A Mended Man (The Men of Halfway House Book 4) (32 page)

"You want advice?" Cole insisted, standing in the middle of the open space with his arms crossed.

"No."
Yes, but I just want you to shut the hell up.

"Uh-huh. I'm going to give it to you anyway. Do with it whatever you choose. Listen up." Cole dramatically cleared his throat as if ready to give a speech. "Jessie loves you. Period. It's that simple so don't make it complicated. That man thinks you're the stars, the moon, and the whole damn galaxy. And you know the only way you can make that man love you
any
more than he already does?"

Aidan looked at Cole, not saying a word. He couldn't believe it, but he actually
did
want Cole to continue talking.

Cole walked toward them, leaned over, and wrapped his arms around Ty's neck. He placed a tender kiss on Ty's cheek and nuzzled him for a moment before returning his focus to Aidan. The humor completely vacant from his expression and tone when he spoke. "Let him in, Aidan. Block everyone else out if that makes you feel safe. But give him that skeleton key to get inside all your secret rooms. If you can do that, he will love you more than you ever thought possible." He kissed Ty again and released him. He stared back at Aidan with a raised eyebrow, a slow-spreading cocky grin and the usual playfulness back intact. "My-Ty, I'd say you've got about two minutes before my future brother-in-law here runs away from all this personal talk." He gave Ty another kiss on the cheek then retreated to the bedroom, taking each step as if it were part of a dance move to a song playing in his head.

Aidan exhaled heavily and ran his fingers through his hair.

Ty reached out and placed his hand on Aidan's shoulder. "You know he's right even though you won't admit it."

He clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. "How do you put up with him?"

Ty leaned back into the couch and a slow smile spread across his face at some thought. He looked up to his brother and his brown eyes sparkled with that always present happiness at the mere mention of Cole's name. "I have his skeleton key and he has mine."

Aidan rolled his eyes. "You guys are hopeless romantics. Not everything is like that outside of your love bubble."

"It's about a connection, Aidan. It's about being able to talk to one another without even saying a single word. And that can only happen when someone knows you, the
real
you. And
you
want that. You can get pissed off all you want and growl at Cole forever, but you want it, and that's why you're trying to figure out how to make that happen." Ty leaned forward, his expression a mix of compassion and concern. "Stop fighting it and just let it happen."

"It's not that easy."

"I know it's not. Believe me, I fought off Cole more than you know. I was scared out of my mind. I had something special with him when we were just co-workers, and the thought of losing that…" Ty shook his head and took a deep breath. "That's what made me slam the brakes each time there was a hint of us getting close." He quieted and looked toward their bedroom, rubbing his hands together. "He was always so happy, smiling all the time as if there was nothing in the world that could ever bring a gray cloud into his bright blue sky."

"He's happier since he's with you," Aidan added quietly. He shook his head and scoffed. "I didn't think it was possible, but that little cocky shit is more confident too."

Ty smiled. "And all I had to do was let him in." He shook his head as if hanging on a memory. "I hadn't realized I was pushing everyone away and I had managed to put myself in a corner." He looked up at Aidan, his brows arched upward with concern. "You're doing that. You've been doing that for a while. I'm worried you're going to work yourself so far into a corner you won't know how to get out of it."

And that right there was exactly why Aidan had decided to show up for this little one-on-one with his brother at the last minute. For the last few months, he'd battled with himself, trying to keep a safe distance from Jessie. The solitude he'd forced upon himself
was
a dark place. He'd lived it for too many years, thinking it was best to isolate himself and spare his soul wearing away any more. But Jessie had managed to slowly draw him out with his shy smiles and casual touches, brightening up his dark little corner.

"My-Ty, come to bed," Cole yelled from the bedroom. "Let grumpy Aidan go home to his man. I need you to come here and shut me up."

Ty bit his lip and crossed his arms as if he could somehow hold in the laughter that shook his body.

"He's a rude motherfucker."

"And he's all mine."

Aidan sighed. He ran his fingers through his hair again. He wondered what it would be like to take that chance, to close his eyes and swan dive into that crystal blue pool that always seemed to draw him in and ease him. "Just…tell me what to do."

Ty smiled. "Give him your skeleton key, then let him open that door and see just how fucking awesome my big brother is."

Aidan pulled up to the crime scene and found a spot on the side road to park. He hated this shit. He looked out his front windshield. A standard issue, plain one-story house in a residential area that seemed to have been constructed sometime in the early 1970s. "I really wish Reyes would have taken this one," he grumbled.

His partner released her seat belt. "Me too. But if he were here, the others from his department would think he's poaching. We're only here to confirm it ties to the Miller serial case."

Aidan sighed and turned off the engine.

The team had a general plan when it came to new case reviews. If the case potentially linked to a file on the task force list of assignments, the team went out to the crime scene to assess the possible connection. To avoid overstepping within their own departments, Aidan and Sunny couldn't touch the initial site visit of a homicide, Travis couldn't evaluate an organized crime case, and Reyes couldn't assess special victims. So they'd mix up the assessments to determine if the case merited a transfer over to the task force.

Which meant, Sunny, with her issues, and Aidan, with his potpourri of emotional baggage, were stuck reviewing this special victim crime scene. At least, with homicide cases, they had found a way to desensitize themselves to the human suffering side of things by focusing on a body and evidence to formulate their own theories at a controlled pace rather than rely on the rush of vivid, mental, heartbreaking images from the personal retelling of a traumatized victim.

"Let's split up so we can cover more ground and get the hell out of here," Sunny said, pulling the badge from her inside pocket.

