Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Eight

Back at Trey’s place, I ate cookie dough ice cream in bed while he got ready to join me. He wore his favorite pajama bottoms, the Ermenegildo Zegnas in dark charcoal. I’d taken the top for myself.

I banged the spoon into the empty bowl. “Why hasn’t he called yet?”

“Questioning takes about two hours minimum. But he could be there much longer than that.”

“He could still call.”

“No, he can’t. You know this.”

Yes, I knew this, but something was wrong regardless. I hoped it had nothing to do with Lex’s death, but I was pretty sure it had something to do with Lex. Unfortunately, getting personal information out of Rico was like digging for diamonds. There was sweat involved, blind luck and pickaxes.

“Do you realize the odds of this happening? One person finding two murder victims in one lifetime? I’m cursed!”

Trey didn’t reply. He brushed his teeth with focused precision.

“I know you don’t believe in curses, but I knew this voodoo woman in Savannah who could slap a gris-gris bag on you like that.”

I snapped my fingers. He kept brushing. He’d been on the straight and narrow path to bed since we’d walked in the door. It was four hours past his bedtime, and yet I knew he’d be up bright and early anyway, ready to hit the pavement for his Saturday morning run.

“Did you notice anything weird about Rico?”

He spat in the sink. “Weird?”

“You know, homicidal weird, like a shank in his sock.”

“Nothing like that. During his performance, however, he lost the rhythm twice. That’s very unusual for Rico, isn’t it?”

“It is. He dropped lyrics too. Or mixed them up.” I hesitated to even say the next part aloud. “Was he ever lying?”

Trey shook his head. “Not that I saw.”

“I didn’t think so. But he sure as hell wasn’t telling me the whole truth, especially about Lex. That guy was destined to win the homicide lottery at some point in his life, and I can’t imagine Rico shedding one tear over it.”

Trey’s eyes sharpened at this. “Are you saying he had motive?”

“I’m saying he expressed a certain amount of anger toward Lex.”

“Did you tell Detective Cummings about this?”

“Yes.”

Trey frowned.

I sighed. “Okay no. And don’t you even think about blabbing it either. Underneath all the muscle and piercings, Rico is a marshmallow, and you know it.”

Trey moved to the end of the bed. It was late, and he was tired, his concentration waning. But the question that came out of his mouth was crack-of-dawn direct. “Could he have killed Lex?”

“Oh good grief, no!”

“Not for any reason?”

“If his life were in danger, sure. Or my life. Adam’s life. Maybe even your life. But not in cold blood.”

“So he could kill.”

“Trey! Why are we talking about this? Even if Rico were a homicidal maniac—which he’s not—he was right in front of us when the murder happened.”

“You’re assuming the person who set the fire is the person who killed Lex.”

“Of course they are! I can’t imagine some random firebug stumbling in and setting the place on fire despite a dead body on the floor.”

“An unlikely scenario.”

“Putting it mildly. So I’m his alibi, yours too for that matter, should it come down to it.”

“And I’m yours. Except for the time I was in back. And for the time after the alarm when you went in the back. I can’t provide an alibi for you then.”

And he wouldn’t, not even if they came for me with leg chains and a Taser. I licked the last of the ice cream off the spoon.

“We were all out front when the sprinklers came on—you, me, Rico, Adam. Cricket, Jackson and Frankie.” And then I remembered. “Padre came late.”

“Yes.”

“And you say he lied about why he was late.”

“Yes.”

I tapped my spoon against the bowl. “You know he invited me over, right? Sunday morning? For a photo shoot with Rico?”

“I heard. Do you think Rico will want to go?”

“I don’t know. But I sure as hell do.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Nope, not really sure at all.”

Trey didn’t comment. I started to leave my ice cream bowl on the nightstand, but then I remembered—Trey’s place, not mine. So I got out of bed and schlepped it to the kitchen, suppressing the grumble.

This is how things work at Trey’s, I reminded myself. I had one drawer in the bathroom and two drawers in the bedroom and exactly thirty-six inches of closet space. Even my toothbrush had its own cup, black ceramic to match his. Anything I left lying around would be put away in whatever Trey deemed the proper place.

When I got back, he was sitting up in bed, waiting for me. He looked as much a part of the room as any of the furniture, as dark and sleek as the leather chair, as refined as the four-hundred-thread-count ivory sheets. Most of the décor was featured in the two-year-old GQ magazine residing in his desk drawer. It had been his blueprint for putting his life back together after the accident—a necessary and certainly clever response to the identity crash that followed his cognitive rearrangement—but sometimes I found the whole thing…unsettling.

And yet when I climbed into bed next to him, those sheets were undeniably luxurious against my skin. And Trey himself was undeniably real, not made up at all.

I leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder. “So no obvious criminals lurking about tonight?”

“No. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any, only that I didn’t see them.”

“No knives?”

“No.”

“Guns?”

“Not on the men. Women have an easier time carrying discreetly, of course.”

He nodded toward the pocketbook I kept my .38 revolver in. It was a stylish cognac-colored leather number designed for concealed carry—roomy as a saddlebag, lockable, with a no-snag harness that wouldn’t trip a hammer accidentally.

“All I saw tonight were teeny-tiny Barbie doll purses like the one I had. Unlikely to conceal a firearm.”

I put my head on his shoulder, and he leaned his head against mine. I was always stunned at the tenderness underneath the angles and planes, the curious yielding softness scaffolded by so many rules and addendums to rules. It had been the most surprising thing about our first time together—after my abrupt U-turn, after that nail-bitingly slow elevator ride to his door—to find such intensity tempered with such gentleness, so inextricable, in one man.

I whispered against his neck. “Trey?”

“Yes?”

“This is all very hard to keep straight.”

“I understand.”

I looked up at him. “Help me make a flow chart?”

“Now?”

I nodded. He blinked once, then twice. Then he rolled over and got a yellow pad and a pen from his bedside table.