Shades of Gray (22 page)

“What’s the plan? Is this our new home sweet home?”

“Not for long. We’re going to be on the move for a while, until they get you out of here. You should have your Witness Protection Program interview by next week.”

Danny was quiet, running one finger around the lid of his cup.

“What?” Miller asked.

“Nothing.” Danny shook his head. “I’m not looking forward to it, that’s all.”

“We’ve got to get you someplace safer, Danny. You can’t stay around here.”

“I know.” Danny raised his eyes to Miller’s. “So that’ll be it, then?”

Miller knew what he was asking. The end seemed close now, more immediate than it had even twenty-four hours ago. Once the Marshall’s Office took over, Danny would be whisked away to points unknown. The FBI wouldn’t be privy to where he’d gone, Miller cut out of the loop that would encircle Danny’s new life. Maybe when Danny testified, Miller would catch a glimpse of him in a courthouse hallway, hold his eye across a room. That was the most he could hope for. He would never get the chance to know the man Danny would become.

“Yeah, that’ll be it,” Miller said, his voice low.

“No more Danny Butler.”

“You’ll be Danny somebody. They like you to keep your first name.”

“That’s not what I meant, Miller.”

“I know it’s not.” Miller traced the vein on the back of Danny’s hand with one finger, listened to Danny’s slow breathing next to him, the warmth from Danny’s thigh seeping through his jeans. He wanted to memorize this moment, for when it was all over.

“What about Amanda? Am I going to be able to talk to her again before I go?”

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“That’s not up to us anymore. She went to her sister’s in Indiana.”

“Wait.” Danny shifted to face Miller. “I thought you said the FBI would be protecting her!”

“We were. But she didn’t want to stay here, said either we charge her with something or she was leaving.”

“God, she can be a pain in the ass sometimes.” Danny sighed. “I would have liked to have said good-bye to her. I doubt I’ll ever see her again.”

“Can’t you call up there?”

“I can try. But her sister was never my biggest fan.” Miller smoothed the blanket over his lap, picking at the fluffy pieces of lint scattered across its surface. “How’d Amanda find out you were gay?”

“She probably suspected for a long time. But then when Griff got out of Leavenworth, he was hanging around a lot. She put two and two together.”

The muscle in Miller’s jaw hardened, like a walnut under the skin, as he remembered those cool blue eyes reminding him he didn’t know Danny as well as he thought he did.

Know him a lot better now, you prick.

“So you were cheating on her.”

“Yeah.” Danny scrubbed at his face with both hands, his coffee cup balanced between his knees. “I was a shitty husband.” Miller wasn’t going to disagree, although given his performance as a fiancé he didn’t have much room to talk. “I’m surprised you guys never had kids. You were married long enough.”

“Five years. But I was in prison for some of that. And neither one of us was that thrilled with the idea of kids, thank God. I hate to think how bad we’d have fucked one up.” Danny gave Miller a sideways glance, his bottom lip hooked between his teeth. “What about you and Rachel? Kids on the agenda?”

“That’s the plan.” Miller’s voice sounded tired, not able to kick Shades of Gray | 171

up any enthusiasm behind his words. It would be fair to say that, since he’d met Danny, he had barely given a passing thought to Rachel, even on the afternoon he’d spent at her apartment. He felt guilty that he didn’t feel guiltier, that his desire for Danny surpassed his loyalty to a woman who had never intentionally done anything to hurt him and probably never would. Speaking about Rachel with Danny now, after they were lovers, bringing her into this room they shared, made real the damage Miller was doing… to her, to Danny, to himself. He didn’t want Danny and Rachel to mingle, in his life or in his mind. The results were too confusing—his thoughts so jumbled in his head he wasn’t even sure which one of them he was betraying.

“WHERE are you going?”

Miller grabbed his car keys from the scarred top of the dresser, long fingers of wood missing from the surface. “To get us some dinner.

I’m going to swing by my place, too, for some clothes. And I need a suit for later in the week.”

Danny hopped off the bed where he’d been watching the news, tossing the remote over his shoulder. “I’m coming with you.”

“Danny….”

“I think it’s safer if we stick together as much as we can,” Danny said, pulling on his boots.

