Infected: Shift (61 page)

“No, I was just thinking.” Which was half true. “You know I love you, yeah?”

Dylan had tossed the towel on the end of the bed and stepped into his underwear. “Yeah. Are you now going to confess to something terrible?”

“No. I just wanted you to know that.”

He didn’t look convinced. After stepping into his pants, he asked, “Are you ever gonna tell me what’s going on, Ro?”

“Nothing’s going on.”

“Bullshit.”

He glanced at him, and wasn’t surprised to see Dylan giving him what he could only call a boyfriend look, one that was skeptical and worried and mildly pissed off. “You love me?”

He scoffed, now looking even more annoyed. “Of course I do.”

“Why?”

That seemed to catch Dylan short. “What?”

“You’re normal, Dyl. You’re not infected. You could have a life free from all of this. You could meet a nice uninfected guy who’s never been in a fight in his life, an art history major from the UW. You could settle down with him and an annoying little dog and have a happy, normal life. I love you, hon, but I’m thinking it would be better for you if you just walked away.” Before I break your heart, before you hate me, before I get you killed.

Now he did look pissed. “Fuck you. I want to be with you. I’ve accepted all that comes with it.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

Dylan angrily yanked on a T-shirt, unaware that he had just pulled on one of Roan’s Pansy Division shirts. (Not that he cared, it just seemed funny at the moment.) “Are you picking a fight? Do you want to leave me, is that it?”

“I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“That something’s going to happen to you because of me. If it did, I’d hate myself for the rest of my life. There wouldn’t be enough drugs to make it go away.”

Dylan’s annoyed expression collapsed into one of bruised sympathy. “Oh honey, nothing’s going to happen to me. And if it does, it’s not your fault.” He leaned over him, cupped his face in his hands, and kissed him softly, on the forehead, the lips, trying to soothe him. It was very sweet of him. Too bad it wouldn’t work. Dylan then stared him straight in the eyes, as if trying to will his certainty into him, and said, “Okay?”

“Okay,” he agreed, pretending to mean it. Well, he did mean it, he just didn’t believe it.

That was the problem with caring. It left you vulnerable, open on one side to the most hideous pain imaginable, and the only antidote was to stop giving a shit, but how did you do that? How did you turn it all off? He thought if he numbed himself with enough meds he could fake it, but that turned out to be wrong. He always thought he was more cynical than this, more inured to it all. Obviously, that was just something he wanted to believe.

After Dylan left, he forced himself to get up and went to the bathroom to dig a couple of pills out of his hidden stash. He took them without knowing what they were, but he guessed codeine from the shape. He then went to the closet and felt around for a box on the upper shelf until he brushed it with his fingertips. He pulled down the cherrywood case with the simple locking mechanism, and opened it to make sure it was all there. It was: the Glock 26 Subcompact handgun, which had great advantages in being small enough to easily conceal and yet had a ten-round magazine, as well as not being a piece of shit like your usual Saturday night special. Holden already told him he’d be dropping by after his “gig,” so Roan put the case and a spare ammo clip aside, figuring he’d be here long before Dylan came back.

He got his own HK P2000 SK out of the drawer he kept it in, and because he hadn’t used it for a while, he got the cleaning kit out of the back of the closet and got to work on it. He spread an old towel on the floor so he didn’t get any oil on the carpet.

As he cleaned the gun, feeling oddly phallic doing it in nothing but boxers (but hey, it was probably appropriate), he wondered why he was bothering. If he went through with this, would he ever even pull the gun out? If he unleashed the lion, clawing back to his own humanity would be difficult if not impossible. And the lion should be able to get things done. Well, in theory.

He found himself thinking of that Jane Doe Dropkick had told him about, the seventeen-year-old girl found in a ditch in Spokane, possibly tied to this case. Her family was never going to know her fate, never going to know she was rotting in a Potter’s field in another country, and his resolve hardened, turning his shaky nerves to concrete. She was found but never identified; what about those who had never even been found? What about all of them? Someone had to do something on their behalf. No one said it had to be him, but who else was there?

He just hoped that, if Dylan ever found out about it, he would forgive him.

The
next couple of days were purely devoted to getting ready for the sting on the snuff guy’s place. It felt like a sting operation, only he wasn’t a cop anymore; he was going in alone. Yes, Holden would be there, but he was bait, the undercover guy in the room. It was all on him alone to ingress, to get in without getting Holden killed. He still had no idea how many people he’d be dealing with, or what manner of security precautions. It was all guesswork, therefore inherently impossible to plan for, and yet here he was trying. Was this another definition of insanity?

He arranged many things. He made sure Tank and Grey knew he needed Dylan and Fiona protected on that day (night) especially and arranged a car. He couldn’t use either muscle car for the tail—they were too noticeable—but renting a car might not be a great idea. Some of them could be traced and mileage would be noted. But he still knew the guys at the auto yards that Paris had known, and he managed to arrange to pick up a car from them, a fairly anonymous ’02 Honda that was due to get torn up for parts once he was done with it. As soon as he returned it, it would be reduced to scrap. This guy in particular, Jorge, didn’t ask why he wanted the car, nor what he planned to do with it; he knew Roan was a detective and figured it was a “detective thing.” All Jorge asked was that he pay for the car if he couldn’t return it, which seemed fair enough.

