Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Sheriff Ryan Carter was a big man. Imposing and commanding were two adjectives that came to Adam's mind as Ryan took the chair on the opposite side of the room from him.

Jay had offered them the use of his office for the informal meeting and had made himself scarce after brewing coffee and handing out cookies, which he told them had been made by his sister.

Adam hadn't met the sister yet, but he assumed that would be on the list for what remained of today. Jay had left, and Ethan had gone with him, although Ethan promised he'd be outside if Adam needed him.

"It's good to see you," Ryan said, folding his frame into the small space and wriggling a little to get comfortable.

He was too big for this office—Ryan must have been six-five and built, his uniform stretching over his muscles.

"We know each other?" Adam asked, although he knew the answer because Ryan looked like he'd seen a ghost. He had that shocked expression on his face that Adam had grown used to seeing.

"Not close. But my brother, Saul, had to eject you from the bar when you were fourteen and I was out back doing homework."

"I was in a bar?" Adam asked. That idea didn't sit well with him and he considered his attitude to alcohol. He'd not really had a chance to make a choice on drinking yet; his painkillers and muscle relaxants were way too heavy to add alcohol.

"You and Justin," Ryan said with a fond smile of remembrance. "Actually, it was more Justin. I think you just tagged along for the ride. Anyway, we're locals, so you've always been around, school and so on, until you weren't here anymore. Which leads me to a whole series of questions."

"Shoot."

"First of all I need to ask whether you have anyone you want here with you as you answer these questions? You can have Ethan back in if you think it would help."

"No," Adam answered sharply. Then he softened his voice with a rueful smile. "I'm okay." What he really wanted to say was that he'd dreamed Justin was dead, and he couldn't bear to say that in front of Ethan, not yet.

Ryan pulled out a folder and placed it on the desk between them, glancing up as he opened it, then smoothed out the contents.

"What we know from 2004 is that the last time you and Justin were seen was by Henry up at Silver Lake. You were swimming and everything appeared normal. After that you vanished, you and Justin both. There have been no sightings of either of you since then."

"We were swimming." Adam closed his eyes and concentrated on the idea of swimming, imagining his arms cutting through the water, feeling the coolness on his skin, and he settled his breathing.

Nothing. Not even a sense memory or a feeling.

"Sorry." He opened his eyes and looked at Ryan directly. "I don't have anything to add about that."

"But you do have something to add?" Ryan asked perceptively.

Adam caught his upper lip between his teeth and dug his nails into the palms of his hands. The slight burn of pain stopped him from crying, which was exactly what he wanted to do at that moment.

"I have these… feelings," he began. Ryan nodded encouragement and didn't look as if he believed Adam was going mad. "I knew about Smoke, my horse—not that it was a horse, but I could link the word Smoke. And then I have dreams. Well, nightmares, actually."

"Can you give me any details of the nightmares? Anything that might be a concrete thing?"

Adam touched a finger to his neck, to the slightly rougher skin there. "I have scars, and last night I dreamed I was in a fire, an explosion."

"Do you know where?"

Adam shook his head. "There are trees, a cabin, and fire." And Justin lying unmoving on the floor. But he didn't add that. To say the words meant that his worst fears were true and Ethan's brother was dead.

"Does it feel local to here? Do you recall any details at all?"

"All I know is that it hurt and burned. There were chemicals, a smell of burning, and Justin was there."

"Was he burned as well?"

"I think so." Adam's voice was a little shaky and he coughed to clear his throat. "But that's just a nightmare, something I could have made up in my head. You can't tell Ethan yet."

Ryan made a note on the file. "Everything you say in this room is between you and me."

"But he's a cop. He can find things out." Adam stopped himself there, aware he sounded like he was hiding something.

Ryan didn't call him on it; he looked at Adam steadily. "I haven't written down anything about Justin, other than you recall he was there."

"I dreamed he was there," Adam corrected hurriedly.

"Exactly. But you want my advice?" He paused and Adam waited for the rest of it. "Don't have secrets."

"I don't know if I can tell what a secret is and what isn't," Adam said. "I just know I don't want Ethan to think Justin is gone."

Ryan nodded. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"No, there's nothing."

"Ethan knows how to contact me if you recall any details you think I should know."

They shook hands and Ryan left. Ethan came in to get him and it took all of Adam's willpower not to fall into Ethan and just hang on tight. Ethan smiled at him, an encouraging smile, and it was enough, along with Ryan's words, to break him. Everything came out of him in a rush of heat and emotion.

"I dreamed about being burned, and Justin was there, and I don't know if what I saw was the truth, but he wasn't moving."

