Dirty Secret (29 page)

There was a coffee set on the heavily carved wooden table set up near a pair of French looking davenports. A silver urn steamed a fragrant promise of nicely roasted and brewed beans, while a tempting array of dainty cakes glistened on a plate nearby.

Poking at one of the frothy concoctions with a fork, I asked, “If I eat one of these, I won’t suddenly shoot up into the chimney, and have to kick a lizard named Bill to get out of here, right?”

“Please excuse Cole. He’s missed dinner. It makes him cranky.” Jae gave Wong a look that would have done a basset hound proud, and sat down. He poured a cup of coffee for himself and lifted the urn slightly toward Wong. “Coffee?”

“Please,” he smiled. “Thanks.”

I didn’t like his smile.

To be fair, I’d had great sex with my lover, then gone to rescue the Seong Prince errant only to have him chuck up his drinking binge down my boxers, and now a Chinese guy with a wedding ring was smiling at my boyfriend. And yes, I’d missed dinner. That tended to make me cranky, but I was mollified when Jae passed the full coffee cup over to me, then poured himself and Wong one.

I was easily mollified. Jae’s wicked side smirk at me didn’t hurt.

“What was all the police action for? David wasn’t gone twenty-four hours yet.” I picked at a piece of cake. It was green and had some sort of nut shaving on top. I waited until Wong was taking a sip of his coffee before I pecked at a bit of it and put it on my tongue. It was not too sweet, and kind of creamy.

I had no fucking clue what flavor it was supposed to be. So I handed it to Jae and went for something brown. In most worlds, brown meant chocolate. Maybe coffee. So my odds were good it was something I’d recognize.

“Mrs. Seong informed me you know about her son’s relationship with a South Korean officer named Choi.” Wong flipped through his notepad.

“Choi Yong-Kun,” I confirmed. “David told Jae-Min… that’s a lot of hearsay. He should probably tell you himself.”

“Why don’t you both start with where you were from about three this afternoon to when you arrived here at eight?” Wong suggested.

“Um, we were at the office running down some contacts,” I started, tracing our movements from the florist to the hospital and then back home. Jae frowned a little when I said we were hanging out while he was making dinner, but I kept it clean enough for Wong’s purposes.

“That’s when Park called you?” he asked. “You, specifically, Mr. McGinnis?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “But he sounded drunk, and I don’t speak Korean, so I handed the phone to Jae.”

Jae relayed what David told him over the phone about being forbidden to attend his fiancée’s funeral service, and then the discovery of Choi’s body. Jae looked perplexed. “He seemed to think that everything was over now, but it didn’t make sense, because from what David-sshi told me, it sounded like Choi Yoon-Kun was murdered.”

“He was,” Wong confirmed. “A patrolman was alerted to the presence of Choi’s body and immediately shut down the area where his car was found. I don’t have anyone able to place David Park in the area, but four hours ago, his family contacted us with concerns about his safety following a conversation he had with a Mr. Sang-Min Kwon, his fiancée’s father.”

“Yeah, I know Kwon.” I rumbled. “Kind of an asshole.”

“Unfortunately, that isn’t enough of a reason to kill someone these days.” Wong clucked in concern as I choked on the piece of cake in my mouth.

“What about Kwon?” Jae sat forward, cocking his head at Wong. “What happened to Kwon?”

“Around two hours ago, Sang-Min Kwon was found staked to the front lawn of this residence. At the time of discovery, he was still mostly engulfed in flames, most likely fueled by an accelerant of some sort. So I’m going to have to ask both of you, where were you two hours ago, and can you help confirm David Park’s whereabouts for that time? Or are we going to all be taking a trip down to the station?”

“
F
UCK
me,” I whispered under my breath, and Jae sighed, resigned to my coarse, uncouth ways. He pursed his lips when I looked his way. “What?”

“I forgot to feed the cat,” Jae grumbled at me. “And it’s stupid that I’m worried about that right now.”

