16. 15
It’s quiet in the house. I’ve come home after being at the office all day, ending it with a workout. I took a shower and then drove home. Chester wasn’t at the office anymore when I left, I have no idea where Remy has been all day and Beckett hasn’t answered my messages for the last couple of hours.
Although I expect Chester to be home, I don’t hear any music, which means he’s probably swimming, but I don’t find him by the swimming pool. I open the door to his office, not expecting to find him there but wanting to check anyway.
I’m not ready for what I see.
Both Beckett and Chester are working on opposite sides of the office. Chester is listening to his music through his headphones and Beckett… Well, he’s wearing glasses. That’s about the only thing my brain registers. The black frames accentuate his green eyes, doing things to my insides that are probably illegal somewhere in the world.
They both look caught.
What are they up to?
“Hey,” I say because I don’t know what else I should say.
Chester pushes himself away from his desk and gives me a kiss. “Had a good workout?”
“Yeah, you were gone by the time I got back.”
“Had some stuff to do.”
I take another look around.
“With Beckett?”
“Yeah.”
Beckett looks so out of place here that I feel uncomfortable, but I seem to be the only one who feels that way.
“Care to explain?”
“The fact that Wayne’s imprisonment was swept under the rug by someone from within the FBI doesn’t sit well with me, so I asked Chester to help me,” Beckett says, standing up and giving me a kiss as well.
“You’re wearing glasses,” is my wonderful response to that explanation.
“Yeah,” he says, staring at his laptop. “The letters start to get blurry when I look at the screen too long.”
“He’s getting old,” Chester pokes.
“And even hotter,” I mumble.
“That too,” Chester agrees.
Beckett has the decency to blush, making his way back to his laptop and getting back to work. I was getting used to Chester and Beckett bitching at each other all the time. Them taking the time to work on projects together is worrying me. If they ever decide to gang up on me, I’m so incredibly fucked.
“So, are you guys getting anywhere?”
“There’s a lot to unravel,” Beckett says.
“He didn’t take kindly to my suggestion to just fire the lot of them, just to be sure we get all the dirty ones.”
Beckett sighs. “We can’t just get rid of the whole FBI.” It’s a discussion they’ve had before.
“Yeah, you’ve made your point, which is why we’re now going over everything with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Exactly, so get back to it,” Beckett commands.
It’s weird to see both of them bend over a desk, working towards the same goal, not trying to rip each other’s head off.
“Guess I’ll go make some dinner then?” I say tentatively.
“You’re the best,” Chester says dismissively, and I’ve lost both of them to their investigation again. A little hurt because I feel excluded, I get in the kitchen and figure out what dinner will be based on what I have in my fridge.
When I come out of the pantry with the items I need to make a nice one pot pasta dish, Remy comes waltzing into the kitchen. He twirls before he bends backwards and gives me one of the weirdest kisses I’ve ever had, making me smile.
“You’re in a good mood.”
“I love rehearsing for a show again. Today, the director yelled at me because I kept messing up this one step. He yelled until I got it right. It felt so fucking good.”
I snort. “You’re weird.”
“Absolutely.” He looks proud saying it.
“Want to hear something else weird?”
He hums.
“Chester and Beckett are in Chester’s office right now, working together on the same case. And Beckett is wearing glasses.”
Remy cocks his head. “I’m intrigued.”
“I know, right?”
I start my mise-en-place while Remy hooks his phone up to the sound system, playing some music. I’m not familiar with what it is, but it’s instrumental and beautiful.
“There’s some stuffy wine in the fridge,” I tell him while I chop my tomatoes.
He snorts, grabs a wine glass and pours himself a glass. “Would you like me to grab you an equally stuffy glass of whiskey?”
I smile, our inner joke about our preferred beverages being stuffy warming me from the inside. He doesn’t even wait for me to answer before he goes into the living room to grab some whiskey from our liquor cabinet. I thank him when he hands it to me.
