A Tangled Truth (Stonewall Investigations Book 3) Read online

  “Woah,” I said, jumping back. Liam stumbled behind me. He said something, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was more concerned with the frantic-looking girl who had just run inside. Her brown, silky head was matted to her forehead, and her light-pink shirt was stained with sweat. She must have run here. She looked familiar…

  That’s when I recognized her.

  “Where’s Collin? Where is he?”

  Andrew had put the phone down and was standing up behind his desk. “Collin… he was, um…” He looked down as he searched his thoughts.

  “Here, I’m right here. What the hell’s going on? Hailey?” Collin walked out of the hallway. His expression was full of concern. He had heavy bags under his eyes, making it obvious that sleep had been hard to find for him lately. He was another detective here at Stonewall and was one of the detectives I was closest with. We used to have to bat down rumors of us being together, which was never the case. I had always felt close to Collin and trusted him, but in the same way I would a brother I never had.

  “Oh, Collin, thank God. Why aren’t you answering your phone!”

  “I dropped it in the toilet like thirty minutes ago.” He moved forward and grabbed his sister by the elbows. “What’s going on?”

  “I got home and I found Riceball… She was killed, Collin. There was a knife in her forehead. And then, Jesus, I thought maybe he had gotten you, too. I was calling and calling.”

  The room felt a hundred degrees colder. Like we had all been teleported straight to a butcher’s freezer. I knew exactly what Hailey was talking about. She looked like she was going to throw up, the color on her face shifting to green.

  “The Unicorn,” Andrew said out loud, sending chills through all our spines in unison.

  Collin seemed speechless. I knew Riceball was his cat, a big old grumpy thing that had been with him since it was a little kitten. And Hailey, he had mentioned she was staying in the city for a week with him before starting college.

  “Shit,” I heard Liam say behind me, almost to himself. It broke through the morbid spell that had been cast on all of us.

  “Did you call the police?” Collin asked.

  “No, I was so panicked. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I ran straight here.”

  “Okay, that’s okay. Let’s do that first. Everything’s okay, don’t freak out. All right, Hailey?”

  Her upper lip was trembling in a way that warned us all the dam was about to break. I could see that they shared the same eyes, the same narrow nose and full cheeks. “You’ve gotta stop investigating him, Collin. Please. He’ll kil—” She couldn’t bring herself to finish before she broke out into scared sobs.

  “Come on, let’s go rest in my office,” Collin said, holding his little sister and kissing the top of her head before leading her down the hall. Zane Holden, the founder of Stonewall Investigations, came out then, followed almost instantly by Leo and Wanda, two more of Stonewall’s detectives. They all looked worried as they came into the reception room, letting Collin walk past with his distraught sister.

  “What happened?” Zane asked. We gave him the rundown. Liam had excused himself and stepped outside for some fresh air. I didn’t blame him—the mood inside the normally light and cheery reception space now resembled that of a funeral. Inside, I was panicking. Ever since Collin had started working on the Unicorn case, him becoming a target was one of my biggest fears. Obviously, I was well aware that our chosen career would always have an element of danger, but this was different. And now it looked like that was exactly what had happened. This was a warning shot. “Back the fuck off” it was shouting, and that was something Collin would never do. I knew him. He’d work harder than ever to find the killer.

  Not much later, Collin walked out of his office with an arm thrown over his sister’s shoulders. He looked at the assembled collage of concerned faces and managed a smile. I could tell he had just wiped away tears. “I’m going to find the fucker.” There was a steely determination in his eyes that told us all he was dead serious.

  “Collin,” I said, opening my arms and taking them both in a hug.

  “God, I fucking hope you do,” Leo said. Wanda was shaking her head, her eyes moist, and Andrew looked pale, his fist held to his mouth.

  Collin separated from the hug. “We have to go. The cops are going to be at my place. I’ll be back in the office tonight. I’m setting Hailey up at a hotel.”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he said, and they left. The rest of the team dispersed, and I went outside to find Liam, who was sitting on the stoop, scrolling through his phone. He looked up when I stopped next to him. “Sorry about that,” I said as I helped Liam get back on his feet.

