Bad Behavior (Bad in Baltimore) (31 page)

His father drew back. “I trust you.”

Nausea roiled through Beach’s stomach, a mix of acidic shame and bitter guilt. He’d given it freely to his father in this fantasy of a relationship for a wild chance to get it back. Real trust was what he’d earned from Tai. Given Tai. Beach was a bigger asshole than even Jamie could imagine.

Tugging his shirt down over his cuffs, he backed away. “I’d better get going.”

“She’s really got you hopping, huh?” His father shook his head. “Never figured you’d give up your balls so easily.”

Beach was still half a coward, since he said it from the safety of the door with no intention of staying. “It’s a he. And he can do anything he wants to my balls.”

Tai couldn’t believe he’d let Gavin make him overthink everything. The answers were right in front of him. The crate David had set up for Jez in the hotel room. The way David stood up for him in front of his friends. The way the cuffs never left his wrists. Those weren’t the actions of a man planning his exit strategy. If David needed variety, Tai could give that to him. He’d fuck him in so many different ways David would never be bored.

After giving Jez a good, long walk after work, Tai showed up at the hotel with plans coming together nicely in his head. He used the keycard David had provided and found his boy on the couch, tapping at his computer.

“How did your meeting go?” Tai asked.

David shut his laptop and slid it onto the coffee table. “Good.”

“Good to hear. Now get over here and kneel for me.”

David moved as if his leg was bothering him, taking his time to square it off before using his hands to get fully into position.

But his “Yes, Sir” held the same husky bliss that drove Tai out of his mind with the need to push him further, faster.

“Take off your shirt.”

David yanked the golf-style shirt up and over his head.

“Mmm.” Tai leaned to stroke a hand across his pecs, tugging and pinching at a nipple until David flinched. But when Tai’s hand slid to the other side, David swayed into the contact.

His boy. Always ready to surrender to new sensations. No hesitation. David dove right in.

“Hold out your hands.”

Tai retrieved the heavier cuffs with the D-rings from his overnight bag, but as he buckled on the first one, David shuddered and said, “Red.”

Tai unbuckled the cuff and stepped back, studying David’s face. He wasn’t frightened, his breathing in the early stages of arousal.

Putting the cuff away gave Tai a moment to catch his own breath. What had he done? Too much sensation on the nipple?

“Don’t go. Please,” David said.

The sharpness of that plea hit like a helmet to Tai’s sternum. He turned back to find David still kneeling. “I won’t. Unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to. I just can’t…” David’s gesture waved over his own kneeling position.

Tai offered a hand, and David took it, standing up. “Your leg bothering you?”

With a tight shake of his head, David said, “Sat too long without moving. It’s only stiff.”

David used Tai’s helping hand and pulled them closer, head resting against Tai’s neck. Okay. So it wasn’t that David was suddenly sick of the sight of him.

“Want to sit?” Tai was careful to keep it as a suggestion instead of a demand.

“Yeah. I think so.”

Tai liked being the one in charge, but that kind of halfhearted agreement was anything but reassuring. He suddenly felt like he was the target on a firing range. No time to take cover. Just to hope it wouldn’t be a fatal shot.

“I need to tell you something. And it couldn’t be when we were— I didn’t want that part of us to get in the way.” David sat on the couch, fingers wrapped around one of his braided cuffs, twisting it around and around.

This was what Gavin had warned Tai about. The passion burned out. David moved on.

“Okay.” Tai stared back down the barrel and waited.

“This is really hard.” David’s fidgeting had unsnapped his cuff, or maybe it was deliberate. Either way, it didn’t take a PhD in psychology to read into that. Tai stopped himself from snatching it back from David’s lap.

“Would you sit down too?”

His sub had safe-worded out of a scene. So Tai should be offering whatever aftercare he needed. But his boyfriend was about to break up with him, and Tai wanted to take it on his feet. He put one hand on the back of the couch. “Just say it.”

David ran his hands up the sides of his face and into his hair before locking them behind his head. It was a gesture Tai had never seen on David before, but one Tai made when he was trying to keep his temper. What did David have to be pissed about? He was the one doing the ending.