“To stuffy drinks and weird but intriguing evenings.”
I marvel at how normal this feels. I never in a million years thought I’d be here – in a steady and mature relationship, coming home after work and doing something as mundane as cooking a meal while listening to music and talking about our day. Sure, this whole poly relationship is a little out of the ordinary, but still.
Remy once explained it to me as several people walking their path in life together, and I think I finally understand it. The beauty of it is that we’re all here because we want to be here, not because we’re holding the other back.
Lost in thought, I prepare the whole dinner, and just when I’m about to ask Remy to ask Beckett and Chester to join us, they enter the kitchen. Beckett has taken off his glasses, which is a damn shame if you ask me. Now that the dark frame no longer covers his face, I can see the dark circles beneath his eyes instead.
All of us are running on fumes.
Remy stands behind Chester, sticking his hands in his lover’s front pockets and kissing his neck. Chester smiles, but his face looks tired as well.
Beckett helps me carry the plates to the dining room, where we all sit down in what is soon becoming our regular spot. We all tuck in without any further ado.
“You making any headway?” I ask.
Chester nods, chewing furiously before he answers. “Narrowing it down. I’ve got some good leads and some strings to follow. They’ve done a decent job at covering stuff up, but they’ve missed things. Right now, everything points in the direction of someone in the criminal investigative division being involved. We just have to narrow it down.”
“It’s just a matter of putting in enough hours,” Beckett says.
“That’s easier said than done,” Remy says. “You’re both working a full-time job already, two in Chester’s case, with him searching for missing kids and finding Wayne as well, and now you’re trying to catch this guy as well? How are you finding the time for all of this?”
He has a point.
All of us are about to burn out so hard that there’ll be forest fires for decades.
Chester seems to be taking Remy’s criticism in. “You’re right,” he finally concludes. “We have to work smarter, not harder.”
“I was kind of thinking along the lines of letting this case be while you try to catch Wayne, not work smarter.”
I’m keeping myself out of this conversation. Because I know, I know, Remy is right. They shouldn’t be putting any effort into this. But at the same time, I understand where Chester and Beckett are coming from, and I want to know who the asshole is that’s responsible for this mess.
We could have had Wayne in custody right now if we hadn’t been distracted by the coverup. Those women could still be alive. And on top of that, feds shouldn’t be dirty. It’s wrong.
“How about you cancel your motel and start spending the night here?” Chester casually says while looking at Beckett and stuffing his mouth. “That way, we can work on finding this asshole before and after working hours,” he continues while chewing his food. “It’s not like you’re not here any chance you get anyway.”
My heart rate spikes. Sure, let’s ask Beckett to move in out of convenience. The agent looks my way, taken by surprise, before he seems to gather his bearings.
“Sure, I guess,” he says hesitantly.
I shrug, trying to act cool and not show how badly I want him to take Chester up on his offer. I want him to be here. Life feels a million times more full when all these men are around, and I want it to feel that way every single hour of every single day.
Remy shakes his head, smiling with his head hanging down to his plate. “Nobody is going to get any sleep in this house any time soon.”
“Well, that won’t be any different than how it is now.”
All of us look up before getting back to eating. Guess that’s settled then.
My phone rings, and I glance at the screen before picking up. It’s an unknown number, local area code. It feels hinky, and I know something is wrong even before I pick up. I don’t say anything when I finally answer, letting the quiet linger.
The way the hair on the back of my arms is standing up is telling me exactly who’s on the other side of the line.
His breathing is loud, and it is the only sound between us until he finally speaks up.
“Hello Abby,” Wayne says. “Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to speak to me.”
“What?” is the only thing I manage to say to him, all other words getting stuck in my throat.
“I’m having quite a day, you know?” His voice is thick and sickeningly sweet, like the tone you use when talking to a child. “I’m right in the middle of something, and I felt a little lonely. Which is weird because I’ve never felt lonely while doing this before.” A whiff of limes reaches me, and I don’t even have to hear what he has to say to know what it is he’s up to.
