TAKE ME HOME (12 page)

No one spoke. Their faces gave nothing away.

They all sat so still they looked dead.

Kyle dropped the journal to his lap. That’s it.

He grabbed his backpack and slid out his laptop. He turned it on, opened a blank document, and began typing.

They were all dead.

I had thought seeing a dead body was bad. Seeing five, all posed around a poker table with cards in their hands like they’d expired in the middle of a game, was beyond bad.

There were no bullet wounds, no slashes where a knife had decimated their arteries. No signs of a struggle anywhere in the room. All their eyes were open.

It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. And I’d seen some creepy shit in the past two years.

I wanted to turn around, sprint out the door, and phone the police, but I couldn’t. It was like I was witnessing something important, and my body knew better than to run away. This was the ultimate accident along the road for a guy like me, and I didn’t want to miss the details.

Evan stepped out of the bathroom, and Kyle halted his typing. Evan was squinting, his right eye squeezed shut.

“What’s up with your eyes?”

“I lost my contact lens.”

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“Just now?”

“Yeah. It was bugging me, so I rinsed it off and then dropped it.”

“Let me look for you.” Kyle set his laptop aside and went to the bathroom.

“Forget it.” Evan sat on the bench and pulled out papers from his bag. “It’s gone.”

“I can give it a try.” Kyle squatted for a better view of the tiny sink. He ran his hand gently along the surface. Nothing.

“I said don’t bother. It’s not worth your time.” Evan sounded angry, frustrated.

Kyle poked his head out of the bathroom. “It’s not a bother. I want to try.” Their gazes locked. Were they talking about a contact lens? He wasn’t about to ask. When had he become such a coward? But the idea that Evan would push him away again had his confidence waning. He returned to his search for the contact. Five minutes later, he had to give up. He left the bathroom. “I can’t find it. Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Evan was still doing a funny blinking thing, trying to read his papers.

“Do you have another pair?”

“I thought I packed them, but I can’t find the case.” He squinted and held the papers closer to his face.

“Put your glasses on.”

“I hate wearing them.” Evan scrunched up his forehead, then went back to reading. And squinting.

Kyle grabbed Evan’s bag and searched through it. He pulled out the glasses case and handed it to Evan. “Put them on.”

It took a minute of Kyle standing there with the case held out between them before Evan finally reached for it. He removed the remaining contact lens and slipped on the glasses. Kyle sank to the other end of the bench. He had forgotten how damn sexy Evan looked in his glasses.

He hadn’t been wearing them at all around Kyle. Not since he’d moved in.

“Dennis said I should get new ones. He said these make me look too geeky.” Sounded like something Dickhead would say.

“You look hot.”

Evan wouldn’t look at him.

“What did you see in him? I mean he’s fucking gorgeous, but—”

“Don’t.”

“I know he’s not a horrible guy, but he was nowhere near good enough for you.”

“Kyle, just…don’t, please.”

He still loves him.

Evan went back to his reading, and Kyle tried to ignore the churning in his gut. He wanted Evan to be happy, to have everything he deserved. What if that was Dickhead?

He spotted his grandpa’s journal on the table and reached for his laptop again. He didn’t give it much thought. He put his fingers to the keyboard and let the words flow.

The poker game victims had been murdered, and Mac had to find out why and who had done the deed.

Kyle had work to do.

Take Me Home

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Ten pages in, Kyle stopped typing. Out the window, an open field sped by, row after row of alfalfa, then an orchard with trees he couldn’t name, another flat field, then evenly spaced houses in a subdivision beyond that in the distance. “Hey, we’re moving.” Evan laughed. “I told you that an hour ago. How did you not feel the train moving? Or hear the horn at every intersection?”

“I guess I did, but I was too focused to pay attention.”

“I saw that. I knew this would be a good idea.”

“It was.” Kyle picked up the leather journal and waved it in the air. “I’ve had a little inspiration too.” He wanted to read more of his grandpa’s words, wished the old man was there for him to talk to. To ask about that poker game. About the man named Joe and what had happened between them. “Hey. You got those small sticky notes?”