"Sounds like a plan," he said.

They exited the vehicle and walked toward the old house, clipping their badges on their waist and slipping under the police tape blocking off the scene. They each grabbed a pair of gloves and split up. Sunny assessed the exterior and he inspected the interior. No one asked why two detectives from homicide were present at a non-homicide scene, further justifying the swap of the initial assessment.

He entered the living room and a sense of dread immediately suffocated him. The deep red and black painted walls added to the overall sinister darkness of the house, and the worn, rusted fixtures appeared as if they hadn't been used in years. The low ceiling height, which he could easily reach with the tip of his finger if he stood on his tiptoes, made the older construction even more obvious. The room, although small in size, appeared larger with the absence of furniture. He stepped over the extension cord of the large light perched on a tripod, most likely placed there by detectives to illuminate the otherwise dark space. He walked through the neighboring room and entered the cramped kitchen and what appeared to be a connected dining room. He momentarily brought up his wrist to his nose, hoping to block some of the musty smell in the air. Obvious mold resided somewhere, either in the dark and dingy carpet or the water seeping through parts of the ceiling and leaking on several spots in the flooring.

The only pieces of furniture in this area were an old piece of wood—probably the dining room table—and a single matching chair. Deep grooves sliced into the stained dark red oak wooden legs of the furniture enough to reveal the lighter, raw wood beneath the scratched surface. He looked over to the side, toward the kitchen. A stack of dirty dishes filled the sink and spilled over onto the countertop, pooling with remnant, rotting food and fluids.

He took a shallow breath and slowly exhaled, trying to ease the sudden tension coursing through his body.

Something tugged at his consciousness, alerting him of danger.

Dr. Engel's voice echoed in his mind.
Ground yourself to the present.
He never ignored his instincts. He withdrew the earbuds from his pocket and fished them up under his collar to make them less visible before pushing them into his ears and switching on the classical music. Beethoven, Mozart they all worked equally well. The steady, somber sound of a piano seemed to be the strongest tether to reality for him.

He slowly took each step along the perimeter of the wall then down the short hallway, observing the techs and detectives as they worked in each room, reveling in the absence of the sound stimuli from the quiet chatter that would linger at a scene. He'd occasionally nod or give a chin-up gesture in greeting when his focus landed on a questioning gaze. He looked around, observing the placement of objects and the spattering of blood against the wall as he walked.

He passed a pair of detectives in the hallway on his way to the room with the most foot traffic and the forensics camera flashing. He entered the room and again sensed that odd tug of his consciousness, alerting him to a memory trying to take center stage. He closed his eyes for a moment and channeled his focus on the haunting vocals accompanying Schubert's "Ellens dritter Gesang"
whispering in his ear. The music not only grounded him to the present but also brought a new and very welcomed visual to the forefront of his mind—Jessie cuddled up in his arms on the couch with his never-ending smile.

He took a centering breath and walked along the edge of the rectangular room, slowly scanning the crime scene in sync with the somber vocals. The painted wall shared the same black and red color scheme as the rest of the house, and the dark, dingy, disgusting stained carpet covered the floors in what looked like—based on the other rooms in the house—possibly the master bedroom. Another portable, police-issued light fixture in the corner provided enough light to illuminate the central focus on the crime scene. He didn't need to have stellar detective skills or be psychic to sense the evil in the room. It screamed torture chamber from every square inch of the space.

A piece of old, weather-worn plywood, nailed from the inside, covered the one small window. A series of steel eye bolts in various sizes were screwed into the wall, equally spaced as if intended to follow the stud pattern of the wall's interior for greater support. He inhaled sharply when he spotted the thick, sturdy rope threaded through the last bolt in the corner, hanging loosely as if a natural wall accessory to the room.

Aidan retreated to the corner, away from the investigators processing the scene. He glanced at the only piece of furniture in the room—a single, long, narrow old table with a series of objects neatly organized on the surface of the distressed wood. He visually inspected each item from a distance, cataloguing them in his mind and comparing their relevance to the team's existing cases. Off the edge of the rough wood hung a small slip of black fabric that suddenly seemed larger than the room itself.

A blindfold.

Time suddenly warped, throwing him back into a period he had hoped to block out. He screwed his eyes shut as the images flashed before him.

The blindfold, tied tightly around his eyes, depriving him of the sunlight. Except for those rare moments when they'd rip the strip of material away and the sun would shoot a bolt of bright fire to his brain.

He forced himself to open his eyes as Beethoven struck angry piano keys in his ear, mirroring his temper and frustration at not being able to control the flashback's effect on him. Each angry strike of the ivory key cemented his connection to the here and now.

The sound. Focus on the sound. This is not real. This is not happening now. Listen to the music. Focus on a visual. Something real. Something important.

He took a deep breath, screw the musty smell in the air. He closed his eyes and a sudden peace seemed to flow through his body with the welcomed thoughts of Jessie filling his mind—his smile, the soft strands of dark hair brushing against his lips as he held him at night. The vision coated his muscles with renewed strength and determination to continue. He opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.

The semi-flashback lingered, mixing reality with the memory, yet didn't seem to take full control of his being. He focused on the narrow wooden table and the objects in
this
room. Superimposed and slightly blurred over the table was a ghost of a room with a similar worn piece of furniture and a different set of items scattered on its surface. His gaze trailed up the wall, and the faint image of a primitive pulley system in a stone ceiling, of ropes and braided fabrics running through a makeshift hook, flickered like a weakened television signal coming in and out of focus.