Chapter 21
They made their way past the arcade. Although the games were dark, it actually looked like a pretty dope setup—they had all the ones he remembered from Boondocks, like Pac-Man and Snow Cross and, yeah, even Barber Cut, which wasn’t what it sounded like but was still awesome.
When they got back to the main floor, a quick call to Brigitte at the chalet revealed that Tafton and Nora had gone back to their room.
Brigitte gave them Tafton’s room number—which, it turned out, was also a chalet.
Paid for, no doubt, by Tafton’s in-laws.
No expense spared when it came to helping Tafton lose his taste for dick. Or acquire his taste for lady bits.
“Hey, there’s an idea,” Jem said as he and Tean retrieved coats, hats, and gloves from their room.
Tean was zipping up his coat.
“What if they didn’t try to make them straight?” Jem said.
Tean might have sighed. A little.
“What if they worked on making them bi, instead?”
Tean finished zipping up the coat. And, finally, he looked at Jem.
Jem had seen those eyes before.
Those were the eyes of a man who didn’t believe in the profit potential of franchising a McDonald’s. With a play area, obviously.
“Think about it,” Jem said.
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“You’re never going to make a gay dude stop loving dick.”
This time, Tean definitely sighed.
“That’s, like, in their DNA.”
“That’s actually an interesting question,” Tean said. “Right now, the science seems to suggest that it’s a combination of nature and nurture—”
“Right, right, uh huh, but listen, babe. You’re never going to make a gay dude stop loving dick.”
“Jem, what—”
“In his mouth. Up his ass. One in each hand, working them like he’s squeezing two naughty dolphins. Oh, shit, on his knees, getting Eiffel towered, but he’s also working a dick in each hand, and maybe a couple of guys are just rubbing on him, like, you know, shoulders, or wherever they can reach—”
“What is happening right now?” Tean whispered.
“But,” Jem said, and he couldn’t keep the note of triumph out of his voice, “you can always teach somebody to like something. Or, you know, put up with it. Like, I never liked those green beans out of a can, but there was this one foster family where we had them every dinner, and we weren’t allowed to leave the table until we finished them.
So, you know what I did? I learned to eat them, even though I didn’t like them. ”
“No, you didn’t,” Tean said. “You paid that girl to eat them for you.”
“Wait, I already told you that story?” The expression on Tean’s face suggested Jem might be running out of time, so he hurried ahead. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“That is the point. That’s the entire point of the story. Which, I have to add, you also lied about.”
“Babe!”
“You did!”
“You didn’t have to add it. You could have pretended you didn’t remember.”
“Jem, what are we talking about right now?”
“You could teach gay dudes to like lady bits. Or at least, you know, put up with them.”
“Oh my God.”
“Bi dudes do it all the time! They’ll stick it anywhere!”
“Jeremiah!”
“They will!”
“In the first place, that’s got to be bi-phobic. In the second, bisexual men don’t ‘put up with’ lady bits—with women’s, uh, sexual organs.”
Jem made a face.
“They’re attracted to men and women equally. Well, maybe not equally. Maybe it depends on the person.” Tean frowned. “I’m not entirely sure how it works.”
“But you could definitely pay somebody else to fuck your wife,” Jem said.
Tean stared at him.
“If we’re going back to the green bean story,” Jem said.
Wind and snow scraped along the window.
“Uh, you know,” Jem said. “I think I forgot what we were talking about.”
“Thank goodness,” Tean said under his breath.
When they left the lodge’s lobby, the storm—if anything—had grown even more intense.
The wind hammered at them. Snow spun through the air so hard that it stung Jem’s cheeks, and he had to squint to protect his eyes.
The drifts covering the walkways were even deeper now, and Jem held on to Tean as they fought their way through the snow.
Now that Jem had been this way before, he knew where to look for the signs, but even so, he almost missed their turn. The storm was nearing a whiteout, and he couldn’t see more than a few yards ahead of him—less when the wind shifted, and the snow came spiraling in toward his face.
When they reached Tafton and Nora’s chalet, it was barely more than an impression against the graying darkness of the storm—a darker shadow that suggested a shape.
A light showed in one of the windows, but it was weak against the gloom.
Jem checked the number on the sign and then hammered on the door.
His glove padded the blows, making them quieter than they should have been, and the storm swallowed up the rest of the sound.
Ten seconds passed.
Jem’s teeth were chattering.
