3. Diem

Icranked the heat and angled the vents so they blew on the passenger side of the vehicle while I waited for Tallus to say goodbye to his date. Whatever had compelled me to return to the club that evening—it had something to do with the jagged stone in my gut—I was thankful.

Misinterpreting Tallus’s intent to drive drunk had worked out for the best. I’d nearly blown a fuse when he’d pulled out his car keys. The pair could barely cross the parking lot in a straight line. Discovering the truth, I’d felt like an idiot, and every sensible sentence I’d been formulating over the past three days vanished into the mist.

Tallus spoke with his date, and I witnessed them kiss again. It fizzled my blood in a way that didn’t feel good, and I had to look away.

If I could convince Tallus to help me without scaring him off, that would be great. It was the end goal. Who he chose to pick up at a bar and take to his bed was not my concern. And if the man in the car was Tallus’s type, I had no idea why he’d taken a second glance at the likes of me in the first place.

The Uber drove off, and Tallus returned to the Jeep. Once he was situated in the passenger seat, hands extended and absorbing the heat pumping from the vents, I took off. Traffic was lighter at close to two in the morning, so I made good time, weaving down a few side streets to avoid the construction barricades on the main roads where lanes had been reduced.

I should say something. Apologize for assuming he was going to drink and drive. Explain my purpose. Ask how he was doing since it had been six months since we’d talked. But my tongue felt three times too big for my mouth, so I remained silent.

So did he.

It grew uncomfortable in the tight confines of the Jeep.

And hot.

“Warmer?” I rasped when Tallus lowered his hands to his lap.

“Yes. Thank you.”

I turned the fan setting to low.

Tallus shifted, angling his body in my direction. “Were you stalking me?”

I ground my teeth, contemplated the answer as I flicked the turn signal, and mumbled, “Yes.”

“You’re kind of a freak.”

I grunted with acknowledgment.

“Did you lose my phone number?”

“No.” I’d stared at it many times over the past week.

“Why didn’t you use it?”

I shrugged, unwilling to admit I wanted to see him face-to-face.

Tallus huffed. “Why me, Guns? What is this about?”

If I answered, he would have more questions. More questions meant more explaining. Explaining meant talking. It would be easier if I started at the beginning, and to do that, I wanted Tallus to review the recording I’d made of my client’s story when she’d brought me the case.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“Wait. At the office.”

“You’ll explain at the office?”

“Yes.”

“Then say that.” Tallus chuckled and tipped his head back against the seat, closing his eyes. “You’re still a man of few words. Nothing’s changed.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t. The parking for my building was across the street in a concrete structure. Located in a shitty part of downtown, the lot was inundated with vagrants, especially at night. The scent of piss and garbage permeated the air. Graffiti covered every inch of the cracked and pitted walls.

Tallus warily eyed the few slumped bodies sleeping in corners or curled up on broken down cardboard boxes, brown bottles hugged to their chests. I didn’t worry much about my safety since most people didn’t fuck with a guy my size, but I recognized how Tallus grew more alert as we made our way through the parking structure to the street.

He stuck close to my side until we exited the garage and crossed a less-than-busy downtown road. Pylons and A-frame barriers blocked the westbound route, forcing traffic to share the two lanes heading east. Several construction vehicles sat stationary within the barricade, waiting to return to work the following morning. In this part of the city, roadwork was interminable. The noise, the scent, and the dust were never-ending.

The lower level of my building featured more boarded-up windows than not. The empty offices for lease outnumbered the ones housing businesses. Scaffolding with caution signs blocked the front door. The city was supposedly doing repairs on the outer part of the structure, but I hadn’t seen workers in over a year, so I was convinced they’d given up or lost their funding, leaving their mess behind.

We ducked beneath the scaffolding, and I led Tallus inside. Three floors up—via the stairs since I didn’t trust the elevator—we wandered down a long, mildew-scented corridor to the main door of my office/homestead. I couldn’t afford both, so I made do by renting cheap office space with enough room to accommodate a makeshift apartment. It wasn’t exactly legal, but who gave a fuck? No one was policing it, so I took advantage. The arrangement had flaws, but so did my life, and I worked around them.

