Touching Evil (12 page)

The man's voice was deep, knowing. "He does indeed. Do your job, Virginia, dear."

"Oh, I will. I will. I. Uh. I don't suppose you want to meet in
person?" Something so she could get more from her mysterious source.

"I most definitely want to meet in person, dear. I'll call tomorrow."

"But ... I..."

The phone went dead and Virginia scribbled in her awkward shorthand
everything she'd learned over the last three days about Greg Pearsall,
the book store he owned, the crimes he'd helped the Raleigh PD solve.
Wicked. Now she could blow the case open. She had a nickname. The
Collector.

And that cunt in the anchor chair said she'd never be more than a glorified weathergirl. Fuck that.

She grabbed the phone book. New Age. New Age. Come on, she knew it had to be in there.

Artie went back to the precinct and Greg started cleaning.

He closed the shop, he took the phone off the hook, he called the
household supply place, and he started working. He steamed the carpets
and bleached the walls. Had Mitch take everything out of his office and
sent away. The windows, the cash register, the stairs—if he
couldn't make it clean, he made it empty so that girl's screams
couldn't find him.

Once the downstairs was done, he started with his loft. Laundry,
floors, sinks, light fixtures—all cleaned. Dishes soaked in
boiling bleach water. The music blared, and he had every light on.

That
thing
could not have his house.

Not.

Even the phone was cleaned. Which was a good thing, as it rang as
soon as he put the handset on the cradle, startling him into a near
panic.

He blinked, looked at it like it was a snake. Poisonous.

He picked it up, ready to tear it from the wall and throw it if the voice on the other end was ... unfriendly.

"What?"

"Hey." He sagged a little. Artie. "I was just—Well, I, uh. How are you?"

"Cleaning." Not sleeping. Panicking. Worrying. Normal stuff. "You?"

"I was just thinking about you, is all." Worrying, wondering,
getting brain waves. Artie did that, called him when he was right at
the edge of locking himself in the bathroom for a year.

"I'm here. I only have the outside stairs left to do. I'm doing them tonight."

"I'll come down. I don't like you out there alone." No, Artie wouldn't like that, as protective and stubborn as he was.

He nodded. "Are you sure?"

Yes, Artie. Please. It's ... it's so
empty
.

"Yeah. Leah and I, well, we've got a ton of pictures to go through,
and she said she'd take them home. Mug shots for that deadly assault
last week. She doesn't mind." Artie laughed, a little hollow over the
phone. "Besides, the cap says your thing is a priority."

"My thing? You need a nap, Artie, you sound tired." He wasn't sleeping. Never again.

"It's been a long day. Your case, Greg. The last package elevated it to a murder case for sure."

"Yes. Yes. I know. I. I can't think about that right now. I can't. I'm sorry."

"I know, babe. I know. Look, let me come by after this shift. Wait
to clean until then. Promise me." So sure. So demanding. It was
comforting in a way.

"I promise. No going outside. You'll use your key?"

"Yes. Don't you dare leave it unlocked." There was a hint of humor at last, Artie chuckling.

"No. If you want me, you'll have to come in and find me." He actually smiled, really smiled.

"I will. Give me an hour or so. I'll come." Artie always came. Always.

"I'll be here. Making the bed." Cleaning. Hiding.

Sort of like always.

His eyes were so tired they were blurry. Artie had to try the key
three times, but he made it finally, stumbling into Greg's place,
blinking hard at the overwhelming smell of bleach.

"Greg?"

"In the kitchen." God, the place was spotless, painfully so. He
walked in on Greg scrubbing the ceiling tiles, arms and hands raw and
lobstered, the entire room sparkling.

"You think it might be clean?" God, his head started throbbing, his nose twitching.

"I hope so. I want it to." Greg looked down at him, eyes blood-shot and shadowed. Exhausted. "I didn't clean outside."

"Good. How about I do it? I know I'm a slob, but my momma taught me
to scrub." Fuck if he wanted Greg to get more blistered than he was.

"You look so tired." Greg blinked at him, the motion so slow Artie thought he could hear the click. "The bed is clean."

"Yeah? We can clean the outside. Later. I want you to wash off the
bleach, though." His own head was spinning. "You're all blistered."

The rag dropped, those poor hands upturned toward him. "I didn't want to feel him anymore, Artie."

