Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

T heir team was busy. Jon and Tracey spent the afternoon corralling evidence from the Chicago and Atlanta cases, including interview footage, investigator notes, and forensics reports.

Sarena and Perry split the medical examiner’s office and rebuilding Ethan Wright’s last movements respectively. Sarena had also put in a request with the Atlanta medical examiner’s office to see if toxicology had been run down south.

Perry had gotten the name of Wright’s best friend from one of his coworkers, cross-checked with Jon’s list from Kelly Wright. Given the personal nature of the death, Perry pivoted to that witness rather than coworkers, who’d, unsurprisingly, known nothing about a standing weekly “work thing” on Thursday nights.

Jon submitted the warrants for the Wrights’ financial records and Ethan’s cell phone data. Kelly Wright providing Ethan’s passcode was implied permission to search the victim’s phone, so Tracey got started there.

“It’s astonishing how much a person’s phone can tell about them.” Tracey didn’t look up from the screen, but he was talking to Jon over the six-inch glass partition that “separated” their desks to make it seem like privacy, even though the four-square desk configurations were obviously set up for team work.

“People spend their lives on their phones. They’re like digital diaries. Add in social media and we’ve got more insight into people now than we ever have. It’s great for creating profiles. Terrible for privacy.” Jon kept his eyes on his monitors.

Just two coworkers having a conversation about their opinions on technology. Keeping it real.

“Is that why you don’t have social media?”

Jon shrugged. “One, I don’t have time. Two, I prefer my privacy. I update the people I care about directly. There’s nothing wrong with social media. I just don’t think my life needs to be that public. And three, social media is, more often than not, a very small glimpse of a person’s truth. The rest is filters and sunshine. It’s a pretense of a life. But the way they pretend gives us insight into their minds. If I was on social media, I’d always be interpreting people. That would be unfair to my loved ones and constant work. I do like downtime, despite how much Perry begs to differ.”

Tracey flipped through Wright’s calendar, studying his appointments. The man kept an amazing array of meetings on his books. It was a wonder he juggled his regular schedule, let alone led a double life. “I can see that. It’s all performative. But I have friends who’ll come find me if I don’t update my socials frequently enough.” He perked up. “Hey, is there a way to download Ethan’s schedule so I can compare it with his Smoldr app? I might be able to pinpoint his hookups.”

A message popped up on Tracey’s work monitor, catching his attention. Jon sent him a name and phone extension through the workplace intranet.

“Patrick Byrne?”

“Yes. That’s the man you want to speak to about extracting data from Wright’s phone. Honestly, he’s the go-to for any kind of technology help. He can download Wright’s whole phone for you. But he won’t do it until we have the warrant, so you’re stuck until then.”

Tracey fought a surge of frustration. There was so much hurry-up-and-wait at the beginning of a new case, it drove him nuts. Waiting for warrants, waiting for forensics, waiting for names. They weren’t working directly on the crime scene, and there hadn’t been many people there to interview anyway, which Detective Holland had covered.

Instead of making matches between app and calendar, Tracey went through Wright’s Smoldr messages. Mostly hookup arrangements, men flirting with Ethan, Ethan flirting back. He had to give it to the guy, he had a certain charm that kept potential hookups interested.

There were no mentions of chemsex, though. Not from Ethan or the men he chatted up. Tracey went to the “old matches” in the app, where users could see all the people they’d swiped to ignore. The app saved them for thirty days in case users rethought their decision on a match. Tracey looked for anyone who mentioned chemsex terms. There were a few, and it was clear they were firmly in Ethan’s “nope” category.

He’d be surprised if Wright’s tox screen came back from autopsy with any substances in his system other than alcohol.

“I don’t think the GHB is entirely consistent.”

“No?”

“No. Wright’s discarded matches have profiles with chemsex talk, but none of his conversations mention it.”

Jon raised a brow. “Are there messages with someone for the night he died?”