The plastic sign beside the office door hung crookedly. A decent-sized chip in the bottom corner marked the numerous times it had fallen off the wall—no thanks to my door-slamming habit when I got frustrated, which was often. I straightened the sign and keyed us in.

Tallus hadn’t said much since we left the Jeep, and I found it oddly disconcerting. I remembered him being chattier. He filled the room with his presence and personality, which meant I could stay quiet and watch. What had changed? Was it the time of night? Too much alcohol? Was it because I’d blue-balled him?

Goddammit.It was probably our history. I never should have fucked him.

Was this how it felt for other people when I didn’t contribute to conversations? The silence was unbearable. It itched like a wool sweater on a summer day.

I eyed Tallus as I closed the office door behind us. He scanned the room like it was his first time seeing it. Nothing had changed. It was the same shithole it had always been. Same drab wood-paneled walls. Same industrial brown carpeting. Same rusty filing cabinet, orange plastic chairs in a barely used waiting area, and particleboard desk. Same wash of yellow light from the same floor lamp with the ugly shade.

“Drink?” I asked.

“No thanks.” Warm hazel eyes found mine. A hint of a smile shone from their depths. “I’ve had my fill of alcohol tonight.” Tallus motioned to the closed door of my personal apartment space. “Do you still have the creepy snake?”

“Baby? Yeah.” Why wouldn’t I?

I must have looked confused. Tallus chuckled and shared a tired but flirty smirk before nodding at the desk. “Think you can muster a way to tell me why you hunted me down at Gasoline in the middle of the night and crashed my date?”

The flirty smile had settled my nerves, but the mention of his date reaggravated the situation. I didn’t know why I gave a fuck.

I grunted, snagged one of the orange plastic chairs from the waiting area, and dropped it in front of the desk. “Sit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wasn’t…” I gritted my teeth and shut my mouth. I wasn’t trying to sound like a demanding asshole, but it never failed to come across that way.

The office was as run-down as the rest of the building. The cheaply framed artwork I’d purchased at a secondhand store gathered dust on their frames and did nothing to lighten the atmosphere. The space heater ticked and groaned when I turned it on. The poor thing was on its last legs, but I didn’t want Tallus to be cold.

The view from the window was of a congested city in disrepair. Nothing to see but tall buildings. Nothing to hear but traffic and the odd siren or car alarm. Nothing to smell but smog and pollution, so I kept the windows shut.

Tallus sat, crossing one leg over the other and kicked his foot in a steady bounce. Everything he did oozed confidence. The man never looked out of place in his own skin. I wondered what that felt like. To be sure of oneself.

His pale complexion showed through the many holes of his fashionable jeans, and I couldn’t help noticing. It was better to stare at his legs than at the span of his exposed chest in his too-tight shirt. Memories of Tallus in a white bathrobe infiltrated my brain, and I shooed them away.

He was too gorgeous for words, and I felt inadequate in his presence. More flawed than usual.

Fumbling, I dug an old-style tape recorder from the top drawer of the desk and set it between us, pointing. “Listen.”

I hit Play, and while the tape spun and caught, I found the pack of Nicorette I’d shoved in a different drawer and popped a piece into my mouth, hoping it would calm the nerves brought on by Tallus’s proximity. Visions of his nakedness made it hard to think. This was why I stuck to guys on Spark. After a drunken exchange, I never had to see them again. There was no awkward after to worry about. They didn’t get a chance to witness how incapacitating social affairs could be for me. We fucked. We forgot.

Tallus leaned forward and hit Stop before the interview began. He propped an elbow on the desk and rested his chin in an upturned palm. He even managed to make tired look sexy. “What is this, Guns? Can’t you just tell me?”

I blinked and scrambled for words. “I… No. My client. Her… I record job requests so I can refer back to them, and...” I growled. “Just listen.”

I hit Play again.

As Faye”s voice crackled through the speaker, Tallus never took his eyes off me. The attention was too much, so I stared at the recorder instead.

