19. Jace Holloway

Chapter 19

Jace Holloway

The nightmare was as vivid as an HD movie. Wings slowly pushed out of my shoulders, painfully shredding the skin, blood seeping down my back as I looked at myself in the mirror. Tears flowed down my face. My dad was reflected back at me, a gunshot wound bleeding from the center of his forehead, his eyes empty, glassy. I tried pulling the wings off. Smashed myself against the wall. Stumbled into the living room.

I felt like I could fly, like maybe that would take the horror away. I crashed through the window.

Didn’t know how to use my wings. Glass was everywhere, cutting me, falling with me. Down, down, down. An eternal fall. Until finally?—

I gasped awake. I was back in my bedroom.

It was the antidepressants. They always made my dreams feel more real. But I’d never had a nightmare like this. At least not in a long while. Normally, my dreams were pretty tame, unless, of course, they were about Theo. Then they were the opposite of tame, but at least those weren’t nightmares.

Theo… I rolled over. I wanted to find some solace in his warmth. I hadn’t had a man sleep over in what felt like years, so it was nice to have someone there to?—

He wasn’t there.

Huh. The bathroom fan was on, but there was also a glow coming from the living room, sneaking around the half wall that separated my bedroom. Was he watching TV? Was Theo a night owl and just hadn’t mentioned anything?

I got out of bed, deciding I needed a glass of water anyway. My body felt like I’d run a marathon. Which, I guess, maybe I had with the three times Theo and I had fucked before going to sleep. Should have drank some water then.

Theo wasn’t in the bathroom or on the couch. I was surprised to see him sitting at my desk, on my laptop.

What the fuck?

“Theo?”

He jerked upright, as if I’d caught him looking at porn or something. He turned around, smiled, scratching at the back of his neck. The snake tattooed on his forearm flexed as though it were slithering up toward his skull.

“Hey, sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, no. I had a nightmare. Um, what are you doing?”

He looked to the laptop, as if it’d just randomly appeared there and he wasn’t actively on it seconds earlier. “Shit, sorry. I should have asked permission. But you were sleeping, and fuck. I’m sorry.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. The sides of his neck were getting red. He looked more anxious than I’d ever seen him. Scared, almost.

“I’m in charge of approving payroll for my department,” he began to explain, leaning forward, arms resting on his knees. It’s like he was coming clean with the confession of a lifetime. I wanted to tell him to relax, it was fine, but he continued. “I got so caught up in our impromptu date yesterday I forgot to push it through. I realized in the middle of the night. I can’t do it on my phone, so I figured I could jump on your laptop real quick, then get back in bed. Shit. I’m sorry.”

He was clearly stressed about this. I shook my head and flicked on the lights. Theo winced, looked up at me. Was he about to cry? Fuck.

“Hey, it’s fine, it’s fine. I get it.”

“I just should have asked. And Jace, I’ve got bad anxiety. It’s really bad. Sometimes I can get it under control—the occasional Xanax helps—but other times, it just spirals. I start making all these wild scenarios in my head that I’m sure are going to happen. I’ve seen therapists about it. Learned to challenge my thoughts and try to ground myself, but it doesn’t always work. Tonight was one of those times. It didn’t work. I spiraled. Spiraling. Fuck.”

“Here, let me get you some water.” I walked over to the kitchen. I hated seeing him like this. It was so different from the cool and confident Theo I was coming to know. This Theo appeared two strong gusts away from crumbling, from falling apart like a dandelion.

I brought the water back to him. We moved to the couch. He was wearing just his briefs. Only his left thigh was tattooed, with a black-and-white underwater scene. All of his tattoos were impressive, but I thought that one was the most eye-catching. Something about the shading made the clown fish swimming through the anemone seem real. I placed a hand on that same thigh, squeezed. I wanted to reassure him it was fine. I understood.

“I wasn’t always like this,” Theo said after taking a few gulps. He set the glass on the coffee table. There was a soft shake in his hand. “I used to be super carefree. I wouldn’t let myself get bothered by anything.”

“What happened?”

“My father,” Theo said. He looked out the window, the curtains pulled open so that we had a stellar view of the empty office building next door. I at least appreciated it was an office with regular nine-to-five hours and not an apartment building with residents that could constantly look inside my place. It allowed me to keep the windows open most of the day, which I liked. Helped this shoebox feel a little less claustrophobic.

