“I hope they catch him and give him the chair.”
“Death is too good for him. But he’s not my concern now. She is. She’s facing serious time in juvenile detention or worse. I can’t let that happen. I found her a week ago. I can’t lose her already.”
Kingsley looked up at him through narrowed eyes.
“You…” Kingsley said. “You’re in love with her.”
S?ren didn’t deny it. Kingsley respected him for that.
Honesty was its own special brand of sadism.
“I am.”
“Well, then,” Kingsley said, laying his head back again. “Maybe all hope is not lost.”
He expected S?ren to laugh at that, but when he looked up he saw the steel in S?ren’s eyes.
“We have to help her,” S?ren said. “Please.”
“Please? You’ve learned manners in the past eleven years.”
“Will you help her? Will you help me?”
Help the girl. How? Easy. He had a few judges who owed him favors. He regularly fucked the wife of an important district attorney. He could make some phone calls. He couldn’t get the charges dropped. His contacts needed to cover their asses. But he could get her community service, probation with some luck. Nothing serious.
“What’s her name?”
“Eleanor Louise Schreiber.”
“Schreiber? German name.”
“It is.”
The corner of Kingsley’s mouth quirked in to a half smile.
“That explains the Beethoven. I suppose you don’t play Ravel anymore.”
S?ren had played Ravel for him the day they met and many days after. Ravel, the greatest of all French composers. And now his heart turned to Beethoven—the greatest of all the Germans.
“I would play Ravel for you,” S?ren said, his voice stiff and formal. “If that’s what it took.”
Kingsley’s eyes f lew open.
“I’m not going to make you fuck me just so I’ll help your Virgin Queen. That’s her game, not mine.”
“Is there a price for your assistance?”
“You gave me a fortune. I’m richer than God, and you think you owe me something?”
“Don’t I?”
“A favor,” Kingsley said. “One favor.”
“Anything. Name it.”
Kingsley stood up, walked across the room and stood only inches from S?ren.
“All I ask of you,” Kingsley began, “all I beg of you…don’t leave me again. Please. Eleven years. I thought I’d never see you again.”
S?ren grasped Kingsley by the back of the neck and pulled him into an embrace—not an embrace of lovers but, instead, of lost brothers, soldiers from enemy armies reunited at the end of a long, devastating war that no one had won.
“I thought I would die without ever seeing you again,” Kingsley said, and his eyes burned with tears. “Every day I thought that.”
“Thought or hoped?”
“Feared,” Kingsley said, clutching S?ren’s forearms. “My greatest fear.”
Kingsley closed his eyes, and if he kept his eyes closed he wouldn’t have to see that white collar around S?ren’s neck. If he kept his eyes closed he could pretend it was eleven years ago and they were alone in the hermitage together. S?ren would beat him and take him to bed, and after he’d finished, Kingsley would throw his arm over S?ren’s stomach, rest his head on S?ren’s chest and fall asleep. When he woke up S?ren would still be there. S?ren would always be there.
“I promise you this,” S?ren whispered, “I will never turn my back on you. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. As long as it’s in my power, I will be your friend, and I will be here for you whenever you need me.”
“You paid for this house. It’s your home even more than mine. Make it your home.”
“I will if that’s what you want.”
“More than anything.” He opened his eyes and looked up at S?ren. “No one loves me. And I don’t love anyone here. No one trusts me and I don’t trust anyone. I need you.”
“You trust me? After what I did to you?”
“I trust you. Because of what you did to me.”
S?ren took a deep breath. Kingsley felt his chest rise and fall.