String Boys, page 39
“You are so damned young,” Cramer said, still shocked. “Holy Jesus—twenty-six?”
“Five,” Kelly said dryly, because nobody got that right, not even Seth.
“Do you have any idea what kind of talent you have?”
“No, he doesn’t. Why are you here again?”
Jackson grinned. “You haven’t changed a bit,” he said, sounding happy about it. Then he sobered. “You doing okay?”
And Kelly saw that sincerity now for what it was—real. True. “My brother just passed away,” he said softly. “It’s been rough.”
Rivers nodded. “Yeah. That’s sort of why we’re here. I’m sorry we’re so late. I was, uh, out of commission when your brother’s package hit the police station—”
“He almost died,” Cramer and Kryzinski said in concert; then Ellery took over. “He’d let you blame him completely, if we didn’t say it. He was still in the hospital when your brother’s message and evidence arrived. He’s not even cleared to go back to work yet. But Kryzinski here came across the paperwork, and we got back from vacation this morning, and Jackson said we had to try tonight.”
“Try what?” Kelly asked, bewildered. “Why are you here?” He looked apologetically at Jackson. “Besides being your boyfriend, which, let me say, is pretty cool and a mark in your favor.”
Kryzinski stood up. “Kid, let me tell the story. Those two talk over each other and get muddled, which is funny because Cramer’s one of the best lawyers I’ve ever seen. He’s here to represent you and Mr. Arnold, but I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. Two weeks ago—when Jackson was still in the hospital—the police department got this. Does anybody recognize it?” He held up an open bubble mailer with Rivers’s name written in black sharpie on the front.
To Kelly’s surprise, Agnes spoke up. “That’s my handwriting. That’s the packet Matty had me mail for him before….” Her voice dropped. “Before he died.”
Kryzinski nodded. “Did you know what was in it, sweetheart?”
Agnes shook her head. “He typed for a long time, and then he had me go fetch… well, his box. Like a metal box? The kind you keep documents in? It was one of the few things he had when we moved him in, remember, Mom?”
Linda nodded. “Yeah. We just looked through it before the funeral to see if he had any assets to help pay for expenses.”
He hadn’t, but Seth had covered it. Kelly was starting to wonder exactly how much Seth actually made.
“So,” Kryzinski prompted, “he got something from the metal box and…?”
“Well, he had me leave the room, and then he sealed the envelope and asked me to address it. He looked up the address of the police station—homicide division, Jackson Rivers—and then told me to send it in.” She frowned. “There was something heavy in it, when he was done. I remember that. It… you could feel it, sliding around.”
Kryzinski nodded. “Thanks, sweetheart. That’s good to know, all of it. Now….” He grimaced. “Do we have to?” he asked Rivers and Cramer.
“I’ll do it,” Cramer said softly. “Seth? Seth Arnold?”
Seth nodded soberly.
“I’m going to ask you about a night in May, about eight and a half years ago—do you remember what happened then?”
“I was attacked,” Kelly blurted, not wanting that other night to be mentioned. With a defense attorney and a detective in the room, all sorts of things, bad things, could—
“Not that night, baby,” Seth said softly. “We may want to ask the girls to leave—”
“No,” Lily and Lulu said in concert.
“Are you kidding me?” Agnes asked, nose wrinkled. “You guys, mooncalfing over each other for years, all that tragic, ‘Seth can’t come home!’ shit going on, and you think we’re gonna leave the room now? The only reason I’d leave the room is to make popcorn, but that’s Kelly’s spaghetti sauce on the stove, and I’m holding out for that.” She waved her hand. “Go on, Seth. Tell the man a story.”
Seth smiled at her, slowly. “God, you look so much like Kelly. It’s not even fair.” His smile died, and he stood up, probably so he could wander.
“See, Kelly had been attacked two days before. And he was so… scared. Those moments in that awful place, with Castor—it had him terrified. And I had to leave, you know? Dad and I, we’d agreed. I had to go to Bridgford. I’d be leaving him alone. So I went out that night, and I was going to find him, and I was going to warn him off.”
