Page 18 of Nightcrawler

…the creature, once in the station, grabs both detectives and pulls off their masks to reveal clear domed skulls encasing miniature brains…reinforcing my earlier hypothesis that the book is autobiographical after all.

I wish I’d read to the end.

I put the tablet back on the table, leaving it where I’d found it as I smiled at my own humor. Looking down at Stanley, I was now convinced I’d misread so many things about Trigg. I had to remember to ask him where the nickname came from. His real name was Miguel Huerta, and I’d researched him after running into him at the Capitol Records building. I liked Miguel a lot better than Trigg but who was I to decide what name he preferred to answer to. After all, I’d changed my own name before coming to L.A.

I knew Cassidy Ryan, and Mike Williams, two LAPD detectives I respected very much, had known him as Miguel. I’d heard them call him by his real name and he’d only corrected Cassidy once and even then, very quietly. It was clear that Trigg had a lot of respect for them and they seemed to have known him for a long time. I promised myself I’d find a way to ask abouttheir past at some point, maybe after getting to know him a little better myself.

After all this mess, I really hoped I’d have the chance to do that.

Miguel Huerta was a fine-looking man, and he was exactly the kind of guy I liked in bed. He had a military buzz cut which was just a little longer on the top of his head, but I could tell that if he let it grow out, it’d be curly. That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing at all. Most of all, though, I liked his hooded, dark eyes, so chocolate brown they looked nearly black in low lighting. The intensity of his stare when he looked at me—really looked at me—made my legs weak. And the fullness of his lips made me think dirty thoughts about all the things I wanted to do to them every time I looked at his mouth.

He didn’t give me any indication that he was gay, but I’d caught him looking away a couple of times when I’d caught him checking me out. I knew I was being hopeful that his regard for my less than clothed state and the way he’d cared for me over the last twelve hours wasn’t all therapeutic in nature. Having known I was gay all my life meant that I was almost never wrong about a guy’s sexuality. I glanced around the dingy apartment. It screamed bachelor but then again, maybe he only met girls at their place.

I glanced down at Stanley, once again knowing that any man who could care as much as he did about a tiny kitten, had to be a good guy. He treated Stanley like gold. The little guy had come running to him the minute he’d opened the door. It wasn’t until he caught sight of me, that he’d turned and run away. At the time, I remembered thinking maybe he didn’t like strangers but when I’d woken up and seen how much blood had soaked into Trigg’s sheets, I’d realized it was probably the smell of that much blood on me that made the kitten take refuge under the bed.

I glanced over at the ruined mattress once more, deciding then and there to offer to buy a new one. I hated the very idea of him falling asleep on it, even with clean sheets. When I’d woken up lying on Trigg’s pillow, I’d caught the scent of sandalwood with just a hint of citrus. I confess, I’d deliberately turned my head—the only thing I could do without hurting too much to breathe—and inhaled his scent. The unmade bed he’d laid me down in hadn’t smelled of sex, something I would have understood, since I’d guessed Trigg was single. It hadn’t smelled of sweat or dirty, old socks, which I was sure I could recognize from my years as the dorm roomie of a jock, who stunk all the time.

Fortunately, my roomie, Nate, had a girlfriend who washed out his jockstraps at her place, so any temptation to sniff them after a match—had I been the freakish stalker type—never came into question. Nate was still a good friend who gave me endless grief over why I wasn’t yet coupled up like he was when he’d married Gloriana, the love of his life, last June. I’d proudly stood at the altar with Nate as his best man as she’d walked down the aisle. Gloriana was—true to her namesake—glorious that day, gowned in flowing satin and lace, and Nate had burst into tears after they kissed. My boy—still one of my best friends—and his bride had been so happy and the wedding so sweet. Nate hadn’t even objected to wearing a crown of flowers in his hair as long as she did the same.

I smiled, thinking about my close ties and wondered how many close ties Trigg had. He was a Marine…a Recon Marine. I yawned and then shifted Stanley to one arm and reached for my phone which lay on the bedside table, wincing only a little as I retrieved it, and called up the U.S. Marine Corps home page on Google. I read that Military Recon MOS (short for Military Occupational Specialty, I learned) was a term used to describea wide range of jobs. There were more categories than I could possibly imagine and as I read over them, my feeling of curiosity finally ebbed…as sleep clouded all else and I drifted off.

TRIGG

I walked into the apartment after midnight carrying my basket of clean sheets and looked over at my easy chair. Raven was sleeping, clutching his phone with one hand, and still cradling Stanley with the other. He looked beautiful in sleep, and I took a few seconds to admire him even though I’d done that once today already. He had perfect features, as if carved out of marble or rock. I thought he would have made the perfect model for any Greco-Roman sculptor of the day. If he’d been alive during the Italian Renaissance, I would have bet money that had Bernini or Michelangelo found him, they’d have used him as a model. Raven Mathis was a perfect male specimen and a man who’d never in a million years have looked at me twice, if we hadn’t been rivals on these two cases.