“Nope. First thing I looked up. I can only guess the killer managed to get his phone open and delete them. Or they didn’t meet through Smoldr.”

“He could use more than one app. Anyway, Perry just called and said he’s on his way back with some info we’ll want to know before we get into the Chicago and Atlanta stuff. Says it’s interesting.”

Tracey sat up. “Good. At least someone’s got something. I feel like I’m hitting my head on a brick wall.” He heaved to his feet, ignoring a twinge in his calf. “I’m getting coffee. Do you want any?”

“No, thank you.”

Tracey bypassed the coffee nook for the kiosk one floor down that sold the fun coffees. He ordered the fanciest drink, adding an extra shot of espresso to fight the doldrums. After the morning on his feet at the crime scene, he knew better than to take the stairs, even for one floor, so he grabbed the elevator back up.

The doors opened to reveal Perry, relaxed against the railing, his signature extra-large fountain drink in one hand.

“I see you stopped at a gas station for another bathtub of Coke. You really should get a reusable mug for those. The Styrofoam is killing the planet.”

“Like your almond milk monstrosity is any better.”

They took simultaneous sips, an air of challenge to their pointed drinking.

“Jon says you got something exciting.”

“Ah ah ah. I’m saving it for the whole class. Teacher’s pet.”

“Sarena’s going to be at the medical examiner’s office for hours yet. You’re sitting on it that long?”

“Maaaaaybe.” Perry sauntered off the elevator toward their desks. The bastard loved making them work to pry juicy details out of him.

“Whatever. You can’t hold your water that long.” Tracey sat in his chair and woke up his computer as if he didn’t care what Perry had up his sleeve.

Perry was becoming one of his favorite people. He was always smiling or joking, trying to raise team morale when they’d gone days on a few hours of sleep, or when a case stalled. Tracey didn’t always understand Perry’s pop culture references—most of them were from before he was born. Pointing that out turned Perry’s face red. Tracey did it as often as he could.

Aside from the teasing, Perry had really helped Tracey in the aftermath of the Family Man case. He distracted him with long discussions about Zach Wile podcasts when he needed something else to think about besides the feel of a gun muzzle under his chin. The meditation tapes made a big difference with the nightmares, and Perry didn’t utter a word of judgment. He just kept making new recordings.

Their ribbing was good natured, and Tracey considered Perry a friend, not just a coworker. Now, his desire not to be bested by Perry’s smug grin kept his impatience with the trickle of evidence on Ethan Wright from spilling out.

Perry broke first. “Okay, fiiiine. I’ll tell you.” He leaned close to the middle of their four-top, and Jon and Tracey followed suit. “Ethan Wright’s best friend, Joshua Petty, swears up and down his boy, his main man, his brother-from-another-mother couldn’t possibly be gay enough to have sex with men. ‘He was loyal to his wife,’ and how dare I insinuate otherwise. Ethan was a dyed-in-the-wool Christian Republican and he was a God-fearing anti-woke family man who would kick any pedophile drag queen out of the men’s room like a good American should.” Perry turned his head in disgust.

“Holy shit.” Tracey’s face heated. “I’m so glad you conducted that interview and not me.”

“Buck up, kid. You’ll question your fair share of homophobes. Better work on your poker face.” Perry made a show of lowering his hand from forehead to chin like he was wiping a slate. As he did, he blanked his expression to zero emotion. His voice went completely neutral, almost robotic. “Give an interview subject nothing more than this. Become a gray rock.” Then Perry reanimated. “Seriously. It’s hard to hear that utter bullshit and not want to show them the meaning of police brutality, but you have to rein it in.”

“I need to practice that.” Tracey could only imagine how much restraint that would take. No wonder Jon had perfected his Ice Man persona.

“I’ll work with you sometime. It’ll be fun to throw the vilest shit at you and break your spirit.” Perry nodded solemnly. “Anyway, back to my fabulous interview skills. While I was maintaining the statue-like expression of a Beefeater at Buckingham Palace, Mr. Petty continued to rant that no friend of his blah, blah, blah, and that he’d have ‘beat the faggot out of him if he’d have known.’ Direct quote, don’t get mad at me for the f-slur.”