“Castor Durant?” Rivers clarified.
“Yeah. I just wanted him… to stay away. He’d hurt Kelly. I needed him not to do anything like that again. He was getting high, out in the old field. And I… I was so mad. He laughed at me, and I kicked him, and… we fought. Bad. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
He came out of his trance for a minute. “I can fight better now, but that night, I was all fury, you know?”
Everybody nodded, and he went on.
“Anyway, he was on top of me, and… and he was winning. He was gonna kill me. He had his hand on my throat, and he was reaching for something on his belt, and my vision went black.”
He swallowed, and that eerie self-possession he’d had since the three men arrived on their doorstep disappeared. “When I came to again, he was… dead. His throat had been cut, and he was on top of me, and I was covered in blood.”
Kelly stood and grabbed his hand, shaking.
“You didn’t kill Castor Durant,” he said. And saying it out loud, when he knew it was the truth, did exactly what Seth said it would.
It set him free.
“I thought I did,” Seth told him soberly. “For eight and a half years, I thought I did.”
“What…?” Craig Arnold’s voice was broken. “I thought you did too. Oh God, son. What… what changed your mind?”
“Matty,” Seth said, looking at Rivers. “He told me what he wrote you. Do you want me to say it?”
Rivers nodded. “I think everybody here needs to hear it.”
“You were right,” Seth said to Kelly. “At the ocean, when you said what you thought happened. You were right. Matty didn’t mean to sic Durant on us.”
“Durant was bullying him,” Kelly said. “Every day.”
“Yeah. And then Matty got high and let it slip, like you thought. About us. That we were together. And they went after you that night, and Matty—he felt like shit. So I was going to warn Castor Durant to stay away from your family, and so was Matty. But Matty left just a little later. By the time he got to the field, Castor was reaching for his knife, and I was almost dead. Castor didn’t even look behind him, and Matty grabbed the knife out of his hand and….”
Seth’s face screwed up, tightened.
“And he slit Durant’s throat,” Kelly finished, thinking, Of course. Of course. Oh God. Matty. My brother. What did you do?
“Yeah,” Rivers said from the couch. “The thing in the bubble mailer? That your sister sent? That was the murder weapon, the one we couldn’t find. It was covered in Durant’s blood. Kryzinski here had it tested after he opened the mailer. Matty told the same story you did, but he confessed. To everything. And he sent us the knife, with his prints and his blood—because his hand slipped on the knife—and with Durant’s. He said he was dying. He wanted Seth here to not have to worry anymore. Said he’d been unable to come home, not for any length of time, because he’d been afraid he’d be charged with murder.”
Kelly framed Seth’s face with his trembling hands. “You couldn’t kill anybody,” he said softly. “I always knew. I always knew—”
Behind them, Craig burst into hard, barking sobs.
“Dad?” Seth said, capturing Kelly’s hand but turning toward his father. Linda followed, burying her head in Craig’s neck. Seth took an unsteady step toward them, and they were suddenly both up and out of the chair, holding him, making him the center when he’d been the outsider for so long.
“Oh God. Seth… my son. All that you’d been through, and I never knew—”
“Oh, baby,” Linda said, kissing his temple hard. “You’ve been so alone.”
They surrounded him, crying, holding him, and Kelly was glad. He’d had counselors and family, telling him he’d be okay.
Seth had Kelly, and the string of their love that they’d clung to so tightly it had sometimes cut their hands.
THE PARENTS eventually calmed down, sinking back onto the chair where Craig held Kelly’s mom so hard, Kelly was surprised she could breathe.
“Is that all?” Kelly asked, holding Seth’s hand again as Seth sat on the arm of his chair. In the back bedroom, X-man let out a whimper, and Kelly gave thanks to Lily, who’d given up her seat at the show to give him a bottle and settle him down.
She came back in as he thought about what had just transpired, her arms empty, Xavier in the porta crib near Kelly’s old bed, probably. Lulu was feeding Chloe a sandwich at the table, her eyes focused on the people in the living room as if she had to take a test on them in the morning.