I grunted in displeasure as I remembered the mail I’d collected from the community mailbox downstairs while I’d waited for my sheets to dry. I set down the basket of sheets and then pulled the envelopes from my back pocket. Most were bills and late notices…one from my cell carrier, another from the DWP—the Department of Water and Power—a red notice. They were informing me that my electricity and water would be shut off this coming Friday if my seventy-nine-dollar bill wasn’t paid.

I set the pile of bills down on the counter, not ready to deal with all that crap at the moment, thanking God that my other utility—gas—was included in my rent payment. Worst of all, my landlord had sent me a notice that they were holding off eviction proceedings for back rent if I would vacate my apartment in thenext ten days and promising that all costs would be paid by me if I lost any appeal in court, which I most surely would.

I thought about a job Jamie had offered me with a big payday. I’d turned it down in favor of Gemma Monroe’s prosthetic retrieval. But at this point, I knew I’d have no choice but to take it…if Jamie hadn’t already assigned it to another fugitive retrieval agent who’d already snatched it up. This one came with a whopping sixty-thousand dollar payday which meant I’d walk away with twelve grand after Jamie took his cut. The reason I’d turned it down was because of the fugitive himself.

At six-four, I was a big man, but this guy was a beast. At nearly six-nine and well over 300 pounds, taking him into custody wasn’t going to be easy. He was a longshoreman who Jamie had found working down at the Port of Long Beach under an assumed name. He was accustomed to lifting crates that routinely weighed half his own body weight and since longshoremen were unionized, I could only assume he was also a bully. So much of a bully that a legit longshoreman wouldn’t be willing to confront him or turn him in to their bosses. To top it all off, the guy had been a meth head, and probably still was. His drug test results weren’t in the file, and I wondered if his parole officer hadn’t pushed the issue. Ihatedmeth heads. They were unpredictable as hell and incredibly dangerous when they were tweaking. If he was loaded when I went to arrest him, he would fight me like hell and even if he wasn’t, there was still a better than average chance I’d get hurt.

I looked over at Raven who slept peacefully. If he was in any shape to help, I might have just asked him to ride along with me. It would be better to have half a recovery fee than nothing at all. Any way I sliced it, I’d have to go see Jamie in the morning and explain what happened with Gemma’s boobs and then throw myself at his mercy to try to get some work out of him.

I sighed and grabbed the clean sheets to make the bed. Stanley woke up as I walked over, lifting his head, and blinking several times before putting it back on his paws. Raven didn’t even stir. I finished making the bed and stood over him, looking down at the man. If I didn’t need the chair to sleep in, I wouldn’t disturb him at all. It’d be rude to take the bed after all the effort I’d taken to make him more comfortable on clean sheets. Lord knows, I’d slept in much worse places.

“Raven,” I said, leaning down. “Wake up, Raven.” He didn’t stir, so I reached for his phone, starting to slide it free from his hand. His eyes popped open as his fist tightened around it, almost like a reflex.

“Trigg?” He blinked several times as if he was trying to remember where he was.

“Yeah, it’s me.” I straightened. “Sorry to wake you. I was trying to move your phone so I could get you into bed.” I felt my face redden as I tried to claw the words back. Too late. He sent me a lazy, sleepy smile filled with so much sensuality it made me weak in the knees. He looked down at his phone and when its facial recognition software turned it on, I was shocked to see it open to the Marine Corps section of a page showing what looked like a job description for Recon Marines. Before I could be a 1000 percent sure, he clicked the button on the side and the screen went dark. But it was too late. I’d seen what I’d seen. While I was out doing laundry, apparently Raven had been doing a little research on me. It was the only reason he’d have that page open.

“You could have just asked, you know,” I said, pointing down at the phone and then holding my arms wide. “I’m an open book.”

“You conceited piece of crap,” he said, gazing up at me. “How do you know it had anything to do with you?”

I smirked at him. “It did. You’re curious about me and why wouldn’t you be? I’m kind of awesome.”

“You’rekindof a gas bag.”

I laughed.

Stanley stood up, having been woken by our conversation, and arched his back before jumping to the ground and toddling off in the direction of the kitchen where his food and water bowls were.

“He’s a total doll,” Raven said, nodding to the kitten’s swaying butt.

I smiled, realizing almost too late that I’d been doing a lot of that since this morning when I’d seen Raven for the first time in six months. I wasn’t so sure I liked it. “Yeah, he is a cute little guy.” Raven sat forward and I saw him wince. “Here,” I said, holding out both hands. “Let me help you get into bed and then I want to take another look at those bandages.” He was still bare-chested even though I’d given him a pair of sleeping pants. It had occurred to me that I should have offered him one of my T-shirts since we were almost the same size, but just getting him into it might have caused him more pain.