The words came in a rush. “My dad came back.”

“What?” The grip on the couch came in handy. Tai’s body hadn’t been braced for that.

“My dad, last night, when I stopped off to get my suit. He was there, at my apartment.” Now that David had uncorked, the words kept spilling. “He wasn’t in my apartment. I let him in. He had to leave Venezuela for some reason, and my uncle won’t send him money, so he got on a cargo freighter.”

Tai’s hands were interlaced on top of his head before he realized he’d done it. He squeezed as if that could keep the bomb of anger from going off. “This happened last night, and you’re just telling me now?”

“I wanted to say something. I thought about it.”

“And why the fuck didn’t you?”

David jumped, though Tai thought his volume had been pretty tightly contained.

“I didn’t want to put you in a difficult position. I mean, because of your job.”

“Because of my job? How about because of the fucking law?” Christ, Gavin had been right. David couldn’t do anything without a big show. He’d never change. “And for fuck’s sake, take some responsibility. It wasn’t about me. You lied about it because you wanted to.”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you.”

“Same goddamned song. I told you the one thing I needed was honesty. All the time.”

David deflated, sinking into the couch. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to have to deal with it, and I hoped it would all go away—that he’d leave and I wouldn’t have to tell you.” He raised his head. “But I did. I couldn’t have something like this going on and not tell you. So I’m learning.”

Tai preferred the burn of anger to the hollow nausea of disappointment. “Twenty-four hours later, you do something close to the right thing. Yeah. That’s learning.”

“But I did. And I know I could have done it better.” David slid off the couch and came toward Tai. “And I’m ready to accept the consequences.”

David’s hands were easing his shorts down over his legs before Tai realized what David meant.

“You think that can fix this? I spank you and everything is fine? You’re aiding and abetting a criminal.” God, David could go to jail. None of this pretrial probation to prove he’d learned his lesson. He could be in prison for years.

David hitched his shorts back up, face flushed dark. “But in some countries they do that. I’ve seen it on the news.”

“They beat them. They draw blood and leave permanent scars. It’s not like a game you play to see how much you can get away with.”

“But you told me…” David’s voice shook, “…you told me that first time I came to you it wasn’t a game. That it was who you are. And this is who I am now. I’m different.”

“Really? Because I’m seeing the same guy who thought he could use an anonymous round of consensual sex to manipulate his probation officer into doing whatever the fuck he wanted. Consequence free.”

David stared at the floor. “I’m not him anymore. God, I’m so ashamed of that.”

“You tell me that, but I don’t see it.”

“He’s my father, Tai. I had to help him. What if it was your mother?”

Tai snatched at a sharp breath. He wanted to grab that excuse. But it wouldn’t fly. Not with everything else David had done. And it didn’t fix the betrayal.

“He’ll leave,” David continued. “Now that he has what he wanted—”

“What did he want?”

“Money.”

“Jesus.” Tai turned away and barely kept from putting his fist through the wall.

He felt David behind him.

“Don’t touch me right now, David.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You fucking should be. I’m afraid of myself.”

“Why?”

“Because there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do to keep you out of jail.” He grabbed Jez’s leash and snapped it against his thigh. “Jez. Here. Now.”

She slunk up to him with a whimper. He hated stressing her, but his control was slipping faster and faster the harder he clung.

“Tai, wait. I want to fix this.”

He clipped the leash to Jez’s collar and hooked his bag over his shoulder. “I don’t think you can.”

C
hapter Twenty-Four

B
each sat on the couch in silence. It echoed around him, thick and heavy like thunder too far off to hear. But he could hear Tai’s last words just fine. As soon as Beach realized the truth behind them, he got up, went to the mirror and punched the stupid son of a bitch responsible for this mess in his stupid, smiling mouth. The first punch didn’t do much damage, so he did it again.

Finally the pain sank in, and he stared down at his bleeding hand. After twenty minutes and most of the towels, Beach knew his hefty security deposit was going to not only have to cover replacing the mirror but the carpet too.

