Chapter 15 #3
The worst part? His drive home was so routine that he can’t really remember much from it.
He sat in the driver’s seat, and then the next thing he knew, he was pulling into his driveway.
There was nothing in between except for his car apparently passing through a wormhole.
He just couldn’t stop thinking about how unprepared he felt for the results of the blood tests and how unacceptable that is.
It’s his job to anticipate everything, even if it’s thrown from left field.
He couldn’t even manage to start theorizing; instead he just made Ben feel uncomfortable.
“Let me guess, you had a great day at the office, and every case is solved.” Andrew’s voice jolts him from his anxiety spiral as he walks into the room.
Andrew looks like he came straight from bed: He’s wearing a T-shirt, flannel pajama pants, and a shit-eating grin.
His hair is a shock of curls, mirroring the chaos of Leroux’s mind.
Leroux smiles. Even just the sound of Andrew’s exhausted voice can act as a soothing balm, calming the rawest of wounds.
“Is it Opposite Day?” Leroux asks, rubbing his hand across his face.
Andrew scoffs playfully. “Oh, I’m sorry, did we just time-travel back to fourth grade?”
Leroux shoots him a look, crossing the kitchen and rummaging in a cabinet for a mug. “The results of that blood they found at the crime scene came back, and let’s just say I couldn’t have called this one with a crystal ball.”
“Well, no one expects you to be a fortune teller, John.” He covers a yawn with the back of his hand. “You love a challenge! How is this any different?”
“This one just feels like it has an incredible amount of weight attached to it,” he says, clumsily sliding a hand-painted mug under the single-serve spout of the coffee maker.
Suddenly Andrew is right next to him, pulling the mug away and handing him a glass of water.
“You’ll be about as useful as a screen door on a submarine if you don’t stop pumping yourself with caffeine.
” He places a gentle hand on the back of Leroux’s neck and pulls him in so their foreheads touch, a move he started doing about three months into their relationship, when Leroux’s mother passed away.
It was so comforting, so quietly powerful and intimate, that he never stopped doing it in times like this.
Usually it’s exactly what Leroux needs to feel calmer, more grounded.
But tonight, he still feels a lingering sense of dread.
“Hydrate,” Andrew insists, gently pushing the glass up to Leroux’s face.
“I think Jeremy Rose has people who will do things for him on the outside, Andrew.” He can’t stop the words as they tumble from his mouth. “I think he’s got fans, people who will risk a lot to give him what he wants.”
A pained expression crosses Andrew’s face. “What do you mean?”
Leroux shakes his head, sliding down into a seat at the kitchen table.
He squeezes the place between his eyes, rubbing at the skin to ease his growing headache.
“He’s getting information somehow, and I don’t know if it stops there.
He’s like the fucking plague. You just can’t contain him.
” A deluge of unanswered questions has been threatening to drown Leroux lately, and now it feels like he’s starting to uncork the top and let it all spray out.
“And you want to know the worst part of this whole thing?”
Andrew blinks a few times, sitting across from him. “I don’t think I do, but I’m sure you will tell me.”
Leroux scoffs to himself, thinking about Jeremy’s smug expression.
“The worst part of it all is that he just loves this.” He punctuates each part of the sentence by tapping his finger hard on the table’s surface.
Andrew nods along, giving small acknowledgments.
“It’s not some evil-genius shit. He’s having a hell of a good time directing it all from the inside.
” He can feel the heat in his face, the rising blood pressure fueling his anger.
“You should calm down, John,” Andrew says, placing a hand on his.
“I should hobble that motherfucker is what I should do.”
Andrew’s head tilts to the side, a disapproving look crossing his face. He’s expressed before that his biggest fear is that the man he loves will work himself into cardiac arrest, and right now Leroux is probably looking damn close to it.
Leroux takes a breath, making an exaggerated show of acting Zen. “I am calm,” he says quietly, closing his eyes as if in deep meditation.
Andrew releases his hand, playfully swatting at it and trying not to let his grin escape his control. “You can vent, but I need you to remain present here instead of tumbling back into that room with the killer.”
“Fair enough,” Leroux says. “But honestly, it’s just ego. It’s always just ego with him.”
“Have those bodies been autopsied yet?” Andrew asks, leaning back in the chair.
Leroux shakes his head. “Wren and her team started last night, but they’re still trying to identify all the parts. It’s kind of a messy, unorthodox case.”
“Well, why don’t you give her a chance to do what she does before you count this whole thing as a lost cause?” Andrew gives him a knowing look. “She’s always saying how the dead talk to her. Let them have some conversations.”