Chapter 3
THREE
LIAM
It had taken the police almost a week to find the bastard in his home and even longer for the reporters to get a whiff of what had to have been a very ripe body. Now, three days later, there hasn’t even been a whisper of the toilet paper wrapped around the guy’s neck.
Reporters have had a field day surmising who could’ve done it — an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe? His drug dealer? It surely had to have been someone close to him, after all.
Nope.
Stranger danger, and all of that.
I hadn’t even planned on it, not really.
Usually, I’d have been up for nothing more than a late afternoon hookup, but the urge to do so much more had been itching beneath my skin. Who am I to deny myself something I want?
Call me spoiled, but I’m used to getting my way.
That’s why I’m annoyed that the most important detail of the whole murder has been left out of reporting. How is it possible that no one’s leaked it?
I wonder if Ryker’s heard about the murder, only to think that it was another run of the mill homicide. Does he even keep up with the NB crime beat? It’s possible the news won’t even ping his radar.
I consider that possibility, but I don’t want to believe it.
I want to believe he’ll find out about it and come looking for me.
“Liam?” A voice cuts into my thoughts, and I blink when I realize Gran has been trying to get my attention.
“Sorry, Gran,” I tell her, flashing a sunny smile at her. “Just lost in thought.”
I take a sip of water, then scrunch my nose when I taste the lime in it.
Lime, really? Not even lemon? I’m pretty sure I told the server I didn’t want the lemon. With how expensive this restaurant is, they really should have gotten that part right. You’d think with the kind of clientele the restaurant caters to, they’d be more careful.
“Well, get un-lost,” she says tartly, and she sounds so much like me that I grin.
I’m such a bad influence.
“Un-lost?” I tease her. “Is that something you should be saying?”
She scowls at me. “You know what I mean,” she grumbles. “Your Gramps and I will only be here so long, and you’ll regret it if you don’t pay more attention to us while we’re here.”
It’s a sobering thought, and one I don’t particularly like. Unlike my parents, Gran and Gramps give a fuck about me.
“I’m sorry,” I say, genuinely meaning it in a way I rarely do. “I’m listening.”
Gran waves a hand in dismissal. “I was only talking about one of my shows,” she says. “But it could’ve been important.”
Her soap operas, she means, that have been running for longer than I’ve been alive.
“Do you ever watch true crime shows?” I find myself asking.
“That drivel? No,” she says. “It’s so voyeuristic, looking into other people’s lives like that. Those victims deserve peace in death.”
Do they?
I wonder if they move on to a better place when they die, or a worse place, or if they don’t go anywhere at all. Do they disappear forever, or are they reborn into another life?
“What do you think happens when we die?” I ask her, refilling her glass of water from the nearby pitcher. “Do you really think they’re peaceful?”
“Either that, or vengeful ghosts,” she says.
“You believe in ghosts now?” I huff out a laugh, though it fades when she side-eyes me.
“Don’t you?” she counters.
I open my mouth to answer, only to realize she’s smirking. “Gran,” I groan. “Don’t do this to me.”
“What, you’re too sensitive to be teased now?” she asks, taking a sip from her glass.
Unlike my parents, she does tease me, and I do like it. “No,” I tell her, ignoring the server as he clears the rest of the table. “Really, though. What do you think happens?”
“Oh, I used to believe there was nothing,” she says, and her tone is thoughtful as she considers it. “But the older I get, the more I want to believe there’s something. Death is around the corner, after all.”
“You’re sixty-five, not a hundred,” I say. “You have plenty of time before you have to worry about it.”
She doesn’t even look that old. She dyes her hair a brilliant shade of red—a deliberate fuck you to my mother and her black hair, I think—and has tasteful “no makeup” makeup. Along with her skincare routine and the designer fashions she wears, she easily passes for my mother instead of grandmother.
If only she was.
Maybe then I wouldn’t be so fucked up. Then again, who knows?
There’s a whole debate about nurture versus nature, after all.
“But I will have to worry about it someday,” she replies with a sigh. “I don’t know, Liam. What do you think happens?”
I consider the corpse I’d left behind. I consider, too, what I think will happen to me after I die. “Nothing but peace,” I assure her. “Maybe not in the traditional sense, but peace.”
“Good boy,” she says. She gets up from the table and kisses me on the forehead. “I have an event to run off to, or I’d stay for coffee and dessert. Thank you for having dinner with me.”