“Now?” came a female voice. “So, I just talk?”

I heard myself grunt an affirmative on the recording.

Faye sniffled, her voice meek and thin. “Okay. Um… Hi. My name’s Faye. Faye Willard. Um… Well, here goes. My husband… he killed himself three weeks ago. I, um… He took a bunch of pills. And alcohol. You don’t need to offer condolences. I’m not sad. I mean, I am, but… Well, I think the asshole was cheating on me. He was up to something he didn’t want me to know about, and… well… he got weird at the end. I’m not making sense. Do you need to know what type of pills he took?”

The me on the recording grunted noncommittally.

“I’m sorry? What does that mean?”

“Sure.”

“It was hydrocodone. At least, that’s what I was told. They did an autopsy. I guess it’s standard procedure, even with a suicide. I didn’t know.” Faye could be heard blowing out her cheeks and sniffling again. “I’m all over the place. Sorry. It’s been a tough couple of weeks. I’ll start at the beginning. Um… Okay, so three months ago, this woman showed up at our house. I didn’t know her, but Noah seemed to. Noah’s my husband, by the way. I should have said that at the start.”

“Talk,” I encouraged when Faye mused for too long. The me on the recorder was showing signs of impatience, and although I couldn’t go back in time and change it, I heard my therapist giving me hell.

Tallus glanced across the desk, smirking. “You’re so expressive.”

I scowled and bit my tongue.

Faye continued. “Anyhow, this woman shows up at my house. She was… nervous but coy, you know what I mean? I got a bad vibe from the minute I opened the door. She gave me a once-over like people do when they’re sizing up competition. Women do it all the time. Anyhow, I didn’t like it. It didn’t help that she was skinny and beautiful. Blonde hair and blue eyes. Isn’t that what guys like? The whole Barbie doll look?”

I grunted a nonanswer on the recording because how the fuck would I know?

“This woman didn’t introduce herself, but she wanted to talk to Noah. In private, she said. So Noah went outside with her. God forbid he talk to a beautiful woman in front of his wife. That’s not suspicious at all.” Faye huffed, and I remembered her blotchy skin and red nose. “They stood around the side of the house so I couldn’t see them from the front door.”

Faye pffed. “Well, I’m not an idiot, and I’m not ashamed to say I went into the upstairs bathroom and watched them from the tiny window next to the shower. It’s the only window in the house with a view of that side. At first, they just talked. Noah looked serious, and the woman radiated nervous tension, but there was a vibe, you know? A familiarity between them. I knew that whore bitch was trouble.”

Tallus stabbed the Stop button, interrupting the interview.

“Okay, so, husband cheats on wife. Guilt leads to suicide. Can you save me the long-winded story hour and tell me the twist at the end? Why did she hire you?”

I stabbed the Play button and pointed at the recorder. “Listen.”

Tallus pinched the bridge of his nose as Faye’s voice filled the room.

“The woman did most of the talking, but Noah cut in and took her by the shoulders at one point, saying something. They were standing so close their faces were inches apart. I swear, I thought he was going to kiss her. It’s how it looked. I thought, if he does, I’ll toss his ass out so fast, he won’t know what hit him. I’ll pack his bags and call a lawyer. The end. But he didn’t kiss her. He hugged her, though, which was almost as bad. My alarm bells rang and clanged. I almost marched out of the house right then and gave them both a piece of my mind, but… Well, it wasn’t the end of their talk.”

Faye cleared her throat. “This woman kept going on and on, and I could see her growing more agitated by the second until she was shouting. Her voice traveled, but I couldn’t make out words. Noah looked angry too. He kept stabbing a finger against his chest, like what about me, me, me, or something to that effect. I’d seen that face on him enough times to know he was pissed off and making it all about himself. Noah wasn’t a yeller, but he said a few things to her, jabbing that finger like he meant it. He peered around the corner of the house more than once like he was afraid I might hear them or come out and see what was going on, but I was upstairs at the window. He had no clue. Whatever they discussed was heated, but after a while, they calmed again.”

