24. Diem

Ipulled down the Jeep’s vanity mirror and examined the silver scar along the side of my jaw. The more gruesome one. The one Tallus had traced the other day when he’d wanted to kiss me. Clean-shaven, it stood stark, a distinctly different shade than my skin tone. Although my facial hair didn’t grow over the old injury, some scruff helped hide it. It was why I went several days without shaving. It was why I rarely used a razor.

What the fuck had I been thinking? I swiped my hand over my face, irritated at my stupidity.

Tallus saw through me. He was never fooled, no matter how much I tried to conceal myself from the world. Some days I feared he saw the ugly truth beneath my skin.

Usually, I didn’t care what other people thought. I was used to being the Hunchback’s rejected sidekick. The freak. Yet I’d woken up that morning, desperate to make myself presentable. To clean myself up like I was someone worth knowing. Someone worth looking at.

Had Tallus even noticed? Had he cared? Was I wearing this uncomfortable shirt for nothing?

What a joke. I was a fucking idiot.

Pathetic waste of space, trying to impress a guy when I’d done nothing more than push him away time and again. I didn’t want to get close to him. I didn’t want him to see any more than he already saw.

Or did I?

“Fuck.”

I slapped the vanity mirror back in its place and scowled at the creative arts building. This was taking too long. Tallus had been inside for over thirty minutes. He was likely gabbing away, making a new best friend, batting his lashes at the pretty art teacher, even though Tallus was gay.

He liked attention. He soaked it up. The you-want-me-but-can-you-have-me look lived in his eyes. Men and women, old and young, fell for it too. He wore it like a second skin. Nothing stopped Tallus from putting on a show.

I bet he wore that seductive face at the bar. I bet it got him laid every damn weekend. How could it not? Who could resist it?

Great, now I sounded like a jealous fucking lover. I needed to get over myself.

I cracked my knuckles and cursed, powering down the window to let in the fresh morning air. It didn’t help cool me off. The day was warming fast, the sky a crisp, cloudless blue. June was doing a fine job preluding what I knew would be a sweltering summer.

Where the hell was he?

I made a mental note of what I needed to do today. Contacting Faye was at the top of the list. It was time I told her I had doubts about her husband’s infidelity, although I wasn’t ready to explain our suspicions. If we could confirm Noah, Beth, and Olivia knew David Shore had killed Roan back in 2010, then I’d have to talk to Doyle—much to my dismay. I hated cooperating with the police but knew when to cut my losses.

My phone rang. I glanced at the screen, praying it wasn’t Birdie telling me Nana wasn’t doing well again, and I frowned. It was Tallus.

I answered with an impatient grunt I was sure got my point across.

His voice came through the speakers in the Jeep since I was hooked up with Bluetooth, but he didn’t sound like himself. “You’re like, grr, I’m a bear.”

“What the fuck are you calling me for?” I squinted at the front doors to the building, expecting him to come flying out at any second, his usual strut and with a smirk a mile wide on his beautiful face.

“I’m not scared of you, and you’re not ugly, and I just wish you’d touch me.”

“What… What are you talking about?”

Was he slurring?

“I’m just so tired.” He was definitely slurring. “My stupid migraine came back.” He whimpered. “I think I’m bleeding.”

My surliness vanished, and concern slid into my tone. “Tallus, you’re not making sense.”

“Something’s wrong, Guns. The pretty lady is having a nap, and I’m… Where are my glasses?”

“Tallus?” My spine stiffened.

“Help me.” Another whimper. “Help me, D. Something’s really wrong.”

“Motherfucker!” I killed the engine, snagging my phone as I exited the Jeep and slammed the door. I yelled as I ran toward the building. “Tallus, what’s wrong?”

No response, but I could hear him breathing, like his mouth was pressed to the phone.

“Tallus. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

I burst through the front doors, and it took far too long to orient myself and figure out where I needed to go to get to Natalia’s office. She was on the second floor and at the far end of the building. Of fucking course she was.