  “No need for apologies. How are they? They hurried past me and down the street; the girl was still really shaken.”

  I shook my head. Fear was starting to spread through me. I wasn’t one to get scared, but this was all getting way too close to home. “Not good.”

  “Shit…” Liam looked shaken, too. “Listen, if we have to cancel our plans, that’s totally fine. I understand.”

  “No, no,” I said, waving my hands in the air. “It’ll help. Being around you will help.”

  “Okay, good, because I didn’t really want to be alone right now, either.”

  Looking into Liam’s eyes did something to me. Unraveled me. I felt an urge to be honest in that moment. To bare a raw side of myself that I didn’t think he had ever really seen. “Liam… I’m really glad we found each other again. You’re special to me in ways I can’t even describe.”

  Liam’s smile grew. His eyes glittered like jewels reflecting the sunlight. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Even though my life has completely turned upside down, I’m still waking up with a smile every single day because you’re the first thing that comes into my head.”

  “My mornings are the exact same. And then I go to sleep smiling, too. Because I know I’ll be dreaming of you.”

  We gazed at each other, smiling and finding comfort with each other in the center of a raging shitstorm. It was as if the eye of the storm had formed directly around us. I swallowed. My heart was beating. Life was so short. My chance was here, and it was one I had to take. I could see it all so clearly.

  So I took the chance. I leaned in and broke a seal that had been long ready to shatter. I felt the world quake around me as our lips crashed together. Liam’s hands came up to grip my biceps, his fingers digging in as our kiss released years of pent-up frustration. A dam of fantasies ruptured and spilled out around us. So many moments of suppressing my unspoken desires seemed to have flooded up and out of me. I grabbed his hips and pulled him close to me. So damn close. I didn’t want to let him go.

  I had him. Liam was in my arms. A literal dream come true, formed under the shadow of a nightmare.

  “Wow,” I said, separating from the kiss, finding myself falling back on my most-used expression. I swear, if there was a frequent-flier program for the usage of the word “wow,” I’d be flying all over the damn country, at least.

  I wiped my lips with a thumb. “Wow,” I repeated.

  “I’ve been wanting that since puberty hit me.”

  “So have I,” I admitted. “Why didn’t we ever just give in?”

  “Because we were both closeted and terrified of hurting each other somehow.” Liam cocked his head, a sad smile playing on his handsome face. His wet lips caught the light of the sun and glowed. “And then I moved, and it all went to shit. But I’m ready to make up for all that lost time.”

  “Same,” I said. And I never meant anything more in my entire life than that one word.

  9 Liam Wolfe

  So that… was a whirlwind. Holy shit. I wasn’t expecting the complete fucking roller coaster my emotional system had been put through. First someone ran in right out of a freakin’ horror movie with terrible news, freaking us all out, and then fifteen minutes later I was standing outside locking lips with my
first ever love after we’d both opened up to each other in ways we never had before.

  So yeah. A whirlwind. I was pretty sure I had some kind of whiplash. It didn’t matter, though, because I was currently sitting in the back seat of a car with Mark right next to me, his knee resting against mine, his taste still on my tongue. It was enough of a reminder to get my engines revving again, and I wasn’t talking about the engine currently in charge of driving us through the city. No, no. I was talking about the engine between my legs, which was currently getting harder and harder.

  “You don’t have any idea of where I’m taking us?” Mark asked, looking my way. He had given the driver an address he’d written down so I wouldn’t hear it. The neighborhood we were driving through seemed familiar, but I still didn’t know where Mark was leading us. I recognized an old supermarket my parents used to go to that had been converted into some kind of medical center now, and there was the old corner store Mark and I would always go to for their Philly cheesesteaks.

