Page 12

Chapter 12

Donovan

F or once, I beat Will to the station. I usually lingered with Alex over breakfast and Will basically lived here some days, so being the first one in was rare. I put the bag and cup from Camille on Will’s desk, front and center. Camille would have sent over his favorites, like usual, and I’d grabbed another coffee to go on my way out the door.

The final report for the Perez case needed to be written up still, so I worked on that while I waited for my partner. Since it thankfully hadn’t ended with an actual crime, putting it all together was fairly routine. I was deep in the middle of transcribing our interview with Landon DeVor when Will walked in.

“Am I late?” He paused in the doorway, pulling me out of the monotony of the report. He made a show of looking at his watch, then at me. “Or are you early?”

“A little of both, maybe?” I shrugged. “We left Buns ‘n’ Roses a little earlier than usual to escape the interrogators.”

Will blinked, turning those words over in his head for a moment. “Okay, clearly I’m going to need caffeine for this.” He grabbed the cup I’d left on his desk, sniffing it before taking a sip. “Apple tea today. Cami must’ve been in a good mood.” He took another sip and settled at his desk directly across from me. “Okay. You said ‘we’. Last I heard, that was an issue, so it sounds like something’s changed since Saturday.”

I gave him the quick rundown of the morning, leaving out anything too personal. Since he already knew about Alex’s ability and actually was the only one who didn’t know he was working on controlling it, I filled him in on that, too. Again, I left out the details, though. That was Alex’s story to tell, if he wanted.

“Awesome. So the two of you have matching hero complexes?”

I threw a ball of paper at him, smirking when it hit his forehead.

“Very mature,” he grumbled. He fished it out from where it’d fallen and dropped it in the trash can. “Seriously, though, it’s great that you two made up, and I totally get why he wants to have some control over what he can do. I just worry, I guess. It was hard enough to get the chief to lay off him after what happened with the Marcel case. If anymore anonymous calls come in, he’s going to be the first person she wants to talk to.”

“I thought about that, actually. I just haven’t brought it up to Alex yet,” I confessed. “It never felt like the right time.”

“He’s probably realized it already. He’s smart.”

“That’s what I told him when he got upset that he couldn’t get this sorted out in one day.” I leaned back in my chair, resisting the urge to chug my coffee in one go. “I want to help him, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“Cami will help. All her protective instincts are riled up now. She knows all about that weird stuff. She’s been into it since we were kids.”

“I just hate feeling helpless. I’m supporting him as much as I can, but I want to do more.”

“So learn with him.”

“What do you mean? I can’t see ghosts,” I reminded him.

“Neither could that asshole ex of his, but he managed to put all those rocks and symbols in Alex’s house that blocked ghosts, remember? Cami doesn’t have any weird psychic powers or anything, and it doesn’t stop her from learning about magic and crystals and all that kind of thing.”

Alex truly was the smart one in this relationship. How had that never occurred to me? Nate was a psycho who was on his way to prison for a very long time, but he’d still blocked Charlie from Alex’s house.

Worse, one thing I knew about Alex Copeland was that he absolutely hated accepting help. I should have insisted on helping, or at least on learning more.

“I’m a dumbass.”

“I mean, I wasn’t going to say it, but…”

I didn’t even have it in me to glare at Will. It was true, after all.

“I’ll talk to Alex tonight once we’re home and settled in.”

Will tilted his head. “So, I know I asked you this already, but seriously… why are you still bothering to pay rent at your place? Have you spent the night there since you two met?”

“Hilarious. If I weren’t paying rent there, I’d have been crashing on your couch this past weekend instead of you hanging out at my place.”

“You need a new couch if you’re going to stay there, but at the rate you two are going, I’m expecting a summer wedding,” he said with a grin, which only grew when my jaw dropped. “I’d better be the best man, or you’re going to have to find a new partner.”

“We’ve only been dating for a few months. Slow down a little,” I choked. Not that I was opposed to the idea, but there was rushing, and then there was rushing .

“I said what I said,” he shrugged. “Okay, now that we’ve sorted out your relationship, we should probably actually get some work done before the chief comes looking for those reports.”

