The rest of the house was empty, lacking even the shoe’s twin. Merris’s clothes were there, no obvious spaces in his closet or dresser. The living room bore signs of a struggle, a turned-over magazine rack, its accordion sides shattered into pieces and tossed about the opening foyer. The morning’s paper littered the few feet of hallway connecting the front door to the living room, its pages crumpled. A few more drops of blood soaked through the Sports section, mottling an article about a badminton league in Russian Hill.
“Blood looks pretty new. Not quite brown in the middle,” Kane noted, lifting his voice loud enough for Sanchez to hear. “Merris definitely isn’t here, but he was. And just about an hour ago.”
“I’ve got some blues coming in. We’ll start canvassing the area. Someone had to have seen something.” Kel exhaled hard, an irritated scowl etched into his forehead. “God damn it, Morgan. We were so fucking close.”
“We’ve got even bigger problems than Merris missing.” Throaty engine sounds shook the front windows, thick-bodied cop cars pulling up to the curb. “Without Merris, we’re back to fricking square one—and I sure as shit don’t want to be telling my baby brother he might have lost one of his friends.”
Chapter 19
Sliding around in my dreams
Your inky black kiss
Staining my life
With something I’ll never miss
You pushed yourself into me
Down deep into my soul
Wish I could dig you out
Burn you till I’m whole
—Ink Black Kiss
RAFE WOKE to an empty bed. Empty except for a wrinkled, barely furred cat sprawled out on Quinn’s pillow like a runny pancake. Harley sniffed once at his face, then began to nibble on Rafe’s eyelashes, huffing heavily when he jerked his head out of the way.
“Okay, time to get up when the cat starts chewing on you.” A quick piss and toothpaste across his teeth, and Rafe was ready to start the day. Or at least the midmorning, he confirmed with a glance at the oversized clock in the hallway. Tossing on a pair of sweats, shirt, and Vans, he winked at Harley as she watched him from her perch on the pillows. Dressed, he gave the cat a scritch across her pink belly and intended to go looking for his lover.
Lover.
It was hard to wrap his head around. Quinn snuck up on him. One second he was there, in the background where Rafe’d needed him to be. Then the next, Quinn was in his face… in Rafe’s heart… and had no intention of fading back to the nebulous shelf he’d been put on back when they were barely men.
Rafe’s knees gave out from under him, folding him onto the edge of the bed. Harley slithered around on her adopted perch, angling herself beneath his fingers, and Rafe absently rubbed a spot he knew would make her drool with pleasure.
“I’m fucking stupid in love with your daddy. You know that, Harley?” If the cat knew her name, she made no sign of acknowledging its use. To be fair to the cat, she appeared more interested in getting the velvet on her stomach ruffled than actual conversation, but Rafe didn’t care. In some ways, talking to Harley was a hell of a lot easier than having a discussion with practically everyone else he knew.
Except Quinn.
“You know a lot of people say your dad’s off his head, gargoyle.” The drool started, a slow well of saliva on the edge of her curled-up lip. “He’s not, you know. Just kind of looks at the world through a stained-glass brain. And see, cat, he shares that shit with me. Me. Some fuckup who had the damned fucking good luck of hooking up with some badass Irish kid named Connor who didn’t give a shit I was going to school with too-short pants and worn-out shoes.”
Harley mewled her displeasure as Rafe patted her stomach, butting his arm for him to continue.
“Sure, hard life you’ve got here, cat.” He gave Harley a quick ruffle, running his nails over her body, and she stretched, working her toes out. “You’re just like him, you know? Kinda odd at first, but then you slid right under my skin. Okay, Harley, time for some food and maybe talking your dad into doing nasty things on the living room couch.”
There was a hint of coffee in the air, acrid and bitter as if brewed too strong and too long ago. Curious, he headed first to the kitchen, cutting off at the V in the hall and found… no Quinn and a definitely scorched coffeemaker.
Its death was glorious. From the carnage of its corpse, Rafe figured it’d given its life up valiantly for the service of their mugs, or perhaps, feeling overworked now that Quinn was around, decided to burst into flames in one final protest.
Either way, the brewer’s body was a melted slag of plastic and parts. The carafe appeared unharmed and sat smugly by the sink, its glass scrubbed to a sparkle.
But no Quinn.
Rafe’s stomach curdled into a ball, spiked and sharp with worry. Hurrying to the living room, he found it empty. Again—no Quinn.
“Shit, no. Did we not talk about not leaving the house?” Rafe hurried from the balcony off of the living room and then to a room the designer called a study, where Quinn’d made cooing noises over the comfortable sling chairs and good lighting. He churned back around the kitchen corner, hoping he could find Quinn in one of the spare rooms, when he noticed writing on the chalkboard wall next to the fridge.