I ran, taking the stairs three at a time before bolting down multiple hallways, following signs for the administration wing.

When I got there, I didn’t knock and plowed through the doorway, adrenaline pumping, fists and muscles engaged and ready for a fight, but I didn’t find a threat.

I found Natalia unconscious in her reading chair and Tallus, face bloodied, in a heap on the floor, hugging his phone. His glasses were a few feet away, the lens on one side shattered, frames bent.

Instinct kicked in, and I scanned the room, checking every nook and cranny spacious enough to conceal a grown man. When I found no one, I dropped to a knee and pressed fingers to Tallus’s neck, checking for a pulse. It was there, pumping away. Was it weak? I couldn’t tell. I put a hand near his mouth and nose and soft exhales blew against my skin. He was breathing.

Then I checked Natalia. She was alive, and as far as I could see, she was uninjured.

Without hesitation, I called 911 and barked orders at the woman who answered, hanging up when she told me to stay on the line.

I returned to Tallus and heaved him into a sitting position. His head lolled on his neck. A gash along his forehead seemed to be the source of the blood. Not a fatal wound, but it was bleeding like a bitch. I patted his cheek and called his name.

He stirred momentarily, mumbled something incomprehensible, then rocked his face against my chest and zonked out again.

Panic surged through my veins. I knew an ambulance was coming, but they wouldn’t know where to go since I was an idiot and had hung up on the emergency operator. I didn’t want to leave Tallus, so I heaved him into my arms and aimed for the door. He was deadweight but warm against my chest. I took comfort and reassurance in how his soft breaths fanned my neck. I had to pause a few times in my descent to readjust his weight, leaning against a stairwell wall to maintain balance, but I got him downstairs and outside as a wail of sirens sounded in the distance.

I set him on the ground, propped against the wall, and he stirred, blinking with confusion at his surroundings. Squatting, I held his head upright since he didn’t seem to have much strength and moved my fingers to the pulse point in his neck, even though he was clearly alive. I couldn’t help it.

“Hey. Can you hear me?”

“D?”

“Yeah. It’s me. What happened?”

“My head hurts.” Tallus cringed, squeezing his eyes closed. “Stupid migraine came back out of nowhere. Everything was fine… then it wasn’t.”

Blood trickled down the bridge of his nose when he made a face, so I removed my exterior shirt—the fancier one I’d donned stupidly that morning for Tallus’s sake—and wiped at the mess, smearing the blood more than anything. Sections were drying, but the wound still bled vigorously. Most head wounds did. Even minor ones.

“Tallus,” I said, holding his chin so he would look at me. “What happened inside Natalia’s office?”

“She was out of it. I think she took pills. Said she wanted a nap. I was…” His mind seemed to clear, and he grew more alert, if not any less confused, trying to sit up. “I can’t see. Where are my glasses?”

“I left them upstairs. They’re broken.”

“God fucking dammit. I can’t go two months without breaking them.”

He groaned and slumped against the wall, closing his eyes.

I wasn’t getting straight answers.

Two ambulances pulled off the road and crossed the grassy expanse in front of the building, stopping as close to the foot of the stairs as possible. Several paramedics jumped out, and I waved one over as the others pulled gear and gurneys from the backs of their vehicles.

I explained what I knew, which wasn’t much. When I said Tallus seemed more alert since I got him outside, the team moved faster, asking where to locate the woman. I provided directions to Natalia’s office, and two of them moved into the building, one talking into a radio, saying something about getting the fire department on site and evacuating the premises immediately.

“What’s happening?” I asked the duo who had remained behind.

“Precautions,” a female paramedic said as she squatted and rested a hand on Tallus’s shoulder. Her partner brought a gurney and medical bag up the stairs to where we sat.

“How are you feeling?” the woman asked.

“My migraine came back.”

“Are you dizzy?”

“A little. Not like I was before. Seems a bit better.”

The male paramedic placed a device on Tallus’s finger and left it there as he slipped an oxygen mask over Tallus’s face. “Breathe normally,” the woman said.