Easier said than done, now that Will had put that idea into my head. It took actual effort to push it to the back of my mind and remember that Alex and I had other things we needed to worry about. Then I had to put those thoughts to the side so I could try to focus on my actual job.

“We’ll have to do follow-up interviews in the next day or so,” I said, pulling up the report I’d been working on and skimming over it. “One from the Perez family and probably one from the DeVor kids, just to cover our bases.”

“Joseph and Eva Perez would be within their rights to press charges against Rebecca’s boyfriend, too, if they wanted. If he crossed state lines with a minor, that could end up with federal charges.”

“Do you want to talk to them or the DeVor family? Or we can go together.”

Will shook his head. “Probably better to split up and get it over with. I’ll call and set up something with the DeVor kids if you want to take the Perez house? You took lead on the first interview, so it makes the most sense for you to be the one to wrap it up, right?”

“I can’t help but notice it also gets you out of writing the longer report,” I said dryly.

“I hadn’t even thought of that. Honestly, I just thought you’d want to finish what you started.”

“Did your sister slip espresso in your drink today? You’re being extra annoying.”

“Rude. And no, because espresso in apple tea would be disgusting,” he added, taking a sip from his cup. “Anyway, I’ll call and get my interview set up.”

“I’ll do the same. I’ve already got the report started, so if we can get these done by Wednesday, we should have it all finalized and ready to turn in by the end of the week.”

“Works for me,” Will agreed. He finally dug into the bag Camille had sent with me and his eyes lit up as he pulled a massive frosted brownie out. “So. Much. Sugar.”

This was going to be a very long day.

***

Alex’s house sat dark and quiet when I pulled into the driveway that evening. It was a little after 7:00 pm and the sun had set, so the lack of lights was definitely unusual. I’d made a stop at my rental house, making sure everything was still okay and taking the time to do a load of laundry. Alex had a washer and dryer, but at this point, I felt like I should at least get something for my rent money after Will’s comments.

Since Christmas, I really had spent nearly every night at Alex’s. My first excuse had been that he needed someone to take care of him after the shooting. He’d been in a sling for a month and with fresh stitches in his side, he’d been mostly stuck in bed. Then the nightmares started and there was no way I was leaving him like that.

Now, I had to admit that I just didn’t want to leave. Alex and I had a routine and it worked for both of us. Maybe we’d gone from ‘casually dating’ to ‘basically living together’ a little fast, but it just felt right.

Sunday and Monday nights were usually a sort of casual date night for us, since I was usually off Sundays and he worked shorter hours. Alex closed the shop on Mondays, making it his one full day off. He’d started attempting to make dinner, with wildly varying results. We kept a few frozen pizzas in the freezer, just in case. Since he’d planned to use the day focusing on what he’d learned, I assumed it was going to be a pizza night.

Leaving my clothes in the car for now, I let myself in using the key Alex had made for me after he’d gotten out of the hospital. Light from the streetlights outside filtered through the open curtains, enough for me to make out a lump on the sofa. Upon investigation, I found Alex crashed out, a book on the floor beside him and Louis laying on his chest, glaring at me like he knew I was going to wake up his bed.

“I won’t bother him yet,” I promised the cat, who seemed unconvinced. I turned the oven on to preheat, then retrieved my clothes hamper from the car. My button-ups for work shared space in Alex’s closet, while everything else went into the second drawer of his dresser.

He hadn’t woken up by the time I changed and came back to the living room, nor did he budge when I put a pizza in to bake.

“Sorry, buddy,” I murmured to Louis, then flipped on the overhead lights in the living room. Alex didn’t budge, which I’d expected. Careful not to piss off the cat anymore than I was already about to, I knelt beside the couch and pressed a soft kiss to Alex’s forehead. “Rise and shine, beautiful.”

He groaned, twisting to roll onto his side and dislodging his passenger in the process. Thoroughly done with both of us, Louis thumped to the floor and wandered away.

“Alex, time to get up,” I singsonged, brushing his hair out of his eyes. Another little kiss, this time to the tip of his nose, finally got a flutter of his eyelids. When I kissed his cheek and his lips twitched in an aborted smile, I knew he was finally awake.

