Triangulation, page 24
part #2 of Borealis Investigations Series
“I’ve got to go,” Shaw said. “We’re following up another lead on Shep. North’s with me.”
“Is he still being a dick?”
“Yes. More than usual.”
“Well, stick with him. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
“Call me if you hear anything else, will you?”
“Yeah,” Jadon said, his voice suddenly weary. “Can I still see you tonight?”
“I’d like that.”
Shaw might have said more, but North was sitting right there, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, so he disconnected the call. North’s fingers stopped drumming.
“This place was in Mike’s texts,” Shaw said. “He was messaging somebody, telling him never to show his face at the Roadhouse again. Lots of back and forth. Lots of name calling. Bitch. Ho. Skank. Slut. The phone number matches one of the boys we talked to, the one who sounded like things might actually go somewhere with Shep.”
“And you think this is where he took that kid? The one that was more than just a hookup?”
“We won’t know until we go in there, but Mike sure got riled about this place. It must mean something to him.”
But neither of them got out of the car. North’s fingers resumed drumming. Shaw stretched and then brought up Facebook on his phone, scrolling to the Zoar Zurvivors page and pulling up a group photo with a good shot of Shep Collins’s face. North was still sitting there, looking like he wanted to say something. Shaw wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it; he reached for the door.
“You can’t have any of my cake.”
“What?”
“We’re going to go in there. And you’re starving and need something to eat, so we’ll order something. And you’re going to order something stupid like the grilled fish tacos or a side salad or maybe just a cup of soup, and I’ll get that special, and when the cake comes, you’re going to want some. You can’t have any.”
“I don’t want any.”
“If you want cake, you better order your own damn cake, because you can’t have any of mine.”
“I said I don’t want any.”
“Don’t even ask.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t look at my cake and sigh and spin your fork.”
“I never do stuff like that.”
“Don’t talk on and on about how good dark chocolate is for you and the antioxidants and all that shit.”
“That doesn’t even sound like me.”
“If you want cake, Jadon can buy you some fucking cake.”
“All right. I’m done with this current asshole version of you.”
Shaw opened the door and got out. Making his way to the Roadhouse’s front doors, he fought the urge to look back and see if North was following him. He didn’t hear the car door. He didn’t hear the boots.
Inside, Big Sky Roadhouse looked like any other chain restaurant the world over, only this time in a Western theme: lassos, cowboy hats, spurs. Above the bar, plastic buffalo heads looked down on the patrons. A middle-aged woman with her ear done up in a bandage bent over the hostess stand, studying something. Shaw cleared his throat.
“Hello, darling,” she said without looking up. “Table or booth?” Then she looked up. “Or bar?”
“Booth, please.”
“Just you today?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I’ll take care of you.” She grabbed a menu and started toward a row of booths near the windows that faced out onto the street.
“Actually,” Shaw said, “could I have something in back? The sun is giving me a migraine.”
“Sweetie, you don’t have to tell me about migraines,” she veered toward the back without breaking stride. “My mother had migraines. Some days she had them so bad she couldn’t get out of bed. And who do you think that left the cooking and cleaning to?”
The pause dragged out long enough that Shaw realized he was supposed to answer. “You?”
“Darn tootin’. What do you think I knew how to make when I was five years old? What do you think? Go on and guess.”
“Mac and cheese?”
She laughed at this like it was the best joke. Behind the bar, an older man with a gimlet eye watched them. “Terry,” the woman shouted. “Terry, he guessed mac and cheese.”
Terry didn’t show any sign that he’d heard her. He just stared for another moment and then went back to wiping out a glass.
“Just think about it for a minute. Five years old. And I’m telling you, I never met a five-year-old who could do it except me. You want to guess again? What do you think?”
“Waldorf salad.”
“Nope,” she said, stopping in front of a booth. She swiped twice at the surface with a wet cloth, and the faint scent of stale water floated up. “You’re never going to guess.”