“It’s not stupid,” I argued. “The cat’s evil. She could be having Thai food delivered right now and charging it to my card. Kwon’s dead, and so is Choi. Who the hell are we going to blame this crap on now?”

“I don’t know,” Scarlet replied softly. “I just want this all to stop.”

We’d been moved from the overly pretentious formal room to a more breathable family space. Scarlet joined us, and the cakes were replaced with a heartier offering of sandwich triangles. They were only heartier if someone were Scarlet’s size. Even in Jae’s long fingered, slender hands, they looked like play food made by a three-year-old.

I ate four of them and tried not to look like I wanted to graze over the rest like some mad cow.

Scarlet picked up another two and put them on my plate, and patted my knee consolingly. “Eat. You’re starting to lose your color.”

I took my time chewing, trying to make the tidbits last longer. Jae sacrificed two of his triangles to me, and I tried to be manly, refusing them with a shake of my head. He leaned over to kiss me and shoved them into my mouth.

“What happened to being careful about someone seeing us?” I mumbled through the crumbly cheddar.

“No one’s here,” Jae said, but he and Scarlet exchanged a look. “And right now, I’m too tired to care.”

I slid over to his side of the couch, reaching behind him to rub between his shoulders. “Hey, they’ll let us out of here soon. We’ll go home. I’ll get us some real food, and we can just chill.”

“Someone set him on fucking fire, Cole,” he ground out. “The same guy who probably shot at you set Kwon on fire. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”

“I’m going to leave you two to talk this out.” Scarlet was a master at subtle exits. Picking up the dirty dishes, she was out of the room before either one of us could blink. She shut the door behind her, and we were alone.

“Great, now I’ve chased
nuna
away. Fuck,” Jae swore, and threw himself back into the couch. Grabbing a small bolster, he winged it full force into the wall, saying something in Korean that needed very little translating.

“You didn’t chase her away,” I said. “She loves you.”

The room faced the backyard, a gloomy affair of hedges, classic marble statues, and overgrown roses. There was no light on outside, and the soft illumination from the lamp on the table next to us gave us enough light to see one another. I pulled myself closer, mindful of any more flying pillows. I reached for his hand, but he wavered, refusing to let me touch him. Finally, I grabbed him, wrapping fingers around his.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said slowly. “I’m not going to let myself be set on fire, and I’m not going to let myself get shot to death.”

“Yeah, like you’ve been good at that so far?” he snapped back. “You’ve been shot more times than anyone else I know.
Aish
! Can’t you dodge at least
one
of them? How many more people need to die around us? Who’s next? Scarlet? Bobby? Mike?”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” I countered. “We didn’t cause
any
of this, and I sure as hell didn’t
ask
to get shot.”

“Cole, you can’t even avoid vomit,” Jae sighed.

“Babe, if I’d known he was going to throw up, I’d have tossed him right out of the car before we even got here. We’re going to have to ride home in that car. Did you think I wanted to smell that all the way back?”

“When is this going to stop?” He didn’t sound angry, more resigned to the nonsense around us.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Soon? Maybe? I don’t know, Jae.”

“Is it always like this around you?” He waved his hand in the air. I could have pretended not to understand him, but I knew he meant the chaos that seemed to follow me everywhere I went. “Does it have to be so crazy?”

“Yeah, pretty much. Life gets shitty sometimes.” Pressing in, I maneuvered him against the couch arm, reminding him of the hour we’d spent before David imploded our evening. He shifted a bit, uncomfortably so, and I grinned, knowing he could still feel the stretch of me on his body. Leaning forward, I ghosted a kiss over his lips. “But it’s good too, right?”

He returned my kiss with a hotter intent, sucking my lower lip into his mouth and tugging on it. Taking one last nibble, he whispered, “Sometimes.”

I carded my fingers through his soft hair and pulled his head closer until our foreheads touched. “I’ll take care of this, Jae. We’ll see this through, and it’ll be fine. It’s just… a bit crazy right now, but it can’t be this way forever.”