“We would like to make an announcement in the press clearing up the case,” Kryzinski said. “So Seth is no longer under suspicion. Someone will probably want to interview you, Seth—”
“No,” Seth said, looking around. “Can’t Isela come back and take the children away?”
“Isela Cruz was killed by Tim Owens, in August,” Rivers said, surprising them all badly.
“The Dirty/Pretty killer?” Craig asked. Well, he did love his detective shows, and had a penchant for true crime. When that sort of thing popped up in his hometown, he would pay attention—but victim’s names weren’t always released immediately.
“Yes.” Jackson breathed out slowly, and Kelly remembered him saying he’d been in the hospital. It had been big news—he’d taken out the Dirty/Pretty killer, with Ellery Cramer at his side. Damn.
“She can’t ask for the kids back,” Cramer said softly, and Kelly wondered that nobody in the room even tried to grieve. Whatever her separate griefs, the Cruz family hadn’t known her, and she hadn’t been part of them. “And that’s another reason I’m here,” Cramer continued, and away with Isela, unlamented—not even her father had bothered to tell them she’d died. “I don’t do family court, but I have connections who do. Matty said in his letter that he wanted to make sure nobody could take the children away from Kelly and Seth. He seemed to think you’d be together for a while?” He tried to smile hopefully, but he just managed to look skeptical.
“We’re getting married,” Kelly said defiantly. “After Christmas. Before he goes back to New York to get us a house.”
Rivers grinned. “The full-scale happy—I’m impressed.”
Cramer rolled his eyes. “Sure, you are.” He turned back to Kelly and Seth. “I can hook you up with someone who can make the adoption final before you leave the state. You’re both… really damned young. Are you sure you want this?”
Seth gave his dreamy boy smile. “Well, you know. Being a fugitive ages you.”
Kelly buried his face against Seth’s side and laughed.
THEY EVENTUALLY left, after giving Seth and Kelly a number of cards, including Rivers’s personal phone number, in case the press got too rough. But by the time they were gone, the entire family sagged with exhaustion.
The girls brought spaghetti—a little overcooked—out to them as they sat on the couch, on the chairs, and ate, and Agnes got Chloe to bed with minimal fuss.
Somewhere in the drained silence, Linda said, “A wedding after Christmas?”
“Yeah, Mommy. Do you approve?”
“Of course, baby. Isn’t tomorrow your birthday?”
“Yeah.”
“Happy birthday, son. Is it everything you wanted?” She smiled, almost playfully.
“Best birthday ever,” Kelly vowed. “He’s all I ever dreamed of. I swear.”
Seth looked at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You know, we still need to see France.”
Kelly laughed softly.
New dreams.
The world lay at their feet.
Just as soon as they finished their spaghetti.
THAT NIGHT, lying in Seth’s old bed where they’d been sleeping, they talked softly, making plans for the future. Sometime, about an hour in, Seth stopped talking and started kissing the back of Kelly’s neck, his ears, his shoulders.
Kelly left off talking about the future and concentrated on the now.
Right now, the man of his dreams was making love to him, and they were free as birds, free as sound, ascending the heavens, holding each other close in their hearts.
The song of their love was like Seth’s music.
It would forever make the angels cry.
Orange
Amy’s Dark Contemporary Romance
Fish Out of Water: Book One
PI Jackson Rivers grew up on the mean streets of Del Paso Heights—and he doesn’t trust cops, even though he was one. When the man he thinks of as his brother is accused of killing a police officer in an obviously doctored crime, Jackson will move heaven and earth to keep Kaden and his family safe.
Defense attorney Ellery Cramer grew up with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth, but that hasn’t stopped him from crushing on street-smart, swaggering Jackson Rivers for the past six years. But when Jackson asks for his help defending Kaden Cameron, Ellery is out of his depth—and not just with guarded, prickly Jackson. Kaden wasn’t just framed, he was framed by crooked cops, and the conspiracy goes higher than Ellery dares reach—and deep into Jackson’s troubled past.
Both men are soon enmeshed in the mystery of who killed the cop in the minimart, and engaged in a race against time to clear Kaden’s name. But when the mystery is solved and the bullets stop flying, they’ll have to deal with their personal complications… and an attraction that’s spiraled out of control.
