Cold Cases and Dark Secrets Page 2

  That afternoon when he'd shown up, I'd known who was there instantly. It was as if I had Stevenson radar. He'd stood there watching me for a few minutes, and I'd tried to sneak looks from under my lashes. I'd studied his expression, tried to determine if he had any interest in me at all, but his actions and expression all told me he saw me as an acquaintance, a friend at best. That was a well-placed kick in the balls.

  “Talk to Mami. What's wrong, Doc?”

  “As cute as you are, Mamis aren't my thing.”

  “Shut up. You know what I meant, brat.”

  “Stevenson came down to the morgue today.”

  “Ah, the hot, blond detective with unknown Daddy potential. Did you try to jump him?”

  “Of course I didn't. I'm more than a decade older than him, and who wants an old Little?”

  “You're not an old Little. Cash is older than me, and I'm her Dominant and Mami. It's all a state of mind, and you know that.”

  I sighed as I turned my head to find her watching me. “I know, Vega. But every birthday past forty, and you're farther out to pasture. Don't get me started on my diminutive size and weird personality.”

  “Your personality is adorable.”

  “Adorable…middle-aged men aren't supposed to be adorable.” I pouted and threw a mini tantrum.

  “Again, you're letting society’s pressures on what and who we're supposed to be, mire you in some archaic system of propriety. Older Littles and Submissives and younger Daddies and Dominants are a thing. Gay culture has decided if you're above a certain age or Body Mass Index, then you're less than. It's bullshit, and you're smart enough to know it.”

  “Fuck, I know. But knowing and accepting are two different things, especially when it comes to the practice of said theory. Also, I involuntarily flirted, and he rolled his eyes at me.” That was such a mood killer there.

  “I don't even know why you set your sights on him in the first place. Davian would be a totally better bet.”

  “Davian is a complete bottom with no interest in me as anything other than a friend. It's just fun to flirt and have it returned, you know?”

  “My sweet, sweet Doc, what am I going to do with you?”

  “Drown me in pity?”

  “No pity for you, little man. We need to get you back out there.”

  “Do you know how many men have run the other way when I say I'm a medical examiner? The ones who don't run want a true crime special during dinner. Victims need advocates, and in some cases, I'm the first one to care what happened to them. Civilians don't get it.”

  “We deal in death, Doc. And sometimes, that's gruesome, and people have a macabre fascination with their own mortality. That's why true crime shit is such a draw to them.”

  “I don't want to always talk about my work. Sometimes I just want someone to fuck me, but the ones I actually get back to my place or theirs…they don't give me what I need. Not everyone has Daddy Dom tattooed across their forehead.”

  I'd bore a lot of shame for my kinks through my twenties and thirties. I'd seen it as something wrong with me, and maybe in some ways, I was still embarrassed about my sexual needs. Three years had passed since I was in some man's bed I'd picked up at a club. One who hadn't looked at me with my silver hair and wrinkles as a deterrent. But as he'd fucked me, the word Daddy had slipped out, we'd finished, yet he'd asked me to leave as soon as he removed the condom. I'd given up after that. I left my releases to my own hand and a fortune spent in toys that, to be honest, I hadn't played with in a long time.

  Getting off in the past few years hadn't seemed worth the hassle, and how pathetic was I that masturbation was too much effort?

  “Why not go to Xanadu this weekend? Dress up all cute, bat those adorable silver lashes, and hump a Daddy.”

  I giggled at her baby talking to me and shook my head. That's why I've always liked Vega. She had a way of making everything right, and on occasion, she played Mami to me and Cash. It fed a bit of my Little and Submissive sides and took the edge off for a short time. I just hated that my head and heart were stuck on someone who I shouldn't even look at.

  “Doc, think about it. Look at Remy and Robert. They're both men of a certain age. Robert loves his bratty boy, and being Daddy for Remy makes him happy. Why can't you have the same thing? As much as you know I hate the thought of fate and timing, maybe it's just not your time yet to find the Daddy of your dreams. Yet, I'm sure he's out there for you. The universe doesn't give us what we want when we want it. Sometimes it waits until we need it the most.”

