Fair Play (All's Fair Book 2) (14 page)

“Anyway, you do realize you’re asking me to remember something that happened about forty years ago.”

“I know. You’re doing great, Mischa.”

“You say that to all your suspects,” she said dryly.

“True, but you really are doing great. Okay, so the night J.Z. was kicked out it was Dad, you, Ruth, Suzy D., Frank and Tom.”

Mischa made a thoughtful sound. “You know, to be honest, Suzy D. was probably long gone by then. She was never really what one would call committed to the cause. She was basically there for the big party. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, and a little raising hell in the name of social change.”

“Then you
don’t
think she was there either night?”

“No.”

“So Dad, you, Ruth, Frank and Tom were the only ones there the night J.Z. disappeared.”

“I don’t know if I’d phrase it quite like that. We were all there the night J.Z. left.”

“Did anyone leave after J.Z.?”

She seemed to hesitate. Finally she said, “Roland went out. He said he wanted to walk and think.”

Chapter Twenty

The décor of the Boathouse was classic fishing lodge. A giant stone fireplace dominated the long room with its rows of picture windows. The floors and wall paneling were made of golden knotty pine, the leather booths were comfortable and roomy, and the heavy old tables built to accommodate long legs and fishing gear. An impressive display of big-game fish were mounted on the walls, the lacquer turning color with age and giving the fish a yellow tinge. Granted, their perspective was bound to be jaundiced.

Tucker and Elliot greeted a few familiar faces, exchanged a few words. Elliot had wondered what his neighbors would make of a gay couple setting up house “next door,” but island living tended to attract rugged individualists, and rugged individualists tended to mind their own business. Whatever people thought, they kept it to themselves.

He and Tucker settled in a booth overlooking the slate-smooth water.

Tucker had accepted the news that they were going out for dinner without comment, and he’d had equally little to say on the drive down to Dorado Bay.

“Have you heard from your—Tova?” Elliot had asked, as the Nissan splashed through puddles in the sandy road.

“No.”

Tucker’s tone did not invite further comment, so Elliot left it alone. He was angry with Tova. Angry she had opened this door if she was afraid to find out what might be on the other side. Tucker did not deserve this, did not deserve to have his emotions yanked around. But Elliot kept those thoughts to himself.

Now Tucker opened his menu, glanced it over, set it aside. He stared out the window at the indigo dusk. His profile was hard and impassive.

The water looked like glass. Trees, tall grass, dock were all black against a coral, pink, plum sky. Long fingers of shade stretched from the surrounding wood toward the dock.

The waitress appeared, they gave their drinks order, and Elliot went back to studying the menu. Not that he didn’t know all the offerings by heart.

Tucker’s voice jarred Elliot out of his thoughts. “You were saying you think your father’s in Canada?”

Elliot looked up from his menu. “If he’s left the country, it seems like the obvious choice. That’s where they all used to head, right? The deserters and the draft dodgers.”

“
If
he’s not in the country. Maybe you misheard. Maybe he said ‘county.’”

“He didn’t say county. He said he wasn’t in the country.”

Tucker’s gaze was challenging. “Okay, well, just because he said it, doesn’t make it true. He’d have to have his passport to leave the country.”

“I’m guessing his passport was probably in the portable safe he carried out of the house that morning. I believe he told me the truth. Anyway, I haven’t told you the rest of it yet.”

“What’s the rest of it?”

“After I finished talking to Mischa, I remembered that Dad kept a folder in his email with all his account passwords.”

Tucker opened his mouth but seemed to think better of it.

Elliot nodded grimly. “I know. And he probably also used to keep a physical folder with all of them written down, so no doubt he’s congratulating himself right now that he had the foresight to save everything in his email.”

Tucker was staring at him. He said at last, “That sounds about right.”

“So I signed into his travel credit card account and sure enough, on Sunday he booked a flight in Vancouver on the British Columbia side, and flew to Montreal. He was still in Canada as of three days ago. The last charge was for coffee and a croissant at Star Books in Montreal.”

The waitress brought their drinks.

Elliot sipped his whisky. He and Tucker had discovered Black Bull Scotch during the fall, and the proprietors of the Boathouse kept a bottle on hand for them. For Tucker, really. It would not have occurred to Elliot to request that his local pub stock his favorite drink.

“Star Books?” Tucker set his tumbler on the table. His manner remained reserved and cool.