Fish Out of Water: Book Two
They must work together to stop a psychopath—and save each other.
Two months ago Jackson Rivers got shot while trying to save Ellery Cramer’s life. Not only is Jackson still suffering from his wounds, the triggerman remains at large—and the body count is mounting.
Jackson and Ellery have been trying to track down Tim Owens since Jackson got out of the hospital, but Owens’s time as a member of the department makes the DA reluctant to turn over any stones. When Owens starts going after people Jackson knows, Ellery’s instincts hit red alert. Hurt in a scuffle with drug-dealing squatters and trying damned hard not to grieve for a childhood spent in hell, Jackson is weak and vulnerable when Owens strikes.
Jackson gets away, but the fallout from the encounter might kill him. It’s not doing Ellery any favors either. When a police detective is abducted—and Jackson and Ellery hold the key to finding her—Ellery finds out exactly what he’s made of. He’s not the corporate shark who believes in winning at all costs; he’s the frightened lover trying to keep the man he cares for from self-destructing in his own valor.
Fish Out of Water: Book Three
A tomcat, a psychopath, and a psychic walk into the desert to rescue the men they love…. Can everybody make it out with their skin intact?
PI Jackson Rivers and Defense Attorney Ellery Cramer have barely recovered from last November, when stopping a serial killer nearly destroyed Jackson in both body and spirit.
But their previous investigation poked a new danger with a stick, forcing Jackson and Ellery to leave town so they can meet the snake in its den.
Jackson Rivers grew up with the mean streets as a classroom and he learned a long time ago not to give a damn about his own life. But he gets a whole new education when the enemy takes Ellery. The man who pulled his shattered pieces from darkness and stitched them back together again is in trouble, and Jackson’s only chance to save him rests in the hands of fragile allies he barely knows.
It’s going to take a little bit of luck to get these Few Good Fish out alive!
“I’ll do anything.”
Staff Sergeant Jasper “Ace” Atchison takes one look at Private Sonny Daye and knows that every word on paper about him is pure, unadulterated bullshit. But Sonny is desperate, and although Ace isn’t going to take him up on his offer of “anything,” that doesn’t mean he isn’t tempted.
Instead, Ace takes Sonny under his wing, protecting him when they’re in the service and making plans with him when they get out. Together, they’re going to own a garage and build race cars and make their fortune hurtling faster than light across the desert. Together, they’re going to rewrite the past, make Sonny Daye a whole and happy person, and put the ghosts in Ace’s heart to rest.
But not even Sonny can build a car fast enough to escape the ghosts of the past. When Sonny’s ghosts drive them down and run their plans off the road, Ace finds out exactly what he’s made of. Maybe Sonny was the one to promise Ace anything, but there is nothing under the sun Ace won’t do to keep Sonny safe from harm.
Fish Out of Water: Book Four
A Fish Out of Water/Racing for the Sun Crossover
Can a hitman and a psychic negotiate a relationship while all hell breaks loose?
The world might not know who Lee Burton is, but it needs his black ops division and the work they do to keep it safe. Burton’s spent his life following orders—until he sees a kill jacket on Ernie Caulfield. Ernie isn’t a typical target, and something is very wrong with Burton’s chain of command.
Ernie’s life may seem adrift, but his every action helps to shelter his mind from the psychic storm raging within. When Burton shows up to save him from assassins and club bunnies, Ernie seizes his hand and doesn’t look back. Burton is Ernie’s best bet in a tumultuous world, and after one day together, he’s pretty sure Burton knows Ernie is his destiny as well.
But when Burton refused Ernie’s contract, he kicked an entire piranha tank of bad guys, and Burton can’t rest until he takes down the rogue military unit that would try to kill a spacey psychic. Ernie’s in love with Burton and Burton’s confused as hell by Ernie—but Ernie’s not changing his mind and Burton can’t stay away. Psychics, assassins, and bad guys—throw them into the desert with a forbidden love affair and what could possibly go wrong?