“What time is it?” he mumbled, his voice rough with sleep.

“About 7:30. I see the meditation went well?” I tried to hold back my laugh, but he heard it in my voice and finally peeled one eye open.

“You think you’re funny, but you’re really not.”

“I’m hilarious and you know it.” I pushed myself to my feet and held out a hand. “Come on, time to get up. I’ve got a pizza in the oven. I bet you didn’t eat lunch today, did you?”

“I thought about it,” Alex said, slipping his hand into mine and letting me pull him to his feet. He didn’t stop the momentum, stumbling forward until he rested against my chest. I wrapped him up in my arms and felt him sigh contentedly. “I sat down on the couch to read and I guess I crashed.”

“Any luck with your project?”

He snorted, burying his face against my shoulder. “No, no luck with my project ,” he teased. “Seriously, though, I may have to go back to Ori for some ideas. It’s getting better, but I still can’t stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Not unless you know a way to make my brain shut up so I can concentrate.”

I had quite a few ideas about how to make his mind shut down, actually, each of them more enticing than the last. “Well…”

Alex turned his head just enough to glare at me. “I know what you’re thinking and no. With my luck, I’ll somehow Pavlov myself into seeing ghosts every time you make me come. Absolutely not.”

I tried not to laugh, I really did, but once that image lodged in my brain, I was a goner. Alex huffed his annoyance, but he just poked me in the side and let me ride it out instead of pulling away.

“It wasn’t that funny,” he grumbled when I finally caught my breath, which just threatened to set me off all over again.

“Except it kind of was.” I freed a hand and tilted his face toward mine, kissing the pout right off his lips. “I’m sorry I laughed.”

“You’re forgiven, this time.” He nuzzled closer and the feeling of his body pressed against mine sent heat pulsing through me. I loved every part of Alex, but something about having him in my arms when he was like this, all soft and warm and sleepy, made me want to hold him and never let go.

“How about we get dinner ready, watch a movie, and you can take a break from all of that and just relax for tonight?” I suggested. “You don’t have to master this in a day.”

“I know, I just…” He leaned his head against mine. “I feel like I’m failing before I’ve even started. What if there are other ghosts out there who need my help?”

“They’ve always found you before, right?” I waited for his reluctant nod before continuing. “Then you’re fine. The ones that truly need you have always found their way to you. Anyone else has already been waiting, so a little while longer won’t hurt them. Besides, this is a small town. I don’t claim to be an expert at this sort of stuff, but there can’t be that many ghosts lingering around here, can there?”

Alex took his time considering it from that angle, probably looking for a reason to castigate himself for not doing enough, but finally, he nodded once. “I guess you’re right. I’ve only seen a few in town and they ignored me, so maybe it’s okay?”

“It is. You’re doing the best you can and that’s all anyone can ask for.”

Alex’s arms came up around my neck, his pretty green eyes still worried, but at least he was smiling. “You’re way too good at getting into my head and calming me down when I’m acting ridiculous.”

“Someone has to be the logical one around here,” I said, and Alex scoffed, flicking the back of my head in retaliation. “Seriously, though, I understand why you’re stressed about this, but I meant what I said. It’s going to take time and patience.”

“I hate being patient. I feel like I’m a kid again and trying to learn how to handle something impossible.”

I hugged him as tight as I could, tight enough to get a little squeak of surprise from him. Officer of the law or not, if I ever met Alex’s parents, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t try to fight them for what they’d done to their son.

“You did it, though. You faced something no one should ever have to deal with, especially not a child, and look at you now.” I shushed his immediate response with another kiss. Knowing him, it would be another self-deprecating joke. “I’m serious, Alex. Not only did you survive, but you thrived. You have friends, you run your own business, and you’ve managed to keep your demon cat appeased.”

He snorted, which would have been more adorable if his face hadn’t been less than an inch from mine.

“Now who’s being ridiculous?” He tightened his arms, clinging to me just as tightly as I held him. “I really, really love you, Donovan. Thank you.”

