Chapter Nine
T revor hummed along to the music. He had his phone paired with a set of speakers in his AV suite at work.
He pulled up his playlist and selected his favorite live-recorded album of the Rat Pack.
Mail was piled up on Trevor’s desk, and he set about sorting the various envelopes.
Several journals that Trevor hadn’t gotten around to reading yet sat in a pile.
He should take those to Niall’s to read over a weekend soon.
There was the usual junk mail. Symposium advertisements.
All in all, nothing important. He marveled that nearly three months had elapsed since he'd first met Matt and Niall.
Valentine’s Day was right around the corner, and Trevor was unsure of what to get his men.
They’d both said gifts weren’t necessary, but Trevor wasn’t falling for that trap.
He may not have had a lot of traditional relationships in his life, but he knew that on Valentine’s, you gave your significant other at least a card.
Funnily enough, calling Matt and Niall his significant others no longer terrified Trevor.
They were significant. How long that would last and what that meant for the future, Trevor still did not know.
He’d worked very hard in the last months to open himself to Matt and Niall.
It hadn’t been perfect, and Trevor had slipped into his old self-reliant ways more than a few times, but he could tell both his men appreciated the effort.
He withheld some things from his lovers, but only to spare them undue worry.
Frequently he got a tingle in the back of his neck, feeling that something wasn’t right, but Trevor didn’t have any solid evidence to go on.
And Trevor had been around the department long enough to know that with no evidence, there was no case.
So he went on with his life, and life meant Valentine’s gifts.
So what should he get? Trevor had seen, in a sex shop, some novelty underwear that could be fun.
Niall had a bit of a sweet tooth. They could get some chocolate, dribble it all over Matt’s body, then lick it off.
Oh hell, maybe he should show up at Niall’s wearing nothing but a big red bow around his cock.
Then again, that might seem a tad self-serving.
Trevor picked up the last envelope sitting on his desk.
It was large and pink. His name emblazoned in red on the front.
There were cute little hearts and loopy lines drawn on the paper.
It was way too girlish to have come from Matt or Niall.
Did he have a secret admirer? Flattering, but could be awkward at work.
Maybe Logan had put it there as a gag before going to court earlier.
Trevor opened the sealed envelope and peered inside.
A jewel case holding a disk rested in the pouch.
Trevor reached in and removed the thin, flat holder.
He popped open the case. There was no label on the disk except the one from the manufacturer.
It was a DVD. Had someone made Trevor a bootleg of an old movie?
He stuck his head out the door and glanced down the hall. Trevor saw Frederick headed in his direction.
“Captain?”
Frederick looked up from the papers he’d been reading. “What’s up, Mitchell?”
Trevor held up the DVD. “This was in an envelope on my desk, but there’s no label on it.”
Captain Frederick stopped in his tracks. “Is it related to a case?”
“It wasn’t in an evidence bag, and there would have been postage on the envelope had someone on the outside mailed it to us as a tip-off.” Trevor held up the envelope. “It was in here. Did I miss a memo and we’re doing office valentines this year?”
“I sure as hell hope not.”
Trevor watched the captain have an internal debate for a moment. Trevor could have waited until he got home to find out what was on the video, but curiosity had gotten hold of him.
“Go ahead, Mitchell.”
Trevor walked over to his desk, slipped the DVD into the CPU tower and tapped several keys to tell the computer to send the image onto the monitor to the left of his desk.
Trevor noticed the captain didn’t leave the doorway of his suite.
In fact, the busy man was all too determined to wait around and find out what was on the disk.
Maybe the captain was Trevor’s secret admirer?
Unlikely since he was married and had two kids in college, but stranger things had happened.
Trevor opened up the media player on his computer, then clicked the play button.
The first image had Trevor sitting in his chair with a smile on his face.
Then Mindy appeared. Sweet, loyal Mindy, looking up at the camera, happily panting and turning in circles with excitement.
Wait a minute. Who would have video of Mindy?
Trevor didn’t think Mr. Carlyle even knew how to work a video camera.
Then it all went horribly wrong. A hand appeared from off-frame, and in seconds all Trevor’s happy memories shattered as he watched Mindy die right before his eyes.