As he tied off the last towel as best he could in preparation for the drive to the ER, the one thing he could be thankful for was Tai wasn’t here to see his latest act of idiocy.

Sixteen stitches and two and half hours later, Beach was back in his empty hotel room. He thought of checking on his dad, but all he really wanted was to forget the last two days had happened. Unfortunately, the endless throbbing in his hand wouldn’t let him forget anything.

Maybe there wouldn’t have been an issue with the Toradol the ER doctor had prescribed, but the lidocaine hadn’t worn off yet, and Beach turned it down. He’d say he was being responsible and not wanting to risk his probation, but his real refusal had much more to do with the someone who wasn’t even there to hear it.

I’m taking responsibility for it, see? I’m not avoiding the consequence of being stupid enough to punch a mirror.

But his imaginary conversation was one-sided. He glanced at his phone but left it on his bedside table. Dialing that number would provide proof a real-life conversation would be just as one-sided. This way he could hang on to the hope.

He wasn’t really asleep when the solid pounding hit his door in the early morning.

Tai.

Beach came off the bed in a surge of hope.

But Beach had given Tai a room key.

“Police. Open up.”

Apparently Tai’s desire to keep Beach out of jail hadn’t lasted long.

Beach had been through it before, though as he knelt with his hands on his head, he couldn’t help but find the humor in being in the same spot he’d been in a few hours ago under much more enjoyable circumstances.

“Is this blood?” One of the officers peered at the spots on the carpet.

“Yes, Officer. It’s mine.”

“Was there a fight?” The cuffs were clamped on immediately, and a very thorough pat down followed.

“No. I punched out the mirror.”

One of the cops dragged him to his feet. “What for?”

“I didn’t like the way I was looking at me.”

At the station, instead of booking him, a procedure Beach had been through a few times in his life, they put him in an interrogation room and took off the handcuffs. It occurred to him no one had said he was being arrested. What the cops had said, after a brisk round of exchanging identities, was, “We need you to come down to the station with us.”

Here in the room with the one table and a few chairs, there wasn’t a clock Beach could see, only the usual one-way glass on the wall facing him. His hand hurt. His head hurt. And his insides were so empty they made everything hurt.

God, how he’d fucked everything up. He should have called Tai the second he saw his dad yesterday. Hell, Beach should have called the cops on his own.

When the door opened, his chest gave a lurch of hope. Tai. Somehow he’d found out and was here to tell Beach they could still fix it. But it wasn’t Tai. It was two men, both in suits and ties. Not cheap cop suits either.

“David Beauchamp?” Without waiting for a response, the first guy introduced himself. “I’m Special Agent Wallace and this is Special Agent Duprey. We appreciate you coming in to talk to us.”

Beach nodded. “The officers were very polite.”

“What happened to your hand?” Wallace asked.

“I punched a mirror. Am I under arrest?”

“Should you be?” Wallace selected the seat opposite, taking up space, leading the conversation while his partner hunched at the end like a vulture waiting to pick over what was left.

Beach shrugged.

“Your father is Stephen Thaddeus Beauchamp, also known as Tab Beauchamp.” That was from Duprey.

Beach nodded.

“Are you aware of his criminal record?” Duprey’s voice was reedy.

“He left the country when I was ten. I don’t know much.”

Wallace and Duprey exchanged a glance, and Duprey handed a folder to Wallace.

“Your name is on the lease for Apartment 514 at the Tides, 947 Fell Street.” Wallace had the floor again.

Nothing had been phrased as a question, but Beach kept nodding.

“But when the officers met you tonight, you were staying at the Exemplar Inner Harbor.”

After Beach’s nod, Wallace said, “Seems strange to take a hotel room when you have a fully functional furnished apartment you’re already paying for.”

Beach gave that a shrug.

“Why don’t you explain that one to us?” Wallace spread his hands out on the table, one covering the folder.

Beach gave the same answer he’d given to his parole officer. It was all window dressing anyway. Either they had him, had his father and were nailing things down for the court case, or they were fishing. The one thing he could do was keep Tai out of it.