"Oh, babe." Artie grabbed Greg, raw hamburger skin and all, pulling
him over and wrapping around him. "I wish I knew why this was happening
to you."

Greg nodded, curling in with a little sigh. "I know. I do, too. I do, too."

He stroked Greg's hair, humming, his eyes closing. God, it felt good to stop. Just to stop going.

He got another nod. "Yes. Yes. I don't think I can sleep, but I can rest. You can sleep."

"We'll try it. Come on, babe." He was so tired. He should be
starving, but the thought of food made him kinda nauseated. He pulled
Greg toward the bed, his brain on autopilot.

The bed was covered in white sheets, white blankets. "No food. I'll hold you."

"Okay." He hoped Greg would sleep. Maybe they should go to his place after they had a little nap. Maybe Greg could sleep there.

"Duke would like that." Greg started undressing him, head bowed. "Tell me what happens next."

"I don't know. We have to start." Looking into your past. Digging up all your ghosts. Artie sighed.

Greg blinked, stepped away from him. "Why? I didn't do this."

"I know." Damn, sometimes that touch worked against him. "It's just, where else do we start?" He spread his hand helplessly.

"I don't want people looking at me. I don't like people looking at
me. Calling me." The panicked look was creeping in. He knew it.

"No. Not going to be calling you. It's a standard background check.
Has anyone in your life ever gone to jail, or set a cat on fire. It's
okay." It was invasive as hell, but not directly. They wouldn't
talk
to Greg.

"No?" Greg searched his eyes, but didn't reach for him. "They ...
they should ask Duke. Duke would know if there were cat haters."

"Duke knows all." He wanted Greg to touch him, to see how he'd
protect him from all of it if he could. No way was he gonna push it,
though. Never. "Maybe we should sleep in the chair?"

"Yeah. Then food. Then your house. I want to go be at your house for
a while." Greg grabbed his wrist, so cute and pouty and ... "I am not
petulant."

"I said pouty." Or thought it. God. Relief surged through him. "My
house. Sounds good. We might even eat. Let your place air out."

The chair looked the same. Inviting.

"I don't have to clean it. You're sunk all in it. Your chair." Greg
sounded almost drunk. "Your chair. God, my head hurts. Lemon-scented
bleach sucks."

"Yeah. Yeah, but it's better than old Clorox." They flopped down.
Somewhere he had a thought that they should vent the place or
something. But he was too damned sleepy to carry through, just curling
up with Greg, wrapping around him.

"Shh. No dreams. No dreams. Sleeping. No dreams."

"Okay. Okay, no dreams, babe. Sleep." Yeah. Sleep. Artie sank into it like a stone in water. Sleep.

The rest would just have to wait.

They hadn't napped long, the smell of the house too overwhelming, so
Greg had let Artie pack him a bag for a couple of nights and they'd
headed to the little apartment and Duke. It was actually comforting,
sitting on Artie's sofa with Duke curled in close, listening to Artie
order pizza. Listening to Artie just sort of thrum all around him.

"You okay?" Artie had hung up, and Greg hadn't even noticed. Both Artie and Duke were kind of purring.

"Better now." He was leaning, able to smile, to relax, finally. He should have asked to come earlier.

A kiss was his reward for that. "Good. Smells better here."

"Smells like you." Duke started kneading dough on his leg, blue eye rolling. "What kind of pizza did you get?"

"I got two. One with fresh tomatoes and mushrooms, and one Noah's Ark." What a name for an all meat pizza. Artie loved it.

"Sounds good." He leaned to nuzzle Artie's jaw, just breathe a
minute. He could feel Artie's conflict—the need to work mixed
with the need to stop and rest.

"Yeah. Yeah, it'll be ... I need some food. So do you." Artie leaned
a little harder, hand moving on his hip, just idly stroking. "Rough
week."

It came out as a sort of half snort, half chuckle.

"Yes. Truly shitty." He kissed again, humming. "Who is looking into
my past? Leah? I mean, I was a professor. I fell down. I was in a coma.
I bought a book store."

"It's Leah, yeah. She's good." Artie paused, and he heard the wheels
spinning. "I don't expect we'll find anything. But if a former
colleague has gone nutso or something, it will be something to go on."

"I guess. I mean, biology professors aren't known for their rages."

