17. Tallus

My head was pounding by the time Diem pulled into the Motel 8 parking lot, the same place where we’d followed Beth on Friday night. Even the paltry parking lot lights hurt my retinas and made my stomach queasy.

Diem parked and shut off the Jeep, eyeing me with what I gauged to be a huge helping of discomfort. A growing migraine made me snappy, which wasn’t my norm. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but when I was in pain, I wasn’t always nice.

“Wanna stay here?” he asked.

“No. What are you planning?”

“I’m hoping whoever is working the desk might share who rented the room on Friday night.”

“Smart. Do you think they’ll tell us?”

“It could easily fail. Unless it’s a dumbass kid with shit for brains who doesn’t understand the law, we’re likely going to be told to take a hike.”

“I think you rely far too heavily on the stupidity of our youth. Not everyone has bricks for brains.” I groaned and stretched my neck from side to side.

“Most of them do.”

Part of me regretted not telling Diem to take me to my car so I could go home. I knew better than to fuck with brewing migraines. I also knew better than to have more than three coffees in a day. It was a recipe for disaster. Without immediately taking pills, I was setting myself up for a world of hell. At this rate, I’d be unable to work tomorrow.

Diem watched from the shadow of the driver’s seat, concern creasing his brow.

I nodded at the building. “Let’s get this over with. Cross your fingers and toes.”

“You don’t look well.”

“Careful, Guns. You’ll hurt my feelings. I have a fragile ego when it comes to my looks.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” I tried for a smile, but it came out laced with pain.

“Why don’t you stay here.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Because you’re a social klutz when left to your own devices, and if we want answers, you know we’re more likely to get them if I do the talking.”

Diem didn’t argue.

We got out of the Jeep and headed to the main office of the sleazy motel. A man in his midtwenties was behind the desk—greasy hair, wide forehead—watching an action flick on a miniature-size TV. The spaced-out look in his eyes barely cleared when he glanced to the door at our entrance.

Why did Diem always have to be right?

“Got a reservation?” the guy asked, heaving himself from a chair behind the counter and meeting us at the computer. His clothes were too big and hung unattractively on a rail-thin frame. The scraggly scruff on his face suggested he couldn’t grow a healthy beard if his life depended on it.

“No reservation. Just a few questions,” I said, jumping in before Diem opened his mouth. I tried to find a cocksure smile but feared it was less than genuine and showed my suffering instead.

“We’re private investigators, chum. I’m Inspector Clouseau, and this is my partner, Inspector… um, Gadget. We were wondering if you could give us a hand.”

Diem made a noise in his throat. It was one of those choked-off sounds that might have been a repressed laugh but probably wasn’t. I had yet to figure it out.

The man behind the counter scrunched his brow as he breathed through his mouth. “I think I’ve heard of you.”

“We’re pretty famous. Look, kid.” The guy was no older than me, but I didn’t care. I lowered my voice conspiratorially. “There was a man who checked into room eighteen on Friday night. He’s dangerous. Might have killed someone. We need to know who he is. You could help us save lives.”

The guy’s eyes widened as he shifted his attention from me to Diem and back, then narrowed them. “Wait a minute. Do you have badges? You don’t look like investigators.”

“Are you kidding? He has a fedora. What more do you want?”

The guy puzzled Diem’s hat but he still didn’t look convinced.

Fuck.

I smacked Diem’s chest, smile straining. “Show him your ID. I left mine in the car.”

Diem glared for a long time as though trying to communicate something, then reached into his back pocket and flashed his PI credentials to the man, too fast for him to read the name.

I huffed and patted Diem’s broad chest. “Excuse my partner. He’s got a bad headache, which prevents him from having patience. Turns him surly. Room eighteen. Friday night. We’ll get out of your hair. I promise.”

“I… I don’t think I can do that without a warrant. Don’t you need a warrant? They always ask for warrants on TV.”

Goddammit.TV shows had ruined my game plan. I had nothing left. My stamina was gone, my brain was fried, and I was ten seconds from cursing the guy out and demanding information.

I nudged Diem. “Your turn, Guns. Don’t fuck up.”

Diem stared at me with confusion.

I squinted through the pain lashing my head and spoke through clenched teeth. “I can’t play anymore. I’m tapped out. I’m done. I hurt. Do it your way.”

“What’s my way?”

I passed a tight smile to the man behind the counter, whose head was on a swivel, bouncing his attention from Diem to me.

