Chapter Sixteen Winter Song #3
Aaron blurted, “What about him?”
“Ignore him.” Kenny cut the engine. “I’ll come in with you.”
“No.” Aaron shook his head. “I mean… he saw me with Skye yesterday. He was there, Kenny. He’s new to the island. Which means he was somewhere else before. And you said the killer would be someone in outreach.”
Kenny stayed quiet for a beat. Then, “I didn’t say they’d be new to the island. In fact, I think this place means something to them. Deeply. The mainland kills might’ve been rehearsals. Everything building towards here.”
“But Blackwell’s in a position of power. He runs a dog charity. That’s outreach. Especially now with all these public-facing projects. He’s around volunteers, youth programmes, school visits.”
Kenny nodded, almost reluctantly. “He is in proximity. I won’t deny that. And I’m sure he’s done more than cross the line. He’s a predator. Narcissist. There’s probably a long list of people who’ve left jobs, dropped complaints, signed NDAs. But he’s not our UNSUB.”
Aaron frowned. “What makes you so sure?”
“Besides two decades of analysing violent offenders?”
Aaron gave him a look. “Yeah. Besides that.”
“He’s too messy.” Kenny opened his door and stepped out.
Aaron followed. “Messy how?”
“If Blackwell were the killer, you wouldn’t have walked away yesterday.
He’d have engineered the whole thing. Controlled the environment.
Eliminated the risk. A man like that wouldn’t touch you with your partner standing ten feet away.
He hadn’t even read you properly. Didn’t know who you were.
Or who I was.” Kenny met his gaze. “Our killer doesn’t take chances.
They design their silence. Manufacture obedience. They don’t lunge. They lure.”
Aaron stared at the shelter entrance. The frost on the glass looked like spider veins, etched by the cold. Blackwell’s car sat in shadow, untouched. Quiet. As if it was watching.
“He left his car.” Aaron flapped a gloved hand towards it. “That’s still suspicious.”
“There are a dozen reasons someone might leave their car overnight. Not all of them so they could commit murder.”
“No, but if he was angry enough, after I rejected him, maybe he saw it as punishment. Maybe she became the stand-in. Or maybe it was to upset me. My name on the phone, remember? Maybe she tried to call me because she knew it was him. Or he made her call me. You said it was a message. Maybe the message is he’s pissed off. ”
“What happened in that kennel? That was impulsive. A weak, clumsy grab at power. He hadn’t planned it. He hadn’t profiled you. That’s not how this killer operates.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes. “Still don’t love you calling it clumsy.”
“I get that it might not have felt that way. But he was. His methods. Sloppy. Unprepared. No. That’s not this killer. They’re crafting something. Symbolic. Ritualised. Every detail means something.”
Aaron exhaled, breath fogging in the cold air. Trying to absorb it. Trying to believe it.
Kenny wasn’t finished.
“If I had to bet? Blackwell’s here because he scorched everything behind him. HR complaints. Safeguarding breaches. Whispers swept under rugs. Probably even a marriage he tanked. And now?”
Aaron reached for the shelter door, the same one he’d shot out of yesterday. “He’s circling new prey.”
Kenny stepped in close, the warmth of his body cutting through the cold. He slid his hand to the back of Aaron’s neck, tracing slow, steady lines beneath the hairline.
“But not for murder,” he said close to Aaron’s ear. “For power.”
“So we can’t arrest him?”
“We can do worse than that.”
Aaron turned his head. “What’s worse?”
“We keep showing up. Remind him he’s not in control. Lost that power he craves. That he’s been seen. And he was sloppy.”
“Petty vengeance from the psych doc, eh? God, your cruelty turns me all the way on.”
“Strategic pressure. He’ll start to unravel if we don’t blink.”
Aaron held up a hand. “Wait. Christmas miracle’s just happened. I’m hard again.”
Kenny chuckled, leaning in closer to his ear. “I can take care of that, too.”
Aaron angled his head towards the far path. “We’ll go round the back, then. In case he’s inside.”
Kenny followed, quiet footsteps matching his.
They took the long path around to the kennels, boots crunching over frost and gravel.