“Then I remembered I no longer have to do this all alone. My little secret is out there for all to see.”
“Don’t,” I plead with him. And I hate that I sound so desperate. I’m better than that. But right now, I am desperate. There’s nobody around who can help me trace this call, and even if I could, there’d be no way we could get anyone to him fast enough, wherever the hell that might be.
“It’s making everything a little more difficult, you know? Having my face all over the news. This one never saw me coming, never stood a chance.”
“Don’t do this, Wayne.”
Bile rises in my throat.
“It’s definitely happening, Abby. You just get to be there for it this time around. Why don’t you say hi to her?”
Something rustles in the background, and then a scream so desperate I can feel it in my bones fills my ears. The screaming soon shifts to begging as an endless string of ‘please, please don’t’ comes out of the girl.
“You ready?” Wayne says, his voice changing into something darker, more husky.
“Please listen to her,” I try, but deep down, I know it’s useless.
When her sobs change into choking sounds, I gag. He’s killing her right now, and he’s making me listen, as if we’re sharing some intimacy. Like he’s gifting me something.
He’s deviating from his pattern just so he can share this with me, and now, some girls are dying because of it.
“Wayne,” I try despite knowing better. “Don’t do this. Just let her go.”
It stays quiet for a moment too long.
“Did you know you can literally see the blood vessels pop in their eyes?” His voice sounds far away, as if he isn’t fully there anymore. It’s too late, she’s gone. I know. I know it like I know the sun will rise tomorrow and the world will go on like she didn’t just get brutally murdered.
I stop answering him, but I don’t hang up either. Somehow this death is just as much on me as it is on him, the only difference being that I feel guilty about it and he won’t lose a single moment of sleep over it.
The loaded silence breaks when I hear Wayne grunting. Having learned from Winny and Beckett, what is Wayne’s most likely MO? I understand what I’m listening to.
Still I don’t hang up.
Deep down, I feel like this is my punishment.
When a mix between a moan and a grunt fills my ear, I literally throw up a little, spitting it out on the ground next to me.
Wayne is breathing heavily.
“I’ve played your little game,” I stumble out. “I listened to your sick actions. Tell me her name, Wayne. You owe me this much.”
He chuckles, and it’s the most horrifying sound I’ve ever heard.
“Well played, little puppet. Lola Perez.”
He disconnects the call, and I empty the rest of my stomach.
Three hours later I’m walking aimlessly on the streets of Portland. I try to hide from the cold in my scarf and Chester’s leather jacket, which I grabbed on my way out. All I could do to keep myself from going crazy was going out and trying to see if I could find a trace of Wayne. I know it’s crazy, I know. But it’s what I need to do anyway.
Remy is walking right next to me, respecting my silent sulking. Chester tattled on me, saying he was going to keep looking for Wayne digitally while the cavalry was sent in to keep an eye on me. He’s been roaming the streets with me without asking questions, without judging.
I’d tell him I love him for it if I wasn’t too sick to my stomach to say anything.
I fucking begged and it did nothing.
He claims we’ve got this special bond, but all he does is torture me.
When we reach the entry of an alleyway off the street we’re walking on, I stick my head in the alley, searching for Wayne, or a body. I’m painstakingly aware that chances are high he’s not hiding the body somewhere in the city – he doesn’t have the time or the means to bury the women in his clocks any longer. Ever since we found his burial sites, we believe he’s been keeping to the woods. And now that he doesn’t have a clock to bury his victims, he’s going to have to improvise where he leaves them, increasing the chance that he won’t even bother burying them.
All that was holy to him has gone out of the window. All his predictability is gone. He’s devolving, and he’s doing it fast.