  “Platitudes, my friend. Inspirational bollocks.”

  “You're not British. Bollocks doesn't sound right coming from that cultured southern deb voice of yours.”

  “Ouch, you're just mean tonight. Cash away on a gig, and you're just cranky.”

  “I hate when my girl goes away, all those groupies.”

  “She loves you and worships the ground you walk on, Vega. She texts you every hour. Calls for her goodnight story. You've been married a decade. It's weird marital bliss.”

  She wagged her finger at me as she glared. “Nothing wrong with marital bliss. Don't be a bitter brat. I told you what to do, but you're not going to.”

  “Clubs have run their course. The last time I went, it was too loud…too much chaos. I barely finished my drink before I wanted to go home. I'll be fine, I promise, Vega. I'm just…my birthday is coming up, and it's always a trigger that I'm another year single. I look at Remy with Robert, and I'm so damn envious of what they have. It's a romantic second chance with an adorable daughter. I never wanted kids of my own. With my work, it just doesn't seem fair, but if I'd had a partner, maybe it would've been different.”

  “Different isn't always best. Me and Cash are selfish in that we're enough, just us, but babysitting our honorary niece is fun. Just don't think about what you don't have. You have a great life. You do amazing things with your time…your volunteer work. You have awesome friends.”

  “I do, I have to admit that, but sometimes it just gets lonely.”

  “You're not your parents. They're so self-obsessed they have no idea how proud they should be. They're in their seventies and still image-obsessed and comparing their success with monetary gain. That's not you. You made a life for yourself outside that world. And no matter how hard it got, you did it. You know I'm more capable of knowing what you're dealing with than most. Being us is lonely. We're the weirdness in all those what-isn't-like-the-others scenarios. And there's nothing wrong with that.”

  “I try to remind myself of that, I really do, but I've always been the odd one out. I'd just like to belong.”

  “And you do. You belong with Cash and me, Robert and Remy, and their kids and grandkids, even with Stevenson and Graves, were the weird Cold Case Unit. It'll happen, little man. You just have to be patient and open-minded to what's to come.”

  I nodded, and she stretched her arm across the space between us, and I laced my fingers with hers as we once again drifted into silence. I was lost in my thoughts of all that I was missing, and her with whatever she used to get herself to the next call or text from her babygirl. I craved what Remy and Vega found with their people. But no matter how intelligent or gifted I seemed to be, I was clueless when it came to my love life. That wasn't due to change any time soon.

  3

  Stevenson

  “You're staring holes in that file.” Remy plopped down on the edge of my desk and made me take my attention away from the file I'd read a dozen times.

  “There were two interviews on this case. Father of the missing boy and the homeless man who found the body of Barnes. There isn't even a report to say the mother was visited in jail to be informed of her daughter's death or the disappearance of her son.”

  “Do we need another lecture in bias?”

  Working the serial case, I'd thought I'd understood bias in law enforcement and the judicial system, but I had to face my own privilege when I learned just how little investigating actually goes into cases involving victims from marginalized communities. That was probably my biggest reason for the transfer. I'd lost my purpose a long time ago and wanted to find another one. Solving cases no one else cared about seemed to call to me.

  “Please, I haven't had enough sleep or coffee for that. I went to see Doc yesterday, and he remembered the case.”

  As soon as I mentioned him, a memory of his playful flirting came back to me. That wasn't the first time since the previous day that it had popped into my head. He was smart, highly educated, and even in his fifties, strangely cute. We'd spent a lot of time together during the Fellows case. I guess I'd started to view him as a friend. But as soon as the case was over and we'd all gone back to our respective corners, I hadn't made an attempt to hang out unless Remy and Robert invited him, and we met up in a group.

  “It's one of his many talents. Doc never forgets anything. What did he have to say?”

