“There’s no way you could have found me off a split-second glance over my shoulder. You were ten.” Adam sounded breathless but skeptical.
Noah laughed softly. “The cops didn’t think so either. They grilled me for hours, trying to get information out of me. They were frustrated by my limited details. When I told them you were a kid, they didn’t believe me. They said no kid would leave a crime scene that clean.” When Adam didn’t interrupt, Noah shook his head. “You’re gloating over that, aren’t you?”
“A little. Yeah. It’s nice to know my attention to detail is appreciated. My brothers seem to think I’m reckless.” There was a story there, but Noah wasn’t sure he wanted to probe further just yet. “So, how did you go from barely being able to describe me to hunting me down in a warehouse?”
“I didn’t, at first. For eight years, I just focused on survival. Foster care sucked. I blamed you. Fixated on who you were, why you did it. Figured maybe you were some street kid or a former student of my dad’s. Thought maybe you were a junkie. When I aged out of the system, I went to the cops to ask about my father’s case. By then, it was a cold case. It took forever to even get somebody to return my calls.”
Noah didn’t know why talking about this made his stomach dip, but when Adam laced their fingers together, he felt like crying.
“Keep going,” Adam said.
Noah sighed. “They had CCTV footage that they’d pulled from the bank and a corner store. I begged the detective to let me watch it. She told me it was useless because there were no faces, just people’s backs and side profiles. She eventually caved. I guess the idea of closing a decade old case won out. The bank footage was useless, but then, I saw you. On the footage from the corner store. You’d changed your clothes and you’d even obscured your face from the camera, but I just knew it was you. Something about the way you walked just clicked in my head.”
“Even if you saw the back of my head, I still can’t figure out how you put it all together.”
“Your jacket.”
“My jacket?”
“Yeah. Do you remember it? You weren’t wearing it when you were in my house so you must have changed as soon as you left.”
“Yeah, I shoved my black hoodie in my backpack, which was stashed in the alley, and threw on a jacket I’d stolen from a photo shoot. But there were hundreds of those jackets sold.”
“I know. I went directly to the designer’s boutique and asked. The girl behind the counter looked at me like I was crazy when I asked about credit card receipts from over ten years ago. But when I refused to leave, she called over the manager who’d worked there for twenty years. He essentially told me the same thing, but when I showed him the jacket, he took one look and told me it was a knockoff.”
“No, it fucking wasn’t.”
Noah snickered at Adam’s tone. “That’s what you’re worried about? That somebody thinks you’re rocking fake couture?”
“I’m just saying, that manager is a fucking idiot,” Adam said, tone sulky.
“Anyway,” Noah said. “When I asked the manager why he thought it was a knockoff, he pointed out the red outline on the back of the jacket. He said the real ones didn’t have that red lettering, that they’d shelved it after the Paris show because of some kind of dispute between the label and the designer.”
“Well, shit.”
“Yeah. I knew it was a long shot. But it was all I had. I tracked down photos of the Paris show—which took months, by the way—and as soon as I saw your picture, I knew. It was you. You killed my dad. But I also knew I couldn’t go to the police. You were Adam Mulvaney. Son of billionaire Thomas Mulvaney. I couldn’t accuse you of being a murderer. They’d think I was insane. Shit, I thought I was insane. That’s when I started following you.”
Adam squeezed his hand. “How long did you follow me for?”
“Six months or so. Long enough to start to see the massive discrepancies between where you went and where your social media said you were. That’s a neat trick. Calliope?”
“Yeah, she’s great at manufacturing alibis.”
“I knew you were the man who killed my father before I started following you. I realized you were a serial killer after about four weeks. I didn’t think it was a family affair at that point, but I did think your father was covering for you.”
“You’re kind of amazing,” Adam said.
“No. Just determined.”
“There are a lot of cops determined to put to rest about a hundred homicide cases. But you are the one who somehow put it all together. Off a jacket. But…maybe don’t tell my dad that unless he asks.”
“Yeah, deal,” Noah said, jaw cracking around a yawn. “Can we go to sleep now?”
“Only if you come up here.”
Noah wiggled himself up beside Adam. “Better?”
“Uh-uh, roll over.”
Noah rolled his eyes but did as he was told. “You could have just said you wanted to be big spoon,” he teased.
Adam kissed just behind Noah’s ear, voice low. “In the morning, I’m going to fuck you awake. This just makes it easier.”
Noah’s cock hardened at Adam’s statement. “I’m totally on board with that…but could we make it afternoon?”
“We’ll see.”
Adam stayed awake long after Noah’s breathing had slowed and he began to snore softly. He hadn’t been lying about fucking Noah awake, but it wasn’t the whole truth either. It was easier to steal the hair Calliope needed to run his DNA when he couldn’t ask questions. Luckily, Noah slept soundly and didn’t even notice when Adam plucked the strands from his head and slipped them into a tiny baggy, stashing it in his bedside table, before drawing the covers up over them both and letting himself drift to sleep as well.