“He started becoming abusive around the time I turned thirteen. Before then, he was pretty decent. A little hands-off and would sometimes spank us, but nothing terrible. Then, something switched. I think he found himself working a new job. I never knew what he did, and my mother never wanted to say. As a kid, I liked to imagine him as a secret agent or something, but growing older made me realize he was likely something worse. Drug dealer, maybe. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it stressed him beyond belief.

“He took that stress out on me. He’d hit me for the smallest thing, even if there was a mistake that he’d make. I took the brunt of it. Then came the punishments for bad grades and acting out, which, of course, was happening because of the abuse in the first place. Those punishments included locking me in the bathroom for days at a time, forcing me to drink out of the toilet if I wanted any water. I wasn’t allowed to shower—he’d stopped the water from flowing to either the sink or the shower. He knew I hated gore, that I hated scary movies, so there’d be nights he’d make me sit and watch the most fucked-up shit on repeat. Real-life videos of people dying in car accidents and being tortured by terrorists. He said it’d give me a backbone.

“But I think he just wanted to fuck me up. And he got what he wanted.”

My jaw dropped. I’d heard of some messed-up shit throughout my life, but what Theo went through had to have taken the cake. “That’s… that’s just inhumane. Holy shit. Theo.”

“Yeah. Thankfully, I got the brunt of it. He left my sister alone, for the most part. She remained whole. She had high hopes. Wanted to be president one day. And I believed she could do it. Me, though? Nah. I lost a lot of my hope growing up. It wasn’t until he was gone that I started regaining it again. And even now, I’m still scarred. Mentally. Just fucked-up.” He reached for the glass but nearly toppled it over with how much his hand shook.

My heart cracked in half. “I have no words. I’m so sorry. Fuck.” Even the idea of a child going through any of that made me want to cry. Made me want to grab Theo’s father by the neck and wring it out. How dare he? What kind of man would ever do that to a child? To their own son? Their own flesh and blood?

“It’s bad. No sugarcoating it. But, well, it also explains who I am. So if I do freak out, have a random panic attack, you can understand why.”

I rubbed his knee, leaned into him. He was laying himself out raw for me in a way no one ever had. I felt more connected to him now than at any point before. Even when we were physically made one, I hadn’t felt as close to Theo as I did now. “I understand, I do. And don’t ever feel like you have to apologize to me again. You’re a good guy, Theo. A great guy. What you went through doesn’t define you. Weren’t you the one who told me the past is a story we tell ourselves? That’s all it is.”

“I don’t think I said it quite like that, but I do agree. It’s just a story.”

“So let’s keep writing the story and make sure it’s got a happy ending.”

Theo smiled at me. He had such a powerful smile. It was an odd descriptor for someone’s expression, but that’s how it felt to me. Like he was some kind of generator, stirring up positive energy whenever he flashed those perfectly white and straight teeth of his. The smile reached his eyes, his head cocked.

“Thank you, Jace. I’m glad I saved your life that one day.”

That got a laugh out of me. “That makes two of us.”

We leaned into the kiss as if our bodies moved of their own accord. It was tender, healing almost. I rubbed the back of his head. When he broke from the kiss, he leaned his forehead against mine. His breath tickled my lips.

“You’re special, Jace. Really fucking special.”

“So are you.”

“All jokes aside, I feel like I’ve known you for years. Not months.”

“Same. Ever since that first night at Chained, I felt like we were, I don’t know, fated to meet.”

“It’s all been written down.”

“It has.”

I kissed him again. We stayed like that for a while longer, holding each other. The laptop was completely forgotten. My heart still hurt for Theo’s story, but at least I was here to help make him feel a little better. That’s all I could offer. Some comfort.

That’s all I could do.

The mayor agreed to meet with me during his lunch break two days later.

It wasn’t difficult. Reaching out to his office was simple, as was getting a hold of his assistant. I didn’t want to explicitly say why I was meeting with him. Didn’t want him to feel spooked, shut me out. He likely thought the tape was still out there, ready to get released at any moment. He was living on high alert. I had to be careful with him. Treat him like broken glass.

“Right this way, Mr. Holloway,” his assistant said, leading me through the grand New York City Hall, one of the oldest city halls in the entire country. Learned that during a high school field trip. I’d been bored as shit back then, wanting to just get home and play on my PlayStation, but now, I actually appreciated the history and architecture that surrounded me. I was led through the rotunda, up the grand marbled staircase, past the huge gilded columns that stretched up to the domed ceiling. We walked through a long hallway lined with eighteenth-century paintings. There was a buzz of activity. Apparently, the governor was also around, set to give a press conference in the next couple of hours.

We reached the mayor’s office. His assistant knocked and got the okay to let me in.