Jon huffed. “Perry. Is there a diamond in this pile of shit, or are you hurting the rookie’s feelings on purpose?”

Tracey narrowed his eyes. “You wanna wear that Coke?”

“ Anyway , it got me thinking, the beat the f-slur out of Ethan part. So I looked into his family life. He attended a fairly mainstream Baptist church with his wife that had modern services and blended classes for their kiddos. But the one his parents belong to is a lot stricter and more structured. Almost fundie, I’d say. I did a quick background search on our victim’s educational history. Baptist school from primary through high school. Wright was an honest-to-God choirboy, and his last two summers of high school and the summer before he went to college, he attended a bible school camp run by a group called Enlightened Covenant Ministries, which is a fancy name for conversion therapy.”

Jon shuddered.

“Conversion therapy?” Tracey frowned.

Perry went utterly still, his eyes widening. “Oh no. Oh, Rookie. Are you serious?”

Tracey looked between Jon and Perry. “What? I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is.”

Jon’s jaw bulged, and then he cleared his throat. “Some very religious groups think they can convert gay kids to straight because they believe sexual orientation is a choice. So they’ve set up conversion therapy camps. They call them ‘reparative therapy,’ but that’s just a fancy term for what amounts to a religious torture camp designed to scare gay kids into pretending they’re straight. The other word they throw around for so-called success stories is ‘ex-gay.’”

The bottom fell out of Tracey’s stomach. “That’s horrible. They do this to children?”

“Mostly teenagers, but yes, sometimes they send younger kids who exhibit characteristics that don’t line up with heterosexual norms by their church’s definition.” Jon turned to his computer and typed in a few words, scanning his screen. “The good news is that so far, twenty-six states ban conversion therapy for minors, and in states where it’s still legal, many cities have banned it. A few states have gone the other way, saying it’s unconstitutional to ban it. The medical community says there’s no scientific basis for it, so those states often have to reverse their laws when challenged.”

Tracey was afraid to ask, but he had to. “What happens at these camps?”

Jon shifted uncomfortably. “The FBI has investigated a few, and the findings have been enough to shut them down. They’re anything but ‘therapy.’ It starts with positive associations with heteronormative behaviors. Where they go awry is when they try to create negative associations to anything related to the gay community. It’s how they produce those negative emotions that gets them in trouble. Camps have been shut down and leaders have been charged for terrorizing their attendees, even killing them.”

Perry picked up the narrative. “Essentially, they torture attendees while showing them photos and videos of same-sex imagery, pride parades, pornography, and worse. They have even performed sex acts—”

“Stop.” Tracey held up a hand. “I get the picture. I’ll look up the files of the previous FBI investigations if I want more detail. Go on, Perry. Ethan Wright was at one of these camps for three summers?”

Perry straightened. “Er, yes. Back to the point. Considering he didn’t live there for more than a few months at a time, Ethan was one of the lucky ones. Enlightened Covenant Ministries operates camps in many states, but the one Wright attended was in West Virginia. For his last summer, he attended as what they call a Docent. It’s a position they only open for graduates of their program.

“Ethan Wright was an ex-gay fundie who was indoctrinated by conversion therapy.”

Perry let that sink in. He took a large drink from his Coke, then leaned forward again. “I’m not saying the guy in any way deserved what he got, but it opens up a whole new suspect pool. What if one of the camp leaders found him on Smoldr or one of the other apps, and they killed him for it? Couldn’t have him tarnishing their success rate.”

Jon had picked up a pen and bounced the end against his lower lip. “That’s definitely something to look into. I can follow that thread, Perry. Have you got a list of the other people Ethan Wright associated with on a regular basis? Maybe some of them are from the camps, too.”

“Yeah.” Perry pulled his notebook out and tossed it to Jon. “I’ll keep going on the character side if you want to dig into the Enlightened Covenant.”