“Bribe him. I don’t care anymore. Get the information.”

“Oh.” Diem fished a fifty from his pocket and slid it across the counter. I swear he kept one handy at all times for these types of situations. Using a thick finger, he pinned it down so the guy couldn’t grab it. “Name.” He spoke with the perfect amount of intimidating growl in his tone.

The man scratched his head as he stared at the fifty. It didn’t take him long to decide whether he wanted to comply.

He turned to the computer, bouncing on his toes like he had to pee. “Man, don’t get me fired, okay. I need this job.” He tapped away at the keyboard and, a moment later, said, “David Shore. His name was David Shore. He paid cash, so there’s nothing else on file.”

“David Shore?” I asked, confirming. How many David Shores could there be in a city of millions? It was better than nothing.

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. Thank you.” I nudged Diem.

Diem removed his finger from the bill, and we headed out into the night. I collapsed in the passenger seat of the Jeep with a groan, closing my eyes and tipping my head back as I tried to breathe through the pain. It was getting worse by the second, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to throw up.

Diem started the engine and drove without saying a word.

“We need to look this guy up,” I mumbled, covering my eyes with a hand to block out the city lights and headlights from other vehicles.

“No.”

“We finally have a name and—”

“No. It’s after eleven. Tomorrow.”

I didn’t argue, even though I suspected Diem would run with the information. Fucking head. I’d have to knock down his door again if I wanted to stay involved, and at this rate, I’d be down for the count for two days at least.

I kept my eyes closed for the ride, afraid I’d lose my stomach. The stirring nausea grew worse, and it took all my control to sit there and not cry. I didn’t move. I couldn’t speak.

The radio was on. It played quietly in the background, but even it felt like a jackhammer chipping away at my brain. I fumbled blindly for the knob to turn it off, but Diem moved my hand out of the way and did it for me.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Thanks.”

Several turns later, Diem slowed and stopped before grunting with all the articulation he possessed.

I peeled my eyes open, squinting at my surroundings, and found we were sitting outside my apartment building. “What… But my car. It’s at your house.”

“You can barely open your eyes. How are you going to drive?”

“I’d have figured it out.”

An irritated noise followed, and I submitted. I had no fight anyhow. He was right. Driving would have been dumb.

I fumbled in a pocket for my keys, almost dropped them, then situated them securely in my fingers. “Thanks. Keep me posted?”

I earned a grunt. Diem seemed to have lost the ability to talk.

Chuckling softly, I stumbled from the Jeep and slammed the door. It took the rest of my strength to get inside and up to my floor. The elevator’s motion almost made me sick. The hallway lights speared my retinas and soft brain tissue.

Inside, I found the prescription pills I’d gotten from the doctor for migraines, took two, and landed in bed fully clothed, praying I’d be better the following day, knowing I wouldn’t.

***

Two days later, still in bed but a world better than the previous morning when I’d fumbled to shut off my alarm and call in sick to work, someone buzzed my door, stirring me awake.

I’d been dozing off and on all morning, nursing the shadow remnants of the migraine still lingering in the background. If I didn’t treat this phase with care, it would come back with a vengeance, so I’d taken another day off work to be sure I was better.

The buzzer sounded again, and I groaned.

Dragging my phone from the bedside table, I checked the time. It was noon. I had three waiting messages from Memphis asking how I was doing, so I assumed it was him at the door checking in, probably on his lunch break.

Fumbling for my glasses, I got to my feet, clad in nothing more than a pair of sleep pants, and shuffled to the front room. I’d pulled the heavy curtains over the windows to keep out the sunlight, so the apartment was comfortably gloomy. Enough daylight seeped around the edges of the blinds to allow me to see where I was going.

A third buzz filled the apartment before I pressed the button on the intercom. “Who is it?”

“Me,” came a deep voice on the other end.

Diem.

I hesitated. I was not fit for company. Memphis, sure. He didn’t matter, but Diem? I hadn’t showered or shaved in two days, which bothered me. I did a quick pit sniff, contemplated finding more to put on, then gave up the fight. Was Diem really someone I wanted to impress?

I tapped the door release, hearing the click indicating it was unlocked, then undid the deadbolt and shuffled to the couch to sit, replying to Memphis’s texts so he knew I was back amongst the land of the living and doing much better.

A short time later, a soft knock sounded at the door.

“It’s open.”