  “Even after the victim was disemboweled, from the evidence, it looked like she fought until she lost too much blood and died at the scene. He also said that no one thought to get a DNA swab from the father.”

  Remy tsked and took the file I held in a death grip and started scanning the frustrating lack of information. It had taken a few minutes at most.

  “Not surprised, if they determined his whereabouts at the time of the murder and possible abduction, then they wouldn't have gone much further than that without more proof. It looks like his new girlfriend and her minor children gave him an alibi, that he was home with them for dinner and a family movie night.”

  “If for some reason he's abusive, or she believes herself in love with a loving and caring man, she'll say whatever to cover his ass. Taking the DNA would've determined the identity of possible remains, and if he refused, it would've given some cause to request a search warrant or at the very least to take a closer look at his alibi.”

  “You said you didn't want the lecture.”

  “Fine.” He placed the closed file back on my desk as I leaned back and laced my fingers at the back of my head. I tried to stretch the tension from my shoulders.

  “Did you find any cases of unidentified remains in any of our unsolved cases down here?”

  “No John Doe within the age range and height of our missing boy. It's like he disappeared off the face of the earth. I even did some searches within the state, and still no John Doe fitting Maxwell. But there are rural towns that are still in the damn dark ages. I have an entire list of towns to call and inquire.”

  “Call Doc about that. He doesn't mind helping out.”

  “I'd prefer to not do that.”

  “You have a problem with him?”

  I grimaced at the sudden harshness in Remy's tone. The man rarely got pissed about anything. “No…I don't know.”

  “Come on, talk to Therapist Remy about all your problems.”

  “Fuck, I forget you're a psychologist.”

  “Yes, unlicensed but still capable of giving advice. You seemed to get along with Doc when we worked the Fellows' case.”

  “I did. I mean, I knew Doc. You don't work homicides and not become familiar with the medical examiners, but something about him just puts me on edge, and I have no idea what it is. It's driving me crazy.” I'd tried to figure it out. I'd broken it down, and I'd even gone on runs to pick up dinner several times when we worked together. I’d spent time with him because I hated the not knowing. For me, not knowing the five W’s was almost physically painful.

  “I know what it is.”

  “Please, oh wise one, enlighten me.”

  “He's an enigma. Working closely with him…with us, you have an inability to function without knowing the details. Like the evening in Vega's pit of a command center. We all knew each other. You felt left out. Let me see, you were popular in high school, on a sports team, football, but not a quarterback, you're too bulky for it, and that popularity carried over into college. You were in the loop, the king of the crowd. Could do no wrong and then something happened, maybe your divorce.”

  “Well before the divorce, actually. I dropped out my first year of law school and joined the academy and completely shamed my parents who bragged about their son at Yale Law.”

  “Ouch, Ivy League. Doesn't fit you, really.”

  “The gay thing didn't go over well either but only second to dropping out with the highest grade-point average and on my way to the dean’s list. I just didn't feel it, ya know?”

  “Nothing wrong with not wanting to go into a career that you're not connected to. I mean, you've done well as a cop.”

  “I have no regrets. I was happy in my career. I had a boyfriend I lived with, and then we married, and it all went to shit.” Joseph cared only about appearances, and it seemed like when the slumming fantasy wore off, he'd lost all interest in me. Since we'd spent so much time apart, I hadn't understood how far the distance between us had grown until he'd asked me to move out. I'd learned not long after I'd left that he'd moved someone in a lot more suitable for his position as a partner at his firm.

  “Why?”

  “He knew me before, at university. We hadn't dated but ran into each other a few years after I left. We didn't know each other was gay. I didn't come out until I became a cop. If I was going to live in shame, why not be a lowly gay police officer.”

  “You have such a low opinion of yourself.”

  “Some people would say I'm arrogant.” I grinned at him, but his eye roll told me what he'd thought about my joke.

  “Only people who don't know you. So what happened?”