Jon wrote down the names from the notebook, then passed it back. “Thank you. The warrant for his phone data just came back, too, so we’re going to see Patrick. We’ll see you later.” He stood and started to walk toward the elevator, then stopped and turned. “Tracey? You coming?”

T racey scampered after him as fast as his leg would allow.

In the privacy of the elevator, he asked. “How do you handle hearing stuff like that without getting upset? About the conversion camp.”

Jon’s expression softened in the reflection of the doors. He squeezed Tracey’s hand and let go while they descended to the floor where IT was located.

“Ethan Wright is a victim of more than his killer, Trace. He was first a victim of parents who were supposed to love him unconditionally. He was a victim of a religion that purports to follow a loving God. He did his best, and I’m sad for him. Imagine the life he could have had if only his parents had been accepting. I keep that in mind while I look for his killer. I remember we’re looking for someone who may have killed more people than Ethan Wright, and if he is a serial killer, we have to stop him before he does it again.” Jon faced him. “No one is all good or all bad, Tracey. Even people with extreme psychopathy can learn to care. Every murder victim deserves justice. Believe in the system. If you start trying to find your own way to measure justice, who deserves punishment and who deserves their fate, you’ll drive yourself mad. No, our system isn’t perfect, but it’s not horrible either. It’s doing an all right job.”

The elevator dinged and the doors whooshed open. Jon stepped out, leaving Tracey staring after him.

The floor where the IT department sprawled was a bit of a cave, given it was underground by design. Thanks to the cooling systems required to keep the servers operating at peak performance, the entire floor was several degrees chillier than the rest of the building. Keeping the servers below ground helped maintain them, so there were no windows at this level.

A few years ago, the Bureau had upgraded the space to help employee morale. To combat the lack of sunlight, all the lighting had been changed to mimic natural light. There was a moss wall to bring plant life down here, and re-oxygenate the air for a fresher feeling.

Employees had taken cues and dotted plants liberally throughout the area. Tracey assumed they were the kind that could either manage without sunlight, or the lighting worked on them. That had to be true, because some of the lights were pointed directly at the plants and were different colors. It gave the large room a lot of interest.

As with floors above, there were glass accents and sleek desks everywhere, and each desk bore multiple monitors where workers performed their tasks.

Tracey followed Jon through the maze of desks. This area had not fallen victim to the “open office” craze. Each employee had a designated workspace, though the cubicle walls had been removed, and each workspace was decked out with every employees’ equipment preferences. Some had a single laptop and another monitor, and others had banks of monitors and multiple keyboards.

Many of them worked at sit-stand desks that could be adjusted as they saw fit. Some people were standing, some sitting, and one woman typed away while she walked on a treadmill where her chair would go. A chair was off to the side, so maybe the treadmill folded away somehow. Tracey had never seen such a thing, but given the hours all FBI personnel put in, getting in some exercise while working seemed like a brilliant idea.

Jon stopped at the desk of a man who was almost totally reclined in what looked like a gaming chair. His desk was clear of everything but a curved bank of monitors. The guy was typing on a single wireless keyboard and using a tiny mouse that didn’t appear to have buttons.

“Patrick? Have you got a moment?”

Patrick Byrne didn’t stop typing at lightning speed, the monitors scrolling data in the way that reminded Tracey of the screens in The Matrix —he’d finally watched the trilogy Perry kept hounding him about, since his and Jon’s last names were the butt of Perry’s Agent Smith and Mr. Anderson jokes.

“Gimme one… second.”

Patrick slowly sat upright, his typing getting more pronounced until he hit the enter key with a flourish and turned to Jon. His smile came with a very pointed down-up glance. “Hey, hot stuff. What can I do you for?”

Tracey stiffened, jealousy flaring in an uncomfortable wave. What the fuck?