Faye sniffled and let out a shaky sigh. “Do you mind if I steal a tissue, Mr. Krause?”

The me on the recording grunted, and a second later, Faye could be heard blowing her nose.

Faye was close to my age, midthirties, soft around the middle, with a round face. The day she’d visited me, she’d worn frumpy mom jeans and a baggy shirt. Her dull brown hair had been tied in a messy ponytail, and she wore no makeup. Several age lines stood out beside her eyes and mouth. Grief had worn the woman down. The more emotional she got, the more her cheeks and the tip of her nose pinked.

“Noah came inside ten minutes later, and when I asked him what the woman wanted, he told me it was nothing.” Faye huffed. “Nothing. Yeah right. Do I look like an idiot? When I asked who she was, Noah claimed she was an old friend. He wouldn’t say more and acted like it was no big deal. The more I questioned him, the angrier he got, so I dropped it.

“The same woman showed up again a week later. Noah answered the door that time. I was upstairs folding laundry. When I asked who it was, he said it was a solicitor. I knew it wasn’t. I’d seen her from the window. Same blonde Barbie doll. Twenty minutes later, Noah grabbed his car keys and left, claiming he needed to grab something from the office. Oldest bullshit lie in the book, am I right? He didn’t come back until after midnight. Office, my ass. Things changed after that. Over the following months, Noah got… agitated. Paranoid. Short-tempered. Noah was always cool and calm, but he started snapping at the dumbest things. He couldn’t sit still. Was always on edge. Always on his phone. I didn’t know if he was talking to that woman still, but I had a hunch he was. His behavior was erratic. About six or eight weeks after his nighttime escape to the office”—Faye had put air quotes around those words to emphasize her disbelief of his whereabouts—“the police showed up at our door.”

Faye sniffled again on the recording, and I recalled her toying with the used tissue, wringing it in her hands, chin quivering, cheeks damp with tears. “They wanted to talk to Noah. He stepped out on the porch and spoke with them for about ten minutes, then they left. When I asked what they wanted, he said it was nothing. We got in a major fight because the police don’t show up at your house for no good reason. I’m not an idiot. It didn’t matter. Noah stormed off and locked himself in the bathroom. I told you my husband wasn’t a shouter. Well, that changed too. He shouted about everything now. His anger was out of control.”

A long pause ensued. On the recording, my mumbled voice could be heard coaxing Faye to go on.

Tallus huffed a laugh and motioned to the machine. “It’s good to know I’m not the only one you can’t talk to. PS, does this woman ever get to the point?”

I didn’t have time to respond—not that I knew how—when Faye continued. “Then, two weeks after the police made their random house call, Noah was dead. I came home from work one afternoon and found him on the couch, swimming in a pool of vomit, liquor bottles surrounding him, and an empty orange pill bottle I’d never seen before—no label—on the ground. He was cold and dead. I’d never seen a dead body before. It gave me shivers. I called the ambulance because I didn’t know what to do.”

Shuffling—me—and coughing—Faye—came through the speaker. “The police deemed it suicide. The autopsy confirmed it was the hydrocodone mixed with alcohol that killed him. Had he vomited more, he might have saved himself. I guess that happens sometimes with people who take pills to kill themselves. Didn’t save my husband, though.” A long pause again. “Mr. Krause, I want to know why.”

Tallus leaned over the desk and hit the Stop button again before massaging his temple. “Please tell me she isn’t seriously asking you to figure out why her husband killed himself? That’s ridiculous.”

“Listen.” I moved to hit Play, but Tallus grabbed my wrist.

His warm fingers and the contact were unexpected.

I froze, fighting the urge to yank free.

“Can’t you just tell me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I… Just listen.”

Tallus didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but it was close. He let go of my arm and gestured for me to go ahead and let the recorder play. I mashed the button with relief.

Faye spoke. “I know, I know. You’re thinking, Faye Willard is an idiot.”

Tallus dramatically nodded along. “Yes, Faye, I am,” he said under his breath.