As they reached the back, the metallic tang of disinfectant and the wet-stale smell of dog fur filled Aaron’s nose.
Barking greeted them. Sharp, echoing off concrete and chain-link.
Jonathon was inside already, mop in hand, dealing with the usual chaos.
In a Christmas jumper too. Bright red, oversized, flecked with dog hair and bleach stains.
He smiled for Aaron, but the way his eyes slid past Kenny was off.
Unsettling. No one at the shelter had met Kenny personally.
They saw his car. Him from a distance. Knew about the age gap thing.
But it often took people by surprise when they met him.
All straight laced and buttoned up restraint beside Aaron’s ferality.
And, also, Aaron wasn’t meant to be there right then.
So fair enough.
“Aaron?” Jonathon leaned on the top of his mop. “Didn’t think you were in today.”
“Officially, I’m not.” He nodded towards Kenny. “This is Kenny. My boyfriend. Significant other. Codependent lifer.” He waved towards Jonathon. “Kenny, meet Jonathon. The one the dogs only tolerate on a good day.”
Jonathon snorted. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t I know it.” He shook Kenny’s hand, then wiped his palm on the back of his trousers.
“I’m here to see Lucky. She eaten?”
“No. Vet came by earlier. Said if she doesn’t eat by tomorrow, Blackwell reckons it’s more cost effective to put her down.”
Aaron bristled. “That’s not happening.” He then scanned the shelter. “Blackwell here?”
“Nah.” Jonathon began mopping the floor again. “He’s probably getting a bollocking from his misses.”
Aaron flicked his gaze up to Kenny. Kenny winked. Prick.
“I came in early,” Jonathon said, “before the snow got bad knowing this lot would need feeding. Blackwell was still here. Slumped on his desk. Been drinking. Looked like hell. I checked the CCTV, he’d been in his office all night.
Passed out. His wife picked him up about seven.
Raging. Apparently, he missed his daughter’s nativity. ”
Aaron shot a glance at Kenny. “Guess that’s his alibi.”
Kenny’s smirk said it all. Bastard.
Aaron turned back to Jonathon. “There CCTV in the kennels, too?”
Jonathon nodded. “Yeah. But don’t tell the dogs. They hate being watched.”
Aaron wondered then how much Jonathon saw through CCTV. But for now, his focus had to be elsewhere.
“I’ll go see Lucky.” He then walked the length of the corridor, Kenny trailing silently behind him.
The barking eased off as they passed each pen, Aaron’s presence familiar. Calming. Lucky’s kennel was at the far end, still shadowed, quiet. Aaron could already feel her trembling before he stepped inside.
He paused at the door, glancing back. “Stay there, yeah?”
Kenny nodded, shifting to lean against the wall, one ankle hooked over the other, arms crossed loosely.
He watched. And that look? That steady, warm, unflinching gaze?
That was the one Aaron always half-dismissed.
Sometimes didn’t trust was real. But now?
It landed. Not because Kenny was assessing him or analysing some trauma response. But because he wasn’t.
He was seeing him.
Transfixed by him.
Not the damage. Nor even the history. And not the wreckage trailing behind his name like a shadow.
But Aaron. And in this quiet, unglamorous moment, coaxing a frightened dog to eat, Kenny saw someone else.
Him. And it showed in every inch of how he tilted his neck, lips curving into a smile and those usually dark eyes brightening.
Aaron turned back to the kennel before he answered the question Kenny had asked him earlier: “What are you afraid of with me?” Because it was that…
exactly that look he was afraid of. When Kenny stopped seeing through him, stopped being obsessed with him and all the things that made him this messed up headcase, and saw him.
Who he really was. Without the trauma and the bloodline and everything else that kept Kenny interested.
Because what if Kenny stopped being obsessed with the mystery?
What if one day, he looked at Aaron and didn’t see a puzzle anymore?
That was the same fear he’d carried since the night on Kenny’s doorstep, all those years ago, when he’d asked if Kenny would’ve kissed him if he were some random twink, and Kenny had said no. Because those boys didn’t keep his interest.
And that was it, wasn’t it?
