to say, I said, “I believe you. But those asshole detectives from the sheriff’s department are going to want proof.”

He nodded. The sunlight threaded through his hair added silver, and it was hard to tell what was the light and what was age. Or if living with me was just making him prematurely gray. An alarm started beeping, but it was a long way off, so the sound was small and, strangely, didn’t have any urgency. Then it stopped. Outside, the day already looked hard and hot, hammered by the sun, the parking lot full of reflected light.

“You’re not happy,” I said.

He closed his eyes again.

“I can move my stuff out whenever,” I said. “I’m on leave.”

He was very still. And then he said, “God, Gray.”

“I meant to tell you that. Peterson thinks I’m—I don’t know. Fucking everything up seems to be the short version.”

“I’m not breaking up with you. But I’m not happy, either. And I know you’re not happy either. I love you. I want to make this work. And it’s not working.”

I nodded.

“I want to see a therapist. Together.” He opened his eyes, and his tone toughened. “And I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“No.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You can say you’re not taking no for an answer,” I said, “but the answer is still fucking no. I did that already. I did all the required sessions to get cleared for duty.”

He still didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry I’m a piece of shit, Darnell. I am. You’re a good guy. You deserve a lot better than me. But I’m not talking to a fucking therapist about how—” I almost said, About how I got my face blown off. But instead I said, “—my parents fucked me up as a child, and so now I’m fucked up, and yeah, I’ll try to do better.”

“I think it’s time we try.”

“No.”

“We haven’t done this yet, and we should have. I should have put my foot down with you a long time ago.”

“Put your foot down?” I laughed. “Sorry to break it to you, bro, but you don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“You used to talk like that all the time. That was one of the things I liked about you: the swagger.”

“I’m not going.”

Darnell sat up. He ran a hand down his shirt, his attention focused on smoothing out the wrinkles as he said, “I made an appointment for us. Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll text you the information.”

“Great. Have a good time. You can tell him or her or whoever how fucking awful I am to you.”

“You’re going to be there. And we’re not going to have this argument again.”

“Or what? You’ll break up with me? Break up with me, Darnell. I keep telling you to kick my ass out. Jesus, dude, this is a sinking ship. Save yourself.”

“If you don’t go,” he said, and his voice was calm, steady, practical. Someone explaining something simple. “I’ll tell Chief Peterson you’re not fit to return to duty. Ever. And I’ll tell him why.”

The sound of clogs on linoleum passed the room.

“Do you understand me?” Darnell said.

The heat worked its way through my body. Sweat broke out: under my arms, up my throat, in my face. My eyes stung, and I was the one who looked away first.

“I’m going to get you some ice,” Darnell said, and he walked out of the room, and the door clicked shut behind him.