“What?” Evan asked.

“The ones you use for marking your scripts. Did you bring some with you?”

“Sure.” Evan dug in his bag and handed over a small pad of yellow paper. “What are you doing?”

“I want to make notes.” And I want to ask my dead grandpa some questions. He didn’t want to admit that. Evan would get it, but Kyle had never been one for sharing the personal stuff.

Not even with Evan.

“What kind of notes?” Evan asked.

“My reactions to stuff. Things I want to come back to later.” Evan slid closer. “Are there clues about a treasure?”

“Not yet. I haven’t read very far, though.”

“You’ll have time. After you get your pages done.” Evan sat back but didn’t move as far away as he’d been sitting before. “I’ll let you write more, or read, whichever you want to do.” He should be doing both, but all Kyle could think about now that Evan had moved closer was everything they hadn’t had a chance to do yet, every place on Evan’s body he hadn’t had a chance to run his tongue yet.

He wanted to say fuck Dickhead and make another move. See if Evan would continue with what he’d been doing in the cab. See if he’d meet Kyle halfway like Lorrie said.

Before he could move, Evan stood, rolled the pages he’d been reading, and shoved them into his back pocket. “I’m going to go check out the observation car. Make a few calls. See if I can find out what American Treasures is working on.”

“You think that’s common knowledge?”

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“No, but I know someone I can ask. You remember Roy? I went to school with him. The one who told me about the screenwriting contest. He’s an assistant producer in the reality show division. He might know something. Or he might know who to ask.”

“Ev”—Kyle took a moment to find the right words—“no matter what the journal says, I have no intention of giving it to anyone. He trusted me with his secrets.”

“I know. You should at least know why they want it.” Evan turned to leave.

“Thanks, Ev. For everything.”

Evan hesitated a moment at the door. He nodded and left.

There was still something he wasn’t saying. About Hastings and the journal. Or maybe what had happened between the two of them. Maybe about Dickhead.

One thing Kyle had always been good at was getting Evan to talk. Did he want to hear it this time?

“Are you telling me you don’t know anything or you can’t tell me anything?” Evan was seated in the middle of the upper deck of the observation car, trying to keep his voice low so he wouldn’t bother the handful of other people nearby enjoying the panoramic view via bench-style seats facing the wall of windows on each side of the car. The train was passing through the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas, and the oversize windows made it seem like there wasn’t anything between the seats and the wilderness beyond. “I’m telling you the truth,” Roy said. “The network keeps a tight lid on that show. No one not directly involved has a clue what each episode is about until the promos air.”

“But you know something.” Evan had heard it in Roy’s voice the minute he’d explained he was trying to find out what projects were currently in development for American Treasures.

“Just a rumor. It sounded ridiculous, so I never believed it.”

“A rumor about what?”

Roy didn’t respond.

“Say it. About me, right?”

Another moment of silence, then Roy said, “When your script was selected as one of the finalists, I overheard some talk you were a shoo-in to win the contest.” Evan swallowed around the lump in his throat, knowing what was coming but needing to ask anyway. “Why?”

“They said you had a connection to American Treasures, and the network was going to guarantee your cooperation.”`

“By what? Fixing the competition? Giving me the job?”

“I doubt that’s the case, but yeah, that’s the rumor I heard.” With the visit from Hastings on the same day Kyle had received the journal, Evan had no doubt the rumor was true. He felt like someone had punched him in the gut harder than the asshole who’d broken into Kyle’s apartment had hit him with the bat. He couldn’t come up with a response. It was like he was free-falling, like he’d been shoved out an airplane without a parachute, and his brain didn’t want to accept the inevitable.

“Listen,” Roy said, “I have a friend who might know more. She was an assistant with the show until last week when Hastings fired her. She admitted to me she was pissed about the Take Me Home

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tactics she’d been forced to resort to for the show, and when she spoke up at a meeting, she was fired the next day. The official reason was incompetence, but there’s nothing incompetent about Amy.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“I can’t guarantee she’ll say anything to you. Like all of us, she signed a confidentiality agreement with her contract.”