  “Wait a second…” I said as the car turned a corner. “Holy shit, this is crazy.” Realization hit me just as the destination came into view. The sun was shining bright, a bright ray cutting around a nearby skyscraper and casting its light directly on the spot Mark had taken me to. It was somewhere I was pretty damn familiar with, but I hadn’t been here in years. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”

  “Hey, we’re not that old,” Mark said, smiling as he looked at me with those spell-casting eyes of his. The car pulled up to the front of the diner.

  “You’re right, you’re right. I guess that sounded a little archaic.” I laughed and stepped out of the car, bracing myself for the heat. Mark walked around and met me on the sidewalk. He looked so fucking eatable in a pair of light-washed jeans and a simple white T-shirt. We were standing outside of a diner pulled right out of the 1940s and planted in the middle of concrete jungle. The red-and-yellow neon sign wasn’t bright enough to compete with the sun’s light, but I could read it fine enough: Oak’s Diner. This had been our go-to spot as kids. Both of our families had lived in buildings right down the street from here. Part of me wanted to go check them out later, but I knew they’d be pretty beat-up, and there was nothing for me to see there anyway.

  But this spot? Holy shit, I couldn’t believe we were back. Together.

  “We came here for almost every single one of your birthdays,” I said to Mark as we walked to the light blue door.

  “I remember,” he said. “Mostly just us two, you always ordering the double-decker ass-kicker grilled cheeseburger and me always wondering out loud if I’d end up seeing your artery clog in real time.”

  I snorted at that. “Holy shit, that’s right. I really pushed my luck back then, didn’t I? Nowadays, if I have a Big Mac I end up getting heartburn for three weeks.”

  “Which reminds me!” Mark said, pointing a finger in the air. “I called ahead to make sure they had a walker for you and also a pre-chewed menu option. I heard it’s all the rage in the elderly hipster crowd.”

  Once again I snorted. It may not have been attractive, but I didn’t really give a fuck. Mark was making me laugh harder than I had in a while, and it was something I desperately needed in my life, especially these days. My texts may have seemed cheery and upbeat, but Mark didn’t see the days I was locked up in my house with the lights off and the TV playing crap in the background while I mindlessly scrolled through social media. It had been a set of pretty shitty circumstances that had led me to Mark’s doorstep, and it turned out he had the exact antidote I needed to combat the shitty situation. Laughter was, in fact, the best medicine, and Mark was giving me a full-on signed and filled prescription.

  “You were always looking out for me,” I said, walking up to the booth where the hostess stood. She wore the classic diner attire: a light-blue collared shirt-dress hybrid, with a cute little blue hat on her head that transported her right to the fifties. It was the same uniform they wore back when we used to come here, a timeless piece of the past. I gave her my name, and we moved to the side for our five-minute wait.

  “I did always have your back,” Mark said, picking up our conversation. “But it was mutual, I think. It always felt like you looked out for me, too.”

  “I did.”

  “Sucks that we had to put it all on pause.”

  I smiled at that. “Pause. I like that. Makes it sound a little less shitty.”

  “Right?” He nodded, obviously proud of himself. “But it’s true. When you moved away, that Pause button was hit, but with you, it feels like I can always press Play and pick up right where we left off. That’s what’s so great about pausing.”

  I narrowed my eyes and felt my smile growing. I started to chuckle.

  “What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

  “No, no,” I said, laughing a little harder, “You just sounded like a used-VCR salesman for a second. A sexy one. And I can just picture you knocking on old ladies’ doors, opening your coat and showing off your collection of VCRs. I mean, I’d totally buy whatever you were pitching.”

  Mark cracked up at that. He was laughing so hard I saw a tear roll halfway down his cheek before he wiped it away. “Man, that is an image… wait, why would I have them in my coat?”

  “Because you’re a little weird like that,” I said, nudging an elbow into Mark’s side. It felt so damn good playing around with him like this. Teasing him like the old days, in the same way a kid with a head-over-heels crush for someone would do.