Trevor fell backwards out of his chair as he tried to escape.
What followed was a flash of innumerable images.
Each one burned itself into Trevor’s retina in a matter of seconds.
Horrific scenes of prisoners in desolate conditions interspersed with grainy video of extreme BDSM.
Men were being whipped and fucked. A few scenes of what looked like assault and rape.
Blood other bodily fluids mingling on bruised and split skin.
“What the fuck is that!” Frederick yelled.
Trevor couldn’t move. He wanted to look away, wanted put a stop to the horror, but he sat on the floor frozen.
“Mitchell, shut that off.”
Trevor scrambled to his feet. His hands shook, and the mouse chased all over the monitor before Trevor directed it to the control bar at the bottom of the screen.
When Trevor hit pause, the last image was a black background with large white letters.
You belong to me.
“What the fuck, Mitchell? I thought this was some Valentine’s thing?”
“I did too, sir.”
“Either you have really fucked-up friends, or there is something else going on here. Regardless, you and I are going to have a chat.”
Trevor couldn’t look away from the monitor. Those words. The ones Niall and Matt used often to send Trevor spinning into a world of safety and pleasure, now catapulted him in a storm of uncertainty.
“Make a copy of that disk, then bring it to me. I’m officially opening a case file.”
“Sir? Is that really necessary? What if this is some kind of sick joke?”
If the captain responded, Trevor never heard the words. All he could think about was the opening clip. It was now apparent that Mindy’s murder was no random act or even aimed at hurting Mr. Carlyle, but at Trevor himself. A message Trevor hadn’t understood at the time.
Trevor’s palms were clammy; he couldn’t speak, and he was dizzy.
It’s not like he made enemies on the cases he worked.
He was a no-name lab tech, not even a blip on the radar of the criminals he helped put away.
That meant this was personal. That meant his friends were potentially in danger.
Mr. Carlyle. Ethan and Ryan. Rick and his family.
Logan and Clay. But most importantly, Matt and Niall. His lovers.
You belong to me.
What if this person knew of his relationship with Matt and Niall?
It seemed logical. Trevor hadn’t exactly been hiding the fact that he was dating the two men.
What if Trevor’s selfishness in holding onto Matt and Niall had put the two men in danger?
If they got hurt, if this person targeted them, it would be Trevor’s fault.
He couldn’t live with that. It seemed he now had his evidence.
His first instinct was to deal with the problem himself.
He could run a trace on the video feed, maybe see if the manufacturer’s serial number for the camera was still embedded in the metadata.
He could try to get fingerprints off the disk, if the individual was in the system, Trevor would confront the bastard.
However, he was no hero, and he knew it. He needed help.
He swallowed several times, trying to get saliva back down his throat. “I don’t know much, Captain, but I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Five minutes, Mitchell.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trevor copied the DVD to a media file on the computer, then made a hard copy.
He put on a pair of gloves and removed the original, placing it back in the jewel case, then slid it into an evidence envelope and sealed it.
Trevor’s prints would already be on the evidence, but this way he at least minimized further contamination.
Trevor initialed the label as the collection agent.
As he left the A/V suite and walked down the hallway, Trevor couldn’t help but think of that movie Matt and Niall had made him watch not too long ago, The Green Mile .
With each step, Trevor’s heart beat as if he were going to his execution.
Perhaps the comparison was a touch dramatic.
It was only Captain Frederick after all.
Trevor knocked on the doorframe to the captain’s office. “Sir?”
“Come in, Mitchell. Have a seat.”
Trevor did and moved to sit in the chair in front of the Captain’s desk.
“You want to tell me what’s going on, Trev?”
Trevor nearly landed on his ass again as the deep voice grumbled behind him. He spun around to see a man standing in the corner of the captain’s office, arms folded across his chest.
“Clay! What are you doing here?”
“They cleared me for duty and I was in the building to deal with the last of the paperwork. Came upstairs to grab something Logan left earlier. Imagine my surprise when I hear that you’re being threatened and didn’t bother to tell either Logan—your best friend— or myself.”