“A ribeye steak.”
“Good Lord, and Mother with a migraine?” She laughed again. “Terry, he says a ribeye. Can you imagine?”
“I give up.”
“Nobody ever guesses. A Monte Cristo sandwich. Invented it myself right there on the spot. Jam and Swiss cheese and a little turkey. Wonderbread. You ever had anything like that?”
“I’m trying to limit my carb intake. Did you know carbs actually fuel a food addiction that—”
“Ok.” North’s smoky rumble of a voice interrupted; he had come up behind them without Shaw noticing. “She didn’t ask for a lecture.”
“I just think she should know. Jam has a lot of sugar, and Wonderbread is basically pure sugar, and everybody could benefit from reducing their carb intake.”
“A Monte Cristo,” North said. “That sounds delicious.”
“Well,” she said, suddenly blushing heavily and fanning herself with the menu. “I don’t really—I mean, I didn’t fry it. You know they do that with the real one sometimes.”
“But you were just a kid,” North insisted. “That’s pretty amazing. And you just came up with it on the spot.”
“Uh huh,” she mumbled, staring at North as he slipped into the booth and stretched, the t-shirt pulling tight across his chest.
“What happened to your ear?”
Her fingers grazed the bandage. “My what?”
“Your ear.” North had one of those tiny North smiles, just a glimmer really. “You hurt yourself.”
“Oh, my ear. Dog. Dog bit me. I was trying to clip his nails, and he doesn’t like that.”
“I was wondering,” North said, “if you might be able to help us. Take a look at a picture. My friend, we think he came in here last week, and we wanted to know if anyone remembered him.”
Shaw displayed the group picture of from the Zoar Zurvivors page, marking Shep for her attention. She looked at the image for a good ten seconds before shaking her head.
“They were here last Thursday,” North said. “Do you know who was working last week?”
“I don’t really remember.”
“I guess we should probably ask the manager.”
“Now hold on. I said I didn’t remember. That doesn’t mean I can’t find out. Give me a second and I’ll check the schedule.”
She scurried away with the menu clasped to her chest like a nun holding a piece of the true cross.
“Shaw,” North began as soon as she was out of earshot.
“No. I don’t want to talk to you.”
It looked like it took a lot of willpower for North not to roll his eyes, but somehow he managed.
When she came back, she had a piece of paper with the Thursday shifts from the week before. “Tina is over there. And I’m Christine. Jorge was off by 2—did your friend come here for dinner?”
“Definitely sometime after five.”
“Well, DaShawn started at three; he’s working section four tonight, but I’ll ask him to stop by. And Terry was on the bar, so you’ll want to ask him. I guess everybody’s here except Lily. She’ll be here—” Christine checked her watch. “In an hour or so.” A look of concern crossed her features. “You’re not planning something, are you? This guy, he’s really your friend?”
“We’re private detectives,” North said. “And this man might be in danger. His family wanted us to find him.”
“Actually, I’m a private detective,” Shaw said, gratified by the red slashes that appeared on North’s cheekbones. “He’s kind of like a trainee.”
“Well, honey,” Christine said, patting North’s shoulder, “you’re doing a wonderful job.”
“I’m not a trainee,” North said.
“You don’t have your license,” Shaw said.
“I don’t have my license right now, but I’m a professional.”
“I know, honey. My daughter is the same way. She’s an absolute wizard with teeth. She cleans mine—I don’t even go to the dentist anymore.” She flashed white teeth at them. “But she just can’t pass the tests they give those girls who want to be hygienists.”
“No, it’s not a test—”
“I know, honey,” she said again. “I’ll tell you what I tell her: don’t give up. You can do anything you put your mind to. She got herself some special classes. And a tutor. You ever think about getting a tutor?”
“I have a college degree,” North said. “He dropped out. He didn’t even try to finish college.”