  “Shit, I don't know. We dated for a few years and moved in together. He was an attorney with a busy schedule, and I was working to make detective. We seemed suited.”

  “Suited is boring, I was suited with Harry, but that didn't mean it was right.”

  “I sucked as a detective. I should've noticed something.”

  “Did he cheat?”

  I didn't know for sure, but I had a feeling he had. There was no proof except the quickness he'd moved on. “Maybe? He sure as hell wasn't getting it at home, but I guess, the last four years or so, he'd started to ask was I going to go back to school, wasn't it time to find a safer career, and so on and so forth.”

  “He thought being a cop was a phase.”

  “I don't know what he thought it was, but when we moved in together, I settled into his place. He stopped inviting me to work things. I'd started to see myself as his dirty secret.”

  “Your pride was hurt. You worked hard to get where you were. You thought you were equal partners, and he kept shit from you. Which made you need to know everything. Our Doc is exactly what you see. He's a sweet, adorable, way too smart for his own good brat. He's not like your ex. He's not keeping any secrets. He's pretty open.”

  “So you're associating me being betrayed by my ex-husband with my discomfort around Doc.”

  “Why not? You think he's adorable, and don't think I didn't notice you checked out his cute ass several times.”

  “I did not. If I looked at him, it had nothing to do with looking at his ass.” Remy gave me a bratty smirk. “Don't even get that thought in your head. The man isn't my type. That Daddy stuff is all well and good for you and Robert. That’s not my kink.”

  “Eww, vanilla. I had higher hopes for you.” He eased off my desk and backed away.

  “Smartass.”

  “What if Doc is just a happy, flirty little man who saw you as a new friend? Stevenson, we all need friends, and some friends flirt with each other. It's nothing more than that. Be a big boy and go make friends with a man that could help you out a lot with this case, and you might need Vega. If you're not nice to Doc, Vega will not help you at all.”

  “Those two scare me.” I groaned at the thought of being trapped with Doc and Vega.

  “They scare everyone. It's a lot of over-caffeinated energy right there. What they lack in height, they make up for in mischief. They've been like that since they met. So make nice, or I'll tell Vega you don't like Doc, and you can fend for yourself.”

  “Dammit.” I huffed and stood, jerking my jacket off the back of my chair. “I'll go make friends, but I have to call the victims' mother and see if she's willing to talk with me.”

  “If you need anything, let us know. We're working with Vega to get some testing pushed through on a few cases where it looks like they let the cases go cold with several suspects. We could close them.”

  “Doc said he was going to talk to Coleman for me. I need to see what he found out.”

  “To be friends with the ex-wives, he's a dangerous little man.”

  I left Remy chuckling behind me as I escaped, I needed decent coffee, and then I'd deal with Doc, Vega, and talking to the mother. I'd rather deal with Coleman than Vega or Doc, and that should tell me something was going on with me. I had to figure it out, or it was going to bother me into madness.

  4

  Doc

  “Is there a reason you're just staring at me?” I asked Vega as I turned off the recording. I placed my hands on the edge of the table and rested my weight on them. Careful not to shift the step stool under my feet. I needed to replace the non-skid pads soon.

  “You're distracted today. Why?”

  “I'm not. I just didn't sleep well last night.” It was a partial truth and close enough that my friend wouldn't call me on it, but my luck might not be the best.

  “You need to get laid.”

  “Not everything is about my sex life or, in this case, lack thereof.”

  “That's an excuse the sexually frustrated give.”

  “Not all of us are meant to find their happily ever after like you and Remy. Some of us grow old, bitter, and stay single.”

  “Someone's cranky and in need of spankings.”

  I groaned because I missed spankings. I missed sex. I missed a Daddy's voice making everything okay. I was a Little without a Daddy. A Submissive without a Dominant. Yes, finding a temporary one would be easy enough, I had great friends, but I didn't want short-term. The thing was that if I couldn't have a committed Daddy Dom, I'd deal with being lonely.