“I was just stating the truth,” I murmured. “And I really love you, too.”

We stayed there in each other’s arms in the dimly lit living room until the tension drained from Alex’s body and I finally saw a real smile from him. He looked relaxed and soft and all I wanted to do was drag him into the bedroom and spend the rest of the night worshiping him, showing him how much I truly loved him. The answering heat in his eyes was all I needed to see, and we made it three steps down the hallway before a shrill screech dumped a bucket of ice water on us.

“Didn’t you say you were cooking a pizza?” Alex asked over the incessant alarm, and I groaned.

“Yeah, I was. I’ll deal with that while you shut off the smoke alarm?”

“Teamwork makes the dream work!” He winked at me, every inch a brat.

“I take it all back. You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

Alex just laughed and laughed.

***

Hours later, the house was still dark and Alex was asleep again, this time curled up against me with his head on my shoulder. He’d taken care of the smoke alarm and ordered food while I scraped the burnt bits of cheese and crust out of the oven, then we’d retreated to the bedroom. Alex was always beautiful to me, but when he let go of his insecurities and stress and got caught up in pleasure? He was transcendent. I’d wrung two breathless orgasms from him before he’d finally surrendered to exhaustion despite his earlier nap.

I couldn’t find oblivion quite as easily, though.

Satisfied that Alex was safe in my arms, my mind latched onto something Will had mentioned earlier.

“So learn with him.”

He’d said it so simply, like he was surprised I wasn’t already doing it, and now that the thought was in my head, it surprised me, too. Somehow, I’d fallen into the habit of taking a back seat to anything related to the paranormal, letting Alex handle it while I supported him. Except, even then, I’d taken on a more passive role. He was the one doing research, learning everything he could, even going to the crystal shop, which I knew had grated at him at first. Why was I leaving so much on him when I had access to the same resources?

Now there was no way I would be able to sleep.

Careful not to wake Alex, I slid out of bed, tucking the blankets up around him. I couldn’t help a smile when he immediately snuggled into my pillow in his sleep and I was tempted to get right back in with him, but I was much too awake for that.

Navigating the house in the dark was easy now, and I made my way to the living room before turning on any lights, flipping on a small table lamp next to the cozy armchair. It rarely saw use unless people were over, with us preferring to sit together on the couch. Louis currently occupied my usual spot there, though, glaring at me as if daring me to try to dislodge him.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, your Highness,” I murmured, grabbing my laptop and settling into the armchair instead. At least the cat hadn’t laid on the messenger bag I carried for work again. Last time, he’d nearly cracked the lid of the laptop before I’d moved him.

Once it booted up, though, I didn’t know exactly where to start. Alex seemed to have the research on meditation and crystals and things like that locked down. Or at least, he had Camille and Ori helping him, which would be far more useful than any website I could find. He’d gotten very lucky that there was a shop in town run by someone like Ori. In a small town like this, the odds weren’t exactly on his side.

That gave me pause and I glanced up at Louis, who still glared at me like I was the bane of his existence.

“Why does a town this small have such a well-stocked shop like that?”

He just blinked at me, then very deliberately licked his paw, giving himself the laziest bath in the history of feline-kind.

“Your help is noted and appreciated,” I muttered, turning back to my browser. I knew the basics of Lowery’s Crossing just from living here and what I’d looked up before moving here, but I’d never dug that deeply into the history. Could there be something about the town that helped explain why at least two psychics had been here? Thomas McAvell wasn’t the best example, but it was likely he’d seen the same things as Alex. Or he’d seen something , at least, and it’d driven him insane. Some of what he’d said in his ramblings almost seemed to imply there’d been others before him, too.

A basic search of the town didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. Location, population, distance to the nearest actually interesting city, things like that. The only location of note listed in the entry was the Silver Lake Reservoir and even that only mentioned that it was a popular hiking and swimming spot.

Clicking away from the official sites, I kept digging, scrolling through the results until a forum a few pages into the search caught my eye. The site wasn’t one I frequented, but I’d been online enough to recognize it as the kind of place that loved a good conspiracy theory. The headline on the search page was for a subforum on the site, called ‘Havens for the Paranormal’. Buried in the subheading, I saw Layton County, Colorado listed.