“That’s true,” Shaw said. “But he doesn’t have his license.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Christine said, patting North’s shoulder once more before she drifted away. “You did a knockout job today. Asking me questions the way you did, that was just wonderful. I know you’re going to pass that test. I know it. And I’ll put your name on my prayer roll, too, honey. Just to be sure.”
“That’s really a great idea,” Shaw said. “He needs all the help he can get.”
As soon as Christine left, North kicked Shaw in the shins.
“Ouch.”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk.”
“I don’t. To you.”
“You’re acting like a little kid.”
But by then, a petite woman with a mountain of grass-green hair—it reminded Shaw of a troll doll—stopped at their table, a pitcher of ice water in one hand. They showed her the picture, but she shook her head. DaShawn passed them a few minutes later, and he didn’t recognize Shep either. Shaw even went to the bar to check with Terry, but Terry just glared at him and, after a long minute, shook his head.
“I guess we have to wait for Lily,” Shaw said to North when he came back to the table. “She’s the only other one who worked last Thursday.”
North was studying the lone menu that Christine had brought them. With a grunt, he flipped it onto the table and spun it toward Shaw. “Order something. Not a salad. And if you don’t get real food that’s going to fill you up, I’m going to order for you.”
“You can’t order for me.”
North shrugged.
“I’m a grown man,” Shaw said.
“I’m sure that will be a real comfort when I’m shoving a burger down your throat.”
Christine came back. North ordered the special that had been soaped onto the windows. Shaw asked about the house salad.
North kicked him again, and Shaw yelped.
“Honey?” Christine asked, staring at Shaw as though seeing him for the first time. “Are you all right?”
“Never,” North muttered.
“I guess I’ll have a club sandwich,” Shaw said, massaging the throbbing spot on his leg. “But hold the bread, and actually, if you could swap out the potato chips with a high-protein, vegetarian option, like a hummus, maybe something with tofu—”
“For the love of God,” North said, yanking the menu out of Shaw’s hands and shoving it toward Christine. “He’s having a club sandwich. With the bread. With the potato chips. With a Coke.”
Shaw brightened. His hand froze on his leg, the dull ache suddenly forgotten.
“One,” North said, holding up a finger.
“Well, duh,” Shaw said.
Christine left, and North tried again. “Out there, in the car—”
Shaw just shook his head.
The food came, and North tried a third time. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No. I told you I don’t want to talk to you.”
Shaw devoured his sandwich. He ate every crumb of potato chips. He slurped down three Cokes before North noticed—he was too busy with his own food—and then he had to slow down because, well, North would probably try to cut him off completely if he didn’t show a little moderation.
Then the chocolate cake came. Shaw knew it shouldn’t have been so appealing. He knew it had probably been mass produced and frozen and shipped here and reheated. He knew it was probably made from cheap flour and oil and chocolate, nothing fancy. He knew it had somewhere north of a million calories. Maybe if he asked nicely, North would give him a bite. Just one bite.
But Shaw didn’t want to give North the satisfaction. And North was engrossed in something on his phone. So Shaw picked up his fork. He let his hand rest on the table. It slid an inch.
North reached to a pressed-tin bucket, retrieved a napkin rolled around a set of flatware, and extracted the knife. He gripped it like he meant to stab somebody with it, and he let the blunt tip rest on the tabletop. “I’ll put this through your wrist, Shaw.”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
North grunted and went back to his phone. The knife stayed right where it was.
Shaw had a fourth Coke. And a fifth. He was having all sorts of good ideas—why hadn’t anybody ever tried to line a raincoat with heating elements so that you could have an electric blanket coat?—but it was getting harder and harder to sit still.
And then, with a suddenness that made Shaw jump, North shoved the cake across the table. He didn’t look up from his phone. He didn’t even blink. He just set down the knife and shoved the plate, and it skidded across the laminate surface.
Shaw started eating. He was halfway through the cake when he realized North was staring at him.
“What?” he asked through a mouthful of fudgy heaven.
“It’s kind of amazing.”