“I had a difference of opinion with my landlord. I didn’t want any trouble because of my pretrial probation, so I called my PO and changed addresses.”

“What was the nature of the difference of opinion?” Wallace smiled like it was a shared joke.

“Dog breeds.”

“Do you have a dog, Mr. Beauchamp?” Duprey put in.

“No.”

Wallace lifted the folder, tapped it and put it down. “The manager at the Tides said you had a frequent guest with a dangerous dog. He described the guest as mean-looking. Like a bodyguard. Big and swarthy, he said.”

“Swarthy?” Beach looked at Wallace’s brown hand covering the folder.

“Do you need a bodyguard, Mr. Beauchamp?” Duprey asked.

“No.”

“Do you know where your father was living after he left the US?” Back to Wallace.

It wasn’t a good-cop-bad-cop game. It was more like a tennis match, a constant volley of shots. Beach lobbed the ball back. “I was told he was in Venezuela.”

Wallace opened the folder. “Recognize anything?” He turned it around so Beach could see a picture.

But upside down or not it was a dark splotch on a carpet. He didn’t think the special agents were indulging in Rorschach tests. Then he remembered what had happened with the mirror and said, “Blood.”

“On your apartment floor. One of two types. Too soon for DNA, but we’re pretty sure at least one of them was your dad.”

Beach swallowed. “Two types? What happened?”

“What? You’re not surprised to hear your father was in your apartment?” Duprey’s voice sliced through Beach’s ears.

He’d almost forgotten the other man was there.

“Is this your father?” Wallace produced another picture. A blowup of a security shot, his father glancing over his shoulder as he tapped in the code at the door. Then a side view, his father running down the hall. God, was that blood on his arm, his shoulder? A gun in his hand?

What—?
Beach stared at the pictures, trying to make his mouth work.

“Mr. Beauchamp?”

“Yes. I think so.” But the wild man darting through the door to the parking garage bore no resemblance to the man with a hunt-jumping trophy that had been the image Beach had carried throughout his life.

“And this. Your bodyguard maybe?”

Beach clenched his freshly sewn-up hand and forced sharp, hot agony up his arm, clinging to it because the picture could not be, would not be Tai. Tai had not gone over to confront Dad. Tai had common sense. He followed the law. And Tai’s blood was definitely not the second type they’d found.

“Look at the picture, Mr. Beauchamp.” Duprey. He wasn’t a vulture. He was a weasel.

The man was sitting in the hall, blood pouring from his leg. He had medium-brown skin, long black hair and a beard, but it wasn’t Tai. Not even close.

Beach looked back at Wallace. “I’ve never seen him before.”

Wallace nodded and closed the folder. “David, you’re in a lot of trouble. You were doing a good job on the pretrial release, but now you’re fucked. You let a wanted international criminal stay in your apartment. That’s aiding and abetting. That’s serious time. Federal-prison time.”

He wasn’t telling Beach anything new. The question was how much of it did he have coming? “This other man—was he a policeman?”

Wallace made a sound that might have been a laugh if he wasn’t an FBI agent. “He wasn’t there to arrest your father. He planned to kill him.”

“What did—? International criminal?”

“Your dad did the same thing in Venezuela he did here. Only to the wrong guy’s little girl.” Duprey’s voice was even more nasal.

“Little—” Beach seemed to be trying to think through a half a bottle of bourbon. No, she’d been older, after Dad’s money, ran afoul of a statutory restriction. Not—

“This one was only eleven.”

Beach’s stomach heaved, and he clenched his jaw to keep from spitting bile onto the table. Tai’s daughter—God, any sweet little kid— He slapped his hand over his mouth, welcoming the pain as a distraction.

“Look. We talked to your uncle. He says you didn’t know.” Wallace’s voice was cajoling. “So you didn’t know. And your dad shows up, and hey, you haven’t seen him since you were a kid yourself, he gives you a story, you want to help. But he’s not a nice guy, David. He shot someone last night. But you’re a good guy, right? You’re not going to keep trying to protect a guy like that. You help us out, we’ll help you out. Tell us where he went, and we’ll see what we can do about the charge against you.”