Chester couldn’t pinpoint exactly where Wayne’s phone call came from, but he determined it came from this general area. Nobody can tell me if he moved Lola after taking her life. And I don’t know if he killed Lola somewhere outside or inside some building. I know nothing. The only thing I know for sure is that I had to go look.
Which is fucking useless.
Of course, we don’t find him or Lola in the alley. I don’t even know why I’m out here looking anyway.
I sigh, letting my head hang down in defeat. I’m just about to say that we should just call it a day - we should have called it a day three hours ago - and head home when Remy’s cold thumb and forefinger lift my head up.
“Just a few blocks more,” he says, his eyes sparking with a hope I no longer feel.
It’s mind-boggling how well this man knows me and can read my smallest gestures. It’s really too bad I had to fall in love with my best friend, someone who sees through me as if I’m a window and a fucking FBI profiler. For someone who tries to hide her emotions half of the time, that’s a pretty poor choice of people to surround yourself with. It makes getting away with bullshitting my way through life extremely difficult.
I nod and smile a little when he presses his lips against mine before letting my chin go and continuing our search of the city.
We check a few more alleys, all leaving them without finding what we were looking for, repeating the ritual of me sighing and Remy kissing me. But fate, or the heavens, or fucking global warming, decides right then and there that it’s time to stop looking because rain starts pouring down in straight lines, bouncing up on the cobbled sidewalk.
“Fuck,” I yell at the top of my lungs, the sound of the drops hitting the streets so loud that Remy wouldn’t have heard me otherwise.
Remy starts laughing, grabs my hand and starts running, pulling me along. I have no idea where we’re headed, but Remy seems to know the way. The streets empty within seconds, all other people going inside or hiding out somewhere to not drown in this tsunami of rain. But not us. For some reason, Remy makes me keep running down the deserted streets.
We run several blocks, and I’m soaked all the way to my panties. The thick material of my combat boots can’t stop my feet from getting wet and my hair is stuck in thick strands all over my face.
We reach a street with a little brown cafe. Doors opened, blasting ‘Hearts on Fire’ by Gavin James so loud that I can hear it over the rain. People are standing beneath the Parisian awning, sticking close together, trying to hide from the wetness, swaying as one to the song.
Would there be room for two more? Just so we can get out of this rain for a bit?
Remy follows my line of sight, slowly shaking his head as a smile crawls over his face. He slows his pace, almost coming to a standstill, turns around and grabs my other hand as well so that he’s facing me.
He walks backwards into the middle of the deserted street, smack in the middle of the downpour, where raindrops bounce off the round manhole cover, ricocheting against my legs. Then he starts dancing to the music, leading me through a set of steps I’m reluctant to take. I want to fight him on it because I’m cold, and I’m in a fucking foul mood, but his happiness is contagious.
I twirl, and I spin. I am lifted and put down again, Remy catching me every time I come down. Our feet create a taplike rhythm, harmonizing with the sound of the rain, the music and the collective sigh of the onlookers.
He dips me so low, my already soaked hair dunking into a large puddle, and suddenly I don’t give a fuck anymore. His eyes sparkle, and dampness comes off of his hot body in the cool rain. I don’t think he’s ever looked more beautiful.
I can’t help but laugh out loud, the sound of my laughter lost in the cacophony of noises.
Just in that perfect moment in time, I can forget all the shit that is going on in my life. The whole world disappears, and all I see are Remy’s rain-covered dark lashes and his blue eyes looking at me like I’m his world.
“Sometimes you’ve got to dance in the rain, Abby.”
He lifts me up and I automatically wrap my legs around his waist before he starts a series of endless spins, hurling the drops away from us. Damp is coming from all over us – making me no longer feel the cold. All I feel is loved and warm, and carefree.
When the song ends, the people standing in front of the cafe start clapping for us. Remy sets me down, steps aside so that our arms are outstretched, and takes a bow, pulling at my arm so I follow his lead.