Jon seemed unaffected. “Hi, Patrick. I’d like you to meet Tracey Smith. He’s the newest member of the BAU’s Unit 4. You haven’t met him yet because he started the day before we left for St. Louis in August.” His pointed look said the rest about why Tracey had been out of commission after that case. Patrick’s return expression said he understood everything Jon didn’t say aloud.

Tracey didn’t like that Jon had a secret, micro-expression language with this guy, too.

Patrick turned his smoldering gaze to Tracey and gave him the same down-up treatment. “Oh, I’ve heard about you. Hell of a case you caught your first time out.”

Tracey’s hackles rose further. “Not my first case.” Jon had said this was his go-to IT guy, though. Not wise to get on Patrick’s bad side right away. Be cool. Take a breath. Be nice. Don’t give away that Jon is more than a fellow agent. “Just my first case with the BAU.” He stuck out his hand for a shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Patrick. Is the Byrne Irish?”

Patrick shook hands with a strong grip. Was he… doing that one-upping thing with the handshake? Asserting dominance? Or did he just have strong hands from being a keyboard warrior?

The guy was shorter than Tracey by a few inches, but he had presence. He was about five-nine with dark hair and a groomed beard that framed his square jawline and masculinized his very delicate features. His very pretty delicate features. He also stood a few inches too close.

Tracey looked down at him, not letting the hand go as long as Patrick kept shaking. When Patrick let go, he did it with a slide that was clearly meant to drag his fingertips along Tracey’s palm. A flirt?

Okay, wow. Bold.

“I could wear a ‘Kiss Me, I’m Irish’ badge, but I’ll settle for the nameplate with my last name. But you didn’t come down here to talk about kissing me, so what have we got?”

Jon showed him the warrant and held up Wright’s smartphone. “Can we get a download of our victim’s data? We have witnesses to interview in the last couple of hours of the day, and it would be better to know what’s here before we do that. I promised the local detective we could do this faster than they could.”

Patrick laughed. “Are you dick measuring again, Anderson? I like it. I bet you win.” He plucked the phone from Jon’s hand with the same fingertip caress and turned to his desk. Seemingly from nowhere, he produced a cord attached to a piece of hardware on his complicated setup. Luckily he’d turned away before he saw Tracey’s eyes bug out.

Jon shook his head minutely in Tracey’s direction.

You could have warned me, Tracey mouthed.

Sorry , Jon returned.

Patrick pulled a lever on the side of his desk and raised it so he could type while standing. He began a software program and the home screen image from Ethan Wright’s phone appeared on one of Patrick’s monitors. Then a programming box appeared next to it, and Patrick typed commands of code so fast, Tracey couldn’t have kept up even if he understood the language.

A progress bar appeared a moment later and Patrick went back to the home screen image. He clicked around on the icons, going to the photo album. He mass selected everything and created a folder on another area of his monitor, then dragged the photos over. A second progress bar appeared with the word copying beside a number that grew as it approached the total number of photos selected.

Patrick went to the victim’s email app and opened it, poked around for a minute, then closed out, went to the settings. Soon, another bar appeared to be copying emails into another new folder.

Tracey remembered something. “We’re looking for specific data from the Smoldr app. Can you grab that into a folder of its own?”

Patrick chuckled. “I can, but it won’t give you real names unless the user he was talking to switched to text messages or called him, giving you a phone number. Otherwise, this warrant is too generic for Smoldr to cooperate. You’ll need a warrant specifically for Smoldr, and good luck. Smoldr only gives users’ private info if the warrant is directed at their app specifically, if you have exact usernames, and if you tell them exactly what data you need, like name, phone number, and billing address within a date range. If you want financials, they’ll even fight that when you have a proper warrant. They’re very serious about their users’ privacy.”

Jon grunted in disappointment. “Great. Thanks for the tip.”

Patrick licked his lips. “I like giving tips. Here’s another tip. Your boy had a secret photos folder, which I’ve separated from the other photos for you. He may have saved shots of some of his hookups. If you run them through facial recognition, you might be able to bypass Smoldr for real names. If they have a record, that is.”