Beach heard him, he just couldn’t get the words to line up and make sense consistently. Everything was a lie. His uncle lied. His whole life was a lie.

Duprey got up and went to the door. Wallace joined him for an instant then turned back.

“You think about that for a minute, David. What are you going to do about helping out a man who rapes little girls?”

Thinking was the last thing Beach wanted to do. “I don’t need a minute. I know where he went.”

T
ai’s phone started ringing before his alarm went off. He jammed it to his ear.

“Fuck. You.”

For a second, he thought it was David. Then DiBlasi’s thick Delaware Valley accent registered. “You motherfucking, shit-sucking asshole.” DiBlasi was reaching new heights in creativity, even for someone who swore as much as he did.

Tai managed a grunt that could have been interpreted as a “What?” before DiBlasi went on.

“This was why you dumped that Beauchamp prick on me. You knew this shitstorm was coming.”

Tai shot upright, heart thumping. “What happened?”

“What happened?” DiBlasi’s voice was practically a screech. “What happened is the fucking Feds have been up my ass with a microscope. Fucking Interpol had a nice, long look too. Everybody wants to know every fucking step that son of a bitch has been taking for the last two weeks. I spent a goddamned hour answering over and over about the goddamned address change. You ever deal with the fucking Feds? They ain’t got no personal lives, so you don’t get one either.”

“Where’s Beauchamp?”

“The fuck do you care? They picked him up hours ago. His dad is wanted in some kind of international shit. Probably running heroin on the fucking boat. Jesus Christ, I do not need this shit.”

“Is his lawyer with him?”

“A big fucking fuck do I know or care about who’s holding his hand. I called to tell you you are on my shit list, Fonoti. Next time I see you, you better duck, you big bastard, because my fist is headed for your ugly face.” DiBlasi hung up.

Tai jumped off the bed, pulling on jeans and a shirt. Shit. Why couldn’t he remember David’s lawyer from the file? Why hadn’t he skipped all the crap about trust, about letting David tell him what he needed, and copied all the contacts from his phone?

Tai didn’t even know Gavin’s number. But that Tai knew how to get. As he waited for someone at the Dundalk Precinct to pick up, he prayed David had enough sense to keep his mouth shut and ask for a lawyer. He’d been arrested before. Except this was David. Who honestly believed that with charm and a smile he could be excused from anything.

Christ, if you’re ever going to find some common sense, David, now would be a good time to do it.

A
s the agents turned back to Beach, the door was shoved open the rest of the way and Algernon Butler, Esquire shoved himself in too. His baby brother Gilbert had gone to school with Beach, and Al was a pretty damned good lawyer. He’d gotten Beach loose when the DA labeled him a high flight risk. But as nightmarish as the last twelve hours had been, Beach was sure he hadn’t called Al—or anyone else for that matter.

“Why is my client being questioned without counsel, and what happened to his hand?”

“He never asked for counsel.” Duprey scooped up the pictures and papers and put them back in the folder.

“Was it offered?”

“He is not under arrest at the present.”

“Then he’ll be leaving,” Al said.

Normally, Beach would be off and running. But a sickening and unfamiliar inertia held him in the chair. None of it mattered. All that mattered was keeping his father from—Beach swallowed back bile—from touching another child. “Al, I want to tell them—”

Al held up his hand. “Not a word, Beach. What happened to my client’s hand?”

Beach glanced down. Something had happened underneath the layers of gauze, because there were fresh spots of blood.

“He told us he punched a mirror,” Wallace said.

“Al, I don’t really care. I just want to—”

“Mr. Beauchamp,” Al began in a voice that drowned out the rest of the room, “is clearly acting with diminished capacity as the attempt at self-harm indicates. I doubt anything he has revealed will be considered admissible.”

Duprey’s narrow gaze turned on Beach. “So, you’re just going to let your dad keep getting away with it?”

“No.” Beach pushed away from the table and leaned in close to Al. “They said they’d drop the charges if I told them where my father went.”