My cheek twitched at the sarcasm.

Tallus caught the almost smile, grinned, winked, and pointed at my face. “Careful, Guns. I saw that.”

I looked away.

“Here’s the thing, Mr. Krause. Once Noah’s funeral was taken care of and life settled, I was antsy. Work gave me extra time off, but I didn’t know what to do with myself. So, to keep my mind off the fact that my husband took his own life out of the blue, I cleaned like a mad woman. I’m not the tidiest person. Noah would always get on me about how slobbish I was. Like he had ever washed a dish in his life. But I didn’t know what to do with myself. That’s when I found stuff.”

Tallus’s impatient knee jiggling stilled, and his brows rose. A spark of interest shimmered in his hazel eyes. Now we were getting to the good stuff.

We shared a glance before Faye continued.

“Under Noah’s side of the mattress, I found a pearl-handled .22 caliber revolver. Loaded. In the desk drawer in his office, I found a 9mm pistol. A Glock something or other. I can’t remember the proper name. I looked it up because I don’t speak guns. Noah didn’t either, so you can understand my shock. It too was loaded. In the glove box of his car, I found another gun. Also loaded. Mr. Krause, my husband hated guns. They freaked him out. It was one of those things we’d talked about in the past. So when I found three hidden in my house, you can understand my confusion. I went through the filing cabinet in his office. Noah was meticulously organized, unlike me. I was frantic, but finding permits for all the weapons didn’t take long. They were dated after that fucking woman—pardon my French—first came to my house.”

Faye stabbed a finger on the desk, and the sound was amplified in the recording. A tap, tap, tap. “This is not a coincidence, Mr. Krause. I don’t know what transpired between that woman and my husband, but I have a bad feeling she was a… a… I don’t know. Mistress? Is that the correct word? I’d much rather call her a fucking whore, but I’m trying to be polite. I think he was cheating or had cheated. I think she threatened to expose him. Or maybe her husband found out. I know she scared him. Whatever the ordeal was with the police, I think it was part of it too. Call it a hunch. Maybe she got a restraining order. I don’t know. When Noah died, I inquired about that police visit, but no one knew anything. I’m telling you, Mr. Krause, Noah wasn’t unstable until she came along. He was never suicidal. Now he’s dead, and I want to know what happened.”

I hit Stop. The rest wasn’t important. Tallus was right. Faye was long-winded, and she’d gone on for another forty minutes before I’d managed to shut her up and ship her out the door.

I unlocked my iPad and found the Notes app. “Olivia Lansky.”

“The mysterious woman?” Tallus unfolded his legs and drew the chair closer to the desk, peering at the tablet when I set it down.

“Yes.” I turned the device so he could see the screen.

“Olivia Lansky,” he read. “Thirty-three years old. Lives on Botfield Avenue. Married Paul Lansky in twenty seventeen. Two kids under five. Julia and Germany. Who the hell names their kid Germany?” It must have been rhetorical since Tallus didn’t wait for a response. “CEO for Challuah Designs Inc. What is that?”

“Fashion company.”

“Never heard of it.”

I grunted. Neither had I until I looked it up.

Tallus scrolled to where I’d pulled a few pictures of Olivia Lansky off the internet. He tipped his head to the side, examining her photos. “Yeah, I can see where Faye might be intimidated by this woman randomly appearing to talk to her husband. She has beauty queen written all over her.”

I agreed in not so many words. Olivia Lansky had it all. Brains, beauty, a high-paying job, a doting, stay-at-home husband, and two gorgeous children. The complete package.

“So what’s the deal? What have you discovered?”

“A whole lot of nothing.”

Investigating a potential affair was not exactly easy when one of the parties was dead.

Tallus didn’t seem to like my answer. He pinched the bridge of his nose again and slumped in the chair. “Listen, Guns, it’s”—he checked the time on his phone—“almost three in the morning. I’ve lost my happy buzz, I’m tired, and my eyes hurt. I need to take my contacts out, brush my teeth, and find my bed. Please fill me in fast, or I’m out the door.”