Diem appeared in the entryway. He was in shadow, so I couldn’t make out the look on his face. He didn’t move and carried something in his arms.

The first and only other time he’d been in my apartment, he’d arrived armed with a mickey of bourbon, ready to fuck. I hoped this wasn’t a repeat of that failed experiment because I wasn’t in the mood to coach him through a positive sexual experience, and the man was a clusterfuck in the bedroom.

He hovered and hesitated long enough to annoy me. It was as though he was trying to take up as little room as possible but knew it was a hopeless feat. His gaze landed on me more than once, taking in my naked top half before darting away again. The poor guy was a social wreck when I had too much skin exposed. No, he was a social wreck always.

“What’s up, D?”

“I…” He looked at the brown bag in his arms. “I wanted to know how you were feeling.”

“Been better. I’m much improved. Just being careful not to aggravate it again.”

“Ms. Lavender said you get migraines a lot.”

“Sometimes. You saw Kitty?”

“I went by yesterday… looking for you.”

“You don’t need to stand at the door. You can come in.”

“Oh. Okay.” He toed off his shoes and moved into the shadowy living room where it was a modicum brighter. I shuffled, giving him room to sit, but he didn’t until I patted the couch. “I don’t bite… Unless that’s your kink, in which case…” I smirked.

No laugh, but that was Diem.

He sat on the edge of the cushion, leaving a generous distance, awkward as always. He was a bear-sized man who didn’t know where to put himself half the time. It was sad. Something on the edge of his jaw caught my attention. It was too dark to see, but I thought it looked like a cut. His scruff was dense, so I struggled to make it out.

“I brought you soup,” he said, interrupting my musing.

“You brought me soup?” I smiled. “Really?”

“Nana says you’re supposed to eat soup if you’re sick. Chicken noodle. She said it has healing properties. It’s probably bogus, but… I didn’t make it. I’m not that… I researched soup restaurants, and apparently, this place is good.”

More than ten words, but they were a struggle.

“Thank you.” I wanted to tell him a migraine was not the flu, but I was afraid to hurt his feelings when he’d gone out of his way to do something nice. It felt so out of character, but in all honesty, I had no idea about the finer points of Diem Krause.

He dug a sealed take-out bowl from the paper bag and handed it over. A wooden spoon and individual cracker packets came next, then napkins. He set the latter two aside on the coffee table.

Diem wouldn’t look me in the eye.

I opened the soup and ate some. It was lukewarm, almost cold, and I wondered how long Diem had sat outside in the Jeep, second-guessing himself.

“It’s good. Thank you.”

He grunted and stared at the ground.

I ate a few more bites, examining the dark spot on his jaw, more and more certain he’d cut himself.

“What happened?” I asked, unable to let it go.

He looked confused, so I indicated on my own jaw. “Did you cut yourself?”

Diem touched the area, retracted his fingers, and shook his head. “It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing. Mentioning it had caused him to tense up.

I let it go and ate a few more spoonsful of soup before setting it aside. “What’s up, D?”

He snapped his head up. “Huh?”

“Did you come by to check on me and bring me soup, or was there something else?”

Eyeing the soup, flexing and releasing his fingers, he muttered, “I… wanted to check on you.” He shifted his weight, cut his gaze around the room, and touched the cut on his jaw again. “I… There’s… You told me not to keep going without you. I found some stuff, and I thought…” He frowned. “Do you want me to go?”

“No.” I chuckled. “I want you to talk. If you’re able.”

“Oh.” Never in a million years did I think Diem would bring the case to me. I was convinced I’d be chasing him down for information, and it was part of the reason I was so pissed I’d wound up with a migraine.

“You found stuff?”

He nodded. “The man Sean met when he left the vigil is a lawyer. Bill Tudor. He works in that building where they chatted. Your pictures helped. I asked around.”

“You asked around?” I snorted.

Diem scowled. “I promised the guy at the coffee shop twenty bucks if he could identify him.”

“That’s more believable. A lawyer? Why was Sean meeting with a lawyer?”

“I don’t know.”

“What kind of lawyer?”

“Criminal defense.”

“Not divorce? Shit. Maybe the police are questioning him for Beth’s death.”

“Maybe. There’s more.”

“Hang on.” I was hungry, and the soup was calling me, but I didn’t want to eat it cold. “Let me heat this up.” I moved to grab the soup, but Diem got to it first, growling for me to stay put.