Fair enough. Elliot had hurt and offended Tucker this morning. That made it mutual. So long as they stuck to talking about something, anything other than themselves, they were fine. They could do this. They made a good team. They worked well together. And focusing on something outside of their own rocky relations gave them the time and space. Or that Elliot needed, anyway. They would work through it. They
were
working through it in their own way.

Elliot nodded. “It could be a play on Starbucks. Or it could be something else.”

Tucker said slowly, “You think your Dad is in Canada looking for Star? You think Star ran off and opened a bookstore in Montreal? I thought she was sixteen?”

“I’m not saying she opened the bookstore the year she ran away. But yes, that’s one possibility. The other possibility is...”

“What?”

“Someone killed her.”

Tucker frowned. “Where did you come up with that idea?”

“If she did really see J.Z. murdered, well, it’s possible whoever killed J.Z. decided Star had to go too.”

Tucker said flatly, “But she accused your father.”

“I know. I don’t think my father killed her. But I noticed that the uniform of long hair and beards makes a pretty good disguise, and nearly all the men in the Collective wore that uniform.”

“She might have seen J.Z. killed and initially thought the killer was your father? And the real killer decided he couldn’t risk her changing her mind?”

“Exactly. That’s one theory. Personally, I don’t think it’s what happened. I think she fled to Canada and my father is looking for her.”

Tucker shook his head. “Why? Even if by some astronomical chance this is the same Star, why would your father do that? What could he hope to gain by going after her?”

“She accused him of killing J.Z. Maybe he wants to prove to her that he didn’t. Or maybe he thinks he can find out who she did see that night.”

“You think this Star woman is stalking Roland?” Tucker’s tone was derisive.

“It seems unlikely. Especially from Canada.”

Tucker was silent, thinking it over.

“J.Z. did give her flying lessons though. According to my dad, he gave them all flying lessons.”

“Then he was an idiot,” Tucker said.

Maybe not an idiot, but J.Z. had not exactly been a model agent. It was clear from Roland’s account J.Z. walked a fine line between investigation and entrapment. And, assuming Roland’s recollections were accurate, sometimes J.Z. had veered into the murky territory of instigation.

Elliot drew a mental deep breath, but the waitress appeared to take their order for food. They both ordered burgers.

As soon as she was out of earshot, he said, “Speaking of air travel. I’m going to fly to Montreal tomorrow.”

Tucker set his glass down so hard liquid sloshed out. His eyes looked like blue flint. “You’re what?”

“I bought my ticket online a couple of hours ago. I fly out of Sea-Tac tomorrow at 7:00 a.m.”

Tucker was still staring at him. He said, “You didn’t think maybe we should discuss this?”

“We’re discussing it now.”

“No, we’re not. You’re telling me what you’re going to do. And if I don’t like it, I can go to hell. Right?”

Elliot matched his tone to Tucker’s low voice. “No. Not right. I don’t see why you should have a problem with it though.”

“For all you know, your dad is already on his way home.”

“Maybe. I’d still like to know what he was doing up there.”

“Well, you could just
ask
him when he gets back.” There were unspoken volumes of censure in that terse sentence, and they struck a nerve.

“I’ve
been
asking him since this whole thing started. He wasn’t talking then, I don’t know why he would start talking now. Meanwhile, someone is trying to kill him—or maybe just frame him for murder.”

“Do you have
any
clue how far out of line you are?”

Elliot shot back, “Do you have any clue how far out of line
you
are?”

Tucker made a disbelieving sound and stared out the window. The jut of his jaw was obdurate and unforgiving.

Elliot eyed him for a moment. He said quietly, “This doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on between us.”

Tucker clipped out, “Doesn’t it?”

“No. It doesn’t. But...I don’t think it will hurt for us to have a little breathing space.”

A muscle moved in Tucker’s jaw. He said, “You mean you want breathing space. I breathe better when you’re close by.”

The stark honesty of it felt like an arrow to the heart. How the hell could Tucker say things like that? Elliot’s throat closed. It took him a couple of seconds to be able to say, “Nothing has changed. I have to know what’s going on in order to help my father.”

Tucker faced him. “And you don’t trust me.”

That was what Elliot had said, and he had meant it at the time, but now seeing the pain Tucker made no attempt to hide, it didn’t seem quite as clear-cut. “I trust you when it comes to the most important things. But you’ve made it clear that you’re willing to keep information from me, maybe even deceive me if you think it’s in my best interest—or the best interest of your case.”