“Sneaky.” Jon looked at Tracey and smiled. “This is why I come to Patrick. He knows the workarounds.”

Patrick’s smile was downright devilish. “Of course, that means you have to have pictures of his hookups’ faces , but hey, I can’t control what body parts your boy shot with his… camera.”

Patrick shifted his smirk to Tracey, then turned to his screens, which had cleared of progress bars.

“Okay, here’s a master folder. In it are the main download with all the info like backups, text logs, timestamps, socials, etcetera. I’ve separated out the all-important phone log, the photo folders including the money-shot subfolder, the Smoldr app folder you want, emails separated by work and personal, contacts, and the data where his phone hit cell towers.” They’d use that last one to recreate Ethan Wright’s movements in the days before his death, looking for any discrepancies in witness statements.

As Patrick mentioned each folder and its contents, he dragged it into the master folder. Then he opened the network screen and navigated through the cloud to the BAU’s Unit 4 vault, and plunked the master folder with Ethan Wright’s name and case number—which he had to have remembered from the warrant—into a place where Jon would find it. He unplugged the victim’s phone and passed it back with a satisfied smile.

“Anything else?”

Jon took the phone, and Tracey noted he was professional about it, not touching Patrick’s hand in the exchange.

“We’re also waiting on the warrant for financials, so we’ll need another download. I don’t know how many banks he had, but he most certainly had a 401(k) or other investments.”

“Sure thing.” Patrick looked between them. “You’re bringing your friend back with you? I like being tag-teamed.”

Tracey practically choked, but Jon barely reacted. “I’ll probably just email you the warrant copy and have you alert me when the files are in our vault, if that’s okay. Forensic accounting is not my specialty, and if it’s too complicated, I may need to pull someone in from auditing.”

Patrick stuck out his bottom lip in disappointment. “You’re no fun.”

Jon’s head shake had an air of sadness. “If you’re using me for entertainment, you need to get out of the dungeon more.”

That got a laugh out of Patrick. “I’ll just hack something. That always makes me feel better.”

“La la la. I can’t hear you!”

“Oh relax. I don’t do that on work computers. I’m not stupid.”

Jon backed away, putting his palms together like he was praying. He bent his head in a little bow. “Thank you, as always, for your entirely professional help.”

“No one does it better!” Patrick sang it as he lowered his desk and resumed the recline in his gaming chair.

“It was nice to meet you.” Tracey’s Minnesota upbringing wouldn’t let him walk away without pleasantries. “Thanks for being so fast.”

Patrick blinked at him, clearly assessing him and deciding he’d passed some test. “You need anything, you come back to me. Don’t waste your time with the rest of these guys. They’re good, but I’m better.”

Tracey fought a smile at the repeated innuendo. “I can believe that. Thanks.”

He followed Jon into the elevator, trying not to laugh out loud until the doors closed. When they did, he turned to his boyfriend-slash-team lead. “What the fuck? Is everything he says loaded with double-entendres?”

Jon shook his head fondly. “That’s Patrick. He’s the best.”

“He’s a sexual harassment lawsuit waiting to happen. Jesus.”

“Let’s just go through what we can on the phone and see if any of Ethan’s contacts in the last few days are more promising than the others.”

They got lucky. One of the Smoldr hookups had switched to texting, so they got a number and a name, which they used to find a place of employment.

While Jon took over the conversion therapy angle, Perry and Tracey arrived at Capitol Insurance Services just before 5 p.m., when the employees were wrapping up for the day but weren’t busy with appointments.

“Can I help you?” The smiling receptionist showed no irritation at the arrival of two potential customers close to quitting time on a Friday.

They flipped open their badge wallets. “Special Agents Smith and Vaughn with the FBI. Is Stuart Lang available?” Tracey kept his tone pleasant. He’d be taking point on this interview.

The receptionist blinked, but that was her only reaction. “Follow me, please.”