He hammered again, shouting, “Tafton! Nora! Open up!”
Still nothing.
With a mental fuck this, he jiggled the handle.
To his surprise, the door swung open.
Motioning for Tean to follow, he stepped inside. When Tean shut the door behind them, the sudden quiet almost made him dizzy.
The chalet had honey-colored floorboards with matching log veneers on the walls.
The furniture was reclaimed wood, copper accents, upholstery that ran from leather to faux fur.
Everything was done in what Jem thought of as fall colors: browns and creams and a touch of burnt orange.
Overhead, the high ceiling showed exposed rafters and beams. No loft, and maybe a tad smaller, but otherwise obviously from the same design as Brigitte and Gerald’s chalet.
A lamp at the far end of the room provided the only light; beyond it, a darkened hallway led toward what Jem guessed was the bedrooms.
“Hello?” Jem called. “Tafton? Nora?”
Silence.
“The doors aren’t supposed to stay open like that,” Tean whispered.
Jem watched the darkened hallway at the back of the chalet. When Tean touched his arm, though, he glanced over. Tean pointed to something on the front door—barely visible along the edge where the strike plate would be.
Tape.
“What in the fuck-a-dilly do we have here?” Jem muttered as he took a closer look.
He gave the door a tug, and it opened easily again.
Wind snapped at them, and snow fluttered in, but he only needed a moment to see where the tape ran neatly across the latch.
Normally, the door would lock when you shut it. Now, it wouldn’t.
“Maybe they lost their key,” Tean whispered.
Sure, Jem almost said. But they hadn’t. And Tean knew it too, or he wouldn’t have been whispering.
All Jem did, though, was nod.
Tean swallowed. He was breathing faster—those high, thin breaths through his nose. But when he saw Jem watching him, he gave a sharp nod in answer.
Jem examined the room again, more closely this time.
The sofa had been moved recently; impressions in the rug showed where it used to be.
Decorative books on a shelf had been stacked at random instead of arranged by size and color, the way Jem had seen them in other hotel rooms. A painting on the wall was crooked. He whispered, “Someone’s been in here.”
Tean nodded more slowly this time.
“Stay here,” Jem told him. When Tean started to open his mouth, Jem added, “Watch the door.”
Tean didn’t argue, so Jem took his silence for a yes.
He padded down the hallway that led toward the back of the chalet.
A door stood open on his right, and beyond it was the bathroom.
Nothing out of the ordinary: toothbrushes, razors, a pump bottle of whatever that stuff was called that was supposed to help you regrow your hair—the label was tiny, and the word was long, but it started with an M, and they always had it at Costco.
He continued to the door at the end of the hall.
It stood open too, and through the doorway, Jem could see a large bed, another fireplace, and a seating cluster like the one in Brigitte’s room.
“Jem,” Tean whisper-called from the main area.
Jem made his way back.
Tean was standing next to the sofa. He’d pulled out the cushion, and he was pointing to something. Then Jem saw it: a length of polished black wood.
Gerald’s cane.
“Shit,” Jem said. “Did you touch it?”
Tean shook his head.
“God. Okay, leave it there for now.”
“Why would someone hide it here?” Tean said.
Wrapped up in that question were others. Why hide it at all? Why not throw it out onto one of the slopes? Why not break it into smaller pieces? Hell, why not burn it? Or the underlying question, the one Jem thought Tean was asking: did someone put this here to frame Tafton?
“I’ll be right back,” Jem whispered.
He made his way to the bedroom again, and this time, he stepped through the doorway. He flipped a switch near the door, and several lamps flicked on. A set of Mormon scriptures on one nightstand. On the other, a travel case for pills. A mirror on one wall. The closet door. Roller bags—
But why would the roller bags be out in the bedroom? Why wouldn’t they be in the closet?
The same reason everything else was messed up; that was the obvious answer.
Someone had come through here, either searching for something or looking for a good spot to plant evidence or both.
But the longer Jem stared at those roller bags—and at the closet door beyond them—the more it made him itch.
He’d learned a long time ago to trust his instincts.
And his instincts told him someone was still here.
He reached into the pocket of his coat. The telescoping antenna? The barrette? He shifted his weight. Surprise whoever was hiding in the closet? Or say something, try to get them to come out?
Jem took a step sideways, lining himself up with the closet door.
He was so focused on it that it took him a moment to register, in his peripheral vision, the reflection in the mirror.