“Yeah, it’s really good.” Then, grudgingly, “Do you want a bite?”
North ignored him. He reached across the table and ringed Shaw’s forearm with his thumb and forefinger. “You’re so damn skinny. You eat like a trucker having his last meal—when you remember to eat, when I make you eat, when you’re not on one of your idiotic diets. And you have zero body fat. You’ve got the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old.”
“It’s because I respect my body.”
“You have about two inches of frosting piled on your upper lip.”
Shaw wiped at his mouth and licked the frosting from the back of his hand. “Lately I’ve been doing this FreshPower meal plan, and it’s totally changed how my body works. I mean, it’s incredible. And every once in a while, I cheat, so I mean, yeah, I guess that’s why.”
North didn’t even seem to hear him. His eyes were hazy, as though he were concentrating on something, a problem he was trying to solve. When he spoke, it was half to himself. “And you’ve got absolutely no ass.”
“I have an ass.”
“You used to have an ass. A cute little thing. But since Matty, you’ve got no ass.”
“I’ve got an ass, North. Jadon likes my ass.”
“You could put a cardboard box—a flattened cardboard box—in a pair of jeans, and it would have a better ass than you do.”
“For your information, I stopped doing those glute-toning exercises because Master Hermes told me—”
“Shaw, I’m sorry about out there in the car. About Jadon. About the Slasher. All of it.”
Shaw dropped the fork, and it clattered against the plate. “I said I don’t want to talk to you about this.”
“Why the fuck not?” The words exploded out of North. “Every day, every fucking day, all you want to do is talk. And now, when I’m trying to tell you something, you don’t want to talk. Fuck you. Fuck your non-existent ass.”
“This is why. This is why I don’t want to talk to you. Because you apologize, and that’s all I get: an apology. No explanation. No conversation. You act like a total shit, and then you apologize. That’s ok. I get it. We’re all shits some days, North. You’re allowed to be a shit. But you can’t—you can’t just apologize and then not talk to me about what’s going on. Because it hurts, ok? And I’m so fucking tired of being—” Somehow, Shaw managed to stop himself. He stared at the tabletop. He picked up the fork, although his fingers were so numb that he barely felt it, and he spun the tines on the plate, gathering chocolate crumbs.
The vinyl banquette creaked as North slid out of the booth. Then he came around to Shaw’s side.
“Scoot over.”
Shaw stared at his plate.
With a sigh, North squeezed in next to Shaw, forcing him along the vinyl by brute strength until they sat side by side. He slipped an arm around Shaw’s waist, pulling him tight, and they just sat there for a while. North’s body was warm, painting heat up and down one side of Shaw. His arm was warm, lassoing Shaw around the waist. He smelled like North: Irish Spring and American Crew and leather. It would be so easy to let this make everything better, the way North always made things better: physical affection and touch taking the place of words, the way North had always apologized, always expressed himself through the eight years of their friendship.
But now, Shaw wasn’t sure it was enough. He liked the way North touched him. He liked the heat, the strength, the insistence. But since that moment in Potosi when Shaw had realized how much he wanted from North—everything, all of him—touch no longer seemed like enough. If they were going to have some kind of future beyond buddies, North had to open up to Shaw. And the problem was that North had never opened up to anyone.
Shaw was in the middle of opening his mouth to explain this, when North spoke.
“I was in the living room with Waggener. I heard the . . . the pop of his hand. When he hit you. And I couldn’t see you. I didn’t know what was going on. For all I knew, he was standing over you with his gun drawn. For all I knew, he was pulling the trigger.” North wiped his mouth and took a swig of Shaw’s Coke. “And then, in the car, you started talking about the Slasher, how you wished you had done something else, like you don’t realize that there’s been one fucking miracle in the whole history of my life, and the miracle is that you’re still alive after that night. But you just sat there, talking about how you wished it had been different, not realizing that if you had died, I—” His fingers tightened around a napkin.