It was a small insurance office, with a main room holding a few cubicles in front of several offices along the wall that ended with a glass-enclosed conference room. The hallway off that was darkened, probably due to it being the end of the workday. The receptionist led them to the middle office and knocked on the open door.

A dark-haired man with hazel eyes looked up from packing his messenger bag. “Yes?”

“Mr. Lang, these gentlemen from the FBI would like to speak with you.”

Lang straightened immediately, and then gestured to the two chairs in front of his desk. “Certainly. Please, have a seat. Brittany, can you close the door? Thanks.” Brittany complied and they situated themselves. When Lang sat and folded his hands on the desk, Tracey noted his fingers were shaking.

A quick glance around the office showed a few personal items: a framed photo of Lang with a group of friends at a restaurant with a cake to celebrate something, a small collection of Calvin they’d still verify his alibi and his lack of travel to the pertinent cities, but nothing stopped Tracey, or any other law enforcement agent, from reassuring a witness to get them to open up. “Now, you have my word what you say about that night with Ethan won’t change anything except to give us insight into his victimology and tell us what we need to know about how our guy may be choosing his victims.”

“A serial killer?” Lang’s hands shook even harder as he ran them over his face again, and he clasped them tightly on his desk.

“Stuart. Please.” Tracey wouldn’t confirm, but he let the words hang in the air.

The tension broke when Lang released a long, shaky exhale. “Okay.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Ethan liked to be humiliated.”

“How so?”

“Just words. Nothing super physical, though he did get worked up and want it a little rough at the end there. When he told me, I didn’t think it was that weird. Guy in a high-powered job wants to be a little subby on his downtime. I’m cool with that.

“But when he told me what he wanted me to say, it… was harder than I thought. I said some really mean things during sex. Called him a bunch of names, stuff like that.” Lang’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “It made me feel gross, but I told myself it was just dirty talk. He was clearly getting off on it. Called me ‘sir’ and did a lot of groveling. I’ve done some Dom/sub stuff before with an ex, so I told myself it wasn’t much different than that. But then he asked me to gag him with the hotel washrag for the second round. I refused. That flew too close to a rape kink, and I’m not into that, not even to roleplay.”

Perry’s pen scratched as he wrote in his notepad, likely to check with trace evidence for fibers in the victim’s mouth. Tracey kept his focus entirely on Lang. “Is this why you didn’t try harder to get in touch after he blocked you?”

Lang nodded, his fingers warring with each other. “I mean, I’m not going to chase someone who doesn’t want to be chased. I’m not a stalker. But I’d also told him before we met up that I wasn’t going to run from him. I even tried to reach out again, I guess to prove to myself and to him that I really didn’t judge, yet here I was, relieved he blocked me. I wanted to say I could handle it, even have a repeat, but he was… a lot. He liked to be degraded. ”

“Stuart?” He didn’t react, so Tracey leaned forward and put a hand over Lang’s, stopping him from shredding his cuticles. “Hey, you didn’t run. You did what he asked. You were there for him. And you were nice about it. He ended the arrangement. You held up your end of the deal. That’s all you needed to do, okay?”

Only then did Lang look up. He swallowed. “Well, now he’s dead. His next hookup went further than I did. If I’d….”

Tracey kept his hand where it was. “You can’t do that. What the next person did is all on him. That has nothing to do with you. You’ve really helped me. I get Ethan a little bit better. I can look for the person who did this because you’ve narrowed down my questions.” He let go and backed out of Lang’s personal space. “You’ve done great, Stuart. You’ve done more for Ethan than anyone before you.”

As soon as his hand was free, Stuart grabbed his messenger bag off the floor, sniffling as he did. Tracey thought he was going for a tissue, but he pulled out his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m fucking done with Smoldr. I’m going to meet a guy the old-fashioned way. At a bar or through a friend. That’s how all my friends in relationships have done it anyway. No one meets the love of their life on Smoldr. That app is the devil.”

While they watched, Stuart Lang deleted his hookup app.