Ethan stopped in his tracks, his smile vanishing in an instant. "Really?" he asked, and his voice was quiet and small.

Adam stepped closer, held out a hand in entreaty. "It was a dream, Ethan."

Ethan backed away, but it wasn't so much to avoid Adam as to find something to lean on. All the positive energy in the man seemed to have slipped away. "I always knew this could happen."

"You don't know if it's real."

"What are the chances he's still alive? Maybe my dad was right."

Temper and focused determination sparked inside Adam, something that had eluded him in a while. "Stop that," he snapped, and he stepped right up into Ethan's space. "You were looking for us, and you found me, and not once did you give up on us."

"But you saw?—"

"I had a dream , Ethan, it was nothing more than a dream, my subconscious playing tricks on me, making a construct to fit with the fact I have burn scars on my neck."

Ethan raised an eyebrow. "A construct?"

"Shit I make up," Adam qualified.

"I know that, but that's a word that doesn't seem right coming out of your mouth."

Adam grimaced, "The freaking doctor was always using it, something about the construct of my current to former to… shit, ignore that. I'm angry with you, stop deflecting."

"What did I do?" Ethan's eyes widened and he looked like he didn't know what the hell Adam was talking about.

"You gave up," Adam poked Ethan squarely in the chest. "Maybe only for ten seconds, but for that short time, you lost hope. We're not giving up, okay? I'm going to remember everything and we will find Justin. Alive."

By this time they were so close that Adam could see the different striations of color in Ethan's gray eyes.

Ethan said quietly, "I won't give up."

"And your dad wasn't right to give up. Say it."

"I'm not a kid, Adam?—"

"Say it. Say ‘my dad should not have given up on seeing Justin and his friend Adam again.'"

Ethan closed his eyes tight and his breath left him in an exaggerated huff. "It isn't that easy." He opened his eyes again, and Adam, fascinated, watched the pupils shrink. "He had to feel a certain way to be able to get through each door in this journey. Had to shut himself down to deal with the grief. Hell, I ran off to be a cop and hardly ever come home. I don't blame him for what he had to do."

Compassion welled inside Adam. Ethan couldn't see it, but he did blame his dad, and why shouldn't he? Marcus was a father to two sons, not just one, and Ethan had only been in his late teens himself; he'd needed his dad to help him deal with their grief together.

"But, Ethan, you do blame him, and you have every right to. I don't know everything here, but something is going on between you two, and whatever you argued about, whatever he did, I happen to think you choosing to have hope was the best way to be."

They left the office, walking a little way up the hill before Ethan stopped. He evidently had other things he wanted to say. He cradled Adam's face, his thumbs tracing across Adam's cheekbones, avoiding all the little bruises and cuts still healing on his face. "You know, when they sent me a photo, I couldn't recognize you because your face was so severely beaten."

"The freak show in the mirror," Adam murmured. He'd seen himself; whoever had hit him was aiming for his face, temper-driven hits that he didn't remember, that he never wanted to remember.

"Your cheekbone was fractured and your eyes could have been damaged."

"I know, but they didn't break my nose, so I'm still pretty." Adam felt like the levity was needed, and was rewarded by Ethan smiling, just a little.

"They had a theory, the local cops at UC, that whoever did this was interrupted and couldn't finish what he started. That this person who stripped you of identity was beating your face because it was personal."

Adam swallowed. They'd said the same thing to him in the hospital, two cops looking down at him with pity and shock, horror even, asking him if he could picture who had done this. "Feels pretty personal to me," he said.

Ethan continued the soft stroking, and Adam's gaze dropped to his mouth, seeing the tip of Ethan's tongue as it wet his lips. He was hard, the tension of the last hour enough to have him feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin while standing here trying to be all compassionate and caring, and all he wanted was to kiss Ethan.

"We'll find him," he said. More for words to say than to extend the conversation. Ethan's fingers stilled their movement and he slid them up into Adam's hair, carefully avoiding the bruised, hurt parts.

"When you disappeared…," Ethan began. "The last thing you said to me was that we'd talk later. I'd told you some shit about how I felt."

"Was it shit? You say that like you didn't mean what you said."

"I was a seventeen-year-old kid in love for the first time. You said you felt the same way, and we had this talk about what would happen next, how you would tell your dad what had happened, how you were sure that Cole would have your back. But Justin came in; he saw us kissing, and he left."

"Was he angry?"

Ethan closed his eyes for a moment. "He didn't look angry—sad, maybe. He just said one thing to us, more to you, actually, and I will never forget the words. ‘Your dad will kill you.' Then he left."