“Mr. Holloway, hello there. Welcome, welcome.” Mayor Ashton Torres walked around his desk with a friendly smile and an outstretched hand. He wore a wrinkle-free light blue button-up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, tucked into a pair of clean black slacks. A nondescript silver watch with a green face shone around his wrist. His light brown hair was perfectly gelled to the side, his face freshly shaved. A framed photo of his wife and kids sat on his organized desk, perfectly tilted so that whoever sat across from him could see their smiling faces.

“Jace,” I said, trying to lower his guard. “Good to meet you, Mr. Torres.”

“Yes, of course. I love spending time with constituents. Liam didn’t mention exactly what you wanted to speak about. He did say you were a detective, is that right?”

“It is, sir. And I am here to discuss a case.”

“Oh?” His demeanor instantly changed. His guard only went higher. He moved behind his desk as though it were a shield.

Might as well cut straight to the heart of it. “You’ve clearly heard of the Nevermore killer, correct?”

The mayor’s eyes narrowed, his face turned pale. “I have. They’ve been targeting sex workers in the city.”

“They have,” I confirmed. “But more than that, these sex workers appeared to have been involved in a blackmail ring. They’ve secretly been taping their encounters with well-connected people. Mr. Torres, I won’t be vague about this. I know you were one of the last people to have met with the most recent victims, Julie Weber.”

He looked like he was about to throw up. He leaned back in his chair. The springs creaked. The overhead lighting cast a sickly shadow across his face. The hollows under his brown eyes appeared like they belonged on a Halloween decoration. He must not have been getting any sleep.

“Shit. Does anyone else know?”

“Only me and the officer at the scene, sir.”

“I paid them. They were supposed to delete the video.”

I sat up. He had contact with them. Good. “Who did you pay?”

“It was through crypto. I don’t know. I barely even know how it works. I had to get one of my interns to tell me. I told her it was because of some new policy. But, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh my God.”

“How did they reach out to you?”

“A phone call. They played the audio of the tape over the call. ”

“Do you have the number?”

“It was blocked.”

Fuck. “Were there any descriptors to the voice? Anything you heard in the background?”

“No, no, nothing. All I know is that the group calls themselves Pressure Point… Holy shit. If this gets out. Holy fuck.”

Pressure Point? At least I have a name.

“Focus, Ashton. I can help. I’m trying to figure out who’s killing these people and if they’re linked to the ring. If I can take down both at the same time, then this all goes away.”

He sucked in a rattling breath. He was on the verge of tears.

“How did you meet Julie?”

“She bumped into me at a bar after a fundraising event. I was drunk. I wasn’t thinking. Fuck.” He rubbed his face as if that would rub his sins clean off. “But, well, hold on. I do remember a name being said. Gio! That’s it! Someone asked for Gio on the call, asking me for money.”

“Gio Lamott?”

“Maybe, maybe. I… it has to be. I didn’t think this was linked at all, but I used to have an intern. Her name was Marielle Rodriguez. She died a few years ago, but I remember her telling me she was looking into something like this. She had stumbled on something, some blackmail thing. She wanted me to set up a meeting with her and the police commissioner so she could discuss it. I did, but she died a few days before the meeting. Suicide.”

It felt like a bucket of ice had been dumped over my head. Marielle. The name from the poem. This had to be linked.

And now I had a full name. Someone to trace down.

“I need everything you have on Marielle. Background checks, photos, LinkedIn profile, resume. Whatever you’ve got, please send it to me.”

“Yes, of course. Do you think that whatever she had could maybe take these guys down?”

“Possibly,” I said. “And I need you to remain calm. You’re also crucial to figuring this out.”

“Jesus. I can’t believe I did that. I’ve always been a good man. I’ve never cheated. Never.”

I believed him, but I wasn’t here to console him. Cheating wasn’t exactly high on my list of actions to excuse, anyway. But it wasn’t my place to hate the guy. That was for his wife to do, if she ever found out.

“Could the killer be coming after me? Do I have to up my security detail? That’s going to raise red flags.”

“I don’t believe so. The targets all seem to be people involved in the actual blackmailing, not the victims.”

“But… shit. Why?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.”

“Please, get to the bottom of it.”

“I’m trying to.”

A knock on the door made us both jerk up. “Sir, your twelve o’clock is here.”

Ashton did the best job he could at composing himself. Which honestly wasn’t great. He still looked rattled as fuck. I could do nothing to reassure him except promise that I was working on figuring things out.

And, honestly, I felt like I was. I was getting close.

Only a matter of time now until I figured out who was behind Nevermore.