“What happens when the crazy stops, and all you’re left with is me?” His tongue darted across his upper lip, and I chased it with my mouth, catching the tip before it disappeared again.

“If all I’m left with is you,” I murmured. “Then I’m going to die a happy man.”

“Just die an old, happy man,” he grumbled, and bit the end of my nose. “Or I’m just going to finish you off myself with a pillow.”

“Ah, you frighten me,” I teased.

“You should be scared.” Jae smirked. “I’m going to fill your mouth with kim chee paste and duct tape it shut,
then
smother you with a pillow.”

“So you’ve thought about this?”

“No, that’s off the top of my head,” Jae replied airily. “Imagine what I could come up with if I had time to think about it.”

“Very frightening,” I asserted. I slid my hand down to the back of his neck, cupping him lightly. “Bring it, baby.”

We kissed.

It was sweet and slow. In the dark of a single light with the world raining down around us, it was a promise of a starry night once the clouds cleared.

Damn, I wanted a lifetime of those kisses.

“I’ll wait for this, you know,” I whispered when we came up for air. My mouth was barely on his, and our lips touched then broke apart as I spoke. “For this. For you.”

“Suppose it’s too long?” He closed his eyes and turned his head, resting his temple on my forehead. “Suppose….”

“I intend to die a happy old man, remember.” I stroked at his nape, making him sigh. “I’m not sure I’m going to be as happy waiting for you as I’m going to be actually having you, but I’m willing to find out,
jagiya
.”

His eyes flew open, and he stared at me in mild shock. “Who taught you that word?”

“Huh.” I pursed my lips and stood, pulling him up with me. “Guess I know a little bit more Korean than you thought.”

Chapter Twenty

L
OS
A
NGELES
in the pouring rain is a miserable place.

People forget how to drive, someone at Metro arbitrarily decides to send out only the buses that break down in the middle of the street, and more importantly, the city apparently bought its traffic lights at a garage sale, because as soon as there is the slightest hint of moisture in the air, they start blinking purple.

Goddamn light trees don’t even
have
a purple, but they were certainly doing their fucking best to blink it.

When I’d agreed to meet Yeu in Koreatown, there hadn’t been a whisper of an incoming storm. If I’d known, I’d have suggested we drive up to San Francisco to have dim sum at Hang Ah. It would have taken me less time to drive there than it did to get down Wilshire.

Parking was crap. I finally gave up looking for something on the street and went into the four-story garage across the street from the restaurant. The light on Sixth and Kenmore was out, so it was a quick game of
Frogger
through the crowd and the rain to reach the hole-in-the-wall eatery. I’d been there before with Jae. They made a pancake with kim chee I used to be suspicious of, but now it was something I looked forward to.

Jae also picked out any eyeballs from my food before I looked at it.

I was man enough to know my limitations. Eyeballs, when not attached to a human being, and staring back up at me from my food, counted as a limitation. I also didn’t like tongues, but on a shrimp those were harder to see. When one restaurant gave me a whole fish as panchan, Jae just took the head while I pretended to study the décor.

The décor sucked. The fish, however, was great.

I realized when I got to the restaurant tucked into the corner of the strip mall, I had
no
idea what Brandon Yeu looked like. The place was half-empty, caught between the lunch and dinner crowds, and the storm probably kept everyone but the die-hard eaters away. When I entered, a trim, distinguished Korean man stood up at one of the back tables and waved me over.

He didn’t look like the type of guy people imagined at a gay bathhouse raid, but then those kinds of guys also usually found their jollies elsewhere. Attractive and fit, Yeu was a little shorter than me with wiry, muscular arms. He had a natural tan, and laugh lines around his brown eyes. He’d come to our meeting in slacks and a button-up shirt, rolling the sleeves back to expose a thick leather-banded watch on his wrist. The gold band on his ring finger was scuffed a bit, definitely not a new piece of jewelry, but it still glinted when he extended his hand.