Roan realized he was taking way too many pills, but he felt it was probably insurance. He would be on a minimum of pills during the tail because he wanted to be as sharp as possible. That still meant a couple of pills because he was remarkably functional on pills, but not the really heavy ones. Tylenol codeine, maybe. Of course, he’d have a bottle of Percocet standing by for after, because he already guessed he’d be in so much pain he’d be moving like he was full of broken bones and acidic blood.

Gordo told him the white supremacist link was confirmed, at least between the guys that had come after him and the shooter at the church. They were a little fringe group, and they had some kind of online hate page where they preached the usual bullshit about the Bible coming out against the children of Satan (which supposedly infecteds were), with the added tinge of racism (the infecteds would “dilute” the snowy white Aryan bloodline—like that was a bad thing with these particular inbred morons). Roan couldn’t help but ask how they could think he would pollute anyone’s bloodline, as he was one hundred percent gay and had no intention of being a breeder, but Gordo couldn’t answer that one. He admitted this had occurred to him as well and just assumed they meant viral infection or something along those lines, but again, that didn’t make a lot of sense, unless they expected him to buttfuck their members any time soon. (And while he was flattered they would think of him, he had no interest in their flabby, spotty behinds.)

Dylan knew something was going on, but of course Roan couldn’t tell him what, and they fought a bit, although not as much as he'd honestly anticipated. So that’s why he decided to entertain Dylan’s suggestion that he actually do an interview with this guy who had both called and e-mailed him. His name was Aidan Lambert, and apparently, he wrote for some magazine Roan had never heard of. He was doing an article on ten people whom he felt were changing the world but were as of yet relatively obscure, and he wanted to throw Roan in the mix. He thought he was trying to be funny (sarcastic?), but then the guy reeled off facts Roan already knew, but were still surprising to hear. Roan was the first (known) fully functional virus child, the first openly infected police officer in the United States (really? The entire country?), was the oldest living infected to date (tell him about it), and was the only person recognized legally as a bloodhound (okay, he didn’t say “bloodhound,” but that was the gist) due to his superior and measurable sense of smell. Aidan explained that he knew the infecteds didn’t have an actual organized group, but if they did, he was pretty sure he’d be their leader, because who better?

What a weird thought. Here he was, preparing to fuck some people up, and this guy was touting him as the leader of the infecteds. If that were actually true, the normals were in so much trouble.

Wait a minute. Weren’t they already?

He told him he’d think about it. He didn’t want to do any interview, but Dylan wanted him to, and the guy did sound weirdly sincere (and he had done his homework, which Roan had to give him credit for). Dylan said it might give fellow infecteds some hope, but if he was supposed to give them hope, they were totally fucked. But then again, they were. Could he make it worse? It was just a weird thing to throw on his “to-do” pile, along with Rosenberg scanning the shit out of him and him and Dylan signing up for the domestic partnership registry.

He prepped the car like he would for any long stakeout: snacks, pills, and liquids, along with a piss bottle, so he didn’t have to make a stop while tailing these guys. Of course he might have to stop for gas if they went an insanely long way, but he hoped they weren’t traveling that far. He also got a hands-free headset for his phone, so he wouldn’t have to have his cell wedged up against his ear.

He told Dylan he was off on another cheating husband tail and wasn’t sure when he’d be back. Dylan thought nothing of this, as he’d done similar jobs a million times before. He picked Holden up at his place, and as always, Holden looked the part he was assuming. He went with looser jeans with holes in the knee and near the crotch as opposed to tight jeans because they were more comfortable in case a fight broke out, but his shirt was white and skintight and so thin it probably became translucent when wet, and his motocross-style leather jacket said thrift store chic. His biker boots looked expensive, though, and hid the Glock nicely. His almond hair had a calculated bedhead look to it, and as he slumped in the passenger seat, he gave Roan a look of sleepy-eyed seduction. “Do I look like a porno movie manwhore or what?”

“Please don’t tell me you studied for it.”

“No need to study for it. I was born to play this part.”

“That’s what scares me.”

Roan dropped him off two blocks away from the bus station, and they checked phone reception as Holden walked toward the Burger King. It was surprisingly good, which boded well. Roan had to wait a while before a parking spot opened up that had a decent view of the Burger King and the bus station (he had no idea what the snuff guy’s car would be or which exit he would take, so he had to visually cover the biggest area possible). Then he settled in to wait, wishing he could listen to an audiobook or something to kill the boredom.

But he didn’t have to wait long. The guys (Roan distinctly heard two different male voices) approached Holden not long after he settled in a window booth, where Roan could clearly see his profile through binoculars. Roan couldn’t get a good look at either man (nor could he hear them clearly; they were too far from Holden and his phone), but he got an impression of young, white, and generic. The three talked for a couple of minutes (he could only hear Holden’s side; it seemed they were setting a price), and then they left. Holden told him they were driving a black Range Rover by acting surprised that was their car and then complimenting it.