Touching Evil (23 page)

"Sore as an abscessed tooth. I could go a while without that
happening again." Once the coffee maker was hissing and spitting, Artie
went to sit next to Leah, putting a hand on her belly.

Oh. Oh, man. He could
feel
that baby moving. Oh, damn. Leah laughed, belly jumping under his hand. "You should see your face!"

"What? It's cool!" As he moved, the kick seemed to follow. It was fucking bizarre. But so neat.

"It is, huh? She's real." She met his eyes, winked. "You think your doc could hear her think?"

"Oh, there's a thought. I dunno." Would that freak Greg out? Was it
even possible? Artie chuckled. "So you've got the guy doing yard
decoration now."

"Yep. I figure I keep it up? He'll quit hovering." Wicked, evil broad.

"I know I would. Lemme get the coffee." He found some cookies in the
kitchen, too. Sugar wasn't on her no-eat list as far as he knew.

She grinned at him when he came back. "Man, the doc's training you well. I like it."

"Yeah, yeah. I like cookies." He grinned back, though, relaxing a little. It felt good. Almost right.

"Mmm. Me, too. Come on. Sit. You cool? You and the doc? That dude didn't..." She swallowed, winced. "Didn't hurt him, huh?"

"No more'n you'd reckon. Not nearly as much as you, even. He just drugged Greg silly. Cracked a cheekbone."

"Good." She looked serious, like she meant it. "That dude was deeply fucked up. I can't imagine having him inside my head."

"Yeah. Yeah, maybe it was easier for Greg to be drugged. He couldn't feel as much that way. Those girls..."

"Sixteen of them, that they found." Leah met his eyes, lips tight. "We did good, Art. We stopped him."

Bile rose in his throat. That he hadn't seen in the reports. Sixteen. Jesus. "We weren't in time to save the last one, though."

"You were in time to save me. You were in time to save Greg."

"Yeah." He smiled, trying not to think of the crime scene photos. "I don't think I coulda stood losing either of you."

"We managed, and now we gotta get ready to do it again. How long are you on leave?"

"A few weeks, maybe? I don't know. I called in this morning and the cap reamed me but good." He shrugged, sipping his coffee.

"Frank's just bored. The others aren't near as entertaining as us."

"That's true enough. We get all the fun shit. The reporters have
gone away, though. Did I tell you? After what happened, Alice says
they've stopped hanging around the store."

"Shit, one of their own got run through by a psycho. They'll be back. They always are. You think Greg'll go back to his house?"

"I don't know. He and Alice are going to talk about the store over
the holidays, and I guess we'll go from there." He loved having Greg in
his place. So did Duke. But man, he needed to get out more.

"If he doesn't, y'all need a bigger place. He'll drive you bat shit
crazy." She tutted, raised one hand. "Hey. Hey, no offense, man. I like
the doc, but he's like ... never gonna get better. He's never gonna be
able to just be a guy and you can, yeah?"

"I know." He did know that. He was prepared for it. But damn,
hearing it so bald like that. It made him sad. Artie had another
cookie, and then another. "We'll let Duke pick a place."

"Now there's a plan. You'll end up in Wilmington, next to a fish
monger with a pretty little Burmese sunning herself in the window."

Oh. A laugh burst out of his chest, and Artie just howled, laughing
until he hurt. Until he had tears streaming down his face. God, yeah.

When they stopped laughing, Tim was standing in the doorway,
grinning ear-to-ear. "All must be right with the world, huh,
detectives?"

"You know it, baby." Leah's hand landed on her belly. "Or at least it's getting there."

"You know it, babe," Artie agreed, toasting her with his coffee cup.
They'd get back to right somehow. They just didn't know how to give up.
Period.

Chapter Eighteen

There was this bench in the courtyard. He could see up into the
apartment through a window. He could also see into the living room
through the kitchen window. And into the bathroom if he crawled onto
the balcony. What he couldn't see was why he kept coming here. Why he
left Artie's and walked and walked and ended up here. At Jerry
Daniels’ apartment.

He shivered, shook, wrapped in a denim jacket, and just watched.

The crunch of wheels on blacktop tore his intent gaze from the
building, the purr of Artie's Camaro engine familiar down in his bones.

"Babe?" Artie called out the window. "Come on. What are you doing?"