“All right,” Miller nodded. “Come on.”

It was barely past five thirty and already dark, their headlights cutting golden swaths across the faces of pedestrians crossing on the busy downtown corners, everyone in such a rush to get home.

“I was wondering,” Miller said, tapping his index fingers against the wheel. “Is there anywhere Madrigal hangs out here? A base camp?

Maybe we should stop waiting for him to find us.”

“No. He doesn’t put down roots. He only lands somewhere when he’s doing a job, finds a warehouse or an abandoned building and goes to work, then gets out.” Danny leaned back against the headrest. “He 172 | Brooke McKinley

likes those types of places because there’s never anyone around to hear the screaming.”

“He ever use the same place twice?”

“I seriously doubt it. Last time he was here he used an abandoned house on the Paseo, but there are dozens of those, no reason to risk coming back to the same place. The time before that it was a warehouse in the West Bottoms.” Danny craned his neck to look out the window as they pulled into the lot of a four-story brick building. “This your apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“I love the way they’re restoring all these old buildings.”

“This one used to be a paper mill,” Miller said, stepping out into the parking lot. “We can take the fire escape.” Danny’s boots clanked against the metal steps as they worked their way up to the top floor. Miller unlocked the heavy door and pointed Danny toward the apartment at the end of the hall. The building was quiet, the only noise the faint murmur of TV laughter creeping out from under the door of Miller’s nearest neighbor.

Miller’s apartment was cold and dark and already had that peculiar odor of space left too long without human company. Miller flipped a switch near the door and a floor lamp in the living room winked into life. Silver ductwork glinted in the fifteen-foot ceilings, crumbly old red brick exposed on three walls, the fourth lined with tall windows. The floors were gleaming glossy oak, a few throw rugs warming up their cold shine.

“You keep your place neat,” Danny said, eyes roaming over the uncluttered surfaces, the even stack of magazines on the dark wood coffee table, the carefully arranged books on the narrow shelves against the far wall.

Miller looked around like he was seeing his apartment for the first time. “I’m never home,” he explained. He pointed with a thumb toward a dark doorway. “I’m going to go pack up some stuff.”

“Okay.”

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Danny wandered over to the bookshelves, drawn by a single framed photograph. It was in a silver frame, the photograph itself faded with age, one corner marred by a bend in the paper. It showed three children—two boys and a girl—and a woman, strands of blonde hair blowing across her laughing face. She had a slight gap between her front teeth and Danny smiled when he saw it, that lone imperfection making her more beautiful somehow. They were all sitting on a porch swing, Miller on his mother’s lap, Junie next to them, her head resting on her mother’s shoulder. And Scott on the opposite end, looking bored and sulky. Miller had two scabbed-over knees, his hair a mass of gold, thick and straight and falling into his eyes even then. He was leaning back against his mother’s chest, covering the hand she had around his belly with his own. Danny guessed he was about seven, right on the cusp of being too old for his mother’s lap, maybe the last summer he could sit there without risking ridicule.

Danny couldn’t remember ever sitting on his mother’s lap. She was always busy, flitting around like a hummingbird, scared to light anywhere for too long in case his father came in and caught her being unproductive. She didn’t have time for kisses or books or bedtime stories, all her energy channeled into keeping one step ahead of his father’s demands.

“That’s my mom,” Miller said over Danny’s shoulder, his pointing finger stopping just short of touching her face.

“I figured. She was beautiful.” Danny turned to Miller. “You look like her.”

Miller flashed him a sad smile, full of a child’s need. “She had the nicest voice. Low for a woman, smooth. I don’t know how she managed it with three kids, but she never yelled.” Danny put the photograph back on the shelf, careful with it, setting it down gently. And then he walked Miller slowly backward, into the wall, easing his mouth down, fingers threading through Miller’s hair.

“Danny,” Miller breathed between kisses, his tongue playing against Danny’s. “We need to go.”

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“Why?”

“I don’t know, I—”

“That’s not a good enough reason,” Danny teased. “I have something in mind.” He rotated his hips forward, smiling when Miller moaned into his mouth. “Let’s go in your bedroom.” Danny pulled back a little, hands working at the buttons on Miller’s shirt. “I want to make love with you in your bed. So next time you sleep here, you’ll smell me on your sheets and remember.”