I’m smiling so wide my cheeks hurt, and once we’re on our way back to the office again, I feel lighter than I’ve felt all day. That tiny voice in my head tries to make me feel guilty for being happy, but I refuse to listen.
When we come home, Beckett and Chester are already in the living room. They eye us suspiciously when we enter, still completely soaked through.
“Took you guys long enough,” Chester says.
“Got caught in the rain,” Remy summarizes.
I take Chester’s wet leather jacket off after getting stuck in it. Being inside the warm house makes me realize how immensely cold I actually am.
“Did you find anything online?” I ask hopefully. Chester’s face turns sour, telling me enough.
“She was missing from her home,” Beckett adds. Guess the feds went the normal route of trying to find a possible missing person. I don’t see the need. I heard her die – I know Wayne better by now. Wish I didn’t, but I do so anyway. “None of her friends and family have heard from her. Her phone is turned off.”
“That’s because she was murdered today,” I say, my voice flat and even. Without waiting for an answer, I make my way upstairs and shed all my wet clothes. After taking a warming shower, I pick out some items of clothing that might bring me comfort right now. They’re house clothes, and there’s nothing sexy about them, but they make me feel alright.
By the time I get downstairs again, Remy is leaning on freshly clothed Chester. There are some slices of pizza on a plate on the coffee table. In our little quest to find a dead woman in the streets of Portland, we missed dinner and I guess Chester and Beckett ordered pizza.
Remy eyes me weirdly.
“What?”
“Are those my sweatpants?”
I look down, only to see that I’m indeed wearing a pair of Remy’s dancing sweatpants. They’re comfortable and soft and I’m able to move in them.
“I think they’re clean,” is my defense. To be honest, I’d wear them even if they’d been dirty. Remy’s smell doesn’t put me off, in fact, it makes me want to sniff it some more.
“They’re too big for you,” he adds.
“That way they won’t chafe.”
I grab a slice of pizza before sitting next to Beckett and wiggle under his arm. He gets this goofy smile on his face and pulls me closer to him. My hair is still wet and it’s soaking his shirt, but I don’t care. He’ll live.
“They match my Sum41 shirt perfectly,” Chester adds. I look down again, realizing I’m indeed wearing his shirt. I wear his shirts all the time, and he never says anything about it. Somewhere over the years, I started thinking about them as mine anyway. They’re perfectly comfortable sleepwear.
“You don’t even like Sum41,” I argue. “So are they really yours, or did you just buy them a long, long time ago when you thought they were cool, but now you’re actually glad to be rid of?”
He laughs out loud. “Oh no, it’s still my shirt. But I do like seeing you in it.”
“Just admit it, ma luciole, you like wearing what’s ours.”
“Now I feel left out,” Beckett mumbles against my head.
Fuck.
“I might have snatched some of your boxers,” I say so softly I hope nobody can hear it. They all start laughing.
“What?” I snap. “They’re clean and in my dresser because you don’t have your own and they’re comfortable. Have you ever worn a thong? They get really uncomfortable eventually.”
“It’s okay,” Beckett says, kissing the soft spot beneath my ear. “We like you anyway.”
I huff. I’ve never been a girlfriend before. I’m not exactly sure what the protocol is. We all kind of dove headfirst into this relationship, but I’ve never taken a moment to figure out what that actually means. Sure, we’ve got the physical part down, and all of them are making me feel things I’ve never felt before, but that doesn’t exactly tell me how to act.
So I decide right there and then to just wing it.
“I’m wearing your clothes when I feel like it,” I state, acting braver than I really feel. “If it’s in the house, it’s fair game.”
“Pretty sure you wore my leather jacket today as well,” Chester says.
That asshole never knows when to stop. Sometimes I think he does it on purpose, just to annoy me. I go with plan B. I ignore him. I stuff my mouth with pizza, so when they spend the next twenty minutes taunting me about wearing their clothes, I act like I can’t answer because I’ve got my mouth full.
I do have manners after all.