I scoff at her. “You never have to thank me for spending time with you, even if I do get distracted sometimes.”
“Not every grandson is so dutiful,” she says. Smirking, she adds, “And I don’t even think you’re doing it for my money.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “I already have your money,” I point out.
“So you do.” Gran picks up her purse. “Enjoy your evening. Call your grandpa, would you? He misses you.”
“I saw him on Thursday,” I say. “He can’t be missing me that much.”
With a chuckle, she replies, “The man has a flair for the dramatic, it’s true. Call him anyway. We won’t—”
“Be here forever,” I finish with her. “Got it, Gran. I’ll call him tomorrow.”
She smiles at me, and there’s so much affection that it warms my chest.
It’s nice to feel loved.
Too bad it’s not something I’m used to.
Gran departs, and I walk to the subway station so I can head home and get ready to meet my best friend at the club we frequent. With any luck, I won’t be blindsided by any more fundraising events on the way.
Or whatever the last event had been.
It’s not like my family couldn’t just donate the full amount that they raise from their own bank accounts and earn the same amount in interest the next day, but the optics look good, I guess.
By the time I stroll into the city’s most exclusive club, the party is well and truly going.
I have to head into the VIP section to find Maggie, who’s perched on the edge of her seat as she talks animatedly to some guy I don’t recognize. As usual, Maggie’s wearing her ultra-tight leather pants. Her dark blue lipstick matches her short dark blue hair.
The hair gets her dismissed as a lesbian by some dicks, but since it’s true, who gives a shit?
“Oh, here he is!” she exclaims when she sees me. “Liam, this is Roger. Roger, this is Liam, who I was just telling you about.”
For fuck’s sake, is she trying to play matchmaker again?
I grin at Roger, who has to be more interesting than Stephan or whatever his name had been, and flop down into the seat across from him. “Hey,” I tell him, taking a drink from Maggie.
Why couldn’t this be Ryker instead of some random guy wearing a too-tight, shimmering shirt that clings to everything and leaves nothing to the imagination? I bet Ryker would be more subtle.
“Thanks,” I tell her, drinking half the glass in one go. The alcohol burns on the way down, but it’s a nice reminder that I’m still alive and that other people aren’t. “I was parched.”
“I can tell,” she says. She takes a pointedly small sip of her drink. “This is for sipping, not guzzling, you heathen.”
I scoff at her. “We both know we aren’t drinking it for the taste.” I finish it off, and with a roll of her eyes, she drinks more from her own glass.
My thoughts drift to the news articles that aren’t even close to touching upon reality, and I fight the urge to sigh. It’s making me twitchy, and I want to repeat the murder properly to see if I can get anyone to pay attention to me.
But the podcasts call that escalation, and that gets people caught.
I want attention, not jail time.
“It’s great to meet you, Liam,” Roger says, looking me up and down with interest.
Of course he is. It’s not like I’m bad to look at, and I know I ooze money like it’s cologne. Even if he wasn’t interested, he’d still play pretend.
But that’s okay because I can play pretend, too.
“Wanna dance?” I ask him, setting my glass down. I don’t wait for an answer, instead heading past the velvet ropes and onto the dance floor.
The music fills me, replacing some of the edge of violence clawing at the edge of my awareness. It’s not the same. It’ll never be the same.
But it’s something.
Strobe lights seem to pulse in time with the deafening music, and I stride deeper onto the dance floor.
Roger isn’t too quick, and I’m in the middle of the dance floor before he can join me.
A woman wearing a neon pink fishnet shirt under a low-cut tank top and a form-fitting pair of jeans steps in close to me.
I eye her. She’s objectively pretty, and any of the straight guys here would probably love to get in her pants.
Too bad I don’t swing that way.
I grin at her, but I shake my head, turning around so I can try to see if Roger has followed me — or if there’s someone more fitting in the crowd.
What I’m looking for isn’t here and I know it, but that doesn’t stop me from trying to find a replacement.
Roger finally finds me in the crowd, and he invades my personal space like he owns it.
Score.
I might not be able to scratch one itch, but I can take care of another.
I wrap my arms around him, pressing in close. The music is pounding in my ears, and I wish it could sweep away the thoughts of watching his eyes go wide in fear before his face flushes bright red and his lips tinge blue.
It’s fucking distracting, and it’s getting in the way of what could be a very good night.
I need something more if I’m going to get my mind off of turning this gorgeous man into a corpse.
He grabs my hand, nodding in the direction of the bathrooms.