Miller’s eyes clouded over, dark night eclipsing the clear gray. “I won’t need the sheets to remember, Danny,” he whispered. He pushed up Danny’s T-shirt with his hands, thumbs brushing across Danny’s nipples. Danny’s chest muscles tightened, trails of liquid heat streaming down into his belly.

Their mouths came together, not as frantic as the night before, gentleness behind the joining of tongues and lips. Danny moved down Miller’s throat, back up to blow hot breaths in his ear, laughing softly as Miller squirmed and groaned.

“You’re always so ticklish right there,” Danny murmured. “Gets you every time.”

Miller stiffened against him, his hands on Danny’s hips suddenly pushing backward, away from him. “What—” Danny’s question died in his throat when he caught the expression on Miller’s face, shock and shame dancing a slow waltz across his features. Danny knew without looking what caused it, not surprised at all when he turned his head and saw the woman in the doorway, key ring held in her frozen hand, her big eyes blinking in slow motion, not believing what they were seeing.

“Rachel,” Miller choked out, moving around Danny toward the door.

Danny pulled down his T-shirt, smoothed back his hair. But there was no way to fix it. No way to pretend what Rachel had seen was anything other than what it was. Miller’s shirt was still half unbuttoned, his hair rumpled from Danny’s fingers, his lips swollen with stubble burn—badges of lust even a blind man could recognize.

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“Miller, what’s going on?” Rachel’s voice was so quiet Danny could barely hear it. She obviously wasn’t the type to chuck pots at Miller’s head or slap the shit out of him the way Amanda had with Danny when she’d found out. “I saw your lights on when I drove by on my way home from work, so I thought I’d come see if you were here, and… and….” Her words drifted away, eyes racing between Danny and Miller, tears pouring out on a sudden gust of comprehension, making her gasp and retch, one hand curled around the doorknob for balance.

A cruel, numb part of Danny, developed and nurtured through years of hard living, wondered what Miller saw in Rachel. She was pretty in a nondescript kind of way, her light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, a string of pearls hanging just above the neckline of her pale yellow sweater. There was nothing sexy about her, nothing exciting, every feature bland and average and safe.

Yeah, but she doesn’t have a felony rap sheet or a shadowy past
or a dick, Danny. Three marks squarely in her favor if Miller wants a
normal life, right? And let’s be honest, what can you really give him
that she can’t? Besides the obvious. I mean, once you’ve got your new
life, how long before you’re in trouble again? A month? Two at the
outside? That way of life is in your blood now, you know it is. You
really want to drag him down with you? Make him give all this up… for
what? For you? Talk about a bum deal.

Danny turned away, walked to the far window and leaned his forehead against the cold glass. He could hear Miller murmuring behind him, Rachel’s sobs punctuated by wails of grief, trying to make sense of something she would never understand. He wondered what Miller was telling her, what lies he was trying to force-feed her, because Danny knew Miller would never tell her the truth. That would mean admitting something about himself he couldn’t even say to the man who shared his bed.

Danny could see a couple in the apartment across the street, crammed together in the tiny kitchen, the woman laughing as she tried to reach something on a high shelf. Two windows down, he spied a lone man, only the back of his head visible above his recliner, the channels on his TV surfing by at rapid speed. It reminded Danny of 176 | Brooke McKinley

nights he used to drive around after dark, his loneliness making it impossible for him to stay still, and he’d look into the lighted windows of the houses he passed, catching brief hints of the lives inside. He knew many of those homes were filled with the same troubles that haunted men the whole world over: marriages ending, illnesses beginning, dreams shattering, but he liked to pretend that he was a silent witness to peace, the cozy interiors full of people who had found their way to happiness.

But Danny was learning that finding what made you happy was only the beginning of the journey—figuring out how to keep it often proved to be the unreachable destination.

“SO THAT was Rachel,” Danny said when the motel door closed behind them. It was the first either one of them had spoken since they’d left the apartment ten minutes after Rachel had, still crying when she’d staggered out to her car.