"Sitting." Trying to figure this out. Trying to figure out why. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for you. I thought I'd get us a pizza. Veggie lovers."

"Oh. I'd like that." He stood up, eyes caught by those windows one more time. "It's getting cold."

"It is. You'll catch something, babe." That face he knew so well was
furrowed by a frown, but Artie leaned to open the door for him, the
blast of warm air from the car heavenly.

"Mmm..." He settled in, closed his eyes a second. His grandfather's scalpel was in that apartment somewhere. "Feels good."

"Yeah. It's not, you know. They took your kit to the evidence
locker, and they'll release it when the full investigation is done." He
hadn't said that out loud. How did Artie always know?

"You know, people are going to start wondering if you're psychic." Greg chewed on his bottom lip, rubbed his fingers together.

"Huh?" The look Artie gave him spoke volumes about how unconscious it all was. He just looked baffled.

"Nothing. How was your day?" When all else fails, sink to the banal.

"Okay." The hunched shoulders told another tale. "Hey, how about we get one of those take-and-bake things?"

"Sure." That worked. Hell, that worked just as well as anything. "That way we get the good cheese."

"Yeah. And those yummy pickled olives." They drove in silence until
Artie pulled into a lot, shutting the car down and turning to him, arm
along the seat. "Why, babe?"

The easiest answer was the bullshit one. Too bad he didn't think Artie would buy it. "I don't know."

"I mean, I can probably get you in there if you need to go in. I ...
It's just coming home with you not there and knowing you're over at his
place is, I dunno. Unsettling."

"I..." There was all this shit. Tons of it. And he didn't fucking
know how to handle it. "Yeah. I guess it is. I don't. I don't know."

All he could do was keep coming back to the same thoughts. How he
wasn't normal. How he wasn't home. How Jerry was inside him somehow.
How Artie'd gone from someone he saw three times a month to someone he
saw hours every day, and maybe Artie was second-guessing that whole
living with a housebound psychic thing.

Except he wasn't so much because he kept ending up at Jerry's apartment...

"Okay, babe. I'm sorry. I just. I worry about you, you know?" Artie touched him, just his shoulder.

"I do." He sighed, leaned into the touch without even thinking. He
looked at the stores, the Christmas lights going up, even though it
wasn't quite Thanksgiving.

"You gonna stay put if I go order?" Artie gave him a wink, a squeeze.

"Maybe. Maybe I'll go run amok and start kidnapping blondes and
hacking them to little pieces." His mouth snapped shut so fast that he
bit his tongue. Christ. That wasn't funny.

"Goddamn it, Greg." Those gray eyes went frosty. "Get the fuck over
yourself. Okay? Jesus Christ, just don't fucking wander off." The car
door slammed hard enough to rock the Camaro as Artie got out.

Get over himself. He sat for about half a minute, staring at his
hands, then he wrenched the car door open, suddenly so pissed he was
shaking. "Fuck this."

Who the hell did Artie think he was? Treating him like he was
helpless? Stupid? He'd been surviving just fine on his own, helping,
for years. Fucking
years
.

Artie came right back out like the pizza place had a revolving door,
coming right for him. "Greg. Please. Come on, don't. I'm sorry."

"Stop it, Artie. Just go order your pizza. I'm going home." His
home. Back where he fucking belonged if it drove him insane while he
gutted it.

"And do what? Come on. Just come home with me. We'll go to your
place this weekend, okay?" Artie reached for him, missed him as he drew
back sharply.

"Don't. Just don't. I'm not helpless. I'm not fucking stupid. You
think I wanted this? This asshole to come in and make everything
filthy? To touch everything? Two months ago I hadn't left my building
in a year and a half!" Was he even fucking making sense?

"No. I don't think you wanted any of this. I don't think you're
stupid. I just. Fuck, Greg, I don't know what to do to make it better!"

"I don't either." He looked over at Artie, just sick and lost and
fucking cold. "But I can't fucking sit in front of that apartment and
worry whether or not he's left parts of him inside me."

"No. You could never be anything like him. And we'll start ... we'll
start getting shit together, deciding what we want to do. Stop dancing
around it." Artie looked so earnest. So sincere.

"I think we will." It just wouldn't be like this, on this unequal
ground, not with this ... filth all around him. "I'm going home, Artie.
I have to clean my house."