Curious, I followed the link. Instead of the cheap DIY website I’d been expecting, the forum that popped up was surprisingly polished and well-organized. The subforum I found myself in was nestled under a larger forum called ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ and each category seemed to list supposed sightings of paranormal activity.

It took a little more scrolling to find the original post that’d caught my attention, buried a few pages back in the forum posts. The most recent posts seemed to be some sort of heated debate over whether Salem, Massachusetts was real or a tourist trap, with a few cooler heads tagging moderators to shut down the argument. The post about Layton County turned out to be one of the shorter ones, posted by someone with the username ‘AllWhoWanda’.

AllWhoWanda: I can’t believe no one has mentioned Layton County, CO! My great-uncle lived there as a kid and he told me all kinds of crazy stories. He said he’d seen a shapeshifter out in the woods and there were rumors of a coven living out there, too. He even said one of his neighbors was well over a hundred years old. The strangest story is about a psychic, though. A guy named Thomas McAvell went crazy and killed his whole family, except his wife. His dad, his kids, all the ones who shared his blood. His wife didn’t say much after, not surprising, but I guess before it happened, she told one of her friends that her husband was acting strange and talking about seeing ghosts. I bet that’s why he snapped. This isn’t just a rumor, by the way. Here’s the link to a news story someone did on the fifty-year anniversary.

A link attached to the post redirected to an article from a true crime blog, talking about the case. Just to be cautious, I checked through that blog’s posts but didn’t find anything relating to Alex’s incident at the farm. I knew it’d made local news, obviously, but I was still relieved to see it hadn’t seemed to spread much beyond that.

Only a few people replied to Wanda’s post, two of them saying they’d never even heard of the place, while the third waved it all off as hearsay. The tag next to that poster’s name seemed to mark them as a moderator of some sort.

SpeakerForTheLost: One verified incident doesn’t make a place a haven, especially when there’s no proof that the guy was even psychic. Maybe he was just went psycho from living on a farm in the most boring place I can imagine? We’ll put a pin in this one until we can get some verified information. Thanks for bringing it to our attention, @AllWhoWanda!

The posts ended there, with no follow-up from Wanda. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make me curious. Clicking on her profile showed she hadn’t posted anything before or since and her direct messaging option was turned off. Still, it was a start, proving that other people had heard strange things about Lowery’s Crossing.

Another hour of digging around didn’t turn up much more than that, but it was enough to get me thinking. Maybe there was something more to this? Something deeper? Could there be something about this town that drew in people with unique abilities, like Alex? A remote mountain town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods, seemed like an excellent option for anyone looking to hide.

“Donovan?”

A sleepy voice pulled me out of my thoughts and I looked up to see Alex standing in the doorway, hair rumpled, wearing only one of my shirts that fell just to the tops of his thighs.

“Hey. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” I bookmarked the site I was on and shut down the laptop, putting it on the table out of the way as Alex crossed the room. He crawled into my lap, straddling my legs and resting his head on my shoulder.

“What were you doing?” He still sounded half-asleep, his words mumbled and slurred.

“Just some research. I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to bother you.” A warm, sleepy, half-naked Alex in my lap was the perfect distraction, shunting all my questions and theories to the background. I ran my hands along his legs, tracing a line from his knee to his hips, grinning when I felt him shiver.

“Sounds like we need to try harder to exhaust you,” he murmured and his lips brushed my throat, soft and teasing. He rolled his hips forward, his arms sliding around my neck, plastering his body to mine.

I groaned, long and low, and he laughed, lifting his head and catching my lips in a heated kiss. When he rocked forward again, my hands went to his ass, naked under the shirt, and pulled him closer, grinding up against him.

“Bedroom,” I breathed, and he immediately slid out of my lap, but not without another kiss that made my head spin and my cock ache. Taking my hand in his, Alex pulled me through the house back to the bedroom, closing the door behind us. His shirt and my sleep pants fell to the floor and Alex tumbled back onto the bed, pulling me on top of him and into the cradle of his thighs.

My research could wait.