Emotion choked Adam. "What happened after that?"

"I started to go after him, but you stopped me. Said you'd find him and talk to him." Ethan stopped and rested his forehead against Adam's.

"And?" Adam prompted.

"That was the last I saw of either of you."

"Fuck, Ethan."

"Justin was arguing with Dad, I could hear it, but I didn't see Justin."

"Do you think Justin would have approved? Of what you say we felt back then?"

Ethan sighed, and the puff of breath warmed across Adam's lips. "I like to think so," he finally said.

Adam rested his hands on Ethan's hips and tugged him a little closer. Suddenly it seemed imperative that they be a lot closer. Ethan didn't argue, and finally they were as close as they could be. Ethan couldn't fail to notice how hard Adam was.

"I really want to kiss you," Ethan murmured.

"You can," Adam said.

"It feels wrong?—"

Adam wasn't ready for more talking about morals and timing; he wanted to feel, to let his instinct prove that he and Ethan should kiss. He pressed his lips to Ethan's, tilting his head to deepen the kiss as much as he could even with Ethan's fingers still in his hair.

At first Ethan was tense, but he didn't loosen his grip on Adam's hair, if anything, he tightened his hold. Then the kiss deepened, his tongue dueling and tasting just as much as Adam's. Ethan was as hard, as demanding, and Adam knew for sure he was meant to be with him. He couldn't remember anything else, but his body knew exactly what it wanted.

The sound of someone clearing their throat had them separating as if they'd had cold water thrown over them.

"Okay, so that was hot," Nate said, "but guys, you're going to have to take it somewhere more private." He thumbed to the small group of people dressed for riding waiting to pass them on the path.

"They can keep going," one girl in the group said with a laugh, nudging her friend in a very deliberate way.

Adam stepped back off the path, Ethan following suit. If Adam wasn't already lusting after him, the way Ethan tipped an imaginary hat and nodded with a soft "Ma'am" to the woman who was clearly the mother of the small family would have sent him over the edge.

"Go on up. I'll be right there," Nate said. As soon as the family was out of hearing range, he rounded on Ethan. Not Adam—not once did he look at Adam. "Jesus, E, he's not well."

Ethan went on the defensive. "I know, I didn't mean to?—"

"Hang on," Adam interrupted them. "I'm right here, and I am sick of people talking over me and around me and not to me."

Nate opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again, nodded, and turned to leave. Then he spun on his heel to face them again. "Just… okay…." Whatever he was trying to say was hidden between the lines, but whatever it was, it resonated with Ethan, who tensed beside Adam.

"What the hell?" Adam asked as he watched Nate walk up the hill toward the horses.

"He has a point," Ethan said. His cell rang and he fished it out of his pocket, looked at the screen, and connected the call. "Jen?"

Adam looked down at his feet and scuffed the grass, tracing a pattern with the toe of his boot. He centered his breathing, just to see if he could connect with anything today—the air that was spring-warm, the scent of the wood, the mud as it crumbled and stuck to his boot, the noises around him?—

Adam! Seriously, you ate all the toffee ones!

Adam looked up, startled. Who'd said that? He looked at Ethan a few feet away, a serious expression on his face; it hadn't been Ethan's voice. A memory, then, a voice from the past in his head. Was it Justin? Or Cole? Could it have been Ethan back then? Frustration bubbled inside him and he turned sharply, striding up the hill, past the horses, to his own place, and farther up beyond the last house, which Ethan had said was the Todd place.

Beyond that was the forest area, a wide band of trees that backed the ranch before the mountains rose beyond.

I've got money. We could go into town.

The words were spinning in his head, a younger voice in the memory, and with each step up, with his breathing hard and painful in his chest, he recalled more. No face, no name, but words.

My brother? Jesus, Adam, what the hell?

Justin. The words were in Justin's voice, and Adam's steps quickened, his focus absolute on the trees and the path that wound up and up, away from the center of Crooked Tree and up into the shade. His chest hurt and he pressed a hand there as if he could stop the pain.

Adam, I can't stay here. I have to go. You see that, right?

He stumbled as he walked, as words slid into his head, and he had no idea where the hell he was going.

Adam broke into a run, but his muscles burned and he only made it a short distance before his lungs screamed at him to stop, and he did. He came to a complete halt and fell to his knees, tears in his eyes and his vision clouding.

"What the hell?" A male voice, dripping with shock, burst into his thoughts. "Kirsten, get Ethan, or Nate, or someone. Anyone."

And with that last shouted instruction from God knew who, Adam passed out.