“We’re going to get you moved to a hospital, my man.” The male paramedic held a thick swatch of gauze over the gash in Tallus’s forehead. “We’ll check you out head to toe.”

“My glasses.”

“I’ll get them.” But when I hopped to my feet, the female paramedic told me not to go into the building.

But they didn’t tell me why.

***

Hours into his hospital stay, I learned Tallus was being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning. Since I had spat rage at too many nurses, I was forced to spend the first hour in the waiting room with a security guard hovering nearby in case I decided to cause more problems. I guess I should have been grateful they didn’t toss me out the door on my ass or call the cops.

When Tallus was more coherent and had met with a doctor, he permitted me to join him in his cordoned-off section of the emergency department. The consent, although given, came with a warning from the hospital staff. If I so much as spoke above a whisper to anyone, breathed the wrong way, or made threats of any kind, I was finished.

Tallus occupied a corner room, and I stalled when I went through the doorway, absorbing the sight.

Stitches lined the gash in his forehead—at least six. The skin under both his eyes was darkening into bruises. A cannula hung over his ears and was positioned under his nose. The hiss of the oxygen being delivered to the device was barely perceptible under the clattering of ongoing hospital noises. The scent of antiseptic permeated the air, curdling my gut. I hated that smell. I hated hospitals. Too many memories. None of them good.

But when Tallus saw me, the disarming smile I’d come to recognize lit up the room, erasing the surface damage and settling something in my chest that had been twisting and coiling me into a knot since he phoned me back at the university. He wore his broken glasses, the left lens a spiderweb of cracks. One of the paramedics had rescued them from the office floor when they’d gone to help Natalia, and I’d shouted at a nurse for ten minutes to allow me access to Tallus so I could give them back. In the end, she’d snatched them from my hand and waltzed off like her shit didn’t stink.

“I hear you’re causing trouble, Guns.”

I shrugged, unable to stop staring at his injuries, a deep-seated self-loathing seeping through my veins. It should have been me talking to Natalia. It should have been me who was almost poisoned. What had I been thinking, sending him up there alone? Tallus wasn’t my partner, no matter how many times he made claims otherwise. He was not supposed to be involved. He was not supposed to get hurt on my watch.

“D, I’m going to be okay,” he said, reading my thoughts. But his assurance didn’t erase the sick feelings. It didn’t assuage the guilt.

I didn’t know where to put myself. All morning in the waiting room, I’d been vacillating between wanting a cigarette to help lower my blood pressure and wanting to storm Tallus’s room to be sure he was okay because I was convinced the hospital staff was lying, and if I didn’t see him, I’d go mad. I’d have probably caved on the impulse to smoke had I not adamantly refused to leave the hospital until I’d seen Tallus in the flesh.

Astute as always, Tallus held out a hand, the idea being that I should take it. And when I didn’t right away, he waited.

What I liked about Tallus was he gave me time to process. He never expected immediate results. He never rushed me. Sometimes, he pushed limits but quickly backed off if he sensed he’d gone too far.

I took his hand. Warm. Alive. The curdling in my stomach settled. He didn’t draw me closer, but he caressed the surface of my skin with a thumb. It was soothing, like when he massaged my scalp, and for some dumb reason, I thought of Nana and the gentle way she had always approached me before she’d gotten sick. Nana had always understood. Nana never judged. Nana was my only advocate in life.

“The doctor told me Natalia is in the clear,” Tallus said. “She’ll be okay.”

I nodded. I’d overheard the same.

“Do I look like shit? Is that why you won’t look at me.”

I’d been staring at the hospital sheets draped over his lap, absorbing his touch, settling my nerves. Shifting my focus to his face, I shook my head and stammered, “No. You look…” Beautiful, I wanted to say, but the word got stuck in my throat, and I left the sentence unfinished.

Tallus pointed at his forehead. “Think I’ll end up with a fun scar?”

I winced. “I hope not.”