“Can you give me her number?”

“I’ll give her a call. If she’s willing to talk to you, I’ll have her call you.”

“I appreciate that.”

They exchanged good-byes, and Evan hung up.

It was snowing now. Large flakes stuck to the pine trees and uneven terrain. He’d been looking forward to the cool weather, to seeing everything in Liberty Falls covered in a layer of white. He loved passing through the dozens of Christmas tree farms that made up the perimeter of the community. He loved the moment they drove into town and spotted the first of the two-foot-tall lighted stars hanging on every streetlamp and the engine at the local fire department decorated in Christmas lights and flanked by plastic light-up reindeer.

The view outside the train was breathtaking, more beautiful than his memories of Liberty Falls, but he was too numb to enjoy it.

A man bent forward and rested his elbows along the back of the seat beside Evan. He let out a long whistle. “It’s really coming down. I didn’t think this area got much snow.” He was a big guy with a deep voice and forearms as large as Evan’s calves. He had short gray hair and moved with a precision that reminded Evan of the cop who’d given a guest lecture during his Writing the Dramatic Series course at USC.

“They’re officially calling it a blizzard south of Truckee,” another man said from the far end of the car. “Supposed to be the nastiest one in a long time. Been snowing there for days. The weather forecast said the worst will stay south of our route, but my guess is that’s changing as we speak.”

“We’re going to go through a blizzard?” Evan asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” the large gray-haired man next to him said. “A little snow doesn’t stop the train.”

“Good.” He just wanted to get to Ohio. To forget about Hastings, the job, everything except seeing his mom and celebrating Christmas.

And Kyle.

He wanted to believe Kyle was ready for something to happen between them, desperately wanted to trust Kyle’s words, his touches. He was so close to having what he’d dreamed of for years, he wasn’t sure he could keep away no matter the inevitable outcome. That was the only way to explain why he’d reached for Kyle in the cab.

Evan’s phone rang.

“Excuse me,” he said to the man still watching out the window. He stood and headed to the end of the walkway but stopped short of pushing the button to enter the vestibule between cars where the squeak and clank of the train would be too loud to hear.

He leaned against the wall at the end of the line of seats and stared out at the snowy ground along the tracks, which looked like it was moving past them at a rush instead of the other way 62

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around, reminding him of his life lately: out of his control and not at all what he thought it’d be.

He answered his phone.

“Evan? This is Amy, Roy’s friend. He said you wanted to speak with me.”

“Thank you for calling so quickly. You used to work on American Treasures?”

“Yes, but I’m not at liberty to discuss the show.”

Right. If she didn’t want to talk, she wouldn’t have called. She was probably aching to bad-mouth her old bosses. He said, “I know they fired you because you expressed concern with how the show was being run. I’m being blackmailed. A friend of mine has information they need.”

She said nothing for a moment, then let out a long sigh. “I’ll deny it if anyone asks if I talked to you. I don’t need to get sued over this.”

“I won’t mention your name.”

“I know about your job offer. I know about your roommate, Kyle Bennett. About the book they’re after. All of it. It’s why I was fired.”

Evan gave up on the snow-covered ground and let his gaze settle on his reflection in the glass. He recognized the disappointed look. He’d seen it too many times lately. “What do you mean?”

“The network has been making payments to an assistant at an Ohio law firm for two years.

Three months ago, I was given her name when someone else left the show. I was to be the assistant’s new contact. Only I never knew what she’d be contacting me about. Last week she called me to say the package was being delivered. When I pushed her for more information, she told me the whole story.”

When Amy didn’t continue, Evan said, “I’m listening.”

“All right. A man at the network approached her two years ago. He bribed her into telling him about the estate of a deceased veteran named Victor Bennett. The network knew there was a book that was not part of the rest of the estate. She told the man she’d seen a book labeled with Mr. Bennett’s name in the law firm’s safe and that it was going to be delivered to his grandson sometime in the future. She didn’t know when. The network paid her every month so she’d tell them as soon as she knew when that package was set to be delivered.”