"I know. But there has to be something." Something to explain why it
was him, because Artie didn't want it to be random, he wanted something
they could trace, and where was that damned pizza?

"It's coming. You'll find it. You will." Sudden flashes of one
unsolved case after another flooded him, the information just pouring
in.

"I hope so." A sigh lifted his cheek where it rested on Artie's chest. "So. You want to take Duke on in checkers?"

He nodded, pushing himself upright, fingers brushing Artie's pen, a
flash of the precinct office hitting him, the missing girls on the
walls. "The second one on the right."

"Huh?" Halfway up off the couch, Artie turned back to stare at him. "What where?"

He reached for the pen, held it. "On the wall. By the light switch.
The second one near the top. With the blue dress. She's one. And the
coffee smells horrible and ... there's something missing. Somebody took
something and you noticed and forgot."

"Took something." Now Artie was back, kneeling in front of him,
hands hovering but not touching. "From my office? From the scene? What?"

He shook his head. "Something you saw. You wondered, for a second and then forgot. Somebody
took
it."

"Damn. I wish I knew. So the girl. She's the one you saw the first night?"

"Yes. I couldn't see her before, not straight from the photo, but you were sitting down."

"Okay. Okay, what else, babe? Anything?" There were no leading questions; Artie was grasping at straws now.

"No ... Your notebook. Your notebook. Your notebook. You left your
pen on your desk." He could see blunt fingers. Coarse fingers. Scarred.
Gray. Dark. "Someone wrote in your notebook, right there. Like he was
meant to be there."

"My notebook?" Confusion. Plain old head scratching. "Someone was there in my office?"

"In the office. At the desk. Writing."

"Babe, I don't understand. If it's not me ... I have my notebook. I
would swear I do." Artie went to rummage through his coat pockets.

"It's not you. These are big fingers, course. Clumsy. You write in circles."

"It's not here. Fuck. I write in what?" Arms up on the coat rack, Artie looked under his armpit. Duke gave a delicate sneer.

"Circles. Curly-qs. These are deep slashes." He wrote in the air, demonstrating.

"Oh. Goddamn." The little cell phone was slipped out of Artie's
coat, flipped open, and dialed in seconds. "Leah, honey? Do you have my
notebook?"

The doorbell rang and Greg went to answer it, opening his wallet to nudge money out so he didn't have to touch it.

"There you go." The kid had a face like a pizza. Goodness. Artie
muscled him out of the way and took the boxes just before his hands
touched them.

"Thank you. Goodnight." Go away. We're busy.

The door clicked shut, Artie taking the pizza over to the table.
"No? Shit. No, it's gone. Greg thinks someone ... uh-huh. Okay. Thanks.
Bye."

"I'm sorry." He hated giving bad news.

Duke, on the other hand, was
stalking
the pizza.

"It's okay. I swear to God, Duke, if you eat all of the andouille I
will skin you alive." Plates, napkins, forks. "You want a Coke?"

"I do. Do you have a safe glass?"

Although Artie's house was growing safer, Artie's presence less and less unusual.

"Uh-huh. I uh." Artie blushed bright. "I stole your ‘name the microbe’ one."

"Oh." He grinned, the whole pen-picture-notebook bullshit easing up. "Yeah? Excellent, detective."

"It seemed like a good idea. I took your blue plate, too." Oh, the
sneaky bastard. The sound of a pizza box opening made him look around.
Duke sat a good two feet away from the table, looking nonchalant. Greg
wondered if he had telekinesis.

It wasn't as strange as it sounded.

"Did you know cats can't taste sweets?"

"Really? They sure can taste sausage." He got a grin and a peck on the nose before Artie set them up for supper.

"I used to eat at this little Cajun place—before. It was
amazing, the sausages they made." He sat at the table, hands flat on
the wood, listening to Artie.

"Yeah? I like the sausages at this one deli. Man, they do them all.
Duke, I swear to God if you don't leave that alone..." When he looked
this time, Duke was poking delicately at the pizza crust with one set
of claws, having moved like lightning.

He patted his lap, inviting Duke to share. He wasn't worried, no
matter what Artie said. "We should get some; jambalaya is a fabulous
thing."

"We should. Some rice, some heavy spice." Artie glared at the cat on
his lap before sitting down and handing over a wad of napkins. "Watch
it, he's a messy eater."