Tucker leaned forward. He said in a low, fierce voice, “I’ve got two priorities in my life. You and my job. And yes, I will do whatever it takes in the interest of those two things. But as important as my job is to me, if it came down to you or the job, I’d quit tomorrow. And if you don’t know that by now, there isn’t anything more to say.”

The waitress brought their burgers and fries with a cheery comment neither responded to.

They ate without talking beyond requests for salt and ketchup.

* * *

When they returned to the house, Tucker said he was tired and was going to bed. He went straight upstairs without further words. Elliot dug out an old Automobile Club guidebook with a section on Montreal.

He had packed before Tucker arrived home and he knew the sight of his carry-on bag would not improve Tucker’s mood any.

He headed out to the sun porch to read for a bit. It was hard to concentrate though. He felt restless, uneasy. He hated knowing that he was hurting Tucker, and somehow telling himself he was in the right didn’t really help much. He didn’t like the idea of leaving on a trip while things were still tense between them. He didn’t know what more he could say though.

After reading the same, probably out-of-date, description of hotels for the third time, Elliot thought about having another drink. He thought about making a cup of tea. He thought about going upstairs. But the idea of lying in silence next to Tucker was depressing. The rain made a soothing shushing sound against the tall picture windows, but Elliot was not soothed. Tired though he was, he remained wound up and wide awake.

He’d been reading for about twenty minutes, maybe less when he heard Tucker’s swift footsteps on the stairs. He glanced up in surprise as Tucker strode into the room. Tucker wore boxers and nothing else. His hair was sticking up and his face was flushed.

Elliot’s surprise turned to amazement as Tucker walked up to his chair, took the guidebook out of his unresisting grip, and tossed it aside.

“We need to talk. Upstairs.”

There was no friendly teasing in Tucker’s voice. No smile on his face. He glowered down at Elliot, and Elliot scowled right back. “You better be kidding.”

“The only kidding going on here is you kidding yourself.”

Elliot stared. Tucker stared back, his expression adamantine.

“Now,” Tucker said.

He was serious. Crazy. But serious.

Elliot considered laughing in Tucker’s face, but he wasn’t sure he could make it convincing. His heart was pounding with excitement and confused emotions. Most confusing of all was that the instant the word “upstairs” had left Tucker’s mouth, Elliot’s cock had been hard and erect. It was like someone had thrown a switch, and every light in the house was bright and blazing.

Shine it on.

Elliot gripped the arms of his chair and growled, “Tucker, I’m warning you. I’m not in the mood.”

“Is that so?” Tucker looked pointedly at the tent Elliot’s cock was making of his sleep pants.

Heat washed through Elliot. His anger and frustration with Tucker’s high-handed behavior was at war with the equally powerful ache to be submissive to Tucker in bed. If anything that inner conflict heightened his desire, his hunger. But he could not give in to that need, not with the way things were between them now. He would be surrendering too much.

He got to his feet—not all that easy, given the size of his erection—so that he was chest-to-chest with Tucker, who was watching him with unconcealed and fierce hunger. Elliot, jaw set, gazed stonily back.

They breathed heavily into each other’s faces. He could smell alcohol and toothpaste on Tucker’s breath. It was disconcerting. Tucker had tried to go to bed, tried to sleep, but he couldn’t. Any more than Elliot could.

What happened next? Were they going to launch themselves at each other and end up wrestling on the Civil War diorama? For a few dizzying seconds, Elliot wasn’t sure. It felt like anything was possible. He was so angry. He wasn’t even sure why, but he could feel himself shaking with tension, a ferocious and irrational mix of resentment and longing.

To his astonishment, Tucker’s mouth suddenly quivered. He gave a funny laugh. He said in a deep, but not quite steady voice, “Do you really not know how this is going to go?”

“Sure. I’m going to kill you.”

Tucker’s smile tightened. But he shook his head. “Is that so? Well, maybe after I fuck you, but sure as hell not before. The disappointment would kill
you
.”

And now Elliot really was furious. Furious and frustrated and embarrassed that his most intimate secrets were bared to Tucker, who could view them in that cynical, clinical—

“No.” Tucker seemed to answer that wordless outraged protest. “Never.” He rested a hard, possessive hand on Elliot’s shoulder, drew him forward and covered his mouth with a hot, hungry kiss. The confused whirl of Elliot’s thoughts slowed, stopped. Protest died in his throat. So much for his world-famous stubbornness if one kiss could shut him up. Tucker reached down, hand slipping through the opening in the soft material of Elliot’s sleep pants, and his big hand cupped Elliot’s balls, steely fingers cradling those fragile sacs.