Aaron wasn’t afraid Kenny would stop loving him.
He was afraid Kenny would solve him.
And stop looking.
So he turned away, buzzed his keycard to the individual kennel door and entered.
The cold, concrete floor had been layered with old rugs and a wool blanket.
It smelled of fear and antiseptic. Lucky was curled tight in the corner, limbs tucked under her long body, ribs showing more today than they had yesterday.
Her eyes flicked up. Wide, glassy, and skittish.
She trembled at the sound of the door but didn’t growl. Not this time.
Aaron dropped to his knees, making himself smaller, and breathed with her.
In. Out. In. Out.
Then he offered the back of his hand. Palm down. Lucky stared. Sniffed. Didn’t move.
So Aaron lowered his voice. “Hey, girl. I’m back.”
A long silence. Then, movement. The faintest shuffle forward, ribs rising with each cautious breath. She sniffed his hand. Licked once. Then again.
Aaron’s throat tightened. “Good girl.”
He pulled the packet of wet food from his coat pocket stashed in there for Chaos and opened it, then placed a spoonful onto the blanket, inching it forward. Lucky hesitated… then lowered her nose. Sniffed. And, after a long moment, ate.
Aaron didn’t breathe until the second bite.
Then she edged closer. Nose to his knee.
Nudging her head under his arm. Seeking.
Trusting. And that’s when it hit him. The grief.
The helpless ache creeping in sideways, making his ribs feel hollow and throat too tight to speak.
He dropped his head forward, ruffling his forehead into her fur.
She didn’t flinch. She nudged in deeper, curling herself into him as if she understood.
As if she’d felt that same brand of abandonment. That same fear.
Aaron’s shoulders shook.
He didn’t sob, but tears came anyway. Silent. Hot. Soaking into her scruffy coat. Behind him, Kenny said nothing. He watched. Quiet. Present.
And he stayed there as Aaron cried for a girl he didn’t know but felt guilty he couldn’t save.
That she was yet another in a long line of those he hadn’t been able to save.
And Lucky licked Aaron’s tears, ate more food as the tears kept falling.
Then as Aaron peeled himself away, locked the door to the kennel with his eyes still shedding, Kenny wrapped his arms around him. Held him.
And later, when they got home, grief following them in, Kenny took Aaron’s hand and led him to the fire.
He lit it. Let the warmth build. And there, he undressed Aaron.
Piece by piece. No rush. No need for words.
And when they lay down together on the rug, bare skin on bare skin, Kenny didn’t play. Didn’t edge. Didn’t tease.
He made love to him.
Tender. Slow. No barriers. No games. No…roles.
Aaron locked his legs around him, holding tight, threading his fingers through Kenny’s hair to pull it back from his face.
He needed to see him. Not just the man, but the look in his eyes.
The one that wrecked him every time. And there, forehead to forehead, breath shared in that fragile, trembling space between heartbeats, Aaron broke.
“God, Kenny… please.” His voice cracked apart, hoarse with truth. “Please don’t ever stop wanting me.”
It wasn’t just a plea. It was everything.
Torn straight from his chest. Raw, desperate, laid out bloody between them.
And fuck, it was easier to say it now. Easier when he was open and aching and already half-undone.
When Kenny had stripped him down and loved him right through it.
Every shattered edge, kissed. Every broken piece held as if something worth keeping.
Kenny stilled with that sharp, stunned kind of silence. But he eventually moved again. Slower.
“I won’t.” He thrust deeper. As if trying to write himself into Aaron’s bones. “Ever.”
He kissed the side of Aaron’s neck, soft and shaking, and when that tear hit his collarbone, hot and sudden, Aaron almost lost it completely. Fuck. He could’ve died right there, torn open with love. But Kenny kept going, kept saying it with every thrust, every word a beat drummed into him:
“I love you. So… Fucking… Much.”
A sound escaped him. A half groan, half prayer.
“Every… Fractured.…Beautiful part of you.”
Then, softer. Fiercer. As deep as he could go, body and soul.
“I want all of you…” He held there, waiting until they both hit the edge to breathe out through their shared climax, “Always.”