“Doctor said I shouldn’t. He promised me he was an expert.”

“Good.”

Tallus didn’t deserve scars. Not like me.

A rap sounded on the doorframe, and I pulled my hand from Tallus’s hold to turn and see who it was. I expected a doctor or nurse but was greeted by the stern faces of both Doyle and Fox.

“Oh yay,” Tallus said with an edge of sarcasm. “Party in my room. Someone should have told me. I’d have put pants on. Please join us. The more the merrier.”

Doyle eyed me up and down. “I’m glad you’re here. Saves us chasing you around the city. How about you have a seat, Krause. We need to have a little chat with you and your sidekick.”

I tensed my jaw, ready to explode or protest, but Tallus brushed his fingers down my arm, and I reined it in. I drew a plastic chair from the corner and moved it beside Tallus’s hospital bed before sitting.

Doyle’s partner, Torin Fox, was a small man with a big attitude who thought he was a comedian. He wasn’t.

Fox made a point of examining Tallus’s injuries before chuckling. “Man, looks like you went a few rounds in the ring.” Then he punched the air like he was a boxer. “Bet that hurt.”

Tallus smirked. “It’s not so bad. You should see the other guy.”

Fox grinned. “I bet. So what happened?”

“Desk broke my fall. I was a little woozy. Snorted too much carbon monoxide. All the kids are doing it these days. What they don’t tell you is you can easily OD.”

“Next time, say no to drugs.”

“I certainly will, Detective. I’ve learned my lesson.”

To Doyle, Fox said, “Valor will be happy to hear the pretty-boy records clerk ain’t so pretty anymore.”

“Shut up,” Doyle told him, to Tallus, he said, “Now let’s get serious. Tell us what you were doing in Dr. Shore’s office?”

Tallus glanced at me before shrugging. “Oh, you know, just chatting with the lovely lady.”

“Uh-huh. About?”

“The weather. Her future. I hear she’s getting divorced. Kind of sexy for a woman in her fifties. Too bad I’m gay.”

“He’s a funny guy,” Fox said to Doyle.

“Yeah, he’s been hanging out with this one too much.” Doyle gestured at me, and I narrowed my eyes.

“Really? I’ve never known Krause to be funny,” Fox said.

Doyle sighed. “It was sarcasm, Tor. Seriously. I wonder about you. Look,” Doyle redirected to us again, “let’s cut the shit and lay our cards on the table. We both come clean right here and now. I’ll go first. We have a man sitting in a jail cell, awaiting his lawyer so he can hopefully post bail at his hearing in the morning. I’ve got evidence his car was used in a hit-and-run fourteen years ago. I’ve got him on solicitation and drug trafficking. Plenty enough for those charges to stick. But what I don’t have is a solid reason why you two are poking around this case.

“The other day, you implied there was a connection between Shore and the Rowell woman’s death. Now, I don’t know if you were fucking with me or you know something I don’t, but I have busted my ass looking for answers. There’s a lot of red tape to push through before I get them. It would be great if you two could help us move the process along because I’m still unclear what you see that we don’t. To top it off, we’ve now brought in an angry father for questioning because we suspect he might have been involved in trying to kill Shore’s wife, so I’m short on patience and time.”

“Wait. What?” Tallus said. “What do you mean kill? Someone tried to kill Natalia? I thought it was a carbon monoxide leak.”

Fox picked up the thread. “While you were getting your boo-boos taken care of, the fire department inspected the building. Someone finagled a decent-sized fuel tank to a standard camping lantern and turned it on without lighting it. It poured gas into the office. The lantern was hidden in the corner, out of sight, the tank wedged behind the end of a bookcase. All the vents to the room had been sealed with clear plastic wrap to prevent any air exchange. This was not an accident, gentleman. Someone was trying to kill David Shore’s wife.”

“So we want to know why you were there.” This question came from Doyle.

I rolled the information around my head as Tallus stared at the detectives, shock radiating from behind his broken glasses.