I smiled to myself as Diem found his way into the kitchen and located the microwave. When he returned, he set it carefully on the coffee table. I ate, and he watched me with such intensity I almost poked fun, but I knew how sensitive Diem was, so I let it go.

It was like I’d told Memphis. I enjoyed the attention. Something about Diem’s awkwardness and repressed attraction was invigorating. The fact I was shirtless didn’t help. His gaze roamed more than once over my body before he caught himself and did all he could to keep his eyes off me. He wanted to stare but hated himself for doing so. He wanted to touch me but didn’t know how. For whatever reason, Diem didn’t want to be attracted to me.

But he was.

“You can talk while I eat. I’m capable of doing two things at once.”

Diem darted his attention away when I glanced up and caught his gaze lingering on my bare skin again. He cracked his knuckles and folded his fingers together before releasing them and grasping his thighs. “I found David Shore. Took a hot minute, but since we had a vague idea of what he looked like, I was able to find him. David Shore is the teacher they’re investigating at the university.”

With the spoon halfway to my mouth, I froze. I replaced it in the bowl and shifted to face Diem. “The man from the newspaper? The one being charged for having relations with his students and possibly selling drugs?”

Diem nodded.

I sat with that for a long minute, contemplating. How did it fit? Then I recalled. “Wait. Noah went to school at York, where he teaches.”

Diem nodded again.

“Did Beth and Olivia go to school there too?”

Another nod.

“Same year?”

A nod.

“Stop it.”

“What?”

“I’m having a conversation with myself. I swear to god, if you make my migraine come back, I’ll be pissed. The human race learned to communicate with words eons ago. Please use them.”

Diem shifted his weight. “They were students at the same time,” he mumbled. “Noah was a year older, but they all went to York, and David Shore was a professor then too. Beth might have had him as a teacher. I’m not sure about Olivia. I called Faye to see if she knew if Noah had a class with Professor Shore since I thought there was a possible connection. She wasn’t sure but said she’d try to find out.”

“Okay…” I pinched the bridge of my nose, slotting the mismatched pieces of information together the best I could, but more gaps opened. More questions surfaced. The picture was less clear, not more clear. “Shit.” I removed my glasses and scrubbed my hands over my face.

“I shouldn’t have come.”

I dropped my hands and put my glasses back on. “Why?”

“Your head. I’m making it worse.”

“No. My head’s fine. It’s not you. I’m much better. The soup helped.” And I wasn’t fluffing his feathers. I did feel better. I’d barely eaten in two days and was hungrier than I thought. The shadowy migraine dissipated with my hunger satiated.

“I’m due for another pill. I’ll take it and be right as rain. What’s the game plan? What do we do with this information? Where do we go from here?”

“I want to go by the university.”

“He’s there? They haven’t removed him?”

“He’s been suspended, but his wife teaches there as well, and rumors will be rampant.”

“Wait. It’s summer.”

“There’re summer courses going on. It won’t be as busy, but students should be kicking around.”

“Do you think this is drug-related? Noah OD’d. Beth was injected with something, according to Doyle. This Shore guy could be responsible directly or indirectly for both. Maybe this isn’t about infidelity, and they were helping him distribute drugs.”

Diem grunted and shrugged.

“I need to shower.”

“We can go tomorrow.”

“No. I’m back at work tomorrow. If we want to catch students on campus, we should go during the day. Like now. I’ll be fine.”

“Finish the soup.”

“That I can do.” I ate the rest of the soup under the scrutiny of a man who didn’t want me to know he was lusting after me. When I finished, I left the garbage on the coffee table and stood, peering down at where Diem remained on the couch, hands clasped tightly between his thighs.

“Give me twenty minutes to clean up and feel alive.”

Diem’s gaze was locked on my navel, on the dusting of hair leading down beneath my sleep pants. I moved a hand to his jaw and the cut, but he flinched away with a low growl.

Instead, I brought my hand to his head and brushed my fingers over his scalp. He allowed it. A handful of faint scars prevented his hair from growing in places, and I traced my thumb over one of the more prominent ones.

I tipped his head so he would look me in the eye. Something raw and desperate burned in his smoky gray eyes. A fire. A storm.

Need. Lust. Desire.

“Join me?”

Diem’s throat bobbed, but he shook his head. I knew it was too much to ask. A shower was an intimate, close-quarters affair, and those things bothered Diem.

I didn’t push. I raked my fingers over his shorn head a few more times and backed off, aiming for the bathroom.