  Mark was laughing, his eyes glowing. “I’m definitely not VCR-in-my-trench-coat weird, okay? Maybe I have an eccentric taste in music, but that’s about it.”

  “Do you still listen to that weird Turkish stuff?”

  Mark opened his mouth, as if he was going to say “no” and then dropped his head and murmured something.

  “What was that?”

  “Yes. Yes I do, and you know what? I love it, and I’m going to get you to love it, too.”

  “You can’t even understand what they’re saying!”

  “You can still feel the emotion,” Mark said, holding a fist to his chest and being overdramatic. I smiled so hard it hurt. Truthfully? I liked every single song Mark played, even if it wasn’t something I’d normally listen to. Seeing him enjoy something always made me happy, and that was really all that mattered to me. Back then and today.

  As we sat there and waited a little longer than the estimated time, we talked and laughed and I was able to completely forget about everything going wrong and focus in on the one thing that was going completely right. There were a few times I couldn’t help but reach out and touch his arm or his leg. It was an impulse, and every time only made me hungrier for more.

  Jesus. This is Mark.

  There would be moments when it would hit me. Mainly when he’d laugh, because it was a sound that hadn’t changed in the slightest from when we were kids. He’d always had such a boisterous laugh that was highly infectious. It was during one of these bouts of infectious laughter that the hostess came to get us. She led us through the diner, where a mixed crowd of tourists and locals sat in big white booths and around square red tables. There were neon signs on the pale blue tiled walls along with framed photos of New York City from back in the day. The floor was still the same black-and-white squares from when we were kids, but it was obviously well maintained.

  My heart was full. In that moment, staring at Mark’s (really fucking sexy) back, I felt an overwhelming warmth fill my heart. And I wasn’t normally one to get all flowery with my thoughts, but it really did feel like a Hallmark card had fluttered its way into my chest and made a home in there. Mark just made me happy, in a way I hadn’t felt in a while. Sure, I’d been busy as hell with work and was happy in that sense, and I’d also found some happiness in the hookups and short flickers of relationships I’d had over the years, but nothing compared to the way I was feeling with Mark back in my life. And that made me feel in ways I hadn’t for years. Back when I’d sit and binge on
rom-coms, I’d laugh and cry and just ride the wave of emotions, and I’d get all dreamy about the future. It was in film school, and I’d started watching a few to study them but then found myself actually loving them. Since then, even though most of my films were big action-set pieces, I did throw in a lot of rom-com nods.

  My obsession with romantic comedies was also during a time in my life when I thought I’d found someone serious, the one person who might have been able to get close to the way Mark had made me feel.

  The way Mark was making me feel.

  I was googly-eyed for a guy and hungry for a Sandra Bullock comedy. When I’d found the guy cheating, my obsession fizzled and so did my dreamy outlook on life. In a way, I had thought it was my last chance. My first chance? That was with Mark, and I had moved away and had no idea what he was doing, so I thought this other guy was going to be it. But he wasn’t, and I was pretty hurt, and so I settled for the easy way. Having sex without much connection to accompany it. Made things simple.

  Simple. Ha-ha. What is that again?

  My life was far from simple nowadays.

  “Holy shit,” I said, looking around as I slid into the red-and-white booth, the plush cushion behind me feeling good as I sat back. “Do you remember this? This exact booth—it’s where we sat for your fourteenth birthday. The day I pushed your head down into the cake.”

  “Of course. I’d never forget that,” Mark said, laughing.

  “Thanks for bringing me here,” I said as we settled in. “I know things got crazy back at Stonewall.”

  Mark put the menu down and locked eyes with me from across the table. “Yeah, seeing Collin that shaken up is hard, but I know he’s going to go full steam into his investigation. Then, once things settle, maybe all three of us can go out somewhere.” He smiled at me. I looked into those mesmerizing multicolored gems of his and felt like I was exactly where I needed to be. “He’s a close friend of mine,” he continued. “I think you two would be good friends, too. He kind of knows you already, actually.”