Natalia had mentioned Roan’s father harassing people on campus. She’d been fearful the previous day when we’d approached her. The man sounded unhinged, but Natalia hadn’t killed his son. Why take it out on her when the real killer was behind bars? Hell, as far as I could tell, Natalia and David weren’t even involved in 2010 when the accident happened.

“Talk, Krause. I’m not fucking around anymore,” Doyle said. “I’ll bring you in for obstructing justice if I have to.”

“You mentioned Shore hasn’t posted bail yet?” I asked instead.

“No, but it’ll happen in the morning.”

“So he’s in jail right now.”

“Yes. Can we—”

“The blood,” Tallus said. “Was it a match?”

Doyle narrowed his eyes. “How do you know about that?”

Tallus flushed.

“Thought we were sharing,” I said, diverting Doyle’s attention.

“We are, but it’s awfully one-sided at the moment.”

“Answer Tallus’s question, and I’ll talk.”

Fox and Doyle exchanged a look, then Fox said, “Not a match.”

The pieces didn’t fit, but they wanted to. I was missing something. Despite my oath to steer clear of the department, I fulfilled my end of the bargain.

I explained Faye’s request that I look into her dead husband’s adulterous behavior. I shared how the investigation had led us to Olivia, then to Beth, and finally to the elusive bastard, aka David Shore. I told them about the hotel room rendezvous the night before Beth had died. About the argument we’d witnessed between Beth and her husband—in case it was relevant. About how we suspected the three of them had knowledge of David’s crime from 2010 and went into a panic when the police started investigating him for other things, particularly, we believed, when they took his car—although I hadn’t aligned those dates yet.

I told Doyle and Fox our suspicions that David might have been indirectly responsible for Noah’s death and directly responsible for Beth’s.

The two detectives listened, took notes, and asked a few questions.

When I finished the story, they asked me to go over it again, so I did. By the time I’d reviewed details a third time, Tallus was looking worse for wear, and my temper was wearing thin.

“Are we fucking finished yet? How many times do I have to say the same thing?”

The two detectives conferred and nodded. “We’re done,” Doyle said.

They left, but not without warning me to stay close to the phone in case they had more questions. After they departed, I stared at the empty doorway, thinking about what we’d discovered, unable to shake the feeling that I was missing something crucial.

“D?”

I refocused and glanced at Tallus. The bruising was getting worse by the minute. He sported a decent pair of black eyes, the bridge of his nose swollen.

“Yeah?”

“I’m hungry.”

“When can you leave?”

“I don’t know. The doctor didn’t say.”

“I’ll find out.” But when I stood, ready to storm the nurses’ station, Tallus wrapped his fine-boned fingers around my wrist and stopped me.

That time, he did draw me closer. I went only so far, reluctant and unable to close the distance like he wanted me to. He shuffled upright on the hospital bed and removed his hand from my wrist to touch my clean-shaven face, smoothing a hand over the cheek containing the worst of my scars. “Don’t get snappy out there. These people are just doing their job. When I have attitude, it works because I’m cute. When you have an attitude, people call the cops, and I don’t want them back here.”

Then he leaned in, and his lips landed on the faint silver scar that lived under my eye.

“I’m okay. Stop fretting.”

“I’m not fretting.

He didn’t believe me.

It was a lie.

The wet impression of Tallus’s lips stayed with me as I wandered the hall, looking for a nurse. I managed my temper and got someone to confirm when Tallus could leave. A couple more hours, they said.

Instead of running to a restaurant, I found the cafeteria and bought him a sad-looking egg salad sandwich and a bottle of water. There were no lattes and no peanut butter cookies to be had.

Tallus seemed grateful, even though the food was shit, and ate every crumb while watching me watch him.

His mother came by in the afternoon, and I stepped into the hallway to give them time together, but I refused to go far, pacing the halls for the entire hour she visited. I overheard Tallus downplay the situation and give her a less-than-honest reason why he’d been at the university.

My guilt compounded.