Artie spread his hands, shoulders hunching up again. "Does it have to be now?"

He wanted to touch Artie, to wrap himself up and hold on and found out where the fuck he was. "I don't know."

"Okay." They stared at each other until Artie finally shook his head
and pointed to the car. "Get in. We'll go to your place and you can
decide."

"Okay." He met Artie's eyes, just stopping for a second. "I need to
know he didn't leave anything inside me. I know it's stupid, but he
touched
me, Artie."

"No. No, it's not stupid if you feel it. I trust your gut. Maybe the
way to clean him out is to get your life back." That was Artie. Always
trying to help, to believe.

"Maybe. Maybe. Let's ... Let's get our pizza." See them. See them try to make it work.

"Sure." Artie smiled at him, the look wavering just a little. "We
could get the Greek one instead of the veggie if you want. That has
artichokes. Olives and shit."

"Yeah. This ... this isn't about you, you know that. This isn't about not wanting you." God, he was tired of talking.

"I know. I do." Moving close, Artie nudged him with one elbow. "I know. Come on, babe."

"Yeah. Been a long fucking day somehow." Too fucking long.

"We'll get some of that cake stuff, too. With the espresso." Yeah, that would calm them down.

He reached out, grabbed Artie's hand for just a second, squeezed just to let Artie know that he was ... here.

Artie squeezed back, giving him a grin that looked much more real. More old Artie. "Yeah. I get it."

And that was that.

The dream was one of those that Artie knew was a dream. He could sit
there and watch and tell himself, "wake up, doofus," and still be
scared shitless about it.

In it Greg had gone back to that bastard's apartment, and instead of
being dead the guy was a walking zombie, wielding Greg's family scalpel
or whatever and telling Greg he needed Greg's heart to make himself
complete.

Artie finally woke up when the blade sank into Greg's chest.

He stifled his shout and lay there, his chest heaving, his hands
clenched into fists to keep from reaching for Greg. He didn't need to
make sure Greg was breathing, that he was whole. It was just a dream.

Greg turned his head, hands reaching out and grabbing him, tugging him into the curve of Greg's body. "A dream. A dream, Artie."

"Oh, God." He turned and clung, arms slipping around Greg's waist. This was why he tried not to dream. "Just a dream."

"Mmmhmm. He can't come back. He
can't
." Greg's legs slid between his, chin snuggled against his neck. "He can't."

"No. I know. I just..." Man, sometimes it was freaky when Greg did
that. Sometimes it was comforting. Cut down on all of the whole true
confessions thing.

"I know. I know, he ... he wanted. Coveted. Collected. That's what he thought. He collected them."

"It still makes me twitchy, babe." The whole thought of it. God. And Greg and Leah both being in the hands of that madman.

Greg nodded, shuddered. "I hear you."

Those hands splayed over his back, rubbing a little, drawing
circles. He could feel Greg trying to relax, to let it go. Artie
sighed, feeling his spine stop trying to snap itself in two. He kissed
Greg's throat, letting his tension slip.

"Mmm..." Greg lifted his chin, actually offering that long, pale throat to him.

So he took it, closing his eyes and feeling. It had been way too
long since he'd done that. Artie let his lips trail up and down Greg's
skin, let his tongue slide out to taste.

"Oh." Greg's fingers ran through his hair as the sweetest fucking moan vibrated its way out of Greg.

"Babe." Artie turned on his side a little better, making it easier
to reach. They settled against each other, their bodies fitting just
fine, Greg's thigh nudging his cock.

"You feel good." Greg started rocking a little, just enough to make Artie's skin heat up, his nerves wake and pay attention.

"Uh-huh. You feel amazing." Greg did. Feel amazing. Artie rubbed,
all but whimpering as his favorite parts got a good bit of friction.

Greg's hands started rubbing, fingers pushing in here and there.
Those amazing hands found nerves and muscles and whenever a good spot
got hit, Greg
knew
.

Artie's body arched, undulated, demanding that Greg get closer right now. Immediately.

"Uh-huh. I need you, Artie." Greg's lips brushed his ear, right
underneath, voice just a little desperate. "I want to feel you inside
me."

"Now. Yeah. I can do that." He so could, if he could find lube. "How do you want it, babe? You want to be on top?"